SAPFA 2020 Brakpan Airport Rally
With the National Rally Flying Championships only two weeks away, most of the existing Protea rally team members took part in the Class 1, or ‘Open’ category of the sport at Brakpan Airport on Saturday 7 March. It was also encouraging to see that after all the training sessions held by Mary de Klerk, Rob Jonkers and Jonty Esser, many of the previous ‘Fun Rally participants’ stepped up to Class 1 as well.
It was disappointing that only a few of the local Brakpan pilots supported this event, even though one of the training sessions was held at the club recently. Hopefully, more of them will be inspired to put their flying and navigation skills to the tests, especially as this sport improves general flying safety. In all 16 teams took part flying the in the three categories of the rally.
My husband Frank and I kept the route fairly simple, so as not to discourage first timers. The participants all managed to complete the task sheet quite easily, except for one navigator who plotted the start point from the wrong Brakpan Airport, which found his pilot heading off to start at the finish point and was surprised to find another aircraft flying directly towards him.
The ‘follow-the-feature’ being a railway line was easily managed by most of the teams, except for one which followed the wrong railway line. Frank did not include arcs in the route, as these require more skills, and will be incorporated into the next event.
The weather cleared in time for the scheduled take-off and the winds were light, with just a very slight crosswind on the runway. It was decided to judge the landings after the rally and the results showed that a lot of practice is required before the National Championships. For the first time in a SAPFA event, a helicopter set the record by winning the landing stage of the rally. Apart from the Robinson 66, another aircraft of interest was the Mushak.
The route took the participants to a starting point near the Ergo slimes dam, then south towards Heidelberg, to a point along the N3, then East towards Leandra, then back North along the railway line to Delmas and home to Brakpan via Selcourt. Although the results were far from what is required from a National standard, the selectors trust that the skills the entrants will pick up at Nationals will enable them to put together five ‘A’ team and five ‘B’ team partnerships to give South Africa the best chance of a good team result.
A score less than 2000 indicates that with the training and discipline the pilots experience at the Nationals, they should be able to be selected to represent South Africa in Stellenbosch in November.
Nationals take place from Thursday 2 – 4 April, with training at your own discretion. Also look out for our very exciting Speed Rallies. Please see our website sapfa.org.co.za for our events’ calendar.