South African Power Flying Association

The rally season started this year with the fun rally at Rand Airport. This is traditionally a well-supported event in terms of both prizes and participants, and 2012 was no exception. Thirteen teams took to the Johannesburg skies and thanks to the sponsors, all received prizes.

Rand Airport hosted the event, presented the Rand Airport Winners Trophy , and waived landing fees. Karcher donated High Pressure Cleaners. Chris Linakis donated R3000 for cash prizes on behalf of his company, ACL Construction. AviMap donated 2 map books, 6 Pilot Destinations, and 6 Airfield Directories, and African Pilot 3 annual subscriptions to their magazine.

The competition was a bit different for this year, as Competition Director Frank Eckard chose a rally that asked questions about features along the route instead of identifying photographs. This was very popular with the participants, and lead to a lot of queries and discussion about the answers.

Last year being a Precision Flying year, all teams at Rand were taken by surprise with their lack of practise in plotting the route, and the word “rusty” was bandied around to excuse such mistakes as using tools designed exclusively for Slovakia, forgetting the difference between Magnetic and True, and using kilometres instead of nautical miles. All agreed that some extra hours need to be invested in plotting before Nationals.

The flying was good, and only one team had to use Frank’s hint that if they were lost and saw the Vaal River, to turn back and not cross it. Thys van der Merwe was thrilled to receive a total score of zero for his flying, meaning that he crossed every turnpoint exactly on time. Winners Esmond Erasmus and Johan Goosen and third placers Sean Murphy and Carl Dollenberg are faithful competitors, and it is good to see their dedication to the sport rewarded.

It was also great to see that of the 26 competitors, 7 were women, and we had 2 all-women teams competing.

The results were as follows:
POSITION PILOT NAVIGATOR
1 Esmond Erasmus Johan Goosen
2 Thys van der Merwe Mary de Klerk
3 Sean Murphy Carl Dollenberg
4 Hans Shwebel Ron Stirk
The best First-timers, the father-and-son team of Dave and Aldo Naude finished in 7th. A creditable result.

This year’s fun rally fell on Saturday 24 September, the first anniversary of SPS Flying Club (Special Pilots Services Flying Club), which CFI Ian Seddon explained is an organisation managed by SPS which tries to bring aviation enthusiasts together for social occasions in order to provide a platform for them to swap ideas and gain inspiration regarding all things aviation. They organise fly-in breakfasts once a month, and fly-aways every few months, as well as the annual Grand Central Fun Rally.

This rally is unique in that a number of student pilots from participate with their instructors, providing these new pilots with a set of safety skills, habits and attitudes that are not normally taught during traditional pilot training.

Stall holders from EAA, Wings ‘n Things, General Pilot’s Supplies set up their wares, which created a lot of interest from the participants between briefings, flights and scoring. Breakfast was sponsored by SPS from the coffee shop at Grand Central.

Ian opened the event with a talk about safety issues in flying, and reminded the participating pilots that during the rally they are issued with a logger, which picks up any pilot behaviour that is not within navigational regulations, and that these errors count against the teams in the scoring. For the first time, SPS set up a screen and projector, which SAPFA Rally organiser Frank Eckard linked up to his laptop, and was able to project all the routes and scores onto the screen. This provided the crowd with great entertainment, and they found it very uncanny that the logger could pick up exactly where they had flown, at what altitude, and what speed.

The rally, titled “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” took the teams through various transport-related turnpoints such as Kayalami Race Course, over the Gerotek Vehicle Testing Track, railway stations, and required a touch-and-go at Brits airfield. The weather cleared up after an initial foggy start, and the teams were all able to cross the Magaliesberg and complete the course.

Ian thanked Cathlin Fourie for putting the event together, ATC at Grand Central Jocelyn and Mashadi for bringing the pilots home safely, Mary de Klerk for her talk on flying rallies on the preceding Wednesday evening, and Frank and Cally Eckard for organising the rally. He also thanked Gary Reynolds from GC for waiving the landing fees for the event.

Zabula provided the first prize of a 2 night mid week break for 4 people at the lodge. The second prize was from General Pilot Supplies which were magnificent product hampers for each crew member worth R 500 each. Mugg & Bean at Greenstone donated the third prize of a lunch voucher worth R300. Our thanks got to the sponsors.

Full results are attached below. The podium positions are:

 

POS PILOT NAVIGATOR CALL SIGN
1 Sean Murphy Ernie Alexander ZS-IRL
2 Reino Horak Reinhardt Basson ZU-SUP
3 Roger Bozzoli Christopher Nikitov ZU-NPB

Richard Nicholson, Chairman of Nylstroom Flying Club, requested SAPFA hold a fun rally at the Taildraggers Event that he organised in July. Frank Eckard agreed to organize the rally, and 8 teams participated.

Most competitors stayed over at B&B’s, or camped at the airfield overnight. The organizers ensured that no pilot went hungry; Friday night dinner was prepared at the pub, and it was difficult to choose from a myriad of stall holders on Saturday, ranging from traditional breakfasts to curry vetkoek.
Pilots were easily distracted from their navigational tasks by all the activity at the airfield, but they were eventually airborne by 11 am, and flew a route that Cally Eckard had planned with the stark beauty of the area in mind. All pilots agreed that it was “pretty”, including one of the teams, who got lost shortly after the first turn point, and had to use their GPS to find their way back to Nylstroom.

F Eckard and L EksteenAfter the second turn point the teams had to follow a road down a steep valley to turn point three, providing spectacular scenery along the way. From there the route took them westward to an old abandoned mine, then south around a game park and back parallel to the N1, over the Finish Point, which was Nylstroom Hospital, and back to the airfield.

Long-time participants Carl and Shaun were thrilled to take first place, saying that everything just fell into place. Local knowledge, first-timers’ luck or excellent flying and navigational skills provided Nylstroom’s only team of Lukas and Leon Eksteen with second place. This pair not only found most of the check points, but also a lot of the photographs, and incredibly good timing for novices at the sport, especially considering their nominated speed was 100 knots. Hopefully this father and son team will continue in this sport and provide some stiff competition for long-time contestants.
Also taking part were Emmie Oelofse and Jonty Esser, Frank Persson and Keith Irwin, and Juri Nyssen with Francois Wuras.

Long-time veterans Ron Stirk and Hans Schwebel took part in the Precision section of the rally, in training for the World Precision Champs in October.
The results for the Fun Rally were:
POSITION PILOT NAVIGATOR CALL SIGN SCORE
1 Carl Dollenger Shaun Murphy ZS-IRL 172
2 Lukas Eksteen Leon Eksteen ZS-NFA 639
3 Ralph Hurwitz Stephan Theron ZS-FLF 754

 

	Nylstroom 2011
	16-Jul-11
	Nylstroom
	Fun Rally
	RESULTS
POSITION	FILE	PILOT	NAVIGATOR	CALL SIGN	RULES	NAV	ALT.	TRACK	TURN	OBS	LANDINGS	OTHER	TOTAL
1	5	Carl Dollenger	Shaun Murphy	ZS-IRL	Fun	52	0	0	0	120	0	0	172
2	1	Lukas Eksteen	Leon Eksteen	ZS-NFA	Fun	189	0	0	0	450	0	0	639
3	6	Ralph Hurwitz	Stephan Theron	ZS-FLF	Fun	384	0	0	0	370	0	0	754
4	2	Emmie Oelfse	Jonty Esser	ZU-LNI	Fun	720	0	0	0	60	0	0	780
5	3	Frank Persson	Keith Irwin	ZS-IOU	Fun	561	0	60	0	500	0	0	1121
6	4	Juri Nyssen	Francois Wuras	ZU-FAX	Fun	720	0	1020	0	820	0	0	2560
	Precision
	RESULTS
POSITION	FILE	PILOT		CALL SIGN	RULES	NAV	ALT.	TRACK	TURN	OBS	LANDINGS	OTHER	TOTAL
1	2	Ron Stirk		ZS-IWD	Prec	459	0	0	0	100	0	0	559
2	1	Hans Schwebel		ZS-IWD	Prec	480	0	0	0	100	0	0	580