Of course!

We had a super long weekend with some good flying, nice weather although a bit chilly and good results.
The weather is definitely changing. During last week temperatures of 32 degrees were seen at FAWC. The switch was turned over last Tuesday.

On all three days there was a front hanging around the mountains and on Saturday night we had rain which lingered on in the valley on Sunday and the occasional lost droplet was felt. At Brandwag and at Rawsonville showers could be seen.

Saturday was the best day with Rudi in wave up to 11 000 ft above the Robertson road and not climbing more because he had no oxygen installed. He entered the wave at the small hub just before Vic Peak but because of the TMA there he went into the secondary further downwind. Of course outside the TMA is the place to fly wave-rarely do we hear that this is done. Rico flew with Jerry to beyond Renosterhoek also the first swallow to venture there this season. Johan flew some friends around Vic Peak.

Mark landed his Zlin here. He told me that the fuelbill from Lanseria to here came to 3000 R. He must have lots of funds-the pensioner flying a Carat has a fuelbill for the same trip in the 300 R bracket.

Rudi repaired GOK’s broken wingdolly and Johan found that the antenna connection in GUZ was wrong and installed the proper stuff. During the weekend other work done was a “magdrop” on the VWRV as well as MIV both fixed by Johnny.

The 7 students on the course were only on the winch. Winching was a success this weekend thanks to a good team. Only one cable break on the launch of the total 80 launches. We are getting there. On Sunday 34 launches were made; a near record for the Club so I am told. Thanks to the launchteam; Marion, and Brian, overseer Ian and drivers John and Rob K and Martin Grunert but also the instructors : Andre, Paul Bailey, Peter Clemence, Fred Vernimmen, Quintin Hoole, Mike Pacsoe and Ian Forbes . William drove the tractor the entire day on Sunday. Other duty pilots who helped out on their days of Duty were Alison and Paul and Jesse Roos.

A height of 3100 ft was reached on the first winchlaunch on Saturday. On Sunday Mike Pascoe also towed to Vic peak and stayed there for an hour while Rico tried to find lift in his DG500. Convergence cost us valuable time while we had to change runways twice! Otherwise we would have exceeded the winch launch record which was set up by Andre and Mad Max 1 a few years ago – 34 launches, too! These windshifts caused also some dicey launches because of tailwind and windshear a bit up.

On Monday our up-country pilot, MartinYoung had some good flying in the SE on the Villiersdorp ridge. He reported that wave was there. He also flew down to Robertson and back. Gerhard Waller also took a launch and flew for an hour. The Ka 7’s flew in lift for over an hour from the top of the winch!

The tractor get teeth, but it's not the key!

Saturday saw the first 8 of 26 pre-course training flights, in a windy and chilly north wester, completed in Motor Falke. These flights are pre-requisites for the 3 day CGC winching course which starts this Friday evening. Andre Leeb-du Toit and Boet Coetsee shared the task of instructing and pupil feedback was excellent. Thanks must also go to Alison, Ed and Peter for helping to make pupils feel at home (spotted wondering around aimlessly at CGC!)

Andre spotted a broken spring on the Motor Falke apron and Johnny ascertained that it was from the MF’s exhaust. Johnny replaced it and the training was able to continue without delay. Well done Andre for being attentive and thank-you Johnny for your efforts.

Rob Tiffin, Reinhold and Trevor did their annual check flight where Mike gave a hand and Dietmar did a proper timekeeping job. Sven was seen under the dark clouds trying to get away however he just managed one hour. Alan O’Regan took over from Jesse Roos as co-duty pilot, too, but declined an invitation to fly. Dietmar was fortunate to have a last flight of the day in GOK.

On Sunday one would expect a sunny, nice post frontal day however another front was looming on the other side of the du Toitskloofberge and the weather was similar to Saturday.

Kevin was on his own as duty pilot as his co-duty pilot, Hans Pruter had resigned recently. Marion kindly assited Kevin. The Motor Glider training proceeded with Martin Grünert and Andre Leeb-du Toit doing instruction. It got off to a late start, but thanks to Andre and Martin’s perseverance, the 8 flights were completed by 6pm. Again, pupil feedback awarded top marks! Nina Grünert was doing the tugging in MIV and Fred Vernimmen was instructing for the club. They took a young family member of Marion’s for an AEF in GOK. Fred also managed to take one of the course pupils for a additional training flight in GOK. Cornelius, Ian and Kevin checked their planes and the weather. They stayed up for around one hour each.

Great news is that Johnny got his bush cutter working. Mounted on our tractor it can cut the grass on the edges of the runway and maybe around the hangars. The municipality is supposed to do the runways however this was and will never be a success. If one gets them they work for one hour and then return for some odd reason and don’t come back.
Sad news is that somebody took the ignition key of the tractor without informing Ed or Rob. Now the tractor is standing outside (in the rain) and idle.


RK & KDM

Snow goes, Wilga wisits!

Saturday was a typical spring day, a bit chilly with a front passing on the other side of the mountains. The last bit of snow is melting on top of Sneeukop and now the red Namakwaland daisies came up en masse on the airfield while the yellow madeliefjes are less visible than previous weeks. The whole week was marred by the passing of fronts. Not severe ones with rain on the field but certainly low temperatures and lots of wind.

Many vested member came to spring-clean their hangar, trailer, and plane or inspect the facilities etc. We saw Rudi (as usual) doing the odd repair and further Bill, Reinhold, Rob K and Rob T, Peter W, Hubert, Gerhard, Kevin, Trevor and John, all busy with their equipment.

For the first time the Apis could be seen flying here. First Martin had a check ride and thereafter Friedrich took it twice to the sky. May he have lots of enjoyment. Bill’s hangar is sold to Friedrich and the plane will be hangared there. This Apis is the only one in the country and is made in the same factory as the DG500. A semblance to the DG sailplanes can be clearly seen.

It is getting busier; we had 21 flights. Of these 4 were paxes and 10 self launchers/motor gliders. Friedrich did some training flights in the Rudi’s Astir while Gerhard used it later in the day. Rico stayed up longest with more than two hours trying the wave at Waaihoek, no luck there and finally coming to the thermals at Vic Peak..

Andre Leeb du Toit and Boet Coetzee in GUF along with Alison and Johnny in VAE flew to Tanqua for brunch and joined a few of the WFC guys there including Paul Troskie who had left late on Friday afternoon in the Rotax Falke.

On Sunday another front came closer in, a tablecloth on Slanghoek / du Toit Berge and we saw a windy cold day. Prior to the wind picking up, the Hepburns were seen doing Touch and Go’s in their Lambada.

Martin Y with great enthusiasm was the first to start at just after eleven. When coming all the way from Knysna one has to extract as much as possible from this flying opportunity even though he was on duty. He tried the wave on the west side of Vic Peak for more than two hours. Although the wave was there no great heights were reached. Peter F was there too Jesse Roos turned up to fly but the wind became way too strong.. Mark took a pax for a ride. He arrived with this pax in a Wilga, an ugly looking utility plane based in FASL. It has a bit of a cross between a mechanized locust and wildebeest. They are well known tugplanes in Europe but with their heavy engine are very expensive to run. They regularly tug 3 gliders together.
This model had an effective dashpot fitted on the exhaust undoubtly to do with the noise requirements at FASL. East European engines are normally very noisy.

RK

Cape Groundlet

Saturday saw windspeeds of up to 60 kph. Still some Gauntleteers turned up and hoped for the best. None of them flew.

Rico took up Bill up in search of wave in these extreme conditions. They found heavy turbulence at Jan du Toit (river) but were unable to get into the wave (if it was there) . They tried twice. Courageous.

Sunday was a nice post frontal day with some cloud still lingering around. Adriaan had a go at the inviting sky and managed to stay up for 42 minutes although it was early in the day.

Two paxes were shown around and Johan got some aerobatic lesson from Phil.

The usual motorglider trips were made around the field.

Rob