I have been asked to post this to quell any potential rumours about the incident.
A gaggle of gyro's took off from Saldanha on Sunday, the last one off the ground - occupied by the highly respected and very senior pilot Eben Mocke, who has many many hours and years of experience, decided to turn early, low-level to catch up with the rest quicker. These are his own words -
"Net na take off van Saldana lughawe vir n vlug na Lambertsbaai het ek te vroeg lings uit gedraai , wind 15 knope gusting reg van voor. Die gevolg van my aksies was dat die gyro nie genoegsame lugspoed gehad het nie en dus hoogte begin verloor het, hoogte wat ek nie gehad het tot my beskikking nie. Ek het toe die gyro gevlieg en probeer uit die situasie kry tot die beste van my vermoe, maar het geen spasie gehad , in hoogte of afstand om dit te kom reg kry nie. My laaste opsie was toe maar om haar neer te sit in die veld voor ek oor die hoof pad of in drade sou invlieg.
Ongelukkig vir my was daar n wal op die grond wat die gyro se 'keel' geslaan het en my dus vooroor gedruk het waarna die gyro omgeval het en beskadig is.
Ek het absoluut NIKS oorgekom nie , behalwe dat n ou se ego geknel is maar dit sal weer herstel."
I hope we all learn something from this incident. The few lessons I see are: The dragon of the downwind turn lurks to bite even the most experienced. Keep climbing until at least 200ft AGL before initiating a downwind turn - then you have some altitude to convert to speed if the ground-speed perception does trick you into letting your airspeed drop. If you do mess-up, be honest enough and man enough to admit it so that others can learn from your experience.
I am very pleased that Eben wasn't hurt in the incident and admire him for sharing his experience with the rest of us even though his ego must still be quite bruised. Well done on executing a good landing Eben!
For those of you not familiar with the article by "Sir Jim Davis" - you can find it here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6868
Fly safe
Len
but cudos to your dad.