Articles Rally (Page 14)

11th February 2017

By Cally Eckard

It was 13^th time lucky for this event, with no incidences for organiser Frank Eckard.  Rand Airport waived landing fees for the sixteen aircraft who took part, and provided Paul Roberts to be the Safety Officer for the event.

The weather was perfect, and the route took the competitors to the Vaal River, and across the wall of the Vaal Dam and then across the dam, with part of the route requiring the pilots to fly along the river.  Beautiful views of a nearly-full dam and rivers and streams bursting their banks and green fields from horizon to horizon were a welcome sight.  The return journey was almost a straight line back to Rand, with only one crew mistakenly grazing the fringes of OT airspace, in their effort to find Rand Airport’s runway.  Two teams flew helicopters, one of them, manned by Jason Stimson and William Levene, achieving a respectable fourth place.

Teams consisting of pilots and navigators who both have their colours flew in the Unlimited category.  For the first time, another category was introduced, being the Advanced category, consisting of one Fun Rally pilot and one pilot who has earned their colours either as a navigator or as a pilot.  The Protea team are trying to encourage keen pilots and navigators to participate in Nationals, and flying with them in order to share their skills.  Jonty Esser, who scored a perfect 0 was the only participant in the Precision category, where only a pilot takes part.   The other teams flew in the Fun Rally category.

Protea  navigator Mary de Klerk and Karl Jensen, who have flown this rally for the last few years, earned first place in this new category.   Newcomers to rally, Willem Greyling and Gavin Lundie won the prestigious Rand Airport Challenge trophy in the Fun Rally section, beating the other 10 teams.

The Fun Rally section was hotly contested, and the five top places were:

The Advanced Class results were as follows:

The Precision section:

And the Unlimited category:

The very popular Virginia Fun Rally has been postponed.  Please keep your eyes peeled for the new date.  The next event is the Precisions National Championships, with a Fun Rally on the Saturday, venue and date to be announced.    Three Training Camps will be held leading up to Nationals.  Please watch the SAPFA website for updated information.

Full Results Below:

19 November 2016

By Cally Eckard

Eight teams participated in this rally, four of them first-timers, who now describe themselves as hooked on the sport.  Roger Bizzoli organised the event, and made sure the competitors and spectators were well supplied with breakfast and coffee.

The weather was overcast with high cloud, so the competition was postponed by an hour, so organiser Frank Eckard took the opportunity to explain some of the finer points of rally flying while we waited for the weather to lift.

The route included a sizeable stretch of the Vaal River, and the teams had to follow the course of the river before turning back to the airfield.  However, one team inadvertently crossed the river without noticing it, and were only alerted to this fact once they spotted Letaba Power Station.  Another crew saw the Start Point, but chose the wrong heading and managed to miss crossing the Start Line altogether, but got back on course immediately and found all of the other turnpoints.

The crews managed to find most of the photographs, which is quite an admirable feat for people new to this sport.  In fact, father-and-son team Arthur and Graeme de Kock found all the photographs and plotted them all accurately, receiving the top score of 0.

Six teams took part in the Fun Rally, and Ron Stirk took part in the Open Precision category, and Thys van der Merwe and his navigator Keaton Perkins took part in the Open Rally category.

Chairman Dave Gill during the prize giving explained that Bob Hay was a long-standing member of Johannesburg Light Plane Club, situated at Baragwanath Airfield.  Although not an instructor, he was the go-to person for any pilot who had any queries or needed advice regarding flying and aerodynamics.  He was also three times South African Aerobatics Pilot.

Prizes were handed out by Dave Gill and Frank Eckard.  Arthur and Graeme de Kock are now the proud winners of the Bob Hay Memorial Trophy.

The results were as follows:

The Fun Rally section :

The Open Class results were as follows:

That ends our rally program for this year.

The next Fun Rally is the Rand Airport Challenge on Saturday 28 January.  All welcome.  Please enter online.

by Rob Jonkers (photos by Willie Bodenstein)

The South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) together with the Superior Pilot Services (SPS) organised a successful Navigation Fun Rally on Saturday 29^thOctober 2016.

Under the Stewardship of SAPFA’s Rob Jonkers who planned & plotted the course, a total of 16 entrants registered to partake in the rally, although only 12 eventually were able to take part, some of them having had to withdraw due to an Avgas shortage.

There were 7 crews from SPS, all commercial pilot students getting their first experience in the art of Navigation Rally flying. SPS instructors Leonard Edwards and Johann Oosthuizen provided the SPS students with two training sessions prior to the event to prepare them for the route which had to be plotted from a task sheet.

Most competitors arrived by 7:30 on Saturday morning to start the plotting activity which took the best part of 2 hours with the first aircraft off at 9:45.

The weather forecast for the day was given to be very clear, temperatures getting up to 34 Deg C with some wind. The wind, although starting out at less than 10kts increased during the day to around 15 kts, with the 2^nd group of competitors taking the brunt of the turbulence and heat, with some of crews having to turn back feeling somewhat queasy.

The route was planned to go out north, into familiar territory for the Grand Central based crews as most of the legswere in their training backyard. The start and finish points were just north of the N14 in the narrow Special Rules corridor between the Waterkloof&Lanseria airspace, and from there the route went out over the Hartebeespoort dam, across the Magalies ridge and into the scenic Crocodile river valley, then east across to Soshanguve  and back across the ridge to the finish.

From the GPS logger plot results, it could be seen the teams were struggling to slow down enough on the eastern & southern legs with many zig-zags being evident to counter the stronger wind at altitude.

There was one photo per leg that needed to be recognized, many of them were at least spotted by the crews, including a bonus photo which was one of those irresistible features (Stadium) that had to be found somewhere along the route, and which many crews did find in Attridgeville on the last leg.

After all the scores were tallied, prize-giving was held in the briefing area, where the first three places went to Leonard Edwards and DinokengSethusa who came 1^st with 60 penalty points with no timing errors, Pierre Dippenaar & Martin Meyer who came 2^nd with 124 penalty points, and Tristan McMillan & Andre Kluyts who came 3^rd with 426 penalty points.

There was only one advanced entrant, that of Frank & Cally Eckard scoring 254penalty points under advanced rules of a 5 second window at each turning point, and two Precision Rally entrants who fly solo where timing accuracy is very key to attracting very few penalties.

With this rally with 11 turning points, an additional 13 secret timing points were added making a total of 24 timing points which the precision flyers were marked on. In this category Hans Schwebel came 1^st with 513 penalty points with Mauritz du Plessis (with Bennie du Plessis as observer) coming 2^nd with 1042 penalty points.

This event was for sure enjoyed by all, most entrants never having flown a rally before, getting an understanding of flying with more precision, especially in the slower flight regime, and having to deal with wind variation. Many thanks extended to SPS for making all the arrangements with Grand Central Management as well as to Leon Boutell for being the chief judge for the event.