August 2021

FlightCm African Commercial Aviation

Edition 307 August 2021 Cover: Gary Shepherd

MIKE GOUGH:

THE PILOT SHORTAGE

ANARCHY – GENERAL AVIATION TO THE RESCUE!

WOMEN IN FLYING

FLIGHT TEST: THE

ALOUETTE 2 –

DEMOBBED!

SAA CAPTAIN’S FAREWELL LETTER

JIM: WORKING ON HIS SEX-PICK!!

1

MILITARY: WHEN THE SAAF BOMBED STRIKERS CHECKMATE – LATEST

RUSSIAN FIGHTER

August 2021 MEET CEO'S OF AVIATION PROFILE GUIDE

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POSITION REPORT SOUTH AFRICA IS THE MOST AMAZING land of contrasts. There are the obvious terrible contrasts: specifically that we have the highest Gini coefficient of inequality in the world. The ANC government has failed dismally to uplift the poor, so the old African truism; “The rich get richer, while the poor have babies” has never been truer than in South Africa.

It’s not surprising that the frustrations exploded after the incendiary comments of the ‘Free Zuma’ rabble rousers. The destruction is heart-breaking and impoverishing – but the thugs care only for themselves.

Yet Santaco turned out to be one of the good guys. They enthusiastically partnered with Airlink to distribute over 2,000 food hampers to those most in need. An Airlink Embraer 190 provided free transport for 88 volunteers to fly to Pietermaritzburg – on Nelson Mandela Day. Santaco minibus taxis then transported the hampers and helpers – also for no cost – to those most in need.

This issue devotes considerable space to the unstinted giving that the aviation community has brought to the KZN airbridge. Almost all airlines in South Africa made huge contributions. My column looks at some of the efforts of the individuals who gave of their time, talents and their treasured aircraft to help those in desperate need.

UNSTINTED GIVING THAT GA HAS BROUGHT TO THE KZN AIR BRIDGE

Yet against the seemingly irresistible tide of looters and criminal opportunists, there has been a quiet yet profound groundswell of pushback – by the South Africans I consider ‘builders’ rather than ‘breakers’.

These are the same quality people who quietly voted with generosity of spirit for a political transformation back in 1990, and so created the miracle of the Rainbow Nation.

Sometimes it’s the most unlikely groups that become builders rather than breakers. One such is Santaco – the association for the notoriously lawless minibus taxi drivers. It could naturally – but wrongly – be assumed that Santaco would likewise be militantly lawless and on the side of the looters – perhaps even helping the now infamous looter transport the stolen 58-inch TV that would not fit in his Corolla.

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August 2021

Daily Maverick wrote, “There will be years of reflection on this week's looting. With luck we'll also see those believed to have set the match on the powder keg behind bars.

For now, there are the organisations rushing into the chasm to help where they can. …. Ultimately the villains responsible for instigating this carnage lost. There is no dissolution of state or presidency.

Jacob Zuma is still choking down his prison food, and the fibres of our society, while very frayed, are not yet completely torn.”

Perhaps the best summary of the various initiatives comes from Santaco spokesperson, Sifiso Shangase, who said; “In the spirit of Nelson Mandela Day we can help to bridge and heal the ruptures to the social fabric in our region and neighbourhoods, especially where fear and insecurity saw some communities seek retribution by attacking their neighbours.”

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Guy Leitch

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August 2021

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Edition 307

CONTENTS COLUMNISTS SA FLYER

08 16

Bush Pilot - HUGH PRYOR Airlines Ops - MIKE GOUGH

FC 06

16 Guy Leitch - ATTITUDE FOR ALTITUDE 22 George Tonking - HELI OPS 26 Peter Garrison - PRETTY FACE 32 Jim Davis - PLANE TALK 40 Johan Walden - MIDNIGHT PHANTOM 58 Jim Davis - ACCIDENT REPORT 68 Ray Watts - REGISTER REVIEW

FLIGHTCOM

FLIGHT TEST: ALOUETTE II

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August 2021

KZN AIR BRIDGE

August 2021

Edition 307

CONTENTS FEATURES SA FLYER

44 FLIGHT TEST: Alouette II 54 YOUNGEST SOLO: Around the World 66 OSHKOSH: Breaking News 78 KWAZULU NATAL AIR BRIDGE 82 LETTER TO THE EDITOR 86 OSHKOSH: More Breaking News 89 MEET CEO'S OF AVIATION

FLIGHTCOM

06 Wrenelle Stander - New AASA CEO 12 Woman in Aviation 20 Defence - Darren Olivier 24 Flying for Life - South Africa 26 Sukhoi’s ‘Checkmate’ Unveiled

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REGULARS 14 Opening Shot 74 AFS Register Review 76 SV Aviation Fuel Table 84 Aviation Direct Events Calender

FLIGHTCOM

19 AME Directory 28 Starlite Flight School Listing 29 Atlas Oils Charter Directory 30 AEP AMO Listing 32 Aviation Directory

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

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Dean Wingrin

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But it seems to me marketing over substance. Just one of the questions is: Can these 5 minute space tourists call themselves astronauts? SAAF unofficial website founder Dean Wingrin asked:

“Branson almost in space, what an amazing achievement! But should the pax be given astronaut wings? Airline pax don't get pilot wings!”

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OPENING SHOT ANDRE DE BEER

is one of those pilots who never forgets to enjoy the view. He always wanted to be a pilot but lacked the resources, so he started as cabin crew with SAA in 1997 and used his meal allowance to get his PPL. When he resigned from SAA in 2005, he used his pension payout to start an earthmoving company to pay for his Comm license. He joined CemAir as cabin crew in 2018 and CEO Miles van der Molen gave him the chance to move from cabin to flight deck. Now he is a First Officer on the B1900, “living my childhood dream.” He captured this striking image from his cockpit window in July on the climb-out of an early morning flight to Sishen using his iPhone 11 Pro. Send your submissions to guy@saflyermag.co.za

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August 2021

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ATTITUDE FOR ALTITUDE: GUY LEITCH

GA TO THE

Rescue - Again One of the crosses borne by the general aviation (GA) community is that it is the plaything of the rich. Happily, this has once again been proven to be spectacularly wrong and GA has shown what a key component of air connectivity it is.

Charter operator NAC made very effective use of their Cessna Caravan.

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August 2021

The EAA helping out - Mike Blackburn’s Sling 4 carried a very useful 125 kg of supplies to Richard’s Bay.

WHENEVER THERE IS A CRISIS, particularly one in remote areas, and medicines and food have to be moved urgently across a hostile landscape, the GA community has shown a selfless willingness to provide the skills and valuable aircraft to come to the rescue.

One of the most prominent occasions was the Mozambique floods of 2000 when the South African GA community came out in swarms to the aid of Mozambicans trapped by floodwaters.

News24 reports that because a blood bank was destroyed in Durban, two private aircraft flew in blood supplies to the city. The SA Red Cross provided both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters to fly in supplies. A cell phone company flew in cable to restore its damaged network towers, and private security officers were flown in to protect businesses.

The GA indus t r y has , many times o v e r, p r o v e d i t s indis pens able worth

It was not just the Durban area that desperately need a GA airlift. The roads across the province were unsafe, so many farmers used light aircraft to carry food to family and friends in remote areas.

And so it has been again with the Durban anarchy.

The riots had begun at a toll plaza on the N3 highway and so closed down the key supply route to Durban from Gauteng. But soon the riots and looting spread across the province, fanned by inflammatory social media posts inciting people to go out a loot shops.

The CAA has long viewed small private airfields with suspicion, perhaps seeing them as a security risk. But the importance of rural airstrips has once again proven to be essential, despite the CAA’s persistent attempts to regulate them.

The highway to Durban was closed and shortages of essential food and medicine were beginning in Durban. Diabetics faced insulin supply failures, leading to coma and death.

A dialysis centre had been burned down – so portable dialysis machines had to be flown in.

These are just two examples of the small highvalue and urgent loads that GA can handle so well.

It was not just small loads that needed to be flown. A tonne of porridge was donated to Mission Aviation Fellowship from Paarl in the Western Cape. The Cape Winelands Airport is well positioned to transport the food to Durban but did not have suitable aircraft available, so a sizeable donation was raised from Canada and the essential food flown in a King Air from Cape Town International Airport.

August 2021

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Even AMO and charter operators helped - Lanseria based Gem Air unloads their King Air at Virginia.

Aircraft owners and pilots from all walks of life willing gave up their time to help. Many people stranded in Durban used the planes which had brought in essential supplies to fly out of the troubled areas. News24 reports that many families chartered private aircraft to fly their children, staff and pets out of KwaZulu-Natal.

The GA fleet was also essential for providing news coverage of the hotspots and as an overall picture of the scale of the riots and looting. In addition, insurance assessors were flown into small towns to expedite cliams.

It is estimated that there were more than 100

such flights into Durban’s Virginia airport on just Friday 16 July.

And its not only the GA community that came to the rescue. The airlines that are still flying, notably Airlink and CemAir, responded magnificently to the urgent call. Extraordinary partnerships arose. Airlink joined forces with taxi industry body Santaco, Shoprite supermarket and law firm, HSF to provide vital aid and support to Pietermaritzburg.

Airlink provided the essential airlift capacity to deliver over 2,000 food parcels after shops in Pietermaritzburg and surrounds were looted.

The airlines were invalauable - CemAir loads emergency aid into a Dash-8. Image Sebabatso Mosamo.

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August 2021

A team of 85 volunteers were flown to Pietermaritzburg where Santaco taxis transported them to the areas in most need of support. Relief supplies and food packages were donated by Airlink, HSF, their respective staff and matched with contributions from Shoprite.

General aviation is too often seen as a toy for rich whites.

CemAir has never shirked form helping out. CEO Miles van der Molen said that they had been able to deliver food and other essential supplies. “There are so many who need help. We are channelling the supplies through specific NGOs who have footprints in Joburg and Durban.”

Miles made available his larger aircraft including the Dash-8 which could carry about four tonnes of food per sector. The return flights were in huge demand for those looking to escape the strife. “We are bringing lots of young people out with very small children. There is absolutely no visible effort by the state to push back this line, and people really feel like they are left to their own devices. This is fear and they really feel abandoned,” he said The Commercial Aviation Association of South Africa (CAASA) played a key organising role.

Louise Olckers, general manager of CAASA, said a co-ordinated system of flights was carrying vital goods, people and services and making evacuations to and from affected areas in KwaZulu-Natal. She said the supplies that were being airlifted included food, essential products and medical supplies.

Louise described the help from the aviation community with offers of use of aircraft and pilots as phenomenal. “When disaster hits our country, the aviation community stands together to bring relief to those in dire need. It is at times like these that municipalities should realise the value of having an airstrip in each and every town,” she said.

The bizjet and charter operators were another aviation sector that helped unstintingly. One such is Comair Flight Services, whose CEO said that initially they had been approached for evacuation requests but they combined those

with requests for freight to Durban. A WhatsApp group was started and soon had over 100 aviation companies pooling resources to provide help. A common need was from doctors in remote areas who desperately needed medical supplies.

The beleaguered SAA pilots – most of whom have not been paid for 16 months – gave selflessly. SAAPA pilots who had access to a range of aircraft, from light sport to turboprops, rallied to offer their expertise.

SAAPA leadership set up a social media group and their pilots played an invaluable role collecting families and flying them out of the hot spots, as well as bringing in much needed medical supplies to secondary places like Margate and Richards Bay. Thus SAAPA member Captain Allen Lange provided his small DynAero MCR4S to evacuate people from Margate. And he used it to transport urgently needed baby formula, insulin and chronic medication.

Many other members of the ‘homebuilt’ side of aviation were able to provide an invaluable role. EAA member Don Kemp volunteered his Cessna 182, with pilot Keaton Perkins. A Sling 4 air lifted 120 kg of food to Richards Bay. And the list goes on and on.

It is in these critical times where the GA industry has, many times over, proved its indispensable worth.

j

guy@saflyermag.co.za August 2021

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August 2021

21

HELICOPTER OPS: GEORGE TONKING

I’m writing this month’s column far from my family, at the tail end of several days of monstrous looting in South Africa; looting, staunched for now after regular citizens rose up against the organised chaos around them with brooms, buckets and arms linked in solidarity.

I’M NO GOOD WITH A BROOM and a bucket, but a helicopter? Now that I am comfortable with.

A few days into what the government has been calling an insurrection, with all of the violence, criminality and destruction up to that point restricted to KwaZulu-Natal, I was called out to what seemed to be an isolated protest action in Alexandra, Johannesburg.

If you are a regular reader of my column, you will know that I normally fly a Robinson R44, a lightweight machine that lends itself to the observation type of security patrol flying we usually do. But as events transpired, and the full extent of the violent riots and looting gained momentum, it was clear that I needed some extra torque for better manoeuvrability and to be able to carry some extra weight.

A b i r d ’ s -e y e repor t dispels much of the unreliable repor ting

To be honest, after my many years in the security industry, I believed that the media was blowing the kerfuffle out of proportion and that it would be over before it started. But in reality, our air wing at Bidvest Protea Coin was called upon heavily during this time, supplying 10 helicopters for security as well as a Cessna Caravan to transport critical equipment between provinces.

I ended up flying in many different roles, several new to me.

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August 2021

Our arsenal of Airbus Squirrel helicopters was out of the country on various missions, so I turned to the Robinson R66, a reliable turbine workhorse, with much lower operating costs than the Squirrel as a bonus. Another important factor in the R66’s favour is that it runs on Jet A1 fuel as opposed to Avgas 100LL, which the R44 uses. This becomes particularly significant when flying longer missions away from our Gauteng bases, with possible fuel supply constraints. The R66 is also relatively easy on fuel in comparison

to other light turbine-powered helicopters, at a modest 90 litres per hour, and you can easily store extra Jet A1 in its boot, allowing for even more flight time.

But back to my story. You might think, when the lawlessness first started, that I would have been called to fly in support of security forces, but my first real sortie was in a news and informationgathering – a first for me. In the modern world of social media, much hype can be produced by sensational reports and fake news. A bird’seye witness report, live on television, dispels much of the unreliable reporting. The value of the helicopter is that it can be placed over multiple scenes very quickly, to gather news and establish facts. I got to work with some incredibly professional people in the news game and I learned some new flying skills while we were collecting images over the major centres in Gauteng, by that time also in a state of unrest.

My next major mission saw me deploy to KZN, this time to assist with aerial support – much more in my comfort zone. Fuel planning, as I said earlier, was critical, as the N3 highway, the main arterial route in and out of the province, had been closed. This meant that airport fuel reserves had become critical. I sat and planned my movements carefully with contingencies, including an extra 120 litres of fuel onboard, factored in. The flight down was somewhat surreal as I followed the deserted N3 route, looking out for any trouble.

My first fuel stop was at King Shaka International Airport, the only local airport with Jet A1 stores. It seemed like an eternity waiting in line for fuel behind King Airs, as the sun started to fade. After topping up, I headed across to Virginia Airport, nestled a stone’s throw from the beach north of Durban, which was to be my base for as long as necessary.

Standing at the Observation Point at Mooi River.

August 2021

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Offloading supplies at Virginia.

The team - Author, Vuyisa Morwebi, Waal de Waal, Fanie Jacobs & Carel van der Poll.

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August 2021

The sleepy Virginia, with its 930m-long runway, was opened in the 1950s, It was slated to be closed in 2018 and is home to flight schools and heli-tour operators. But on the evening I arrived, it resembled Oshkosh, as every man and his dog seemed to be flying in with supplies. The radio was so busy that I simply slotted into the pattern, with little radio use, and landed.

fired upon. In all, I spent a week in KZN, flying sorties every day with different crews, as we provided the eyes needed to ensure the safety of the communities, warehouses and factories below. The R66 never missed a beat.

repor ts of one of the helicopters being f ired upon

The next morning, we started bright and early on the first of many missions over eThekwini in support of various law enforcement units, as they attempted to secure untouched infrastructure. I double-checked that the bulletproof vests we keep under our seats were properly in place. There had been reports of one of the first helicopters on the scene being

An unexpected treat was a flight we made up the coast to Richards Bay: a stunning piece of coastline.

The opportunity to do some coastal flying is always welcome but a pity it had to be in the shadow of such a dark time in South Africa’s story. However, operating from Virginia, I also had the chance to see some old pilot friends, all having been sent to help where they could. It was incredible to see such a response from the aviation community to support the folks in KwaZulu-Natal.

j

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25

PETER GARRISON

MORE THAN A P R ET T Y FACE The cowling surrounding a reciprocating engine is a sophisticated aerial garbage disposal. Its job is to throw away about 25 cents of every rand you spend on avgas.

PETROL CONTAINS MORE ENERGY per pound than TNT, but engines turn only about a quarter of that energy into useful power. What happens to the rest? It dribbles off as waste heat, to be absorbed by the atmosphere. Half blows out the exhaust pipe; some of that, however, can be harvested and put to good use by a turbocharger. The remaining quarter heats up the engine and its accessories.

That’s how the J-3 Cub did it, and countless radials as well. The drag penalty was horrible, but the aeroplanes were so slow that people seem to have been willing to look the other way rather than retch at the sight.

Designers understood, however, even well before the genesis of the Cub, that a streamlined duct with suitably sized inlet and outlet could greatly reduce the drag of a radiator or an engine.

And that is what a modern cowling is: an air duct.

cooling air carries oil mist and general dreck

If the engine were uncooled it would become very hot indeed; gas temperatures in the combustion chamber exceed 1,600 degrees Celsius. Aluminium begins to lose strength at around 500 degrees, however, and so it’s imperative to carry off the combustion heat to keep cylinder head temperatures at a safe level – preferably under 190 degrees. The job of the cowling is to dispose of that heat at the lowest possible cost in drag.

In the early days of aviation, the finned cylinders of air-cooled engines and the big radiators of liquid-cooled ones simply hung out in the wind.

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August 2021

A cowling admits only as much air as is required, and then makes sure that all of that air touches the hot parts of the engine. The space inside the cowling is divided into two compartments or plenums, a ‘high pressure’ plenum or ‘cold side’ and a ‘low pressure’ plenum or ‘hot side.’ Between the two is the engine. Baffles – barriers of thin sheet metal or rubberised fabric between the cylinders and between the engine and the inner surfaces of the cowling – force all of the cooling air to flow where it’s needed.

In principle, cold air coming into the inlets

Peter Garrison used updraft cooling on his own Melmoth 1 and 2, but now doesn't think it was such a good idea.

spreads out and slows down in one plenum – usually on top of the engine – where its velocity is converted into pressure. The elevated pressure in turn forces the air down through the comb-like cylinder fins, where it temporarily speeds up, and into the other plenum, where it again slows down and spreads out before being vented overboard.

The prevalent arrangement, in which air moves downward through the engine, is called ‘downdraft’. A few aeroplanes, notably the later Aero Commanders and various Rutan-designed homebuilts and, less notably, my own Melmoth 2, have used updraft cooling, venting the air from the top of the nacelle or cowling. Although various reasons can be found for selecting one arrangement or the other, one forceful argument involves nothing more dignified than dirt. The cooling air inevitably carries with it some oil mist and general engine dreck. For singles and lowwing twins, you prefer the dirt and staining to be kept out of sight, and so vents at the bottom of the cowling are the natural choice (unless you have a better idea, as I thought I did).

The word ‘plenum’ adds dignity to a very simple idea. A plenum is a settling chamber which air briefly inhabits after entering at high velocity. In principle, the dynamic pressure of the incoming air becomes static pressure inside the plenum, just as air striking the pitot tube becomes static pressure inside the airspeed indicator.

Unfortunately, this conversion entails losses, and they contribute to the aerodynamic drag of the cooling process.

The passage through which air enters a plenum is called a ‘diffuser’. In order to convert velocity into pressure with a minimum of loss, a diffuser must expand quite gradually and must therefore be very long. There is not enough space in any cowling for a perfect diffuser or even a moderately good one, and so many cowlings, especially older ones, dispense with a diffuser altogether, admitting air through holes with short, sharp-edged inner lips. A certain amount of potential pressure recovery is sacrificed; but there is still plenty to force cooling air through the cylinder fins.

August 2021

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A separate plenum chamber to force air down though the cooling fins.

Cooling air is needed at more places than just the cylinders. Oil, passing through a radiator, carries off two-thirds as much heat as the cylinders do, much of it picked up from the undersides of the pistons. Accessories like magnetos and alternators, which in typical installations are located on the downstream – that is, hot – side of the baffles, may need blast tubes squirting air at them from the colder high-pressure side. On turbocharged aeroplanes, radiators – commonly called ‘intercoolers,’ though sticklers for proper usage prefer ‘aftercoolers’ – may be used to carry off some of the heat that results from the turbocharger compressing the induction air.

Instead, adjustable ramps – ‘cowl flaps’ – on the outlets from the cowling are used to regulate the flow. The size of air inlets is not very important, provided they are large enough. Only as much air can come in as can go out, and so the lips of the air inlets are smoothly rounded to allow excess air to spill over them smoothly, like water over the rim of an overflowing jar, when the exit area is throttled down by closing the cowl flaps.

a 2 2 5 -k n o t R V-4

It’s difficult to design a single set of fixed inlets and outlets that allows enough air through to cool the engine on a slow climb on a hot day but does not over-cool it while cruising at altitude.

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August 2021

Writers discoursing upon engine cooling often state that it is responsible for ‘as much as [fill in any number] percent of the total drag of the aeroplane.’ I have seen numbers ranging from a low of five to a high of 30 percent. Naturally, the cleaner the airframe and the more powerful the engine, the greater the proportion of the total drag that will be due to cooling.

On the other hand, it has occasionally been claimed that cooling can produce negative drag.

The inlets and plenum chamber on Dave Anders' super fast RV-4

I recently had occasion to edit the Wikipedia article – any idiot can – on a skimpy 1920s radial-engine cowling called a Townend Ring to qualify the claim that it produced thrust. It would be more accurate to say that it took advantage of the outward displacement of air by the radial engine to generate a forward force, which cancelled a portion of the engine’s enormous drag.

A similar claim was made, a little more plausibly, for the cooling system of the P-51 Mustang.

The idea was that, like the combustor of a jet engine, the hot radiator expands the cooling air, increasing its velocity through the outlet.

Since the same mass goes out as comes in, an increase in exit velocity would result in a forward thrust. It’s questionable, however, whether enough thrust can be generated, given the relatively small heat rise in the cooling air, to overcome the internal resistance of the duct and radiator. Disagreements about this point simmered for years after the war, and when

I interviewed several veterans of Mustang development at North American two decades ago some residual heat was still detectable.

In recent years, as a result of studies conducted

by S. J. Miley of Mississippi State in the 1970s, there has been a great trend toward replacing D-shaped inlets crowding the spinner with widely-separated round ones. These clean up flow considerably and, being located in the wake of a more aerofoil-shaped portion of the propeller, take better advantage of its slipstream.

Like many other innovations, this one was first adopted by agile amateur builders who came up with some cowlings with remarkably tiny air inlets. The California builder of a 225-knot RV-4, Dave Anders, manages to cool his souped-up Lyc 360 with 30 square inches of inlet area – less than half the expected amount. I don’t know how he manages it, but it shows that there’s still room for improvement in cowling design. j

August 2021

29

BOOK REVIEW

PETER GARRI SON’ S

ALOF T

Profound yet beautifully simple insights into fascinating nuances of flying FLYING MAGAZINE and SA Flyer columnist Peter Garrison is an institution. He is by far and away my favourite aviation writer.

I was therefore thrilled when he released the second of the compendium of columns he has written over the past fifty or so years.

The first collection of columns was a collection of ‘Aftermath’ accident analyses he published under the title ‘Why?’ This book is a collection of his ‘Technicalities’ column for Flying Magazine and he has called it simply Aloft. He has a penchant for pithy titles.

Garrison is a wordsmith with great flying wisdom, and he drops gems of dry wit that take you by surprise and leave you chuckling for the rest of the day.

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August 2021

He has the unique ability to make the complex simple - yet thrillingly revelatory. In his introduction he writes, “As time went on, and on, Technicalities became less exclusively technical and strayed into history, characters, and personal matters. Re-reading the hundreds of columns I have written, I find that on the whole I like the less technical ones better. This selection reflects that preference.”

I unconditionally recommend this book.

I bought it on Kindle for U$9.20 and it is available in Paperback for U$14,20.

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August 2021

31

PLANE TALK - JIM DAVIS

FLYING CLUBS PART 2

What’s better than a club? Generally NO club. Sound a bit harsh? I have had a love/hate relationship with clubs all my life. The best ones are not really clubs in the accepted sense - they are run by benevolent dictators.

I RECENTLY JOINED ONE such ‘club’. When I say joined, I mean the benevolent dictator, who owns the land and the hangars and the clubhouse, simply gave me the security code – and that’s it. No forms, no fees, no rules. This means I can pitch up at any time and use the facilities, including an honour system in the pub.

The place is ten minutes from my door. It has two grass runways and a wooden clubhouse with a pub and a veranda overlooking all the activity

means the benevolent dictator finds himself having to conform to whatever requirements are thrown at the flying school. It’s inclined to put a bit of a strain on the relationship between the two, and everyone has to tread very carefully to keep the arrangement comfortable and happy.

If everyone is sensible and mature it can be done, but it’s often the cause of a rift which can quickly deteriorate into shouting, finger pointing and ultimately the breakup of a potentially good thing.

a s e cr et mot ion to vote t he chair man out

It’s tied together by a WhatsApp group which lets us know when there’s a braai or solo party or fly-in. That’s it. No committee, no voting, no newsletter, no constitution - no nothing. And it works beautifully.

You may have spotted a problem. In the long term, flying clubs are kept alive by pilot training, and this involves a CAA license with a wheelbarrow load of crap and formalities. This

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And when a once happy club falls apart, it is almost always because of someone’s desire for power. It’s usually because the 150-hour benevolent Dictator is not actually very benevolent after all, and is trying to dictate to the 3000 hour CFI how to conduct flying training. Sound familiar?

But I’m getting ahead of myself - let me start with the birth of a club.

Imagine you are a young enthusiastic bush motorcyclist. You find yourself a nice spot in the bush to have a bit of off-road fun on your bike.

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Spot Landing competitions are a great way to build skills and camaraderie.

After a few Sundays you meet another guy with an off-road bike. You show him round your track and you have some fun together. Soon he brings a mate along to join the sport and before you know it there are half a dozen of you meeting every Sunday for a romp. Someone brings a sex-pick and soon a braai is part of the deal. This is all very good stuff until some idiot says, “Let’s form a club.”

That’s when things start to unravel. It becomes someone’s duty to organise the braai and someone else has to keep track of the bucks that you chuck in for food and beer. And the next thing you have a chairman and a committee and a constitution and membership fees and a newsletter. And soon after that some members won’t like the way it’s being run. They will start a secret motion to vote the chairman out, while others start planning to break-away and form their own club.

I have seen the chairman or commodore or whatever he is called, many times, he has never spoken a single word to me in four years. He is much too important - he drives his Range Rover where it says ‘No Vehicles’ and he only talks to people who have sailed single-handed round the world, twice.

But it gets worse. In Perth, my ‘significant other’ and I drove in through the gates of the Royal Something Yacht Club.

We wanted to start mingling with the locals at social activities in our new country.

We were stopped before we reached the magnificent headquarters of this establishment, by a guy who was doing something important to an upturned boat.

old codge r s us e it as a wate r ing hole

I have just resigned from a yacht club. No particular reason except that you can get an idea of the culture when I tell you that there are only about 30 active members, and although

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August 2021

We explained the purpose of our mission.

“What sort of craft do you have?”

I proudly told him we had just bought a Hobie.

“Oh dear, oh dear. In that case I suggest you turn around - you won’t be welcome here.”

My mouth dropped open, I thought he was

joking. No - he was dead serious. So I asked him whether we would be more acceptable if we had no boat at all. Oh yes, that would be just fine. He assured us we would be most welcome if we didn’t have a boat. I thanked him for saving us from a nasty situation - we would not want to be members of this arrogant, pretentious and bigoted mob.

Jim Davis working on his sex-pick.

He smiled cheerfully, no doubt congratulating himself on having warded off a couple of nauseating Hobie scum from the grounds of their Royal brotherhood yachting thing.

In fact, it’s not necessary to go through the indignity of being bunged out by the groundsman before you have even joined.

Simply drive slowly past the parking area and, if there are signs reserving certain areas for the exclusive parking of the commodore or rear admiral, just keep driving.

The same applies to flying clubs. I joined the Royal blah blah flying club at Jandakot Airport in Perth. I quickly found they had very strict rules about the dress code for entering the members’ bar after 6 pm. And the secretary refused to give me the phone number of another member who was a long-lost mate of mine. Rules are rules you know - what if he doesn’t want to speak to you? Then he can just put the bloody phone down.

The place is little more than a watering hole for a bunch of red-faced old buggers with blazers and RAF moustaches, who haven’t seen the inside of an aeroplane in thirty years.

clubs, at least the enjoyable ones, are kept alive by a steady stream of new blood which comes from flying training.

If the club has a training license, they will jealously oppose the issue of another license for the training organisation.

This means that the instructor has to come to an often one-sided, arrangement where he is beholden to the club management at all levels. He uses the club facilities to train his students, who must first become club members. It the club doesn’t like the way he dresses, or does a preflight, it will wave a finger at him and tell him that they can easily find another instructor. Then very

t he Royal blah blah f l y ing club at Jandak ot Air por t in Pe r t h

Fortunately clubs for motorbikists don’t sink to this level. Us flying enthusiasts would do well to study how they maintain a friendly, informal atmosphere.

But these comparisons are not entirely fair.

Unlike yacht clubs and motorcycle clubs, flying

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It doesn't matter whether you fly a Baron - or a homebuilt.

soon someone important, often a newly trained pupil who can afford to buy a Bonanza, gets himself onto the committee, and starts telling his recently ex-instructor how to operate his business.

remaining half dozen calm down and start to fly safely. By this time the club is pretty well non-existent. It will struggle on, in name only, until there are enough pupils to attract the next itinerant instructor.

The symbiotic relationship between club and school is extremely delicate. In fact I only know of one place where it has worked pretty well for a very long time - the Algoa Flying Club in Port Elizabeth. Even they have had their ups and downs, but they have consistently supplied their members with great facilities and excellent training for at least half a century.

So that’s the life cycle of a small country club.

Perhaps they are just the right size. If a town is too small to supply a steady flow of pupils, then the club will flourish for a while - perhaps a year or more, but when the supply of pupes dries up the instructor will move on to greener pastures.

This is a very dangerous period. When the instructor leaves, a local lawyer or motor dealer starts ruling the roost. He will have recently got his license, have a grand total of two hundred hours and a C210. And because there’s no instructor to keep an eye on safety, this guy starts doing beat-ups and auto-pilot instrument flying. In the next 12 months there are likely to be a couple of serious accidents. All but the most enthusiastic members drift away and the

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August 2021

Then we have medium size ones, like PE, which can work if carefully managed. Finally, we come to the old established big city clubs.

These are places that have grown from the early days of aviation and are now inclined to have fat rule-books and are not really dependant on new pupils. They are kept alive by a solid core of old codgers who use it as a watering hole.

They are like yacht clubs where the chaps wear blazers and there is special parking for the Air Vice Marshall. Not my favourite because newbies tend to be treated with a certain distant hauteur. These youngsters are all right, old boy, but they need to be kept in their place.

It’s not that bad really - it generally trains seven days a week and there are plenty of other students and low hour pilots to socialise with.

The Durban Wings Club used to be like that.

I haven’t been there for years so if some members are getting their feathers ruffled,

please relax, I am sure you are all a jolly decent bunch now. I remember pitching up there after a long hot day of flying. All I wanted was a Coke - I had been dreaming of it for the past couple of hours.

Unfortunately the barman wasn’t allowed to sell me one because I wasn’t a member. This made me very happy that I wasn’t.

Idyllic - drinks in the pub overlooking pristine grass runways.

A while ago I got a phone call from Kosie Liebenburg. He’s an ex-SAAF guy who has a one man flying school at Robertson, a delightful little winelands town in the Cape. Kosie wanted me to officiate at the flying club’s combined solo party and wings parade.

I was not enthusiastic. It’s half a day’s drive, I am a pathetic public speaker and he wanted me to give a talk to a bunch of people I have never met. I tried to worm out of it but Kosie was one of those guys like a fox terrier - he wouldn’t give up - he kept phoning me every couple of weeks.

Actually he sounded like a hell of a nice guy so I eventually gave in.

It was the best thing I have done on a long while. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that And in the evenings the members stick around long enough to tell porky-pie lies.

visit. It’s a lovely little country flying club of the type one remembers from childhood days.

There are half a dozen hangars and a very tidy maintenance organisation. A tar runway and a grass one and a delightful little clubhouse.

When there’s a function everyone joins in. The guys move the furniture around and put benchtables out on the lawn under the trees, and do the braaiing, while the girls make salads and prepare the meal. Aircraft fly in from Worcester and Swellendam and Stellies and Morningstar - everything from Barons to a C190. Colourful homebuilts and weight-shift aeroplanes arrive throughout the day. Some stay the night and others disappear into the sunset.

Nobody makes you feel at home - that just happens automatically - it’s part of how proper flying clubs operate.

Kosie bullied me into making a short speech - and it feels just fine when you know you are amongst friends. He also bullied me into coming back again for the next wings-parade, and the next. Actually, I didn’t really need bullying, did I? j

August 2021

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JOHAN WALDEN

THE

MIDNIGHT

PHANTOM

There’s an old story among pilots that if you ever find yourself flying over a mountain range, water, or any other terrain that would be ‘unpleasant’ to land on, strange and mystical forces will begin to fiddle with the delicate internal balance of your engine.

THE LIGHTS IN THE COCKPIT don’t flicker, but the result is usually a gnawing suspicion that the engine is definitely running rougher than usual. A flow scan of the gauges for the ‘smoking gun’ draws a blank. And straining to hear the roughness you’re sure is there only sends your already-out-of-control imagination into a graveyard spiral.

Then, after a few minutes’ sweating, as if by magic, that strange vibration, hoarseness, or odd smell vanishes just as you find yourself leaving the rocks and cliffs behind you, and over greener pastures once more. This phenomenon is known to only afflict single-engine aircraft.

With an unused night rating in my back pocket and some PIC hours to kill, I was preparing a cross-country flight, including a few night landings along the way. And, for the first time, I was going to do it solo.

My steed for the night was a school-rented C172. This particular 172 and I were on reasonably good terms, and I was used to its barebones six-pack and ‘iffy’ fuel gauges. It had a six cylinder Continental engine and a digital engine monitoring system – which is just a fancy name for a set of LEDs that show you the ‘temps’ for each cylinder. But the 21st century ended there, and the rest of the panel (particularly the fuel department) plunged back into the Jurassic era with steam-gauges and pull-switches.

A T R OUB L I NG T R END OF DE CR E A S I NG OI L P R E S S UR E

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August 2021

I didn’t mind flying dinosaurs, but what had me on edge was the lack of a fuel-flow meter. I didn’t trust those fuel gauges one bit. To keep track of fuel consumption I got a print-out of the Cessna’s fuel table so I could calculate in-flight what the burn rate should be and how much I should have left, and set that on my kneepad.

With clear skies in the forecast and the tanks brimming with fuel, I climbed into the ‘flying fossil’ and took off from Morningstar into the twilight. With the sunset on my back I flew east into the darkness.

Another saying; there are old pilots and bold pilots; but there are no old, bold pilots. I wanted to get old (not really, but you catch my drift) so instead of charging straight over the mountains between me and Worcester (my first landing spot), I elected to go around them to the north.

It was too far and too dark now to spot Voelvlei

Dam at the mountains’ end, but I had a heading to fly and a few towns to mark, so all was well.

I opened the throttle for a climb to FL055 and trimmed it to ‘finger and thumb’. I watched the last light over my left shoulder disappear. As the night air worked its way through the holes and cracks into the cockpit I shrunk deeper into my leather jacket and waited for 055.

Several minutes slipped by and I could see the lights of Wellington on my right. Down the left side of the nose a patch of blinking red lights signalled the approach of the wind farm next to Voelvlei Dam – my first waypoint. That meant (if I was in the right place) the mountain range began just to my right and stretched away south, while another rose up a few miles to my left and ran away north. The dam marked safe passage through the ‘dip’ in the middle.

The last light fades over my shoulder after a spectacular sunset.

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The C172 had a Jurassic era instrument panel.

I rubbed my eyes and strained to see the mountains on either side. But all I could see was a blackness so deep I wasn’t really ‘seeing’ anything. “Never fly into blackness” rang my instructor’s words. “It’s either cloud, mountains, or nothing.” I could guess which one these were, and was glad of my earlier cowardliness.

I continued climbing, between those ominous forms on either side.

Then, a scan of the engine instruments revealed a troubling trend of decreasing oil pressure.

Rubbing my bleary eyes, I looked again at the oil pressure gauge. It was one of those old ‘square-type’ gauges set in a yellowed window the size of a matchbox, and positioned on the other side of the world on the far side of the panel. Leaning over so I was facing it straight on, there was no doubt: the needle was indeed creeping down, approaching ‘bottom of green’ – albeit slowly.

August 2021

The temperature now was still perfectly normal, so I throttled back slightly and increased my forward speed to see if cooling the engine down a bit helped. While the engine did its thing, I sent my instructor a quick message for advice. He gave the exact same suggestion and within a couple of minutes the Phantom relinquished its grip on my oil pressure needle and indications slowly returned to normal.

SK IES SO MA GI CA L YOU C OUL D GE T LOS T I N T HEM

“The Midnight Phantom strikes again”.

42

From previous flying I recalled that this particular engine had a habit of getting low oil pressure once the temperature was up at its normal operating point – especially in a climb. This may have been due to the oil thinning as it warmed up.

At a lower power setting and higher speed, the climb to cruising level took a little longer. As I entered the Worcester valley the surrounding wall of mountains drove off the glowing lights of Cape Town. I was left in the perfect place to see the Milky Way more fully than ever before from

A landing at Worcester, before flying on to Swellendam and Cape Town.

the ground – though only for a few seconds at a time. I still had a plane to fly.

With the engine purring away and a sky like Starry Night, the fossil and I made a stop-andgo landing at Worcester before climbing back up to 055 for a leg to Swellendam – where a bout of load-shedding (as I later found out) had plunged the runway into darkness. So after a 180 we went back over the dam and down to Towns made excellent landmarks to navigate by.

Cape Town for a full-stop on Runway 19.

I kicked the chocks in and put the 172 to bed.

I had honestly thought my first solo at night would be a terrifying ordeal. To the contrary; I enjoyed it just as much as any daylight flip, in some ways more. It was smooth as glass and had skies so magical you could get lost in them – though probably best left for times when someone else is flying the plane.j Alone at night, it's easy for the imagination to run away - especially in a single-engine.

August 2021

43

FLIGHT TEST: ALOUETTE II 44

ALOUETTE II

Jean van der Riet with Juba Joubert

– AS A FARM IMPLEMENT

August 2021

The Alouette was the world’s first turbine helicopter – and now, more than 70 years after it first flew, it’s still doing great work in South African civilian hands.

45 August 2021 The South African Air force operated the Alouette 2 and 3. Image - Lynn Greyling.

The first Alouette had a 200 hp piston engine and was not a success.

The very early helicopter heritage of the Alo 2 is immediately evident as it looks like a large fishbowl attached to the base of the Eiffel Tower, yet it is still wonderfully a capable and versatile machine.

Back to the Drawing Board The first Alouette was a piston helicopter built

by French aircraft builder Sud Est. It had a V shaped tail and two tail rotors, and with just 200 hp from its Salmson engine, it was generally considered pretty horrible, although performance was quite good.

a leap of faith to make their Alouette fly in the market, so they decided to risk it.

They found a new turbine engine; the Artouste, built by Turbomeca. This company had been formed by a Polish refugee, Joseph Sudlovsky, who had escaped the Nazis to set up an engineering works in a small town called SaintPé-de-Bigorre in the south of France. It turns out that the Turbomeca engine was the perfect partner for the all-new Alouette airframe. The resulting product made its first flight in 1955 and went on to become one of the most successful light helicopters ever.

During its twenty-year production span the SE 3130 Alouette II was adopted by over 30 armies and air forces around the world.

It set innumerable records for hot and high performance. Even the Americans belatedly recognised its merits when Republic Aviation obtained a license to build it in the USA.

a gr eas e gun comes as s t andar d

Sud Est needed a radical improvement, so they discarded almost everything but the powertrain. Most importantly for the future of helicopters, they decided to make the first production helicopter in the world to have a turbine engine.

In the 1950s this was far from an easy decision.

Turbines were in their infancy – they were temperamental, used lots of fuel, had short lives and huge maintenance requirements, so they were treated with suspicion by conservative aeronautical engineers. But Sud Est had to take

46

August 2021

The SAAF operated 8 Alouette 2s between 1960 and 1973. In its military roles it achieved enormous success with a wide variety of weapons, including anti-tank missiles and even homing torpedoes. With the ability to easily

remove the doors, the Alouette proved to be a genuine multi-role helicopter. It could be fitted with skids or wheels, with external slings for medical evacuation work, and it could accept external gun and missile mounts. The ability to quickly turn the aircraft to a different shooting attitude, thanks to the agile handling made the Alouette an excellent gun platform.

The Alouette 2 and then 3 came to be used on many fronts, including mountain rescue work, where it excelled, plus sea rescue operations, civilian evacuation and transport, aerial photography and much more.

Sud Est went on to develop the Alouette into a number of successful larger and more powerful helicopters. One of the direct descendants was the SA315B llama which has exceptional hot and high performance. In 1972 a llama set a still unbeaten helicopter altitude record of over 40,000 ft. It's said that when the pilot reduced power to begin the descent, the engine flamed out, so he unintentionally also set up the record for the longest autorotation.

The Walk-Around.

Apart from the open girder construction, the notable item is the insubstantial looking Artouste engine bolted to the frame out in the open behind the rotor mast.

Directly beneath the engine is a large fuel tank, helpfully right on the CofG. The tank holds 580 l of JetA and as the Alo 2 burns around 180 litres/ hour, at a distinctly sub-100 knot cruise, 580 litres does not go very far. As there is no sight gauge or way to dip the fuel tanks to visually inspect them, it’s best that the pilot supervises the refuelling so that she knows what’s in the tank.

The Artouste engine is nothing more elaborate than a blowtorch designed to run on almost any liquid that will burn. The idea being that in wartime you can land and fill it up with whatever

The larger Alouette 3 was much loved by its pilots for its versatility in the Southern African bush wars.

In total more than 1300 Alouettes have been built and there are probably more than a 100 still in operation around the world.

The Alouette 2 has achieved particular acceptance in South Africa. For this flight test we consulted Lowveld helicopter supremo Juba Joubert and sampled an Alo 2 which is operated happily at over 6000'

by Jakkie Mellet, a farmer at the top of the Long Tom pass in Mpumalanga.

The subject of our test is Jakkie’s Alouette 2, ZU-RJB, c/n 1227. It is ex-French Armee del Aire No. 1227 which was imported by Alo 2 specialist Wynand Louw and first registered in South Africa on 2 April 2004.

ZU-RJB is very much a farming implement at Jakkie Mellett’s potato-seed farm.

Minimalist tail boom, horizontal stabiliser and tail rotor structure.

August 2021

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ABOVE: Many Alo 2s have retired to happy homes in private hands.

BELOW: Juba Joubert has thrilled crowds with the Alo 2 at air shows. Image Flippie van Emmenis.

48

August 2021

is available, whether jet fuel, paraffin, sunflower seed oil or diesel.

The three main rotor blades are surprisingly advanced. They feature a light alloy spar and are filled with a synthetic resin for extra strength.

Most usefully, they can be folded for road or rail transportation and storage of the helicopter.

The tail rotor drive shaft runs along the top of the girder frame, supported by four bearings which – you guessed it – requiring regular greasing. Tail rotor pitch is actuated by a drum around which the cables are wound – and there is of course yet another gearbox to be regularly oiled.

Ahead of the tail rotor are two large horizontal stabilizers of symmetrical aerofoil section. Beneath the tail boom there is a large tubular skid to protect the rotor from over-rotation – which is particularly important given the low stance of the Alo 2.

not hing mor e elaborate t han a blow tor ch

Being a helicopter, and in particular an old helicopter, means that the need for extensive clambering about on it with a grease gun comes as standard. And there are many oil levels to check, but the sight windows are at least easy to access.

The design of the fishbowl cabin was successful enough for it to be used on the Alo 3 and Gazelle as well. The open-girder bridge design is surprisingly sophisticated in that it is made of aluminium tubing filled with pressurized nitrogen.

To forewarn of cracking of the tubes there are two indicators that change colour if the nitrogen pressure drops.

One of the advantages of the minimalist open truss design is that it is easy to inspect key control runs. Below the fuel tank, the control runs into the main rotor mast and the cables to the tail rotor are readily checkable.

Access to the cockpit is by two large doors running almost the entire length of the cabin.

The doors are held open by two simple catches which are easily within reach of the pilot. The doors are wide enough to enable a stretcher to be loaded transversely across the three back seats. The skids are low, so it is easy to climb into the cabin.

Naturally the view out of the enormous bubble glass fishbowl is fantastic. Like many helicopters, you fly the Alo from the right seat.

It’s easy to get comfortable as the pedals are adjustable by simply flipping over the foot rail.

Another example of the smart French design which characterises their helicopters.

The Alouette 2 was the first turbine helicopter. Its Artouste engine seems strangely insubstantial.

August 2021

49

The instrument pedestal is genuine 1960s vintage with a few modern radios added.

Another interesting French innovation is that at the top of the instrument panel there is a big red fuel flow warning light that shines when you are pulling too much power. There are also warning lights for the main transmission and engine oil pressure, fuel pressure and fuel filter restrictions.

The air speed indicator has a somewhat optimistic 105 KIAS indicated red line.

The collective pitch indicator on the instrument panel has a red line at 14.5 degrees but you can pull it all the way back to 19 degrees if necessary. However, this will almost certainly earn you a baleful glare from the fuel flow warning light.

pedestal there are controls for the emergency fuel shut-off, which is normally wire-locked open.

Another interesting feature is the governor lever which can be used to reduce the engine rpm by about 10,000 to improve economy in the cruise.

Jakkie Mellett (as well as Juba) notes that hot and high conditions do not stretch the Alouette much. In using ZU-RJB for his farming duties, Jakkie stresses that operating in high winds is not difficult and that his Alo 2 will accept a full load of fuel, himself and a passenger and

Flying the Alo 2 Lowveld based helicopter supremo Juba Joubert is a fan of the Alo 2 – and in particular its engine. Juba says that it is almost impossible to hot start the Artouste as it has a simple but effective engine start control, “The Alouette II uses a simple control lever arrangement which acts to directly regulate the collective-pitch and the governor, while immediately and automatically applying the correct level of power to conform to real time flight conditions,” he says.

Juba also mentions that the low weight versus available power, plus proven reliability in combat, makes much of the difference which sets this helicopter apart from so many others entry level machines.

Juba warns though that maintenance should be managed carefully as most are flying under ZU registrations which may lead to reliability issues if not approached in a professional manner. Think daily inspections and grease guns.

There is a shielded start button at the bottom of the instrument pedestal with three toggle switches for fuel boost, battery and generator. In a quadrant below the

50

August 2021

Instrument binnacle - with pilot flying from the right seat.

The Alo 2 shows its para-military abilities - nearly 70 years after it first flew.

fulfil whatever the mission is with ease. Being able to do low and slow work in a mountain environment with power and handling to spare is why he opted for an Alo 2.

Cruise speed is a sedate 85 knots on a good day. If you ask Jakkie how happy he is at that speed he smiles and asks, “How can you worry about speed when you are having this much fun?”

How can you wor r y about s pe e d w he n you ar e hav ing t his much f un?

Juba says that if you are familiar with the threehanded dance for starting an early JetRanger's Alison, you will be comfortable with the French

engine start. The first step is to make sure that you have a blade ahead of you. If you haven't got a blade directly in front, then you need to get out and turn the main rotor, otherwise you run the risk of cooking a blade with the engine's exhaust on light-up.

Then the procedure is: rotor-brake Off, battery On, circuit breakers In, fuel On. Run the fuel boost pump for about 30 seconds, lift the guard and press the starter to On. There are plenty of lights to show that the starter is spooling up when the starter relay is engaged. At 4000 rpm the flame igniter micropump comes on. Watch the TOT which is red lined at 550 degrees. A properly charged battery should ensure that the TOT never gets close to 500 degrees. You would have to be really negligent to cook the Artouste in the start.

At 12,000 RPM the engine becomes selfsustaining in idle and you get a green light to tell you you're good to go.

With the minimalist body work, the noise level is quite loud and the high-pitched turbine wine confuses even the best ANR headsets. With August 2021

51

Simple handling checks revealed that steep turns are predictable with little pitch change, but what was noticeable was the increase in the levels of vibration, particularly at low speeds.

Autorotations can be impressive as it descends at 2200 fpm and with its big heavy rotor there's plenty of energy left to flare off the rate of descent and speed. The rotor speed range varies from a minimum of 280 to 450 rpm.

Touchdown is routine once you get used to the low skid level. After landing, the engine is slowed to 28,000 rpm for cooling for one minute and then closed all the way with the fuel boost Off. The starter switch is then moved to Off and the rotor brake can be applied from 170 RPM, but most people are content to let it just wind down.

The Farm Implement

View out the bubble canopy is excellent, making the Alo 2 ideal for farm patrols.

a bit of care, the main rotor can be easily balanced, making low vibration levels.

Power up to 23,000 rpm and then engage the clutch in stages. It will accelerate to 34,000 rpm by which time the main rotor should be wacking around at 350 rpm. With the power fully open, you’re ready to go.

Lift-off into the hover is straightforward. Once airborne, the Alo 2 is delightfully responsive.

Best rate of climb is 50 knots. In level flight with 13 degrees on the cyclic, the helicopter settled at an 80 knot cruise with a commendable lack of vibration. The abundance of power makes a zero forward speed climb of 2,000 fpm possible, but at a cost of burning more than 200 litres an hour.

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Jakkie reckons that mountain work with the Alouette is second to none and his Alo 2 will out-perform almost all the more expensive and newer equipment available. He says the cost of acquisition versus capability is a “no brainer” and its ability to fly on JetA1, with its significant discount to Avgas offsets the higher fuel burn compared to piston helicopters in the same line of work. He likes to remind people that the Alouette will also accept paraffin and even diesel where JetA1 may not be available.

Jakkie uses the Alo 2 on the farm to conduct game counts, as a shooting platform for animal culling and to check fence lines, an exercise that would take weeks to conduct in the farm’s Land Cruiser.

He is also happy to assist neighbouring farmers with security patrols when needed. From a bottom-line point of view, the Alo 2 earns its keep as a quick, efficient and cheap way to conduct business meetings on site and to manage his business and farming portfolios in the surrounding areas. j

Sud Est Alouette 2 Specifications and Performance Crew: Capacity: Length: Height: Empty weight: Max takeoff weight: Fuel capacity: Powerplant: Main rotor diameter: Main rotor area: Performance Maximum speed: Cruise speed: Range: Endurance: Service ceiling: Rate of climb:

1 4 passengers 9.66 m (31 ft 8 in) (overall, blades folded) 2.75 m (9 ft 0 in) 895 kg (1,973 lb) 1,600 kg (3,527 lb) 580 L (150 US gal; 130 imp gal) 1 × Turbomeca Artouste 400 kW (530 shp) 10.20 m (33 ft 6 in) 81.7 m2 (879 sq ft) 185 km/h (115 mph, 100 kn) at sea level 170 km/h (110 mph, 92 kn) 565 km (351 mi, 305 nm) 4.1 hr 2,300 m (7,500 ft) 4.2 m/s (820 ft/min)

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August 2021

53

GUY LEITCH

YOUNGEST SOLO

AROUND-THE-WORLD Travis Ludlow, the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world, has strong South African roots. However, his epic around the world flight in a Cessna C172 almost skipped Africa completely.

Travis's final route had to incorporate zigzags to cover the required distance.

EVERY BOY HAS a passion for planes or trains, then computer games, and then maybe girls – or whatever. But for Travis, it was always planes.

Travis’s love of flying started when he was four years old; never going to sleep without reading something from his stack of aeroplane magazines by his bed. Since then, he watched every TV programme and YouTube video to do with flying and can tell you the cause of every accident on every episode of ‘Air Crash Investigation’.

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He had his first gliding lesson at the age of 12 and was reckoned to be a ‘natural pilot’. Travis flew his power aircraft solo the day after his 16th birthday and went on to his PPL at 17, before he could legally drive.

He had to wait until the morning of his 17th birthday to pick up his licence from the CAA. He then flew to the US the next day to do his Instrument Rating.

He is a young man with passion and talents to spare: he became a junior kickboxing champion and went on to do the Henley Triathlon – on a unicycle.

His dream though had always been to fly solo around the world. It was delayed by Covid-19, but that allowed him to get more hours and more flying experience under his belt.

He finally took off on 29 May and landed back in the UK 44 days later, on 12 July. In doing so, aged just 18 years and 149 days, he set a new Guinness World Record with his 24,900-mile (40,072km) solo flight. He beat the previous record-holder – Mason Andrews, from Louisiana – who was 18 years and 163 days old when he completed his journey in October 2018.

USA to keep his distance up. He crossed into Europe on the northern route via Greenland and Iceland.

' T HI S I S S O C OOL' - T HAT WA S AWE S OME

His route, in his diesel engined 2001 Cessna 172R, took him across Europe, through Russia and America, before returning via Canada, Greenland and Iceland. There were 60 stops across nine countries. His route was entirely in the northern hemisphere, necessitating a number of large zig zags to cover the required 40,000 km distance.

He minimised overwater legs by traversing Russia from west to east and then into north America via Alaska. He had intended to go to South America, but Covid restrictions stopped that, so he flew zig-zag sectors in the southern

On completing his epic journey he said, “For the first time in weeks I don’t have to worry about getting up early, going to bed late, difficult terrain and thunder storms.”

The BBC reports that the previous record-holder, Mason Andrews, said: "It's really the most dangerous and difficult thing you could do in a single-engine airplane.

World records are made to be broken. I had the record. I don't get anything by continuing to hold the record so I'm more than willing to pass the torch on to the next generation."

Asked about his favourite moment, he said it was landing on a gravel track at Manley Hot Springs in Alaska. "I landed at 3am but it was still light," he said. One of the best things has been meeting the people who have been following the trip via his social media channels.

"In Russia, everyone would come up to me and say, 'This is so cool' - that was awesome."

With his record having been verified and a Guinness Record certificate to prove it, he said his next ambition was to break the record for

Travis in the diesel engined Cessna C172.

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He went solo in a glider on his 14th birthday.

The C172's cockpit was filled with extra GPS tablet navigators - seen here at the iconic Rock of Gibraltar.

flying solo around the world in an electric aircraft.

Solo in a powered plane before he could legally drive.

His father Nick Ludlow said, “He had some difficult flights. He's had ice on the plane, he's had to turn around and there have been areas where he hasn't been able to land. You can plan... to the smallest detail - and then there will be weather - which everything changes in a very short space of time."

His South African mother, Loryn Ludlow, said for now she was just happy to have her son home. It was unbelievable, what he had achieved, she said, and the family was "so very, very proud." j

Recognition as the youngest round-the-world pilot from the Guiness Book of Records.

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JIM DAVIS

A BARON FAILS T O CLIMB AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT REPORT • This report is to promote aviation safety and not to establish legal liability.

• The CAA’s report contains padding, repetition, poor English and incompetence.

So, in the interest of clarity and readability, I have had to correct and paraphrase extensively

Event On Wednesday 12 September 2012, the pilot, accompanied by two passengers departed Pietermaritzburg aerodrome, bound for Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR).

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Aircraft Registration: ZS-KMS Time of Accident: 12 September 2012 0545Z Type of Aircraft: 1980 Beech Baron 58P Type of Operation: Private Licence Pilot-in-command: Commercial Age: 27 Valid: Yes Pilot-in-command Flying Experience: Total Flying Hours: 1 145.7 Hours on Type: 4.6 Last point of departure: Pietermaritzburg airport (FAPM): KwaZulu Natal province.

Next point of intended landing: Kruger Mpumalanga International (FAKN): Mpumalanga province.

Location of accident: Outside the boundary of Pietermaritzburg airport, approximately 200m from Runway 34 at 2423 feet AMSL. Meteorological Information Surface wind: 240° at 4 knots; Temp: 19°c; Visibility: 200 meters Number of people on board: 1 + 2 No. of people injured: 0 No. of people killed: 0

start clearance for a flight to FAKN at FL150. The start was approved at pilot’s discretion.

0523Z, ZS-KMS reported ready for departure.

According to the Air Traffic Controller visibility was very poor due to fog at 200m.

0527Z, ZS-KMS pilot was advised to takeoff at his own discretion and report when airborne.

0508z ATC reported that the pilot requested

The pilot reported that during the take-off

August 2021

The Baron after hitting a steel pole at 150 knots.

roll from runway16, an audible warning came on which he interpreted to be a turbo over-boost warning.

The pilot said all instrument readings were normal, and continued with the takeoff. After lift-off, the pilot stated that he retracted the landing gear at approximately 300 feet AGL. After retracting the landing gear, the aircraft speed began to decrease and the aircraft began to lose altitude. The pilot confirmed the manifold pressure and power levers were in a normal take off position. He further stated that he tried to correct the situation and gain altitude but was unsuccessful. The aircraft continued to lose altitude and crashed on an open field, approximately 400 meters from the threshold of runway 34.

400m from the threshold of runway 34, at FAPM. The aircraft was substantially damaged after impact with the ground.

Meteorological Information: The South African Weather Service reported that, based on the observations at the two recording stations closest to the accident site, weather conditions were as follows: Wind direction 240 Wind speed 4 Knots Visibility 200m. Temperature 12°C. Cloud cover Overcast Cloud base 3500 ft Dew point -2°C

It ’s ve r y eas y to s ay no i f t he pax ar e pr e par e d

The aircraft was substantially damaged and all three occupants evacuated without assistance and were unharmed. Post interview with the pilot revealed that he performed pre-departure checks and everything was normal. Prior to take-off he released the brakes and applied full power gradually.

The accident happened at approximately 0545Z, in an open field, approximately

Wreckage and Impact Information: The aircraft’s initial impact point was a steel pole which ripped the right wing off.

The aircraft skidded over the field for approximately 130 meters before it came to a stop and went through a fence before coming to rest.

Flight control cable continuity and pre-impact control integrity could be established. Damage was limited to the propellers, the undercarriage, the underbelly and the right wing. The flap lever August 2021

59

in the cockpit and the flaps were found in the UP position. The cabin/ cockpit area was still intact and the battery was found in an OFF position. The undercarriage lever was in the UP position but still in transit with the fuel selector valve in an OFF position.

All the aircraft seats were secured on their anchors with the safety harnesses still secured and not failed/snapped.

Documentation did not reflect any defect or malfunction that could have contributed to, or have caused, the accident.

It ’s t he wor s t SACAA accide nt r e por t I have eve r s e e n

Tests and Research: On-site investigation revealed that the aircraft collided with a steel pole which ripped the right wing off, this is an indication that the engines were producing a significant amount of power from take-off up to the last point of impact.

The wreckage revealed that all of the structural damages were consistent with the impact, nothing was found to suggest that there had been any pre-impact failure of the primary structure. The fuel tanks ruptured after impact and damage was limited to the vegetation caused by fuel spillage.

Examination of the engines and propellers: The aircraft is equipped with the Engine Data Management (EDM)-760 monitor.

After the accident the EDM-760 monitor was downloaded and all parameters on both engines were consistent with both engines operating normally.

Analysis: Available information obtained from the ATC revealed that poor visibility prevailed at the time. The aircraft was properly maintained in accordance with the manufacturer specifications.

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The investigation revealed premature retraction of the landing gear by the pilot created higher aerodynamic drag during take-off rendering ground impact inevitable.

Probable Cause/s: The pilot failed to maintain flying speed.

Contributing factor/s.

Premature retraction of undercarriage by the pilot following rotation.

Jim’s comments This report stands out for three reasons: 1. It’s the worst SACAA accident report I have ever seen – and I have seen a lot of bad ones.

2. It inadvertently highlights an extremely interesting, and little understood, hazard of low visibility takeoffs.

3. It opens the door to a whole class of accidents which I will call having the guts to say NO. Okay let’s deal with the SACAA first. To correct this report I must introduce you to a guy who I will call Mr X. I have known him for 50 years so I don’t doubt what he tells me. He is an extremely experienced pilot and was intimately connected with the accident and with the pilot. He was asked by the SACAA’s five-person accident investigation team, first for his assistance, and subsequently to actually write the report. He did assist them, but naturally refused to write the report. He told me that

The somoatogravic illusion.

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there was not a single pilot amongst the investigators and they largely ignored his input.

I will go through this quickly so we can get on with the good stuff to be learned from this accident.

• The pilot had around 1782 hours – not 1145.

• They say that a contributing factor was the premature retraction of the undercarriage by the pilot following rotation. Really? It crashed more than a kilometer after rotation.

• Although he had less than five hours on the Baron 58P, he had over 568 hours on Barons.

These ten points are just a sample – there are many others. They show a terrifying level of incompetence.

• He did not retract the gear at 300 ft – he never got more than a few feet off the ground.

I believe the pilot was caught out by three things:

• Initially they say he crashed 200 m from the threshold of runway 34, then later they say 400 m.

• They say, under Probable Cause, that the pilot failed to maintain flying speed and stalled. Tests show that the aircraft was doing approximately 280 km/hr when it hit the steel fence post. That’s just over 150 knots.

• They say the temperature was +12C and the dew point was -2C. And the visibility was 200ft in fog. That’s simply impossible.

• They say, “the undercarriage lever was in the UP position but still in transit.”

The gear was fully retracted.

• They say, “the aircraft collided with a steel pole which ripped the right wing off, this is an indication that the engines were producing a significant amount of power from take-off up to the last point of impact.” First, what has the wing being ripped off have to do with engine power? Second, significant August 2021

1. Artificial horizon acceleration error.

2. Somatogravic illusions.

3. Pressure from the pax.

AH acceleration error makes the A/H horizon bar descend while the aircraft is accelerating. This gives a false noseup reading so the pilot tends to lower the nose to compensate. Obviously, this is likely to be disastrous just after liftoff. It has caused many night takeoff accidents.

hav ing t he gut s to s ay NO.

• They say, “the aircraft skidded over the field for approximately 130 meters before it came to a stop and went through a fence before coming to rest.” This is meaningless.

62

power in a level attitude would hardly be consistent with a stall.

Somatogravic illusions are caused by apparent G effecting your inner ear and your muscular system. They come in two flavours - during acceleration they give you the incorrect impression the nose is rising – so you are tempted to ease the stick forward. And if you move your head in a nodding plane, such as looking down to find the undercarriage selector, and then look up again, exactly the same thing happens – you get the impression that the nose is rising. In addition, the feeling that you are being pushed against the backrest of your seat is exactly the same feeling you get with the nose pointing up.

The impact sliced off the right wing.

This muscular reaction to acceleration is used on full-motion simulators to make you feel you are accelerating – they simply tip the simmi backwards. So it joins the other illusions that tell you to lower the nose.

Further, the strong and unfamiliar takeoff acceleration of a twin is always a surprise to pilots accustomed to flying singles. This magnifies the nose up illusions There is little doubt in my mind that this was the physical cause of the accident. But I haven’t quite finished with the illusions.

If you move your head up and down, as if nodding, you can make things a whole lot worse. I suspect the pilot did this on two counts.

First there was the warning buzzer which he thought was overboost. This is because he had a lot of time on turbocharged Senecas which do give overboost warnings – the pressurised Baron doesn’t because it has automatic waste gates that prevent overboosting. So the pilot would probably have looked down to see what was going on. It turns out that the warning was actually for a radar altimeter that the pilot should have switched off before takeoff.

Second, Beechcraft are notorious for

swapping levers and switches around on different models – so it’s likely that the pilot looked down to find the undercarriage lever.

Don’t underestimate this business of looking down. The US navy lost a number of fighters which went out of control during their turn on to final approach on aircraft carriers. They eventually found that the pilots were looking down to make a frequency change that was required at that stage. This head movement was causing disorientation and vertigo. The problem was fixed by moving the frequency selector up to the top of the panel.

Pressure from the pax. I have long believed that this is the major underlying cause of many accidents. Pax don’t even need to express pressure. The fact that they have driven to the airport automatically puts pressure on the pilot to meet their expectations. I will call this whole class of accidents, HAVING THE GUTS TO SAY NO. It includes active and passive pressures from your boss, other pilots and from friends and family. Things like taking off in adverse weather because other pilots are doing it; or pushing the limits to get home for your kid’s birthday.

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The memory of the Engine Data Monitor was invalauble yet the investigation still came to the wrong conclusion.

Let me tell you about an incident I had in PE when I was a new boy to instrument flying. I had a few thousand hours total, but my instrument rating was brand new.

I was to take three charter pax to Bloomies in the famous CNN – Charlie Never Never – a battered, red, short-nosed Aztec. This aeroplane was jinxed. It had given other pilots, and myself, a number of fragrant ZS-KMS in better days - with ironically the Bonanza from the June accident review behind.

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moments over the past couple of years.

We taxied out in conditions very similar to those described in this accident report. I was far from happy – it would be the first time I had taken off with the cloud on the ground.

Had I been alone I would not have dreamed of doing it, but my pax were impatient, and I didn’t have the guts to say No.

I was hoping for a mag drop, but no such luck. As I lined up and looked along the runway into the murk, I knew this was a very bad idea. I could picture the burning wreckage in the military base just past the far end.

I took power slowly and smoothly and as we accelerated the image of the crashed aircraft became more vivid. There was only one way out. I pulled the throttles back and brought the aircraft to a halt while explaining to the pax that the left engine was not behaving itself. We taxied clear of the runway and I ran up the left engine.

It was indeed conducting itself very badly.

This is because I pulled the mixture back to the point that caused rough running.

Later I had to explain to Ian Ritchie, the engineer, what I had done, and why. Ian was an old hand, and an excellent guy – he understood my dilemma and kept his mouth shut.

The incident shook me badly. I knew it would happen again, in different ways, unless I learned to say no.

Eventually, I discovered the secret. It’s very easy to say no if the pax are prepared for it. I should have phoned them the previous day and explained that fog was forecast for the morning and we may be delayed.

It would have prepared them to expect a no-go and it would have given them the chance to make alternate arrangements.

But most importantly, it would have made it easy for me to say no.

That lesson has served me well and possibly saved my bacon on many subsequent flights.

Prepare your pax for it and then have the guts to say No. Take-home stuff: • Be very careful when two or more things are uncomfortable. In this case the weather and the unfamiliar cockpit.

• Plan how you will handle a distraction on takeoff.

• You will find it easy to say no to pax if you prime them the day before.

• For night, or low viz takeoffs, go on to instruments as the wheels leave the ground, and expect to have an acceleration error on the A/H and a physical temptation to lower the nose.

• Only raise the undercarriage when you have a positive climb shown on the VSI and the altimeter • Be very careful of head movements when flying on instruments. j

August 2021

65

OSHKOSH BREAKING NEWS

BLACKHAWK AEROSPACE Blackhawk Aerospace took the opportunity to celebrate the remarkable milestone of having earned their 30th Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) at this year’s Oshkosh Airventure.

BLACKHAWK STC’S HAVE achieved significant market success across Africa where the performance enhancements they bring to established products such as the King Air range have been much valued. In addition, Blackhawk has shown itself to be able to supply replacement engines for those due major overhaul at a very good price. The milestone 30th STC approval is for the XP67A Engine+ Upgrade for the King Air 300.

“This STC represents the pinnacle of achievement for Blackhawk raising the bar of performance and value standards to the highest levels yet,” said Jim Allmon, Blackhawk’s President & CEO. “I’m incredibly proud of our team and their ability to produce 30 STCs in our 22 years. Blackhawk’s future is bright, and we’re excited to expand upon our current STC base with new and exciting programs for operators.”

Other recent approvals include the addition of European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)

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August 2021

certifications for the True Blue Power TB44 Lithium Ion battery on the King Air 350 series.

The XP67A Engine+ engine upgrade to the King Air 300 is Blackhawk's 30th STC.

“We continue to expand our global outreach to ensure that the entire market has access to the latest and greatest technology available,” said Allmon. “The TB44 is a great example of the cutting-edge technology that Blackhawk supports in addition to our engine performance upgrades. Together, the battery-to-engine combination provides operators and unmatched advantage in power, safety, life, and efficiency.”j

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WIRE STRIKE KIT

Equipment listed above is optional. © 2021 Robinson Helicopter Company. Robinson and R66 are registered trademarks of Robinson Helicopter Company.

August 2021

67

REGISTER REVIEW: RAY WATTS VH-ZPT Embraer E190 which has become ZS-YAT for Airlink. Photo Anthony Boden.

J UNE 2 0 2 1

JUNE WAS A QUIET MONTH for Type-certified registrations with three fixed wing and four helicopters registered, but it was nonetheless an improvement on May. On the fixed wing side, we see that one of Cemair’s Beech 1900s has returned from its sojourn in Canada. This is quite an old Beech 1900D, being the twenty-sixth off the production line. These aircraft have certainly proved their worth all over the world.

imported from Uruguay as well as a Bell 430 from the USA. This one is fully equipped for medical rescue.

The non-type certified (NTCA) register continues to grow at a steady rate with seven more aircraft added.

An NTCA that had me completely stumped is an Axella Havoc, but thanks to the power of website www.avcom.co.za I now know that this is a rebuilt Stemme S6. This aircraft was rebuilt by Axella Aeronautical Engineering in Potchefstroom. It looks like a very capable aircraft.

a Raz zo 180L turns out to be a rebuilt Ce s s n a 1 7 2

A brand-new Pilatus PC12 has been registered, as well as another Embraer E190 for SA Airlink. This one came from Cobham in Australia. Airlink has also taken delivery of another E190 from Stobart Air in Ireland, who ceased operations on 12 June 2021, but this one has yet to be registered.

Stobart Air aircraft have the same interior layout as Airlink’s E190s so they don’t have much to do to get her into service quickly.

The helicopter register features three Bell 230s

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August 2021

Amongst the other NTCA aircraft registered we find two Bathawks, an RV10, a Sonex, a Bearhawk and a CTLS. Last month there was a Razzo 180L registered and I didn’t know what that was either. It turns out to be a rebuilt Cessna 172 – the one that was scrapped off the register in May 2021 (ZS-CZE).

ABOVE: ZS-BEI Piper PA46-500TP Meridian exported to Australia.

BELOW MIDDLE: ZS-ESS ATR72 exported to Nigeria for a new airline Green Africa. Photo Michael Combrink.

BELOW BOTTOM: ZS-IGR Cessna 185 exported to Zambia. Photo Dave Becker.

August 2021

69

ABOVE: ZT-HDC Bell 230. Came from Uruguay. Now kitted out as a medical rescue helicopter. Photo Greg Rooken-Smith.

BELOW MIDDLE: ZS-KCY Cessna 177RG Cardinal. Exported to the USA. Photo Dave Becker.

BELOW BOTTOM: ZU-IUT Axella Havoc. A rebuilt Stemme S6. Photo by Jean Du Plessis.

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August 2021

ZU-ATO Sportcruiser exported to Czech Republic. Photo Ray Watts

The drone register shows a net gain of 20, with 26 registered and six deleted.

countries in Africa. One helicopter, an EC130 B4, has been scrapped.

Another eleven TCA fixed wings, and one helicopter have been taken off the register as exported, They are listed as having gone to countries all over the world, with six going to

Four of our NTCA aircraft have been exported, including two Samba UFM-10 aircraft which have gone to Holland. The other two have also gone to Europe.

ZS-HKH Cessna 182 exported to Kenya. Photo Dave Becker.

August 2021

71

ZS-PLR Cessna 206 exported to Bolivia. Photo Ray Watts.

Tail Piece: Two intrepid aviators from Sling Aircraft, James Pitman and Matt Cohen were planning to fly the new Sling High Wing we featured in July to Oshkosh Airventure (Wisconsin USA) in July. Their route was planned to be from Johannesburg via Ondangwa, Accra, Praia (Cape Verde Islands), Charnocks (Barbados), Fort Pierce (Florida) and then on to Oshkosh.

Unfortunately, the Covid quarantine requirements forced the postponement of this latest epic Sling Aircraft flying safari.

As a parting comment - the Covid-19 virus has snuck up on us again with a third wave. Folks, please follow the rules of masks and sanitising and stay safe. Don’t think it can’t happen to you – it can. j

ZU-CVT Samba UFM-10 exported to the Netherlands. Photo Dave Becker.

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August 2021

GADGET OF THE MONTH

SOMETIMES A NEW gadget comes along that makes us suck our teeth is disbelief. This is one of them.

ever wondered, “What’s the autopilot doing now?” – the idea of a Heath Robinson gadget driving the control wheel will not be comfortable.

A company called Portapilot has launched a bolt-on autopilot (and bolt right-off again) for the ubiquitous Cessna 172. And it’s cheap – the launch price is just $2,000.

Is it legal? The CAA takes a suspicious view of cockpit gadgets at the best of times and bolting a huge apparatus to the control column must be going too far. But even a GPS mount is also a huge gadget bolted to the control wheel. So there is precedent.

a He a t h Ro b i n s o n gadget driving t he cont rol wheel

Portapilot is the brainchild of Tee Sheffer, a VFR pilot who had given himself a big scare flying inadvertently into IMC. So Sheffer spent many years and much money developing, “an affordable autopilot that someday may save the lives of fellow pilots.”

And is it safe? In the USA it doesn’t need an STC, so you’ll have to take the manufacturer’s word for it and be your own test pilot. j

The autopilot comes in just roll or two-axis (roll and pitch) versions, and it can be hooked up to a GPS. So, for a couple of thousand dollars you can put an autopilot in your plane and pull it out again and use it a different plane. The PortaPilot incorporates its own inertial Attitude Heading and Reference System (AHRS) and is therefore independent of the aircraft instruments, making it a useful backup. In case of an aircraft electrical failure, the optional backup battery provides over an hour of operation.

The promo video makes it look quick and easy, which it has to be, in case there’s a problem.

An autopilot doing the Boeing Max trick of forcing the nose down needs to be quickly disconnectable. For all those pilots who have

The Portapilot - Bolt-on or -off autopilot.

August 2021

73

African Fuel Services are the sponsors for our Register Review Page

JUNE 2021

REG

MANUFACTURER

TYPE NAME

SERIAL NUMBER

PREVIOUS IDENTITY / EXPORT COUNTRY

New Registrations ZSZS-CMN

BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION

1900D

UE-26

ZS-NMZ

PIULATUS AIRCRAFT LTD

PC-12/47E

2109

ZS-YAT

EMBRAER-EMPRESA BRASILEIRA

ERJ 190-100IGW

19000451

C-GIEI, ZS-CMN, N26UE, 5N-BRH, ZS-PJF, N26YV VH-ZPT

New Registrations ZUZU-IUP

MICRO AVIATION SA

BATHAWK R

0087

ZU-IUR

SONEX AIRCRAFT LLC

SONEX

1135

ZU-IUS

MICRO AVIATION SA

BATHAWK R

0089

ZU-IUT

DR MMC HOWEL

AXELLA, HAVOC

AX02

ZU-IUU

JANET BOLINGBROKE

BEARHAWK BRAVO

B1434-3-5-6

ZU-MIH

FLIGHT DESIGN GMBH

CTLS

F-20-12-51

ZU-MON

ROBIN COSS AVIATION (PTY) LTD

RV-10

42073

New Registrations ZT-R ZT-HDA

BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON CANADA

230

23017

CX-DLM, N830SF, N230LF, C-FOEP

ZT-HDB

BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON CANADA

230

23018

CX-LRN, N870SF, N2163J, N350MH, YV-921CP, N21631, C-GAHJ

ZT-HDC

BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON CANADA

230

23038

CX-MPR, N840SF, N8110R, TC-HZH, N23890, C-GFNQ

ZT-RNC

BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON CANADA

430

49119

N555BA, N557UH, C-GFNN

Aircraft Deleted ZSZS-BEI

PIPER AIRCRAFT CORPORATION

PA-46-500TP

4697523

AUSTRALIA

ZS-ESS

ATR-GIE AVIONS DE TRANSPORT REGIONAL

ATR 72-212A

1057

NIGERIA

ZS-HKH

CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY

182P

182-63046

KENYA

ZS-HMU

ROBINSON HELICOPTER COMPANY

R44 II

13184

AUSTRALIA

ZS-IGR

CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY

A185E

185-14886

ZAMBIA

ZS-KBF

HAWKER BEECHCRAFT CORPORATION

B300

FL-836

SWEDEN

ZS-KCY

CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY

177RG

177RG1304

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ZS-PLA

CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY

182S

18280253

ZIMBABWE

ZS-PLR

CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY

U206D

U206-1345

BOLIVIA

ZS-RYG

ROBINSON HELICOPTER COMPANY

R44 II

13855

AUSTRALIA

ZS-XZC

ATR-GIE AVIONS DE TRANSPORT REGIONAL

ATR 72-212A

1076

NIGERIA

Aircraft Deleted ZT-U ZU-ATO

CZECH SPORT AIRCRAFT A.S

SPORTCRUISER

C0413

CZECH REPUBLIC

ZU-CVT

URBAN AIR S.R.O

SAMBA UFM-10

33/10

NETHERLANDS

ZU-DKM

URBAN AIR S.R.O

SAMBA UFM-10

40/10

NETHERLANDS

ZU-TFB

BLACKSHAPE/ROSSOUW JJ

V.B-560

BPU19-14

ITALY

Aircraft Deleted ZT-R ZT-RBR

BELL HELICOTER COMPANY

206B III

4260

ZAMBIA

ZT-REO

EUROCOPTER

EC 130 B4

3514

SCRAPPED

African Fuel Services is based at Groutville Airfield just North of Ballito.

AFS has Avgas and Jet-A1 available as well as offering a range of services.

For any information please call Willie Erasmus on 084 623 4879 or email to willie@africanfuels.co.za / accounts@africanfuels.co.za

74

August 2021

African Fuel Services AFS is based at Groutville Airfield just North of Ballito.

AFS has Avgas and Jet-A1 available as well as offering a range of services.

Services: • • • • •

Night Flying operations Radio Work Sling operations Hoist operations Berg flying operations and training • Fly in • Hot refueling

Deliveries areas: • Passenger handling and briefings for (hoisting, slinging, off shore and many more) • Cleaning of aircraft • Topping up lubricants and preflight’s on a number of aircraft • Any other assistance you need.

• • • • • • • • •

Margate Airport Ulundi Airport Hluhluwe Airport Vryheid Airport Ladysmith Airport Newcastle Airport Bergville Area Umtata Airport Port St Johns

For any information please call Willie Erasmus on 084 623 4879 or email to willie@africanfuels.co.za / accounts@africanfuels.co.za

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i t August 2021

75

FUEL TABLE www.sv1.co.za Prices at 01/06/2021 Fuel Fuel Prices as atas 01/06/2021

SA Flyer 2021|08

Prii nclude ces i nclude VATexclude but exclude any servi ce fees Pri ces VAT but any servi ce fees Ai rfi eld Jet A1 Ai rfi eld AvgasAvgas Jet A1 Baragwanath R21.50 Baragwanath R21.50 Beaufort R21.50R14.70 R14.70 Beaufort WestWest R21.50 Bethlehem R 22,97R 15,62 R 15,62 Bethlehem R 22,97 Bloemfontei R18.20R10.81 R10.81 Bloemfontei n n R18.20 Brakpan R20.80 Brakpan R20.80 R19.10 BritsBrits R19.10 R23.67R11,08 R11,08 CapeCape TownTown R23.67 Eagles R19.75 Eagles CreekCreek R19.75 London R19.46R10.29 R10.29 East East London R19.46 Ermelo R19.55 Ermelo R19.55 Fi santekraal R20.01 Fi santekraal R20.01 R19.50 Fly-InFly-In R19.50 Gari ep Dam R20.70R13.80 R13.80 Gari ep Dam R20.70 George R20.39R11.20 R11.20 George R20.39 Grand Central R20.70R13.80 R13.80 Grand Central R20.70 Hei delberg R20.60 Hei delberg R20.60 Hoedspruit R14.31 NewNew Hoedspruit R14.31 Ki mberley R18.42R11.50 R11.50 Ki mberley R18.42 R22.00 KittyKitty HawkHawk R22.00 Klerksdorp R21.75R14.80 R14.80 Klerksdorp R21.75 Kroonstad R19.09R12.08 R12.08 Kroonstad R19.09 Kruger Intl Nelspruit R19.50R12.95 R12.95 Kruger Intl Nelspruit R19.50 Krugersdorp R19.80 Krugersdorp R19.80 Lanseri R21.05R13.66 R13.66 Lanseri a a R21.05 Margate R24.13R14.89 R14.89 Margate R24.13 Middelburg R20.70R13.80 R13.80 NewNew Middelburg R20.70 Morningstar R20.00 Morningstar R20.00 Mosselbay R22.56R11.65 R11.65 Mosselbay R22.56 Nelspruit R20.24R12.94 R12.94 Nelspruit R20.24 Oudtshoorn R19.05R12.50 R12.50 Oudtshoorn R19.05 R20.19R13.05 R13.05 ParysParys R20.19 Pietermaritzburg R21.50R13.90 R13.90 Pietermaritzburg R21.50 Pi etersburg R20.10R12.65 R12.65 Pi etersburg Ci vi l Ci vi l R20.10 Alfred R21.40 PortPort Alfred R21.40 Elizabeth R23.95R13.74 R13.74 PortPort Elizabeth R23.95 Potchefstroom R20.19R13.05 R13.05 Potchefstroom R20.19 R20.25R13.63 R13.63 RandRand R20.25 Robertson R19.85 Robertson R19.85 Rustenberg R19.20R14.10 R14.10 Rustenberg R19.20 Secunda R18.98R12.19 R12.19 Secunda R18.98 Skeerpoort *** Customer to collect R17.95R10.81 R10.81 Skeerpoort *** Customer to collect R17.95 Springbok R21.00R13.15 R13.15 Springbok R21.00 Springs R21.00R13.00 R13.00 Springs R21.00 Stellenbosch R20.70 Stellenbosch R20.70 Swellendam R20.40R11.40 R11.40 Swellendam R20.40 Tempe R19,73R11.90 R11.90 Tempe R19,73 Thabazimbe R20.69R13.55 R13.55 Thabazimbe R20.69 Upington R19.11R11.73 R11.73 Upington R19.11 Vereeni R20.12R10.32 R10.32 Vereeni gi ng gi ng R20.12 R22.98R13.74 R13.74 Vi rgiVi nirgi a ni a R22.98 Welkom R19.09R12.08 R12.08 Welkom R19.09 WiPark ngs Park R21.25 Wi ngs EL EL R21.25 Witbank R19.50 Witbank R19.50 R18.45R10.81 R10.81 Wonderboom R18.45 Wonderboom Worcester R21.70 Worcester R21.70 ***copters Heli copters *** Heli onlyonly

Tel: +27 14 576 2522 Ina: +27 82 553 9611 Email: aviation@sv1.co.za Marina: +27 82 924 3015 Co-ordinates: S25°50’37 E27°41’28 76 GPS August 2021 Import/Export no. 21343829

Prices at 01/07/2021 Fuel Fuel Prices as atas 01/07/2021 Prii nclude ces i nclude VATexclude but exclude any servi ce fees Pri ces VAT but any servi ce fees Ai rfi eld Jet A1 Ai rfi eld AvgasAvgas Jet A1 Baragwanath R21,50 Baragwanath R21,50 Beaufort R22,00 R15,00 R15,00 Beaufort WestWest R22,00 Bethlehem R 22,97R 15,62 R 15,62 Bethlehem R 22,97 Bloemfontei R18,43 R11,27 R11,27 Bloemfontei n n R18,43 Brakpan R20,80 Brakpan R20,80 R19,10 BritsBrits R19,10 R23,67 R18,24 R18,24 CapeCape TownTown R23,67 Eagles R19,90 Eagles CreekCreek R19,90 London R19,46 R10,29 R10,29 East East London R19,46 Ermelo R19,55 Ermelo R19,55 Fi santekraal R21,51 Fi santekraal R21,51 R19,50 Fly-InFly-In R19,50 Gari ep Dam R21,50 R14,50 R14,50 Gari ep Dam R21,50 George R20,04 R11,42 R11,42 George R20,04 Grand Central R20,24 R13,63 R13,63 Grand Central R20,24 Hei delberg R21,50 Hei delberg R21,50 Hoedspruit R14,31 Hoedspruit R14,31 Ki mberley R18,45 R11,28 R11,28 Ki mberley R18,45 R22,00 KittyKitty HawkHawk R22,00 Klerksdorp R20,54 R13,05 R13,05 Klerksdorp R20,54 Kroonstad R19,09 R12,08 R12,08 Kroonstad R19,09 Kruger Intl Nelspruit R20,00 R13,35 R13,35 Kruger Intl Nelspruit R20,00 Krugersdorp R19.80 Krugersdorp R19.80 Lanseri R20,70 R13,66 R13,66 Lanseri a a R20,70 Margate R23.13 R14.80 R14.80 Margate R23.13 Middelburg R20,70 R13,80 R13,80 Middelburg R20,70 Morningstar R20,50 Morningstar R20,50 Mosselbay R22,90 R11,65 R11,65 Mosselbay R22,90 Nelspruit R20,24 R11,25 R11,25 Nelspruit R20,24 Oudtshoorn R19.05 R12.50 R12.50 Oudtshoorn R19.05 R20,54 R13,05 R13,05 ParysParys R20,54 Pietermaritzburg R21,20 R14,10 R14,10 Pietermaritzburg R21,20 Pi etersburg R19,80 R12,65 R12,65 Pi etersburg Ci vi l Ci vi l R19,80 Alfred R21,40 PortPort Alfred R21,40 Elizabeth R21,39 R13,40 R13,40 PortPort Elizabeth R21,39 Potchefstroom R20,54 R13,05 R13,05 Potchefstroom R20,54 R20,25 R13,63 R13,63 RandRand R20,25 Robertson R19,85 Robertson R19,85 Rustenberg R19.50 R14.10 R14.10 Rustenberg R19.50 Secunda R18,98 R12,19 R12,19 Secunda R18,98 Skeerpoort *** Customer to collect R18,30 R10,81 R10,81 Skeerpoort *** Customer to collect R18,30 Springbok R21,50 R13,15 R13,15 Springbok R21,50 Springs R21,50 R11,80 R11,80 Springs R21,50 Stellenbosch R20,70 Stellenbosch R20,70 Swellendam R20,50 R12,50 R12,50 Swellendam R20,50 Tempe R19.73 R11.90 R11.90 Tempe R19.73 Thabazimbe R21,94 R13,55 R13,55 Thabazimbe R21,94 Upington R19,14 R11,97 R11,97 Upington R19,14 Vereeni R19,70 R12,00 R12,00 Vereeni gi ng gi ng R19,70 R22,86 R13,40 R13,40 Vi rgiVi nirgi a ni a R22,86 Vryburg R21,75 R13,81 R13,81 Vryburg R21,75 NewNew Welkom R19,09 R12,08 R12,08 Welkom R19,09 WiPark ngs Park R21,25 Wi ngs EL EL R21,25 Witbank R19,80 Witbank R19,80 R18,45 R10,81 R10,81 Wonderboom R18,45 Wonderboom Worcester R21,70 Worcester R21,70 ***copters Heli copters *** Heli onlyonly

SA Flyer 2016|11

• SKEERPOORT • THABAZIMBI • PARYS AIRFIELD • ULTIMATE HELIPORT, MIDRAND • POTCHEFSTROOM AIRPORT

Tel: +27 14 576 2522 Ina: +27 82 553 9611 Email: aviation@sv1.co.za Marina: +27 82 924 3015

WE ALSO HAVE AN ON-SITE HELI-PAD FOR CONVENIENT REFUELING. CALL US FOR A QUOTE OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

SEALED 200L AVGAS DRUMS • SEALED 200L JET A1 DRUMS • AVGAS 100LL • JET A1 • PETROL • ILLUMINATING PARAFFIN • DIESEL • LUBRICANTS

August 2021

77

STORY AND PICTURES - GARTH CALITZ

Loading Aeronautical Aviation's Baron 58 at Lanseria Airport. Image Clinton Carroll.

Offloading the Baron at Virginia.

78

August 2021

THE SOUTH AFRICAN provinces of KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng were hit by widespread looting and destruction following the arrest of the former president, Jacob Zuma. KwaZulu Natal was the hardest hit with almost the entire province being affected, particularly by road blockades.

Almost all main roads leading to the Durban metropole were closed resulting in very limited food and essential supplies being transported to the people of Durban. This coupled with the destruction of much the local warehousing and storage sector led to shortages of basic food stuffs and other essential supplies in the province.

The aviation community of South Africa immediately stepped up to the plate and created an air bridge to ensure isolated communities in the province were supplied with their essential needs.

In response to the initial violence and the burning of trucks on the N3 highway, pilots from all over South Africa had set up communication groups on WhatsApp and other channels.

Durban, many of the smaller aircraft without the endurance to fly return flights unrefuelled, were forced to abandon their aid efforts or transfer their load to longer range aircraft.

I was asked if I would like to join one of these flights to Durban, operated by Aeronautical Aviation’s owner Clinton Carroll. He was tasked with flying a load of food, baby nappies and baby formula to a Non-Profit Organisation in Durban, which would distribute it where needed.

Initially the plan had been to depart at 10:00 but low cloud over Lanseria delayed the takeoff for a few hours.

When the weather had cleared sufficiently, we taxied out with the Beechcraft Baron 58 loaded to maximum take-off weight. As soon as we were airborne it became evident that we were not the only aircraft heading to KZN. The radio was awash with calls from pilots all over Gauteng and Limpopo heading south with relief for the affected communities.

Pilot s off e r e d their aircraft , time and resources

Pilots offered their aircraft, time and resources to transport donated goods to all the airports in the affected area. Virginia, Margate and Richards Bay Airports were the main hubs for the aid flights although many smaller air strips like Ballito Bay were also receiving aircraft.

Virginia Airport became one of the busiest airports in the country, logging over one hundred arrivals per day for the first few days of the crisis. This must re-emphasise the need for a general aviation hub in Durban. The Manager of Virginia Airport, Mr Glen Bryce, and his team did a remarkable job of ensuring the smooth arrival, offloading and departure of all the aircraft.

With the ground logistics constraints, availability of fuel had become a major problem with both Avgas and JetA1 stocks running very low by the third day. With the fuel shortage in

Pilots from the coastal areas often refer to Gauteng as “Big Smoke”.

This dubious title had been reversed; as we closed in on KZN a distinct brown layer of smoke became visible hanging over the whole coastal region and stretching far inland, a sad testament to the burning and looting taking place. Routing east of Pietermaritzburg we could see that there were many areas that were still ablaze, and the roads in the area were all but deserted.

Once entering the Durban airspace, the true magnitude of the air bridge became apparent with the sheer volume of aircraft making their way to both Virginia and King Shaka Airports.

Although under much pressure, the air traffic controllers managed to keep control of the situation and still took time to assist pilots not familiar with the area with local VFR procedures.

The air pollution in the northern Durban area was so intense that it was difficult to make out August 2021

79

A fully loaded Cessna Caravan about to touch down.

Pilatus PC12s performed a particulalry important role.

Under pressure - the Virginia control tower.

Surveilance - a SAAF Caravan with camera turret.

landmarks. Even the large Inanda Dam was almost unidentifiable. The smell of smoke was so intense that at one stage we suspected we may have had a fire on-board. Passing over the Hillcrest area we could see the devastation on the ground: shopping centres were raised to ground by the fires.

The harbour area appeared deserted, with a few still smouldering fires adding to the pollution. The area and the Virginia ATC team were managing the increased traffic load very well and we were soon on final approach to Virginia.

Once on the ground we were marshalled to a parking spot between the many aircraft which were unloading. Many were returning to their home bases to load the next shipment of aid. We were on the ground for a short period to unload our cargo, but in that time there were aircraft landing every few minutes, predominantly Pilatus PC12s, Beech King Airs and Cessna Caravans. Many of the aircraft were carrying passengers when they left, mostly elderly people heading to safer areas of South Africa.

Amongst the many aircraft were both South African Police Services and South African Airforce aircraft. These too were carrying cargo and were quickly loaded into police and military vehicles. While we watched a Cessna Caravan filled to the brim with medical supplies was soon offloaded into waiting vans and escorted by two Netcare 911 response vehicles.

A host of helicopters were also active in the area, ranging from Robinson 44s to a SAAF Oryx. Many helicopters were uploading cargo that was delivered by the fixed-wings, presumably to be taken to those remote areas where it is impossible to land a fixed-wing.

The response to the crisis by the aviation community has been overwhelming. Many of these pilots

80

August 2021

A busy man - Virginia Airport Manager Glen Bryce.

were flying the aid flights at their own cost. The Baron consumes roughly R10,000 worth of fuel per return trip, so the cost incurred by many of the pilots and aircraft owners was considerable.

But many of the pilots found it very rewarding.

Clinton Carrol said, “Today humbled me in so many ways. To see the devastation in KZN and to meet and speak to the people who have nothing makes you quickly realise how lucky we are to have a safe place for our families to sleep and how we take for granted being able to walk into a shop and buy what we need. When it’s

gone, only then do you realise how hard life can be. Thank you Michelle Carroll and all the staff at Aeronautical Aviation for banding together and kicking me out my office to fly to Virginia Airport to deliver some very needed supplies for the Police and those families and communities that have lost everything. Although not even a drop in the ocean of what is needed, I can only hope we added some relief. I pray that this devastation will end soon and that people will be able to start getting their lives on track again.” j

Medical supplies being loaded straight into waiting vehicles.

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LETTERS TO THE ED

S TAGGER WI NG

Z S -A J T

I WAS INTERESTED in your article [on Staggerwings].

Your writer [Ray Watts] correctly states that ZS-AJT went to the U.K. as G-LAJT. However, after spending much money on ”getting it right”, it was stood on its nose. The engine was rebuilt, but then more maintenance issues arose.

The U.K. engineer washed his hands of it and suggested I find someone with specific relevant expertise. The aircraft was shipped to Denver,

Colorado where it underwent a four year rebuild (there was a lot wrong) before being redelivered to me in Arizona as N17GL. It has now been shipped back to the U.K. and is flying out of Old Buckenham Airfield in Norfolk.

It’ll be one of the stars of our Air show next weekend.

Thought you’d like to know.

Best regards, Geoffrey Lynch

j

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Skyhawk Aviation Launching Careers Find out if you have it in you to join the elite few that are entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of aircraft, along with a couple of hundred of precious lives.

If you do, and are utterly determined to succeed, we will get you from zero to employability with airlines and commercial air operators. We cover every aspect of pilot training as well as that all-important career development that will define your future flight path.

Learn with an Airline Captain who’s done the hard yards.

Your track record starts here.

info@skyhawk.co.za www.skyhawk.co.za SACAA 0339

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Events by EAA AIRVENTURE OSHKOSH 26 Jul - 1 Aug Wisconsin, USA

SPORTS AEROBATICS CLUB NATIONAL AEROBATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS 18 Aug - 21 Aug Annie Boon chunge@mweb.co.za / Natalie Stark natalie@stark.co.za

RV DAY FLY-IN 11 September Kitty Hawk Contact: Dawie Pretorius: 082 804 6979

EAA SILVER CREEK GORGE FLY-IN

THE HEIDELBERG “GREAT TRAIN RACE”

WARMBATH FLY IN

17 to 18 September

24 Sept 2021

FAWA Warmbaths (BelaBela)

FAHG Heidelberg Airfield Contact Van Zyl Schultz Tel. 082 560 2275 Email: vzs@mweb.co.za

Contact: Richard Nicholson Tel. 082 490 6227 or Karl Jensen Tel. 082 331 4652

Pancake Day and movie evening.

Camping. Contact: Neil Bowden Tel. 084 674 5674 or Jeremy Woods 082 883 0436

AVIATION AFRICA EXPO 14 & 15 October 2021 Kigali Rwanda www.aviationafrica.aero Alison Weller: alison@accessgroup.aero

08 -11 October 2021

SAPFA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIPS 14 to 19 November Stellenbosch Contact: Mary de Klerk: maryd@expandingbranding.co.za Cell: 084 880 9000

Flying in Africa – that’s what we love

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© Cape Peninsula

Flying in Africa that’s what we love!

Comprehensive airfield information, up-to-date aeronautical data, friendly and efficient customer support, easy Flight Planning, electronic logbook, Inflight Navigation with EasyCockpit, real-time Weather overlays, Weather cams, Events notification, location link to Maps ... you have it all. www.aviationdirect.co.za • info@aviationdirect.co.za • +27 11 465 2669 •August 072 340 2021 994385

OSHKOSH BREAKING NEWS

VAN’S RV–15 COMING

As this issue was being finalised, the big news out of Oshkosh AirVentures was that, after a barren period of eight years since the RV-14, Vans has finally announced a new design – the RV-15, a high wing ‘back-country’ bush plane.

The anouncement of the RV-15 launch at Oshkosh - without the actual plane.

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While Van's Aircraft took its time, the Rans S21 has been making great sales with an aircrfat many expect the RV-15 to be like. This is the first to fly in South Africa.

Image: Derick Burger.

IT WAS CONFIRMED that it will be all metal – but other details were scant. It is assumed it will be available first as a taildragger, then as a ‘nosedragger’ as most of Van’s designs are offered with either tailwheel or tricycle landing gear (except the RV–10 and RV–12, which are tricycle only).

In keeping with its sporty backcountry marketing, the aircraft will feature a stick rather than a yoke.

But what is still not known is the type of engine, number of seats, and or course the price. Van’s marketing people at Oshkosh said they’re not

being coy but are releasing the information to let potential customers know the direction the company is heading.

AOPA notes that, “Aircraft manufacturers are sometimes reluctant to talk about future models fearing interest in those products will slow current sales. Van’s is the world’s largest kit airplane manufacturer, and sales have surged during the pandemic—up 250 percent in two years, according to company officials—so that’s perhaps less of a concern. The company is selling 85 kits per week and has expanded from 72 to 113 employees.”

Van’s most recent design, the RV–14, was introduced in 2012, so the company that launched in 1972 with the single-seat RV–3 is overdue for a new product. With Van’s naming conventions, there’s nothing to read into the number 15 other than that it’s supposed to indicate the fifteenth design the company has released. (The RV-11 was a still-born metal motorglider and the RV-13 may just have been unlucky).

It is reported that at the Van’s factory in Aurora, Oregon, the flight test facility has been under tight wraps recently—so it’s likely the RV–15 prototype is there and in a high state of completion.

When Vans announced their high wing RV-15 at Oshkosh - Sling responded with this.

The aircraft is scheduled to be ready by AirVenture 2022, company officials said. In the meanwhile – Sling Aircraft had been hoping to fly their High Wing there but were stopped by Covid protocols. So they engaged in a bit of fun ambush marketing. j August 2021

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AIRFIELD FOR SALE BEAUTIFUL AIRFIELD IN CENTRALLY LOCATED AREA

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CEO'S OF AVIATION MEET

PROFILE GUIDE

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Introduction

Meet the CEO The Covid-19 need for social distancing has forced most of us to cut down our face to face contact. For business leaders this is particularly undesirable as many customers like to have a real person to relate to as the face of the company. For this reason, SA Flyer and FlightCom brings you an innovative ‘Meet the CEO’ opportunity – so that you can refresh your knowledge of the CEOs you deal with, and at the same time contribute to a worthy cause.

WE HAVE ALL FELT the devastation of COVID-19, and as Africa’s leading monthly aviation publication we want to make a small difference in the lives of those less fortunate, by pledging a portion of the proceeds from this CEO Guide to a good cause. SA Flyer is giving 10% of the total income received from this Guide to the CEO’s preferred charity or foundation.

We work on a full disclosure basis, whereby, as we receive payments, we will furnish each individual company with our proof of payment to their requested charity or foundation.

Once all payments have been received, we will also disclose in an upcoming issue of SA Flyer exactly how much money was raised and donated, with mention of all the companies who made this possible, including your logo.

Not only is this an excellent opportunity for CEO, company and brand recognition and marketing

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exposure, but it is also for a good cause – let’s help the less fortunate together!

The message that the avaiation community cares will be spread wide. The CEO Guide will be promoted on all of the following digital marketing platforms – available to read and share with the world for free: * It will be uploaded onto our information-rich website news feed www.saflyer.com * Our industry leading Facebook page. * An Email blast to thousands of our key contacts & decision makers – this includes the local aviation community. * And to link directly to the CEOs customers, the CEO profiles will include a hyperlink to the company website address.

While the temptation not to blow your own trumpet is always there – Guy Leitch, as Editor and Publisher of SA Flyer was persuaded to kick off the profiles with one of his own. j

FLYER & AVIATION PUBLICATIONS GUY LEITCH CEO – FLYER & AVIATION PUBLICATIONS (SA FLYER) Dr Guy Leitch was born in England and grew up in South Africa. Educated in Johannesburg, at St John’s College and Wits, he has a MSc in Development Finance and a PhD on African airlines.

Guy has had several different careers over the years, and he brings this diverse knowledge and business acumen to the aviation industry.

In the early 1990s he was the CEO of a large low-income housing company. He was then appointed as the Managing Director of a division of a major bank to manage their large book of repossessed properties. At the same time, he started writing and contributing to aviation and financial publications.

In 2005, he combined his two passions of aviation and writing by purchasing SA Flyer Magazine, which is by far the largest selling and

FlightCm African Commercial Aviation

widely read African aviation publication.

Guy used the SA Flyer platform to launch FlightCom magazine, which covers the aviation industry in Africa. He also published Intercom magazine for SAA Flight Operations. He is a Private Pilot with Night and Multi-engine ratings and a glider pilot.

Guy has become an aviation analyst in demand by several prominent local and international TV, radio and print publications, with regular contributions to respected media outlets. He has been married to Nicola for thirty-two years and they have three children and a neurotic Dachshund. Nicola owns highly rated guest houses in Simon’s Town and now Hoedspruit, where they live. j

Henley Air BOETA DIPPENAAR is the new CEO of Henley Air, which also includes the intensive care medical service, Rocket HEMS. He took over the role as CEO of this fastgrowing aeronautical company in South Africa on 1 July this year.

The company lives by the values of excellence, reliability, safety, care and sustainability.

“We focus on human interaction. It is such an important part of our work. Life is precious and your health is your biggest asset.”

Staying calm in stressful situations, studying hard, perseverance and a belief in a bigger purpose, are just some of the attributes which catapulted him from the cricket field into an executive role.

Dippenaar was the first pilot to fly the Rocket helicopter a year ago and says one of the ingredients for success is the company’s commitment to support their staff and crew. "To take ownership of their talents and unlock their full potential for the benefit of the country, the company, their families and themselves.” That is also the mission statement of Henley Air. j August 2021

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COMPANIES

SKYHAWK MIKE AND TRACEY GOUGH, CEO and Accountable Manager respectively of Skyhawk Aviation (Pty) Ltd. Situated in Hangar 30, Skyhawk has grown over the last thirteen years to a fleet of 16 aircraft, averaging over a thousand ours of flight instruction per month. Skyhawk has the capability of training from zero experience right through to Airbus A320 Type Rating. Mike also runs aviation awareness programs for the youth in conjunction with the Sakhikamva Foundation and Lanseria Airport Management. j

DJA Aviation GROUP CEO: LANCE WILLIAMS Lance is the Group Chief Executive Officer of i capital and managing director of DJA Aviation. He is one of the original founders of i capital and serves as a director, and is actively involved in the day to day management, of all of the various group’s short-term insurance intermediary companies.

He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1994 with a B.Comm BAcc (with distinction) and placed in the top ten in the board exam (QE) in 1995. Lance holds a number of non-executive directorships, including serving on the board of the Reach for a Dream Foundation.

Prior to his co-founding i capital in 1998, Lance was an associate within the Corporate Finance division of the Union Bank of Switzerland.

Lance served his accounting articles at Price

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Waterhouse and was also employed in its corporate finance department. Lance is married to Roanna and is the proud father of four girls. j

ALPI AVIATION FROM THE TIME I was an eight year old boy peering wide-eyed over the fence at Springs Airfield to the adrenaline-fueled sorties at the controls of several high performance aircraft; aviation has been the essence of my being.

Now 45 years and over 140 aircraft ratings (motorised and non-motorised) later, the passion is far from waning. Passion is, after all, at the foundation of Alpi Aviation.

I’ve been privileged to win several regional and national competitions, becoming world Rally Flying Champion together with

my friend, Nigel Hopkins in 2003. I earned Springbok Flying colours in Rally and Precision flying from 1995 through to 2004, and competing twice in the World Air Games.

A defining moment in my aviation career was being interviewed by the iconic Neil Armstrong. My favourite aircraft is my 1940 Piper J3 Cub (wryly named Mrs de Klerk) – personally, it embodies the feel and the freedom of aviation in its simplest form. j

ASCEND AVIATION ‘Trustworthy Sales, Airworthy Excellence’

MAARTIN STEENKAMP STARTED flying when he was knee-high, he graduated with a background in law and has logged 25 years of experience in aircraft sales, during which time he also held a commercial pilot’s license.

Maartin Steenkamp established Ascend Aviation in early 2014. Ascend Aviation and its team of specialists now boast a combined 90 years of experience in the Aviation sales industry and are one of the leading export and import sales companies of Turbine and Jet aircraft in Africa.

Ascend is proud to be the preferred “go to” company for Leaders of State, Fortune 500 companies and Leaders of all business sectors throughout the world. Maartin is especially known for the relationships he has built with his clients over the decades.

Maartin and his team’s market knowledge and track record is greatly respected in the industry and Ascend Aviation’s customers can be assured that they are getting the most honest, independent, objective solutions to their present and future requirements.

Contact Ascend Aviation on: Tel: +27 (0)11 064 5624 Email: sales@ascendaviation.co.za Website: www.ascendaviation.co.za

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COMPANIES

AIFA CEO – FRANCOIS (PIKKIE) SIEBRITS Pikkie started his flying career in the South African Air Force in 1969. He received his wings in 1971 and 1974 he commenced the obligatory and dreaded Air Force Pilot instructors course.

Pikkie quickly became hooked on instruction and the satisfaction of seeing a young person master flying. His passion for instruction grew further in his role as a Pilot Attack Instructor at AFB Pietersburg, where young pilots tested the aircraft to maximum limitations in air combat.

He flew Commercial B747 Classic’s from 2001 to 2015 for Hydro Cargo and Air Atlanta Icelandic where he qualified as a Line Instructor and Check Captain. In 2017 he was appointed CEO at Avic International Flight Training Academy.

Pikkie understands the challenges of flight training today where there is a fine balance between using advancements in aviation technology and flying by the seat of your pants.

“Every successful student is a triumph, every unsuccessful student is a disappointment because they will never experience the joy of flight as I did.” j

Robinson Helicopter Company KURT ROBINSON – PRESIDENT, ROBINSON HELICOPTER COMPANY Kurt Robinson is the president and CEO of Robinson Helicopter Company, a privately held company located in the Torrance, California, USA. An economist and businessman by training, Kurt holds many qualifications including a Master of Business Administration and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of California at San Diego. Kurt is a rated pilot in various types and a

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commercial pilot as well with nearly 1100 hours as pilot in command.

During his more than 35 years at Robinson Helicopter, Kurt learned the ropes from the ground up, working in a multitude of positions from expediting to support management before graduating to president and leading the company in 2010. Kurt also served on the Board of the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) from 2012-2020. j

AviSys DEWALD KRYNAUW is the CEO/ Accountable Manager and Founder of AviSys Aviation Systems.

He founded the Company in April 2011 after seeing the dire need in the Aviation Sector for local expertise to cater specifically for customers’ requirements. Avisys specialize in the overhaul and repair of aircraft and helicopter components.

With over 32 years of dedicated maintenance experience including military aircrew experience, Dewald is also a licensed Class I AME. He remains the driving force behind AviSys and they currently cater for the overhaul on numerous manufacturers’ wheels, brakes, landing gear compliments, engine fire bottles, helicopter servo controls and various hydraulic actuating components. This is all performed under their current AMO Ops Spec’s and Capability List.

Dewald Krynauw and the AviSys Team remain determined to uphold their good reputation and keep serving their loyal customer base and all new customers with the same dedication and dependability that their clients have grown to trust.

Hangar 17 Wonderboom Airport Email: dewald@avisys.co.za Phone: +27 (0) 83 442 5884 Fax: +27 (0) 86 618 6996 Website: www.avisys.co.za j

AEROSPACE ELECT

AMO 50

For all your SACAA approved

Mistral Aviation PETER JOINED SAA as an apprentice aircraft mechanic in January 1970. After qualifying in 1973, he worked in Major and Line maintenance, doing a licence on the 707, then trained as a flight engineer in 1975 on B727s and later B747s & the JU52 He also worked as an instructor on 727, 737 and 747s He worked for Air Mauritius for three years and then Phoenix Airways, as their Chief Flight Engineer.

The owners of the Phoenix aircraft, Chatterjee and Soros, approached him to be their technical representative in South Africa and he provided technical representation on the first conversion of a B727 passenger aircraft to a freighter at Safair.

CS Aviation then transferred him to New York

We are situated at 30B, AEROSPACE ELECTROPLATING Buildin Call Des on 011 827 7535 or 06

or Peter on 081 775 2434 or 08 as Vice President For all your Aircraft and Allied E AMO 5 06 Technical where he

oversaw maintenance For all your SACAA approved plating requirements of their fleet of 50 + aircraft worldwide.

This included an A300 passenger to freighter conversion project undertaken at Filton in the UK.

When the project came We are situated at 30B, Building 98, Rand Airport. Nex to an end Peter headed home to start and build Des on Services.

011 827 7535 or 063 150 1533 MistralCall Aviation or Peter on 081 775 2434 or 083 208 7244 For all your Aircraft and Allied Electroplating and queri E-Mail: Peter@mistral.co.za Website: www. mistral.co.za j

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COMPANIES

Executive Aircraft Refurbishment CEO – FRANCOIS DENTON Francois Denton has been refurbishing aircraft since 1999. Starting out, he worked late nights on refurbishment projects and studied after hours. He realized at a young age that he enjoys working with his hands, and in school realized his love for art, including oil paintings, sketching and building objects from scratch.

Francois has been passionate about aircraft as long as he can remember. His dream was to combine art and aviation; and live out his passion by refurbishing aircraft.

TRAINING PILOTS

Today Executive Aircraft Refurbishment consists of 38 staff members working in various departments.

He enjoys everything from designing and Francois has a loyal customer base of local TO BECOME development of aircraft interiors to doing and international clients. His motto has always CAPTAINS FOR the actual physical work.

This includes foam THEbeen to stay humble, work hard, pray hard and building, stitching the seats, manufacturing LAST 25 YEARS! love hard. and installation of floor carpets, refurbishing headliners and side panels, refurbishing Francois Denton interior wood work and cabinets, repairs C: +27 82 547 8379 and spray painting of interior and exterior T: 010 900 4149 FROM PPL TOsafety ATPL francois@earefurbishment.com components, re-web and re-certify belts ONEsurvival ON ONE TRAINING Website: www.earefurbishment.com j as well as servicing all equipment.

DEDICATED GROUND SCHOOLS STATE OF THE ART SIMULATOR

012 543 3050 marketing@bluechip-avia.co.za www.bluechipflightschool.co.za @bluechipflightschool.co.za

BLUECHIP CEO - HENK KRAAIJ

In 2003 Henk obtained his Micro light Pilot’s License at the age of 17.

He completed his micro light instructor’s license in 2006 and enrolled with Tukkies to obtain his degree in Financial Management.

The same year, he enrolled at Blue Chip Flight School to obtain his Private Pilot License, which he completed in 3 months.

After completing his degree, he joined FlyJetstream Aviation, a charter company based at Wonderboom Airport. He managed the fleet of aircraft, scheduled aircraft services, towing aircraft, loading cargo and dispatch aircraft on time. He was responsible for legislative compliance, safety, quality management and attended various relative courses; Henk acquired shares and became a director of the company.

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WATO CAA 0056 PART 61 (A)ur d i t lit !

When the opportunity presented itself to secure shares in Blue Chip Flight School, he grasped at the opportunity and became a director and shareholder.

“My passion is to grow the school to be one of the most sought after aviation training schools, where safety will never be compromised. I am a team player and work closely with the Exco team to ensure that every team member focus on their particular area. We believe in commitment towards our clients, professionalism and ethical standards in everything we do, and a deep intellectual honesty to tell it like it is in direct straight forward language and to deliver what we promise.” - “I believe in an open door policy and you may contact me at:” 082 828 1406, henk@flyjetstream.co.za j

Cirrus Aircraft: CSA Aviation Pty Ltd CIRRUS AIRCRAFT is the recognized global leader in personal aviation, the SR 22 has been the number 1 selling single piston in the world for the last 20 years, and the SF50 Vision Jet is the first ever Owner / pilot single jet engine aircraft produced. Cirrus Aircraft recently appointed a new global CEO Zean Nielson, the former CEO of Tesla motor vehicles.

Locally in Southern Africa, Tony Forbes and his company CSA Aviation Pty Ltd, have been appointed the new agents for Cirrus Aircraft, taking over all aspects of the Cirrus Aircraft Brand. Including the sales agency, a newly appointed ATO and maintenance facility. In the 9 months since taking over the agency, CSA has been authorized by Cirrus Aircraft as a Certified training center and service facility with all the relevant personal being approved directly by the Cirrus factory.

Tony Forbes has been involved with Cirrus aircraft for the last 5 years, having previously invested in the brand. His passion for aviation is long lived having first completed his PPL in Zimbabwe as a youngster. After a career in electrical engineering, Tony found his way back into aviation, owning and flying various aircraft over the last few years, including Cessna 206, Conquest 441 and his most recent project a 1950’s Stinson taildragger. Undoubtedly as a general aviation enthusiast Tony was led to Cirrus, and now a confessed Cirrus convert, Tony’s passion for general aviation, business and

innovation has led him to take the helm of this brand. Having completed his grade II instructors’ course through Cirrus and active in Cirrus Instruction Tony is a hands-on CEO, getting involved with basic ab initio PPL training, advanced training, ferry flying and Vision jet mentor flying. Tony will be seen around the flight school daily, always available for a coffee and a conversation around his next Cirrus Life adventure.

“Cirrus aircraft offer an unrivalled product in the personal aviation sector; I am excited to now have the opportunity to uplift the brand locally and create the environment for Cirrus to really flourish in the regional African market.” j

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COMPANIES

Titan Helicopter Group CEO MARTIN MICHEAL STEYNBERG Martin Steynberg has been the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Titan Helicopters since 2000, which grew to become the Titan Helicopter Group with a worldwide footprint 20 years later and consists of more than 24 companies in various Countries Worldwide.

Building a Helicopter company from the ashes of an accident by its predecessor Heyns Helicopters was no easy feat and staying ahead of the game is hard work. It does not come without sacrifices and many sleepless nights.

With Vertical integration as the business model THG has established its place in the helicopter world today After completing his school career Martin joined the SA Airforce in 1980 and Studied Partime at Unisa towards his accounting qualification.

Adding to his profile Martin spent 4 years in France dealing with contracts and International Banks. Later he became a partner in a group of accounting practices in the Southern Cape in South Africa.

Martin’s expertise and specialties include but are not limited to new business development, mergers and acquisitions, and all areas of management and accounting.

His next great achievement was when he became the Managing Director of Heyns Helicopters and eventually put together a group of Companies to become the Chairman and CEO of the Titan Helicopter Group (THG)

Advancing through his financial career with a Master of Commerce degree,and various business ventures, he has meticulously applied solid business practices to increase revenue and overall business performance on all fronts.

His Commitment is the key to success commitment to the industry, his staff and a policy of continuous improvement that ensures growth. Leading from the front is what eventually inspires and motivate upward movement of the Group He leads a cross disciplinary, strategic focused management team that has vast experience in both onshore and offshore helicopter services by providing a fleet of helicopters ranging from Leonardo, Bell and Airbus helicopter types.

His first passion is Aviation , Gholfing with his Son, followed by farming, which occupies most of his spare time. j

Vision without action is a daydream.

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AIRLINK RODGER FOSTER, CEO & MANAGING DIRECTOR, AIRLINK Rodger graduated from WITS University in 1978 with a BSc in Building. After working as a project manager for Metro Cash & Carry in 1981 and 1982 he partnered with Barrie Webb to establish Foster-Webb as a civil engineering and construction company, which branched out into aviation to service its own needs.

Following the deregulation of South Africa’s domestic airline market, in 1992 they grasped the opportunity to enter the sector by purchasing what remained of Link Airways, re-equipping it with state-of-the-art regional commuter aircraft and completely overhauling its business model and systems and re-launching it as “Airlink”.

Nearly three decades on, Rodger remains at the helm and has piloted Airlink through several storms. On his watch Airlink has flourished to become the foremost independent Southern African regional airline with the most comprehensive network of destinations. In 2019 Airlink operated over 63,000 flights and carried more than two million customers across a route network serving over 30 destinations in 10 African countries and St Helena Island.

COVID-19 and the associated restrictions on travel changed the South African and regional landscape. With an agile and robust business, Rodger and his team were able to take advantage of the opportunities that presented and successfully launched

Airlink’s foray into South Africa’s main domestic markets by introducing services on the trunk routes connecting Johannesburg with Cape Town and Durban.

Airlink was the first airline in the region to resume scheduled cross-border services and also launched several new routes, including Johannesburg – Windhoek, Johannesburg – Maputo, Cape Town-Harare, Cape Town – Walvis Bay, Johannesburg-Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg – Lubumbashi.

Airlink was South Africa’s most punctual airline in 2020*. In June 2021, 97.29% of Airlink flights departed on-time, reflecting Rodger’s laser-focus on detail and providing customers with excellent and reliable service. j *measured by the Airports Company South Africa.

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COMPANIES

Star Air Cargo CEO - PETER ANNEAR

CARGO

Peter started his career in aviation after he completed his PPL however had always had an entrepreneurial spirit. In the early 80’s, Lanseria Flight Centre was failing, and Peter was offered the opportunity to run the business with no salary but was offered a 10% commission on all business that he brought through the door.

Peter turned the business around in a short period of time. Peter realized quickly that he much preferred hands-on to the routines of office hours and administration. An opportunity arose for him to move onto the DC-3 which he duly did and flew as a First Officer in Mozambique. He later joined Comair on the DC-3 and F27 types.

The entrepreneurial spirit continued to grow which saw Peter leave Comair to fly as a free-lance pilot. A Cherokee 6 was acquired with operated scenic flights over Victoria Falls followed by an Aztech, and Cessna 402 which operated on the DHL AOC. Peter saw that he required his own AOC and in 2000, purchased an existing one. The new business, Star Air Cargo, had multiple types in the fleet, and it became evident due to costs and operational complexity that a single aircraft fleet would be beneficial.

Star Air Cargo rationalized and moved to a Boeing 737 operation. Work was found for two additional 737s that were placed with Air Tanzania. As the company developed, the B737-200 aircraft were replaced with the more fuel efficient B737300 variant offering greater fuel economy

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and greater capacity to clients. A decision was also made to enter the cargo business.

Two dedicated B737-300 freighters fitted with freight doors joined the fleet and the company expanded its operation.

Today Star Air Cargo operates a fleet of both passenger and cargo aircraft and is in the process of introducing the B737-800 variant. Peter enjoys a hands-on approach to business where all employees are well treated and welcome to pull up a chair and have a chat. Away from work Peter enjoys good red wine, makes a superb margarita, and can be found smoking the occasional cigar. j

Gemair ANDRIES VENTER is a South African Air Force trained engineer with over twelve years of aviation maintenance experience. Gemair was started in 2007 and was driven by his love of aviation. Andries himself holds a South African PPL license. He also owns Out of the Blue Air Safaris a South African AOC. Gemair is a recognised CAA Approved Maintenance Organisation, AMO number 1003, and has a team of nine full time engineers who together have a combined total of over 50 years of aviation experience.

Backed up by the full time administrative staff, Gemair is able to perform all your aviation maintenance requirements.

Through the guidance of Andries, Gemair has built a loyal customer base over the years and is synonymous with quality and reliability.

Contact Andries Venter: Cell: 082 905 5760 Email: Andries@gemair.co.za

j

BUMPPPFFF:

The new Chief of the Airforce - at the rear of this squad - can hopefully manage better than he can march.

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Where romance meets nature

Located in South Africa’s Safari hub of Hoedspruit, Safari Moon is a boutique base from which to discover the wonders of South Africa’s Lowveld region. Explore a range of nearby attractions from the famed Kruger National park to the scenic Panorama Route, or simply chose to relax and unwind in nature, making the most of 102 August 2021 your private piece of Wildlife Estate wilderness.

CONTACT: bookings@safarimoon.co.za 083 449 5868

FlightCom Magazine

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FlightCm African Commercial Aviation Edition 153 | August 2021

WOMEN IN FLYING

UNREST:

Mike Gough on the pilot shortage

GENERAL AVIATION TO THE RESCUE

CHECKMATE – LATEST

1

RUSSIAN FIGHTER FlightCom August 2021

WHEN THE SAAF BOMBED STRIKERS SAA CAPTAIN’S

FAREWELL LETTER

AMO 227

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CONTENTS

TABLE OF

Publisher Flyer and Aviation Publications cc Managing Editor Guy Leitch guy@flightcommag.com Advertising Sales Wayne Wilson wayne@saflyermag.co.za Layout & Design Emily-Jane Kinnear Patrick Tillman

AUGUST 2021 EDITION 153

ADMIN: +27 (0)83 607 2335 TRAFFIC: +27 (0)81 039 0595 ACCOUNTS: +27 (0)15 793 0708

06 08 12 15 16 19 20 24 26 28 29 30 32

Wrenelle Stander - New AASA CEO Bush Pilot - Hugh Pryor Woman in Aviation SAA Captain’s Farewell Letter Airline Ops - Mike Gough AME Doctors Listing Defence - Darren Olivier Flying for Life - South Africa Sukhoi’s ‘Checkmate’ Unveiled Starlite Directory Atlas Oil Charter Directory AEP AMO Listing Backpage Directory

© FlightCom 2021. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronically, mechanically, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without the express permission of the copyright holders.

A NOTE FROM

THE EDITOR: The appallingly stupidity of the government persevering with the launch of SAA continues to unfold like a slow motion train wreck.

It will cost between R10 billion and R50 billion to relaunch a malformed reincarnation of the once proud airline. Yet the government perseveres with this tragedy as a vanity project – as it is not prepared to admit yet another disaster in its almost complete inability to run any state-owned enterprise.

I am so angry about this burden we taxpayers and our children will be carrying that I am going to stop this rant and instead revisit an editorial I wrote 13 years ago:

industry that requires the highest standards, leaving no place for the compromises required by Africanisation.

Commercial airlines have established an extraordinary safety record. With few exceptions there have been no fatalities on flights using New Generation airliners. It is significant that two exceptions were Ethiopia and Kenya airlines.

The quality of aircraft construction is the result of a commitment to standards and the application of rigorous checks and balances. It is the apogee of a hundred year old aircraft industry that is unapologetically First World. The industry has evolved in the best tradition of capitalism, where only the fittest survive, leaving buyers of large airliners with a choice of just A or B - Airbus or Boeing.

an airline is a first world business

“The safety and development of aviation in Africa is compromised by the need to Africanise. That is, the need to be blacker.

Aviation companies in particular, hate being forced to invest in previously disadvantaged people who, the chances are, will be deficient in science and maths education and who have no natural empathy for aviation.

These companies complain about the costs of ‘Africanisation’ and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE). They argue, with some justification, that Affirmative Action in aviation pushes underqualified people into jobs. Indeed, the recipients of B-BEE often complain that they are set up to fail.

Tensions arise and all too often those staff with the greatest skills and experience resent the upstarts and leave. This results in a general decline in standards.

In numerous instances in Africa, the state-owned airline has been forced to Africanise, with adverse consequences. The problem is that aviation is an

When I look at a huge modern airliner I marvel at the combination of technology and capital that makes it possible to build a wing to an accuracy of microns.

These aircraft perform faultlessly, flying as much as 18 hours a day, day after day, year after year. This is a tribute to the pilots and engineers as well as the designers and builders. For this reason B-BEE must be applied with great circumspection. Aviation cannot afford to alienate and thus lose its experience and skills base.”

I wrote that 13 years ago and it is still true - even if not politically correct to say so. The loss of the senior pilots at SAA to Africanisation will wreak unrecoverable damage. We have already seen it in the Chief Pilot’s egregious failures on the Brussels vaccine stunt flight.

The government must somehow be made to accept that an airline is a first world business, with no room for the compromises of a political agenda. 

FACE TO FACE

WRENELLE

STANDER – NEW AASA CEO

The Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) has done a solid behind the scenes job of fighting for the promotion and rights of southern African airlines. In July 2021, long serving CEO Chris Zweigenthal retired and Wrenelle Stander has stepped into the hot seat – in this, the most difficult of times. But Wrenelle is supremely qualified, and AASA may consider itself fortunate to have acquired her talents.

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resumption of scheduled airline services as soon as possible, including the lifting of the ban on leisure travel to and from Gauteng.

Wrenelle has an MBA from Oxford Brookes University in the UK and a BA (Hons) from the University of Cape Town.

1. Recovery of the Southern Africa airline industry 2. Being the voice of influence in the Southern African airline industry 3. Sustainability of the Southern African airline industry 4. Financial sustainability of AASA 5. Renewal of the AASA stakeholder engagement approach and channels Up to now AASA has had a track record of ‘constructive engagement” and not confrontation with opposing forces. Will you continue that style or is more direct and forceful opposition now necessary?

RENELLE HAS HAD a stellar career. Prior to joining AASA, Wrenelle held a range of enterprise level leadership positions within the South African civil aviation and energy industries including Chief Executive Officer - Comair Limited (owner of kulula.com and the BA franchise), Managing Director: Sasol Gas, Managing Director: Air Traffic and Navigation Services Company (ATNS) and she has been a Chairman of the AASA board. She has also served as Deputy CEO of the South African Civil Aviation Authority.

Guy Leitch asks Wrenelle about her vision for AASA and its member airlines’ recovery, particularly in this most difficult of all times.

What will be your key priorities at AASA? My immediate focus will be on the full and safe

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FlightCom August 2021

Over the longer term my focus for AASA will be on the following five strategic priorities:

AASA, together with all aviation stakeholders must

Wrenelle Stander is the incoming CEO of AASA.

will recover to its pre-pandemic levels of 115 million passengers (74 million international & 41 million domestic) overnight.

Will AASA in any way address the uneven playing field created by state subsidy of their airlines?

Most analysts concur that the global industry will emerge from the crisis with smaller and fewer airlines.

As the industry’s representative body, what matters most is that governments’ aviation policies promote a competitive, affordable, sustainable, and safe air transport industry.

work together to achieve a safe, sustainable, and competitive air transport industry in Southern Africa.

As an industry leader and catalyst, AASA’s focus is to shape Southern African aviation policy to benefit airline customers and the broader regional economy.

We will continue to demonstrate our credibility as a leadership partner within the aviation industry and with policy makers.

What is your vision for the future of Southern African airlines? Increasing liberalisation?

Consolidation? Mergers and acquisitions of weaker carriers?

My vision is an airline industry which connects as many customers with as many markets as possible; where publicly and privately owned airlines compete with clear rules, where regulators hold service providers accountable for safety and efficiency and where airlines, airports and air navigation providers deliver excellent and good value-for-money services for the benefit of their respective customers.

Aviation enables growth and drives socio-economic integration. To maximise these, we need to accelerate the industry’s liberalisation and open up markets to increased competitive air connectivity.

Africa is a large, diverse region, with economies all moving at different speeds. As a result, the outcomes for African carriers will be heavily dependent on economic policies.

Our industry’s recovery is likely to be protracted.

IATA forecasts a return to 2019 international traffic levels in 2024 and it is unlikely that Africa’s market

In Africa, the drivers for air travel and air freight are more fundamental and remain undiminished by the crisis, i.e. population growth and large distances between markets, often characterised by hostile terrain, with few navigable rivers, no long-distance rapid rail network and bottlenecks at land frontiers. We want to work with governments and industry to address those needs in a way that is economically, socialy, commercially and environmentally sustainable.

Will the Covid recovery period be characterised by increased conflict between agencies such as the SACAA and ATNS seeking to restore their income and the airlines struggling to get back to health?

The pandemic and governments’ responses to it exposed the vulnerability of the entire air transport and tourism ecosystem. No single component or player has been immune. The impact has affected every facet of the industry.

The actions of all stakeholders will determine the severity and longevity of the crises, how quickly we recover, the extent of our industry’s transformation and which companies will emerge stronger than their peers.

Above all, we need to recognise that recovery will be driven by customers, and we have to do everything possible to rebuild their confidence in health and safety and get them flying again.

You must be relieved to be out of the pressures of Comair. Do you see your work at AASA as being less stressful - kind of a retirement job?

I miss the wonderful people of Comair and the incredible energy of running an airline operation.

Being the CEO of AASA will certainly draw on different skills and competencies, however, is unlikely to be less demanding. The future health, robustness and sustainability of AASA’s members, the industry and AASA itself, depend heavily on our success in helping to determine policy and the ground rules by which airlines can compete and help grow the economies and markets they serve. 

FlightCom August 2021

7

BUSH PILOT HUGH PRYOR

What is it about some people that they just have to prove that they are superior to everybody else? The flight deck of an aircraft is fertile ground for anybody of this unfortunate chauvinistic disposition.

HAUVINISM IS NOT restricted to gender alone. This particular form of arrogance can apply to colour, language, race, even size... the ‘Small Man Complex’ is as common on the flight deck as it is in the board room.

C

Engineer interfered by setting cruise power on the engines and the Co-Pilot made the occasional report to Air Traffic Control. Apart from that, the only person doing any work on the flight deck was the Navigator, so he effectively controled of the flight.

This story concerns one such Captain with a ‘certain intercontinental airline’ from the antipodes which operated the iconic Lockheed Constellation, one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built, with an uncanny resemblance to the earlier wooden De Havilland Albatross.

This annoyed the Captain so, in order to establish his authority over the Flight Crew, he used to order his coffee from the Navigator.

The Constellation normally had a flight crew of four, the Captain, sitting front left, the First Officer, sitting beside him on the right, the Flight Engineer behind him, facing the engine instrument panel and the Navigator sitting at the chart table, behind the Captain.

With four huge Wright 3350 turbo compound radials pumping out 3250 donkeys per engine just outside the window, the cockpit was not the quietest place in the world. So the navigator communicated with the Captain by means of ‘Course Correction Cards’.

On the flight in question, the Captain was a small man who exhibited the characteristics appropriate to his stature.

One thing which really got under his skin was the fact that after reaching cruise level and with the autopilot coupled up on heading and altitude, the Flight

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FlightCom August 2021

“Bring me a coffee, Nav, there’s a good fellow.” He would say in an avuncular tone, thus establishing his seniority and that he was much too busy to order one from the cabin himself. So the Navigator would go and get the coffee and hand it to the Captain.

When he had finished, the Captain would lean round and park the empty mug in the middle of the chart table.

That’s when the course corrections started: “5 degrees to starboard...5 degrees to starboard...5 degrees to starboard...5 degrees to port...5 degrees to port...5 degrees to port...5 degrees to port...5 degrees to starboard”.

The course correction cards kept on coming until the Co-Pilot’s curiosity overcame him and he glanced round at the Navigator’s table, only to suppress an almost uncontrollable fit of laughter when he discovered that the course corrections had actually taken them around the Captain’s coffee mug in the middle of the chart. 

FlightCom August 2021

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FlightCom August 2021

11

WOMAN'S MONTH

In honour of August being Woman’s month in South Africa, we are profiling a number of women who have excelled in various aspects of aviation.

Wrenelle Stander Wrenelle Stander has had a stellar career in corporate and airline management. She has topped it off in June by being appointed as the incoming CEO of the Airline Association of Southern Africa.

The hottest seat Wrenelle has had to occupy is that of the CEO of Comair, shortly before the perennially profitable airline was struck down by the Covid-19 pandemic. Wrenelle had the unhappy task of steering the mortally wounded airline into its first loss and then Business Rescue and finally a takeover.

Wrenelle began her career in the Department of Transport where she rose to become Chief Director of aviation and maritime regulation and also served as Deputy CEO of the SA Civil Aviation Authority. She then became the Managing Director of South Africa’s Air Traffic Navigation Service (ATNS) and then the Sasol Gas business. She has held executive and nonexecutive directorships on various boards.

Wrenelle has a BA (Hons) from the University of Cape Town, followed by an MBA from Oxford Brookes University in the UK.

Wrenelle Stander is the incoming CEO of AASA.

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FlightCom August 2021

Wrenelle is a natural leader with a unique skills set. "Finding the sweet spot in the nexus between government and industry is the thread that has strung together my various roles in the energy and aviation industries and one that is crucial to the vital role that AASA fulfils in representing the air transport industry throughout the Southern African Development Community region," she says.

Lonell Coetzee Lonell Coetzee has a huge number of very impressive accomplishments to her name in aviation, academia and sport: Academically she is highly qualified in a number of fields. Her first degree was a B. Com in IT at Pretoria University, followed by a Masters in Business Leadership from Unisa.

She then topped that off with a Doctorate in Business Leadership, also from Unisa. She is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Lonell is also a superlative sportsperson. As the then Lonell de Beer she was a Protea (Springbok) cricket player at the 2005 Women’s Cricket World Cup and played county cricket in the UK. She also completed the 94.7 cycle challenge in 03:00:06.

Yet she is not just a superlative academic and sportswoman – she has a lifelong passion for Lonell Coetzee is the ultimate aviation and had always wanted to be an air ATC with mutiple skills. traffic controller, having applied to ATNS after completing her BCom. With her academic and team player credentials she was accepted

by ATNS after several applications and, after graduating as an air traffic assistant, was stationed as a tower assistant at Wonderboom before becoming a tower controller at Rand Airport and moving to the tower at OR Tambo. In 2011 she was promoted to the position of Radar Controller at OR Tambo and became a Radar instructor in 2016.

As a woman she knows what it takes to be a single mother with a demanding career and a daughter to raise.

Lonell was introduced to helicopter flying at Henley Air, who makes a point of giving new air traffic controllers at Rand a helicopter flight to show them the airspace in real life – and how helicopters operate within it. The pilot bug bit and she started a PPL (H) in 2015, going on to obtain her CPL(H) in 2017. She now has more than 650 hours and a frozen ATPL(H) with IFR, sling, game, and multi-engine ratings. She is rated on more than twelve helicopter types.

With her helicopter and academic qualifications, Lonell ably fulfils a key role at ATNS as a senior air traffic controller and in her spare time at Rand, where she is now married to Henley’s Executive Chairman, Dr Andre Coetzee!

FlightCom August 2021

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Refilwe Ledwaba was the first black woman ALTP helicopter pilot and had done much to promote avaiation.

Refilwe Ledwaba Refilwe Ledwaba grew up in rural Limpopo as one of seven children. Her mother worked as a teacher while bringing up her children as a single parent. Refilwe wanted to become a doctor, so she earned a BSc (Biochemistry and Microbiology) at the University of Cape Town.

It was while studying in Cape Town that she took her first flight as a passenger. That flight ignited her interest in the aviation industry. After graduating she joined Comair as cabin crew, and it was during this time that she started taking flying lessons. With a cabin crew salary, while also paying for her student loans, she could only afford one hour of training a month.

So she wrote 200 letters to aviation companies asking them for opportunities to train. The South African Police Service offered to pay for her training, and she became a commercial pilot and joined the police as a trainee pilot.

Refilwe became the first black woman from South Africa to fly a helicopter. She received her wings on 11 January 2006, aged 26. During her time at the SAPS, she flew over 2500 hours (both helicopters and fixed wings), flying many demanding missions and

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FlightCom August 2021

qualifying as the first black woman ATPL(H). She is also a qualified fixed-wing instructor and drone pilot.

To share the pleasures and rewards of flying, Refilwe founded the NGO Girls Fly programme which is an educational Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) programme. The foundation is currently operating in Botswana, Cameroon, and Kenya. As of 2020 over 100,000 young women had participated in GFPA foundation programmes.

In 2009 she went on to set up the Southern African Women in Aviation and Aerospace Industry (SAWIA) group, to support women working in the broader aviation industry. In 2019 she joined the U.S. TechWomen programme as a mentee. She also became an Obama Foundation Fellow in 2019 and is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, a role she uses to advocate for women's rights in Africa. She has won numerous additional awards and in 2019 was nominated to the South African air services licencing council (ASLC). Her tenure ended in March 2021.

Refilwe is passionate about academia and in addition to her science degree, she also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from UCT and an MBA from the Gordon Institute. 

LETTER

SAA AND SAAPA S AA, YOU’VE FINALLY DONE it. Sixteen months after paying us last and twenty-six years since hiring me, you’ve finally pulled the plug and retrenched us all. It’s a sad day indeed.

My sadness transcends the beautiful machines I’ve had the privilege of flying or the wide world SAA allowed me to play in. My heart is filled with sadness at the loss of friendships and our camaraderie as South African Airways pilots - a select band of brothers and sisters.

Not all house friends, but the kind I would welcome into my home anytime.

Aviators from every walk of life, from the Head of the AWB Airwing to ANC exiles, the SAAF war heroes to the cadets from far flung rural villages, from the naughty to the God fearing, from the Casanovas to the moms with kids at home. Everyone with a flying or life story to learn from.

It sounds so cliche, but our diversity was truly our strength – with varying skills and experience levels – but every last one with a common love of flying and equally our company.

Who can forget the excitement of opening our rosters on the 16th of every month for a sneak peek into the following month’s fun. It was like opening a lucky packet. Some you preferred more than others, but all sweet none the less. Remember having to literally suck a lemon to get the smile off our faces while preparing for work, or whistling while walking to our cars ?

Whether on the jumpseats to Jozi, in the corridors at work, at the sign-on counter at Dispatch, at the door on a crew change in Accra, in the hotel lobbies or even bumping into each other on the streets of Hong Kong, New York, Frankfurt and London, every interaction inevitably involved a quick whinge about management, some humorous stories about our colleagues or a belly laugh about the shenanigans on a recent trip.

Friendships cemented over hours and hours in near darkness, crossing continents and oceans. Generally avoiding politics and religion, we explored each other’s passions, loves, losses, adventures, crazy business ideas, families and dreams. More often than not, while devising a mean plan of action involving exploring our exotic destination, interrupted only by some serious eating and drinking at our favourite haunts. From the wild parties to the quiet meals or even the solo exploring, every trip an adventure, every single time.

This last year and a half has been testing for all of us.

Many will give up flying and for the rest it’ll take a few years to return to the flight deck, under completely different circumstances I’m sure.

Hang in there my friends, this crazy world will eventually right itself.

To JZ, Dudu and your cronies, the toxic mix of your greed and incompetency destroyed a once proud eighty-seven-year-old company. You should be riddled with guilt but, as most of the country have discovered, you have no shame.

In enriching yourselves, you’ve sewn a trail of destruction in your wake. Thousands of good hardworking and loyal workers’ lives have been upended. For the suffering you’ve caused you all deserve a special kind of pain. May you rot in hell.

To those of you who are entrusted to carry on the legacy in Version 2, I wish you well. May you prove the naysayers wrong. Fly the flag and fly it safely.

Lastly, to all my colleagues and friends, I thank you for the fun and the laughter. Every last one of you has left an indelible mark and I will cherish our memories forever.

May you all find happiness beyond SAA. I will miss you all dearly.

Godspeed my friends.

Captain Phil Parsons

FlightCom August 2021

15

AIRLINE OPS MIKE GOUGH

As I write this, it is almost eleven months since I sat in the front left seat of an Airbus. This still puts me in the running for some overseas contracts that are starting to pop up with heartening regularity, as having flown the aircraft within the last twelve months is an almost universal requirement.

H

OWEVER, THE ENTHUSIASM to rush off to the other side of the planet is simply not there right now, and a bit of stocktaking and review is certainly relevant. Much like having a good look at the STATUS page after a serious in-flight event to understand what happened and what one’s options are…

It appears that our remaining group of pilots within the airline that I have flown for over the past twenty-four years are finally seeing a settlement with our current employer, after the most unbelievable treatment of the last fifteen months.

When (and if) the dust does finally settle on this debacle, it will most certainly be a subject to be written about extensively.

Although a good round of patting oneself on the back feels good after such a drawn-out ordeal with a government intent on destroying its own entities, the distinct uptick in the ab- initio training industry is actually the real reason why the wolf has been kept firmly away from my door.

What on earth is going on in the aviation industry at present, specifically with respect to pilot training and hiring?

a massive lag in the pilot supply pipeline

While many of my colleagues have experienced dire hardship and major lifechanging decisions, I have been fortunate that my fulltime involvement at my Lanseria-based business has realised rewards that were not entirely expected during the current pandemic times.

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FlightCom August 2021

Oliver Wyman, the New York based multi-national research and consultancy group, recently released an article examining a postcovid aviation industry and its associated challenges that could be anticipated.

The number one threat to the resumption of ‘normal’ operations is the anticipated crew shortage.

I’m kidding right? Who would believe a flight school owner in this pandemicdecimated industry talking up the case of a looming pilot shortage? Beware, I might also have a bridge that’s for sale…

The Aibus ECAM status page.

Instead of looking specifically at passenger demand, this study focused on aircraft departures and return to service of the world’s airliner fleet. As of this month, the global recovery is now at 76% of pre-covid levels.

China is already at 99% of its former operational level, with expansion firmly on the cards.

The clever guys at the consultancy state that while utilisation and block hours of aircraft lag well behind pre-covid levels, the demand for flight crew will precede passenger-number recovery by as much as 66%. In simple terms, getting crew trained / re-trained / current and recent will require anticipation on behalf of airlines so that this aspect does not stifle both the overall recovery, and in some regions, growth.

Apparently, as many as thirty-five thousand pilots will not return to the industry in the near future, as alternate career paths have become well established.

Compounding this is that just about all cadet training and funding has come to a complete stop.

Following 9/11 and then the financial collapse of 2008, new pilot certification fell by up to 40% for the five-year period after those particular crises. That created a massive lag in the pilot supply pipeline, and the training industry was still playing catch up right up until someone ate that half-cooked bat in Wuhan in late 2019.

Thus, the scene is set for a pilot shortage, again.

FlightCom August 2021

17

As the global recovery will not be uniform, it is anticipated that there will be a thirty-four thousand to fifty thousand pilot deficit by 2025. This will be the lowest point of the ‘lag’ as new pilots are trained and certified.

This study resonates with what I am currently observing in the industry at present.

Cadet programmes are stagnant or even non-existent.

The traditional airline pipeline of ex-military pilots is pretty much defunct. Thus, the emergence of the privatemarket candidate is set to re-define hiring practices for the foreseeable future.

this oncoming vacuum at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak.

I have written about, and berated, the notion of ‘chequebook selection’ in the past. It is now becoming centre-stage in terms of how future candidates’ careers are shaped, as well as how well airlines manage the transition from flight school to operating something big, heavy, fast and complicated.

the notion of ‘chequebook selection’

My two biggest sources of candidates at present are the Middle East (family money) and the Indian Sub-Continent (banks’ money). It is interesting to observe a comparison of the success rate of these two This is where I have had the most significant increase in predominant groups. aspiring pilot candidate numbers over the past year or While most candidates from India complete the so, and this segment will be well ahead of most airline Commercial Pilot training within a reasonable time sponsored cadet programmes in terms of readiness for

With 35,000 pilots having left the industry, there is a massive pilot shortage looming.

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FlightCom August 2021

frame, the levels of overall competency and ability (above that of what may be deemed as the minimum standard) vary considerably. The average ME candidate takes considerably longer – normally compounded by English language issues – and the retained depth of knowledge is proportionately lower, again due to language difficulties.

one compares the number of Student Pilot starts (or the issue of a Student Pilot Licence as we would refer to it here in South Africa), to the number of Airline Transport Pilot licence (ATP) holders who successfully complete the command upgrade on an aircraft with an all-up weight of 20 tonnes or greater, it equates to a staggeringly low 2% success rate.

Of the latter group, certain motivations for a career in aviation may be driven for the wrong reasons, such as simply wanting to study something (anything) outside of the home country. This segment, although a minority, seldom complete the entire program.

This percentage is somewhat muddied, as the fallout numbers do not take into account those who are looking at simply a recreational approach to flying, as well as the myriad other reasons that are a part of flying. Loss of medical, lack of funding, change of circumstances and so on, are examples of the many potholes in the road to a professional pilot career when done through the privately sponsored approach.

TEL NO

E-MAIL

✗ ✗ ✗ ✗

Britz

Rudi

Wonderboom Airport

083 422 9882

rudiavmed@gmail.com

Church

Belinda

Valhalla

079 636 9860

churchbs@live.com

Du Plessis

Alexander

Athlone Park

031 904 7460

dex.duplessis@intercare.co.za

Erasmus

Philip

Benoni

011 849 6512

pdceras-ass@mweb.co.za

Govender

Deena

Umhlanga Rocks

031 566 2066/7 deena@drdg.co.za

✗ ✗

Ingham

Kenneth

Midrand

011 315 5817

kaingham@hotmail.com

✗ ✗

Marais

Eugene

Mossel Bay

044 693 1470

eugene.marais@medicross.co.za

✗ ✗

Opperman

Chris

Pretoria Lynnwood

012 368 8800

chris.opperman@intercare.co.za

✗ ✗ ✗

Tenzer

Stan

Rand Airport & JHB CBD

083 679 0777

stant@global.co.za

✗ ✗ ✗

Toerien

Hendrik

White River, Nelspruit

013 751 3848

hctoerien@viamediswitch.co.za

✗ ✗ ✗

Van Der Merwe

Johann

Stellenbosch

021 887 0305

johann.vdmerwe@medicross.co.za

Van Niekerk

Willem

Benoni

011 421 9771

http://willemvanniekerk.co.za

Other countries

LOCATION

EASA registered

FIRST NAME

FAA registered

SURNAME

Off-site Specialist tests

AME Doctors Listing

On site Specialist tests

What to do? Sit on one’s hands and let us see where this goes. The long-term hiring patterns will be driven from the bottom up. 

Senior Class 1, 2, 3, 4

Statistics from the Federal Aviation Administration more than likely hold true for the rest of the world. If

However, it does give an indication of the epic task at hand to undertake the journey to a career in the cockpit. No wonder we are headed for a crunch. And a boom for flight schools.

Regular Class 2, 3, 4

This attrition during the programme is a selection process in itself – albeit a somewhat expensive one.

Of the very few who excel during both the theory as well as the practical side of the training, they have one common trait – appropriate motivation. These candidates normally go on to complete the Flight Instructor rating and serve as role models for the next group of candidates joining the programme.

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FlightCom August 2021

19

DEFENCE DARREN OLIVIER

TO BE MORE

PRECISE

Between 10 and 15 March 1922, DH9 light bombers from 1 Squadron South African Air Force (SAAF) trundled into the skies for dozens of bombing and reconnaissance missions over central Johannesburg, Benoni, and Brakpan to help put down the Rand Rebellion. What began as a strike by miners had turned into a full-blown revolt as heavily-armed rebels held 20 000 troops of the South African Army at bay for almost a week.

W

HILE 1 SQUADRON performed well, particularly in forcing rebels from trenches dug in Fordsburg Square during the momentous battle there on 15 March, the operation was far from untroubled.

First, on 11 March, the SAAF inadvertently killed a civilian, Mrs Truter, in Benoni when a wayward bomb landed next to her house instead of the intended target. Later, during the fighting at Fordsburg, one of the bombs intended for the trenches on the square hit a nearby church instead, damaging its steeple. Neither was easily avoidable: The DH9 was a primitive bomber by today’s standards, with its bombs stored tail-up in an internal bay resulting in wild swings as they entered the slipstream and only a simple negative lens sight to aid the pilot in knowing when to release them.

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1 Squadron had also lost two pilots and two aircraft to ground fire, as a result of being forced to fly low level to maintain a reasonable level of accuracy during attack runs.

But it was perhaps a foreshadowing moment for the SAAF that its first combat action, a mere two years after its founding, involved both the bombing of civilians-turned-rebels in the heart of Johannesburg and the accidental killing of civilian bystanders.

It was an early and painful lesson for the young service, and a harbinger of a future where bombing targets have become ever more integrated into civilian urban areas, not easily distinguishable from surrounding civilians, and where the risk of collateral damage remains both high and extremely damaging to a war effort.

Having to bomb the bridge at Cuito Cuanavale forced South Africa to develop precision guided bombs.

Decades later, during combat operations in Angola, the SAAF was again faced with the limitations of ‘dumb’ unguided munitions and frustrated time and again by their poor accuracy when attacking critical FAPLA and SWAPO camps bases. Especially when flying low-level ‘long toss’ bombing profiles necessitated by Cuban and Angolan air defence patrols.

No matter what was done to improve the accuracy of aircraft navigation systems and bomb computers, there were still too many mission failures because of bombs missing the intended target.

Over those distances, wind gusts, minor manufacturing differences on each bomb, and other seemingly small factors could still be enough to cause wide miss distances under combat conditions.

At the same time, it had to deal with changed international attitudes towards indiscriminate bombing and the protection of civilians, and had to carefully plan missions or even scrub some entirely to avoid civilian casualties where possible.

Africa invested serious resources into precision guided munitions (PGMs), becoming one of the world’s earliest adopters of the technology in combat and a leader in guided air-to-ground systems in general.

The first real product of this research was the 1000 kg TV-guided H2 glide bomb developed in the mid1980s under Project Hanto and used in combat on 12 December 1987 when Buccaneer 414 dropped it against a crucial bridge at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola. The first attack was unsuccessful, which isn’t unusual for a novel weapons system, but a follow up mission on 3 January 1988 succeeded in destroying the bridge.

The war in Angola ended before the H2 could be used further, though it did see additional use as the host platform for South Africa’s air-launched nuclear bombs.

South Africa invested serious resources into precision guided munitions

The SAAF therefore reached a point where, like the USAF had in Vietnam, it had to accept that the only way to improve the precision and accuracy of its bombing any further and achieve its combat aims was to make bombs themselves ‘smart’ by attaching guidance kits and control surfaces. As a result, South

The H2 was soon renamed the Raptor I and remained in SAAF service until 1990, when the service retired it in the face of budget cuts and a decision to rely on Israeli-supplied Griffin laser-guided bomb (LGB) kits for its near-term precision bombing needs.

Denel exported the Raptor I to Pakistan and other countries, and later introduced the significantly upgraded Raptor II which featured GNSS/INS and IR with target recognition as seeker options and a

FlightCom August 2021

21

Denel's Raptor smart bomb is the current evolution of the H2 bomb and is in service with Algeria and Pakistan.

rocket booster motor to take the range from 60 km to over 120 km. Accuracy was enhanced, resulting in a circular error probable (CEP) of just 3 metres, and it was successfully exported to a number of countries including Algeria and Pakistan. Denel more recently revealed the Raptor III, a low-observable further development of the platform that takes the range up to 300 km, but was unable to interest any customers in funding final development.

any Torgos systems, but it’s widely believed that Pakistan’s Ra’am stand off weapon is a licenceproduced derivative of it.

In 2000 Sagem subcontracted Denel to design and develop the Armement Air-Sol Modulaire (AASM) ‘Hammer’ precision-guided bomb for the French Air Force under Project Green. It was a difficult and challenging project at first, especially as Denel at the time had little experience with developing PGMs as modular kits that could be fitted to regular Mk81, Mk82, Mk83, and Mk84 bombs, but the company pulled it off in the end and the AASM is now the primary guided bomb in French service.

Denel exported the Raptor I to Pakistan

In the 1990s the SAAF and Denel invested in a number of follow-on precision weapons projects, beginning with the turbojet-powered 150 km+ range MUPSOW (MUlti-Purpose, Stand-Off Weapon) technology demonstrator project that kicked off in 1991 and was first test-flown in 1997 after a protracted ground test phase. After proving the basic concepts, Denel launched the follow-on 300 km range Torgos at the 1999 Dubai defence exhibition. Both MUPSOW and Torgos featured multiple guidance options including Man-in-the-loop (MITL) TV guidance via an onboard datalink and IR guidance with automatic target recognition resulting in a claimed CEP of 2 metres. Denel never officially admitted to selling

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The SAAF wanted to retain the expertise gained within the industry during the AASM project, so in the mid-2000s it provided Denel with funding to develop a similar modular bomb kit that ultimately became the Umbani. But by then the SAAF lacked the funding to acquire the Umbani or integrate it onto its newly-arrived Gripens, so Denel was encouraged to look elsewhere for further investment. The UAE, looking to build up its local defence industry, was an

obvious candidate and in 2012 the Emirati Tawazun Group (later EDGE) created a joint venture with Denel Dynamics to produce the GNSS/INS/IIR-guided Umbani, now renamed the Al Tariq. That joint venture remains active today and Emirati-built Al Tariqs have been seen in service with the UAE Air Force and Egyptian Air Force.

wrong about area bombing working to demoralise civilians, proving conclusively that wars could not be won by terrorising populations from the air. Thanks to public revulsion over the mass civilian casualties that resulted, it also solidified the prohibitions against intentionally targeting civilians in war, especially from the air.

All well and good for Denel, at least up until it spiralled into its current crisis as a result of state capture, but the SAAF’s inability to acquire any of these products of local industry presented a problem of its own. All it was able to fund in terms of precision strike options for its Gripens was a small number of US Paveway II laser-guided bomb kits, which are both costly and slow to replace and not suitable for all weather conditions like an Al Tariq. Its fleet of Hawks which are intended to have a secondary strike capability have no precision munitions at all, despite being cleared to carry the Al Tariq. In any combat operations it will run out of Paveways almost immediately and be forced to resort to unguided bombs only, just as it did before 1988, with all the attendant problems of inaccuracy leading to poor mission performance and potential civilian casualties.

With South African special operations forces deploying into northern Mozambique as I write this, and the very real possibility that the SADC force they’re part of will turn into a full brigade supported by combat aircraft by the end of the year, South Africa’s leaders no longer have any excuse for ignoring the need for precision weapons to achieve mission objectives & protect troops. Worse than that, though, they are also morally culpable for not providing the SAAF with sufficient means to use PGMs to prevent civilian casualties when hitting military targets.

It’s time we treated this as the failure it is and held those making the decisions accountable. 

In World War II there was a debate between the advocates of precision bombing and area bombing.

Some, especially the ‘Bomber Mafia’ of the US Army Air Force, believed that with the introduction of the Norden bombsight it was finally possible for bombers to hit targets such as factories, rail yards, bridges, and other strategic infrastructure with pinpoint accuracy, therefore avoiding unnecessary civilian deaths and, as they claimed, shortening the war by picking out and destroying Germany and Japan’s key infrastructure.

Their opponents, mostly in the Royal Air Force, believed that precision bombing was not yet possible with the technology available at the time and that less discriminate area bombing would have a greater effect both by destroying large amounts of industry at a time and demoralising German and Japanese civilians.

Ultimately neither was entirely correct. The advocates of area bombing were right about precision bombing being unfeasible: The Norden bombsight was overrated and USAAF aircraft never achieved anything close to the level of accuracy needed to make the approach effective. As a result, even the USAAF switched to area bombing later in the war. But the British were

The Norden bombsight was supposed to make precision bombing possible.

FlightCom August 2021

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Text and images: Mission Aviation Fellowship

FLYING FOR LIFE – FOR SOUTH AFRICA

Midnight on 11 July, changed South Africa forever. The rainbow nation – a dream of the Mandela era – was in tatters. Shopping malls were ransacked, ATMs looted, and general mayhem was the rule of the day.

The bags of enriched porridge filled the King Air between the VIP configured seats.

A

HUMAN TRAGEDY of epic proportions was unfolding. No food, medicine or vital supplies were available in parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. This meant that the most vulnerable – most of the over 30% unemployed in the country – had nothing.

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On 15 July the wheels were set in motion to synergise efforts by those with creative ideas and tangible solutions. Boulder Foundation – an American nonprofit organization that serves as a conduit to funnel resources from donors and partners – contacted Flying for Life to say that one ton of a vitamin enriched

Unloading a ton of vitamin enriched porrdige from the Flying for Life flight from Cape Town.

energy meal had been sourced from Outside the Bowl - Africa, whose vision is to serve nutritious meals to those who need them most.

But the problem was, it was in Cape Town and needed to get to Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Urgently.

The cost of this flight would be great, and it seemed like an impossible task, but one that Flying for Life gladly took on. Various people were phoned, but one incredible donor stood out and made relief a reality.

This was Cape Winelands Airport. When alerted to the drama, they quickly sent out an appeal to their supporters. By close of business, they had managed to raise thousands to make this flight a reality.

Staff of Outside the Bowl, along with a few other volunteers, were rallied around Cape Town Airport to pack each meal into a King Air B200 from Civair.

The King Air is usually a VIP aeroplane, but on this day very important cargo had to be taken to those so desperately in need.

Once in Durban, these vital supplies were distributed

by Boulder Foundation to various communities. But first the precious cargo had to be manually unpacked by the two pilots of CIVAIR, the photographer, and two pilots from a different flight who volunteered their help.

This story is all about how the people of South Africa took a bold stand in the face of adversity and fought back by giving so compassionately, willingly and without hesitation. To Boulder Foundation, Flying for Life, volunteers, CIVAIR and Cape Winelands Airport we salute you! And the country of South Africa thanks you for enabling a mercy flight in such challenging times. 

FlightCom August 2021

25

Guy Leitch

SUKHOI’S ‘CHECKMATE’ UNVEILED The MAKS 2021 show in Moscow was most notable for the unveiling of Russia’s latest fighter – a Fifth Generation product of the Sukhoi design bureau that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Lockheed Martin F-35.

The Checkmate during its unveiling ceremony at MAKS on July 20. Image from Rostec video.

R

OSTEC AND ITS United Aircraft Corp. (UAC) division calls its new stealthy, lightweight fighter the LTS “Checkmate”.

Ainonline notes that it is marked with the registration “RF-0075” and the Bort (side number) “Blue 75,” suggesting that the type could be designated Su-75, or have the design bureau designation T-75.

Whether the article on display is a full-scale mockup or a test article is open to question. However, Rostec

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claims the LTS is ready for flight-test and informed observation of the components suggests that they are more than a scale mock-up.

Before the show opened, Rostec released an English video that gave little in the way of detail about the aircraft, but alluded to the fact that the Checkmate is aimed at the export market, with Argentina, India, the UAE, and Vietnam highlighted. The inclusion of the UAE is notable: at the IDEX show held in Abu Dhabi

Unloading a ton of vitamin enriched porrdige from the Flying

in February 2017, the UAE and Russia announced an agreement on industrial cooperation on defence, including the development of a light fighter.

The show aircraft's cockpit looks the real deal and has a full ejection seat.

It is unclear if the VKS (Russian aerospace forces) have a requirement for this class of aircraft. What is known is that the LTS is a stealthy, single-engine aircraft that is considerably smaller and lighter than the Su-57 “Felon,” although there are some similarities, such as the shape of the cockpit canopy. In terms of configuration, the Checkmate bears some resemblance to a Northrop multi-role fighter design from the early 1990s. It has a cropped delta wing, widely-splayed tail fins, and dispenses with horizontal stabilizers. The moveable fins act as ruddervators, providing control in both pitch and yaw axes, while the single engine has a thrust-vectoring nozzle.

Perhaps the most striking feature is the intake, an underslung chin inlet that wraps around the lower fuselage but with a flat underside, reminiscent of the intake of the X-32, Boeing’s unsuccessful competitor in the Joint Strike Fighter program.

Slyusar commented that a twoseat version and an unmanned derivative are being considered.

Its thrust-vectoring engine and aerodynamic configuration are expected to endow it with a degree of super-manoeuvrability. The powerplant appears to be the NPO Saturn Izdeliye 30 engine, which is in development to power the definitive production version of the Su-57 twinjet.

The LTS has an open systems architecture, and incorporates an automated logistics system known as Matreshka, similar in scope to the F-35's ALIS/ODIN systems. Artificial intelligence provides a self-checking function of the aircraft to reduce pilot workload. The aircraft is intended to feature an AESA radar, advanced networking communications, and a powerful defensive electronics suite. The cockpit features a wide-area display and employs voice-control technology.

Artificial intelligence provides a self-checking function

On either side of the forward fuselage are weapon bays for two short-range air-to-air missiles, while three longerrange weapons can be carried in the lower bay. A gun pack can be mounted in the main weapon bay, with the gun itself protruding below the fuselage. As with the F-35, the LTS is expected to be able to carry weapons on external pylons for non-stealthy operations. Maximum combat load is 7.4 tonnes, including a range of air-to-surface weaponry.

Max takeoff weight is believed to be around 18 tonnes.

The aircraft is advertised as being Mach 1.8-capable and range without external fuel is quoted as 2,800 km. It is intended to supercruise—fly supersonically without the use of afterburner—and is rated for 8G manoeuvring.

The Checkmate is expected to take to the skies in 2023 with a first batch due to be produced in 2026, Yury Slyusar, head of the United Aircraft Corporation told reporters. Russia plans to produce 300 of the aircraft over 15 years once serial production begins, he said.

Rostec's chief, Sergei Chemezov, said it would cost $25 million to $30 million, the RIA news agency reported.

Moscow expected demand from nations in the Middle East, Asia Pacific region and Latin America, he said.

"Our aim is to make the cost per flight hour as low as possible, to make it economical not only to buy but also to operate," said Slyusar. 

FlightCom August 2021

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Composite Manufacturing

Structural Repairs Inspections NTCA Aircraft Seat Belts Instruments

Sheet Metal Rebuilds Overhauls Electrics NDT Testing Refurbishments

FAX NO

Interior

CODE TEL NO

Fixed Wing Helicopter Avionics Piston Engines Turbine Engines Propellers Weight / Balance Paint

NAME OF AMO

RAND AIRPORT CONTINUED Emperor Aviation

(082)

497 1701

FLYONICS (Pty) Ltd

(082)

686 2374

michael@flyonics.co.za

Heli-Afrique cc

(011)

827 8632

086 503 1870

Placo (Pty) Ltd

(011) 827 9301

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086 613 9922 082 565 2330

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RICHARDS BAY Alton Aero Engineering

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SPRINGS AIRFIELD Legair Maintenance

WONDERBOOM AIRPORT - PRETORIA

208 Aviation Aerocore Aircraft Maintenance @ Work Pty Ltd Aircraft Maintenance International Adventure Air Aerotric Aero Engineering & Powerplant

Alpha One Aviation

AviSys Aviation Systems APCO Pty Ltd AVIA Instruments Breytech Aviation cc

(083) (012) (012) (013) (012) (087) (012) (082) (083) (012) (082) (012)

567 3500

Sport Plane Builders cc

(083)

361 3181

TAM Interiors

(083)

455 0215

Propeller Centre cc

(012)

567 1689

082 787 0415 543 2323

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aerotric@aol.com

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NIGERIA - MURTALA MUHAMMED INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ExecuJet Aviation Nigeria Ltd

+2341 295 5110

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JOHANNESBURG F Gomes Upholsters

(011)

614 2471

614 9806

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Comporob CC

(012)

940 4447

086 502 3689

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M&N Acoustics Services Pty (Ltd)

(012)

689 2007

086 211 469

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• Overhaul / Shockload / Repair of Continental and Lycoming Aircraft engines;

•Overhaul Engine; Components; •Overhaul and supply of Hartzell / McCauley and Fix pitch Propellers Hangar no 4, Wonderboom Airport , Pretoria PO Box 17699, Pretoria North, 0116 • Tel: (012) 543 0948/51 • Fax: (012) 543 9447 • email: aeroeng@iafrica.com AMO No: 227

FLIGHT SAFETY THROUGH MAINTENANCE

FlightCom August 2021

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BACKPAGE DIR DIRECT ECTORY ORY A1A Flight Examiner (Loutzavia) Jannie Loutzis 012 567 6775 / 082 416 4069 jannie@loutzavia.co.za www.loutzavia.co.za Adventure Air Lande Milne 012 543 3196 / Cell: 066 4727 848 l.milne@venture-sa.co.za www.ventureglobal.biz AES (Cape Town) Erwin Erasmus 082 494 3722 erwin@aeroelectrical.co.za www.aeroelectrical.co.za AES (Johannesburg) Danie van Wyk 011 701 3200 office@aeroelectrical.co.za www.aeroelectrical.co.za

Algoa Flying Club Sharon Mugridge 041 581 3274 info@algoafc.co.za www.algoafc.co.za

Chem-Line Aviation & Celeste Products Steve Harris 011 452 2456 sales@chemline.co.za www.chemline.co.za

Alpha One Aviation Opelo 082 301 9977 on@alphaoneaviation.co.za www.alphaoneaviation.co.za

Alpi Aviation SA Dale De Klerk 082 556 3592 dale@alpiaviation.co.za www.alpiaviation.co.za

Comporob Composite Repair & Manufacture Felix Robertson 072 940 4447 083 265 3602 comporob@lantic.net www.comporob.co.za

Aref Avionics Hannes Roodt 082 462 2724 arefavionics@border.co.za

C. W. Price & Co Kelvin L. Price 011 805 4720 cwp@cwprice.co.za www.cwprice.co.za

Dart Aeronautical Jaco Kelly 011 827 8204 dartaero@mweb.co.za

Corporate-Aviators/Affordable Jet Sales Mike Helm 082 442 6239 corporate-aviators@iafrica.com www.corporate-aviators.com

Aerocore Atlas Aviation Lubricants Jacques Podde Steve Cloete 082 565 2330 011 917 4220 jacques@aerocore.co.za Fax: 011 917 2100 www.aerocore.co.za Sales.aviation@atlasoil.co.za

Aero Engineering & PowerPlant www.atlasoil.africa Dart Aircraft Electrical Andre Labuschagne ATNS Mathew Joubert 012 543 0948 Percy Morokane 011 827 0371 aeroeng@iafrica.com 011 607 1234 Dartaircraftelectrical@gmail.com

percymo@atns.co.za www.dartaero.co.za Aero Services (Pty) Ltd www.atns.com Chris Scott DJA Aviation Insurance 011 395 3587 Aviation Direct 011 463 5550 chris@aeroservices.co.za Andrea Antel 0800Flying www.aeroservices.co.za 011 465 2669 mail@dja-aviation.co.za

www.dja-aviation.co.za Aeronav Academy info@aviationdirect.co.za www.aviationdirect.co.za Donald O’Connor Dynamic Propellers 011 701 3862 BAC Aviation AMO 115 Andries Visser info@aeronav.co.za Micky Joss 011 824 5057 www.aeronav.co.za 035 797 3610 082 445 4496 monicad@bacmaintenance.co.za andries@dynamicpropeller.co.za Aeronautical Aviation

www.dynamicpropellers.co.za Clinton Carroll Blackhawk Africa 011 659 1033 / 083 459 6279 Cisca de Lange Eagle Aviation Helicopter Division clinton@aeronautical.co.za 083 514 8532 Tamryn van Staden www.aeronautical.co.za cisca@blackhawk.aero 082 657 6414 www.blackhawk.aero tamryn@eaglehelicopter.co.za Aerotric (Pty) Ltd www.eaglehelicopter.co.za Richard Small Blue Chip Flight School

083 488 4535 Henk Kraaij Eagle Flight Academy aerotric@aol.com 012 543 3050 Mr D. J. Lubbe bluechip@bluechip-avia.co.za 082 557 6429 Aircraft Assembly and Upholstery Centre www.bluechipflightschool.co.za training@eagleflight.co.za Tony/Siggi Bailes www.eagleflight.co.za 082 552 6467 Border Aviation Club & Flight School anthony@rvaircraft.co.za Liz Gous Elite Aviation Academy www.rvaircraft.co.za 043 736 6181 Jacques Podde

admin@borderaviation.co.za 082 565 2330 Aircraft Finance Corporation & Leasing www.borderaviation.co.za info@eliteaa.co.za Jaco Pietersen

www.eliteaa.co.za +27 [0]82 672 2262 Breytech Aviation cc

jaco@airfincorp.co.za 012 567 3139 Enstrom/MD Helicopters Jason Seymour Willie Breytenbach Andrew Widdall +27 [0]82 326 0147 admin@breytech.co.za 011 397 6260 jason@airfincorp.co.za aerosa@safomar.co.za www.airfincorp.co.za Bundu Aviation www.safomar.co.za Phillip Cronje Aircraft General Spares 083 485 2427 Era Flug Flight Training Eric or Hayley info@bunduaviation.co.za Pierre Le Riche 084 587 6414 or 067 154 2147 www.bunduaviation.co.za 021 934 7431 eric@acgs.co.za or hayley@acgs.co.za info@era-flug.com www.acgs.co.za Celeste Sani Pak & Inflight Products www.era-flug.com Steve Harris Aircraft Maintenance @ Work 011 452 2456 Execujet Africa Opelo / Frik admin@chemline.co.za 011 516 2300 012 567 3443 www.chemline.co.za enquiries@execujet.co.za frik@aviationatwork.co.za_ www.execujet.com opelonke@aviationatwork.co.za Cape Aircraft Interiors Sarel Schutte Federal Air Aircraft Maintenance International 021 934 9499 Rachel Muir Pine Pienaar michael@wcaeromarine.co.za 011 395 9000 083 305 0605 www.zscai.co.za shuttle@fedair.com gm@aminternational.co.za www.fedair.com Cape Town Flying Club Aircraft Maintenance International Beverley Combrink Ferry Flights int.inc.

Wonderboom 021 934 0257 / 082 821 9013 Michael (Mick) Schittenhelm Thomas Nel info@capetownflyingclub.co.za 082 442 6239 082 444 7996 www.@capetownflyingclub.co.za ferryflights@ferry-flights.com admin@aminternational.co.za

www.ferry-flights.com Capital Air Air Line Pilots’ Association Micaella Vinagre Fireblade Aviation Sonia Ferreira 011 827 0335 010 595 3920 011 394 5310 micaella@capitalairsa.com info@firebladeaviation.com alpagm@iafrica.com www.capitalairsa.com www.firebladeaviation.com www.alpa.co.za

Century Avionics cc Flight Training College Airshift Aircraft Sales Carin van Zyl Cornell Morton Eugene du Plessis 011 701 3244 044 876 9055 082 800 3094 sales@centuryavionics.co.za ftc@flighttrainning.co.za eugene@airshift.co.za www.centuryavionics.co.za www.flighttraining.co.za www.airshift.co.za

Chemetall Flight Training Services Airvan Africa Wayne Claassens Amanda Pearce Patrick Hanly 011 914 2500 011 805 9015/6 082 565 8864 wayne.claassens@basf.com amanda@fts.co.za airvan@border.co.za www.chemetall.com www.fts.co.za www.airvan.co.za

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FlightCom August 2021

Fly Jetstream Aviation Henk Kraaij 083 279 7853 charter@flyjetstream.co.za www.flyjetstream.co.za Flying Frontiers Craig Lang 082 459 0760 CraigL@fairfield.co.za www.flyingfrontiers.com Flying Unlimited Flight School (Pty) Ltd Riaan Struwig 082 653 7504 / 086 770 8376 riaan@ppg.co.za www.ppg.co.za Foster Aero International Dudley Foster 011 659 2533 info@fosteraero.co.za www.fosteraero.co.za

Gemair Andries Venter 011 701 2653 / 082 905 5760 andries@gemair.co.za GIB Aviation Insurance Brokers Richard Turner 011 483 1212 aviation@gib.co.za www.gib.co.za Gryphon Flight Academy Jeffrey Von Holdt 011 701 2600 info@gryphonflight.co.za www.gryphonflight.co.za

Guardian Air 011 701 3011 082 521 2394 ops@guardianair.co.za www.guardianair.co.za

Heli-Afrique cc Tino Conceicao 083 458 2172 tino.conceicao@heli-afrique.co.za

Henley Air Andre Coetzee 011 827 5503 andre@henleyair.co.za www.henleyair.co.za Hover Dynamics Phillip Cope 074 231 2964 info@hover.co.za www.hover.co.za Indigo Helicopters Gerhard Kleynhans 082 927 4031 / 086 528 4234 veroeschka@indigohelicopters.co.za www.indigohelicopters.co.za IndigoSat South Africa - Aircraft Tracking Gareth Willers 08600 22 121 sales@indigosat.co.za www.indigosat.co.za

Integrated Avionic Solutions Gert van Niekerk 082 831 5032 gert@iasafrica.co.za www.iasafrica.co.za International Flight Clearances Steve Wright 076 983 1089 (24 Hrs) flightops@flyifc.co.za www.flyifc.co.za Investment Aircraft Quinton Warne 082 806 5193 aviation@lantic.net www.investmentaircraft.com Jabiru Aircraft Len Alford 044 876 9991 / 044 876 9993 info@jabiru.co.za www.jabiru.co.za Jim Davis Books Jim Davis 072 188 6484 jim@border.co.za www.jimdavis.co.za

Joc Air T/A The Propeller Shop Aiden O’Mahony 011 701 3114 jocprop@iafrica.com Kishugu Aviation +27 13 741 6400 comms@kishugu.com www.kishugu.com/kishugu-aviation

Kit Planes for Africa Stefan Coetzee 013 793 7013 info@saplanes.co.za www.saplanes.co.za

MS Aviation Gary Templeton 082 563 9639 gary.templeton@msaviation.co.za www.msaviation.co.za

North East Avionics Keith Robertson +27 13 741 2986 keith@northeastavionics.co.za deborah@northeastavionics.co.za www.northeastavionics.co.za Landing Eyes Orsmond Aviation Gavin Brown 058 303 5261 031 202 5703 info@orsmondaviation.co.za info@landingeyes.co.za www.orsmondaviation.co.za www.landingeyes.com

Owenair (Pty) Ltd Lanseria Aircraft Interiors Clive Skinner Francois Denton 082 923 9580 011 659 1962 / 076 810 9751 clive.skinner@owenair.co.za francois@aircraftcompletions.co.za www.owenwair.co.za Lanseria International Airport Pacair Mike Christoph Wayne Bond 011 367 0300 033 386 6027 mikec@lanseria.co.za pacair@telkomsa.net www.lanseria.co.za Kzn Aviation (Pty) Ltd Melanie Jordaan 031 564 6215 mel@kznaviation.co.za www.kznaviation.co.za

Legend Sky 083 860 5225 / 086 600 7285 info@legendssky.co.za www.legendsky.co.za

PFERD-South Africa (Pty) Ltd Hannes Nortman 011 230 4000 hannes.nortman@pferd.co.za www.pferd.com

Litson & Associates (Pty) Ltd OGP, BARS, Resources Auditing & Aviation Training karen.litson@litson.co.za Phone: 27 (0) 21 8517187 www.litson.co.za

Pipistrel Kobus Nel 083 231 4296 kobus@pipistrelsa.co.za www.pipistrelsa.co.za

Litson & Associates Risk Management Services (Pty) Ltd. eSMS-S/eTENDER/ eREPORT/Advisory Services karen.litson@litson.co.za Phone: 27 (0) 8517187 www.litson.co.za Loutzavia Aircraft Sales Henry Miles 082 966 0911 henry@loutzavia.co.za www.loutzavia.co.za

Loutzavia Flight Training Gerhardt Botha 012 567 6775 ops@loutzavia.co.za www.loutzavia.co.za Loutzavia-Pilots and Planes Maria Loutzis 012 567 6775 maria@loutzavia.co.za www.pilotsnplanes.co.za Loutzavia Rand Frans Pretorius 011 824 3804 rand@loutzavia.co.za www@loutzavia.co.za Lowveld Aero Club Pugs Steyn 013 741 3636 Flynow@lac.co.za Marshall Eagle Les Lebenon 011 958 1567 les@marshalleagle.co.za www.marshalleagle.co.za Maverick Air Charters Chad Clark 083 292 2270 Charters@maverickair.co.za www.maverickair.co.za MCC Aviation Pty Ltd Claude Oberholzer 011 701 2332 info@flymcc.co.za www.flymcc.co.za

MH Aviation Services (Pty) Ltd Marc Pienaar 011 609 0123 / 082 940 5437 customerrelations@mhaviation.co.za www.mhaviation.co.za M and N Acoustic Services cc Martin de Beer 012 689 2007/8 calservice@mweb.co.za

Metropolitan Aviation (Pty) Ltd Gert Mouton 082 458 3736 herenbus@gmail.com Money Aviation Angus Money 083 263 2934 angus@moneyaviation.co.za www.moneyaviation.co.za

Plane Maintenance Facility Johan 083 300 3619 pmf@myconnection.co.za Precision Aviation Services Marnix Hulleman 012 543 0371 marnix@pasaviation.co.za www.pasaviation.co.za

PSG Aviation Reon Wiese 0861 284 284 reon.wiese@psg.co.za www.psg aviation.co.za Rainbow SkyReach (Pty) Ltd Mike Gill 011 817 2298 Mike@fly-skyreach.com www.fly-skyreach.com

Rand Airport Stuart Coetzee 011 827 8884 stuart@randairport.co.za www.randairport.co.za

Robin Coss Aviation Robin Coss 021 934 7498 info@cossaviation.com www.cossaviation.co.za SAA Technical (SOC) Ltd SAAT Marketing 011 978 9993 satmarketing@flysaa.com www.flysaa.com/technical SABRE Aircraft Richard Stubbs 083 655 0355 richardstubbs@mweb.co.za www.aircraftafrica.co.za SA Mooney Patrick Hanly 082 565 8864 samooney@border.co.za www.samooney.co.za Savannah Helicopters De Jager 082 444 1138 / 044 873 3288 dejager@savannahhelicopters.co.za www.savannahhelicopters.co.za Scenic Air Christa van Wyk +264 612 492 68 windhoek@scenic-air.com www.scenic-air.com Sheltam Aviation Durban Susan Ryan 083 505 4882 susanryan@sheltam.com www.sheltamaviation.com Sheltam Aviation PE Brendan Booker 082 497 6565 brendanb@sheltam.com www.sheltamaviation.com

Sky-Tech Heinz Van Staden 082 720 5210 sky-tech@telkomsa.net www.sky-tech.za.com Sling Aircraft Kim Bell-Cross 011 948 9898 sales@airplanefactory.co.za www.airplanefactory.co.za

Solenta Aviation (Pty Ltd) Paul Hurst 011 707 4000 info@solenta.com www.solenta.com Southern Energy Company (Pty) Ltd Elke Bertram +264 8114 29958 johnnym@sec.com.na www.sec.com.na Southern Rotorcraft cc Mr Reg Denysschen Tel no: 0219350980 sasales@rotors-r-us.com www.rotors-r-us.com

Unique Air Charter Nico Pienaar 082 444 7994 nico@uniqueair.co.za www.uniqueair.co.za

Unique Flight Academy Nico Pienaar 082 444 7994 nico@uniqueair.co.za www.uniqueair.co.za

Van Zyl Aviation Services Colette van Zyl 012 997 6714 admin@vanzylaviationco.za www.vanzylaviation.co.za

Vector Aerospace Jeff Poirier +902 888 1808 jeff.poirier@vectoraerospace.com www.vectoraerospace.com Velocity Aviation Collin Pearson 011 659 2306 / 011 659 2334 collin@velocityaviation.co.za www.velocityaviation.co.za

Sport Plane Builders Pierre Van Der Walt 083 361 3181 pmvdwalt@mweb.co.za

Villa San Giovanni Luca Maiorana 012 111 8888 info@vsg.co.za www.vsg.co.za

Starlite Aero Sales Klara Fouché +27 83 324 8530 / +27 31 571 6600 klaraf@starliteaviation.com www.starliteaviation.com

Vortx Aviation Bredell Roux 072 480 0359 info@vortx.co.za www.vortxaviation.com

Starlite Aviation Operations Trisha Andhee +27 82 660 3018/ +27 31 571 6600 trishaa@starliteaviation.com www.starliteaviation.com

Wanafly Adrian Barry 082 493 9101 adrian@wanafly.net www.wanafly.co.za

Starlite Aviation Training Academy Durban: +27 31 571 6600 Mossel Bay: +27 44 692 0006 train@starliteaviation.com www.starliteaviation.com

Windhoek Flight Training Centre Thinus Dreyer 0026 40 811284 180 pilots@flywftc.com www.flywftc.com

Status Aviation (Pty) Ltd Richard Donian 074 587 5978 / 086 673 5266 info@statusaviation.co.za www.statusaviation.co.za

Wings n Things Wendy Thatcher 011 701 3209 wendy@wingsnthings.co.za www.wingsnthings.co.za

Superior Pilot Services Liana Jansen van Rensburg 0118050605/2247 info@superiorair.co.za www.superiorair.co.za

Witbank Flight School Andre De Villiers 083 604 1718 andredv@lantic.net www.waaflyingclub.co.za

The Copter Shop Bill Olmsted 082 454 8555 execheli@iafrica.com www.execheli.wixsite.com/the-coptershop-sa Titan Helicopter Group 044 878 0453 info@titanhelicopters.com www.titanhelicopters.com TPSC Dennis Byrne 011 701 3210 turboprop@wol.co.za

Wonderboom Airport Peet van Rensburg 012 567 1188/9 peet@wonderboomairport.co.za www.wonderboomairport.co.za

Zandspruit Bush & Aero Estate Martin Den Dunnen 082 449 8895 martin@zandspruit.co.za www.zandspruit.co.za Zebula Golf Estate & SPA Reservations 014 734 7700 reception@zebula.co.za www.zebula.co.za

Trio Helicopters & Aviation cc CR Botha or FJ Grobbelaar 011 659 1022

stoffel@trioavi.co.za/frans@trioavi.co.za

www.trioavi.co.za

Tshukudu Trailers Pieter Visser 083 512 2342 deb@tshukudutrailers.co.za www.tshukudutrailers.co.za U Fly Training Academy Nikola Puhaca 011 824 0680 ufly@telkomsa.net www.uflyacademy.co.za

United Charter cc Jonathan Wolpe 083 270 8886 jonathan.wolpe@unitedcharter.co.za www.unitedcharter.co.za United Flight Support Clinton Moodley/Jonathan Wolpe 076 813 7754 / 011 788 0813 ops@unitedflightsupported.com www.unitedflightsupport.com

FlightCom August 2021

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