Battlefields Fly-In

Trikes from Light Flight field were leaving at 7 on Friday morning (Hmmm, I'd beleve that when I saw it!), I was going to fly with them. The route was via Estcourt Ultra City and Ladysmith, about a 3-4 hour flight. André, Jeff and Brigid were also going. On the way to the field I got the jitters about the flight and didn't want to go, in fact I didn't want to fly at all... never. I got quite emotional about it for some unknown reason. I SMSed Jeff to say I wasn't going and Brigid phoned me back and said I had to go, I could fly with André. By the time I got to the field I was feeling a bit better, and Robbie was there again to see us off. He didn't fly with us as he was leaving for Paris that afternoon on business with Louisa-squeesa. Jeff and I took all our baggage to Light Flight to be taken by the wife of one of the guys. They were nowhere near ready. What did I say about them leaving at 7??

They finally flew over Grass Roots after 8, and we followed at about 8.45. We flew through a bit of Maritzburg airspace to save some time, then routed over Hilton and Mooi River and caught up to the trikes at Estcourt. We landed on the lawn in front of the Shell Ultra City north of Estcourt for breakfast and refuelling, which as always caused quite a stir to people filling up at the pumps.

The trikes took off first and we followed a bit later and headed for Ladysmith where we caught up to them again. We landed at the field and chatted to the guys there for a while before taking off for Dundee which was about 40 minutes further on. André let me fly again to Dundee and I handled the aeroplane very well. It just floats over any turbulance, is easy to correct when it gets bumped and settles back to flying again, not like the trike which tends to get knocked around and usually scares me. I felt really at ease with the odd thermals we encountered.

We skirted the town of Dundee and headed for the Battlefields Lodge out of town which has a landing strip. We had lunch and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. During the afternoon a group of about 7 Quick GT 450 microlights arrived from the Johannesburg area. These very fast and expensive trikes took about 3 hours to fly down from Gauteng. Jeff and I went out for a late afternoon flight over the vast flat farmlands north east of Dundee. We came across a farmer driving home in his bakkie and came down low next to him for a race. We won!!! Supper was potjie - quite nice. No pudding!!!

Saturday morning the GT 450's headed for Ballito on the north coast for the day. We heard later of a microlight crash on the north coast from someone who'd heard it on East Coast Radio. We were wondering if it was someone from that GT bunch, but found out later it was someone else. They crashed into the surf, were badly injured, but in hospital and ok. A flying tour of the local battlefields was on the schedule for Saturday afternoon, and the briefing and flight was brought forward BECAUSE OF THE RUGBY!!! Jeff and André were in Dundee buying 200 litres of avgas (yes a whole 44 gallon drum - which they used up by the way) so missed the flight briefing - they were not amused! By the time they got back the battlefield tour group had left. When they got back from the battlefield flight and were all watching rugby, we went for a local flight. We didn't have the co-ordinates of places like Isandlawana, Rorke's Drift, or any of the other places of interest, so we just headed in the general direction of Vryheid to see what was there. André gave me the controls again and I had a wonderful time flying. Even with the odd humps and bumps. André said I'd have no difficulty doing a conversion on a Bantam because I'd flown a 3 axis plane before - my MAC CDL was a 3 axis fixed wing plane, so there was little difference. We headed back to the lodge before sunset.

We'd decided to return home on Sunday morning and not Monday which was a public holiday because there was a change in weather predicted for Monday. Our baggage was leaving at 6 so we had to get up early to get that loaded. (The bakkie didn't leave until after 8... AGAIN!!) We left at about 9.30 and headed directly for Estcourt Ultra City, but decided to turn south before Estcourt because our fuel levels were still ok and the wind was slightly behind us. On entering Pmb airspace the air traffic controller asked us to fly above 4000 feet to avoid the Comrades helicopter traffic. I didn't get any pictures of the Comrades runners as my camera battery had gone flat!!

I was going to fly my trike on the next good day, but sadly we haven't had many of those since I got back. The first few days were wet and cold, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were too windy. See what Sunday offers. A light SE is predicted.
André asked me the other day when I was going to order my Bantam. Hmmm... a bit of a dilemma here. To do my building additions at home or buy a plane...??Building can generate extra income if I let the house... the Bantam will just cost more money with the rising cost fuel....???? (SIGH)
See www.microaviationsa.co.za/pages/bantam.htm

Margate Flying

As the Kalahari Bundu Bash was cancelled for the 3rd year in a row because of a lack of registrations we - ie. Jeff and André decided to do something else instead. Last year they (Robbie, André and Jeff) flew down to Margate in their Bantams. This year André, Jeff and I went again.

We left early Tuesday morning, heading for the Umkomaas River mouth. Just as we got over the very broken ground of the Umkomaas valley Durban tower called us on the radio telling us we were "encroaching on the Durban TMA". André told them we were aware of the TMA boundary but were outside and below it, heading for the coast at the Umkomaas mouth. We were told to descend to 2500 feet which took us right into the Umkomaas valley making finding a safe landing spot in a hurry if the engine failed very difficult. But we supposed it was just the air traffic controller doing his job because he had a 737 approaching to land.

Once we reached the coast we flew about 1000ft above the beach to Margate, then turned inland to the airport. André has a cousin who owns a holiday penthouse in a block of flats on the beach at Margate. We also had access to his car, but they couldn't get it started, so we hired a car for the 3 days we were there.

The next morning, we all went flying south along the Wild Coast to spot sardines which were making their annual migration up the coast. They had already reached Ramsgate, and there were more further south. I took some aerial video footage and was amazed to see the sharks swimming around in the shoals, particularly in those right on the beach where people were catching the sardines!!! They had no idea sharks were just a few metres from them! André let me fly the plane back to Margate. It's a very easy plane to handle, must easier than the trike. All the steep turns while I was filming left me feeling a bit airsick, so I stayed at the airport while Jeff took his mom for her flight.
I had contacted a colleague at work to tell her about the sardines, and her and cameraman were already on their way down to do a news piece for that night. They came to the airport to collect my tape with the aerial shots on it. Later André and Jeff flew further down the WIld Coast and saw many more huge shoals of sardines and thousands of sharks after them. I was still feeling a bit sick, so I stayed at the airport. Later that afternoon we asked a young pilot to take us for a ride in the twin engine Cessna he was flying for aerial surveys. It had an enormous Leica camera mounted in the floor. I have never seen a camera so huge, about half a metre square with another large memory cabinet for storing the digital photos. Because it was a company plane, he only took us for a 12 minute flip, which was enough, just for the experience. It was so funny how we got the ride... André asked in a loud voice who the pilot was who was flying the Cessna parked on the apron at the airport. And as there was only one other person on the deck with us, he said he was. André then just asked him to take us for a flip. I don't think he could say no. We had also asked a helicopter pilot for a ride they day before. He was checking Eskom power lines and said he'd take us when he returned form the inspection. We waited on the deck until the sun set, but we didn't see him again!
During Thursday night a south wester buster came up and we were worried we wouldn't be able to fly back to Grass Roots in the morning... well not that worried!! It subsided by day break so we had a nice light tail wind home.
Back at Grass Roots we washed the planes and got ready for our next adventure - the annual Battlefields Fly-in at Dundee.