The EAA convention this year was held at Vryheid, which is situated close to the escarpment and in the heart of the Anglo Boer & Zulu war zones. It was decided to hold an adventure format rally which is becoming a signature EAA event in conjunction with SAPFA, which is a format that EAA’ers enjoy, 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. The Vryheid area is rich in history especially in the war times at the turn of the 20th century. The Vryheid club were new to this type of event and a few members took part, as well as members from other local clubs and of course a number of EAA members.

The Competitors

The theme for this event were following railroads and rivers, and finding a few battlefield sites. The route was mostly towards the north and west, in the mountainous areas of the region, but is also the most scenic area as well, which was one of the objectives for everybody to at least enjoy the local scenery.

 

 
Plotting the routeThe route started at the local Klipfontein dam just south east of the airfield, and then in an anti-clockwise manner followed the railway line towards the northeast until it disappeared into the mountainside, and then continued to follow the railway northwards until the crossing with the Bivane river, where the teams had to follow the river westwards until they found a prominent farm house complex. From there southwards with no real following features to the Kambule Memorial site, which required recognition of a photo taken at ground level from the air. It was this part of the route that a few of the competitors lost their bearings given the wayward tracks see from the loggers.

 

The competition map showing the route. From this first battlefield memorial, competitors had to climb a little onto a plateau to find the head waters of the Nsondo river at the top of the Aasvoelkrans gorge, and then fly descending into the gorge where three distinctive waterfalls could be seen, making this the most worthwhile scenic part of the route. At the bottom of the gorge another farmhouse was a waypoint and then to another battlefield memorial of Scheepersnek, and from there to a small farm dam to end off at the Stilwater railway station.

As part of this rally, it was decided that to add some spice as well, to track everybody with loggers to check how accurately they fly to keep within a 1 km corridor, which should have been easy given that one is allowed to fly with GPS. The map and task booklet were provided 20 minutes prior the take-off 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), then a few questions had to be answered on ground features or sites that were historic or scenic, mostly cryptic in nature.

 
An example out of the task booklet for one of the turning points….The tracks of some of the competitors – the blue one flown the most accurately and the yellow track of a competitor that got lost

The booklet contained a section of wiki notes 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 14 crews who registered by briefing time, with a broad spectrum of aircraft participating, from a fast Cessna 210 to slow open cockpit Bat Hawks.

Alan Lorimer assisting with getting the task booklets and loggers ready for the competitors

After the briefing, and with 20 minutes prior take-off of handing out papers prepared in sequence by Alan Lorimer, the first competitors took to the skies at 10:15, with the last off at 13.15. The weather was good for flying but the wind had picked up somewhat, which made navigation a little challenging.

With everybody successfully home, it was time for marking the exam papers which was left to Clive King to do, and Rob downloading loggers, and then printing the results.

When all was tallied up, two crews tied for first place, Carl Visagie with Navigator Mike Terreblanche in their Ikarus ZU-EOV and Shane Brits with Navigator Karen Stroud in their Jabiru ZU-FEP. Greg Clegg and Keaton Perkins in a Jodel ZU-UEK attained 2nd place, with third place going to Wayne Giles and Mark Clulow in their Bearhawk LSA ZU-IKO. In the spot landing that everybody carried out after the rally, the winner was Mike Ehrich flying a Bantam ZU-ADW.

Thus came to the end of a hopefully enjoyable day for everybody who took part, and given the interest in the event, should bode well for future rallies of this type and also gain an expression of interest in the more formal and timed rallies.

The Overall Results

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This was the 2nd Rand Airport Easter Rally, the event being part of Rand Airport’s Easter Open Day with many activities for the family. It was primarily a Fly-in with the Airport waiving landing fees and reducing fuel prices to attract visitors from out of town.With the success of last year’s event, another Adventure Rally was planned in the style of the EAA Sun & Fun rally events, which of course is all about answering clues and finding Easter Eggs.

 

The route map – showing the partial route. The Adventure Rally format is 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, rather than the high workload of accurate timing.

It is important to have a good crew cooperation on roles and responsibilities, and given the comments heard from the participants after the flight, it seems some cockpits had some hilarious moments.

For this year, for some added spice, the competitors were also tasked to fly within a defined corridor, being 1 km wide like an ANR, just a little wider, with time penalties for excursions outside the corridor

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Rand Airport Easter Apron with DC4 and competitor aircraft lined up. The route was initially planned out to the west, overhead Nasrec and the Orlando towers, but inadvertently when the route planning was done it was forgotten that the Rand Easter Show would also be on with plenty of SAAF demonstrations, thus with the Notam issued with a 5 nm exclusion zone, had to re-route the start and first two turning points, within 1 day of the event happening, no pressure….

 

A typical leg task sheet in the booklet. The route was planned on a 1:250 000 map with all turning points marked up – with Martin the invigilator for the day – having to mark up the revised turning points.

The route essentially started out south-west of the silver ball, at the Glenvista Country Club at a small pan at the 12th hole, complementary to the original start point Wemmer Pan, from there further south to the Rand Water Zwartkopjes pumping station which also has an associated Recreation Centre, from there westwards to the Olifantsvlei Nature Reserve with a sharp turn southwards towards Three Rivers and the confluence of the Vaal and Suikerbosrand river.

From the Vaal river the route went up north skirting past the Suikerbosrand nature reserve and then crossing the two airfields Circus and Kliprivier, the photos having been swopped around to confuse everybody. From Kliprivier up to the finish point Romeo Delta past the Heinken Brewery and Panorama Airfield.

 

Competitors plotting the route. There were 14 crews registered prior to the event, eventually 11 taking part, with some competitors having had difficulty in arriving with low mist from the east.

The weather was mostly good with some rain showers predicted and at one point at around 11 ATC was about to declare IMC with weather moving from the west, which thankfully stayed away.

Ian and Adrienne Saunders Plotting.

After the 8h30 briefing, and with 20 minutes prior take-off of handing out papers, the first competitors took to the skies at 10.15, with the last off at 11.20.

 

The livetrack24 Google Earth image of two of the interesting tracks. As with some previous rally events, livetracking was done and displayed on the big screen in the briefing room, where two tracks were being followed by spectators with great interest, both tracks doing pretty well, it did appear the Zwartkopjes pumping station proved a little elusive, as well as Kliprivier Airfield with some competitors having zoomed straight past it getting close to the CTR bufferzone before correcting their flight path.

So, what were those gems the competitors struggled with….. the N1 being part of the Cape to Cairo road…., that Boswell Wilkie have / had their home base at Circus Airfield, then of course getting wrong the airfield pictures that showed Kliprivier instead of Circus, and what beer the brewery made…. All of them….

With everybody successfully home, it was time for marking the exam papers which was left to Invigilator Martin Meyer, between the clues and photo recognition, a total of 39 points could be scored. In the interim, I got to download the loggers to mark up the corridor excursions, which counted time penalties.

Third Placed Eugene Schneider and Mark Clulow


Second Placed Shane Brits and Karen Stroud
 

First Placed Frank and Cally Eckard

Many thanks are extended to Carolle Olivier assisting with the administration of the event, Stuart Coetzee the Rand Airport Manager for all the arrangements .The prize-giving resulted in the top 3 places winning stunning laser cut aircraft and Easter hampers, the winner also winning 100 l of fuel, many thanks to Rand Airport management for the generous prizes on offer. 

Rand Airport Management Stuart Coetzee and Carolle Olivier with Rob Jonkers

Thus came to the end of a hopefully enjoyable day for everybody who took part, with a reasonable field size, and hopefully will increase for next year. 

 

The Overall Results

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