Home
  • Home
  • Administration
    • About Us
      • Address
      • Benefits
      • History 1
      • Representation
    • Committee
    • Constitution
    • Awards and Colours
      • Award Requirements
      • Award Application Form
      • Awards by Year
      • Awards by Recipient
    • Membership Renewals and New Application
    • Newsletters
    • Bank Account
    • Regulatory Matters
    • Annual General Meeting
  • Competition Flying
    • SAPFA COVID 19 SOP
    • Landing
      • Landing Regulations
      • Landing Articles
      • Landing Results
    • Speed/Altitude Records
      • Record Requirements
      • S A records
      • SA Records-superseded
      • Speed/Altitude Record Articles
      • World Records
    • FAI Representatives
    • Sporting Code
    • SECS - SAPFA Equality Competition System
    • Air Race
      • Results by Year
      • Race History
      • Race Regulations
      • PTAR 2018 - List of provisional handicaps
    • Rally Flying
      • Rally Rules
      • Rally Articles
      • Rally Trophies
      • WRFC 2003
    • Precision Flying
      • Precision Rules
      • Precision Trophies
      • Results & Articles
    • Sportsman Navigation Rally
      • About Sportsman Events
      • Sportsman Navigation Articles
    • ANR - Air Navigation Race
    • Pylon Racing
      • Pylon Racing Regulations
  • AIC19-1
  • Books
  • Contact Us
  • Resources
    • Aviation Regulations
    • Aviation Frequency Chart - South Africa
  • Speed Rally
  • PTAR
  • WPFC 2019
  • WRFC2020
  • Virtual Flying

UP COMING EVENTS


Our Next Events 


Rand Airport Challenge

Event: Rally

Where: Rand Airport 

Dates: Saturday, January 30, 2021

Organiser – Contact Frank Eckard e-mail: frank.eckard@mweb.co.za cell: 083 269 1516

 

SAPFA AGM

Event: Annual General Meeting

Where: Rand Airport Old Customs Hall

Dates: Saturday, January 30, 2021 @ 14h00

Organiser – Contact Rob Jonkers e-mail: rob@aerosud.co.za cell: 082 804 7032


 

Social Media

 SAPGAFB

Visit Our Rally Flying Facebook Page 

(SOUTH AFRICAN POWER FLYING ASSOCIATION)

 

Visit Our OFFICIAL - PRESIDENT'S TROPHY AIR RACE Facebook Page

 

FAI - World Air Sports Federation

Affiliated to


Aero Club of South Africa The Aero Club of South Africa

GAC logo

SASCOC

Login Form

Springs Season Finale Speed Navigation Rally - 28 Nov 2020


Springs Season Finale Speed Navigation Rally - 28 Nov 2020

By Rob Jonkers


Photos by Willie Bodenstein, Rob Jonkers and Mary de Klerk


The South African Power Flying Association (SAPFA) together with our main sponsor Aircraft Unlimited, organised the 2020 season finale Speed Navigation Rally on Saturday 28th November 2020.

Although strictly not planned to have been the end of the 2nd season, 2020 being a year what it is, with reduced events, we decided to review the events and shorten the 6 per season to 4, so season 2 started and ended at Springsin order that season 3 would start and end in 2021.

For the overall season, scoring the best of 3 events would count towards the season's results.


Ivan van der Schaar in the Aircraft Unlimited branded Boeing Stearman celebrated the event with a brief display

As the event has evolved, changes have been brought into play, all with the participation of the organisers and competitors. For this season the overall distance was reduced to 138 nm (from 150 nm), a handicap overspeed penalty was instituted and allowance to fly with a GPS track-made-good magnetic heading reference. For this final season 2 event, 32 entries were received. Springs 2019 was also the debut of the Grand-Prix circuit and was also planned this year, a format that has also evolved over the last four GPs.

 

 



 
Some of the participating aircraft

The route was mostly to the east and south of the airfield, with a bit more of a scenic route than previous events going close to the Vaal Dam. The weather on Friday started out really well, the forecast giving an indication to late afternoon thundershowers, which were lurking towards the west. Test flights commenced with some new entries requiring test flights and some old entries wanting to retest to re-confirm their handicaps. The test flights were done by Mark Clulow and Sean Cronin and had to be curtailed after 3PM as the weather deteriorated.




Saturday mornings briefing

At 18h30, Jonty Esser, as the MC 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 protocol. He also elaborated as to how the scoring system worked in terms of penalties as well as the expected weather conditions, which looked like overcast to start with but lifting after 9 am and 10+ kts of gusty northerly winds.





Aircraft on the field on Saturday


Mark & Shane from Century Avionics were on hand to block off / seal Aircraft GPS and autopilot systems. Scorers, Dirk and Louna de Vos taking a break

 
Rob during the Saturday briefing and Jonty during the Saturday evening's prize giving


Jonty and owner Andrew Lester owner of the sponsors, Rand Airport based Aircraft Unlimited

Jonty Esser then took to the stage in his signature competing crew introductory theme song videos and race number handouts and also included introductions to the event and team sponsors. For this event, an event sponsor was secured in the form of Aircraft Unlimited, an AMO based at Rand Airport. Jonty proudly introduced the new owner Andrew Lester and his team and advised that they would also provide AMO support for aircraft during the event. Thereafter everybody was treated to a buffet meal before retiring for the evening to the music of one of the competitors Leon Joubert and his band re-living the 70s real music era.


Competitors and organisers before the start of the racing

 

 

 
Some of the competitors prior to the start of the rally

Saturday morning dawned with windy and low overcast cloud conditions. The decision was made to start the briefing an hour later at 9 am with the start to commence an hour and a half later at 11h30 for an over the field arrival at 1 PM. Once the shortened briefing was over, everybody prepared their aircraft and got themselves sorted into the parking bays. Aircraft were then also scrutineered with all portable electronic devices sealed up in bags. For this event Mark & Shane from Century Avionics were on hand to also block off / seal Aircraft GPS and autopilot systems.








The start line manned by Sean Cronin and Mark Clulow


Scrutineers Lizelle, Louna, Bernhardt and Adrian were on hand to seal up all portable GPS capable devices

Scrutineers Lizelle, Louna, Bernhardt and Adrian were on hand to seal up all portable GPS capable devices, handing out papers at the allotted time and also checked the fuel tanks were full. Starters Mark Clulow and Sean Cronin set up at the starting line adjacent the threshold of Runway 03, who would release each aircraft at their allotted time slot. Each team then received their envelopes with their loggers at 20 minutes prior take-off time and taxied to the starting line within 10 minutes of brake release. 1st take-off was at 11h30 for the slowest aircraft and last take-off at 12h100 with a planned arrival at 1 PM.
With all the competitors off towards the east, the route had a mix of easy and challenging turn points with some river crossing also thrown into the mix and a little more scenic than previous Springs events. In general, the competitors found the course easy enough this time round, with the photographs now in larger format to identify the ground features more prominently and which can be seen in the results, where many had a clear round in their tracks. Just before 1PM, the first aircraft appeared over the line and was a little early. It was then followed by at least three quarters of the field all within a minute, with tail enders after that.
After all teams having returned, the scoring team got to work to analyse the results, completing the individual scores by 3 PM. A season ending gala prize-giving evening was arranged, which turned out really well as most of the teams stayed over or got dressed in their finest black tie. The evening got under way at around 6 with starter platters and then at 7 with Rob Jonkers showing everybody's tracks - from the most accurate to the most creative. Jonty had Andrew from Aircraft Unlimited and Rob Jonkers hand out certificates to each of the teams. Prize-giving got underway with three trophies going to best husband and wife team - Eric and Antoinette Addison, best Father and Son team - Apie & Frederik Kotzee and best school entry - Legend Sky from Rhino Park. The most creative track trophy went to the first-time entrant Chipmunk team of Grant Timms and Duncan Ritchie.






1st

 
2nd & 3rd

The GP race winners were Dane Laing in an RV4, Johan van Eeden & Cor Esterhuisen in an RV7 took 2nd place and Leon Joubert in a Lancair in 3rd place






Handicap season results placings


Accuracy navigation Season results placings


Season overall placings

This was followed by the Springs event results in navigation accuracy, handicap and overall. As this was the end of the 2nd season, the season results and winners in each of the categories were also announced. The final results for all the teams for Springs and the season will be posted on the Speed Rally website.


In the tower from Search and Rescue were Santjie White and daughter Jean Michelle with ATNS's Marcus Pitner and Gladwin Sekgobela

Jonty then thanked all the officials who put in the effort to make the Speed rally what it has become which included Adrian Cronje as the Chief Marshall, Nigel Musgrave as the Safety Officer, Dirk de Vos doing the scoring, Mark Clulow & Sean Cronin for doing test flights and starting, Marc & Shane for Century Avionics for Scrutineering, Lizelle Kruger, Louna de Vos, Bernhard Jansen for handing out competition papers to the crews as well as Scrutineering (we missed Chareen Shillaw who could not join this time round). Also thanked were Jonty & Lizelle & Sandy for putting together an awesome Friday evening launch event and Gala Dinner on Saturday, the ATNS team for managing the ATC for the weekend and Santjie White for being everybody's Guardian Angel. Thanks also to the East Rand Flying Club for the excellent airfield facilities.

 



 

 
More participating aircraft

Also to the sponsors Aircraft Unlimited, who was the main sponsor of the event, Flightline Weekly for sponsoring the race numbers, team sponsors JB Electrical - Leon Bouttell and Martin Meyer, Fast Flame Laser Cutting - Hendrik & Jandre Loots and Johan van Eeden &Cor Estrehuiz, Beegle Micro Trackers - Quintin Kruger and Johan Whiteman, Prompt Roofing - Leon Joubert and Sandi Goddard

Our next Speed Rally event will be in Witbank in the 6th of February 2021.


1st placed Race 5's accurate track


Oops - We went to Nigel instead

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.


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

  1. The 2020 Brakpan Airport Nav Rally
  2. The Pilot Insure Witbank Speed Navigation Rally - 2 Feb 2020
  3. The Sixteenth Rand Airport Challenge 2020
  4. World Rally Flying Championships Training Session

Page 1 of 17

«StartPrev12345678910NextEnd»

Events


 

Click Here for our Calendar of events.

 


 

ENTER HERE for SAPFA Rally events.

 


 

 

ENTER HERE for the  PTAR

 

(note this link will take you to the Speed Rally Website - entries will temporarily be hosted there until this websites's entry system is restored to be compatible for use with all web browsers)

 



 Visit www.speedrally.co.za for more

information about SAPFA Speed Rallies

 


 

Weather Link


 

For your personalised Weather Briefing

Contact Deon van der Mescht at Aero Weather

 

Https://web.facebook.com/Aero-Weather-145249932773937/


 

Wednesday the 20th - Professional Joomla Templates