Articles Precision (Page 16)

Held in Tempe – 25-26 March 1994

It was time to fly to Bloemfontein, or more precisely Tempe Airfield, and all those wonderful people, the hosts for the 1994 National Precision Flying Championships held in March from Friday 25th to Saturday 26th.

Everything in the OFS is different. One pilot, Adrian Pilling, arrived on the Monday to do some practice only to be told that his aeroplane was in fact in a town to the north called Bultfontein. Kassie Kasselman in ZS-DUM very kindly gave him a lift to this town to fetch the plane. The plane was not on the airstrip there, but parked in front of the owners house in town. The owner sped out to meet the pilots and gave Adrian a lift to where the plane was standing. After a tour of the take off strip (a strip cut out of the veld, which the owner had freshly scraped with his tractor), it was decided to get the plane back to Tempe. Well, the taxying out was fun, through a farm gate, along a track, between two large trees, and a quick run up under the power lines and then full power to be airborne in 350 meters running parallel to the railway line. “Well this is the OFS, you know”.

The flight back was uneventful except that upon landing, it was discovered that the airfield had run out of fuel. It eventually arrived the next morning. Mind you, this was not all, getting maps was another story, but enough of that, only tough people fly.

The organization was up to the usual impeccable standard now expected from Tempe. The routes were cunningly selected to confuse the senses of any sane pilot and push your blood pressure up high enough for you to fail your medical, whilst simultaneously allowing you to enjoy the amazing view of a green Free State.

Friday dawned bright and beautiful. The route was unusual in that there was an away start on a completely different map to the north of Tempe. The route kicked off with a long leg and plenty of photographs, targets and the inevitable secrets separating the men form the boys. After all the aircraft returned home it was decided to hold the first two landings. This really set the cat amongst the pigeons. By the end of the first day the leader board read: first Adrian Pilling, second Barry de Groot and third James Craven. Positions 2,3,4 and 5 being very close. What’s more the new member of the OFS team, Boet Louw, had scored a near perfect set of landings (with a zero and minus one) to finish the day with only 5 landing penalties. Well done.

Saturday dawned very windy after a night of rain (yes it does rain there). The flight planning got underway with the outside wind gusting up to 25 knots. The route was well planned with some turning points being real tricky (for ex- ample an intersection at the foot of a hill which you approach from the other side!). The map was considerably out of date making some of the turning points very difficult to find. There were plenty of secret checkpoints too, and all in all the pilots reported a worse days performance. Still the scenery was superb. The management then worked feverishly to get the results out, Ros did her usual marvellous back room stunt and the results were out by 4.30pm, surely some kind of record. Well done guys.

The prize giving got underway after cocktails at the Bloemfontein Club. A very formal and fun affair. Dinner and prize giving started late, Johan Swart and Deon Mitton printed certificates for everybody (thanks guys), a very nice touch. Geoff Henschel was the MC and Ros Gibson presented the trophies. There was a lot of expectation as nobody knew the results and there were many trophies to be won this year, several being donated by Pilling, Craven, Schwebel, Kasselman and MLS Bank, thanks guys. An unusual trophy was the ‘Pisspot Trophy’ donated by Adrian Pilling for the most (shall we say …) ‘Interesting’ landing.

The final placings were : 5th place Etienne Le Roux (EP), 4th place Nico Gordon (OFS), 3rd place Barry de Groot (Natal), 2nd place James Craven (WP), and lst place Adrian Pilling (TVL).

Trophies were awarded as follows:

• First Place Overall – Adrian Pilling
• Second Place Overall – James Craven
• Third Place Overall – Barry de Groot
• First Place Navigation – Adrian Pilling
• First Place Observation – Adrian Pilling
• First Place Landings – Barry de Groot
• Second Place Landings – Adrian Pilling
• Third Place Landings – Kassie Kasselman
• Best Private Pilot – Barry de Groot
• Best Newcomer – Boet Louw
• Best Province – Transvaal
• Best Club – Brits Flying Club
• Pisspot Landing Trophy – Dickie Swanepoel

The other big event of the evening was the announcement of the Springbok Team to the world event in the Czech Republic later this year. The selection committee decided to introduce new blood into the team and selected the following people: James Craven, Barry de Groot, Nellis Nel, Daroish Kraidy, Johan Swart, Etienne Le Roux (Reserve) and Adrian Pilling (Team Manager)

The A very special thanks to Geoff Henschell (Competition Director and magic man who put it all together), Johan Dorfling (Chief Judge), Herman Kemp (Jury), Ros & Andre (all that behind the scenes stuff), the Henschell Family and women, fuel people, cleaners and the background workers and marshals that make this type of event possible. Not forgetting MLS Bank for their generous sponsorship. Well done to you all. look out for the provincials and nationals in 1995, they are in the first part of the year.

By Peter Norton

There was thunder and lightning of all types at the recent Precision Flying Nationals held on 23-24 June at Tempe airfield near Bloemfontein. The weather-gods organised an out-of-season thunderstorm, that was matched only in ferocity by the thunder and lightning coming from the debriefing room where the provisional results were being discussed!

For those unfamiliar with power flying competitions, precision flying is for solo pilots with no navigator (as in the rallies). The National Championships consist of two “navexes” and a spot landing competition, with four man teams from each province, as well as last years “invited” winners. The navex consists of accurate flight planning, and then navigating over checkpoints at a nominated ground speed with an allowed margin of error of two seconds either way, while at the same time looking for ground markers and 10 or so photographs along the route. Up to 12 legs are fitted into an hour-and-a-half, with a couple of sneaky secret checkpoints thrown in and, oh yes, you’re still supposed to fly safely! It never fails to amaze me that the better pilots manage to get most of their photos and ground-markers and “bulls” (zero time penalties)for at least half of their checkpoints!

The ground marshalls seem to enjoy themselves too – one said I was flying so slow as I came in that I nearly stalled into his skottelbraal breakfast! Another accused the “red bomber” from the W.P of trying to dive underneath the 1m string gate used to take overhead times!

The first day’s rally took us out east of Bloem towards Thaba ‘Nehu chasing roads that no longer existed, and koppies that disappeared in the rain showers. An apparently unmanned checkpoint with a rather familiar looking Kombi lying stuck in the mud a few hundred metres away showed that the ground marshalls were also making heavy weather of it! Local knowledge helped when one of the Free Staters managed to read the name of a railway station on a photograph, and mark it before he even left the briefing room!

A howling 25 knot wind with a strong cross-wind component made for an interesting spot landing competition in the afternoon. Some of the old hands showed their class, but I for one was blown all over the place, and the taildraggers were just glad to be able to get on the ground, let along anywhere near the line! As if to drive home the unfairness of it all, the last few pilots flew in absolute calm. We tried to make them do night landings just to counteract the advantage but, unfortunately, the competition finished just before sunset!

Friday was a perfect day for flying, in all respects. A really memorable moment for me was just after turning at the infamous turning point 3, when a herd of springbok “pronked” in the early morning light in a field below me, bringing home the magic of flying low over the African veld.

The course was generally easier than the previous day, but had lots of timed checkpoints to catch you out and some very difficult photos. As well as turning point 3, which led to most of the fireworks in the debriefing room! Strict application of the international “off-track” rule led to a number of pilots receiving maximum penalties for the checkpoint, and much unhappiness. It is clear that, if the rules are to be applied strictly, some test situations should be accurately described in the rule book. However, the general feeling was that far too much responsibility is put on the shoulders of the volunteer ground marshalls and that, whether the rules are correct or not, they should be modified to take the pressure off these much-needed volunteers.

At a very pleasant prize-giving at the Old Students’ Centre the following results were announced:-

• 1^st Adrian Pilling (Natal) 381 – 1989 S.A Precision Flying Champion
• 2^nd Geoff Henschel (OFS) 640
• 3^rd Pete Norton (OFS) 732
• 4^th Colin Jordaan (Tvl) 785
• 5^th Dave Pereison (EP) 1 009
• 6^th Johan Swart (WP invited) 1 740
• 7^th Nico Gordon (OFS) 2 148
• 8^th Jake Heese (WP) 2 285
• 9^th James Craven (WP) 2 582
• 10^th Malcolm Spence (EP) 2 919

The team prize was won by the OFS “home team”, followed by Western Province. A hearty word of thanks to Roy Waldek, Kassie Kasselman and their team of organisers, computer operators, ground marshalls and helpers for an enjoyable, if stormy, competition.

By Johan Swart

Fog and poor visibility test the precision flying champions at Stellenbosch

This year’s precision flying championships was a historic occasion for Western Province because, for the first time, the event took place at Stellenbosch. Maybe the pilots from other provinces will now appreciate the efforts that the WP pilots have gone to over the years to attend these events “very” far from home.

From 10 to 12 March, nineteen of the top precision pilots (commercial, private, new and old) in the country met at Stellenbosch Airfield to do battle for the highest honour in the sport – namely the S.A. OPEN PRECISION FLYING CHAMPION and S.A. PRIVATE PILOT PRECISION FLYING CHAMPION for 1988. Seeded through from the 1987 Championships were: Springbok Adrian Pilling, John Campbell and Springbok Dave Camphell. The other 16 pilots were from WP, EP, OFS and Natal.

Days 1 and 2 were re%rved for Flight Planning, Navigation and Observation tests while Day 3 was used for the Spotlanding Competition. The route for Navigation test 1 took the competitors from the start at Stellenbosch Airfield to the east of Kuilsrivier, then over the built-up area of Durbanville, to the heart of the Swartland, past Malmesbury, then north of Wellington, over Paarl Mountain and back to Stellenbosch. Over the nine leg route of 96,7 nm the competitors had to find and identify nine photographs and 11 ground targets.

Navigation test 2 ran from Stellenbosch past Klapmutskop, right over the “Taalpaal” into Paarl. From there over Paarl Mountain (again) to the south of Perdeberg, then north of Wellington and on to Malmesbury and Atlantis. Back over Philadelphia, the Kraaifontein built-up area, over the Bottelary Hills to Stellenbosch. Navex 2 also had nine legs, a total of 95,8 nm long and there were eight photographs and 11 ground markers to identify. In total for the two navigation tests there were 25 manned checkpoints, of which five were secret.

The start of the competition each day was delayed by three hours because of fog. Thereafter, the visibility was very poor and made navigation very difficult. The provisional results for Nav 1 were issued on the Friday afternoon, while the results for Nav 2 came out on the Saturday morning. The competitors were asked not to discuss their results with the others. Because of this, tensions ran high and nobody knew who was where till the prize-giving party on the Saturday evening.

The handling of the championships was done very professionally – from the flight-planning room through to the debriefing after each test. At each checkpoint a proper timing gate was used for accuracy. For the landing competition the runway was marked every metre with side markings for the video camera, according to international rules.

The championship briefing took place on Wednesday 9th March and was followed by a cocktail party hosted by the University of Stellenbosch Flying Club. On Thursday afternoon, all competitors were invited by Doug Eyre to visit the Flight for Hope Project. Doug and Ellaine Eyre treated the participants to a super cocktail party.

The landing competition on Saturday was a bit of a nightmare for the participants, because everyone had been practising before the competition on runway 19. On the Saturday, however, the wind had swung north-westerly, with runway 01 in use for the landing competition.

The prize-giving dinner was held at Spier Jonkershuis Restaurant – a perfect setting for an occasion like this. Guests, pilots, marshalls and friends were all seated under the oak trees enjoying good food and wine from the Stellenbosch area.

Maj. Gen. James Gilliland, president of Aero Club, and Mr. Mike Hartley, chairman of SAPFA, presented the prizes to the deserving winners. André Schoeman from WP managed to hold onto his lead right through the competition to take the open crown and become the 1988 S.A. Open Precision Flying Champion. In second place overall was Johan Swart from WP, taking the private pilot’s crown to become the S.A. Private Pilot Precision Flying Champion for 1988. In third position overall was John Campbell from Natal, followed by Peter Norton from WP.

These first four competitors all belong to the University of Stellenbosch Flying Club (John Camphell – country member) and as a result, the Club Trophy went to USFC. Scoring a lst, 2nd and 4th place the Provincial Shield obviously went to Western Province with Eastern Province second, followed by Free State and then Natal.

André Schoeman received the trophy for Best Navigation, while Springbok Adrian Pilling won the Landing Trophy. The gold, silver and bronze shields went respectively to André Schoeman, Johan Swart and John Campbell.

At the prize-giving dinner the full 1988 Springbok Rally team was announced. They are: Ivanhoe Perelson and Dave Perelson; John Adams and Colin Jordaan; André Schoeman and Johan Swart; Dave Campbell and John Campbell; and Dave Mostert and Anton Mostert.

The following Precision Flying team was also announced: André Schoeman, Johan Swart, Dave Perelson, John Campbell and Colin Jordaan.

Our thanks go to Maj.Gen. Gilliland and Mike Hartley for acting as the jury, Roy Waldek for setting the route and being chief judge, John Adams and Dane Gerneke for proof-flying the route, taking the photographs and for doing all the computer work. Thank you also to Arno Neethling for the use of his computer, to Di Norton and Ellaine Eyre for preparing the cocktail parties and Ros Gibson for being a super flight-planning room examiner. Very special thanks must go to all the marshalls and helpers who did a splendid job – and, of course, the University of Stellenbosch Flying Club for the use of their facilities.

Last but not least – thank you to all the participants: we hope to see you all next year in the “VRYSTAAT”.