Virtual Rally Flying Competitions

Virtual Rally Flying Competitions

SAPFA has introduced a virtual rally flying competitions where teams can practice their skills without burning avgas.

Here you can see us flying a route in the Stellenbosch area, and identifying an enroute photo.

If you want to join in the fun, take a look at our high speed server at http://www.worldrallyflying.com/virtual-flying/

You can sign up for these events at http://www.sapfa.co.za/index.php/component/competition/?view=pilot

The SAPFA Landing Nationals - 7 November 2020

The SAPFA Landing Nationals - 7 November 2020

By Rob Jonkers. Photos by Jaco Pitout

SAPFA holds a Landing National Championships on a yearly basis and this year it was scheduled to take place at Stellenbosch, on this same day as part of the start of the World Rally Flying Championships. Sadly, as reported earlier in the year, this had to be postponed to 2021 in the same time frame. At least we have been able to redirect the original plan to hold the championships up here on the reef and Brakpan was chosen as the venue.





With the rain having passed earlier in the week, the weather turned to sweltering with 34 deg C as the high temperature for the day. With the airfield elevation at 5300 ft, this resulted in a density altitude of around 8500 ft, not the most ideal conditions for high altitude landing accuracy. The wind was at least relatively calm, although gusty at times.

There were 14 competitors for the day - 8 in the Unlimited class and 6 in the Sportsman's class. Many of the competitors were out practicing on Friday for a good part of the day to gain proficiency in their accuracy, as the previous week's training camp was 'winded out' with high cross-winds. From the results, it showed clearly that practice makes all the difference. One has to create an airfield mind map of markers, turning points and altitudes especially for glide approaches - to get a repeatable landing point.







The competition consists of carrying out two sessions of four landings, one a normal powered approach with any flap, the second a glide approach that starts 1000 ft abeam the landing line with any flap, the third is also a glide approach with no flap and the fourth is a powered approach over a 1.8 m barrier located 50 m from the landing line. The barrier proved to be the most challenging for most - even though the glideslope represents a normal landing state.





First up just after 10 am was the Unlimited Class, which were in 2 groups of 4 and thereafter Sportsman's Class in 2 groups of 3. The officials were also trying out video recording for the first time (high speed camera settings) as video recording will be the planned standard for World competitions, which is at least an improvement over the 'gatsometer' system previously used.







When session 1 was completed, lunch was served after session 2 commenced at 1PM, this being the highest density altitude conditions with turbulence thrown in. A C182 turning downwind to final on the glide at best glide speed saw more than 1000ft per minute rate of descent, which did not leave much space to do the final runway heading line-up and arrest the descent to stabilize for the flare - needless to say the accuracy was not easily achievable to hit the landing line.


Hans Schwebel


Fanie Scholz


Jonty Esser

After all the landings were completed, the officials debriefed the scores and reviewed the video footage to ensure the exact touchdown points were scored. In the Unlimited Class and in first place was multiple SA landing and world champion holder Hans Schwebel in a C150 ZS-NBT. Fanie Scholz in a Sling ZU-FZF bagged the runner up sport while Jonty Esser in a C150 ZU-BLL took the final step on the podium.


Andy Gouws


Hilton Wolff


Kevin Cloete

In the Sportsman's class, Andy Gouws in a C150 ZU-BLL took the honours with second place awarded to Hilton Wolff in a Muschak MFI-17 ZS-OKR and in third place Kevin Cloete in a C182 ZS-KDC.

Many thanks to the Brakpan Aero Club for hosting this signature event, the SAPFA team of Frank Eckard as the Competition Director, Nigel Musgrave as the Safety Officer, Mary de Klerk, Sandi Goddard, Lizelle Kruger as scoring marshals and who were ably assisted by Tarryn & Iaan Myburgh, Martin Meyer, Hendrik Loot as line judges and barrier holders.

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SAPFA ANR - Brakpan 15 August 2020

SAPFA ANR - Brakpan 15 August 2020

By Rob Jonkers. Photos by Willie Bodenstein

We are in one of the most unusual times in recent history, the year 2020 having such a perfect ring to it, has turned into a nightmare for many, with tragic economic fallout consequences as a result. Since April, the lockdown restrictions curtailed flying operations severely as well and with concerted efforts together with the regulator we were able to re-open to a limited extent flying, first for maintenance, then for proficiency and shortly thereafter the means to hold events.


Participants and officials

This Brakpan ANR was the first aviation sporting event held under Covid conditions, where specific Covid compliances had to be put into place to uphold social distancing and protection.

 



 



 
Some of the participating aircraft

Once the date was decided on and published, the competitor slots were snapped up within a day to make up 20 aircraft which we had decided on as the maximum which would result in 40 competitors and with 10 officials and photographers would make up the 50 as the maximum count.

 
Nigel Musgrave and Frank Eckard

Nigel Musgrave was our Safety and Compliance officer for the day, and also doubled as the landing marshal together with Derek Hopkins, with Frank & Cally Eckard as the route planners and organisers. As it turned out there were eventually only 16 competitors as four dropped out, some with aircraft troubles, and others finding the forecasted windy conditions a little challenging.

 



 



 
More participating aircraft

And for sure the windy conditions proved challenging for all, with between 15 - 20 kts on the ground and between 20 - 25 kts with a 10 kt gust differential. Briefing was a little later than normal at 9 am, to give everybody an opportunity to arrive given Covid registration protocols having to be carried out, and from there with Frank providing the plan for the day which would consist of two routes to be flown, the first one fairly easy with a 0.5 nm corridor, and the next one hard with more acute turns and a corridor width of 0.3 nm.



 



 


Some serious route plotting

Once the briefing was over, everybody got down to plotting and the first aircraft was off at 10.15, that of Jonty & Jonathan Esser in their C150, followed by the rest of the field in 5 minute intervals, all flying at 80 kts. The visibility was for sure not great, lots of haze and windswept dust making the longer view ahead difficult to see, and trying to keep an even speed proved virtually impossible, and as the timing is only measured at the start and finish, flying initially downwind you could allow the timing to drift, just to catch up again one the last two or so legs to be “in-time” over the finish. Headings did not feature much while flying, having to lay off due to the strong wind, it was best just to fly on map features.

In an ANR, the crew in fact both are navigators, the pilot navigating the LH corridor boundary and the navigator navigating the RH corridor boundary, and it being vital that both communicate map features to match what is going on over the ground. The maps were provided at a scale of 1:200 000, and here in SA the feature updates were last done in 2015, making some parts of the route difficult to recognize where urban development has occurred since then, nothing to make it even more challenging.

After the first route was done, and mostly everybody had made a good score, the teams got on with plotting the 2nd route, with the first aircraft off at around 1 PM, with the wind having picked up even more, which made this route particularly tough with the twisty turns, which the scores would reflect.


Derek Hopkins at the spot landings



 



 


Participants at the spot landings

After each round, the flight was finished off with a spot landing, in gusty conditions it was tough to achieve good landing scores, but some at least would be able bingo the line. After everyone was back, scoring started, but with some logger and software challenges, it took a bit of time, with prize giving taking place at around 3.30 PM.

The results were separated into two classes, Sportsman class and Unlimited, the Unlimited teams being Proteas.


Overall winners in the Sportsman Class were Apie & Frederik Kotzee in their Robinson R44 ZS-HRS,


in 2nd place Eugene van Staden & Munaf Mubarak in their Sling ZU-IBH,


and in 3rd place Hendrik and Jandre Loots in the sling ZU-IHK.


In the Protea class, in 1st place were Jonty & Jonathan Esser in their C150 ZU-BLL,


in 2nd place Nigel Hopkins and Mary de Klerk in their RV8 ZU-NDH


and in 3rd place Hans Schwebel & Ron Stirk in the C150 ZS-NBT.

For the landings both landings counted towards a score, landing before the line attracting more penalties than after the line. In the Sportsman class in 1st place were Fanie Scholtz & Herman Haasbroek, in 2nd place Andrew lane & Angie Maroun and in 3rd place Apie & Frederik Kotzee. In the Unlimited class in 1st place were Nigel Hopkins and Mary de Klerk, in 2nd place Martin Meyer and Rob Jonkers and in 3rd place Mauritz du Plessis & Sandi Goddard.

Many thanks to the Brakpan club for hosting this event and to Jonty Esser for making all the logistic arrangements, Frank & Cally Eckard for all the route planning and scoring and Nigel Musgrave for carrying out the Compliance and safety duties. As a precursor event for more to come, we should be able to continue along the lines as we learnt for this event. Our planning for the next event will be in Secunda as a Speed Rally, and with Level 2 lockdown restrictions coming into force shortly, we will be engaging with the regulator on the requirements related to level 2.


One of the more perfect tracks of the day on the 2nd route.

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SAPFA COVID SOP July 2020

Our Covid-19 Standard Operating Procedure for our events can be downloaded in the link below.