UP COMING EVENTS
Our Next Events
Navigation Training
Event: Training on how to plot and fly a Rally to FAI standard
Date: 19th January 2019
Where: Aerosud Canteen
Time: 08:00
Organiser - Mary de Klerk
Contact mary@sapfa.co.za Tel: 084 880 9000
Cost: R100 per person
To bring: Highlighters, coloured pens/kokis, dividers, compass, scissors, protractor
Book online at http://www.sapfa.co.za/index.php/component/competition/?view=pilot in order for us to adequately cater for the numbers.
Rand Airport Challenge
Event: Navigation Rally
Date: 26th January 2019
Where: Rand Airport
Briefing: 08:30
Organiser - Frank Eckard
Contact frank.eckard@mweb.co.za Tel: 083 269 1516
ENTRY FORM HERE:
http://www.sapfa.co.za/index.php/component/competition/?view=pilot
Programme of the Day:
- From 07:30 Breakfast available at the Harvard Cafe
- 08:30 Compulsory Briefing for all entrants
- Prize Giving after the event - time to be advised.
Entry Fee: R400 per a/c
Please remember to book online at http://www.sapfa.co.za/index.php/component/competition/?view=pilot in order for us to adequately cater for the numbers.
See the rules at the following link http://www.sapfa.co.za/index.php/fun-navigation. If you want to enter in the Open Class, please indicate this on your entry.
Social Media
Visit Our Rally Flying Facebook Page
(SOUTH AFRICAN POWER FLYING ASSOCIATION)
Visit Our OFFICIAL - PRESIDENT'S TROPHY AIR RACE Facebook Page
Affiliated to
Login Form
Springs Speed Rally - 24 Nov 2018
Springs Speed Navigation Rally – 24 Nov 2018 by Rob Jonkers (photos by Willie Bodenstein & Rob Jonkers)
The South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) together with the Springs Flying Club organised the second successful Speed Navigation Fun Rally on Saturday 24th November 2018.
The competitors after the Saturday morning briefing
Although originally planned as a fun rally, after the success of the Secunda Speed Rally held in October, it was decided to hold the Speed Rally format again for Springs. With the entries limited to 30, the list quickly filled up after the website entries opened, and even with some scratchings due to aircraft availability, the waiting list grew to refill the 30 places. We for sure have something going as far as excitement on this type of event goes. The entries also included many family member teams, four father & son teams, 2 teams with brothers, and 2 teams with husband and wife combinations, a very varied field for sure. There were also five teams that entered from the Springs based Mach 1 flight school, these budding CPL crews had their first taste of real map reading skills being put to the test.
Jonty Esser and Rob Jonkers busy with the competitor briefing
This event is one that is flown at full speed under handicap conditions, thecourse is around 120 nm long, has 11 or so turning points, with each turning point identified with a correct photograph. This is also an event where no GPS aids are allowed, thus for this event, all portable devices are sealed, although no aircraft units are deactivated, but discouraged in their use in an honesty system, although there would be little time available to attempt to program anything.
The intent is that everybody uses the basic skills of navigation plotting and flying, and operate as a team in terms of cockpit workload, and with the course layout with short legs it for sure makes the crew resource work sharing all the more important. The idea would be that each crew would receive a pre-plotted map already complete with the route, turning points, headings, altitudes, where the map would not have any lat/long or grid references. This would be provided 20 minutes prior take-off to allow route orientation and the plotting of minute markers.
In this format, there are two objectives, fly against a pre-determined handicap speed for each aircraft, and fly the shortest route around the course which would consist of a minimum of 10 turning points, and any aircraft would be able to compete, from slower LSA aircraft to the fast turbo singles or twins. The idea would be to test the speed capability and navigation skills of each crew against each other, where the most accurate flying and turn performance management would win the rally.
The team of Jason Boshoff and Sarnia Hattingh in their RV6 ZU-BVC
Friday was set out as the day to carry out flight tests to establish handicap speeds, and the day started out with low cloud and plenty wind, which delayed the start to the test flying, but eventually at midday or so the weather had improved sufficiently, although not ideal, making the test flight results problematic, especially with turbulence affecting achieving stability of speed in each leg. In any event between the test flight results and other event handicap history were able to obtain a starting grid.
The line-up of aircraft prior start-up
All the competitors were treated to a briefing on Steroids on Friday night with the Speed Rally organizer Jonty Esser having set up a show for the teams, with a real life lights, camera, action sequence, where each team were introduced with their team theme song, handed their race numbers. Jonty also introduced the teams to the Speed Rally website where a Speed Rally ranking system was created, with team profiles and their leaderboard position. After this excitement, it was the turn of Rob Jonkers the event planner to bring everybody down into serious mode and provided a briefing on the event and some training on how to fly the rally with some basic tools. After this some excellent live entertainment was provided and a braai/buffet dinner.
The father and son team of Piet and Willie Meyer busy plotting on the tail of their Jabiru ZU- DUU
See Insert story of Piet and Willie’s Flight Below
Saturday morning dawned with the wind pumping in from the north but predicted to reduce during the day, and after the host club providing a great breakfast, the briefing got underway just after 8h30, and prior to that ground marshalls were pointing out parking places, and refueling slots.
The team of Daniel Igun and Nkosi Fanti busy plotting in their Cherokee ZS-MKZ
The briefing was shorter than the previous evening, and focused on the procedures for scrutineering, the handing out of papers, starting line, and finish protocol. The aircraft were parked in order of slowest to fastest, with a 15-30 second gap as a minimum between them, with the idea to have all the aircraft cross the finish line as close to 12 noon as possible, given that everybody needs to achieve a perfect route around the course.
The team of Ala Buserwil and Tintso Mabunda with their C172 ZS-PED
Scrutineers Chareen, Kevin, Karyn & Sandy were on hand to seal up all portable GPS capable devices, and also handing out papers at the allotted time. To assist the teams at getting their take-off roll accurate, a starting colour panel was used (simple triangular three colour board – which was much improved over the daylight non visible light system used previously), which was set up next to the start line on the runway, which would release them at their allotted time slot. Each team then received their envelopes with their loggers at their 20 minutes prior take-off time, and the teams taxied to the starting line. 1st take-off was at 10h25 for the slowest aircraft and last take-off at 11h20, with planned arrival at 12h00, the fast RV10 ZU-DSE only needing 40 minutes to complete the course.
Mary de Klerk and Phil Wakeley getting ready in their C210 ZS-CNY
With all the teams airborne and finding their way around, the first teams were back on schedule and were streaming in one after the other, some having overtaken others either having flown a good navigation route or having flown close to their handicap speed. For this event, with the wind and turbulence the lighter aircraft would have had a harder time to achieve their handicap speeds compared with the heavier high end aircraft which are less affected, but the wind started to die down from around 11 am onwards but the turbulence remained a factor.
The team of Bob Cohoe and Gerda Pienaar in their Stinson ZU-OZI
After all teams having returned and safe on the ground, the scoring team got to work to analyse the results, with the tracks for many being quite accurate, although some had wobbles, only two teams got lost and had to switch their GPS on and press the Direct-to button to get back to Springs.
The take-offs of equally handicapped C210’s
The results were completed by around 14h45, and prize giving could start at 3 pm, and first up on the prize giving programme was to show some of the interesting tracks, some excellent and some not so good getting the audience in fits of laughter. Jonty first handed over the host club floating trophy to Eric Addison representing the East Rand Flying Club, and then the placings for the best handicap speed and thereafter the most accurate / shortest route flown.
Winners of the best speed and shortest distance flown – Phil Wakeley and Mary de Klerk in C210 ZS-CNY
The overall winners in the best handicap speed were the team of Phil Wakeley and Mary de Klerk in a C210, in second place was Ryan & Chris Shillaw in their Cirrus SR22 ZS-ACA, and in third place Johan van Eeden and Gavin Edwards in their RV7A ZU-IHH.
2nd placed Ryan & Chris Shillaw in their Cirrus ZS-ACA with Chareen Shillaw receiving the trophy
3rd placed Johan van Eeden and Gavin Edwards in their RV7 ZU-IHH
The most accurate / shortest route flown winners were the team of Mauritz du Plessis and Andre Kluyts in the C172 ZS-SYA, in second place was Wim Kotze and Rob Gobac in their Yak 52 ZU-AMC, and in third place was Leon Bouttell and Martin Meyer in their Sportstar ZU-FBJ.
1st placed Mauritz du Plessis and Andre Kluyts for the most accurate route flown
Many thanks to the East Rand Flying Club for hosting this fantastic event, the SAPFA team of Hans Potgieter as the Competition Director, Nigel Musgrave as the Safety Officer, Dirk de Vos and his wife doing the scoring, Chareen Shillaw handing out competition papers to the crews, Karyn Purchase, Kevin Cloete and Sandy vd Merwe for Scrutineering, Paul Sabatier as ground marshall, and Jonty for putting together an awesome Friday evening launch event. Also to the sponsors Aeroshell, Flightline Weekly, Aviation Junction and Prompt Roofing for race stickers, caps, trophies, meals.
1st placed Phil Wakeley and Mary de Klerk’s winning track
Oops – We thought we had to go to Nigel
Our next Speed Rally event will be in Morning Star in the Western Cape
My Speed Rally flight with my father – Piet Meyer ZU-DUU
I thought to share my Speed Rally story of how our flight went with my father and I. This is the first time ever my dad flies with me. We get the maps and basically had no time to explain about navigation, and we use the stabilizer as a plotting table. We get in the plane and off we go.
Dad's hearing aids are not working too well with headsets so when I ask something I just get a smile. He looks at the photos of turn points trying to find them. Me:" Dad, look at the map, where are we?" Dad:"I can’t see this house with red roof on the photo", Me:" Dad, ignore the photos, concentrate on the map. Where are we?" Dad (only hears photo): "Maybe the photo is to the left. I see a house and it might have a red roof" Me:"Dad, we are still a while off the turnpoint, try to see where we are on the map. Ignore the photos". Dad:" Yes, will try and find the places on the photo".
Now I take photos away, take the map and try to fly and find location on map. Finally my dad figures out how to trace the route on the map and takes it from me. Now all is going well..... until we get to a turn point and I ask. "Dad, look at the photo and try to see what it looks like.” Dad (smiles as he is not sure what I said): "Yes, the map works better than the photo." ....... fun times with my dad.
He loved and enjoyed every moment of the utter confusion in the plane. He was so excited the whole week before as he always wanted to fly but since I got my license 8 years ago we never seemed to be able to go fly. Life just got in the way, and when my normal navigator could not make it I thought I would take him with just for fun and finally got to fly with him.
When he received that participation medal he was all smiles, and Mom phoned me later and said that he could not stop talking about the day. Apparently he is this awesome navigator now and so proud that he got us into 8th place...... I loved spending the day with him and he does not need to know that the last 3 turn points his navigator was me just following the planes ahead and hoping they got it right….
I saw that awesome Kalahari orange Cirrus pass underneath us, and pointed out to Dad how amazing plane that is...... he said "Yes, very nice but concentrate on your own race", and with that I burst out laughing and concentrated on my race. He gets very competitive at times….
STELLENBOSCH NAV RALLY - 3 NOV 2018
STELLENBOSCH NAV RALLY - 3 NOV 2018
By Mary de Klerk
FASH approach
FASH
This particular event heralded the first in a series of Rally Flying Competitions which will take place Nationally and in Stellenbosch leading up to the World Rally Flying Championships which will be held in November 2020. Participants in these lead up rallies will earn accumulated points which will determine their eligibility to participate in the 2020 World Championships. So participation will be crucial to the selection of the final SA Rally Flying Team.
Jonty, Sandi, Frank, Cally, Mary, Benjamin and Andre
Frank in Training
Pam and Tony Russell
So determined are the team of Shane Brits and Karin Stroud that they ventured to fly their Jabiru all the way down from Johannesburg to Stellenbosch on a 16 hour round trip.
Mary de Klerk and Richard Newton
Brand new to this sport is retired Captain Richard Newton who flew this rally for the first time ever in his RV7 with Mary de Klerk. His exceptional flying experience clearly shone through in his final result.
Alwyn Burger Map Preparation……… Frank congratulates Benjamin Cserveny. Benjamin and Alwyn finished 3rd in the Sportsman Class.
Frank with Karin Stroud and Shane Brits (2nd Place Sportsman CLass)
Frank with Ashleigh Prinsloo and Marko Nel (1st Place Sportsman Class)
Frank and Cally Eckard were responsible for planning the route which was flown by all 3 classes:
1. Sportsman - Neither Pilot nor Navigator have earned Protea Colours
2. Intermediate - Either Pilot or Navigator has earned Protea Colours
3. Advanced - Both Pilot and Navigator have earned Protea Colours
Frank with Pam and Tony Russell (3rd Place Intermediate Class)
Frank with Andre Kluyts - missing Mauritz du Plessis (2nd Place Intermediate Class)
Frank with Richard Newton and Mary de Klerk (1st Place Intermediate)
Frank with Sandi Goddard and Jonty Esser (1st Place Advanced Class)
Grand Central Fun Rally - 8 September 2018
Grand Central Fun Rally - 8 September 2018
By Rob Jonkers. Photos by Willie Bodenstein
Under the Stewardship of SAPFA's Rob Jonkers who planned & plotted the course, a total of 18 entrants registered to partake in the rally, although only 13 eventually were able to take part, some of them having had to withdraw.
Rob Jonkers busy with the competitor briefing.
There were 3 crews from SPS, all commercial pilot students getting their first experience in the art of Navigation Rally flying, although traditionally in previous rallies there was a Friday night course, this was not done, thus the newbies had to learn from the older hands in the room on the day.
Sanele Mkize and Lungule Jiyana listening to the briefing.
With a mix of Newbies and Protean teams, there were three classes of competition, Fun, Advanced, Unlimited, where the Fun class were for those new to the sport, Advanced Class where a Protea team member teamed up with a Newbie and Unlimited Class with a full Protea team. There were two competition rule sets flown although both were on exactly the same route, with the Fun rules requiring photo recognition in sequence, one per leg, and Unlimited with 18 scrambled leg photos.
Most competitors arrived by 8.00 on Saturday morning to start the plotting activity which took the best part of 2 hours with the first aircraft off at 10:45. The weather forecast initially did not look promising with early morning showers, which did not materialise, just some scattered cloud with not much wind. The wind prediction for the day however was going to be blustery later in the morning.
Edzard Verseput and Michael Crause busy plotting the course.
The route was planned to go out north, into familiar territory for the Grand Central based crews as most of the legs were 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 past the red and white radio mast, up through to Soshanguve, west over the hills adjacent to the Brits airfield, then south through granite quarrying territory, then further west with a turning point over the Silver Creek Airfield. From there across the Maglies northern ridge, then east across the Hartebeepoort Dam, then south to the finish point being a road and creek crossing just north of the Ernie Els Golf course.
There was one photo per leg that needed to be recognized, somehow for this rally not many of them were spotted by the crews in this year. After returning, the teams had to carry out a spot landing, only yielding three bingo's, as the stiff crosswind became apparent as the competitors returned.
Newbies Wian Minne & Keuler Breed busy plotting their course.
One of the SPS crews of Wian Minne and Keuler Breed did exceptionally well, having found all the turning points, but hampered with a late take-off, thus catching up on timing proved difficult, although good effort was made to catch up and timing was overall good. One team had to divert with some sickness on board, and the last teams to take-off had to contend with high westerly winds of 20 kts gusting 27kts making the downwind legs tough to keep time having to perform snake maneuvers and 20 degree of flap at minimum speed.
Newbies Wian Minne & Keuler Breed's track they flew with only one track error.
After all the scores were tallied, first in Fun class was Leon Bouttell with first time navigator Karen Purchase, in Advanced class Steven vd Merwe with father Thys flying at 130 kts in their RV6 with Pierre Dippenaar achieving a perfect timing score, and in Unlimited Rob Jonkers and Martin Meyer who 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.
Leon Bouttell with Mary de Klerk on their Spot landing attempt.
Shane Britz and Karen Stroud on their spot landing attempt.
Some of the competitors at the end of the day.
Team SA at the 21st World Rally Flying Championships 2018
By Rob Jonkers
This year, 50 crews from 16 nations participated, where South Africa was the only Southern Hemisphere team to take part. Team SA was represented by 4 crews in the Unlimited Class: Frank & Cally Eckard, Thys vd Merwe & Ron Stirk, Jonty Essor & Sandi Goddard, Rob Jonkers (Team Captain) and Martin Meyer with Mary de Klerk as the Team Manager, Hans & Ursula Schwebel, Jacques Jacobs, Barbara Freibose as International Judges and Leon Bouttell as Judge Observer. The team was given superb support from Vera Jonkers and Alex Meyer, and later joined by Dr Thys and Rentia Geldenhuys as South African supporters.
The scenic town of Trencin with the Castle on the hill
Our team's arrival was Monday the 30th July. A full week before the championship, team SA are normally the first to arrive, as we need the most exposure to the European conditions and terrain as well as aircraft familiarization, as we need to hire local aircraft. By Tuesday mid-morning we had our first aircraft ready for us, a local Slovakian C172 OM-DCD (DOC) and joined the next morning with another local C172 OM-SNA (SNAP). Thus as a team we could get started with our training. Normally no validations are required, but back in 2010 this club had the bad experience of one of the participating teams have bent two aircraft (by the same crew no less….), thus we all had to have a check ride with the local instructor for 2 circuits to verify we could fly, thus by lunch time this was completed. Each team then had a chance to fly a navigation exercise in DOC for the rest of the afternoon till late and with European summer the light fades only around 9 PM.
The team SA C172's DOC and SNAP
The organisers provided three official practice routes, and these were put to full use in the following days, where we were able to carry out the plot inside the aircraft as one would do in the competition week, giving us a good practice run-up. The landscape varies radically between the valley at 800 ft and mountains going up to 3500 ft, and within minutes of taking off some routes would see you facing a steep climb out over the mountains, with check points often located just behind a steep incline and hidden behind forest features.
The river Vah with Trencin in the background
The weather for the practice week was good without much wind, although some thundershowers had to be avoided, with temperatures mostly above 34 deg, making the cockpit a sweltering sauna, at least in the mountainous areas higher up the cockpit became slightly cooler.
For this competition format, there was only an Unlimited class, in previous years there was an Advanced Class as well which was intended to bring in newer or amateur teams which made the competition somewhat more difficult for those teams who had no year round sponsorship or sports federation support. Clearly in the case of Team SA, all of the competitors and judges have to fund their own costs towards the event, travel, hotels and aircraft hire which is almost three times the cost of hire & fly in SA.
For the three practice days left from Wednesday to Friday, each of the teams flew the given practice routes, the Red route which was mostly east of the city of Trencin, proved the most difficult, as the terrain was very undulating, with more densely populated areas, making following the route very difficult especially recognizing the map shades of the various features and looking for turn points of minor river creeks and farm road crossings. The routes also had two arcs to follow, and with precessing DI's somewhat challenging to follow round, with the need to rely only on what is going on outside the window and what is on the map, and at least some sense of direction. Some of us re-flew the Red route a second time to get more familiar with the terrain in that busy eastern area.
Slovakian valleys and mountains
Team SA with DOC and SNAP in the background
For the competition week, flights are organized into two groups, flights start around 10 am at 5 minute intervals with the last flight taking off around 2 pm, and when returning, one spot landing needs to be done.
Frank flying DOC & Rob flying SNAP were divided into group one, and Jonty in SNAP and Thys in DOC were in group two. There was a strict procedure of parking aircraft next to the grass runway in take-off sequence where crews were isolated prior to receiving papers, normally around 30 minutes prior the flight starting which each of the routes having around 15 plotting points, allowing 2 minutes per plotting point to prepare the map, the cockpit during this period normally a frenzied affair.
Team Rob Jonkers and Martin Meyer
Team Thys vd Merwe and Ron Stirk
Team Frank & Cally Eckard with Team Manager Mary
Attempting Spot Landing in SNAP
Thursday was the last competition day for the Blue route, with again high wind conditions predicted, at around 15+ kts, the plots and timing were given with a wind compensation factor, so that is was somewhat easier to fly in terms of consistent speed, although headings would remain a challenge to maintain. With this route most of our teams started to improve on our scores, especially the photo recognition and finding the elusive white markers, so just as we were finishing up on the competition, so we started to get a real feel for the landscape.
Team Jonty Esser & Sandi Goddard
The Norwegians preparing their salmon snacks
Friday was packing up day and the closing ceremony and prize giving held at the Airfield, with most of us going for a day outing for some sightseeing before dressing up for the closing ceremony. This day is also when the heavens opened with torrential rain waterlogging many places including the airfield. The top prizes went to the Czech Republic, Poland and France, with Poland winning the country team prize, Team SA were in tenth place, and with landings were able to achieve 4th place.
The SA Flying Team at the closing ceremony parade of nations
Many thanks to our SA supporters that watch us from afar, also thanks to African Pilot and Absolute Aviation for the team clothing sponsorship, we always are the best dressed team with the best team spirit.
The SA Flying Team
Fun Rally at Hoedspruit
Fun Rally at Hoedspruit - 21 July 2018
By Cally Eckard
Two years after the first SAPFA rally was held at Hoedspruit, another very successful one was held over the weekend. Last year’s event was cancelled due to weather, so we were all hoping for conditions to be good for this popular event.
Local organiser and Chairman of Hoedspruit Flying Club, Wynand Uys, roped in 12 teams to participate. He is a very keen advocate of the sport, believing it to be an essential part of any pilot’s training in safety and competence. He and his wife Maritinka kindly hosted SAPFA rally organisers Frank and Cally Eckard.
The weather was perfect, but unfortunately the Military Airfield was celebrating their Freedom of the Town of Hoedspruit on the same day, so the rally had to be delayed until mid-morning. The advantage was that we were treated to a few low-level helicopter fly-bys from the nearby base.
The Competitors
Ten aircraft eventually took off, and flew along the road North to Phalaborwa, then towards the Blyde River Canyon mountain range, and along their foothills, through the agricultural lands of Hoedspruit, crossing the Blyde River and Sandspruit, and using them as navigation points of reference. The tasks were kept very basic, and included only one observation photo to be recognised per leg, and most teams found about half of the photographs, which is very commendable.
4th Place Tom van der Meulen & Juan Gerrits
The landing at the end of the rally was included in the final results, and overall winner Don Clark was the winner of the Landing Competition, flying a Cessna 172, and with a score of only 4 points, he landed a mere four metres beyond the landing line.
Wynand often holds informal “rallies” and flour bombing, which must explain the high level of skills held by these local pilots.
Keen rallyers Uys van Rensburg and Thys Scheepers joined the infamous “One Minute Club” by setting their clocks one minute too late. They flew a near-perfect route, and their times were excellent, but unfortunately one minute out all the way around the course - a very valuable but heart-wrenching lesson.
2nd Placed Team Willie du Plessis and Joggie & HJ Prinsloo
Winner Don Clark teamed up with co-organiser Cally Eckard because his own navigator cancelled at the last minute. However, his win was definitely a well-deserved one, as he is a very precise and conscientious pilot and navigator. Cally left the map-preparation to him, as well as most of the photo-spotting and navigation.
Winners Don Scott and Cally Eckard with organisors Wynand Uys and Frank Eckard
Mention must also be made of Charlot Engels flying the Commander, the first woman to ever be trained as a pilot in the Netherlands navy. She has participated in several rallies in Europe over the years, and is an intrepid pilot – always up for a challenge and an adventure.
First-timer and seventh-placed Maritza de Kock, who flew with Jenny Newenham, is a very keen and competent balloon pilot, with Sun Catchers Hot Air Balloon Rides in Hoedspruit. She said after the competition that she had learned so much during the flight, and is keen to participate in future events.
Results:
|
Place |
Pilot |
Navigator |
Aircraft |
Landing |
Total Score |
|
1 |
Don Scott |
Cally Eckard |
Cessna 172 |
4 |
166 |
|
2 |
Willie du Plessis |
Joggie & HJ Prinsloo |
Cessna 210 |
80 |
245 |
|
3 |
Charlot Engels |
Percy Hanskins |
Commander 114B |
28 |
288 |
|
4 |
Tom van der Meulen |
Juan Gerrits |
Gyro |
32 |
352 |
|
5 |
Jaco Scheepers |
Anelle Vermeulen |
Jabiru 2 |
200 |
396 |
The Albatos
The South African rally team will be participating in the World Rally Championships in Dubnica, Slovakia in early August. Please follow them on Facebook and on the SAPFA website.
The next Fun Rally will be held at Grand Central on 8 September. Please watch the SAPFA website for more details. All welcome.
The end of a Great Day