Articles Precision (Page 12)

News from WAG2001 – Spain

PRECISION DAY 1

23 June 2001

It was a slightly cooler day at 38 degrees. However a 10 to 12 knot westerly started blowing – it was not taken into consideration in the ground speeds given.

PRECISION DAY 2

24 June 2001

LANDINGS

The morning started with cool conditions (in Spain?) and very bad visibility. We were briefed to do a power, touch and go and then a glide first.

When the 4th group was busy, fog came in from the South West and landings were stopped. The weather cleared within half an hour and we could continue. After the first session (2 landings each) we had 3 competitors with zero penalties. One of them was Barry de Groot.

By the time we started with second round, the time with a glide first and then the obstacle landing, a strong gusty wind started blowing from the North West and we were back to the sweat and 37 degrees.

Landing conditions were tough and positions changed completely. Depending on outstanding queries and protests, it seems as if Johannes Cserveny of Austria has won ( to make good after he got lost yesterday) with Nigel Hopkins very close and Adrian Pilling just behind Nigel.

Final positions will only be published tomorrow.

PRECISION DAY 3

25 June 2001

Today was a disaster for some teams as the plotting of two checkpoints did not quite work out. Luckily our guys worked it out somehow. The wind was blowing at up to 15 knots to make it more challenging. The route was 144nm long and the terrain very difficult.

At the end of the day Nigel Hopkins and Dale de Klerk were placed second with Adrian Pilling and Renier Moolman also in the top ten.

RALLY DAY 1

26 June 2001

Delayed by fog. A tricky but good day for us.

RALLY DAY 2

27 June 2001

Well the weather keeps on changing. Today we had a light wind blowing, but we were back to the heat – 38oC at nine o clock in the evening. Remember the sun only sets at about 10:15. All our guys and girl (Mary) did much better today, but Nigel and Dale had one Checkpoint photo wrong which can be expensive when the final results are calculated. Many other teams had the same problem so it might still be scrapped.

RALLY DAY 3

28 June 2001

Another day of pressure on everyone. Nigel Hopkins & Dale de Klerk are at this stage in the 3rd place as well as the team probably in the 3rd position. That is according to our calculations. So they have to fly very well. And they did fly well, unfortunately not good enough to keep their 3rd place. Arian Pilling and Renier Moolman had a rough time when they missed a Checkpoint. The end result is that Nigel and Dale ended in 4th place and the team is also placed 4th overall.

GREAT NEWS

The news of the day is that we can now say that Adrian Pilling has definitely won the Bronze medal in the Precision and that the team consisting of Adrian Pilling, Nigel Hopkins, Barry de Groot, Jan Hanekom and Hans Schwebel has also won the Bronze medal for RSA in the Precisions.

 

 

14th WORLD PRECISION FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Vasteras, Sweden – 21 July to 6 August 2000.

South African Precision Flying Team Logo for Sweden

By Adrian Pilling

The South African Team to the World Precision Flying Championship in Sweden this year comprised of the following people:- Adrian Pilling (Captain) Nigel Hopkins Hans Schwebel Ron Stirk Barry de Groot Deon van den Berg (Team manager) Dicky Swanepoel (Judge) Frikkie Lubbe (Judge Observer). This is one of the strongest teams we have ever sent and to put it mildly, the competition was one of extremes.

The team notched up:- one blow out, one world champion, one landing double and two trophies. This is how it happened.

The team were seen off at Johannesburg International with a great farewell party. After transiting through Zurich, the team rented a mini bus and made their way to Vasteras airport about 100km north of Stockholm. The airfield is huge and is at sea level. Our accommodation is in a military compound, reserved for apprentice military mechanics – very professional indeed, and our home for two weeks.

South African Precision Flying Team 2000
The Team departing for Sweden

We got to work practicing as much as we could. The area is very difficult to navigate in, with lots of lakes and forests, it takes a lot of time to get your mind tuned into the maps, which are very accurate. Sweden was also experiencing a wet spell with floods and daily rain, and this really messed up our training schedule. We did manage to practice our landings at a nearby airfield called Johannisberg (can you believe it).

The official opening ceremony was a formal affair with a great fly past from a Viggen fighter and a perfect replica of “The Spirit Of St Louis”. There was even a flight by the only remaining Swedish WWll bomber, a B24, all very impressive stuff.

The Official Practice Navigation Day and the Official Landing Day went off without a hitch, just proving how fantastic the organisers were. Then it was an early evening in order to prepare for the competition.

Day one (Navigation task 1).

Hans Schwebel and Barry de Groot in Sweden at the info desk
Hans Schwebel and Barry de Groot with Ann-Sophie at the Info Desk

This day ended up being a disaster for our team. Adrian Pilling, who had an excellent rally up to turning point 3 (and was lying joint second at that point) had to call for radar vectoring back to Vasteras due to an incredible storm cell on his track. He was flying in solid IF with driving rain and lightning with virtually zero forward visibility and a rapidly lowering cloud base. This was incredible bad luck. He was not allowed to fly again and thus was given maximum penalties for the rest of the course.

The rest of the team also battled through bad weather with Nigel Hopkins doing the best of the South Africans followed by Hans Schwebel, Ron Stirk and Barry De Groot. By the end of the day Swedish pilot Mats Warstedt was in the lead. The bad weather affected quite a few people and the organisers had to make some serious adjustments to the results in order to compensate for the weather.

The only good that came out of Adrian’s experience is that everyone applauded his professionalism and sportsmanship – the ATC also asked permission to use the actual voice recordings in future for training.

Sweden Precision Flying Medalists

Gold, Bronze and Silver Medalists

Day two (Landing Contest)

The weather forecast was not so great so it was decided to run the landings as soon as possible, so the schedule was changed and the landings brought forward a day.

This day was “revenge day” for South Africa. The first two landings, the powered and the glide, were followed by lunch. Wow this was turning out to be a battle royal. The conditions were great for landings and as of lunch the South Africans were doing great. Adrian had scored two perfect bulls and Ron had scored a bull and a +1. This put them at first and joint second respectively. Something was happening here and everybody was wishing us good luck. Next in the SA team were Nigel, Barry and Hans. At last we were in with a chance!!!!

After lunch we strolled out to the planes and then the real battle began. The next landing was the glide without flaps. Ron came up with a +1 and so did Adrian. After the landings Ron and Adrian strolled back to the landing line to check out the rest of the field. We discovered that, we were in the front. There it was, either one of us could win this, we could be world champions – but which one?

Ron Stirk - World Landing Champion
Ron Stirk – World Champion – Landings

Ron and Adrian strolled back to the planes and nervously wished each other the best of luck. This last landing was the barrier landing, one that carried the most penalties, and usually sorts the men from the boys. Ron was the first to get airborne and when he landed he did not know his score. The rest of the team was at the line and they knew – he had scored a bull – the trophy was definitely going to South Africa, but who would be world champion. Only one person could beat Ron now and that person had just got airborne.

Adrian turned onto finals and approached the line – he touched down and also did not know what he had scored, but the team did and the entire field of pilots were thrilled at the result. As Ron and Adrian climbed out of their aircraft, they were greeted by Nigel and Hans running at full speed to congratulate them. They were jumping up and down and shouting well done. Adrian had scored +1. This meant that Ron was first with only 4 penalties. Fantastic!!! – at last we had our very own world champion. Well done and congratulations Ron, a first for South Africa.

Second place went to Adrian with 5 penalties, followed by Jakes from Czech Republic with 6 penalties and followed by Opat also from the Czech Republic. This gave South Africa the honour of being second as a country in the landings behind the Czech Republic, the results being calculated from the performance of the top three pilots in each team. Well done lads.

Day three (Navigation task 2)

This day dawned beautifully with early fog, delaying the start. The route was very carefully planned with secret checkpoints in all sorts of places that were difficult to judge. We flew over several islands and even these had secrets and targets. It was a tough course. The team did better but this did not improve the overall results by much. When the results came out our team positions for the day were, Adrian, Nigel, Barry, Ron, Hans. It was a tough navigation task and a real anti-climax after the day before.

Adrian Pilling - Sportsmanship Award
Adrian Pilling – Runner up Landings and Sportsmanship award

We had a great celebration that night and after a fantastic tour around ancient Viking settlements and a castle the following day we had probably the best closing ceremony we have ever experienced.

The announcements and awards were made:-

The new World Champion is Jiri Jakes (Chech Rep) with Mats Warstedt (Sweden) second and Janusz Darocha (Poland) third. The team results are Poland first, Sweden second and Chech Rep. third. Our placing were: Nigel Hopkins – 16th, Barry de Groot – 51st, Ron Stirk – 59th, Hans Schwebel – 61st, Adrian Pilling – 66th.

For South Africa the best was yet to come….

Ron was crowned World Precision Landing Champion 2000 – Fantastic – well done, a marvelous achievement. Adrian was awarded the Masonhall Sportmanship Award for airmanship.

It was a great event and one that we can learn from. Watch out world… We will be back.

A special thanks to our supporters and families.

 

2000 NATIONAL PRECISION FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Brits – 29 to 31 June 2000

By Adrian Pilling

Well before you know what has happened another year has passed and it’s time for the National Precision Flying Championships again. This year it was held in Brits. That incredible small town that is the home of some of the friendliest people in the country, and is the heart of the Precision Flying community in South Africa.

Frikkie Lubbe and Dicky Swanepoel
Frikkie Lubbe, the only competitor from the Northern Cape, receives his Provincial Colours from Dicky Swanepoel

I think that the economy has taken it’s toll on flying competitions as the field was fairly small, just as it was last year. Still the organizers did a great job of getting together 15 open class competitors and 3 sportsmans class competitors. The competition was to be used as a selection process for the team to the World Air Games in Spain in 2001.

The pilots started arriving from their various provinces during the previous week, with the bulk arriving the week of the competition. Wednesday was designated as the official practice day and most of the competitors took advantage of the official practice route. That evening after a short briefing and a great meal the group decided on an early night and went to bed.

Competition Day 1 (Thursday 29th June ) The usual ice blue winters day dawned. Breakfast was served at the club and the first crews started flight planning at 8am sharp. The navigation route was most interesting with an away start. The competitors having to climb out over the hill behind the airfield and fly to the west in order to approach the start point which was a road junction.

2000 National Flying Championships - Mary de Klerk, Hans Schwebel, Jan Hanekom, Barry de Groot and Nigel Hopkins
L to R: 5th Overall-Mary de Klerk, 4th Overall- Hans Schwebel, 3rd Overall-Jan Hanekom, 2nd Overall-Barry de Groot and the 2000 National Champion, Nigel Hopkins.

The route comprised the usual tricky tracks. We flew to the south, around seven turning points (excluding the start and finish). Along the way we had to find eight photographs, thirteen ground markers and negotiate three secret check points.

When the crews returned they were efficiently debriefed by Dale de Klerk, Deon Van den Berg and Dave Perelson. Peter Grobler’s ground marshals expertly had all the aircraft refueled and readied for the landings to be flown later.

After lunch landings 1 and 2 were flown on runway 20. This caught the pilots by surprise as everyone had practiced on runway 02.

Adrian Pilling - propellor head
This is what you get if you miss a mine“ Meet “Rotorhead” Adrian Pilling

After a brief interlude the results were announced for the day. First place Nigel Hopkins, followed by Barry De Groot, Jan Hanekom, Mary De Klerk, Ron Stirk, Frank Eckard, Hans Schwebel and Adrian Pilling (I had succeeded in missing a turning point – the first time in 16 years – this costing me first place for the day).

The results of the landings were also announced. First place Hans Schwebel, followed by Adrian Pilling, Frank Rehl and Mary De Klerk.

After a great meal, sponsored by Deon and Brenda Van Den Berg we all retired to bed.

Competition Day 2. A typical winters day dawned. A great breakfast was laid on at the club as per usual and the competition got underway at 8am sharp. The route today started off towards the east and then moved in an anti clockwise direction over Hartbeespoort Dam and around Brits. The route comprised eight photographs, seven turning points, eleven ground markers as well as three secret check points.

Returning crews were again treated to fantastic ground support and efficient debriefing. After lunch the second set of landings were held, this time on runway 02. Turbulent wind conditions making for some interesting landings.

Later the results were announced for the day. First Place Nigel Hopkins, followed by Ron Stirk, Hans Schwebel, Barry De Groot, Jan Hanekom, Andre Koen, Adrian Pilling, Mary De Klerk.

The landing results for the day were withheld so that the combined results could be announced at the prize giving. Competition Day 3. This was always going to be a tough day. Dale had planned a route that was full of very sharp turns and relatively short legs. This made map marking very difficult. The route comprised seven turning points, twelve ground markers and four secret checkpoints.

Later the results for the day were as follows. First Place Nigel Hopkins, followed by Adrian Pilling, Barry De Groot, Jan Hanekom, Hans Schwebel, Ron Stirk, Mary De Klerk and Frank Eckard.

After some re-adjustments to the scores on day two’s results, due to a distance error, it was off to the Mayor’s offices for a very formal and special closing function.

A great evening with many fun and formal speeches followed. Uli Gerth was a great MC. At the end of the meal the presentations were made and the results announced as follows:

 

Individual Results (Open)

World Air Games 2001 South African Team
The National Team selected for the 2001 World Air Games to be held in Cordoba, Spain. L to R: R Stirk, M de Klerk, H Schwebel, A Pilling and N Hopkins. Front: B de Groot & Jan Hanekom.

  • 1st Nigel Hopkins
  • 2nd Barry De Groot
  • 3rd Jan Hanekom
  • 4th Hans Schwebel
  • 5th Mary De Klerk
  • 6th Adrian Pilling
  • 7th Ron Stirk
  • 8th Frank Eckard
  • 9th André Koen
  • 10th Mauritz Du Plessis
  • 11th Walter Walle
  • 12th Henk Koster
  • 13th Frank Rehl
  • 14th Frikkie Lubbe
  • 15th Norman Dixie

Landings:

  • 1st Hans Schwebel & Nigel Hopkins (joint winners)
  • 2nd Adrian Pilling
  • 3rd Frank Rehl

Trophies:

South African Precision Flying Team for Sweden
Good Luck to our Precision Flying Team leaving for Sweden and the 14th Precision Flying World Championships

  • Observation Trophy – Nigel Hopkins
  • Timing Trophy – Nigel Hopkins
  • Best Private Pilot – Barry de Groot

Individual Results (Sportsman)

  • 1st Ted McKerchar
  • 2nd Peter van der Velden
  • 3rd Stephan Pienaar

Landings:

    • 1st Ted McKerchar
    • 2nd Stephan Pienaar
  • 3rd Peter van der Velden

During the dinner the National Team to Spain, for the World Air Games in 2001, was announced:-

  • Pilots – Nigel Hopkins, Adrian Pilling, Barry De Groot, Hans Schwebel, Jan Hanekom.
  • Reserves – Mary De Klerk, Ron Stirk
  • Judges – Dicky Swanepoel
  • Judge Observer – Frikkie Lubbe

Congratulations to you all. We wish you all the best for Spain and hope that you will bring back the medals.

Special thanks must go to: The Mayor, the Brits Council, Tannie Truia and Oom Nick for the catering at the club. Imperial Bank, ABSA Bank, Alamo car hire for their great sponsorship. Renier Moolman (Flight Planning Marshal), Deon Van Den Berg (Competition Director), Dale De Klerk (Route Planner), Dave Perelson (Jury), Dicky Swanepoel (Jury), Peter Grobler (Chief Marshall), all the wives, girlfriends and of course the marshalls without which this competition would never have taken place. Well done to Brits for a great time, also to everyone involved.

S.A. National Precision Flying Championships — Brits   2000 : Results

 

Day One Day Two Day Three Land Grand Nav
Name Reg Prov The Mkrs Photo Flight Other Tot The Mkrs Photo Flight Other Tot The Mkrs Photo Flight Other Tot Total Total Total
Open Class
1 Nigel Hopkins DZT NW 2 0 20 42 0 64 0 0 20 45 0 65 0 40 0 30 0 70 45 244 117
2 Barry De Groot KIT KZN 0 40 60 57 0 157 0 20 40 48 0 108 0 40 20 48 0 108 130 503 153
3 Jan Hanekom FDJ NW 4 20 80 135 0 239 0 20 40 78 0 138 0 70 20 30 0 120 81 578 243
4 Hans Schwebel IWD NW 61 20 20 243 0 344 0 0 40 54 0 94 1 20 40 69 0 130 45 613 366
5 Mary de Klerk KXF KZN 0 70 60 135 0 265 0 50 20 81 0 151 0 20 70 57 0 147 79 642 273
6 Adrian Pilling DZT NW 1 50 0 345 0 396 0 20 80 48 0 148 0 20 40 18 0 78 55 677 411
7 Ron Stirk IWD NW 0 0 60 222 0 282 0 20 20 45 0 85 0 0 60 84 0 144 261 772 351
8 Frank Eckard KXF GT 47 70 40 135 0 292 0 0 70 147 0 217 0 40 20 135 0 195 264 968 417
9 Andre Koen EBC KZN 0 20 70 282 0 372 0 0 50 96 0 146 350 60 40 72 0 522 443 1483 450
10 Mauritz Du Plessis FDJ NW 20 70 80 393 0 563 2 40 60 195 0 297 0 60 80 261 0 401 266 1527 849
11 Walter Walle CNZ FS 9 40 70 408 0 527 188 20 40 213 0 461 0 70 80 150 0 300 355 1643 771
12 Henk Koster CUX GT 17 130 130 297 0 574 0 20 100 210 0 330 0 40 80 366 0 486 257 1647 873
13 Frank Rehl OIS GT 350 70 160 165 0 745 0 0 110 651 0 761 2 60 140 213 0 415 60 1981 1029
14 Frikkie Lubbe FJV NC 5 160 140 318 0 623 15 40 130 878 0 1063 0 80 100 333 0 513 361 2560 1529
15 Norman Dixie EEW FS 350 160 210 1143 0 1863 350 20 120 846 0 1336 0 60 80 482 0 622 429 4250 2471
Sportsman Class
1 Ted Mc Kerchar CNZ NW 41 100 90 593 0 824 43 0 70 219 0 332 116 60 60 144 0 380 272 1808 956
2 Piet v d Velden NDA NW 350 40 0 371 0 761 8 70 40 797 0 915 1 60 20 255 0 336 690 2702 1423
3 Stephan Pienaar JOS FS 18 200 80 719 0 1017 0 90 80 672 0 842 1 230 80 429 0 740 303 2902 1820