By Tarryn Myburgh 
23.09.2025
The Aero Club d’Italia hosted the 24th FAI World Rally Flying Championships in the town of Ferrara, 20nm northeast of Bologna. This was the second time Italy has hosted the Championships, the first being in Ravenna in 1999. South Africa was represented by the lone team of Tarryn and Iaan Myburgh, accompanied by Barbara Friebose as international judge, Hans Schwebel as international chief judge, and Ursula Schwebel.


This was the 3rd World Championship that Tarryn and Iaan have competed in, following on from Brits in 2022 and Macon, France in 2023. It proved to be a successful campaign, bringing back the 1st Place trophy in the Landings Competition.






The opening ceremony was a colourful affair with the 17 participating nations being paraded through the town square behind a group of flag throwers accompanied by trumpeters and drummers. The town was a hive of activity as the event coincided with the annual busker festival. After some speeches and introductions by selected dignitaries, including the competition director, president of the GAC and mayor of Ferrara, our own Hans Schwebel, acting as the chief judge, hoisted the FAI flag, declaring the championships open.


 


For the readers unfamiliar with rally flying, the scored component comprises 3 elements namely navigation, observation and landing. Each crew receives three 1:200,000 maps, a clue sheet, a timing sheet, turn point photos and enroute photos. The crew then needs to prepare the route on the maps using the clue sheet. The time allowance for preparation work is 2 minutes per turn point before the crew needs to take off. Therefore, if there are 15 turn points, including the start and finish points, the crew receives 30 minutes preparation time. The time sheet indicates when the crew needs to be at each turn point. There is a two second grace period, after which 3 penalty points are accumulated for each second early or late that you arrive at the turn point, up to a maximum of 100 penalty points per turn point.

 
The observation component requires the crew to identify whether the photo given for each turn point is true or false. For each incorrect answer, a crew incurs 100 penalty points. If the crew does not give an answer, the penalty is 50 points. In addition, the crews need to find 20 enroute photos and 5 ground markers and indicate the position of these on the route. Incorrectly identifying an enroute photo or ground marker results in 50 penalty points per photo. Not finding an enroute photo or ground marker incurs 30 penalty points.




Finally, for the landing, the pilot needs to touch down with their main wheels on a 2m wide line to score 0 points (a bingo), after which for each 5 meter away from that line, an incremental 10 penalty points are incurred. For landing short, 60 penalty points are incurred per 5 meters. A maximum of 200 penalty points can be incurred for a normal landing.

The first competition day took crews north of Ferrara, crossing the river Po. The route was relatively challenging with the third and fourth legs comprising of connected arcs. Regardless of this, three teams, two from Poland and one from Slovakia, returned with a navigation score of 0. Even more impressive was the fact that Marcin and Joanna Skalik from Poland also scored a 0 for observation, meaning they correctly identified every turn point photo, enroute photo and ground marker. The only penalties they incurred for the day was 60 for their landing. The landing was where the South African crew of Tarryn and Iaan Myburgh shone, scoring a bingo. Only one other crew achieved a bingo landing on the day. Tarryn and Iaan scored a respectable 225 points for their navigation but found the observation a challenge with 745 points.




After heavy overnight rains and waking to overcast conditions, the start to the second day was delayed. The forecast showed a tight flying window with conditions worsening again in the late afternoon. The decision was therefore made to fly the shortest of the prepared routes, which took crews to the southeast of Ferrara. In addition, the scored landings for the day were cancelled due to the parallel grass runway with the landing lines being waterlogged. To further highlight the extremely high level of the current top rally pilots, another three crews returned after Day 2 with navigation scores of 0, achieved by teams from Poland, Czech and France. This was the second day in a row that Michal Wieczorek and Marcin Kwiatosz from Poland achieved this feat. Tarryn and Iaan also had an improved day, with a navigation score of 169 and an observation score of 610. This was despite a mis-plot of a turn point resulting in flying to an incorrect feature and incurring 100 penalty points.

Day 3 arrived with high temperatures and high humidity. The route was again to the north of Ferrara and covered the longest distance of the competition. The route also featured some challenging legs, both in terms of distance and lack of features. This was shown by the results, with a third of the field scoring over 1000 penalty points on the day. Tarryn and Iaan followed this trend, scoring 253 for their Navigation, and just over 1000 points for their observation. Their landing result was decent with 30 penalty points for landing.

The last competition day was also the most scenic of the competition. Crews flew in a north easterly direction towards the Adriatic Sea, with one of the arc legs over the water. With a continuously changing heading, and only time and groundspeed to rely on, this made for an interesting challenge. The day was won by the Czech team of David Cerny and Jan Havik with a score of 45 penalty points (15 for Navigation, 30 for observation and 0 for landing). Competition fatigue started showing as small mistakes started creeping in for most teams. Tarryn and Iaan found the day very challenging in both the navigation and observation and scored a total score of 1,481 penalty points, including missing a couple of turn points however, the flight was followed by another bingo landing.



With the competition days finished, all that remained was the “International Evening” and closing ceremony. The International Evening is a tradition at the World Rally Flying Championships where each participating nation showcases food or drink from their country, and competitors get the chance to socialise with each other and exchange war stories from the competition. Tarryn prepared some Melktertjies (the drink, not the tart) and most who tried it simply had to come back for more. Also on offer was pasta from the Italians, salmon from the Norwegians and an assortment of cheeses from France. Since all the flying was completed, alcohol was however the preferred way to showcase your country, with beer on tap from the Czech team, Jägermeister from Germany, Vodka from Poland and various wines and other spirits.

The airfield was transformed for the closing ceremony with the town of Ferrara joining in the fun with stalls of food, drink, gelato and coffee on offer for both participants and visitors. In addition, trampolines and flight simulators were set up to provide entertainment. Prizes were handed out during the closing ceremony followed by an excellent four course Italian dinner including local breads, cheeses, cold meats and pasta. Teams also hand out gifts from their countries to thank fellow competitors and officials and the Rooibos tea from South Africa was well received.

 

The various categories and the winners were announced as follows:
Best all female team: Dorthe Grubek & Alexandra Kirchner (Germany)
Best young team: Matous Adam & Stepan Sedlacek (Czech)
Best observation: Marcin Chrzaszcz & Michal Chrzaszcz (Poland)



Best landing crew:
Tarryn Myburgh & Iaan Myburgh (South Africa)
Adele Schramm & Francois Hatrisse (France)
Krzysztof Wieczorek & Kamil Wieczorek (Poland)
Overall Championship:
Petr Jonáš & Marek Velát (Czech)
Marcin Chrzaszcz & Michal Chrzaszcz (Poland)
Lukáš Behounek & Kryštof Bobek (Czech)
Team:
Czechia
Poland
France

Throughout the championship, Tarryn and Iaan received countless messages and well wishes from friends, family and the extended aviation community. They would like thank everyone for the extraordinary support throughout the practice and competition. They would also like to thank Jonsson Workwear for donating team shirts, Rooibos Limited for donating boxes of rooibos tea to give as a thank you to competitors and officials, and the South African Power Flying Association for their support.

South African Rally National Championships 2025

By Tarryn Myburgh
 

12 & 13 April 2025

 

It has been a difficult start to the year for rally flying. Poor weather first caused the Rand Rally Challenge to be postponed and then cancelled. The South African Rally National Championships were initially set to take place at Brits Airfield on 5 & 6 April 2025 but were postponed to 12 & 13 April, also due to poor weather.

 



Waking up early on 12 April, it looked as if we might end up with another cancellation as the cloud hung low over the whole of Gauteng extending into North West Province. The poor weather and changing dates unfortunately meant that only 5 crews made it to Brits on the day.Read More →

The Aero Club of East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, has a long history of promoting aviation. The club was founded in 1927.

After a long break from their last rally, they decided to “Rekindle the Spirit of Classic Aviation” with an up to date NAVEX AIR RALLY.

With a little help from the GAC, they arranged a Navex Rally from the Amboseli National Park Airfield which sits at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. An amazing backdrop for the rally.

Look out for next years rally!

Arrivals, Briefing and Preparations

The Navex

Celebrations

Welcome to the SA Power Flying Association, a community of aviation enthusiasts that are passionate about recreational flying in South Africa.

If you are bored of the $100 burger or breakfast runs to the same old airfields, then we have great news for you. SA Power Flying Association is here to help you stretch your wings and advance your flying skills all while learning from some of the best aviators in the world.

We want to help you get in the air, stay in the air, and have fun while you’re at it! SA Power Flying membership makes participating in events easier and more rewarding. Whether you are new to aviation, want to brush up on your skills or want to fly for your country; SA Power Flying has the event for you.

In addition to our successful Speed Rallies, Rally Flying, Air Navigation Rallies (ANR), spot landings and the President’s Trophy, we will be adding a few new events to our calendar. These include launching our new ‘Rally League’ and reviving the ‘Poker Run’. Keep an eye on our calendar for our upcoming events or join our WhatsApp group using this link and be the first to find out what is coming up.

With Rally Flying World Championships coming up in August 2025 in Italy, we want to practice as much as possible. Whether you want to compete or just have fun, join us and learn from some experienced aviators while you have the opportunity.

We are always on the lookout for venues and are happy to tailor our events to your need. If you would like to arrange an event for your club or want to host an event at your airfield, get in touch. We would love to bring the fun to you.

We encourage you to renew your SA Power Flying membership through Aero Club, who provide us with the support to continue as a recreational aviation organisation in South Africa. It is through their hard work and dedication that we are able to continue to enjoy free flight across the skies of South Africa.

If you would like to join our events but need a crew member or just want to find out more, please phone or email us and we will be happy to share more info and try to find you a partner in flight. You are also welcome to fly/drive into any of our events to meet the team and join us for that burger. Hope to see you at one of our events soon. Happy flying.

PTAR 2024 – Makhado raises the bar

By Willie Bodenstein

26.05.2024
https://www.pilotspost.co.za/PsPpyarn3347

This year, for the first time, the PTAR goes north, far north to the delightful town of Makhado, previously Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. Nestled in the in the Soutpansberg mountain range the town is located in a fertile region where litchis, bananas, mangoes and nuts are produced. Makhado is 437 kilometres from Johannesburg and one hour’s drive from the Zimbabwean border at Beitbridge.

Read More →

By Pamela Russell

11.05.2024


The Northern portion of the SA Nationals in ANR took place a few weeks ago out of Brakpan Airfield. This past weekend saw the corresponding Southern event at the beautiful Stellenbosch airfield. Running parallel competitions allows for greater representation from all parts of the country and will hopefully continue to fuel the growing participation by Western Cape pilots.


FASH – pretty as a picture
While a Nationals is there to allow pilots to attain a set standard and be available to the Selectors, it is also always important to encourage new participants. So, there was an Open and a Sportsmans class, and the field included a team that had not flown any type of aviation competition before.


Competitors studying the schedule
 

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By Andre Venter

13.04.2024


Competitors, judges and others

The Air Navigation Rally is a fun day depending on the weather, sadly this event was postponed on the scheduled day, due to the weather that was expected to reach the Highveld over the weekend. A new date was discussed and the event was moved to Saturday the 13th April 2024 which was to be held at the Brakpan Airfield.



I arrived fairly early to a sun filled airfield and found two entrants had already arrived and were sitting down to a hearty breakfast and a hot cuppa. The early birds of the day were two trikes who were out for their early tour of the countryside and a Giles G-202 that also on its way out.
Read More →