Articles Rally (Page 12)

1984 National Air Navigation Rally

Vanderbijlpark – 14 April 1984

Article in S A Aeronews – May 1984

On Saturday, the 14th April, 40 aircraft took off on a bright and sunny autumn morning to compete in this year’s Placo National Precision Navigation Rally. And again this event proved to be one of the highlights of the power flying calendar. Run with the same precision required from the pilots, the day went off like clockwork, and the general consensus from the competitors was that the organisational standard was again high. Down from the 48 entrants last year, event director, Tony Pennel, also power flying committee member of the Acro Club, prescribes this to the fact that this year’s rally was held right in the middle of the Transvaal school holidays.

As with last year, Vanderbijlpark Municipal airfield was the venue, and the local flying club provided the same high standard of service and catering. Because the event was so close to our printing deadline, we had no time to get our photographs together, but will feature a photo essay in next month’s issue.

The rally was flown over two legs, one in the morning (starting at 9:30am) and one in the afternoon (1:30pm). Both legs are time over distance tasks and for the first leg in the morning pilots were given flight plans that included true headings, co-ordinates and ground speeds from which times are calculated. This means that pilots and navigators have to keep on track, on time, all the time. Checkpoints, both secret and manned are dotted along the route where time and track are checked. The end of both legs is overhead the Holiday. Inn, and then pilots go on to finish for the spot landing section of the rally. The morning requires a power on landing and in the afternoon a power off glide approach. The landings had to be done over a 2m high barrier located 50 metres before the zero line. Dennis Jankelow in a TC Bonanza can tell you all about the banner, as he wanted to take it home with him as a trophy. This was an area of the rally that gave most pilots a lot of trouble, and 16 of the competitors in the power on section scored a maximum 100 point penalty. Only two managed a zero. The common problem was that the approach glide slope and initial circuit altitude were too low, and they had to apply power on very late finals, giving them too much speed and inertia with no attitude. Flaps were useless and most aircraft should have paid up to 8 landing fees. Mooney ZS-FHM gave a particularly hairy display on both landings.

The afternoon leg gave pilots a lot to worry about, and was divided into three tasks. One was a group of eight circles in which a photographic reference point had to be identified, one of which didn’t exist inside the circle, (just to make matters more interesting). Secondly, a series of trig beacons on route had to be identified, with only the total distance supplied. Some beacons were but mere miles apart. The third task was to fly a curved track that was drawn on the last section of the map and again at a given constant ground speed, with the last checkpoint over the hotel. The afternoon proved to very demanding and took its toll on the competitors, who missed beacons, couldn’t identify features from photos, and found the curved track more difficult than it looked.

After a ding dong battle between the top ten competitors all day, last year’s winners Gavin Beck (navigator) and Chris Kyle (pilot) in a Cessna 172 ZS-JTC again showed their consistent skill and took the navigational section honours of the rally. This year the overall results were a lot closer than last year, and showed a vast improvement in the general standard. The spot landing section was won by Bob Olthoff in a Piper Cherokee ZS-ESV with a 35 metre total error, including a zero in the morning. (33 entrants scoring the 100 point maximum penalty in the afternoon landing.)

The evening’s festivities at the Riverside Holiday Inn again featured a great meal and cabaret with Brian Mulder. After the prizegiving and some revelry the tired, but satisfied competitors turned in after another very enjoyable event.

Our thanks to Acro Club of S A for organising a super event, to Placo (Pty) Ltd for their sponsorship of a route recce aircraft and marshalling aircraft and enthusiastic control marshalls on the day, and also the engineers and mobile workshops and prize fund contributions.

Results Navigation Rally

• 1. ZS-ITC – C Kyle/G Beck – Cessna 172 – 175 points
• 2. ZS-ESV – B Olthoff/S Levin – Piper Cherokee – 180 points
• 3. ZS-KXR – I Boyd/G MacKenzie – Cessna 210 – 186 points
• 4. ZS-IUY – M Spence/A Down – Cessna 182 – 215 points
• 5. ZS-JMW – P Wotherspoon/F Moolman – Cessna 177 – 224 points
• 6. ZS-IFB – D Tarboton/V Kaiser – Cessna 182 – 232 points
• 7. ZS-IFT – M Nathan/J Stratford – Cessna 172 – 236 points
• 8. ZS-KSI – K Grinaker/B Eager – Cessna 210 – 240 points
• 9. ZS-IIY – G Sweidan/J Allison – Cessna 150 – 253 points
• 10. ZS-FUD – N Jacob/S Louw – Cessna 172 – 261 points

Landing Competition

• 1. ZS-ESV – B Olthoff – Piper Cherokee – 35 metres
• 2. ZS-KCZ – G Vos/E Bekker – Cessna 172 – 51 metres
• 3. ZS-FWP – D Hague/J Snow – Piper Cherokee – 67 metres

1st Novice

• ZS-IFT – M Nathan/J Stratford – Cessna 172 – 236 points

Directors Award

• Only aircraft with zero photograph task errors. ZS-AGM I Anderson/G Hugo Maule

Team Prizes

• 1. Aero Club of South Africa
• 2. Wits Flying Club
• 3. Pietermaritzburg Flying Club

Let’s Standardise

Article in S A Aeronews – June 1983

By Tony Pennell

The Aero Club power flying committee has voted to introduce a standardisation of air rally event format based largely on the World Air Rally Championships for all provincial status events in the future. In addition it is proposed to have a national status event held annually which will rotate by incorporation in one of the provincial events, commencing with the Western Province event in December 1983.

By creating a prestigious series with a regular National Event, Air Rallying will surely be put on the ‘Aviation Map’. This will in addition enhance the potential of worthwhile sponsorship and publicity. Attempts at standardisation in the past have been frustrated by petty self interest of organising clubs, officials who have had diversified ideas on air rally conduct, the non-existence of a worthwhile national status event, and the lack of regular Springbok participation in the World Air Rally Championships.

It is not generally known by the S.A. flying fraternity that there are two distinct World Championships which rotate on a bi-annual basis. One is a Precision Flying Championship which involves judgement of precision landing tasks as well as a navigation cross country exercise, each team com promising three ‘solo’ flown aircraft, and the Air Rally Championship which has the emphasis on a series of cross country precision navigation tasks including a judged landing at the end of each exercise. Teams comprising three aircraft flown with pilot and navigator crews.

For 1983 the World Precision Flying Championships will be held in Norway and regrettably due to political pressures R S A has not been invited to compete. However, for 1984 the World Air Rally Championships are scheduled to be held in Italy and the Springboks have been invited to attend.

In the past, selection of the Springbok team has largely been based on results of the S.A. National Precision Flying Championships, with teams representing provinces plus past national winners by pre-qualifications, competing in a somewhat ‘closed shop’ event.

The national event in recent years adopted the World Championships format, but selection of the provincial teams has been based on a private flying DCA type test with no navigation required! The glaring inconsistency here is that a top navigator may never come to the notice of the Aero Club Springbok selection committee by virtue of the fact that he is not a good upper air work flyer capable of featuring in results of a DCA type flight test. Most provincial status events in the past have been poorly supported with absurd situations occurring where competitors were co-opted from spectators on the day!

For 1983 the system remains much ‘as before’ due mainly to the lack of time and the fact that a Springbok team will be competing this year. However, for the World Air Rally event in 1984 to be held in August, the Aero Club is proposing to rethink the criteria by which selection of a meritorious Springbok team should be made for 1984. There are two alternatives open or even a combination of both.

1. A series of standardised provincial events based largely on the world format including landing competitions and photographs, to include the national event with a points system to determine the top national crews. This series to replace or be incorporated in the existing calendared provincial air rallies.

2. A complete change for 1983 of the existing format of the National Flying Championships both at Provincial and National levels to a more suitable event based on the World Air Rally tasks.

There are arguments for and against both proposals and the cry will be heard, ‘what about the social rally competitor and crews who can’t afford to compete in events other than their home province’. The answer lies much the same as in any sporting involvement, you reach the top by enthusiasm, dedication, determination, practice and above all, competition. Standardisation and acceptance of the proposed rally format has, by and large, already been instrumented in most provinces during 1982. There was nothing but acclaim for the Southern Transvaal, Natal, E & W Province events last year both from social and serious competitors. Free State introduced photographs as far back as 1977 so there is nothing new or radical in the proposed standardisation. The events can only grow in stature by virtue of the ‘over border sorties’ of crews and the resultant healthy competition will produce competent pilots and navigators worthy of national selection thereby avoiding the embarrassment of a Springbok placing last overall as happened in the 1981 World Championships. Most provincial events, due to the weather consideration, are held in the July to October period with the exception of Cape Town in December. Some will be after the World event in 1984 hence the possibility of alternative (2) for next year.

The problem here lies in the number of likely competitors for a special series outside the traditional dates so early in the year. The concentration of such a series over a short period of time would probably preclude some crews who could otherwise afford to campaign during the ‘normal’ year. In addition the problem of weather at that time of year is ever present.

Having considered all the pros and cons the Aero Club is looking to use the 1983 air rally season as a trial series and even if a points system is not finalised with all the events still to come, including the National Air Rally scheduled for Cape Town, it is quite probable that the team to represent RSA in Italy next year will be selected from performances and results from the 1983 air rally series in addition to the results of the National Precision Flying Championships.

It should be emphasised here that selection of Springbok teams in the past has been made with due consideration to past consistency of performance in rallies and flying championships and not necessarily on results of the current years Precision Flying Nationals.

The series commences in Natal during July and will culminate with the Western Province event in Cape Town in December. There is only one event in the Transvaal, scheduled for 20th August. The July 22nd and 23rd date for the SA National Navigation Rally has been deleted from the calendar.

As most of this years event directors are closely associated with the Aero Club, the proposed series should be a worthwhile challenge to both aspiring national status crews and social competitor alike. See you there!