July 2011

Richard Nicholson, Chairman of Nylstroom Flying Club, requested SAPFA hold a fun rally at the Taildraggers Event that he organised in July. Frank Eckard agreed to organize the rally, and 8 teams participated.

Most competitors stayed over at B&B’s, or camped at the airfield overnight. The organizers ensured that no pilot went hungry; Friday night dinner was prepared at the pub, and it was difficult to choose from a myriad of stall holders on Saturday, ranging from traditional breakfasts to curry vetkoek.
Pilots were easily distracted from their navigational tasks by all the activity at the airfield, but they were eventually airborne by 11 am, and flew a route that Cally Eckard had planned with the stark beauty of the area in mind. All pilots agreed that it was “pretty”, including one of the teams, who got lost shortly after the first turn point, and had to use their GPS to find their way back to Nylstroom.

F Eckard and L EksteenAfter the second turn point the teams had to follow a road down a steep valley to turn point three, providing spectacular scenery along the way. From there the route took them westward to an old abandoned mine, then south around a game park and back parallel to the N1, over the Finish Point, which was Nylstroom Hospital, and back to the airfield.

Long-time participants Carl and Shaun were thrilled to take first place, saying that everything just fell into place. Local knowledge, first-timers’ luck or excellent flying and navigational skills provided Nylstroom’s only team of Lukas and Leon Eksteen with second place. This pair not only found most of the check points, but also a lot of the photographs, and incredibly good timing for novices at the sport, especially considering their nominated speed was 100 knots. Hopefully this father and son team will continue in this sport and provide some stiff competition for long-time contestants.
Also taking part were Emmie Oelofse and Jonty Esser, Frank Persson and Keith Irwin, and Juri Nyssen with Francois Wuras.

Long-time veterans Ron Stirk and Hans Schwebel took part in the Precision section of the rally, in training for the World Precision Champs in October.
The results for the Fun Rally were:
POSITION PILOT NAVIGATOR CALL SIGN SCORE
1 Carl Dollenger Shaun Murphy ZS-IRL 172
2 Lukas Eksteen Leon Eksteen ZS-NFA 639
3 Ralph Hurwitz Stephan Theron ZS-FLF 754

The Fun Rally finally returned to Baragwanath Airfield after two years of waiting.

Holding these rallies in various venues introduces the sport to members of those clubs who have not before participated. Baragwanath is a case in point, where six local club pairs took part in this event, three of them being first-time rallyists.

Bee and Gerhardt provided a delicious breakfast along with bottomless coffee, which was in great demand in near-minus temperatures.

Once everyone had warmed up, and all ten teams had registered, map preparation began in earnest, under instruction and guidance from veteran rally pilot Frank Eckard. Although several of the teams had not flown rallies before, and some had not even planned to take part, they all managed to find most of the turn points, and even “newbies” were finding photographs with enthusiasm. First-timers Dominique Van Roey and Leon Bouttell claimed that home-ground advantage enable them to take third place, and were very encouraged by their result, so veteran rallyists should look out for this competitive pair!

With nerves on edge and pulses racing they all took off by 10h30, flying at speeds varying between 70 and 100 Knots, which are nominated by the teams themselves. By 12h20 all teams had returned, exchanging their experiences with each other and looking forward to seeing how their routes looked once Frank had downloaded their loggers onto his laptop. They also had to fill in answer sheets, which were checked by Cally Eckard.

Mary de Klerk had planned a lovely easy route, ideal for first-timers to try out the sport, and for veterans to hone their timing skills. The directions took them through 10 turn points, down to Vaal Barrage, and then over the old Vanderbijlpark Airfield and back home to Baragwanath. Maps with the turn points and route printed on them were handed to each team, who then had to fill in other details such as bearings and times.

At each rally some of the Protea team members are available to give their advice and to encourage new pilots to the sport. We urge every pilot to try out this sport, to improve their flying and navigation skills, and to enjoy a morning’s flying with other pilots.

The top 3 results were:
POSITION PILOT/NAVIGATOR
1 Henk Koster/Jan Roode
2 Esmond Erasmus/Johan Goosen
3 Dominique Smuts-Stein/Leon Bouttell

Please join us for the next Fun Rally at Nylstroom (Modimolle) on Saturday 16 July. This event will be combined with Nylstroom’s Taildragger Fly-in, and all types of aircraft are welcome to join the rally.