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.  

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.  

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.    

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.  

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. 

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

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 home via Selcourt.  

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:

Landing Competition:

	Pilot	Navigator	Aircraft	Score
1	Apie Kotze	Frederick Kotze	R 66	0
2	Andre Kluytz	Don Lucas	C 172	10
3	Antony Russell	Pamela Russell	C 172	20
4	Jonty Esser	Sandi Goddard	C 150	30
5	Von Hammon	Andy Gouws	C150	40

Class 3 (The Fun Rally section):

	Pilot	Navigator	Aircraft	Points
1	Von Hammon	Andy Gouws	C150	974
2	Hilton Wolf	Rob Osner	Mushak	1374
3	Roydon Gillies	Justin Dorrington	PA 28-140	1781
4	Clarrissa de Costa	Kerry Mathysen	C152	1989

Class 2 (The Intermediate Section):

	Pilot	Navigator	Aircraft	Points
1	Thys van der Merwe	Sally Shaw	C172	594

Class 1 (The Unlimited or Open Section):

	Pilot	Navigator	Aircraft	Points
1	Jonty Esser	Sandi  Goddard	C150	435
2	Antony Russell	Pamela Russell	C172	539
3	Rob Jonkers	Martin Meyer	C182	709
4	Hans Schwebel	Ron Stirk	C150	741
5	Andre Kluyts	Don Lucas	C172	1085
6	Apie Kotze	Frederick Kotze	R66	1210
7	Hendrik Loots	Jandre Loots	Sling	1214
8	Derek Bird	Quentin Taylor	Super Decathlon	1586
9	Milan Daniz	Caroline Koll	TC07	1856
10	Piet Meyer	Adrienne Visser	Jabiru J400	1956
11	Fanie Scholtz	Herman Haasbroek	Sling 2	2800

A score less than 2000 indicates that with the training and discipline the pilots experience at Nationals, they should be able to be selected to represent South Africa in Stellenbosch in November.  

Nationals take place from Thursday 2 – 4 April, with training at your own discretion.  Look out also for our very exciting Speed Rallies. Please see our website sapfa.org.co.za for our events calendar.

By Cally Eckard