Vredendal 28/29 August 2009

[Tobie]

Vredendal airshow and fly-in coming up 28 & 29 August 2009

[Tobie]

Notam: Vredendal Airshow & Fly-In temporary ATZ

[THI]

Does anybody know if the SA rugby game will be shown?

[Morph]

Gadget and I are definitely going as far as things stand at the moment. We will fly up Friday in BosBefokker

[saraf]

Hi,

Ons kom ook van Upington af , en volgens my wys hulle altyd die rugby daar. Hulle het verlede jaar.

Groete
Eben Jnr

[THI]

Hi,

Ons kom ook van Upington af , en volgens my wys hulle altyd die rugby daar. Hulle het verlede jaar.

Groete
Eben Jnr

Hi Eben,

Sal jou graag wil ontmoet! En ook bietjie kyk na jou RAF.

Thinus

[Morph]

Now it is official, Gadget and I are flying in on Friday. We will spend Friday night teaching the liver that it is evil and should be punished. Sat, the gurls drive in and then we will be more civilised and sleep in a guesthouse. Might still give the liver another thrashing tho'

[Trikenut]

I wish I could come up as well. But the problem is my dad is going hunting!
He owes me BIG time!!'
I really would love to see foto's though!
Oh, and if anyone has a spare seat...
Cheers,
Ross

[THI]

The skies are lekke buzy over Moorreesburg.

...and here I am, sitting in office, looking at the skies...

[Morph]

Just returned from the Vredendal flyin.

A really good weekend, unfortunately marred by a fatal Gyro crash and two trike incidences.

Friday's weather was clear, with one small blemish, a major easterly, that had us tracking 45deg to the right on our northern route to Saldanha and beyond. Further up the coast the wind swung from a E to a NE, i.e. straight on the nose on the last sector of the trip. In our case the Bushbaby was making way at 55 to 60 mph, the trikes 15 to 20. Turbulence was severe to say the least, particularly for the trike guys. Some of our WCMC mates ended up burning 65 liters on a 503 against my 36 on the 912, purely because they spent so much time in the air. A trike pilot opted to land on the beach at Elands bay, and needed extraction and another one landed at Lamberts, the easterly catching him out resulting in a roll-over. Fortunately neither trike pilot was injured, and one actually continued to enjoy the weekend with us.

As far as the fatality is concerned, all I can say is I really feel for Johan Stemett and his flying mate, who had to continue the last 100miles knowing that your friend is dead, and there is nothing you can do about it. My deepest condolences to the family and friends of the pilot.

I will post some pics tommorow

[Morph]

Here are some pics

[Morph]

More

[Morph]

I suppose I may as well finish the story. Saturday afternoon closed off with a prize giving and the Animal won a prize (Boet what was it called again?)

The show closed off with a dedication by Johan to his fallen flybuddy

the usual consumption and braaing took place.

Sunday morning the skies were clear and all were chomping at the bit to head back. Within the first hour guys were returning indicating the any direction south was completely socked in, thick mist on the ground. We all decided to stay put, finally departing at about 11, after hearing that Saldanha might be open. I led the contingent and gave progress reports back to the guys. Lamberts was open, then Elandsbaai etc. Eventually the layer was encountered at Dwarskersbos, but it had lifted to 800ft and was starting to break up. We descended to 500ft and then 300ft agl and wove a path between the hills staying away from houses . At every point Gadget and I assessed the conditions, judged the visibility and pointed out alternative precautionary landing spots ahead or behind us. At no point in time did we put our selves in a position where we could get closed in, opting to rather take a longer route, where we had 5 miles forward vision against a short cut through a misty valley. 10 minutes later, safely on the ground at Saldanha. The rest of the crowd arrived another 10minutes later and we decided to have coffee to wait for the mist to completely breakup.

Eventually another 40 minutes later, after calls to assess the situation at Morning Star and Delta200 we took off tried 500ft agl but it was a little bumpy with a headwind, so we climbed to 2500ft to pick up a 5mph tailwind and cruised on home.

Apart from the obvious, all in all the weekend was a good one, great to see old friends again. Definitely back next year again

[LarryMcG]

Looks like there were more experimental and homebuilds there than at Bethlehem EAA!!!!

You beat the Vaalies, well done!

LM

[Trikenut]

Morph... nice one... kinda!!
Thanks for that, do you have a pic of the instrument panel of your panel?