Stellenbosch airfield 30th Oct – 2 Nov 2019

Mary de Klerk – Photos Mary de Klerk & Rob Jonkers

South Africa and the South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) has won the bid to host the 2020 World Rally Flying Championships where Stellenbosch Airfield in the Western Cape has been selected as the Airfield of choice.SAPFA has previously hosted:
1991 – 7th World Rally Flying Championships- Stellenbosch Airfield
2003 – 13th World Rally Flying Championships- Pilanesberg Airfield
2011 – 20th World Precision Flying Championships – Brits Airfield

The picturesque Stellenbosch Airfield

In 2020, the Aero Club of South Africa and the South African Power Flying Association will be celebrating their 100th Centenary Birthday. This World Championship competition will be an integral part of our celebrations.

The Programme:
7th to 14th Nov 2020 Unofficial practice
15th to 21st Nov 2020 World Rally Flying Championships
22nd to 25TH Nov 2020 General Aviation Committee (GAC) Annual meeting

 

The teams participating on Competition Day
 

Competition Director Colin Jordaan – briefing the teams

The sport of Rally Flying is aimed to improve fundamental flying skills to enable a team (Rally Crew of 2) to navigate and handle their aircraft under Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) as independent of technical subsystems as possible. Thus Rally Flying enhances flying safety.

This overall aim for Rally Flying is achieved by:

1. Emphasizing the ability to navigate by following a set of route instructions, using basic equipment
2. Emphasizing the ability to follow a precise track while adhering closely to a timing test (punctuality test)
3. Emphasizing the ability to perform realistic observation tasks while navigating the aircraft on a timing test (observation test)
4. Emphasizing the ability to handle the aircraft on short and narrow landing strips (landing test)

 

Flying the Mountain practice route – up through Bains Kloof Pass

The above tasks would demonstrate the team’s ability to perform accurately and safely. Penalties are awarded for each error incurred and the team with the lowest penalties over all competition days is ultimately the winner. The winning country is selected from the top 2 team scores from each country. The competition map is a topographical map to the scale of 1:200 000. The routes will be set by the expert Protea Team of Frank and Cally Eckard and will be planned in the Special Rules Area, under the TMA, so maximum heights are restricted to 2000 ft AGL in the flat areas and 4000 AGL in the mountainous areas. The routes will nominally be set to the north, east and south east of the Stellenbosch Airfield.

Up to 80 Teams from the following countries are expected to participate from the following countries:
Austria China Czech Republic France
Germany Hngary Italy Lithuania
Luxembourg New Zealand Norway Poland
Russia South Africa Spain Switzerland
United Kingdom

Each Country will also bring additional crew in the form of International Judges, Team Managers, Judge Observers, Engineers, Supporters and Families.

In total we are expecting in excess of 300 of the “crème de la crème” of international aviators and their families to visit South Africa.

In preparation for the World Championships in 2020, SAPFA decided to hold a “mini training session” in Stellenbosch from 30th Oct – 2nd Nov 2019. The objective was to bring all parties together in order to execute a ‘Mock Event’ utilising all available services in order to iron out any potential wrinkles ahead of the main event in 2020.

Poland’s Michal Wieczorek preparing for a practice route with Mary de Klerk

An enormous amount of work went into the preparation for this event. The SAPFA and WRFC Committees meet monthly and have worked tirelessly to ensure that the following sections were adequately covered:

1. Aircraft Hire and Insurance – Mostly C152s and C172s were flown in from various surrounding airfields – a huge logistical task excellently handled by Chareen Shillaw
2. Licence Validations – This took many hours of work and CAA meetings to finally arrive at a smooth operation – outstandingly arranged by Frank Eckard, Rob Jonkers and Marko Nel.
3. Stellenbosch Hospitality – Magnificently hosted by Anton Theart, Frank Olsen and the incredible teams running the newly renovated Stellenbosch Flying Club.
4. ATNS and Safety Planning – Professional approach by Rikus Erasmus, Nigel Musgrave and ATNS (with Santjie White and her team always ready in the wings)
5. Route Planning – World Class Routes planned by Cally and Frank Eckard showcasing some of the most breathtakingly stunning scenery in the world over the mountains, the sea, and the wine farms of the Western Cape.
6. Judging took place under the auspices of our well-seasoned international judges Jacques Jacobs, Ursula Schwebel and all their helpers.
7. Colin Jordaan (ex SAA / CAA), well versed in the art of Precision and Rally flying took up the mantle of Competition Director with ease.
8. The opportunity to practice in Stellenbosch was snapped up by the French, Polish, Swiss and Austrian international teams. The South African teams including current and potential Protea members also participated. An interesting mix of 2 united teams from different countries also took part. Michal Wieczorek from Poland flew with Mary de Klerk from South Africa and Mauritz du Plessis flew with Nicola from France.

 

Theewaterskloof Dam

Some teams arrived a few days early to take advantage of some tourism opportunities. The plan was to run open practice days from Wed – Friday and then the competition on Saturday 2nd Nov. However no one anticipated SA getting into the World Cup Rugby Finals so the plan was changed to accommodate this event. The Competition was flown on Friday 1st to allow all participants to watch the game live in the various SFC hosting restaurant facilities…… a truly memorable event!!!! Training then resumed after the match on Saturday 2nd Nov.

Steep climb angle to fly over the Maanskynkop

The competition route on Friday was a route to the south east of Stellenbosch, with high overcast weather predicted with strong upper winds of up to 20 kts. The route took the teams just south of Sir Lowry’s Pass, remaining in the high ground and mountain areas until a steep descent to the coast to Voelklip, then along the coast all the way past Hermanus, with whales visible just off the river mouth in Walkerbay. From there the surprise steep climb up Maanskynkop, everybody having to snake their way over the top, and then into the Caledon valley up to the Theewaterskloof dam, and then back over the ridge of the Hotentots-Holland mountains to find the sharp bend in the railway line that goes up Sir Lowry’s pass, then to the finish point through Kleinnek which is just abeam the Helderberg. This was a very scenic route, as the whole Cape is, with many of the competitors being distracted from flying the route rather enjoying the scenery….

 

Coming up to Kleinnek passing the Helderberg on the left

The French Team are well supported by their French Sporting Federation and therefore have to stick strictly to the Team Managers rules for training with little ‘free time’ to play. This discipline showed up in their final results with all 6 French Teams finishing in the top 10 positions.

The final results for all competitors were:

 

 

Third placed Alexis Fuchs and Adele Schramm with Colin Jordaan 
Second Placed Michal Wieczorek and Mary de Klerk

First placed Olivier Riviere and Jerome Jireau with Colin Jordaan & Frank Eckard

The South African Rally Flying National Championships will take place at the Stellenbosch Flying Club from 2-4 April 2020. The final Protea Team to represent South Africa at the World Championships will be selected at this event. Ideally SAPFA are hoping to select an “A” team and a “B” team to give some newbies the opportunity to experience a real World Championships Event. Jonty Esser has been appointed as Chief Protea Team Coach and will be publishing a training schedule soon. Thanks to African Pilot we have a great website to capture all events, pictures, information, results live tracking etc

www.worldrallyflyingchampionship2022.com

Thanks also to DJ Aviation for their contribution in supporting excess insurance on the hire aircraft that were made available for the international teams.

We are now investigating all avenues for financial and service support to ensure that we can deliver a world class event in 2020. Any further information and be mailed to info@wrfc2022.com

The French Team
 

Celebrating Rally Veteran Ron Stirk’s 70th Birthday on 1st Nov 2019

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This year’s SAPFA Fun navigation rally had its challenges in getting off the ground, the date initially set for the 7th September, where two other events entered the fray, that being the Children’s Flight and the SAAF Museum Airshow, and then the weather conspired to also be against us with foul weather on both the Friday and the Saturday.In any event the date was moved by a week to the 14th September which coincided with the RV day and the Tedderfield Sling Fly-in, it seems everybody was getting into the spring feeling to hold events…. This Fun rally event is run in conjunction with Superior Pilot Services (SPS) who provide the facilities and sponsor a great breakfast at the Harvard, and an opportunity to allow their students to get to grips with rally flying.

 

The teams busy plotting the course from the task sheets.
For a number of years now Rob Jonkers planned and plotted the course for this event, catering for Open class and a Fun class, where the fun class introduces newbies to the sport. Entrants were planned to be around ten crews, with four from SPS and six from other airfields, and with the Protea teams still in Portugal having just completed the ANR World Championships were not available to take part. Eventually on the day only four teams could take part, thus it was a small field, with two in fun class and two in the Open class.

Most competitors arrived by 8.00 on Saturday morning to first enjoy the Harvard breakfast, thereafter briefing and plotting. The weather forecast looked promising with clear skies with 10+ kts wind later in the morning, which proved to become somewhat blustery closer to midday.

The route was planned to go out north, into familiar territory for the competitors as most of the legs were in their GF 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.

 

Matthew French & Mike Blackburn plotting their course.
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.

 

The Apron of Grand Central with competitor aircraft.


There was one photo per leg that needed to be recognized, some 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. 

Approaching the Crocodile Valley – Landscape still wintery.

After all the scores were tallied, first in Fun class was Matthew French with navigator Michael Blackburn in their very fast Mooney, second was father and son Jan and Max Coetzee in a C182. In this class the navigation accuracy allows 15 seconds at each gate before penalties are applied, one penalty per second.In Open class in first place was Nick Christodoulou with navigator Andre Kluyts in a C172, and for this event a Route Planner class…. Rob Jonkers with his trusty navigator Martin Meyer in a C182, and being the route planner was expected to return with a perfect zero, but could not find the all the photos…., memory not that good it seems. In this class the navigation accuracy allows 2 seconds at each gate before penalties are applied, three penalties per second.

 

The navigation tracks – all seems fine until the eastern & southern legs.
This event was for sure enjoyed by all, 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, and for the fantastic breakfast and for Franz Smit and Ashley Loynes for joining at the start and providing the teams with much needed water refreshments.

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Some of the contestants gathered in front of one of the three club aircraft before the first team took off. From left: Curtis Mutambo, Martin Hellberg, Ian McDonald, Dave Taylor, Mike McDonald, Johan Riekert, Chris Nicholson, and Competition Director Frank Eckard.

For the first time in 24 years, Pietermaritzburg Aeroclub held a Fun Rally. Frank Eckard, who got his PPL at the club 32 years ago and was on the committee for seven years, has lots of very fond memories of his years spent there and was thrilled to set up a rally on his old stamping ground.Martin Hellberg, who was Frank’s first navigator and who competed with him in Denmark in 1995, was one of the competitors. Unfortunately, the turn-out was low, despite valiant efforts by club Chief Flying Instructor Telani Lithgow while the predicted weather put some crews off.Five brave teams eventually took off after a delayed start due to low cloud and all received excellent scores, missing only one turnpoint each – a fabulous feat for first-timers. The route started at a turnpoint near Thornville, crossing the ridge at Richmond, then turned South before joining the Umkomaas and following the valley, then back to Pietermaritzburg via Eston. 
Lara Denton and Adam Winter arrive back at the airfield after the rally.

Unfortunately for Adam Winter and Lara Denton, they had problems setting their clock, and joined the “One-minute Club” – flying the entire route one minute late. This sadly put them in last place, but taught them a valuable lesson they are probably never going to forget. Chris Nicholson takes part in anti-rhino poaching excursions, so was well-prepared for flying low-level VFR, and achieved a fantastic score. Curtis Mutambo, who is working hard on getting his CPL learned a lot of techniques from Martin Hellberg, who was impressed at how much technology has changed the sport.

Waiting patiently for their results, whilst recalling their experiences during the rally, Chris Nicholson and Dave Taylor (front) with Telani Lithgow and Johan Rikert (back).

They all arrived back at the clubhouse begging for another rally to be held soon and are sure to inspire and encourage other pilots in the area. It would be a great event if surrounding clubs would also get involved, as Pietermaritzburg is quite central in KZN and has a large flying area.

Winners with a terrific score of only 384, Dave Taylor and Chris Nicholson. 

Second place went to the team of Martin Hellberg and Curtis Mutambo.

A very grateful third place kiss from Chief Flying Instructor Telani Lithgow and Johan Riekert.

– The team of Adam Winter and Lara Denton were placed fifth after an unfortunate timing error.

RESULTS
POSITION PILOT NAVIGATOR AIRCRAFT POINTS
1 Chris Nicholson, Dave Taylor Sling2 – 384
2 Martin Hellberg, Curtis Mutambo Cessna 172 – 507
3 Johan Riekert, Telani Lithgow Sling 2 – 579
4 Ian McDonald, Mike McDonald Cessna 172 – 625
5 Adam Winter, Lara Denton Cessna 172 – 641