SWOOPING low over the landscape of murky floods in Central Africa, the best Clive Langmead could hope for was the crocodiles had their mouths shut. Either that or pray a bit of muck hadn’t got into his helicopter’s fuel tank as it was refilled on a dusty airfield. Because a blocked fuel line would send the whirlybird tumbling down and it would be teatime for the waiting reptiles.

When it comes to flying mercy missions across Africa, it isn’t only the stricken souls on the ground who are in danger.If a village is cut off by an ocean of flood water, not even the holy men can walk there. Or drive a four-wheel truck. Airborne is the only way That’s when aid operations send for charities such as Wings Like Eagles, which was set up in 2006 by the former captain of HMS Ark Royal, Adrian Nance.

Clive, who lives at Wyche Cutting in Malvern, is one of his long-time friends and associates and in the past the pair have surveyed parts of Africa extensively by air using chartered aircraft.

However, Wings Like Eagles now has its own helicopter, a B206 Jetranger, and Clive has just returned from Mozambique where he has been ferrying food to villages cut off by February’s floods. Together with fellow aid pilot Andrew Shipton and local translator Sergio Ido, he flew missions for the Mozambique government’s emergency response service INGC.

“The rains had caused devastating flooding along the Limpopo valley, with many serious problems,” he said.

“Bridges were washed away, villages were turned into islands and roads just led into lakes which had been flourishing fields only the week before.

“Getting supplies in by helicopter was the only way.

There wasn’t even enough dry land to allow a fixed wing plane to touch down.”

Dramatic stuff – and quite a change of image from his earlier life, because Clive used to be a programme producer for the BBC, working with Radio Two luminaries such as Gloria Hunniford, John Dunne and Terry Wogan. He’s also an author with seven books published.

But Clive Langmead also has an action man alter ego and for 32 years has been a member of the Royal Naval Reserve.

“I began flying fixed wing aircraft in the 1970s,” the 60-yearold said. “And I’ve also always been interested in Christian missionary work in Africa.In 2003,I got my licence to fly helicopters and then two years ago received my commercial pilot’s licence in South Africa.”

Flying across the UK and Africa are two entirely different experiences. Clive said: “Here you go up to avoid buildings, telephone masts and other high rise objects.

“But in Africa, because of the wide open spaces, a lot is done at low level, tree top height or even lower. When I went out with one instructor he said, ‘I want you to fly at 18 inches’. He meant 18 inches above the ground and while it wasn’t quite that, you get the gist.”

There are other logistical differences too. Fuelling up, for a start. “In the UK, you are using modern airfields with sophisticated fuel transfer systems. The fuel is good quality and there is little chance of contamination.

“In Africa, you can be using small airstrips out in the bush or even just an open space, where the fuel arrives in drums on the back of a lorry and then has to be handcranked into the aircraft with dust and other debris flying about. You just hope nothing gets in to cause a blockage.”

The all-white Jetranger, registration ZS-HPU, was based on a disused football pitch at XaiXai, a town on high ground near the mouth of the Limpopo river, where the airfield was flooded.

Clive and his co-pilot flew basic foodstuffs such as maize, rice and oil to a number of cut-off villages and also engineers, surveyors and infrastructure experts over the flood sites to organise recovery teams. They also took the Mozambique minister of the interior and members of the World Bank over the disaster zone for a personal assessment.

The Wings Like Eagles charity operated alongside two government-chartered helicopters from South Africa, aircraft from the South African Air Force and two others from independent aid agencies.

Following a week of intense activity the floods began to recede and the relief operation was wound down, with the SAAF returning to base in SA and government aircraft taken off charter. ZS-HPU and her crew returned to Johannesburg and Clive flew home to Malvern.

“It was an amazing experience.

Just amazing,” he said. “I was almost in tears as the work we have been doing for so long came to fruition – our first relief mission with our own aircraft.

“And the welcome we received in the villages was astounding.

Everyone turned out to see the helicopter land and the food delivered.I think the heat affected me most.It was very hot, 30 degrees plus, even at night, on the Limpopo, with a big mosquito problem.It was hard to sleep. But I only started to complain when I got back to find it minus 2C in Malvern.”

Looking on the bright side, there weren’t any crocodiles.