November 2016

19 November 2016

By Cally Eckard

Eight teams participated in this rally, four of them first-timers, who now describe themselves as hooked on the sport.  Roger Bizzoli organised the event, and made sure the competitors and spectators were well supplied with breakfast and coffee.

Competitors

The weather was overcast with high cloud, so the competition was postponed by an hour, so organiser Frank Eckard took the opportunity to explain some of the finer points of rally flying while we waited for the weather to lift.

The route included a sizeable stretch of the Vaal River, and the teams had to follow the course of the river before turning back to the airfield.  However, one team inadvertently crossed the river without noticing it, and were only alerted to this fact once they spotted Letaba Power Station.  Another crew saw the Start Point, but chose the wrong heading and managed to miss crossing the Start Line altogether, but got back on course immediately and found all of the other turnpoints.

The crews managed to find most of the photographs, which is quite an admirable feat for people new to this sport.  In fact, father-and-son team Arthur and Graeme de Kock found all the photographs and plotted them all accurately, receiving the top score of 0.

Six teams took part in the Fun Rally, and Ron Stirk took part in the Open Precision category, and Thys van der Merwe and his navigator Keaton Perkins took part in the Open Rally category.

Chairman Dave Gill during the prize giving explained that Bob Hay was a long-standing member of Johannesburg Light Plane Club, situated at Baragwanath Airfield.  Although not an instructor, he was the go-to person for any pilot who had any queries or needed advice regarding flying and aerodynamics.  He was also three times South African Aerobatics Pilot.

Prizes were handed out by Dave Gill and Frank Eckard.  Arthur and Graeme de Kock are now the proud winners of the Bob Hay Memorial Trophy.

Winners Arthur de Kock and Graeme de Kock

The results were as follows:

The Fun Rally section :

POSITION PILOT NAVIGATOR
1 Arthur de Kock Graeme de Kock
2 Nick Christodoulou Andre Kluyts
3 Matthew French Jacques de Villiers

 

Winner in the Open Class – Ron Stirk

 

The Open Class results were as follows:

POSITION PILOT NAVIGATOR
1 Ron Stirk
2 Thys van der Merwe Keaton Perkins

 

That ends our rally program for this year.

Top Teams

The next Fun Rally is the Rand Airport Challenge on Saturday 28 January.  All welcome.  Please enter online.

 

– By Rob Jonkers

This year’s EAA Sun & Fun flying event was planned similar to the event held in 2015 as a format that EAA’ers enjoyed, as a more relaxed fun kind of event mostly involving observation out of the window recognition of ground features and learning about the area being flown over.

Rob Jonkers giving the briefing in the club-house

Over the last four weeks, a route schedule was hatched with the prime theme of overflying 13 airfields in the Magalies Berg area, why airfields?, well with many of us aviators flying around in this area quite often, it would be a good idea to know about potential forced or precautionary landing places, so a bit of safety advice while having fun in looking for them.

A route proving flight was undertaken to scout the airfields and features of the landscape and figure some nice Easter-egg clues to put in the task sheet.  And so a route emerged with the theme of IFRRR – I follow roads, rivers and railroads.

The result was a route that followed the railway line just north of Brits airfield to the start point and from there picking up the Crocodile River and following it all the way through the mountains west of the airfield, then across the ridge to the middle of the valley to the Hartebeespoortdam, crossing back over the ridge to return to Brits.

The format was in the form of a pre-defined route map that was available prior to the event starting for everybody to either plan their route with traditional map plotting tools or to program their GPS’s – if they were more at home following the magenta line.

Each route’s leg had turning point photographs to be recognised (either being correct or incorrect), around half of them were Google Earth photos and the other half real photos taken courtesy of Marie Reddy, then a few questions had to be answered on ground features or sites that were historic or scenic, mostly cryptic in nature.

The booklet contained a section of wiki notes (compiled courtesy of daughter Jenni)  that would enable the crews to answer all the questions – with a warning – “Don’t read at your peril….”, and guess what…., most forgot to find the answers in the most obvious place….

Some crews of course were googling for answers on their cell phones – because they can – somewhat inefficient given everything was right in front of them.

There were 12 crews who registered by briefing time which was delayed by half an hour as some fog had to lift over some parts of Gauteng, with a broad spectrum of aircraft participating, from Cessna 172 stalwarts to slow open cockpit Bat Hawks.

The Crocodile River – Coming up to Turn Point 1

One of the competitors Thys vd Merwe had to run in his recently overhauled engine and had to do the course at full power settings resulting in a speedy 120 kts giving him the most difficult challenge to carry out the tasks of the course at high speed. We did however give him the prize of fastest competitor home…

There were a number of young budding aviators that were given seats as navigators and thanks extended to the pilots who took on the challenge of accommodating them.

After the briefing, and with 20 minutes prior take-off – of handing out papers, the first competitors took to the skies at 10.20, with the last off at 11.15. The weather was brewing hot and humid after the recent rains with the wind picking up with a midday high of around 25+ kts with lots of turbulence around the Berg, which made some of the newly introduced navigators somewhat green.

With everybody successfully home, it was time for marking the exam papers which was left to the strict invigilators Rene Clulow and Marita Rudolph to record the points. Between the clues and photo recognition, a total of 39 points could be scored.

On returning, the competitors had to carry out a spot landing where landing line judges Hans Schwebel and Ron Stirk were on hand to adjudicate, where Karl Jensen scored a bingo in his C170, Chris Shaw 2nd in a C177, and Sean Russel 3rd in his Sling.

Neil Bowden and Ray Hollins in Sling ZU-OSH

When all was tallied up, the crew of Pierre Dippenaar & Martin Meyer in a C182 ZS-IVC attained first place, Karl Jensen & Mary de Klerk with spotter Irene Mock in a C170 ZU-VAL attained 2nd place, with third place going to Sean and Anthea Cronin in their remarkable open cockpit Bat Hawk ZU-IJI.

This easy to spot farm house along the northern ridge stumped most of the competitors in finding its location

The Sling floating trophy was again in the hands of Pierre Dippenaar (last year’s solo winner) this time with Martin Meyer as his navigator.

Thus came to the end of a hopefully enjoyable day for everybody who took part, and given the large amount of competitors, it should bode well for doing this again in the future, and in the words of SAPFA chairman Frank Eckard, “this is a new way of converting Avgas into Fun”.

Many thanks are extended to Marie Reddy for the assisting with the administration of the event and keeping order in the competitor line-up;  also the prize sponsors, Comet Aviation Supplies, Aviation Direct (the makers of Easy Plan), Neil Bowden’s Air Adventure Tours – who sponsored gift vouchers to the 5 first time young navigators –, African Pilot and SA Flyer  who sponsored magazine subscriptions and for their support to this event.

1st place Pierre Dippenaar & Martin Meyer winning the Sling Floating Trophy
1st 3places, Karl Jensen, Mary de Klerk, Martin Meyer, Anthea Cronin, Pierre Dippenaar, Sean Cronin, Rob Jonkers (organiser)

The Overall Results

Brits Sun & Fun Adventure Rally  12 Nov 2016 – Navigation Task Results
Route Planner – Rob Jonkers
FILE Position Pilot Name Navigator Name COUNTRY Aircraft Registration Aircraft Type Navigation & Tasks (Total = 39) Spot Landing
1 Pierre Dieppenaar Martin Meyer ZS-IVK C182 32
2 Karl Jensen Mary de Klerk ZU-VAL C170 30.5
3 Sean Cronin Anthea Cronin ZU-IJI Bat Hawk 28
4 Louis Jordaan Jordan Jordaan ZU-IES Bat Hawk 27.5
5 Sean Russel Mark Clulow ZU-TAD Sling 27.5
6 Neil Bowden Ray Hollins ZU-OSH Sling 26.5
7 Nick Christodoulou Andre Kluyts ZS-SYA C172 25.5
8 Tristan Brouard Anton Jansen ZU-SNG Sling 21
9 Wayne Giles Brendan Giles ZU-BHP Bear Hawk 17.5
10 Anthony Harris Kevin Marsden ZU-FCA RV7 16
11 Chris Shaw John Shaw ZS-IFY C177 16
12 Thys van der Merwe Kyle Baytopp ZU-AFP C172 13.5
Brits Sun & Fun Adventure Rally 2016 – Landing Results
1 Karl Jensen Mary de Klerk ZU-VAL C170 1
2 Chris Shaw John Shaw ZS-IFY C177 2
3 Sean Russel Mark Clulow ZU-TAD Sling 3
4 Sean Cronin Anthea Cronin ZU-IJI Sling 4
5 Louis Jordaan Jordan Jordaan ZU-IES Bat Hawk 5
6 Thys van der Merwe Kyle Baytopp ZU-AFP C172 6
7 Neil Bowden Ray Hollins ZU-OSH Sling 7
8 Tristan Brouard Anton Jansen ZU-SNG Sling 8
9 Wayne Giles Brendan Giles ZU-BHP Bear Hawk 9
10 Anthony Harris Kevin Marsden ZU-FCA RV7 10
11 Pierre Dieppenaar Martin Meyer ZS-IVK C182 11
12 Nick Christodoulou Andre Kluyts ZS-SYA C172 12

 

Report on the Meeting of the FAI General Aviation Commission (GAC) held in Limassol, Cyprus From Thursday 3rd to Sunday 5th of November 2016

By Frank Eckard

Our International Family

The meeting was attended by delegate Hans Schwebel and alternative delegate Frank Eckard.

While much transpired, here are the key highlights.

The Precision Subcommittee adopted an updated set of rules which are written in a better quality of English. There are also some minor changes. The next World Precision Flying Championships will take place in Spitzerberg, Austria 28 Jul to 03 Aug 2017.

The Air Navigation Race Subcommittee has also made some small adjustments to the rules. The scoring software has now been released in a PC based package rather than the previous internet base software. One of the ANR committee members, Armin Zueger, is now managing the software and also looking at new technology for loggers. Spain entered a bid to host the first World ANR Championships in Castellón, Spain at the end of September 2017.

The Long Distance Air Race committee gave us a presentation to the race to Georgia and also the Crete to Cape race which started departs Crete on the 12th November.

World Records is managed by Art Greenfield and Chris Booysen. They have around 100 records per year. New classes are being introduced with Solar Powered, Electric Powered and Drones.

Technical Equipment Committee This committee is managed by Ralph Grunwald. They have approved the Slovakian landing system and also continue to approve alternative loggers systems, as they have been proven to be reliable.

The Rally Flying Sub Committee had a tough job with a major change to the rules. After a few years of having two classes in the World Championships, and a lengthy debate, it was decided by a vote of 17 for, to 1 abstention to revert to a single class in the World Championships and to adopt the “Advanced” rules for the new world championships. The next World Rally Flying Championships will be held in Dubnica, Slovakia in 2018.

Election of officials.
It was wonderful to see the master tactician Hans Schewbel at work during the meeting. While Hans has served for some 23 years, he volunteered to serve for another year. The only change to the committee was Paul Szameitat who stood down as chairman of the Rally Flying Subcommittee. Frank Eckard was nominated and elected unopposed.