January 2018

Kitty Hawk ANR (Air Navigation race) Rally – 27 January 2018  by Rob Jonkers

The South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) held a very successful ANR (Air Navigation Race) at Kittyhawk Airfield on Saturday 27 January 2018. The weather outlook during the week showed promise to be good and then not, and eventually when Saturday morning dawned the expected early morning rain appeared later than expected and a wall of showers descended over Johannesburg, trapping those competitors at their resident fields. Arriving at Kitty Hawk after 7 still had clear skies and most of the northern based aircraft arrived.

Route 1 – An Anti-Clockwise Route

Although briefing was planned for 8 am this was delayed to 8:30, with the weather outlook promising to be good after 10, thus the teams got under way plotting their route.

Route 2 – An Anti-Clockwise Route

There were 17 teams that registered, but eventually 14 took part, 3 had to scratch due to weather, and some other teams were just expected to pitch up, but it was a bigger than normal field of contestants. There were three local Kitty Hawk teams, and teams from clubs in Brits, Springs, Middelburg  and Nelspruit. There was a training session arranged for Friday evening where 5 teams were given an hour or so lecture on how to fly rallys as well as shown some in-cockpit footage of typical flights to gain an understanding of visualizing photo and ground features.

Most of the Competitors

There were two routes planned, the first one with 5 legs, and the second one with 10 legs, each 25 nm long, which would take around 20 minutes to fly, with the second route having around 2,5 minutes per leg, thus the cockpit gets extremely busy. The navigator has the unenviable task of keeping the pilot on the straight and narrow, and the pilot has to keeping checking that the navigator is doing his job….

Briefing the Route

With the competition groupings set-up in the SAPFA competition equality system, there were three classes taking part, Sportsmans (Novices and first timers), Intermediate (A mixed crew with novices), and Unlimited (Protea Teams). A leader board system will still be developed in the coming year.

In an ANR, there are only two objectives, the first being on-time at the start and finish gates, each second early or late attracts penalty points. The second objective is to remain inside the corridor which in this case is 0.4 nm wide (+/- 800 m), any excursion outside the corridor also attracts penalty points per second being outside the corridor.

Wayne van Rooyen and Almero Calitz at the Friday Evening Training Session preparing the 2 routes

Organiser Rob Jonkers busy with downloading logger results with Eric Addison looking on

The first course was an easy route with only 6 turning points to get everybody into the zone, and the second route had 9 turning points with very short legs, hardly being on one leg and then keep a time check and position for the next leg.

As the weather cleared, first off was Thys vd Merwe with his brand new navigator Wiehan Grove in a C172 at 10h30 followed by the rest of the field in 5 minute intervals, some longer if there were aircraft being used twice by different crews. Then there were late comers who arrived after the rain dissipated in the Jhb area, that had later starting times, thus quite a bit of juggling the lineup and separation.

Marc Clulow and Freddie van Rooyen with their Jabiru ZU-FEP

Safety Officer Nigel Musgrave and Airfield Manager Dawie Pretorius

The next round started at 12H30, with the last crews in by 14h00. Then the big task of logger downloads, analyzing and printing results, which was completed at around 15h30, with a short prize-giving and results.

 Neville Fereirra and Pierre vd Merwe with their Sling ZU-FWY

In the Sportsmans Class, in first place was Johan & Jurie van Eeden, flying their RV7 – at a high speed as well of 120 kts, 2^nd was Tyrone Steenkamp and Eric Addison flying their Cheetah at the other end of the speed spectrum of 70 kts, 3^rd was Pierre Dippenaar and Martin Meyer flying their C182.

 First place in Sportsmans class Johan and Jurie van Eeden in their RV7 ZU-IHH

In the Intermediate class with the experience of some of the old hands, in 1^st place was Mary de Klerk and Leon Bouttell flying a C172, in 2^nd place was Thys vd Merwe and Wiehan Grove also in a C172, and third was Andre Kluyts and Nick Christodoulou in a C172.

First place in Intermediate class, Mary de Klerk and Leon Bouttell in their C172 ZU-AFP

In the Unlimited Class, in 1^st place it was Frank and Cally Ekhard flying a C150 followed in 2^nd place by Rob Jonkers and Martin Meyer flying a C182, followed by Hans Schwebel and Ron Stirk flying a C150.

First place in Unlimited Class Frank and Cally Ekhard in their C150 ZS-IWD

This event was for sure enjoyed by all, with a number of new entrants, who should quickly got up to speed given the improvements in scores between the easy route 1 and the more difficult route 2. SAPFA will for sure organize more of these events in 2018, and get more club level participation.

Two Google earth Livetrack results shown, the purple track one of the better tracks and the yellow track wandering off course somewhat.