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.












SAPFA COVID SOP July 2020

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

SAPFA_COVID_SOP-July_2020_Rev_1.pdf

The 2020 Brakpan Airport Nav Rally

The 2020 Brakpan Airport Nav Rally

By Cally Eckard - Photos by Willie Bodenstein



Participants and officials



Rob Jonkers talked about the Aeroclub's 100th Anniversary to be celebrated during Airweek to be held at Middelburg 1st to the 3rd of May 2020

With the National Rally Flying Championships only two weeks away, most of the existing Protea rally team members took part in the Class 1, or "Open" category of the sport at Brakpan Airport. It was also encouraging to see that after all the training sessions held by Mary de Klerk, Rob Jonkers and Jonty Esser, many of the previous "Fun Rallyers" stepped up to Class 1 as well.


Von Hammon, Hans Schwebel, Andy Gouws and Ron Stirk plotting


Thys van der Merwe and Sally Shaw plotting


Rob Osner who flew with Hilton Wolf in the Mushack plotting


Novice ladies and the only completely female team Clarissa de Costa and Kerry Mathysen only got theirs wings late last year and were looking forward to this, their first rally. They have already entered the Bethlehem Speed Rally

Disappointingly, few of the local Brakpan pilots supported this event, even though one of the training sessions was held at the club recently. Hopefully, more of them will be inspired to put their flying and navigational skills to the tests, especially as this sport improves general flying safety.

 
Two tracks, both scored well in navigation

Organisers Frank and Cally Eckard kept the route fairly simple, so as not to discourage the first-timers. They all managed to complete the task sheet quite easily, except for one navigator who plotted the start point from the wrong Brakpan Airport, which found his pilot heading off to start at the finish point and was surprised to find another aircraft flying directly towards him.

More Plotting


Martin Meyer and Rob Jonkers busy in their Cessna 182


Quentin Taylor and Derek Bird who flew the Super Decathlon getting ready


Fanie Scholtz and Herman Haasbroek who flew a Sling 2 plotting


Fanie and son Frederick flew their Robison R66. Willie Bodenstein went along and took photos during the flight

The "follow-the-feature" (a railway line) was easily managed by most of the teams, except for one who followed the wrong railway line. Frank did not include arcs in the route, as these require more skills and will be incorporated into the next event.

Some of the competitors taking off


Derek and Quentin in the Super Decathlon


Rob and Martin in their Cessna 182

 
Anthony and Pamela Russel who again flew up from Cape Town and rented a Cessna 172 and Jonty and Sandy in the Cessna C150


Fanie and Herman in the Sling 2


Andre Kluyts and Don Lucas in the Cessna 172

The weather cleared in time for the scheduled take-off and the winds were light, with just a very slight cross-wind over the run-way. It was decided to judge the landings after the rally and the results showed that a lot of practise is required before the National Champs. For the first time in a SAPFA event, a helicopter set the record by winning the landing stage of the rally. (That's not hard for a chopper?)


Hilton and Rob taking off in Hilton's Mushack, the only of its type in the country

Apart from the Robbie 66, another aircraft of interest was the Mushack, which is featured in the latest edition of Pilot's Post.


Frederick just before crossing the starting line


The start line was this intersection just past the Ergo Slimes Dam


Then it was left to follow the highway for a while


Intersections makes good turn points like this where one had to follow the left road


Or this bridge, a number of which straddled that section of the railroad


Was this the one or the one we have just passed or the one in the distance? Calculating arrival time between turn points is absolutely essential

The route took them to a start point near Ergo Slimes Dam, then South towards Heidelberg, to a point along the N3, then East towards Leandra, then back North along the railway line to Delmas and then home via Selcourt.


Von Hamman and Andy Gouws won the Sportsman Class


Thys van der Merwe and Sally Shaw was placed first in the Intermediate Class


Jonty Esser and Sandy Goddard took the honours in the Advanced Class


Anthony and Pamela Russell took second place…..


with Rob Jonkers and Martine Meyer in third place

Although the results were far from what is required from a National standard, the selectors trust that the skills the entrants will pick up at Nationals will enable them to put together five "A" team and five "B" team partnerships to give SA the best chance of a good team result.

The full results are:



The Pilot Insure Witbank Speed Navigation Rally - 2 Feb 2020

The Pilot Insure Witbank Speed Navigation Rally - 2 Feb 2020

By Rob Jonkers (photos by Willie Bodenstein, Rob Jonkers)

This first of the Pilot Insure Speed Rallies for 2020 has been held at Witbank, the 2nd for Season 2, successfully organized by SAPFA and hosted by the Witbank Aeronautical Association. Planning for this event began in November 2019 with a reconnaissance to Witbank to review the logistics for the weekend. The Witbank team went out of their way to make this a memorable event for the weekend, their members having got involved in many of the aspects of achieving a great competition.



The competitors after the Saturday morning briefing


With the first event of the season behind us held at Springs, the SAPFA team and competitors held a further debrief to review options on further improvements, most notably to look at the scoring of navigation accuracy which is now normalised to ensure slow or fast aircraft types have an equal chance in scoring for navigation accuracy. Scores are counted for both Navigation & Handicap where before if you won in the handicap class in the first 3 places, the scores were excluded in the accuracy class.



Piet Meyer and Adrienne Visser finished 2nd overall



Zwelihle Zondo and Nkululeko Sokweba was placed 17th overall


Entries for Witbank were 34, with 4 GPS class competitors and 8 more in the Grand Prix part of the event. There were also two schools taking part, the Mach 1 school from Springs and first-time entry from Rhino Park LST - Light Sport Aviation Training. The Grand Prix event is the 2nd event in this Season 2 and is proving very popular from the result of the 1st try out held in Springs.






Some briefing Pics


The route for this weekend was planned at 146nm, had 10 turning points and for added spectator value now included a crossover, this is where the course was anti-clockwise, to cross over the airfield and then clockwise to return from the east. The cross-over was planned to have the first of the slower aircraft already passing over while a number of the faster aircraft were still waiting to take-off.



Tintsalo Mabunda and Lehlogonolo Kekana was placed 21st overall


The route in the first portion was mostly to the north and west, at the starting point of some of the valleys and rivers meandering into the Loskop Dam, the second portion towards the scenic north-east towards the eastern shores of the Loskop dam, and then back around Middelburg and some not so scenic coal fields and flatter landscapes.


The weather on Friday started out really well, the forecast not predicting any rain, but there were plenty of thermals about. Flight testing was carried out all day with Mark Clulow and Sean Cronin, although with some strong thermals in the afternoon had to wait for this to die down before continuing.






The team of Johan Sayers & Jack Coetzer preparing to mount their Harvard ZU-WSE


The Friday afternoon initial briefing started at 18h30, David le Roux being the new race master and introduced Rob Jonkers who took to the stage and provided a briefing on what to expect for the next day in terms of the planned route, how many turn points, distance, departure and arrivals protocols. He also explained how the scoring system worked in terms of penalties as well as the expected weather conditions, which was predicted to be clear with a light and variable wind from the east swinging north east.



Race Master David le Roux


All the competitors were then treated to a briefing on Steroids with Race Master David le Roux introducing all the teams to come up to the stage with a fanfare of theme songs and handing out race stickers. thereafter everybody was treated to a lamb on the spit meal provided by the host club before retiring for the evening.



The team of Pierre vd Merwe and Neville Ferreira plotting on their wing of the Sling ZU-FWY




Century Avionics's Sean and Mark who assisted with the blanking out of GPS instruments



Father and son Kobus and Jacques Botha's Piper PA 28-140 in the foreground with the field in the background


Saturday morning dawned with perfect flying conditions, a clear day with virtually no wind, but as the morning wore on the wind started to pick up and from the South East which favouring Rwy 22, except the planned runway to be used was 04, as the cross-over was at the threshold of 04.



A view of the field from the tower. Fuel to Witbank is supplied by Puma Energy





Some competitors at the start


The briefing started at 07h00 am and was concluded at around 8, where everybody dispersed first for a group photo and then to park their aircraft and prepare for the scrutineers and refuelers. The wind was remaining stuck in the south easterly direction and had increased in strength, with Rob fretting over whether to delay the start to a little later to allow the wind to swing more to the predicted north easterly direction, a quick phone call to Deon vd Mescht, our weather guru, confirmed the wind would swing but ever so slowly. By 9h30 the wind started to die down a little and it was decided to continue.



Witbank Chairman Fife Delport with first time Navigator Marga Lombaard in their Sling ZU-STT



Navigator James Braid in an unusual plotting position flying a Sling - ZU-JAR



Rob Osner flew his Allo III from Brakpan and flew as Navigator in Hilton Wolff''s Mushack

Scrutineers Chareen, Lizelle, Karen, Ardyn and Alex were on hand to seal up all portable GPS capable devices and also handing out papers at the allotted time, and also checking the fuel tanks were full. For this event we used a Grand Prix style flag to release the aircraft line up, with Christian du Plessis doing the honours, under starters orders given by the starter Mark Clulow.



Husband and wife team of Eric & Antoinette Addison in the RV7 ZU-LAX



Some of the Ground Crew that kept things going



Leon Joubert and Pilot's Insure owner and main sponsor flew in both the rally and the GP event

Each team then received their envelopes with their loggers at their 20 minutes prior take-off time who would then taxi to the starting line within 10 minutes of take-off time. 1st take-off was at 09h56 for the slowest aircraft and last take-off at 10h40, with a planned arrival at 11h30.



First Timers Kobus and Jacques Botha in their Piper 140 ZS - FHH



Franz Smith with new co-sponsors Warwick Wealth


With all the competitors off towards the norhwest, the route had a mix of easy and challenging turn points, especially TP 1 and 6 which required a descent into the Loskop valley, and then some hard to spot turn points 7,8 and 9 in among the mielie and coal fields. The wind had also picked up in the interim starting to favour those already heading in the westerly direction. Just before 11h30 the first aircraft over the line was a Sling ZU-IHK. The landing sequence was fairly easy to do with everybody joining right hand downwind onto Rwy 22 with good intervals.


The line-up of aircraft at the starting line

After all teams had returned and were safe on the ground, the scoring team got to work to analyse the results, with the tracks for a number being quite accurate, although some had wobbles:- only two got a bit lost.


Starter Christian du Plessis waving off the Sling ZU-STT


In sequence take-off with 15 sec intervals of some close handicapped aircraft

Getting the results out on time proved to be a challenge, with changes in the scoring system there were some gremlins that had to be fixed which required extra time and with potential late afternoon weather on the reef put some time pressure to complete the results. Eventually at 4 PM the results could be announced. The tracks for the routes flown was also shown, pretty much everybody except 2 competitors did not get lost, although the eastern turn points were missed by a few.



Hendrik Loots



James Braid



Quintin Kruger and Johan Whiteman


Race Master David le Roux and our main sponsor Franz Smit from Pilot Insure handed out the trophies, first up being the winners of the most accurately flown route with father and son team Hendrik & Jandre Loots in their Sling ZU-IHK with 2nd place awarded to another Sling ZU-JAR with David Ross & James Braid. Son and father team Quintin Kruger & Johan Whiteman in their Cherokee 235 ZS-FVV bagged the last step of the podium.



Piet Meyer and Adrienne Visser



Chris and Adriaan de Beer


For the handicap results, a double win was in order for Hendrik & Jandre Loots. Piet Meyer and Adrienne Visser in their Jabiru ZU-DUU were second and in 3rd place Michael Blackburn & Steve Briggs in their Sling ZU-IBM. For the GPS event the winner was local Witbank crew of Chris and Adriaan de Beer in their C182RG ZS-KUN. The club trophy was handed over by Jonty to chairman Fife Delport, with the winning school being the Mach 1 Training School who are becoming consistently better at improving their results at each event.


This weekend's overall results has ZU-IHK in the lead followed by ZU-DUU and ZS-FVV. The overall season points standing has ZU-IHK in the lead followed by ZU-FVV and ZU-JAR.



GP Competitors


The GP Podium


Winners, Johan van Eeden and Gavin Edwards



Second place, Winners, John Sayers and Jack Coetzer



Third place, Dane and Wade Laing


Many thanks to the Witbank Aeronautical Association for hosting this fantastic event, supporting with ground marshals, logistics and great evening meals, the Pilot Insure team of Franz Smit David le Roux the Race Master at the registration desk together with the Warrick Wealth team, Nigel Musgrave as the Safety Officer, Dirk and Louna de Vos and Mark Clulow doing the scoring, Marc Robinson with his team from Century Avionics for Scrutineering, Chareen Shillaw, Lizelle Kruger handing out competition papers to the crews as well as Scrutineering with their team, Jonty & Lizelle for putting together an awesome Friday evening launch event. Thanks also extended to Santjie White of the ARCC who always watches over us.


Also thanks to our sponsors, Pilot Insure being our signature Speed Rally Brand Sponsor, Flightline Weekly for sponsoring the race numbers, team sponsors Excel E&I - Leon Bouttell and Martin Meyer, The Airplane Factory - David Ross and James Braid, Pilots Post - Phil Wakeley and Mary De Klerk Fast Flame Laser Cutting - Hendrik & Jandre Loots, Beegle Micro Trackers - Quintin Kruger and Johan Whiteman, Prompt Roofing - Leon Joubert and Franz Smit.


Our next Speed Rally event will be in Bethlehem on the 22nd of March 2020.



Nice perfect Track



Oops - Found Middelburg instead

The Sixteenth Rand Airport Challenge 2020

 

The Sixteenth Rand Airport Challenge 2020

By Cally Eckard Photos by Willie Bodenstein




Competitors and officials with Rand's historic terminal building in the background


Early morning at Rand. Photo by Michael Crause of the Sling in which he and Edzart Verseput competed

With the World Rally Flying Championships in sight, a record 8 teams took part in the Class 1, or "Open" category of the sport at the Rand Airport Challenge. In previous years most participants preferred to stick to the simplest and easiest Class 3, or "Fun Rally", but this year pilots and navigators were encouraged to enter the most advanced group. They all certainly found their skills were challenged on this first rally of the year. Mary de Klerk and Rob Jonkers presented a Navigation workshop the previous week, so everyone was keen to exercise their new-found knowledge in this rally.



 
The route map and photo sheets

Route Planner Cally Eckard gave the teams the task of flying two back-to-back arcs, which are curved tracks between two turn-points and a follow-the-feature, where they had to fly along a road. All navigators plotted the arc perfectly:- the pilots flew them accurately and really enjoyed the challenge.






Frank and Cally and some of the competitors during the briefing

Sadly, drizzle and low cloud kept some of the entrants grounded at their home airfields, but for local pilots, the skies cleared early enough for them to fly through just in time for the briefing by Competition Director Frank Eckard, so there was no delay in the start time for the rally. The sky continued to clear during the course of the morning, but strong winds challenged the pilots on some of the legs, making it difficult for them to maintain their allocated speeds.




Plotting is serious business

Use of Google photos which were taken in mid-winter were also difficult to match up to the current terrain after soaking summer rains which have coloured the landscape a lush green.




Andre Kluyts and Don Lucas


Leon Boutell and Karin Purchase


Tony and Pam Russell flew from Cape Town and rented a C172 at Rand in which the participated


Jonty Esser and Mary de Klerk


Milan Daniz and Caroline Koll


Quintin Tayler and Derick Bird


Father and Son Hendrik and Jandre Loots


Thys vd Merwe and Kerry Matthysen


Shane Britz and Karen Stroud


Edzart Verseput (left) and Michael Crause (extreme right)

The route took them west from Rand Airport, over Soweto, with the Start Point the train station at Nasrec, then the two arc between Carletonville and Fochville, skirting north of Vanderbijlpark, before turning northwards for the return journey over Ennerdale to a tricky Finish Point which was the "Stirrup Club".

 


Some of the tracks. The logger in the last one unfortunately stopped working at turn point two

Although none of the results were of National standard, there are many rallies and training opportunites between now and the World Champs, and we hope to put together five "A" team and five "B" team partnerships to give SA the best chance of a good team result.


Jonty Esser and Mary de Klerk won Class 1 Advanced and the Rand Airport Floating Trophy


Tony and Pam Russell finished in second place


with Andre Kluyts and Don Lucas in third

The Rand Airport Trophy, donated by Rand Airport, was won by seasoned rallyers Jonty Esser (pilot) and Mary de Klerk (navigator).


Michael Crause and Edzart Verseput finished first in Class 3 Sportsman


Thys vd Merwe and Kerry Matthysen won the Class 2 Intermediate



Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of this sport and are all very motivated to take part in the next rally events:

· 7 March - Brakpan Rally (Classes 1, 2 and 3)
· 3 - 5 April - Rally Nationals in Stellenbosch (Class 1 only)
· 5 April - Stellenbosch Rally (Classes 1, 2 and 3)
· 8 August - Rally Training Camp in Brits (Class 1)
· 22 August - Krugersdorp Rally (Classes 1, 2 and 3)
· 3 October - Witbank Rally (Classes 1, 2 and 3)
Look out also for our very exciting Speed Rallies.
Please see our website Sapfa.org.co.za for our events calendar

 

  1. World Rally Flying Championships Training Session
  2. Air Navigation Racing in Brisbane
  3. Grand Central Fun Rally - 14 Sep 2019
  4. WORLD ANR CHAMPIONSHIP 2019