Articles Precision (Page 7)

WORLD FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS – 2006

Incorporating the 15th World Rally Flying Championships,
and the 17th World Precision Flying Championships

Troyes, France – 21 to 31 July 2006.

By Chris Booysen

S A Rally and Precision Team Logo

Part 3 – The Rally Flying Championship

Thursday, 27 July

The official program for the Rally Flying Championship is an official practice day on 27 July 2006, followed by three competition rallies and then a reserve day and the prize giving on the 31st July.

The competition director has spaced the field in such a way that aircraft would be flying from 9:30 in the morning up to 17:00 in the afternoon. This, combined with a forecast of severe thunderstorms, leads to the officials postponing the official practice day. All teams are handed the route for the day and all fly the route as a practice with no weather related problems. The forecast thunderstorms never appear so the event could have been run as planned.

The forecast for the second day is also for severe thunderstorms. After the incorrect forecast of the previous day it was decided that the official practice day would be run but with the field far more compressed so that the flying will completed earlier in the day. The official practice day is run as if it is a competition except the scores are not taken into account

Once again the forecast is incorrect and the weather is good, overcast and much cooler. The practice was a good one for the South African team as it allows us to sort out the last few problems. The team is now ready for the competition.

The first competition day dawned. The teams are given their instruction 25 minutes before take off. Added to this are another 5 or so minutes flying to the start which means most can plot the entire route before the start line. The route contains an away landing, an arc that needs to be flown and some turning points that are in a sealed envelope. The first competition day is a bit of a disaster. Each of the our teams made a silly mistake which results in penalties. All the SA team members are lying between 30th and 44th place. The local French team is doing well as are the Poles (of course). As a country we are lying in 9th place, far below our expectations.

As a result of a protest by Poland a number of legs are cancelled. The instructions in the sealed envelope follow after three turning points from the turning point that indicates which envelope must be opened. The rules require four points.

The route for the second day of the competition was similar to the first day. A long time to plot, an arc to fly and an away landing.

The South African team had an even worse day than day one. Most of the team do not see that they were not allowed to fly over a small village that was situated on the flight path immediately after the touch and go away landing. This resulted in 200 penalties. Added to that were a few missed check points, a some incorrect plots, a bad landing or two and a number of missed photos. Frank Eckard fare the best of our team with 658 points. They are followed by Barry de Groot and Mary de Klerk who flew incredibly accurately (46 flight penalty points) but ended on 686 points due to the landings, en-route photos and the penalty for overflying the village.

The top South African team is only in 32nd place. A huge disappointment for the team. The dissapointment is tempered slightly when the team manager, Chris Booysen, is called up at the prize giving to accept the Credit Agricole Trophy for “Team Spirit and Fair Play”.

Full results and pictures can be found at the Official Troyes Website

Pictures taken by various team members
Ernie and Francois
New SA Team Ernie and Francois		 Emily, Chris and Frank
Emily of the Info Desk		 Anita, Lorraine and Barry
After a hard day
Typical scenery
Typical scenery of the area		 Typical scenery
Typical scenery of the area		 Typical scenery
Typical scenery of the area

 

SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL PRECISION AND RALLY FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Ladysmith 22 to 25 March 2006

By Adrian Pilling

Competitors at the 2006 National Flying Championships
Competitors and officials.

Ladysmith has been a bit neglected in recent years by the flying community and this year a perfect opportunity presented itself to rectify the situation. Ladysmith was chosen as the host airfield for this prestigious event, and what’s more it was a combined event featuring several disciplines, namely Precision Flying, Rally Flying and Virtual Flying.

The Sunday before the event (19th March), the teams started arriving and put their time to good use practicing in the unfamiliar terrain. Most of the teams arrived the following day and checked into the airport motel. Suddenly, the place was a buzz with excitement as old acquaintances were renewed and friendships made. The locals were out in force supporting the teams and a great camaraderie was developing amongst the flyers and their supporters.

Much training was being done with the odd avoiding action being taken, in order to skirt the ever present thunderstorms that completely flooded valleys and swelled rivers well beyond what they looked like on the map, representing a serious challenge to the crews navigating ability.

Much training was being done with the odd avoiding action being taken, in order to skirt the ever present thunderstorms that completely flooded valleys and swelled rivers well beyond what they looked like on the map, representing a serious challenge to the crews navigating ability.

Wednesday – 22 March

The day dawned grey and murky. Immediately the organizers factored in a one hour delay. The wind was gusting up to 20 knots which was a big shock to the pilots (who had been training in relative calm) and it was decided, after much discussion about the bad weather, that the best thing to do was to complete the flight planning for Navigation Test #01. This was duly completed in the hangar and several hours later the crews emerged having completed this exercise.

officials at the 2006 National Flying Championships
Dave Perelson, Dicky Swanepoel and Chris Booysen checking the cross-wind component.

The competition committee, ever worried about the weather, then decided to run the landing competition immediately, in order to get this aspect “in the bag” as soon as possible. Well this turned out to be a really fun event with pilots battling to make the “Bingo Line” as the wind was pumping down the runway and gusting wildly. The glide approaches without flap were particularly challenging. However several pilots managed to get “bingos” and after several hours we all came back to the hangar for a briefing.

The weather was still threatening so rest of the day was dedicated to the flight planning section for Navigation Test #02 and this was duly done, again in the hangar. This proved to be the correct decision as at least now we had the basis for a competition result.

The provisional results were posted on the board and the landing results were: First Place Adrian Pilling (17 penalties), Second Place Jan Hanekom (23 penalties), Third Place Ron Stirk (57 penalties), Fourth Place Frank Eckard (66 penalties), Fifth Place Mary de Klerk (118 penalties), with the rest of the field scoring higher penalties as a direct result of the very unstable weather.

The flight Planning results were also posted with most people scoring between 0 and 10 penalties. Some however were caught out by the strong theoretical computer wind added by the competition committee.

Thursday 23rd March

The day dawned bleak and grey. The organizers were really concerned about the weather and decided to investigate the route themselves. Eventually after a check flight by the competition director to ascertain the weather conditions, the route was declared a “go”.

Navigation Test #01 was flown with the pilots departing at 10 minute intervals. The route took the crews up into the mountains and with the strong rains in the area many of the rivers were unrecognizable. The mountain tops were in and out of the clouds and all round it was most challenging for the pilots. The route lasted over an hour and a quarter and most of the pilots incurred big penalties due to bad weather and unfamiliar terrain. Many pilots had to take avoiding actions, but making it through. Jan Hanekom having particularly difficulty on one leg as the weather closed in and the cloud base dropped alarmingly.

Mary de Klerk - Landing
Mary in ZS-KXF landing well short

The provisional results for the first flight and the previous day’s theory (adjusted) were posted almost immediately and they were:

  • Jan Hanekom – 276
  • Adrian Pilling – 280
  • Barry de Groot – 485
  • Ron Stirk – 762
  • Mary de Klerk – 763
  • Frank Eckard – 851
  • Walter Walle – 1460
  • Hans Schwebel – 1593
  • Wayne Bond – 1808
  • Ernie Alexander – 1808
  • Quentin Taylor – 2954

A quick lunch was had by all, organized by the local Wimpy and then back into the planes for Navigation Test #02.

This Test was flown more to the North West of Ladysmith and offered some spectacular scenery including the well known Van Reenen’s Pass. The weather had lifted somewhat but was still not ideal, with the odd cloud belt drifting in front of crews. Mary had to divert on one leg as the cloud obscured her track.

This route lasted just over an hour and the competitors for the most part did better than earlier. Again the competition committee was really on top of things and the provisional results were posted within minutes of the last pilot returning. The results, including the previous day’s landings were:

  • Jan Hanekom – 354
  • Adrian Pilling – 368
  • Hans Schwebel – 898
  • Barry de Groot – 929
  • Frank Eckard – 981
  • Ron Stirk – 1002
  • Mary de Klerk – 1022
  • Ernie Alexander – 1261
  • Walter Walle – 1470
  • Wayne Bond – 2063
  • Quentin Taylor – 2356
  • Larry v d Merwe – 2164 (a new competitor flying in the sportsman class for the first time)

When the crews returned the Competition Director had decided to cancel TP6 and secret check 9 on route #01. The provisional results reflected this. A protest had been received. As this would require the convening of a Jury to rule on the protest the final results would be delayed until such time as the protest had been dealt with.

Virtual Aviators
Smittie and Hein hard at work

A full briefing was held at 18:30 for all the crews. This served as a roll call for the following days National Rally Flying Championships. All the activity and the fun had by local newcomer Larry van der Merwe gave some more locals the courage to enter. This boosted the number of entries in the Sportsman class. The Virtual Flyers also took part in the Rally event.

Friday 25th March

The day dawned with mixed weather, clearing slightly but completely flyable. The first crew received papers at 10h15 and were airborne at 10h30. The flight was approximately two hours. This two crew competition introduced new tricks to the mix as the competitors had to follow a railway line on one of the legs. This curved track proving challenging as there were three photos cunningly placed along the railway line.

The returning planes were then treated to a spot landing penalty that was added to the total penalties. After shutting down, the crews had only 5 minutes to complete their paperwork and then hand the completed sheets to the organizers. Then the debriefing followed and finally the provisional results were posted on the notice board. It should be noted that the virtual flyers had the same route, the same photos and the same timing as the “Real Crews”, most impressive. At the end of the day the results were:-

Open Class

  • Barry de Groot & Mary de Klerk – 286
  • Jan Hanekom & Henk Koster – 440
  • Ernie Alexander & Mike Ehrman – 506
  • Hans Schwebel & Ron Stirk – 606
  • Frank Eckard & Quentin Taylor – 756
  • Walter Walle & Dale Joseph – 948
  • Wayne Bond & Greg Wooding – 2624

Sportsman Class

  • Cornel Block & Tony Martyn – 1906
  • Larry vd Merwe & Larry vd Merwe – 2680

Virtual Aviators

  • Smittie Smith & Hein Strydom- 2588
  • Johan van Wyk & Mike Robinson – 2627
  • Rassie Erasmus (no navigator) – 2798

Much fun was had by all and finally after a pub supper the crews retired for the night.

Saturday 26th March

The crews woke late and knew that there would be a delay. The cloud was low and it had rained all night. After a briefing it was decided to run the event even though it was raining. The first planes would take off at 11h00.

The route was a testing one with some people missing checkpoints due to low cloud. In order to avoid the weather the organizers removed three legs from the track and still there were weather problems. At the end of the route the crews knew that their landings would count and after the same routine as yesterday the provisional results were posted. The sportsman class counted only day 2 for the final awards.

Newcomers and local entrants Paolo and Shane found that it is difficult for the organisers to score their efforts if the GPS logger is under the seat. They must have hit some turbulence after the 3rd checkpoint as the logger did not record anything after that.

The results for the day were:-

Open Class

  • Frank Eckard & Quentin Taylor – 394
  • Hans Schwebel & Ron Stirk – 688
  • Barry de Groot & Mary de Klerk – 1034
  • Jan Hanekom & Henk Koster – 1686
  • Wayne Bond & Greg Wooding – 1984
  • Walter Walle & Dale Joseph – 2066
  • Ernie Alexander & Mike Ehrman – 2522

Sportsman Class

  • Mike Richmond & Jeff Richmond – 562
  • Chris Linakis & Blaine Carstens – 869
  • Cornel Block & Tony Martyn – 2877
  • Larry vd Merwe & Larry vd Merwe – 3197
  • Wichardt Olivier & Francois du Toit – 3575
  • Paolo Cerrai & Shane Sinclair – 3898

Virtual Class

  • Johan van Wyk & Mike Robertson – 821
  • Rassie Erasmus (no navigator) – 1222
  • Merwe (Smittie) Smith & Hein Strydom – 2016

The crews and families had a great afternoon letting their hair down and generally relaxing. The hangar war prepared and turned into a great banqueting hall for the final prize giving event.

The final results for both competitions were as follows:-

National Precision Flying Championships

Jan Hanekom
S A Precision Flying Champion – Jan Hanekom
  • 1st Place Jan Hanekom – 630
  • 2nd Place Adrian Pilling – 648
  • 3rd Place Barry de Groot – 1414
  • 4th Place Ron Stirk – 1764
  • 5th Place Mary de Klerk – 1785
  • 6th Place Frank Eckard – 1832
  • 7th Place Hans Schwebel – 2491
  • 8th Place Walter Walle – 2930
  • 9th Place Ernie Alexander – 3069
  • 10th Place Wayne Bond – 3853
  • 11th Place Quentin Taylor – 5355
  • Landing Champion – Adrian Pilling.
  • 2nd Place Landings – Jan Hanekom
  • 3rd Place Landings – Ron Stirk
  • Observation Trophy – Jan Hanekom

National Rally Flying Championships

Virtual Aviators

  • 1st Place John van Wyk & Mike Robertson – 3619
  • 2nd Place Rassie Erasmus – 3849
  • 3rd Place Smittie Smith & Hein Strydom – 4606

Sportsman Class

  • 1st Place Mike Richmond & Jeff Richmond – 562
  • 2nd Place Chris Linakis & Blaine Carstens – 869
  • 3rd Place Cornel Blok & Tony Martyn – 2877
  • 4th Place Larry vd Merwe (Snr and Jnr) – 3197
  • 5th Place Wichardt Olivier & Francois Du Toit – 3575
  • 6th Place Paolo Cerrai & Shane Sinclair – 3898
Frank Eckard and Quentin Taylor
S A Rally Flying Champions – Frank Eckard and Quentin Taylor

Open Class

  • 1st Place Frank Eckard & Quentin Taylor – 1150
  • 2nd Place Hans Schwebel & Ron Stirk – 1294
  • 3rd Place Barry de Groot & Mary de Klerk – 1320
  • 4th Place Jan Hanekom & Henk Koster – 2126
  • 5th Place Walter Walle & Dale Joseph – 3014
  • 6th Place Ernie Alexander & Mike Ehrman – 3028
  • 7th Place Wayne Bond & Greg Wooding – 4608
  • Observation Trophy: Frank Eckard & Quentin Taylor

A fine prize giving was held in the hangar and the guest of honour was her worship the Mayor of Ladysmith, Dudu Mazibuko accompanied by a senior advisor to the Premier’s Office. Several crews received their provincial colours and Henk Koster has officially qualified as a member of the team to the World Championships in France this year. After a great evening the crews sang Shosholoza and then got into the party spirit with a great braai with the locals.

It was a great weeks flying with much fun and flying had by all. It goes without saying that this event could not have happened without the huge input from the Ladysmith Flying Club and their very friendly members. Although we are scared of leaving anybody out the following must be mentioned: – John Trollip President and in charge of Fuel. Larry vd Merwe is the immediate past President, in charge of all the arrangements, Cornell and Leonie Block for organizing the food, Vaughan for keeping the bar stocked and to all the others who ran around and made an airfield our home. Also to the guys that vacated the hangar to make space for the competing aircraft. One only had to look on with amazement as Walter Walle directed the aircraft into the hangar at night

In addition the following need to be thanked for their huge help. Mr David Perelson – Chief Judge, Chris Booysen – the Competition Director, Denise Booysen – Competition Secretary, Dickie Swanepoel – Chief of the Jury and Jacques Jacobs – Chief Marshal. Wives and friends for going the extra mile. Well done to you all and thanks for making the championships special.

Till Next Year.

South African National Precision Flying Championships – Ladysmith 2006 – Detailed Results

Day One Day Two
Pos Name Reg Class Prov The Mkrs Photo Flight Other Tot The Mkrs Photo Flight Other Tot Land Grand Total
1 Jan Hanekom CVA O 4 0 0 327 0 331 0 0 90 186 0 276 23 630
2 Adrian Pilling KXF O 1 0 20 330 0 351 0 0 40 240 0 280 17 648
3 Barry de Groot APF O 4 0 20 677 0 701 2 0 40 443 0 485 228 1414
4 Ron Stirk IWD O 86 0 60 799 0 945 0 0 80 682 0 762 57 1764
5 Mary de Klerk KXF O 0 0 60 844 0 904 2 0 40 721 0 763 118 1785
6 Frank Eckard MOC O 15 0 0 900 0 915 4 0 40 807 0 851 66 1832
7 Hans Schwebel IWD O 11 0 20 582 0 613 0 0 100 1493 0 1593 285 2491
8 Walter Walle KNI O 3 0 40 1175 0 1218 0 0 80 1380 0 1460 252 2930
9 Ernie Alexander AHM O 0 0 40 509 0 549 16 0 80 1712 0 1808 712 3069
10 Wayne Bond DVA O 2 0 80 1599 0 1681 43 0 120 1627 0 1790 382 3853
11 Quentin Taylor MOC O 45 0 140 1516 0 1701 33 0 165 2756 0 2954 700 5355
1 Larry van der Merwe DOW S 11 0 120 2579 0 2710 0 0 120 2744 0 2864 386 5960
Max score 350 0 160 3400 0 3910 350 0 160 3800 0 4310 700 8920

More Pictures of the National Flying Championships
Click to enlarge
Driving to Ladysmith
Sample of weather – Practice day		 Aircraft loggers
Aircraft loggers – waiting for the start		 Theory in progress
Theory in progress
Landing spectators
Landing spectators in the rain		 The Virtual Aviating Team
The Virtual Aviating Team		 Scoring the event
Scoring the event
Precision Sportman Class Winner
Precision Sportman Class Winner – Larry v d Merwe		 Trophy table
Trophy table		 Rally Sportman Class Winner
Rally Sportman Class Winner
Ladysmith hangar
Ladysmith Hangar – before		 Ladysmith hangar
Ladysmith Hangar – after		 Ladysmith hangar
Ladysmith – parked aircraft
Ladysmith Airfield
Ladysmith Airfield

EC Precision Flying Championships

Held at Uitenhage on 24 September 2005

By Roger Thomas

I was quite indecisive and very non committal about entering the Eastern Cape Provincial Precisions competition. After having achieved some taste of success in normal rally flying with my team member Tracy Simms, it was pretty intimidating thinking that I now had to do the navigating, time keeping and picture spotting and all simultaneously too!

Marshalls setting up the landing box at the 2005 East Cape Precision Flying Championships
Johan Gous, Ray Limbrik and Ronnie Zucher setting up the landing box.

What if I got lost? That was by far the greatest fear – then all would know for certain that I was the ‘handicap’ in the Simms/Thomas rally team. Also in a precision competition, being a solo event, there would be no one to blame or share the blame with. Scary!

Add to this mix the fact that the likes of the real Springbok manne like Hans Schwebel, Ron Stirk, Mauritz du Plessis and Barry de Groot would be competing in the same competition at the same level as you. That is enough to frighten anyone off.

I delayed my entry, at least until I could attend a tutorial session along with Thinus Maritz, AJ van Rensburg, and a rival team on the rallying front, of Johnny Ferreira and Anthony Bailes. The tutorial session led by Dave Perelson re-introduced us to the whiz wheel and other aspects relating to the theory of precision flying. It was clear that, other than Anthony, who flies commercially, all of us had not touched a whiz wheel since our PPL theory. By golly – that thing is actually darn useful – and it doesn’t require batteries.

Ron Stirk lining up for a Bingo at the 2005 East Cape Precision Flying Championships
Ron Stirk lining up for a “Bingo”.

With theory lecture done and a little more confidence, I decided to give it a go. What is the worst that can happen? I could end up having some fun at worst (and maybe get laughed at too by your mates – but hey, I have learned to laugh along with them). With a field of 16 competitors I might not even come last.

The trip out to Uitenhage was pretty uneventful, other than the butterflies in my stomach wanted to fly their own way to FAUH. I think the worst of it, was the fact that my take off time was pretty late in the morning, so the nerves really had time to fester themselves. Luckily Ursula Schwebel was on hand and she had some little calming pills to take care of the little suckers that had now grown to full maturity in my intestines. Who knew that some of the aforementioned manne also required tummy settling pills?

Finally, it was time to do my bit. The theory section went pretty much as I expected and for a first timer, I was happy with my 16 out of the maximum 350 penalty points.

The one thing I did learn was that there is more than sufficient time between the theory and the actual flight to prepare your map. I had enough time to really study the map in detail and to try and almost visualize the flight.

Winner of the Sportsman Class - Rod Crews with Denise Booysen
Rod Crews (1st Sportsman Class) with Denise Booysen.

One aspect that I slipped up on, was relying too heavily on local knowledge. I believe that being a local can sometimes be a handicap. My slip up was that I looked at the start point and thought to myself – ahh, I know where that is – I have flown past that railway junction a million times – all without really confirming the location as you would normally if you had no local knowledge. Needless to say I started at the wrong point about 2 miles to the East of the actual start. After the start I thought to myself – Wow this wind is strong, as I confirmed that I was way East of where I should have been.

This faux pas was responsible for me incurring quite a number of time penalties for the first 2 legs as I struggled to get back on time. But for me, my main aim for the day was not so much being on time, as it was not to get lost. I accepted that I was not going to win a precision my first time out! 😉 I believe there are some school fees to be paid in partaking in these events and thus also did not concentrate too much on photo identification.

On to the spot landings. Okay so now I had to remember the order in which they had to be performed. First is a normal approach, second was to be a glide approach closing the throttle at 1000ft on the downwind leg abeam the landing grid, the third a glide and no use of flaps, and lastly over the 2m obstacle. I resorted to writing N, G, GF, O on my left hand thumb so I would not forget the correct order.

2005 East Cape Precision Champion Barry de Groot with Denise Booysen
2005 East Cape Precision Champion Barry de Groot receiving his trophy from Denise Booysen.

I was pretty happy with my spot landing performance until the last one. I still want to object to the marshal who dropped the obstacle as he thought I was going to hit it! Bloody chicken! I was far from hitting it! 😉 Ah well I still had loads of fun, and quite honestly I do not think the 400 penalties incurred on that one landing were going to make a huge difference to me coming third last in the competition!

I think I talk on behalf of all the competitors when we would like to thank Dave Perelson, Glen Meyburgh for the great competition – it really was loads of fun. Also to the marshals of the day Chris Booysen, Jacques Jacobs, Francois Knoetze, Marna Kruger, Alison Leitch, Ray Limbrik, Denise Booysen and Ursula Schwebel, for standing in the sun and wind so that we could have the fun day. Also to Glynis Truter who drove a barrel of the good stuff (Avgas) to FAUH to assist with refueling. Many thanks also goes to the residents of the Uitenhage airfield for allowing us to use the airfield for the day and giving us right of way, not to mention the tasty refreshments they had for us on sale, especially to Johan Gous, Herman van Teylingen and Ronnie Zucher. Lastly, thank you to the out of towners for taking the time to come to Port Elizabeth and contribute to the spirit of the competition – we really enjoyed having you visit us.

If you have never taken part in a precision or rally and thinking about it – go for it. From the little experience I have gained – if you approach it with the attitude of going to have some fun – I can guarantee you that you will!