October 2016

by Rob Jonkers (photos by Willie Bodenstein)

The South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) together with the Superior Pilot Services (SPS) organised a successful Navigation Fun Rally on Saturday 29^thOctober 2016.

Under the Stewardship of SAPFA’s Rob Jonkers who planned & plotted the course, a total of 16 entrants registered to partake in the rally, although only 12 eventually were able to take part, some of them having had to withdraw due to an Avgas shortage.

There were 7 crews from SPS, all commercial pilot students getting their first experience in the art of Navigation Rally flying. SPS instructors Leonard Edwards and Johann Oosthuizen provided the SPS students with two training sessions prior to the event to prepare them for the route which had to be plotted from a task sheet.

Most competitors arrived by 7:30 on Saturday morning to start the plotting activity which took the best part of 2 hours with the first aircraft off at 9:45.

The weather forecast for the day was given to be very clear, temperatures getting up to 34 Deg C with some wind. The wind, although starting out at less than 10kts increased during the day to around 15 kts, with the 2^nd group of competitors taking the brunt of the turbulence and heat, with some of crews having to turn back feeling somewhat queasy.

The route was planned to go out north, into familiar territory for the Grand Central based crews as most of the legswere in their training backyard. The start and finish points were just north of the N14 in the narrow Special Rules corridor between the Waterkloof&Lanseria airspace, and from there the route went out over the Hartebeespoort dam, across the Magalies ridge and into the scenic Crocodile river valley, then east across to Soshanguve  and back across the ridge to the finish.

From the GPS logger plot results, it could be seen the teams were struggling to slow down enough on the eastern & southern legs with many zig-zags being evident to counter the stronger wind at altitude.

There was one photo per leg that needed to be recognized, many of them were at least spotted by the crews, including a bonus photo which was one of those irresistible features (Stadium) that had to be found somewhere along the route, and which many crews did find in Attridgeville on the last leg.

After all the scores were tallied, prize-giving was held in the briefing area, where the first three places went to Leonard Edwards and DinokengSethusa who came 1^st with 60 penalty points with no timing errors, Pierre Dippenaar & Martin Meyer who came 2^nd with 124 penalty points, and Tristan McMillan & Andre Kluyts who came 3^rd with 426 penalty points.

There was only one advanced entrant, that of Frank & Cally Eckard scoring 254penalty points under advanced rules of a 5 second window at each turning point, and two Precision Rally entrants who fly solo where timing accuracy is very key to attracting very few penalties.

 

With this rally with 11 turning points, an additional 13 secret timing points were added making a total of 24 timing points which the precision flyers were marked on. In this category Hans Schwebel came 1^st with 513 penalty points with Mauritz du Plessis (with Bennie du Plessis as observer) coming 2^nd with 1042 penalty points.

This event was for sure enjoyed by all, most entrants never having flown a rally before, getting an understanding of flying with more precision, especially in the slower flight regime, and having to deal with wind variation. Many thanks extended to SPS for making all the arrangements with Grand Central Management as well as to Leon Boutell for being the chief judge for the event.

 

by Rob Jonkers (photos by Willie Bodenstein)

The South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) together with the Krugersdorp Flying Club organised an extremely successful Navigation Fun Rally on Saturday 15th October 2016. Under the Stewardship of SAPFA’s Frank Eckard who planned & plotted the course, a total of 12 entrants were able to partake in the fun rally.

There was one further entrant in the Precision Rally Mauritz du Plessis all the way from the Cape who was flying this format as a qualifying competition rally for the Precisions Nationals being held in March 2017.

This rally was originally scheduled for March, but was completely rained and fogged out, thus had to happen later in the year, October normally being a good weather month option, but with the whacky weather of late, it appears the hot dry winds of August came two months later. And so the challenging weather did not disappoint, with increasing wind from the north getting stronger by the hour, peaking around 2 pm with 15 to 20 kts crosswind on the runway, with Krugersdorp’s runway particularly exposed to the elements. This reduced the field of entrants somewhat, as some teams indicated their crosswind limits out of their comfortable range, and as we know Pilot’s discretion rules.

The rally briefing started juts before 8 am with Chris Kyle providing airspace rules and with Frank providing some of the route details, after which breakfast and plotting could start.

 

  

The first aircraft departed around 10 am on a route mostly to the south west, past Westonaria, turning northwest at Carletonville into an area so sparse with virtually no ground features to speak of, making it tough to follow the required ground track.

The Track

In the fun rally rules, each turning point has a 15 second window to cross over to attain zero penalty points with a mile wide gate to go through, and along the route around 13 photographs had to be recognised and located on the map.

 

Pilot’s Post – Krugersdorp Fun Rally 2016

The wind at altitude must have been 25 kts+, making flying accurately very challenging especially on the downwind legs, where flaps had to be deployed and slow flight skills came into play, zig-zagging turns along the course also required being careful not to attract track errors of turning more than 90 deg. Some of the photo recognition also a challenge as google earth pictures are used which look different to the real world, especially with the dry landscape out there, the lack of rain very evident. Returning to Krugersdorp the teams had to cope with the heavy crosswind and turbulence to land, many struggling to keep the aircraft straight along the narrow runway, everybody managed it without any incident.

After all the scores were tallied, the prize-giving ceremony was held in the clubhouse hosted by John Addis, where the first three places and prizes went to Ron & Dusty Stirk in their C150 ZS-IWD who came 1st with a remarkable 43 points.

Rob Jonkers & Marie Reddy in a C182 ZS-IVC who came 2nd with 109 points

Peter & Celia Lastrucci in their C152 ZS-CAT who came 3rd with 270 points.

This event was for sure enjoyed by all, most entrants never having flown a rally before, getting an understanding of flying with more precision, especially in the slower flight regime. Thanks are extended to Grant & Annatjie Rousseau for all the arrangements for the day.

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