Jack Malloch

John McVicar Malloch ICD, was a South African-born Rhodesian bush pilot, gun-runner and sanctions-buster who flew in World War II and in various legal and illegal roles around Africa and the Middle East until the early 1980s.

He kept flying, and in March 1951 was one of the pilots who participated in the first Spitfire ferry of the new aircraft from the UK out to Southern Rhodesia for use in the Rhodesian Air Force.

By January 1963, the effort to secede Katanga had been defeated by UN forces, and their surrender led to the inclusion of the province in the Congo.

Malloch started working for Tshombe again, and between August and November 1964, he flew in support of the mercenary Mike Hoare against the Congolese rebels.

[1] In January 1970 Malloch formed a new company, this one named Afro-Continental Airways (ACA), as a subsidiary of Air Trans Africa.

After only a few years the new airline ceased operations and the aircraft was permanently grounded, reportedly becoming a club-house at Charles Prince Airport, Mount Hampden, near Salisbury.

Between 1970 and 1980, Air Trans Africa, flying a fleet of Gabonese-registered aircraft, became heavily involved in Rhodesian sanctions-busting operations.

In August 1973, the UK's Sunday Times newspaper ran an exposé of Malloch and his legal and illegal operations; this was the first public mention of his callsign "Tango Romeo", which was to become famous.

In March 1980, he made the first flight in the newly renovated aircraft and it was featured at air shows in Zimbabwe at the time.

Malloch was killed in his Mk 22 on the last day of filming the documentary Pursuit of a Dream on 26 March 1982 when he flew the aircraft into a thunderstorm.