Pietersburg Civil Airport Fun Rally – 18 September 2010

On the 18th of September 2010 a fun filled flying competition took place at Pietersburg Civil Airport, with competitors coming from as far as Gauteng and Hoedspruit.

These fun rallies are hosted by SAPFA (South African Powered Flight Association) and are held monthly at different venues. These fun rallies has been an innovative and genius format derived from the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale – The World Air Sports Federation) rally rules by SAPFA members, to introduce the sport to keen aviators, making it not only fun but competitive also focusing on enhancing pilot skills and constantly recruiting Pilots for the National team to compete in the World Championships.

The day started with the formalities of the highly important and comprehensive safety briefing presented by the safety officer of the day Mr. Leon de Villiers, followed by the Pilot’s and Navigator briefings presented by our Local Springbok, National Team member and Competition Director for this rally, Mr. Jonty Esser.

The navigators and pilots received their clue sheets and necessary blank maps, and immediately set off to work as the first take off was to be at exactly 11:00:00. Many of the competitors were first time rally pilots and navigators so help was at hand from the Competition Director. The route was setup to ease the new teams in up until check point 5 thereafter the degree of difficulty was increased. The route took the competitors from Pietersburg Civil Airport to Dalmada, then onto the University of the North from there out to the north then back to the Steven Lumber Mills, then back out to the Ebenezer Dam Wall, there after the climb for the Highest point in the Wolkberg Reserve flying down the mountain range to Chuniespoort and back to Pietersburg Civil Airport.

We also had the honor of having one of the National Rally Teams namely Cally Eckard and Frank Eckard who is also the Chairman of SAPFA and National Rally Team Coach, as competitors in the open class which is scored at the International Rally rules level, this means that instead of 15 seconds before and after the expected time to be at a turn point they only have 1 second before and after, their photos are not in sequence and the clue sheet is handed to the navigator in the aircraft 15 min before the take off time.

Each aircraft is equipped with a logger (Scoring instrument) issued by the competition director, this logger, logs the exact time and position of the aircraft on their route, so no cheating is possible. The teams will take off at their exact times and if not be penalized according to the fun rally rules, each second after the 15 seconds before and after for fun rally and 1 second before and after each check point the team will get 2 penalty points for each second up to a maximum of 200 points per check point, at each check point there is a photo that has to be identified as true or false, if the photo that has been supplied is incorrectly marked by the team 100 penalty points will be added if not marked the 50 points and if marked correct then 0 penalty points are added, en-route the team has to also look for photos that was provided in the clue sheet if seen by the team they have to measure in nautical miles the distance from the previous check point to the photo, if distance is correct the team scores zero if no seen 20 penalty points and if incorrect the 40 penalty points are given. At the end of each flight the pilots skills will be further tested with a spot landing here the pilot is expected to land on a two meter line on the runway if the pilot manages to do this the landing is a BINGO and scored as 0 if the pilot lands short then from 60 to 200 points could be scored depending on the distance in front of the line and from 10 to 200 after the BINGO line. Thank you Landing Chief Judge Susan Du Preez.

There for you will see each team has timing, observation and landing points against their names and the total lowest score wins the rally.

Well done to the winners Wynand Uys and his Navigator Kobus Kruger from Hoedspruit as well as second place son and Father team Dusty and Ron Stirk from Britz and a big very well done to the first time rally competitors Wessel Ardendorff and Nadia Van Heerden.
Full results are attached below.

Winners	2nd Place	3rd Place
Winners Trophy	4th Team Home	Rob Jonkers and team
Winners	Frank & Cally Eckard	After the Rally