Frank Eckard (Page 2)

National Rally Championship 2023 – Western Cape Leg

By Pete van der Spek

11.03.2023


A view across the airfield

A grey morning greeted the competitors at Stellenbosch airfield on Saturday 11 March. A cold front had moved over Cape Town and the remnants were just moving over when we arrived for the Western Cape leg of the National Rally competition.


Frank gives a thorough briefing

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The Arrivals and Training week for the 22nd WRFC 2022

By Rob Jonkers (photos Rob Jonkers & others)

 

 

The 22nd World Rally Flying Championships has been a protracted postponed event after having planned to take place in 2020 in Stellenbosch with a 2nd attempt in 2021, and then eventually a third attempt in 2022 but this time in Brits in the height of the summer rainy season, and knowing full well that weather may be a factor here in the North-West area, however expected would normally have been afternoon thundershowers, and daily schedules were such that flying would be avoided in the afternoon.


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SA National Rally Championships – Brits – 2022-06-16 to 18

By Russell Dixon Paver

The venue for this event for 2022 was Brits Airfield (FABS) and was hosted by Brits Flying Club. FAI competition rules were followed and this event was our preparation for SA teams’ selection for the World Rally Flying Championships also to be held in Brits in November 2022.

16 June was the first of three days and was extremely cold, but with clear weather and light winds. 17 June and 18 June produced excellent weather and warmed to normal fair winter days, great for flying. I only attended the Saturday 18 June final competition day.

Brits Flying Club were excellent hosts and the breakfast prepared everyone for the day ahead.


Brits Flying Clubhouse with Jonty Esser’s C150, still in pajamas, and some of the hangars as the sun started to warm things up.


The first two day’s results and maps had been posted on the notice board in the clubhouse.
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A wet and cold PTAR 2022 at New Tempe Bloemfontein

22.05.2022

Text by Rob Jonkers. Photos by Rob and Willie Bodenstein

This year’s President’s Trophy Air Race was held at New Tempe Bloemfontein and although traditionally held on the last weekend of May, but with the Botswana Air Show also taking place on the same weekend, it was decided to move it a week earlier. If we all had the perfect hindsight and with that event not happening, we could have held it on its traditional date and subsequently avoided these last few days of the most unseasonal weather that befell the race weekend.



We have had many of the planned aviation events disrupted by wet, cold, windy weather systems with the most bandied about term of “cut-off low” being used to describe the weather situation. This weekend, none the less, had a very large cold front coupled with an intense low-pressure system over the centre of the country which would affect the race.

I arrived on Wednesday in excellent weather conditions and started setting up for the race, mostly the race control room and preparing for test flights as some of the early competitors also started to arrive at the field. Thursday saw most of the aircraft arrive although some of the Cape based teams first had to wait for the front to pass before setting off, arriving just before dark. Most of the day was taken up by flight tests and registrations while also monitoring what the weather would be doing for the next day as the front was approaching.

During the first extensive Thursday afternoon briefing, which also included the SA weather services team being on hand to give us the best outlook, it appeared that there might have been an early morning flyable gap, thus the day was planned with an early 07h30 start. As Friday dawned, it looked promising: – the cloud base was at a reasonable 1000 ft and we proceeded with the pilot’s briefing. We also sent the turn point marshals to their locations, this being particularly important to get weather condition updates from them at the outermost corners of the route. As the morning progressed with a planned 10 am first take-off, the news from the turn points was not good. Light rain started and it was decided to scrub Day 1 with a debrief at 11 am to plan for the next day. The prediction for Saturday would be that the weather would improve from midday onwards. Everybody dispersed for some rest for the day.

Saturday dawned with flyable conditions and in fact, the window opened up from 11h00 onwards and the first take-off was planned for 11h00. The turn point marshals were sent out and who, from the previous day’s rain, had the challenges of negotiating almost impassable roads to get to their intersections. Fortunately, they all sent in confirmation of being in position prior to the first take-off.

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