Big things should be expected from such a big door. The PC-12 NGX is the only single-engine turboprop to provide a pallet-sized cargo door as standard. So, when packing for your next trip in the PC-12 NGX, you won’t have to choose between which pair of shoes to bring. Bring them all. You may even decide to bring your favourite surfboard, motorbike, or mountain bike. Yes, we’ve carried them all, and so can you in the PC-12 NGX. pilatus-aircraft.com
Contact Pilatus PC-12 Centre Southern Africa, your nearest Authorised Pilatus PC-12 NGX Sales Centre for further information on Tel: +27 11 383 0800, Cell +27 82 511 7312 or Email: aircraftsales@pilatuscentre.co.za
POSITION REPORT
Every three or so years there is a panic when the SACAA puts out an AIC with a compliance deadline for the installation and use of ADS-B (Automatic Dependent SurveillanceBroadcast) and PBN (Performance Based Navigation).
ADSB COMES AS ADSB-In or -Out and is part of the shift to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) based on GPS, GLONASS and others. When combined with modern aircraft equipment such as an attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) and TCAS, and ground-based augmentation, precision IFR approaches can be designed for even the smallest airfields.
Thanks to ADSB, ATNS wants ground based radar to be obsolete in five years.
There have been sporadic AIC declarations of intent from CAA and ATNS to require ‘ADS-B Out’ equipment to be made mandatory for all aircraft operated under IFR or in controlled airspace. The current deadline to be ADS-B compliant is June 2025 for entry into Class A or Class C Airspace.
This notwithstanding that this equipment could simply be Mode-S transponders capable of broadcasting on 1090mhz. It is also questionable as to why, as long as there still is ground based radar, ADSB will be required in controlled
Lanseria based Aeronautical Aviation’s owner Clinton Carroll says, “One concern is that there are not enough avionics facilities to do all the aircraft in the allotted time frame. We can
work on five to eight installations at a time, but each takes about a week, and we are the biggest installer. So there will again be a last minute rush, as there was with RVSM. Not only that, but the SACAA will have to process Mode-S registrations for us to programme each transponder. It will be hard for them to meet the deadline.”
Carroll points out that all new transponders now include ADS-B Out on the 1090mhz frequency. “Where the kicker comes in is that same transponder needs a WAAS GPS position source connected to it. Garmin have models with a built in GPS, but other manufacturers don’t. So if you don’t have a panel mounted WAAS GPS, this costs a small fortune to install. What they also don’t mention is that anything that has a VNE of 250 kts or more needs a diversity transponder. That is even more expensive as it needs a transponder antenna added to the roof.” He estimates the cost of an ADSB installation to vary from R50,000 to R250,000 depending on what equipment the aircraft already has.
Guy Leitch ground based radar will be obsolete
Caroll says, “What’s going to happen, considering it’s already written in the law, is what happened in the United States. There will be a process for owners to apply for extensions, but I foresee them being hard to get. The CAA have been warning us for four years, so aircraft owners have known it’s coming.”
Best get in early, rather than leave it to the last minute.
j
PT6A FLAT RATE OVERHAUL (FRO)
StandardAero Lanseria, a Pratt & Whitney PT6A designated overhaul facility (DOF) and the sole independent DOF approved for the PT6A-140, is pleased to support operators across Africa with P&W’s flat rate overhaul (FRO) program, which combines OEM-level quality with guaranteed “not to exceed” capped pricing. Meaning that you can plan your maintenance expenses with confidence, and without any compromises.
StandardAero Lanseria, a Pratt & Whitney PT6A designated overhaul facility (DOF) and the sole independent DOF approved for the PT6A-140, is pleased to support operators across Africa with P&W’s flat rate overhaul (FRO) program, which combines OEM-level quality with guaranteed “not to exceed” capped pricing. Meaning that you can plan your maintenance expenses with confidence, and without any compromises.
The FRO program does not incur extra charges for typical corrosion, sulphidation or repairable foreign object damage (FOD), and PMA parts are accepted.
The FRO program does not incur extra charges for typical corrosion, sulphidation or repairable foreign object damage (FOD), and PMA parts are accepted.
As the industry’s leading independent aeroengine MRO provider, StandardAero is trusted by airline, governmental and business aviation operators worldwide for responsive, tailored support solutions. Contact us today to learn more.
As the industry’s leading independent aeroengine MRO provider, StandardAero is trusted by airline, governmental and business aviation operators worldwide for responsive, tailored support solutions. Contact us today to learn more.
AV-30 panel display. With seamless integration, advanced features, and reliability at your fingertips, the destinations are limitless. uAvionix—your key to opening the skies.
JOHAN MYBURGH
Normally we avoid ‘chocolate box’ sunset scenes for Opening Shots. But this one is so striking we made an exception.
It was taken by CemAir First Officer Johan Myburgh of Cemair’s Dash 8 Q400 at a George night-stop. Johan used an iPhone 12 mini.
Mosquitos in Airliner Service
When I reviewed Glenn Orsmond’s book, Crash and Burn, for the July edition I was amused by his claim that one of the reasons Comair had so disastrously committed to buying Boeing 737 Maxes was because ‘the pilots wanted the latest toys’.
MANY OF THE COMAIR PILOTS were known as ‘vlamgatte’ because they had been SAAF Mirage pilots and it’s natural for former fighter pilots to want to fly newer and better planes. (It’s up to management to control the more profligate urges that may bankrupt a company.)
Orsmond’s claim reminded me of the British airline pilots who got to fly Mosquito fighter/bombers as civilian airliners.
The Mosquito is an unlikely passenger plane – built for speed, it has a small fuselage cross section; just large enough for a small but heavy bomb load. So using the ‘Mozzie’ to carry passengers was a strange option. Yet it turned out to be vital to the war effort – and one of the passengers went on to be pivotal to ending the war with Japan.
The Swedes started the air link using three DC-3s (named ‘Gripens’) painted bright orange and clearly marked Sweden/Schweden in large black lettering to prevent attacks from either side on a neutral aircraft.
The Brits also operated an air link, but this was far more clandestine than the Swedish operation.
An unlikely passenger plane
Sweden is a key producer of ball-bearings, manufactured by the well-known Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF). So desperate were the British for these ball bearings that they mounted disastrous naval operations using Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) to get ball bearings from the SKF factory.
In the Second World War Sweden was determinedly neutral. However, fearing it would be absorbed into a Europe ruled by Germany, it turned to Britain for a safe air link between Stockholm and Scotland.
Flights between Perth and Stockholm via Norway began in secrecy and were flown by civilian crews in old bombers with civil registrations and markings. BOAC operated C-47 Dakotas and converted Whitley IV bombers but their lack of speed left them vulnerable to Luftwaffe attacks. This route was closed when one of the aircraft was attacked by
An illustration of the BOAC Mosquito carrying a pasenger in the bomb bay.
a Luftwaffe fighter and another was captured in Oslo when the Germans invaded Norway.
Flown by Swedish or Norwegian aircrew, the planes also flew POW mail, magazines and newspapers into Sweden where it could be forwarded to the prison camps in Germany. The aircraft were refuelled and loaded with ballbearings before returning to Leuchars, and so it became known as the ‘ball-bearing run’.
Vulnerable to Norwegian-based Luftwaffe fighters, these transport aircraft had to fly in bad weather and at night to avoid detection over the North Sea. However this was impractical during the long daylight hours of the northern summer.
It became clear that a new and much faster type was needed and so BOAC put pressure on de Havilland for their then new Mosquito.
A trial flight was undertaken using an unmarked Mosquito for the journey from Leuchars to Stockholm. The 800 miles was flown in under 3 hours and the aircraft proved it could carry 650 kg of ball-bearings in its bomb bay.
In 1943, the Mosquito FB VI was selected for the ‘fast freight service’ missions between RAF Leuchars in Scotland, and Bromma Airport near Stockholm.
Most missions were flown at night. Provided the aircraft kept below 1000 ft, it would be invisible to German radar. Even if detected, a cruising Mosquito could outrun the Ju-88 night fighters at their maximum speed. For even more speed, the Merlins’ exhaust stub baffles were removed, adding 16 mph. It was only by employing expensive and asset intensive standing patrols and later, a number of Fw190s, that the Germans could hope to catch the Mosquitos.
The Germans pressured neutral Sweden to stop these flights, insisting that they were giving the British an advantage, and that as a neutral country, they should not be allowing British aircraft to land on Swedish soil. The Swedes countered that the service was purely civilian and was controlled solely by the Swedish authorities. The Germans threatened to get Hitler to make the unarmed aircraft legitimate military targets.
Fearing that the British would then close the flights down, the Swedes ignored the German threats. And so the service continued. However, so as not to not threaten Sweden’s neutrality, it was vital that the Mosquitoes remained unarmed for these operations. This required the removal of all guns and cannons and disabling the bomb bays. Modified at the Hatfield factory, the removal of the guns moved the centre of gravity back so ballast had to be added to the nose.
The Mosquitos were operated by British and Norwegian airline pilots who wore BOAC uniforms and carried British passports. By the end of May 1943 a total of nine Mosquitoes had been modified and delivered to ‘the BOAC base’ at Leuchars.
In June 1943, with the demand for ball-bearings still increasing, two Mosquitoes departed Leuchars with two important people squeezed into the bomb bay: the British President of SKF, and a ball-bearing expert from the British
government who was going to negotiate the delivery of further supplies to Britain.
In order to accommodate these passengers the bomb bay had to be converted to enable them to lie down. Cramped, make-shift beds were lined with plywood and fuel pipes were re-routed to create space.
The bomb bays were not heated, so passengers were issued a flying suit and boots for protection against the harsh cold. Also essentials such as an oxygen supply, sandwiches and a flask of coffee or tea. An electric light was rigged to enable the passenger to read.
The passengers had a piece of string tied to the pilot’s leg. If the conditions in the bomb bay become unbearable, they could pull the string.
A notable passenger was the nuclear physicist Niels Bohr, whose work on atomic structures and quantum theory had won him the Nobel
A BOAC Captain boards his Mosquito - note the sealed cannon gunports.
Prize in Physics in 1922. The journey almost killed him after he did not manage to turn on his oxygen mask. Only when he failed to respond to the pilot’s attempts to contact him was action taken. The pilot reduced altitude and Bohr regained consciousness. Bohr went on to be a key figure in the Manhattan project.
A large number of other significant people were carried by these BOAC Mosquitoes. One was Sargeant Jack Byrne, who went on to be a founder member of the SAS, after being shot in the face, bayoneted in the groin and detained in several prisoner of war camps.
Three prisoners of war who escaped in the famous ‘Wooden Horse‘ POW escape were also returned to Britain in Mosquitoes from Sweden; as were Norwegians Peter Bergsland and Jens Muller, who were two of the survivors of ‘The Great Escape’.
Notable too was that in ‘Operation Gunnerside’, which was the SOE operation to blow up the German Heavy Water plant in Norway (featured in the film The Heroes of Telemark), six of the team were repatriated using the BOAC Mosquitos. A key player in this operation was Leif Tronstad, a Norwegian physicist who was also flown to Scotland to provide vital information about the German efforts to produce Heavy Water at the plant.
A extraordinary selection of British personalities were also transported, notably: T.S. Elliot, Sir Kenneth Clarke and even the Bishop of Chichester were flown into Sweden this way.
Even though these flights were highly successful, there was a steady attrition of
the aircraft, which would not look good on an airline’s safety record. The flying and the weather were challenging. G-AGGD crashed in Sweden. G-AGGF crashed into high ground at Invernairk, killing both crew. G-AGGG crashed only a mile from Leuchars, when an engine failed. G-AGKP crashed into the sea nine miles short of Leuchars and the crew and cargo were lost. This crash was blamed on structural failure as the aircraft had been repaired after an earlier accident.
The total number of Mosquitos used by BOAC reached fourteen and their success was very impressive. By the end of November 1944, BOAC had flown more than 1,200 ball-bearing run missions.
Despite the Luftwaffe’s efforts, a total of only five Mosquitos were lost, and those because of bad weather or mechanical failure.
On 17 May 1945 the flights ceased. The service between Sweden and Scotland had been a vital link between the two countries, not only for the supply of ball-bearings, but as a lifeline for escapees and special agents.
Several BOAC pilots and crew were subsequently recognised by the Norwegian government for their outstanding airmanship, forging an excellent relationship between the two nations for years to come. j
Where have all the foreplanes gone? They were a big, bright, beautiful flash in the pan.
CANARD AEROPLANES were the rage in the 1970s. The VariEze took the homebuilding world – which Jim Bede’s BD-5 had recently taken by storm – by storm. Storms were frequent those days; it was also in the 1970s that T tails took general aviation by storm, and popped up in a lot of places they had no reason to be.
But the canard storm was something special. For a while it seemed that every new design was a canard. There were Quickies and Dragonflies and Cozys and Defiants and Velocities, Avtek and OMAC and Jetcruzer and on and on. Beech got into the act at the start of the next decade with the Starship, a giant 2,400-hp VariEze. The Starship flopped, Avtek and OMAC and Jetcruzer fizzled, but the spell of the canard persisted into the next millennium, with Boeing briefly hyping a canard-configured Mach .98 “Sonic Cruiser” before reverting to type with the 787.
the behaviour of a stable aeroplane. But those aeroplanes were not intended to be naturally stable; stability was provided by the pilot, who constantly manipulated the foreplane in flight. The Wright Flyer was so unstable that it would be considered unflyable today.
Several canard-configured designs were tried in World War Two: the Curtiss Ascender (nicknamed Ass-ender, supposedly because people thought it would fall to the earth backwards) and the Kyushu Shinden, single-engine fighters of similar appearance, and a glider-like Focke-Wulf bomber than didn’t get past the wind tunnel stage.
The Wright Flyer was so unstable that it would be considered unflyable today
Very early in the history of powered flight, a number of aeroplanes, including the Wright Flyer, had pitch-control surfaces ahead of the wings. The problem of such an arrangement is obvious: If the nose comes up, the angle of attack of the foreplane increases and tries to push the nose up still more. It’s the opposite of
In the 1960s, Robertson, the maker of aftermarket STOL mods principally for high-wing Cessnas, included a small foreplane on a 182 mod it called the Wren. Immersed in powerful propwash, it helped lift the nose during the very short takeoff roll. Because the surfaces were small, their destabilizing effect was overcome by the 182’s large tailplane. The Wren was, actually, a pre-Avanti three-surface aeroplane.
It was also in the 1960s that the Swedish firm of SAAB (whose core business was planes, not cars) designed the plane that could be said
The Curtiss XP-55-CS Ascender was one of the first canard planes - and was unsuccessful.
to have accidentally set the canard wave of the 1970s in motion. Called Viggen, it was a delta-wing single-engine Mach 2 jet with a delta foreplane, designed for very short takeoff and landing.
Subsequent to the Viggen, a number of fighter types sprouted small blade-like foreplanes, which the French called moustaches. Their purpose, like that of Wren’s foreplanes, is enhanced manoeuvring authority; they are conceptually different from the large foreplanes of the Viggen and subsequent designs that could properly be considered canards. The canonical hallmark of a canard aeroplane is that its foreplane carries a fraction of the aeroplane’s weight that is disproportionate to its area relative to the main wing.
SAAB accidentally set the canard wave in motion
The canard configuration appears counterintuitive if you are in the habit of equating the “tail feathers” of a plane with those of an arrow. Obviously, you would not put feathers on the nose of an arrow; so why put them on the nose of an aeroplane? But the stability of any aeroplane actually arises from its centre of gravity being ahead of the combined aerodynamic centre of all of its lifting surfaces. In a canard, this simply means that for stability the foreplane must operate at a higher lift coefficient than the wing. The centre of gravity does not coincide with the quarter-chord point on the wing, as it roughly does on a conventional aircraft; instead, it is between the foreplane and the wing.
The Viggen might have remained an isolated aberration but for a young aeronautical engineer named Burt Rutan. Rutan liked the idea of
a delta-wing homebuilt on Viggen principles, and he built one and began selling plans. He left his job as a flight test engineer on F-4 Phantoms at Edwards Air Force Base to join Bede Aircraft, where he made the BD-5 into a flyable aeroplane (if you could keep the engine running), and where, more important for history, his eyes were opened to the enormous moneymaking potential of a coollooking homebuilt.
Rutan left Bede, set up shop in Mojave, California, just a few miles from Edwards, and built the prototype of the VariEze, a foam-and-fiberglass twoseater whose jet-like swept wing gave it an ample dash of coolness. The world agreed. Thousands of plan sets for Rutan canards were sold, and within a few years it was impossible to find a mention of him in the aviation press that did not style him “canard guru Burt Rutan.”
The canard craze lasted a decade or two – the end-point of a craze is hard to fix with precision – and then subsided. Today, a new canard design is a rarity.
accidents that don’t happen don’t get reported
The arguments commonly advanced in favour of the configuration were several. Most were specious. It was true, for instance, that the tail of a conventional aeroplane is often pushing down, increasing the load that the wing is required to carry. But that penalty is small at cruising speed, and it is balanced by the fact that the wing area of a conventional aeroplane can be smaller than a canard’s for a given standard of runway performance. In the final analysis, the crosscountry speeds of the two types were similar, and the outcomes of efficiency competitions depended more on the builder’s attention to detail than on the overall configuration.
Three generations of Rutan designs, with the Vari Viggen closest.
Burt Rutan's SkiGull does not have a canard foreplane.
The special characteristic of the canard configuration was that it was – or at least could be – stall-proof. Since stalls are a principal cause of general aviation accidents, this should have been a signal advantage. But it was balanced by a corresponding disadvantage. If a canard were not properly loaded, or the incidences of its wing and canard were not correct, it might find itself locked in a stable, unrecoverable deep stall. Several Velocitys suffered such stalls; surprisingly, they came down so slowly that some pilots who happened to alight in water survived.
Although Rutan’s design choices were sometimes mocked as being principally motivated by a desire to shock, he insisted that he had no special brief for canards, but merely selected the most appropriate configuration for each requirement. Indeed, his own subsequent designs gradually drifted away from the canard configuration. So did the market. The most popular homebuilt kits today are the entirely classic Vans RV series.
Rutan himself withdrew from the plans-selling business long ago, and the fact that his canard designs, now going on four decades old, are not available in kit form has militated against
their continued popularity. Still, hundreds are flying, and it’s highly probable that their stallproof qualities have saved some, perhaps many, lives. But accidents that don’t happen don’t get reported, and in other respects canard aeroplanes perform similarly to conventional ones.
Burt Rutan retired from the company he founded, Scaled Composites, in 2011, after having achieved, among many other things, the first privately-funded space flight with his SpaceShipOne – not, notably, a canard design.
He retired beside a lake in Idaho and began work on an amphibian, SkiGull, that was intended for long-distance touring and was supposed to land on skis like the Convair Sea Dart of the 1950s. Conventionally configured, with the fuselage slung below the wing on a pylon à la PBY Catalina, Ski Gull was a failure – Rutan made no bones about it – because of what turned out to be the unfavourable hydrodynamics of its hull.
Now, maybe if it had had a canard... j
FLY BY WIRE SLING?
Using a Sling 4, a former SpaceX engineer is developing a prototype of what he hopes will become the safest and easiest aircraft to fly.
AIRHART AERONAUTICS CEO Nikita
Ermoshkin is a Cornell graduate and former SpaceX engineer. He was working toward his PPL when he noticed many design features and characteristics built into general aviation aircraft that, he says, make them less accessible and user-friendly to aspiring pilots.
“I found myself continuously disappointed by features like manual mixture control,” he said. “The entire user experience seemed unnecessarily complicated. I started thinking about tasks that a computer could accomplish to reduce the pilot’s workload.”
Airhart is developing a fly-by-wire control system, called Airhart Assist, that Sling Aircraft and Airhart are developing together. The pilot controls the Airhart Sling using a single control stick and a “speed lever.” The aircraft has no rudder pedals, so automation takes care of turn coordination.
Pilots will guide the Airhart Sling with a sidestick while the aircraft would automatically adjust power and control surfaces to follow the commands while maintaining stable flight.
As potential markets go, Airhart is focusing on people who could benefit from using a personal aircraft for transportation but might not have considered learning to fly,
largely because of the difficulty and expense of earning a pilot certificate and acquiring an plane. Ermoshkin wants to make flying easy and convenient enough to convince such potential customers that personal air travel can improve their quality of life.
Ermoshkin expects to have the Airhart Sling flying with a complete Airhart Assist control system by the end of this year and in customers’ hangars by 2026. While the initial aircraft is expected to cost $500,000 and will operate under experimental rules, the company plans to develop a certified version selling for less than $100,000 in 10 years.
Nikita Ermoshkin, left seat with Airhart’s lead flight software engineer Soren Rademacher. j
“Is that the Matterhorn then, love?”
This winter, where will your Sling take you?
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
This month nothing particularly stood out as a suitable Quote of the Month – so we fall back on a great old South African funny aphorism, which has become too true:
“Many Rands make flight work.”
RIGHT SEAT RULES NO. 21
EXERCISE 7 CLIMBING
Here’s a whole bunch of interesting stuff about climbing. It’s mainly for instructors, but everyone is welcome to eavesdrop.
REMEMBER FROM YOUR student pilot days that when you climb, the wings produce less lift than they did in straight and level flight. It’s true – I’m not just saying it to grab your attention.
Imagine you have a special kind of aircraft that has no wings and therefore can’t produce any lift. But it has a hell of a powerful engine driving a vertically-mounted prop. Not only does this aeroplane exist – it’s pretty common – and it’s called a helicopter.
Different climb speeds
If you look in your aircraft’s POH you will find it gives you two, or sometimes three, different climb speeds.
sometimes three, different climb speeds
So we know that in straight and level flight a fixed-wing aircraft is supported entirely by the wings. And in vertical flight it is supported entirely by the propeller – the wings give no lift at all. So the steeper the climb the less lift you need from the wings.
To go from level flight to a climb, you need more power (actually it is thrust, but power is fine for our discussion). In fact your ability to climb depends entirely on how much extra power you have – over what you need for level flight.
The slowest is the best angle of climb speed (Vx). So this gives you the greatest angle above the horizontal. You use it if you need to clear obstacles after takeoff. My handbooks, for both the 140 and the 180 Cherokees, say that 74 mph is the speed to use of you have trees to clear after a gross weight takeoff. Any slower or faster than this will give a lower gradient.
Here’s a dramatic clip of a Stinson 108 that didn’t have that extra horsepower needed for a climb. It’s taken from inside the crashing aircraft https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=OVM3RRd1vf0&t=172s
Notice how the pilot gradually eases the nose up in a futile attempt to steepen the angle of climb. This hopelessly gutless aeroplane was expected to climb, with four up, from a density altitude of… wait for it… 9200 ft.
There are three different climb speeds.
Next we have best rate of climb, or Vy. This is the speed that will get you to altitude in the shortest time. It’s the speed generally used for circuits and landings. Again both my Cherokee handbooks say 85 mph is the best speed for this
Finally, we have cruise climb. This is the speed to use on a cross-country. It gives a good compromise between covering distance and getting you to your cruise altitude. It also gives good engine cooling and decent visibility over the nose. Again both the 140 and the 180 use the same figure – 100 mph.
It is interesting that the extra 30 hp of the 180 makes no difference to climb speeds. Remember we said at the beginning that climb ability depends on the excess power that you have over what you need for level flight.
It is interesting that the 140’s sea-level rate of climb is only 670 ft/min while the 180 gives 750 ft/min despite it being 300 lbs heavier.
Starting your climb
This is not a big deal. First listen out and lookout to make sure it is safe to climb. You don’t want to climb into another aircraft, or into different airspace without clearance.
Then tell ATC, or someone who cares, of your intention to climb. Richen the mixture, either all the way, or at least to a sensibly rich setting and smoothly go to full power while raising the nose into the climb attitude.
If you have a constant speed prop you need to increase to climb rpm and manifold pressure –in that order. And remember to use enough right rudder to keep the ball in the middle. And finally, when the airspeed settles, trim any pressure off the stick and the rudder.
There is a nonsense belief that you ‘save the engine’ if you throttle back a little in the climb. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most
carburettor engines have a power-enrichment-jet which only operates at full throttle. Its job is to prevent detonation and keep the engine cool in the climb. If you throttle back, even a little, you cut out this jet and may actually cause enginedamage through detonation and overheating.
With a constant speed prop it’s important to remember the sequence in which to use the power levers during increasing and reducing power.
The thing to remember is that you must avoid being like the old lady in her little Golf, who chugs up a steep hill in top gear. In other words you don’t want full throttle and low revs. There is an easy way to remember this: it is common to talk about revving up an engine, or throttling it back. So if you remember those two phrases then you will get it right. That’s exactly what you do. If you want more power – rev up, in other words increase the revs first (with the pitch lever). And if you want to reduce power you throttle back, meaning you use the throttle first, and then bring the pitch back.
And of course you must always increase and decrease power so smoothly that your pax don’t notice. In fact you should do that with all the controls. My first instructor told me to always fly as if I had my grannie in the back seat with a basket of eggs on her lap.
Maintaining the climb
Okay, so now you are established in the climb, what do you do to maintain it?
Actually you need to be quite wide awake. ATC, or other traffic, should know what you are doing. You have to think about whether you are doing flight-levels or altitudes and have the sub-scale set on 1013 or QNH respectively.
You need to be aware of climbing into controlled airspace. And think about looking after your engine. It’s putting out more power than normal and getting less cooling. So the cowl-flaps should be open, and you must keep an eye on temps and pressures. Do whatever the POH has to say about leaning out in the climb.
Talking of watching temps and pressures. I once lost both engines of an Aztec, climbing out of Port Elizabeth. It was a military flight, and the SAAF had refuelled me with vast quantities of water instead of Avgas. This was after massive floods. I hadn’t spotted the problem during the pre-flight because the drain valves on the Aztec are not directly on the bottoms of the four tanks. They have pipes from the tanks to the actual drains. This means that when you think you are sampling the fuel in the tanks you are actually sampling the fuel in these pipes.
Fortunately I was able to spot approaching trouble by keeping an eye on engine temps and pressures. Both engines displayed the same symptoms. Not a flicker from the fuel flows – but rapidly increasing EGTs and slowly following CHTs.
Of course the engines didn’t enjoy the water so they stopped and surged and banged causing me pangs of mental anguish as we slowly lost height over the sea.
Eventually the gasping engines dragged me to the threshold of 26.
I learned two things that day. First; to understand all the idiosyncrasies of fuel systems, and second; I should take it very seriously if the gauges show even the slightest inching away from normal climb temps and pressures as the airfield gets further and further from your tail feathers. Levelling off in the circuit
Strangely, levelling off elsewhere can call for different techniques – we will come to that shortly.
So if you are just climbing to circuit height, you must know what the altimeter will read when you get there and exactly what to do. Sadly, many instructors are too damn lazy to insist that you get this levelling off procedure right – and it’s not that easy.
Let’s say you have been climbing your Cherokee at 85 mph, and you know that on downwind you will get say 105 mph at 2300 revs. Here’s what happens to pilots who have not been taught properly. When they get to circuit height they throttle back to 2300 revs as they lower the nose into the level flight attitude.
revs-trim-problem, I would take her out of the circuit and teach her to level off properly.
The downwind leg is a seriously busy time for a low hour student. Not only must she fly accurately, she has to do the pre-landing checks, orientate herself with the runway, listen and look for other traffic and make her downwind call. And she has to listen to the wellmeaning instructor’s debrief on what went wrong with the last landing and how to correct it on the next one.
If she is someone else’s pupe, who I will possibly never see again, I may be tempted to concentrate on getting in more practice landings than on fixing the levelling off problem.
There is a nonsense belief
This is how to level off at circuit height. Lower the nose to the level flight attitude. Wait for the airspeed to increase to 105 mph, and then throttle back to 2300 rpm, using just enough left rudder to keep the ball in the middle, and finally trim. Then everything will stay where you put it.
Levelling Off On A Nav Flight.
Of course the airspeed gradually increases and the revs go with it. The next thing they know, they are outside the flap limiting speed and the revs have crept up to 2450. So then they throttle back to 2300. But this won’t be enough to sustain level flight, because by the time the airspeed has settled the revs will have decreased to 2150.
All this is accompanied by pointless trimming which further stuffs up the whole downwind leg.
Why does this happen? It’s generally because of the horrendous multiple-instructor problem. If my own student was to spend much of the downwind leg battling with the airspeed-altitude-
This needs a bit of planning because you have to work out what indicated airspeed to expect for your altitude and your choice of power setting. And once you have that, you need to get it to coincide with slightly less revs than the POH specifies for that power, because when you lean out the revs will increase a bit. It takes some juggling and practice before you get it right for your particular aircraft.
Vertical navigation
Vertical navigation, or V-nav, as it has become known, has largely been the domain of the airline guys. They have been using it ever since
they got pressurised hulls and could fly above the weather and seek out jet streams.
However it’s become more important to us bottom feeders as these mushroom-shaped chunks of airspace get in our way. We have to plan not to climb into one by mistake. Also Met has learned to forecast upper winds with reasonable accuracy, so we can look for our own baby versions of jetstreams.
Actually sometimes they are not so baby. I had just collected my brand-new 180 Cherokee, ZS-KHW, from Johannesburg and was flying it home to my base in George. Those were the days of NDB letdowns.
George weather was like the inside of a cow, but no problem, I was in recent practice with instrument flying, and my shiny new aeroplane had all the dials I needed – even a DME.
Rassie, in the tower told me that the surface wind was calm. Wonderful, I got myself over the Golf Golf NDB at 8000’ and turned outbound for two minutes and then turned inbound. In zero wind I should have been back over the beacon again in another two minutes. Would you like to guess how long it took me to get back to the NDB? It turned out to be 21 unbelievably long minutes. My DME told me I was battling an 80 knot westerly, and Met knew nothing about it.
Sorry, a long story to explain why V-nav wasn’t such an issue then – the upper winds in our ten to twelve thousand feet of operational airspace were largely unknown, so vertical planning didn’t happen much – it was more of a suck-it-and-see enterprise.
Here’s what V-nav is about: in the same way that normal nav takes you from A to B via a preplanned route, so V-nav will take you there via a particular vertical route. You might first need to climb steeply to checkpoint 1, in order to clear the mountains, and then level off until you get to checkpoint 2 so you stay below a lump of airspace. You could then plan a cruise climb to checkpoint 3 to get the best tailwind. Finally you may want to start a 300 fpm descent to
destination. This will help compensate for the speed you lost in the climb – and to stop your pax’s ears from popping.
So V-nav is a plan – the same as normal nav. And you need to make sure your aircraft is capable of following the plan. It must have a certain ability to climb at various altitudes, and it might need oxygen, or pressurization, or two engines, or de-icing equipment.
And don’t forget about altimeter settings for flight levels and altitudes.
So your climb, like most things in aviation, needs to be planned, and achievable.
External effects
Let’s see how wind, weight and altitude affect the climb.
I had all three against me when, as a young charter pilot, I took off from Middleburg in a The
260 hp Cherokee Six on a hot day, with a 15 kt tailwind, and four bulky German tourists –together with their bulky German luggage. I cannot say this is the stupidest thing I have ever done – but it’s right up there with a dozen other pea-brained attempts at suicide. We came within millimetres of mingling with a church steeple and were only saved by an Ernest Gann trick of using full flaps to hoik us over this pinnacle of rectitude.
is that I hadn’t earned my Live Cowards’ Club (LCC) membership by then.
Briefly, then, a headwind increases your angle of climb – unless it takes you into the lee of a hill or mountain. Increased weight flattens your angle of climb. It also reduces your rate of climb and lowers your ceiling.
you need to be quite wide awake
Why take off downwind you may ask. Well, because into wind involved uphill in the lee of a hill that was producing downdraughts and turbulence. And why take off at all? Because I was a mission-driven idiot – I had to get these tourists back to catch their flight to Europe. It seemed like a life and death matter. The truth
BOOKS
by Peter Garrison
And altitude, actually density altitude, which is a combination of altitude and temperature, does the same as increasing your weight.
It is a good idea not to have them all working against you at the same time – it’s high on the list of things that kill unwary pilots.
Next time we will look at descents, and the most graceful or all manoeuvres – sideslips.
j
EMBRAER’S KC-390
Embraer's KC-390 may have found the sweet spot as the C130 replacement.
South Africa desperately needs a new long range strategic airlift aircraft. In 2010 the South African Air Force (SAAF) was supposed to have begun replacing its aged C130s with Airbus A400Ms – but that was cancelled by government.
THE AMERICANS WERE KEEN to sell South Africa their Boeing C-17 heavy lifter, but that is massively sophisticated and expensive, and it is unlikely that the level of regional cooperation, or indeed budget, could be assembled to share such a large investment – as was the case with the Strategic Airlift Capability based out of Hungary.
The hot contender was the Airbus A400M and indeed South Africa had ordered eight and successfully participated in successful industrial offset programmes. But as South Africa became poorer and the A400M more expensive, with delays upon delays, South Africa took the opportunity to withdraw from
the A400M programme – supported by grossly inflated acquisition costs having been fed to the then parliamentary defence committee.
So it was up to the SAAF to keep soldiering on with 60 year old Hercs. The most recent efforts have required R1 billion in financial year 2023/24 to upgrade and maintain the six remaining C-130s at Marshall Aerospace in the UK.
everything that the SAAF needs
Lockheed Martin has naturally tried to convince SA to buy the new and enlarged J version – and the Russians stood on the sidelines with their old IL-76 and An-124, perhaps hoping for a deal on the still in development Antonov An-77.
The use of turbofans rather than turboprops was the key design decision.
Meanwhile – while the Hercs fly on – and on, the Brazilians brought their KC-390 to market. And it may just be everything that the SAAF needs.
technology, which included fly-by wire, which Embraer had invested a lot of school fees getting right for their Legacy 450/500 business jets and then E2 regional jets.
Enter the KC-390
Embraer saw a gap in the middle of the market – for an airlifter smaller and a lot cheaper than the American and Russian heavyweights, as well as the over-engineered Swiss army knife that is the multirole A400m, yet larger than the venerable Hercules and the twin turboprop Alenia C-27J Spartan and the even smaller Airbus C-295.
While the Hercs
flew
on
– and on,
the Brazilians brought their KC-390 to market
The Brazilians’ objective was to create a fast and flexible multi-mission, midsize tanker and transport aircraft using advanced but proven
ON THE APRON
A team from AW&ST flew the KC-390 at the factory in Brazil. They report that on the ground what strikes you first is the large anhedral wing with the two high bypass turbofan engines beneath it. This was Embraer’s first big design decision – whether to go with turboprops as the A400m and C130 have, or modern turbofan jets. Their choice of jets gives the KC-390 significantly better performance in terms of speed and altitude over the turboprops – which is preferable for long range missions,
Cockpit features full fly by wire and conventional but enhanced Collins Pro Line avionics.
but questionable when it comes to short and austere rough-field operations.
Their engine choice was the ubiquitous International Aero Engines V2500-E5 turbofans, rated at 31,330 pounds thrust each, which propel the KC-390 to cruise at Mach 0.8 at up to FL360. These have been adapted for military use but are fundamentally the same engines that power airliners such as the Airbus A320ceo.
The faster cruise speed has real operational benefits. Embraer says that for search and rescue missions with a typical 1,250 nautical mile radius, a KC-390 could cover the ground two hours faster than even the fastest turboprop. But the jet engines are not without their downsides. The KC-390 consumes more fuel than the C-130J and while the KC-390 is also designed to operate from short, unimproved airstrips, Embraer hasn’t specified the aircraft’s actual runway requirements.
To cope with soft and rough airstrips, the nose gear has two wide low-pressure tyres and the main gear has four similar tyres on bogies on either side. Embraer claims the KC-390 can takeoff and land five times without any required maintenance – and tyre changes can be done anywhere.
faster than even the fastest turboprop
The aircraft was designed around the interior dimensions of its cargo bay. To provide an unconstrained space, the wheels and ancillary equipment such as the APU had to be accommodated in large sponsons on either side of the fuselage. From the front, the size of these sponsons is striking.
Embraer first determined the required size of the interior, then built the aircraft around it. The hold has a width of 3.45 m (11.3 ft.) over its entire length and a minimum height of 2.95 m over a length of 18.5 m, including the ramp that stores two of seven standard 463L pallets. Its floor is
1.24 m above ground to allow easy roll-on/rolloff loading via the ramp. Behind the main gear are two hydraulic struts to stabilise the aircraft on soft ground or high winds.
The KC-390 can carry a maximum 26,000 kg, allowing it to transport two tracked armoured personnel carriers or a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter. One of the design goals was maximum flexibility, and the KC-390 can be reconfigured between roles in 30 minutes.
For disaster relief or medical evacuation, 74 stretchers can be installed with room for staff and life-support equipment. The KC-390 can carry up to 80 soldiers or 66 paratroopers with full gear. Two jump-doors with wind deflectors are located behind the wings. A novel feature is that the doors can be exchanged in flight, for example when reaching the target area on a SAR mission, to switch to doors with large bubble windows for better downwards visibility.
The Flight Deck
The first impression of the cockpit is one of light and spaciousness. Large windows with low sills provide a great view out. All six windows are protected against ammunition up to 7.62 mm. For further protection in hostile environments, removable Kevlar mats can be added to the lower cockpit area.
The flight deck has an optional third crewmember station behind the pilot seats, equipped with a display and tailored functions for missions such as aerial refuelling and S&R. In the rear of the cockpit are two bunks.
Four Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion 15.1in. displays face the pilots. A fifth is located on the centre pedestal. Aft of it are keyboard, scratchpad and cursor control devices. Avionics are commercial but with numerous additional functions for military tasks. The cockpit operates on the ‘dark cockpit’ principle of commercial airliners: Lights illuminate only if the system condition is ‘in transit’ or ‘non-normal’.
In front of the pilots the large head-up display (HUD) is supported by an Enhanced Vision System (EVS) using four cameras installed in the nose. These provide daylight and thermal imagery generated by a synthetic vision system.
Ground handling has to be agile for tight airports. The aircraft can be steered with the tiller from either front seat. This steers the nose wheel up to 67 degrees left or right, so the aircraft can turn through 180 degrees within a radius of only 23 metres.
The feature of the cockpit is the interconnected and active sidesticks. Active means that, unlike Airbus and similar fly-by-wire (FBW) systems, the Embraer stick provides force feedback to the pilots. The force feedback is claimed to provide significantly improved pilot situational awareness. The sticks operate the digital flight control system for precise hand-flying control.
Air drop capability requires change to FBW flight control laws.
This is not only a first for Embraer, but for this aircraft category.
On each control stick is an autopilot disconnect/ priority button and next to it is the usual conical trim hat that enables pilots to keep hands on throttle and stick (HOTAS) while adjusting trim for pitch and roll. It is also used for small adjustments, as many pilots prefer using the hat to moving the stick.
On the upper left side of the control stick, a touch-control button is mainly used for speed stability on approach after the final configuration and attitude have been attained. In addition to the usual push-to-talk button, there is a trigger on the stick that is used for cargo drop missions. It activates the flightcontrol law for these missions and signals the loadmaster that the pilots are ready to drop the cargo. This is done by releasing the locks of the container-delivery system. Then either gravity, or
for larger loads, a drogue chute, pulls out loads of up to 42,000 lb.
The FBW has two flight-control laws: Normal and, as a fallback option, Direct. In Normal Law the sidestick commands pitch rate until the landing gear is selected up, after which gamma-dot and pitch-rate command is applied. Gamma-dot is the rate of change of the flightpath angle. In backup mode, it is a direct stick-to-surface command.
pilots prefer using the hat
Embraer has defined a complex flight envelope to meet the various requirements using FBW, changing laws for specific missions and allowing varying G-loads, depending on the task and factors such as aircraft weight. Military certification will allow flight load factors up to 3G. To use the basic changes in capability, there is a master mode switch on the overhead panel with the positions Main, Max Effort, Tactical Nav, Airdrop, SAR (search and rescue) and AFF (aerial firefighting).
Flying the KC-390
For the assessment flight the temperature was 23C with a QNH of 1014. Calculated speeds for takeoff were V1: 117, VR: 121 and V2: 124 KIAS, with a final-segment speed for flap retraction of 180 KIAS.
Acceleration was brisk. Rotation was to 8 degrees, with the target for initial climb of 11 degrees. An electronic tail strike avoidance system increases stick force on reaching 13 degrees pitch, before an actual tail strike of 15 degrees. Moving the relatively large sidestick a few degrees revealed the aircraft’s agility and the reviewers used every chance during the flight to use the maximum roll rate of up to 20 degrees/second. This increases to 30 deg./sec above Mach 0.7, as the higher dynamic pressure translates into a higher rate, and the aircraft is not limited by loads during manoeuvres.
the aircraft is not limited by loads
Going down without having the braking effect of the large propellers of a turboprop could have been a challenge. So the KC-390 has huge spoilers for a fast and steep tactical descent. When the Master Mode switch is moved to Max Effort position and the aircraft is slowed to 230 KIAS to extend slats only, it will descend with idle thrust and flight spoilers out to 40 degrees nose down at 11,000 fpm while accelerating to the maximum operating speed of 300 KIAS. At maximum speed it will still descend at about 9,000 fpm.
To test the upper end of the speed envelope they flew a shallow descent and watched the FBW protection system smoothly pull up the nose to bring the aircraft back to its maximum speed as they accelerated through 304 KIAS. This protection does not use the auto-thrust or speed brakes but tries to keep pilots in the loop by handing back the aircraft once it is within the envelope.
KC-390 can be refuelled in air - or provide air to air tanker services.
To demonstrate maximum-G protection, they slowed to 200 KIAS, extended the Flaps to 2 and started a 45-50-degree banked turn while quickly pulling the stick fully aft. Because G-load is permanently displayed in the left upper corner of the PFD, they could watch how the FBW’s programmed envelope protection constantly kept the aircraft at not more than 2G. The G indication increases situational awareness and lets pilots know when they could overload the aircraft in Direct Law without the protections.
Stable slow speed flying is a key requirement for this type of aircraft. In the before-flight briefing to the AWS&T team on the techniques for an airdrop, the variableflap system required detailed instruction. This enables the use of slats only, flaps only, or every combination of flap extension, from 1-40 degrees. This is done by moving the flap lever to 1, for example, which drives the flaps to 10
protection does not use the autothrust or speed brakes
degrees, then selecting a number between 1-9 on the scale next to the handle and hitting the execute button. Using 3 on the flap-unit scale, the flaps are driven to 13 degrees. By calculating the cargo loads that should be dropped, with the desired aircraft speed of 130-140 KIAS and the weight of the aircraft, a flap position is derived to achieve an aircraft pitch angle of 5-7 degrees. Beyond the 40-degree position is a notch designated Full. This drives the flaps to the maximum 40 degrees but also sends the flight control computers a signal that a landing is now the objective.
An unusual feature is that the AirDrop mode enables the horizontal stabiliser to be deliberately mistrimmed, so that when the cargo leaves the ramp and the aircraft experiences a swift trim change as the centre of gravity moves forward, it is in trim and allows full elevator authority.
The KC-390 has been thoroughly proven on austere runways.
For an engine failure after takeoff (EFATO) demonstration, thrust was reduced on the right engine to idle just after liftoff, and no rudder input was applied. The Beta (sideslip) target turned blue in the upper part of the primary flight display (PFD), showing an asymmetry had been detected, and the FBW envelope protection system added rudder.
The other unusual and demanding flight control regime is in-flight refuelling, in this case both as a receiver and as a dispenser. The KC-390 can refuel in flight through the probe above the left cockpit window. The control laws can be changed for aerial refuelling. In Normal Law it is difficult to get the aircraft into a stable position behind the tanker to approach the drogue, but the Refuelling Law changes the damping on the sidestick to make small, precise changes easier.
32,000 ft using two wing-mounted Cobham hose-and-drogue pods. These deliver up to 400 gallons per minute. The KC-390 can offload a maximum of 12,000 kg from three tanks that can be loaded on pallets into the cargo hold to feed their fuel via the aircraft’s centre tank. The centre tank can carry 10,000 kg of the aircraft’s 23,000 kg internal fuel capacity. Using more palleted tanks extends that range.
Thrust reversers can be armed for landing
As an air to air refuelling tanker, the KC-390 can refuel helicopters at speeds as low as 120 KIAS and jets up to 300 KIAS from 2,000-
Final approach is flown with the full 40 degrees of flap. For a midweight approach, the speed was calculated as 134 KIAS with a Vref of 127 KIAS. For the round-out and hold-off thrust is reduced to idle and the ground effect below the large anhedral wing helps with a smooth touchdown.
The KC-390 uses a Derotation Law on touchdown to quickly lower the nose to the ground for shorter landing distances. It is advisable not to provide any backpressure on the side stick, as that would work against the control law, and the FBW would increase downward pressure in response.
Thrust reversers can be armed for landing, to open automatically as the aircraft enters Ground Mode and the engines reach idle RPM. The aircraft has powerful braking for operation on short and unpaved runways, with its spoilers extending to 50 degrees, huge brakes on all eight main wheels and reverse thrust.
Conclusion
Is it better than a C130J? In one word Yes. As a fly-by-wire digital aircraft which can carry up to 57,000 pounds of cargo at a maximum speed of 470 KTAS (540 mph), the KC-390 beats out the C-130J’s max carrying weight (42,000 pounds) and max speed when at full capacity (340 KTAS). Depending on the configuration, that means the KC-390 can carry: 80 troops, or 66 paratroopers, or three HUMVEEs, or a Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk helicopter almost 2000 nm – or 3300 nm for ferry or long range maritime reconnaissance.
And, like any proper military airlifter, the KC-390 has self-protection systems including ballistic protection against small arms fire, critical systems redundancy, radar, laser, and missile approach warning receivers and infrared countermeasures.
Given that the average age of the 2,700 airlifters that the KC-390 could replace is 30 years, Jackson Schneider, President and CEO of Embraer Defence and Security said, “We are convinced the KC-390 will be successful. It’s faster, carries a heavier load, and has stateof-the-art mission capability and avionics, and lower maintenance and operating costs.”
Perhaps as a fellow BRICS member, the Brazilians can give the SAAF a big discount and easy payment terms? j
Range: 2,820 km (1,750 mi, 1,520 nmi) 23,000 kg (50,700 lb) payload
Ferry range: 6,130 km (3,810 mi, 3,310 nmi)
Service ceiling: 11,000 m (36,000 ft)
GROUND REFERENCE TURNS
Name of Owner/Operator: Dr. T.R. Chamberlain
Aircraft registrationr: ZS-DVF
Date and time of accidentr: 16 December 2003; 0515Z
Type of aircraftr: PIPER PA 22-108
Type of operationr: Private
PIC license typer: PPL
License valid: Yes
PIC age: 81
PIC total hours: 4065.2
PIC hours on typer: 49.2
• This discussion is to promote safety and not to establish liability.
• CAA’s report contains padding and repetition, so in the interest of clarity, I have paraphrased extensively.
History of Flight:
Last point of departure: Krugersdorp Aerodrome (FAKR)
Point of intended landing: Krugersdorp Aerodrome (FAKR)
Location of accident siter: Moedhou Farm, Hartebeesfontein
Meteorological informationr: 020°/10 knots; 20°C; Viz >10km
POBr: 1 + 1
People injuredr: 0
People killer: 1 + 1
THE AIRCRAFT DEPARTED from Krugersdorp on a private flight on the morning of 16 December 2003.
It was observed flying in the Hartebeesfontein area at about 0510Z. The eyewitness said it was at about 300’ AGL and was circling over a particular area.
The wind was from the northeast. Prior to impact, the aircraft was flying downwind and then turned south, flying straight and level towards the
witness. The engine was operating at a constant speed. The aircraft then turned left, into the wind. The first 90° of the turn seemed normal, followed by a sudden increase in the bank and it dived into the ground.
The pilot was in radio contact with a person on the ground who had a private landing strip on her property, close to where the accident occurred. They were having a casual conversation on 125.8 MHz approximately 10 minutes prior to the accident, as the pilot flew over her property.
The aircraft impacted terrain in a substantial nose-down attitude on a heading of 326°M. No post impact movement was evident on the ground. The forward fuselage section, including the cockpit area and both wings were severely damaged.
the aircraft stalled with insufficient height
Medical Information:
The pilot held a valid Class II aviation medical. No alcohol was found in his blood. According to the post-mortem report both occupants’ cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries.
Analysis
The aircraft was properly maintained and no defect or malfunction that could have contributed or have caused the accident was found.
The pilot had been flying for many years and was appropriately rated. There was no indication that incapacitation or physiological factors had affected his performance.
According to the eyewitness the pilot executed several low-level orbits in the area without any problem. The turn prior to impact was initially uneventful, but then the bank angle increased suddenly and the aircraft dived to the ground.
Probable Cause
It is the opinion of the writer that the aircraft stalled with insufficient height to recover.
The Piper Colt stalled on the downwind sector of the orbit.
The FAA PPL syllabus requires instruction on turns around a point.
JIM’S COMMENTS
THIS IS A VERY INTERESTING accident for a few reasons. First, the FAA has an exercise in the PPL syllabus, designed specifically to avoid this sort of accident. It’s called ‘Turning Around a Point’ and it’s part of a family of exercises called ‘Ground Reference Manoeuvres’.
The object of these exercises is to teach you to manoeuvre safely, at low level, in wind, with reference to objects in the surface.
You may think, well I don’t really do that. But you actually do it every time you turn on to final approach. The point on the ground is the runway threshold. If you have a tailwind on base you are likely to overshoot the centreline, in what’s known as a hammerhead. This is dangerous because you have to tighten this low level, low speed turn to the extent that you could stall.
Two people have just died in a Lancair Super ES on the opening day of the Oshkosh airshow on Monday, July 22. The initial evidence points
to them stalling during a hammerhead on their base to final turn.
Other ground reference turns are when circling to photograph a building or a herd of animals or a beauty spot. Pilots involved in game capture, advertising or tourism are prone to run into trouble - particularly if there’s a strong wind.
The worst day we ever had at 43 Air School was two weeks after an Italian couple left their beautiful young daughter with us for PPL training. The father’s final words to Steve Goodrick, our CFI, were “Please look after my little girl.” I was on holiday in Zim.
Fourteen days later Steve had to phone daddy in Italy to tell him that his daughter was dead.
She and her instructor had crashed into the sea in front of scores of holiday makers who were watching a whale.
A month later the aircraft was found when a fishing trawler snagged it. The instructor’s body was recovered but the Italian girl was never seen again.
Her parents came out and built a memorial above the beach overlooking the spot where their daughter had disappeared beneath the waves.
CAA’s investigation was inconclusive, despite there being many witnesses. It seemed that the aircraft had spiralled down from three or four thousand feet where they had been doing upper air work. It then started circling the whale at low level and suddenly pitched down into the sea.
I spoke to a number of people who had seen the accident – one in particular demonstrated the futility of interviewing eye-witnesses. He said the aeroplane was flying along the beach and he knew it was going to crash because one of its engines was stopped. The aircraft was a 180 Cherokee.
Turns Around a Point
The object is to do a 360° constant radius turn around a surface-based point. The faster your groundspeed the steeper you need to bank, and slower your groundspeed the shallower your bank angle.
You need to:
• Maintain a relationship between the airplane and the ground.
• Divide your attention between the flightpath and the reference point while flying accurately and checking for outside hazards and instrument indications.
The instructor had fallen into the trap
The instructor had fallen into the trap of circling round an object in a strong wind. It was about 25 knots that day.
The danger is that you run out of airspeed on the downwind side of the turn because the high groundspeed deceives you into thinking you have plenty of flying speed.
The exercise “Turning Around a Point” is in the FAA syllabus, however it not part of the South African PPL or CPL training. It’s partially covered under “Low Flying” during which we teach the pupil to rely on airspeed and ball, and ignore groundspeed and apparent skid and slip while flying a racecourse pattern.
Australia only teaches low flying as part of a separate rating – it’s not in the basic license.
Here’s what should happen:
• Adjust bank to correct for groundspeed changes. You need a steeper bank as groundspeed increases and a shallower one for decreasing groundspeeds.
• Establish the wind correction angle and adjust it to maintain your track over the ground.
• Develop an awareness of the relationship between turn radius and bank angle.
When you try it, your first 360° will let you assess what’s happening. Subsequent turns will improve as you learn to continually adjust the bank with coordinated aileron and rudder.
You should enter the manoeuvre downwind, where the groundspeed is at its fastest. In a high-wing aircraft, the wing may block your view of the point. To prevent this you may need to change the altitude or turn radius.
When you enter the manoeuvre, depending on the wind speed, you may need to bank rapidly so that the steepest bank is established quickly
to prevent drifting outside your planned radius. It takes a bit of practice to get this right.
Then you need to gradually decrease bank until you are heading directly into wind. Next, as your turn becomes a crosswind, and then downwind, you have to gradually steepen the bank until the steepest bit is at your initial entry point.
Note: If your bank exceeds 45° you are too close to your point.
If you get all this right you might even earn a pat on your back from that ogre who poses as your instructor.
Common faults
• Relying on perceptions instead of airspeed and ball.
• Not clearing the area for safety hazards.
• Not establishing straight and level before starting.
• Not maintaining altitude during the turn.
• Not properly assessing the wind direction and speed.
• Not using the controls smoothly and continuously.
• Not coordinating aileron and rudder, causing slips or skids.
I have to admit that I almost killed myself when I had about five hours of solo in a J3 Cub. Dirty Bossie, my instructor, sent me off to practice stalls or something. I used the opportunity to circle over our home where my beautiful young wife was waving a dishcloth from the lawn.
The wind was howling and of course I stalled after throttling back while on the downwind part, while pulling the turn too tight.
The gentle yellow aeroplane forgave me when I didn’t deserve it.
Take home stuff:
• Don’t go low flying
• Really, really really don’t go low flying in a wind. j
OPERATING FROM GRAND CENTRAL Airport in Midrand, Superior Pilot Services prides itself in its wealth of knowledge and experience in the aviation sector, offering a variety of certified courses, from the Private Pilot’s Licence to the Airline Transport Pilot Licence, Instructor’s Ratings and Advanced training. The school specialises in personal outcome-based training and combines the latest techniques, methods and training aids to maintain a high level and standard throughout. Superior is proud to have been selected as a service provider to numerous institutions like, TETA, Ekurhuleni Municipality, KZN Premiers office, SAA, SA Express and SACAA cadets, however their ideally situated location allows the general aviator and businessman to conveniently access and utilize the same services.
With highly trained and qualified instructors and a fleet of Cessna 172s, a Cessna 182, Sling 2, Piper Arrow, Piper Twin Comanche and R44 helicopter, the school has the know-how and experience to prepare the best pilots in the industry. Making use of a state-of-the-art ALSIM Flight Training Simulator, the Superior Aviation Academy offers unmatched facilities that ensure students’ social needs are catered for and that the training offered is at the forefront of international training standards. The Alsim ALX flight simulator model provided by Superior Pilot Services is EASA and FAA approved and has proven itself worldwide. It provides up to four classes of aircraft and six flight models that cater from ab-initio all the way to jet orientation programmes in one single unit available 24/7.
The school offers a range of advanced courses, including IF Refresher Courses, Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS), GNSS/RNAV, CRM and Multi Crew Coordination (MCC) conducted by its qualified instructors. The school also offers PPL and CPL Ground School and Restricted and General Radio Courses. Superior Pilot Services has accommodation available. The lodge is conveniently located just six kilometres from the airport. All rooms are based on a bachelor’s unit which includes laundry and room cleaning services as well as breakfast. Students have access to the communal lounge, gym and entertainment room, pool and ‘braai’ area.
(ATO
The distinctive ZS-OAP has been scrapped.
JULY 2024
July’s register review sees some interesting additions and unfortunately quite a few aircraft exported too.
THERE ARE ONLY FIVE NEW fixed wing registrations this month – and none of them are light aircraft.
First off, we see another two big corporate jets being registered in SA that have seemingly been registered to sanitize onward delivery to sanctioned Russian owners. These jets have not, at the time of writing this column, been anywhere near SA and likely never will be, as they will doubtless soon be reregistered in Turkey or Russia. Both planes were seen in Istanbul in July, although not with their newly allocated ZS registrations applied.
only
five new fixed wing registrations
The second jet is a 2014 Dassault Falcon 7X, ZS-LOV (242). This would be the first of the type to be registered in South Africa, but as mentioned above, we are unlikely to ever see it in SA or retain this registration for very long! This jet was seen at Turkey’s Istanbul Ataturk Airport on 12 July, just six days before it was formally registered in SA, still with its Kyrgyzstan registration EY-315 applied. This registration was also only very recently allocated, believed to be in May or June this year. It was delivered new by the manufacturer as LX-LMF and managed by Global Jet Luxembourg before its sale to a Turkish owner.
The first is a 2011 Bombardier Global Express 6000, ZS-CLO (9438). This jet was recently reregistered in San Marino, changing from T7-AVD to T7-CLO before being registered locally.
The Learjet 45 continues to be a popular choice for many South African owners. The latest arrival is N543CM (45-062) that was delivered Lanseria on 3 June and that has now been allocated the registration ZS-VIA. Strangely, we have not had
ABOVE: Two Bell 412s, ZS-HNB and ZS-HNJ, are cancelled as exported to Spain.
BELOW: Former SAA Airbus A340-600 - ZS-SNG has been exported to Germany.
ABOVE: Two Jabirus, 5N-CDZ ex-ZU-IYA, here with ZU-IYT in Nigeria.
BELOW: ZS-ZWG is now N-registered but may be returning for FlySafair.
one Learjet 75 (the updated and rebranded model that replaced the Lj-45 in production) registered in South Africa and only one is operated in the region, by the Government of Namibia.
A single King Air C90GTXi ZS-RJB (LJ1195) closes off the fixed wing register additions for this month. This plane was delivered to South Africa with flight tracking software showing it being Chinese registered but it was in fact registered 9S-PKI. Various databases show it to be a former Brazilian registered King Air, PT-OKQ, so it is not clear when it was registered in the DRC and for how long (if at all) it operated as such.
The last addition is the second former Pacific Airlines A320232 mentioned in last month’s Register Review, that has now been allocated the registration ZS-SZA. A third new A320- 2-XKCC (5053) arrived at OR Tambo International Airport on 18 July, having ferried from China, via Colombo and Mombasa. This jet was manufactured in 2012 and delivered to China Eastern Airlines until retired from service. It was allocated a Guernsey registration for the ferry flight to SA and we await confirmation of its new registration, which is reported to be ZS-SZH.
as part of Cape Town Helicopters’ fleet. The Bell UH-1H ZT-RLE is the latest addition to Leading Edge Aviation’s fleet of firefighting helicopters. This one is fitted with a 1400L belly water tank and is the first such equipped Huey in the country. The final helicopter is another of the popular Robinson R44 Raven IIs.
The NTC register has several additions. The high wing configuration Sling 4 is proving popular with two more registered this month. There are also single examples of the Vans RV-14A, Shadow Lite Jabiru J430, Bat Hawk R and Ibis Aircraft GS700 Magic added.
The Airbus H125 is a popular workhorse
It seems that despite the tougher economic conditions these are still proving affordable choices for local owners.
On the rotorwing front we see four new additions. The Airbus Helicopters H125 remains a popular workhorse worldwide and a single one is registered this month.
Another from the same manufacturer is an AS365N2 Dauphine II (one of the best looking civilian helicopters, in my opinion) that finds a new home in the mother city
Two elderly Alouette II helicopters also feature in this month’s updates. The first, ZU-RSO (CH-171), is a 1986 year of manufacture Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. Cheetah that was formerly registered VT-EJS and operated by Himalayan Heli Services. The Cheetah is an Indian licence-built version of the Alouette II Llama. The Llama is essentially an Alouette II fitted with an Alouette III drivetrain, longer tail rotor drive shaft and bigger main rotor blades and fitted with a three-blade tail rotor. This confers excellent high altitude performance and the type still holds the absolute world altitude record for helicopter when, on 21 June 1972, Aérospatiale Chief test Pilot, Jean Boulet reached an altitude of 40820ft in the prototype Llama.
The second Alouette II, ZU-RJP, has a rich history, having been manufactured in 1960 for the Austrian Army. Following its retirement from military service it was
The notably old Airbus A320, ZS-GAB, is now back in Denmark as OY-JRK.
registered F-BJAD and passed through numerous civil operators in France until it was exported to Cambodia in June 2004 where it became XU-911, reportedly the personal helicopter of the Prince of Cambodia. It was recently imported into South Africa and noted at the Benoni-Brakpan Airfield in April this year, still with the Cambodian registration applied.
CANCELLATIONS
There is quite an extensive list of cancellations this month.
A Citation II ZS-OIE has been sold in Brazil as PS-LKN. A former Airlink Jetstream 41 finds a new home with Proflight Zambia and brings the carrier’s fleet of these commuter turboprops to five. A former Comair B737-
One of the last Airlink Jetstream 41s ZS-NRI has been exported to Proflight Zambia.
Citation II 550 ZS-OIE has been exported to Brazil.
8LD, ZS-ZWG is also cancelled to the USA as N202TS, but it is believed this is a temporary cancellation for a flight to Uruguay for a C-Check before returning to join Safair’s fleet. It departed OR Tambo on 8 August routing to Latacunga via Windhoek and Recifé.
The other airliner to depart is an early-model Airbus A320 ZS-GAB that was leased in by low-cost carrier, Lift, for extra capacity over the summer season but it seems to not have flown much during this time and has recently returned to service with Danish Air Transport with its former registration, OY-JRK.
Other departures are a Seneca III that is exported to Turkey, a Cessna U206G Stationair moves across the border to Botswana and a 1976 model Bonanza A36 relocates to Germany. Two Bell 412EPs, ZS-HNB and ZS-HNJ are cancelled as exported to Spain. It is thought these will be operating in Spain on firefighting duties and will revert to their former identities once they return after the European summer season.
The last deletion for this month is a Jabiru J430 that is exported to Nigeria.
Other notable changes that have not been recorded in the SACAA register updates sent to SA Flyer include two airliners.
Airbus A340-642 D-AUSZ (557) departed OR Tambo on 31 July heading to Hahn in Frankfurt, Germany. The aircraft is now owned by German carrier USC. This jet was formerly in service with SAA as ZS-SNG until the collapse of the carrier during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. It has been parked at SAA Technical ever since then.
Another airliner that is active but not yet recorded here is Boeing 737-300, ZS-SAI, formerly in service with Polish carrier LOT. This aircraft is one of two imported into South Africa and we await confirmation of the identity of this jet, but it is shown on flight tracking apps to be operating for Cobra Aviation from their OR Tambo base.
Safair also took delivery of a new Boeing 7378H4, N8601C (38874). The plane arrived at OR Tambo International Airport on 3 August after a delivery flight from Boeing’s Everett plant via Reykjavik and Cairo. The plane had been noted at Everett in full Safair livery on 23 July. The former Kulula.com Boeing 737-4S3, ZS-OAP (24167) in the distinctive ‘Flying 102’ livery was also noted at Safair in early August being prepared to be cut up for scrap. j
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BRITISH AIRWAYS PILOT CADET SCHEME
In what is exceptionally good news for aspiring pilots who do not have the resources to pay for flight schools, British Airways has announced a £21 million (almost R500 Million) investment to train 200 pilots.
THE SPEEDBIRD Pilot Academy aims to “ boost social mobility and diversity within the airline’s pilot community. The airline works with community groups to help encourage applicants from people who may have previously been put off from applying due to cost.”
The Speedbird Academy is already training 100 pilots. It takes £100,000 and two years to become a First Officer. British Airways currently employs around 4,000 pilots.
Sean Doyle, British Airways Chairman and CEO, said: “The standard of applicants we see for this programme is consistently high so as
part of our commitment to attracting the very best candidates from right across society, we’ve increased the 2025 cohort to give as many people as possible the chance of realising their dream.”
A typical cadet is Ryan Street, who had long dreamed of being a pilot. He joined the air cadets at the age of 12, where he rose to the rank of Cadet Warrant Officer, before beginning work at Manchester Airport for a ground handling company. He held various roles including a ramp loader, an aircraft dispatcher and a load controller before being selected for the Speedbird Pilot Academy.
j
BA Chair Sean Doyle and some of the Speedbird cadets.
ZS-LOV
ZS-OIE
ZS-JLM
ZS-GAB
• Now certified for TCAS training.
• RNAV and GNSS Certified on all flight models from single engine to turbine.
Whenever someone asks me about the highlight of my trip to the Oshkosh AirVenture, I find myself hesitating. Anyone who has been to the world’s largest airshow will understand why it’s nearly impossible to pick just one standout moment when there’s so much competing for top spot.
The iconic arch - with the SA flag flying high.
CONSPICUOUS BY ITS ABSENCE in 2023, the Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX was unquestionably my favourite aircraft this year. This wasn’t just because of its classic beauty, but also because of its deep ties to South Africa.
Built in 1945 by Vickers-Armstrong, this particular aircraft initially served with the RAF’s 122nd Squadron before being donated to the South African Air Force (SAAF). After being damaged in a landing accident in 1951, it was sold as scrap in 1980 to Mark de Vries, who later relocated to Canada with the wreck.
through the skies once more under the banner of Vintage Wings of Canada.
It was a treat watching the Spitfire fly alongside the Hurricane and the P-51 Mustang (which looked a touch toucan-like with its canary-yellow nose cone and fuselage), and hearing the sigh of the three Merlin 66 RollsRoyce engines.
a treat watching the Spitfire and Hurricane
Restoration was initiated by the Comox Air Force Museum in 1999, and in 2006, the project was sold to Michael Potter in Ottawa. 66 years after its last flight this magnificent plane soared
As a child, I dreamed of piloting a jet – a dream shared by millions, I’m sure. This trip allowed me to meet Captain Sam “RaZZ” Larson, commander and pilot of the United States Air Force F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team. At over six feet tall and dressed in his flight suit, RaZZ is the embodiment of a fighter pilot. His encounter with Neil Bowden’s five-year-old grandson, Jesse, was delightful, as the young boy was utterly star-struck.
ABOVE: A small part of the huge and varied aircraft that make it the biggest fly-in in the world. BELOW: The amazing number of movements per day.
RaZZ graciously agreed to an interview, patiently answering my endless questions about his experiences flying iconic aircraft such as the T-6 Texan, T-38 Talon, and the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. With its sharply canted tail fins and diamond-shaped wings, the F-22 is a crowd favourite, known for its abrupt directional
changes and vertical climbs. The twin Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 engines, equipped with thrust-vectoring nozzles, give it exceptional manoeuvrability. With a boyish grin and a twinkle in his hazel eyes, RaZZ admitted to pushing the aircraft to the allowable 9G limit – “and perhaps a tad beyond.”
One of the many unique formations to be seen at Osh - Clockwise F-22 Raptor, P-51 Mustang, F-35 and A-10 Warthog.
Rob and Jesse Jeffrey with RaZZ Larson.
ABOVE: Once in a lifetime opprtunity to experience the great planes. BELOW: A classic Rutan Longeze.
ABOVE: The 18hp flying porpoise - an original Rutan Quickie. BELOW: Burt Rutan's designs featured in 2024 - this is the Boomerang.
ABOVE: The Italian display team of Frecce Tricolore in action.
BELOW: Great Lakes Drone Company’s Haley Carpenter, Bre Tarasevicius and owner Matthew Quinn with Laura.
ABOVE: The Canadian Snowbirds with the RCAF McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet. BELOW: The iconic Blue Angels made a surprise fly past.
ABOVE: The USAF is always big - the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III seemingly defies the laws of physics. BELOW: One of the many civilian fomo teams - The Titan T-6 team.
The daily airshows featured a familiar lineup, with some notable additions such as the Canadian Snowbirds, who returned after eight years to dazzle the crowds with aerobatic stunts in their stubby red-and-white CT-114 Tutor jets.
Making their first Oshkosh appearance since 1986, the Italian Air Force’s Frecce Tricolori team wowed the audience with their breathtaking aerobatic manoeuvres and impeccable formations. Their signature green, white and red smoke trails beautifully represented the Italian flag, adding an extra layer of excitement to the event.
everyone with an unexpected pass over the airshow runway in their F/A-18 Super Hornets, kicking off the afternoon show on Wednesday.
between the drones and fireworks
The iconic Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s elite flight demonstration squadron, surprised
This year also marked the final performance of the A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. With their rugged airframes and broad, blunt snouts, these aircraft demonstrated their remarkable capabilities one last time. Despite their effectiveness in close-air support and ground attack missions, the military’s strategic focus has shifted towards multi-role aircraft like the F-35, capable of operating in contested environments with advanced air defences, signalling the end of the Warthogs.
Priceless historial planes are commonplace. A Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire and P-51 Mustang are the WW2 holy trinity.
ABOVE: A duo of L-39s add a splash of colour to the sky. BELOW: Kyle Franklin performs amazing stunts in his Super Cub.
It's not just for new and shiny planes - these owners take pride in their very original untouched C172s.
The evening airshows were a masterclass in choreography, with aerobatic manoeuvres perfectly synchronised to music and pyrotechnics. For the first time, a modern twist was introduced with drones featuring in the finale. Watching a line of drones simultaneously lift off and morph into various shapes, from Taylor Swift to Moby Dick, was remarkable.
Each drone, equipped with LED lights capable of producing over 4 billion colour combinations, showcased the advancements in drone technology, allowing for more complex formations and tighter synchronisation. This high-tech performance was a perfect complement to the traditional displays, captivating audiences of all ages and quickly becoming one of the most popular videos from the event.
new record of 686,000 attendees
I had the opportunity to interview Matthew Quinn, founder of Great Lakes Drone Company, and his team of drone pilots. Matt, with over 20 years of experience in aerial videography and photography, started his company with the aim of providing high-quality aerial imaging services using stateof-the-art drone technology. Based in Southwest Michigan, the company has since expanded its services to include crop spraying, aerial video, photography, surveys, search and rescue, and notably, drone light shows, which have garnered significant attention at major events like EAA AirVenture.
The event division, aptly named Starlight Aerial Productions, donated two drone shows to AirVenture, showcasing 350 drones, each valued at $3,000. Haley Carpenter, programmer and show designer and Bre Tarasevicius,
UAS show pilot, managed the show from a container approximately 20 metres from the stage. While the show is pre-programmed and run from a laptop, the complex formations and precise timing required between the drones and fireworks demand full attention from the pilots.
While admiring an aviation watch from Abingdon Co., one of the few companies designing highquality aviation timepieces for women, I met warbird pilots Ashley Shelton and Donna Miller. Ashley’s aviation journey began in 2010 when she pursued a degree in air traffic control, eventually working at Tulsa International Airport in various roles. Inspired by her husband, a national airshow performer and warbird pilot, Ashley joined a wing-walking team called “The Devil Dogs,” which is also the name of the B-25 Mitchell bomber she now flies. She earned her private pilot certificate in 2016, and her journey into flying the B-25 began when she joined the Commemorative Air Force in 2019. Ashley’s involvement in the warbird community and dedication to flying have made her a respected figure in aviation.
to preserving and flying vintage military aircraft. Her journey in aviation has been marked by her commitment to mentoring and supporting women in aviation. I felt incredibly fortunate to have met so many inspiring female pilots on this trip, including Linda Sollars, part of the Sling team, who we featured last month.
This year saw a new record of 686,000 attendees, beating last year’s record by approximately 10,000 people. There were 98 countries outside the U.S., a 9% increase over 2023.
From July 18-28, there were 16,780 aircraft operations in the 11-day period at Wittman Airport, which is an average of approximately 113 takeoffs/landings per hour during airport operating hours.
the final performance of the A-10 Thunderbolt
There were a total of 2,846 aircraft including: 1,200 vintage aircraft, 975 homebuilt aircraft, 337 warbirds, 154 ultralights and light planes, 65 seaplanes and amphibians, 52 aerobatic aircraft, 23 rotorcraft, and 10 balloons.
That evening Captain Donna Miller, who currently flies the Boeing 787 Dreamliner for American Airlines, joined us for a traditional South African dinner in the camp. Donna has been recognised for her contributions to aviation, particularly through her involvement with organisations like The Ninety-Nines, an international organisation of women pilots founded in 1929 and named after its 99 charter members.
Donna previously flew the B-25 bomber in 2023 as part of the “Devil Dog Squadron” of the Commemorative Air Force, which is dedicated
If the uptick in stats is anything to go by, the aviation industry is on the rise. This event is so removed from everyday life that I have yet to meet a person who was not in some way touched by the Magic of Oshkosh. j
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SAFFERS AT OSH
Not only were more than 200 South Africans at this year’s AirVenture, but the best of our plane builders were there as well.
Rob Jonkers flies the flag high for the 200+ Saffers who registered at the international tent.
I WAS BURSTING WITH PRIDE
when Sling Aircraft and Mike Blyth received the coveted EAA Raspet Award for their advancements in LSA design. Having known CEO James Pitman since our paragliding days three decades ago, I’ve closely followed Sling’s evolution. Starting with the basic Sling 2, designed for personal aviation enthusiasts, they have progressed to the ultra-modern TSi, which features the latest Rotax 916is engine, cuttingedge technology, and enhanced safety features. Sling Aircraft has rightfully earned its top position in the LSA market.
My next stop was Kit Planes for Africa (KFA), the manufacturer of the popular Safari ultralight STOL aircraft. Stefan Coetzee and his team had two stunning aircraft on display, one of which, the grey Safari XL, was in the midst of being sold as we arrived. The enthusiastic buyer had every intention of flying the plane home.
Oshkosh saw the sale of 11 KFA aircraft, four of which were pre-orders. Stefan explained how they’ve set up a distribution centre in Canada, where parts shipped from South Africa are either assembled or sold in kit form. Since Covid, Stefan’s business has doubled, and they are now looking to expand into Florida. Echoing James Pitman’s optimism, Stefan is confident about the future of South African aviation and is committed to remaining in the country.
Sling has rightfully earned its top position
My Oshkosh highlights wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Neil Bowden’s expertly run AirAdventure Tours.
A month before the airshow, Neil and Carolyn headed to the States to join the setup team (SUT) in preparing the South African campsite for the arrival of 203 people, which involved erecting 117 brand new tents and organising 17 trailers; a challenging task considering the swampy conditions following weeks’ of heavy rain.
On the weekend of the 20th of July, a herd of South Africans descended on Kamp Plakkerfontein, and despite our midnight arrival on Saturday, Neil and his team greeted us with warm smiles, hot food, and cosy beds!
ABOVE: Stories abound around the camp fire. BELOW: Stefan Coetzee of Kitplanes for Africa and Laura in front of the popular Safari.
ABOVE: Alaskan salmon for dinner at Plakkerfontein. BELOW: It's hot so SA's camp Plakkerfontein has a 'Fire Pool'.
From medical emergencies to special dietary requests, no ask was too big or too small for Neil and his team.
Each morning before dawn, the SUT were up, filling urns and boiling eggs, and by 06:00, the breakfast tables were groaning under the weight of a vast selection of cereals and baked goods.
Neil Bowden’s expertly run Tours
The dinners in camp have gained so much notoriety that wristbands were issued to prevent random outsiders from sneaking in and helping themselves to meals which ranged from delicious braais to wild-caught Alaskan salmon.
This year the camp was afforded presidential status with the addition of a Fire Pool, the perfect spot from which to enjoy the airshows with a chilled beverage. Perhaps next year we can look forward to a plush couch in which to hide our dollars for safekeeping?
The weather gods took pity on the humans, keeping the Wisconsin thunderstorms in abeyance during the week of the airshow, a relief for those camping under their wing, but denying many new SA campers the opportunity to experience a traditional Oshkosh initiation. j
SA Flyer's Laura McDermid and Sling Aircraft's James Pitman.
Ian Beeton
LEARNING FROM OSHKOSH
This was my fourth visit to Oshkosh and every year is different, so I learn something new.
ON MY THREE PREVIOUS VISITS, I was busy with an RV build project. This time the projects are complete and so the desire to understand how others solved some of the challenges presented was not there.
We had a crew of five pilots from my hangar at Tedderfield in our group, myself, Theo, Darryl, Josh and Craig, along with Theo’s wife Sandi. We met up with Nik and Nicole, their son and his wife who live in Oregan, and made up a group of eight.
Ian Beaton's attending Oshkosh educational lectures helped make ZU-ITT this year's EAA South Africa Grand Champion. Image Guy Martin.
Staying in Neil’s camp, sharing stories and nonsense around the fire over dinner and a few beers is the way to do it in my view.
My first trip in 2009, was when I was in the early stages of building our RV7. It was all new and huge. I spent much time in technical forums on fibreglass work, sheet metal work and almost any talk about building a Vans RV.
A relatively large amount of time was also spent looking at the hundreds of RVs on the field and long discussions with the owners, particularly if they had built their machine. Great ideas and insights were obtained
studying RV’s. Here I focused on the Lycoming stand quite a bit, attending all manner of lectures and demonstrations on assembling an engine, the oil system, ignition system, fuel system and whatever else I could find.
she received an invitation from a recruiter
My second trip the following year was with my build partner Andrew. Again technical stuff was top of the list and days were spent on the field
The third trip was in 2018, when I was busy with a second build, being an RV10. This time Theo my building partner accompanied me. We attended Garmin forums on the installation, can bus and so on. Once again I looked at examples of RV10s on the field and spoke to the builders. Each conversation was insightful and enjoyable – a builder looks at things very differently.
By the time 2024 rolled around we had test flown our RV10. We entered it into the EAA concours at Middleburg to be judged and managed to
First climb test flight (note fluctuating airspeed)
secure the best Kit Built and the Grand Champion awards, of which we are extremely proud. The job was complete.
So Oshkosh this year was a little different. Nicole is a real Duracell Bunny, on Day 1 she dragged Nik all over the field, from warbirds to ultralights, the museum to the sea plane base and back again, accumulating some 30 odd thousand steps.
This was to be the standard for the week. When the US Army had a competition where participants were required to hang from a bar for as long as possible, Nicole put all of the participants in the shade managing, close to 3 minutes and winning the highest time on that day. For her trouble she received a really nice backpack, courtesy of the US Army. The following day she received an invitation from a recruiter to consider a career in the military.
Nicole at it again on the bus at Seattle airport.
For me “Educational Oshkosh 2024” started with planning my first day, sifting through the hundreds of talks, I put together a schedule of those that interested me. I only got to half the planned talks.
The first one that caught my attention was “Flying like a test pilot: A US Air Force Test Pilots lessons learned that any pilot could apply” presented by Lt Col Jonathan Aronoff.
Setting out to find the forum and get there on time, we whipped through the Fly Market area, passed a bunch of Cirrus aircraft parked on the Cirrus display and numerous other machines. Arriving and finding a seat just in time for the 08h30 start.
these sorts of things, old man Van and his team at Vans Aircraft have designed and supplied a really great kit as a starting point.
This talk was followed later the same day with a presentation by Paul Dye “Flight Testing 101”. The take-aways were again simple but insightful: Plan the flight, fly the plan analyse the data. It is not a process of simply “flying off the hours”. The message is to have a mission, and to be effective, have two, in case the weather conditions or other factors prohibit Plan 1 from occurring, the other can perhaps be achieved.
these Oshkosh talks provided confirmation
The talk was informative, pitched at a practical level and explained how the pilot was simply the person collecting the data the engineers required. The approaches spoken about and the training to become a test pilot were also well explained and surprisingly simple. Now we did not have to fly multiple types and focus on
Paul spoke about dealing with incidents, and the thing that stuck in my mind, is to first “wind your watch,” a technique for allow yourself time to think so that the next action in the situation is not hurried but the best one you could come up with. That is really good advice, not only from a test flying perspective, but also applicable to any unusual situation or emergency in the air.
Bringing what we had learned back to what we had done in our own testing programme for ZU-ITT confirmed that we had taken a very
reasonable, measured and practical approach to our test flying. In contrast, it seems many builders simply “fly off the hours” with the proving flights being a bit of a chore.
We put together a plan and flew it quite rigorously. Each flight had one or two objectives and we analysed the data from the Garmin G3X after each flight. Engine temps and pressures are all stable and within parameters and we moved through the initial engine performance and monitoring phase to that part where the flight characteristics and numbers are determined.
Doing the climb tests was interesting, we flew consistently (or so we thought). On analysing the data and plotting it on the graph, the task of climbing at maximum power to 10 000 ft at the various nominated airspeeds proved we were not as accurate as we thought. The graph was lumpy and with variations as we managed the pitch with the very effective elevator on the RV-10 to maintain speed. The second attempt at an earlier time with more stable air was significantly better. Still the climb was not perfect when the data was plotted, but adequate for our needs.
In South Africa we operate hot and high and fit a significantly larger oil cooler to deal with the conditions. The data suggests that additional cooling for the engine bay may be required.
This exercise made the process interesting with the analysis of the data from each flight teaching us a lot about our machine and its installation, characteristics and quirks.
The fact that we flew our missions with a purpose, then analysed and looked at the data we set out to test, made this whole process extremely interesting and what is often mundane flying became challenging, interactive and a great learning experience about our specific machine. We have tons of data, downloaded from the G3X which has been analysed, graphed and deeply considered.
some 30 odd thousand steps
Both these Oshkosh talks provided confirmation that we had done a reasonable job of the task we had set ourselves and that we can be happy with the outcomes we have achieved with our test programme. We are working on solving the tunnel heat issue in RV10s and have a good idea as to how we plan to solve it. We need to wait for some hot weather to put the solution to the test.
Through this process we have documented evidence of a potential fuel vaporisation issue as a result of the tunnel heating, and we are working on solving the problem at its source. The thing with this issue is it occurs on a hot day, and is not evident to the pilot. The fuel flow trace is not smooth, which is an indication of incipient vaporisation, not sufficient to be noticeable but sufficient to make us think about properly solving the problem, as opposed to applying a sticking plaster to a festering sore.
We will keep you posted on our findings with the tunnel cooling/engine cooling issue. j
The FATA RV team.
There's a plane for everyone.
Part of the large crowd of South African supporters.
Mike Blyth and the Pitmans with the Raspert Award.
SA Flyer cameraman Stuart McDermid takes aim.
Saffers pile into Neil’s mini-van. Laura & Georgia Jeffrey.
Laura & Linda Sollars.
Saffers at the Sling Ding.
Laura with warbird pilot Ashley Shelton who flies Devil Dog, the B-25 Mitchell’s bomber.
Bianca Bekker starts the day with her supersized breakfast.
Happy campers.
PREVIEW: AAD 2024
Guy Leitch
AAD 2024
– IT’S GOING TO BE BIG!
The 2024 AAD trade exhibition and air show has the theme ‘Exploring New Paths, Sharing Solutions, Showcasing Innovation and Capability.’ It takes place at Waterkloof Air Force Base from 18 to 22 September 2024 and is considered to be one of the top six events of its kind in the world.
AAD 2022 from the air - Image Garth Calitz.
THE 12TH AFRICAN Aerospace and Defence show (AAD), has over the almost fifty years since its very first iteration at Lanseria earned its position as the pre -eminent aerospace expo in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the only aerospace and defence exhibition and air show on the continent.
For almost all the major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) AAD is an essential marketing highlight every two years.
The major exhibitors are usually from the Defence industry, but for 2024 civil aviation is well represented by Airbus, ExecuJet / Lux Aviation and many training schools.
chalet, along with other parastatals – notably the CAA and the SA Weather Services (SAWS).
A month before the expo was due to kick off, the Exhibition Director, Ms Nakedi Phasha, reported that 85% of the chalets and stands had been sold. Key exhibitors are national pavilions. At time of writing there are ten country exhibitors, of which notable ones are the Sudan and Turkey. India, Russia and Pakistan also have a large presence.
one of the top six events of its kind in the world
The South African Civil Aviation Authority is also prominent in 2024 in having both a stand and a
Traditionally there has been a bifurcation between the military side of the show and general aviation. In 2022 general aviation occupied just a corner of one of the hangars.
From 2022- Lt Col Musa “Midnite” Mbhokota was one of just two Gripen pilots.
ABOVE: The Gripen E flying with 5 Hawks. BELOW: The USAF will hopefully perform fixed wing to heli air to air refuelling.
THE EXHIBITION
The AAD expo is a partnership between South Africa’s Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Association (AMD), the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor), and the Commercial Aviation Association of Southern Africa (CAASA), in collaboration with the South African Department of Defence and Military Veterans (DOD).
AAD organisers report that as at August 2024, 85% of the exhibition space has been booked and confirmed.
Sweden’s SAAB, Airbus, Turkish Aerospace Industries, and L3Harris Technologies.
the glory days of the SAAF
The event will see exhibitors coming from several countries, including the United States, Belgium, and China. The exhibitors include
“As organisers, we want to position South Africa as the global pinnacle of innovation, excellence, and a preferred investment destination. We anticipate that more than 30,000 trade visitors will engage with over 300 exhibitors. Visitors can also attend our maiden conference edition to hear thought leaders in the industry, academia, and the defence sector provide insights into topical issues that directly impact the industry. Furthermore, we project at least 60,000 visitors will attend the public air show days to witness the exhilarating aerobatics spectacle,” says Ms Nakedi Phasha.
A SAAF C130B Herc is expected to perform a spectacular flare discharge.
The event has been designed to provide the perfect platform to strengthen existing and establish new partnerships within the defence and related industries.
AAD 2024 will introduce several ‘hubs’ that showcase the latest innovations. For instance, there are Energy and General Aviation hubs, as well as a third hub that features drone and antidrone technologies.
A unique initiative of the AAD is its youth development programme (YDP). This sees youth from disadvantaged and marginalised communities being exposed to science and technology disciplines and related career opportunities. In 2022, AAD hosted over 9,000 learners through its YDP initiative. For this year’s event, 12,000 learners from across all nine provinces are expected to descend on the base to benefit from this impactful programme.
strategies to attract attendees, we aim to foster a vibrant environment for knowledge exchange, networking, and partnership development.”
The big question is which of the big original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are participating this year. Ms Phasha said “We are pleased to confirm the participation of several prominent OEMs. Amongst them are Airbus, Embraer, Leonardo and Russian Helicopters.”
When asked which of the major countries will be exhibiting, she replied, “We have secured extensive global participation for the event, with attendees from countries such as Turkey, India, Russia, China, Italy, UAE and the United States. This diverse representation underscores the international significance of AAD and promises an enriching and globally connected experience for all participants.”
The SAAF will be there on scale
Being a biennial expo, the show was hard hit by the Covid pandemic. Ms Phasha said that the recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic has varied across sectors and regions, with the aerospace and defence industry being no exception. She points out that they observed a slight decline in attendance during AAD 2022. “However, recognising the importance of AAD 2024 as a catalyst for growth and collaboration, our primary objective is to reverse this trend and make the upcoming expo the biggest and best yet.”
“Central to achieving this goal is our focus on increasing attendance from African countries. Africa represents a significant market with immense potential for growth and collaboration within the aerospace and defence sectors. By actively engaging with stakeholders across the continent and implementing targeted
As this is the African Aerospace and Defence Expo, African participation is key. When asked who the key African participants are, Ms Phasha said, “We are currently in discussions with major African countries, including Nigeria, Namibia, and Zambia.”
The Ukrainian and Israel-Hamas conflicts have had a large impact on the global defence industry. When asked if this has boosted or reduced interest in AAD 2024, she replied, “The conflict between Israel and Hamas has presented both new risks and opportunities for many countries. However, in the context of AAD 2024, we haven’t observed any direct negative impact on the interest in the expo. On the contrary, we have witnessed a notable increase in interest from various countries indicating a strong momentum towards making AAD 2024 the biggest and best Aerospace and Defence Expo yet.”
ABOVE: The 'mini-war' in full swing.
BELOW: The show is not just about aviation - but all things military.
Feedback from the general aviation community is that it has long felt like a poor relation to defence at the AAD expo. When asked what the level of general aviation support is compared to previous years, Ms Phasha said, “We have a significant increase in General Aviation support compared to previous years. We have introduced several new hubs designed to showcase the latest innovations. The GA community embraced the Hub upon its introduction, and it’s now operating at full capacity. As a result, there are ongoing discussions about extending the Hub due to the significant interest it has generated.”
AAD combines and expo and an airshow for the public. When asked who the key air show participants are for 2024, she said, “At this point, we are unable to disclose the confirmed key participants. Announcements will be made in collaboration with the Air Force as our planning progresses.”
A long standing complaint is that exhibition stand costs are expensive. Ms Phasha observed that “Stand costs are influenced by various factors, and we carefully consider each aspect for every show. It’s worth noting that there was no increase in stand costs for AAD 2022. the last increase was in 2018. This year, we have implemented a slight increase in stand costs, taking into account the rising prices of essential inputs. Our goal is to ensure that AAD 2024 is the biggest and best, and this adjustment allows us to maintain the quality and scale of the event.”
Ms Phasha points out that the economic impact that the AAD has on South Africa’s economy is significant. International visitors to AAD 2022 contributed over R135 million to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while public and trade visitors generated a R150 million in revenue. R65 million of taxation revenue was raised and more than 1,350 jobs created, which bodes well for the importance of this notable showing on the Southern African landscape.”
Aerial ballet - a Rooivalk dances with the BK117.
“Looking to the future, our focus will be on further increasing international participation, fostering collaborations, and exploring new sponsorship and partnership opportunities to grow the event’s footprint into Africa. We want to provide our partners with a premier event that contributes to the global aerospace and defence market,” concludes Ms Phasha
2024 is again noted for the absence of a key player – Boeing. Airbus has a chalet but are focussed mainly on their helicopters – perhaps showing how low the two major manufacturers reckon their chances are of a new airline order from SAA – or any of the other local airlines.
AAD held it prices to pre-Covid levels until this expo which saw a nominal increase. Most of the chalet operators are spending well above R2.5 million to participate.
The
Air Show
The expo also features an airshow for the two public days, being Saturday and Sunday 21 and 22 September.
Saturday will start with the now traditional parade of emergency vehicles – which ends with a water canon salute.
The Americans will hopefully have the usual big presence with the huge Boeing C-17, a Lockheed C130J Hercules, a UH60Pavehawk helicopter and perhaps even a Pavehawk drone.
The SAAF will hopefully bring at least one or two flying Gripens. In 2022 it took a herculean effort to get their maintenance contracts re-instated, the aircraft serviced, flown and signed off. The Gripens were flown by test pilots Musa “Midnight” Mbhokota and Blokkies Joubert.
The Flying Lions Harvards are expected to do their show closing sunset display.
ABOVE: Commentary will be provided by a massive deployment by the Capital Sounds team.
BELOW: The huge and appreciative crowd on the airshow days - pic Brian Emmenis.
The SAAF’s 85 Combat Flying School in Makhado is expected to present a four-ship BAE Hawk display team including the Hawk painted in the colours of the South African flag.
The SAAF is also expected to field their full five ship Siler Falcons team and a four ship C208 Caravan formation called the ‘Pointers’. The SAAF Museum is expected to present two Allouette IIs and two Allouette IIIs. These helicopters perform an aerial ballet to enthral the cognoscenti. For nostalgic history buffs it is hoped that national airshow treasure of Menno Parsons, will bring his pristine P-51 Mustang. The roar of the Rolls Royce Merlin and the whistle of the gun ports is music to any show enthusiast ears.
It is hoped that the Zimbabwean Airforce will again bring a Karakorum-8 KA8.
the biggest and best yet
A big crowd pleaser is the ‘mini-war’ with much explosions, smoke and machine gun fire. The scenario calls for a ‘highjacked’ business jet which had been forced to land at Waterkloof. A tactical operation using several multi-disciplinary teams will be put through their paces to liberate the jet and capture the hijackers.
Once again Brian Emmenis and his team from Capital Sounds will be providing insightful commentary and music – which are essential airshow ingredients.
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IN AFRICA THE PROVISION of airports and air traffic management to the airline industry is difficult as they are fundamentally monopolistic enterprises.
It is thus widely accepted, even in largely free market economies, that government should provide these services. The challenge is that air traffic management requires the highest standards - and these are incompatible with state owned enterprises, which carry the burden of a transformation agenda.
The history of such service provision across Africa has been poor, with many countries struggling to provide reliable ground based navigation aids. In South Africa the Air Traffic Navigation Company (ATNS) is in crisis.
The root cause is that, as a government agency, unqualified people are promoted into management by cronies. These managers are insecure, and so the work environment becomes toxic. This then leads to the ‘Crushem Principle’ I discussed in the previous issue’s editorial.
In an opinion piece, OUTA writes, “Years of established processes designed to ensure good governance, robust internal controls and audits appear to have been neglected. Red flags, concerns and complaints raised by staff and external customers appear to have been ignored. This, in turn, has led to a backlash from some within the ATNS leadership team who appear to either be overwhelmed or driven by other agendas, leading to not only the loss of essential skills, but also the sidelining, castigating, or suspending of those who speak up or ask difficult questions.”
Reduced standards may be okay
ATNS has become the latest victim of inept management and the Crushem Principle. Many of the best controllers and managers have left for greener, or sandier, pastures.
Basic maintenance and checks of key equipment such as ILSs are being missed, and as a result, they are taken out of commission. This affects airline on-time-performance and safety. Reduced standards may be okay for the prison services and trains, but for airline operations it is unacceptable. Passengers expect uncompromising safety and on time performance.
All this inevitably requires more money to pay for the inefficiencies of the incompetents. Thus, IATA’s Willie Walsh says that ACSA and ATNS are “grievous examples of airports and air navigation service providers shifting the costs of their inefficiencies on to airlines”.
In a useful insight, OUTA said, “There are troubling signs that senior ATNS management is allowing essential functions typically handled by internal staff to be outsourced to external service providers…. These providers can then demand higher fees over time, as they can exploit a weakened institution.”
Fortunately the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) will gradually make ground based navigation aids obsolete. In South Africa the government has said it expects to be able to retire radar in five years. It is however yet to make ADS-B compulsory, so this is an unrealistic target.
In the meanwhile, we will just have to endure the very third world deterioration of essential aviation services.
PART 2 ACHMED
Hugh
continues
his story
of the remarkable Achmed, the head of the Red Cross in Somalia.
ACHMED
ARRIVED
IN BERBERA
in an eight-passenger Swearingen Merlin. So great were the risks that each flight from Mogadishu to Berbera in the Merlin cost the Red Cross $10,000.
Ten thousand bucks was a year’s salary for a lot of first-world people, so they filled the plane to the gunwales. When Murray, the Kiwi Captain, as he was known, opened the doors after landing at Berbera, I couldn’t initially see any passengers at all, and it was only after removing about half the cargo that we discovered our two visitors.
Somalia has come in for its fair share of media attention over the years and, having spent some time there, I can see why.
from snipers who aimed at people who were hiding behind our walls. So in one way we found ourselves at the centre of the fighting, although we were constantly assured that we were never targeted. If we were hit it was purely coincidental. Nice to know that, I thought!
The result of being the focus of attention however was that there was an awful lot of shooting all night, every night. The sharp cracks of the Kalashnikov were punctuated by the much deeper and louder thuds of the American M-16.
an awful lot of shooting all night
It was the nights that were the most difficult times to live through in Berbera. The Red Cross compound presented ideal cover for those who needed it. There was no electricity except for the solar panel which kept the radio batteries topped up and so we had no electric lights. Kerosene provided our only form of illumination after sunset. The wall around the compound was about eight feet high and as bullet-proof as we could make it, but the very cover it provided attracted attention
Only very rarely did we hear a scream to signify the successful conclusion to a duel, but frequently the rattle of spent bullets entering the house reminded us to avoid the windows. Dominic and I had become quite used to the routine and neither of us felt particularly threatened, but Peter and Achmed hardly slept a wink. After five days they were both exhausted and I caught them both catnapping during the day time.
On the fifth day we received clearance to fly to Eregavo, a small stone-built town six thousand feet up on a plateau about one hundred and twenty miles to the East of Berbera. The rebel Somali National Movement, or SNM, had attacked Eregavo and driven out the government garrison, causing a lot of casualties.
They also killed a number of senior officials whom they accused of supporting the corrupt President Mohammed Farrah Aideed. Bodies were left to rot in the streets.
The government was incensed by this defeat and sent a large force, supported by tanks, to recapture the town. It was a slaughter. More bodies were piled in the smashed streets. The nauseating stench of decomposing humans pervaded the whole town. The flies swarmed over dead and living alike, and we arrived about ten hours after the SNM had been routed.
We were greeted by a fat little general who wore winkle picker shoes with no laces. He ushered us to a wrecked but mobile Land Cruiser for the ride into town. The smell made me want to gag and the inhuman expressions on the faces of the bloated corpses, which were the only remaining inhabitants of the shattered streets, were the stuff of nightmares.
Rules of War and suddenly, after about half an hour of monotony there was silence. I looked up, thinking that Peter had forgotten his lines. He was fast asleep. His head had sunk onto his chest and he had bored himself into a coma!
It took some seconds for it to sink in. There was a stifled snort of suppressed giggling from the little General and then the whole room erupted into a gale of laughter. Peter woke up with a start, looked at me and enquired what the joke was. I just smiled and said that maybe it was time we went home and he got his head down.
Achmed put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and said “I think we’ve just about finished, haven’t we?”
the rattle of spent bullets entering the house
We ended up in the ruins of the old Council Chamber where a large T-shaped table had obviously served previous councillors from both persuasions. It was an eerie blood-spattered place, haunted by a horrifying kind of deranged violence which hung in the air like a sickening odour.
Tea was proposed by the fat little General. All meetings in Somalia have to start with tea. There was only one surviving cup, so we had to take it in turns. The ceremony took nearly an hour, and I could see that Peter, who was sitting opposite me, was fading. Finally it was time for Peter to deliver his International Committee of the Red Cross introductory speech. He launched out on what can be a grindingly boring liturgy about neutrality, openness, even-handedness, the importance of the Red Cross banner as an inviolable symbol of sanctuary for Prisoners of War and then he went over the Geneva Conventions and the Humanitarian
We got back to Berbera that evening and both Achmed and Peter slept right through the night even though the flag pole was hit and came crashing down on the roof at about two o’clock in the morning.
Peter and Achmed went back to Mogadishu three days later and I haven’t set eyes on either of them since then, more’s the pity, because I consider Achmed to be a great friend. I am now very grateful that my prejudices did not get the chance to deny me the company of someone who will be my spiritual companion for the rest of my life.
THAILAND BUYS GRIPEN E/F
In an important breakthrough for Saab, Thailand is repoted to have selected the Saab Gripen E/F program over the F-35 and F-16.
A two-seat RTAF Gripen D and a SAAB 340 Erieye AEW&C platform.
WHILE THE ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE (RTAF) already operates earlier Gripen C/D aircraft, the Gripen E/F brings with it significant advances in capability.
The RTAF said that it wants to buy the Gripen E/F which it considers “has the capability to match the demand of the military doctrine and the Air Force’s strategy.” The final decision to buy the aircraft will require approval by the Thai cabinet. It’s unclear how many Gripen E/Fs Thailand aims to buy, but previous reports indicated an immediate requirement for 12–14 new fighters.
According to previously announced RTAF plans, the new aircraft are to be purchased in the 2025 fiscal year, with deliveries to begin by 2028.
The RTAF currently operates 11 Gripens (seven single-seat Gripen Cs and four two-seat Gripen Ds) which were in two separate batches in February 2008 and November 2010. These jets have recently been upgraded to the latest MS20 configuration and they have a notable anti-surface warfare capability, armed with Saab’s RBS 15 anti-ship missile. A single Gripen C was lost in a crash in January 2017.
the 1987 order, which are operated by 102 Squadron based at Korat. Subsequently, however, Thailand has a requirement to replace its F-5E/Fs, with another 12–14 aircraft slated to be acquired starting in the 2031 fiscal year. Beyond that, there will be a need for a similar number of aircraft to replace more F-16s starting in the 2037 fiscal year.
In contrast to various other countries in the AsiaPacific region, Thailand has, in recent years, enjoyed fairly cordial relations with China and has no territorial disputes with Beijing. As a result, the impetus to overhaul its armed forces has been less keenly felt. At the same time, there has been some friction in U.S.Thailand relations, especially after the coup d’états of 2006 and 2014.
requirement for 12–14 new fighters
China moved to fill the gap, initiating deeper military cooperation with Thailand, including joint air exercises and increased arms transfers. It’s notable that U.S.-supplied F-16s and F-5s are prohibited from taking part in drills with the Chinese military, a restriction that doesn’t apply to the Gripen.
The Thai Gripens are integrated within a Saab-supplied national datalink system, known as Link-T. Playing a vital role within this is a pair of Saab 340 turboprop aircraft equipped with the Erieye radar for airborne early warning and control (AEW&C).
Supporting these are a larger number of F-16s, comprising 36 single-seat F-16As and 14 two-seat F-16Bs. These are the survivors from a total of 52 F-16A/Bs that were delivered by the United States under four separate orders plus seven more F-16A/Bs that were donated by Singapore.
Initially, it’s expected that the new Gripens will replace the RTAF’s oldest F-16s, the survivors from
Thailand is just the second export customer for the Gripen E/F after Brazil. Saab signed a contract with Brazil for 36 Gripen E/Fs in 2014, with a longer-term requirement for an additional 72 jets. The Swedish Air Force is also acquiring 60 Gripen Es. Otherwise, however, the Gripen E/F has seen only failure in the multiple international fighter competitions in which it has entered, notably being rejected in favour of the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter, which offers a very different level of capability, or F-16s.
With prospects of follow-on fighter orders almost guaranteed, the chances of Saab winning more orders for the Gripen E/F in Thailand look good.
AIR KENYA AND THE TURBO AZTEC
Laura McDermid continues her stories about Iris McCallum’s early years in East Africa.
Air Kenya's crew in 1980.
FOLLOWING THE CRASH on 14 September 1980 in 5Y-ARN, I continued flying for Sunbird Aviation making trips to Kisumu, Entebbe, Nanyuki, and the Maasai Mara. However, things were never quite the same after the accident.
My work permit was set to expire in October, and the company had made no effort to renew it, which left me feeling uneasy.
Just when I was at my lowest, I received a call from Air Kenya in Nairobi, asking if I would like to fly for them. As it turned out, Air Kenya’s chairman, Nicholas Biwott, was also Kenya’s Minister of Home Affairs, and he quickly arranged a work permit for me.
Chris Kenny, the Managing Director, Sid Dirks, the General Manager, and Dave Leonard, the Chief Pilot, welcomed me with open arms. I was given 5Y-WKA, a turbocharged Piper Aztec, to fly. It had tan leather seats, was quiet and comfortable, and had a strong semi-STOL performance. Did I mention how fast it was? What a difference from dearly departed ARN.
become a target for some mad man
Nicholas Biwott owned Lima Ltd., one of the largest dealers in farm equipment and agricultural machinery in Kenya. He capitalized on the country’s push for self-reliance and economic indigenization during the 1970s and 1980s and as a result I ended up flying most of the Kenyan cabinet members around Africa.
Little did I know that some of the best times of my life were ahead. From the operations staff to the ground crew, Air Kenya was an outstanding company, the pilots among the best in East Africa.
On 19 November, I was booked to fly a charter of members of the Ministry of Public Works and Industry to northeastern Kenya to see how they could improve the roads and airstrips in that area.
Iris (centre) with Air Kenya staff.
My route took me from Wilson Airport in Nairobi to Garissa, a sector of only an hour forty in the turbo Aztec. Garissa is largely an arid to semi-arid region with sandy soil and sparse vegetation dominated by shrubs, acacia trees, and thorn bushes. The region is part of the broader plains that stretch across northeastern Kenya into southern Somalia.
The early provincial and district commissioners had established a members’ club in Garissa, affectionately referred to as the “Yacht Club.” It was here that I waited by the pool under an umbrella thorn tree while the ministers conducted their business.
through occasional spiky shrubs or thorn trees, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the rugged patchwork of low-rise buildings on the horizon.
I skirted the town to land at the army base. Wajir was an important military and security hub in northeastern Kenya, with tight security due to ongoing tensions between the local Somali population and the Kenyan government.
not to get caught in crossfire
This was the first swimming pool built in Garissa, and never having seen a pool before, the locals were convinced that it was some sort of elaborate trap for wild animals.
After a brief wait, we left Garissa and flew 150 nm to Wajir. The landscape was hot, dry, and flat, with unrelenting sandy terrain. Parched riverbeds snaked
Once the passengers were collected, I taxied to the only tree on the far end of the runway and pulled as much of the Aztec as I could under its gnarly canopy. I settled in to wait, grateful for my paperback novel and the sparse shade.
We were to spend the night in Mandera, another 170 nautical miles away. Mandera is at the convergence of the borders of Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, an area heavily influenced by ongoing civil unrest and crossborder tensions, making it a particularly dangerous place to fly.
Nicholas-Biwotts was Minister of Home Affairs - and helpfully also Chairman of Air Kenya.
It was late afternoon by the time I took off and as I headed out, I searched the scorched earth below me for some indication of wind direction. I noted a plume of smoke drifting in a south-westerly direction which meant having to fly into Ethiopia in order to make the turn to land on runway 23 at the Mandera airstrip.
Pilots had to be cautious not to get caught in crossfire or, worse still, become a target for some mad man. At least the airstrip was close to the army camp, offering some protection. I lowered the undercarriage and took 50 degrees of flap, watching the speed bleed off as WKA skimmed over the Dawaro River, the border between Kenya and Ethiopia.
That evening, I was invited to dine in the Kenyan Army’s officer’s mess tent. Clad in an olive green jacket with sharply creased trousers, Major Kibet cut a dashing figure. He seated me on his left and proved to be an attentive and gracious host, fascinated by my choice of profession and commending me for my bravery in flying to such a dangerous place unarmed and unaccompanied.
I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. Guillaume drove the 3 kilometres from the barracks to the guest house with me standing up through the hatch. I felt like a celebrity on a carnival float, the war briefly forgotten.
I was shown to a room with a single bed and a night stand. The light from the naked bulb in the adjoining bathroom illuminated a small shower cubicle hidden behind a plastic curtain adorned with a repeating pattern of whales and sea shells, an odd decoration considering where we were.
a particularly dangerous place to fly
Feeling human again after my warm shower, I lay down, grateful to be horizontal after a long, hot day. I closed my eyes and was drifting off to sleep when I heard what sounded like thunder, shortly followed by another almighty boom, this time much closer. It took my sleepy brain a while to realize that what I was hearing were exploding missiles.
We chatted about our lives and families over a couple of cold Tuskers before he offered to have me escorted to the guest house they had reserved for me in town, as it was not suitable for a woman to overnight in the barracks.
“How would you like to be transported into town, Iris?” he asked.
I looked around, spotting an armoured tank. “How about that?” I asked jokingly.
His face split into a massive grin, his bone-white teeth glinting like tombstones in the moonlight. He disappeared for a few minutes, reappearing shortly with a soldier.
“Guillaume will drive you into town. I bid you good night,” he said.
I was literally lying in the middle of a war between Ethiopia and Somalia. I was reminded that Africa is not just lions roaming the Serengeti and beautiful sunsets, it can be a very dark place too. One has to have the stomach for Africa, and not everyone does.
I didn’t actively seek out danger, I merely accepted that this was part of my chosen profession and by extension my destiny. Africa has the propensity to bring out the best and worst in people, but when it brings out the best, it seems to ignite a passion in them for which I was eternally grateful.
ATNS AND THE AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT CRISIS
Guy Leitch chats to Ms Nozipho Mdawe, the CEO of South African Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS)
ATNS PROVIDES air traffic management (ATM) services to all nine ACSA airports, as well as 12 regional airports. The company also has a presence in 24 other African countries, plus St Helena Island and is responsible for a large part of the Southern Indian and Atlantic Ocean, comprising approximately 6% of the world’s airspace.
As a state-owned enterprise, human resource development is a key component of the company’s development mandate. The company has therefore developed the ATNS Aviation Training Academy (ATA), which in partnership with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), has launched an aviation programme to understand and mitigate the effects of solar activity on aviation.
“We are also very proud that ATNS’s Aviation Training Academy has been voted IATA’s best training academy for three consecutive years.” Ms Mdawe notes.
IATA’s best training academy
ATNS provides more than just a pure air traffic management function in South Africa. The company has been awarded a contract for ILS maintenance for South African national airports. Ms Mdawe says, “We have a 30-year service excellence record of maintaining ILS systems for and upholding safety standards and regulations as prescribed by the SACAA and ICAO that gives us a competitive edge in the aviation market. Safety is a priority and a lived corporate value at ATNS. This has earned us recognition as a preferred supplier of air traffic management solutions throughout the African continent.”
This programme is aligned with ICAO initiatives to appropriately respond to adverse space weather conditions, such as occurred in mid-May 2024. “The aviation space is increasingly becoming prone to the effects of space weather due to the greater use and continued miniaturisation of microelectronics. This is in addition to the growing reliance on signals from satellite-based aviation navigation systems. Awareness and preparation for eventualities like solar storms and mass coronal ejections has become critical in our industry,” said Ms Mdawe.
In conjunction with the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), ATNS is leading the way in technology adoption, particular in the field of passive radar. ATNS and CSIR engineering teams are working at Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA) to survey passive radar site coverage.
“The CSIR developed the technology, while ATNS provides the technical know-how on the system configuration, in line with the International Civil
Aviation Organization Standards and Recommended Practices (ICAO SARPs). The aim is to determine the coverage that the system will provide in the area once deployed. This exercise will also determine the sites and the number of radar antennas to be installed,” she says.
“Deploying Passive Radar at KMIA is an ideal opportunity to test the system, refine the current software and hardware solutions, and monitor continued Passive Radar performance characterisation testing over a predetermined period,” Ms Mdawe says.
As a state-owned enterprise, ATNS has been recognised for the transformation of its employee racial mix. “We are on the right track to meet the National Development Plan objectives as an aviation industry player,” Mdawe says.
However, one of the more significant challenges ATNS faces is staff retention, with many of its experienced air traffic controllers being lured to other countries. ATNS has acknowledged that there is a 10% shortage of ATCs, particularly at Johannesburg International Airport, with staff loses of approximately 10% per year.
To address this, ATNS has signed a Joint Strategy agreement with the South African Air Force (SAAF) to work together in the deployment of infrastructure, training, human resource sharing, and airspace management. “The Joint Strategy aims to establish a collaborative arrangement between ATNS and the SAAF for the deployment of SAAF ATC Officers at various ATNS ATSUs (Air Traffic Services Units). This arrangement aims to address staffing constraints currently faced by ATNS while simultaneously providing valuable traffic exposure and experience to SAAF ATC personnel,” Ms Mdawe says.
ATNS' Ms Nozipho Mdawe.
SNEAKING THREE DAKS ACROSS AFRICA
In Munich I met Roy Mathews, a sometime British Eagle Bristol Britannia Captain, and more recently a DH 125 corporate pilot for Anglo Vaal.
Prior to that he flew a King Air 90, ZS-INN, for the nascent Holiday Inn group. Off-duty he was a frequent Lanseria Airport pub visitor.
IT HAD HOPED TO SIT OUT the second DC-3 delivery to attend to non-aviation matters. So I had asked Monty Burton, the pilot who had accompanied me on the first delivery flight, to recommend a competent DC-3 Captain with a UK passport with some knowledge of African conditions to accompany Roy on the second delivery to Johannesburg, in the then apartheid South Africa.
Once I’d paid for the aircraft and we’d performed engine runs and so on, the pilot arrived and booked into our hotel. I had assumed that Monty Burton had briefed him, and that he understood what was involved, so I took him out to dinner with Roy. The fellow made no demur as I outlined a few of the minor inconveniences we’d previously experienced and expressed no qualms about the forthcoming trip.
taxi to the airport. I paid his hotel bill and was furious as it I would now have to do the trip with Roy.
At the airport the charming Armscor rep handed me a brown envelope containing the US$22k ferry money and asked if our now absent pilot might constitute a security concern.
So much for the need-toknow
The next morning at breakfast, we were approached by the hotel manager who told us our intended Captain had jumped ship a couple of hours earlier and taken a
“No, he’s just a ‘fraidy cat” I said. “Anyway these deliveries are not the best kept secret. I heard a few chaps back at the Lanseria pub are taking bets on whether we’ll make it or not.”
The Armscor man replied, “I hear it’s the same in the squadron mess. So much for the need-to-know edict.”
We crossed the Alps in partial cloud, and our duct tape mounted King VHF radio and VOR unit worked well, but the only built in ADF of indeterminate age seemed sporadic.
I poured coffee from our battered flask and pondered
that the last time Roy had flown a DC-3 it was registered ZS-DKR, and he was the co-pilot to the wellregarded ex Kenya Airways Captain, Paddy Johnson. The heavily laden aircraft was flying a charter for the prestigious Anglo-American Company. Sadly, the left engine stopped immediately after take-off from Rand Airport. The machine limped most of the way around the circuit before crashing onto rock strewn ground, killing Paddy. A number of passengers succumbed to burns and Roy was on crutches for several weeks.
After that crash, Anglo American opened their own aircraft maintenance base, as there had been speculation about the quality of work performed on the crashed DC-3.
Anyway, we flew on to night-stop in relaxing Corfu, dined well and gawked at the bikini clad beach girls.
The morning found us aloft again, so far so good, until about 30 minutes out of Heraklion in Crete when we noticed the right engine oil-pressure dropping. Roy reduced power on that engine and things seemed to be working in our favour. However, in the circuit we were asked to extend the downwind leg to accommodate a Greek Air Force Hercules. We were reluctant to declare an emergency, so the C130 took off as our
engine oil pressure dropped further.
“When we get a bit closer, let’s feather it, Roy,” I said.
We were carrying a substantial weight of Dak spares.
This is why Roy, who had been quite seriously injured in the Dak crash at Rand was so reluctant to feather the engine which then seized just after touchdown at Heraklion.
If we had been at a lighter weight he said he would have shut it down as I had suggested. Eventually we turned about a 3-mile final, flying alongside beach front hotels. We were losing power on the right engine and, closer to the runway, noticed sunbathing beachgoers pointing at us, then scattering from our unstable approach.
Adding to the pressure, an Olympic Airways A300 Airbus had turned long final behind us, and we were having difficulty maintaining height. We crossed the runway threshold with a few feet to spare. As the tail wheel settled onto the runway the right engine seized and, ensuring the tail wheel lock was in, we coasted straight ahead. I informed the tower that we had lost an engine, and could not use asymmetric power to
The 3 Dakotas were destined to be converted to "Turbo-Daks" for the SAAF.
taxi clear of the runway. What I took to be a Greek expletive came over the radio, and about a minute later the seemingly enormous Olympic A300 Airbus overshot, then started turning away to enter the holding pattern.
Fortunately, a Greek Air Force tractor with a DC-3 compliant tow bar arrived a few minutes later and pulled us clear of the runway into a parking area some distance from the main apron. So much for a discreet arrival.
Once parked, I spoke to the Greek Air Force personnel manning the tractor and asked if they knew where we might find mechanical assistance. They suggested that Olympic Airways were the only maintenance organisation allowed to work on civil aircraft on Crete.
crash on beach. People run for their life. Ha ha, was big spectacle! First drink on house.”
The right engine had seized solid, and a Greek Air Force mechanic implied through an interpreter that they could take temporary leave and change the engine for us.
We had shipped the DC-3 spares that came with our deal to SA. However, we had a spare zero-time engine tied down inside the third DC-3 parked in Munich. We had elected to keep the spare engine in that aircraft as it was in the least serviceable of the three Daks.
After further discussion, the mechanic and his chum agreed to take leave when our spare engine arrived in Crete. I went up to the tower and apologised through the pungent garlic ambience for the unintended drama we’d caused.
The ATC controller shrugged, “Is good practice to keep people on their toenails. No emergencies are happening here.”
We booked into a beachside hotel for an extended stay, then walked into the bar with oil specks on our shirts identifying us as the Dak pilots. The barman greeted us effusively saying, “You pilots fly old plane.” He moved his hand in a porpoising motion. “You nearly
I phoned Bob Koriskinsi in Munich and explained our problem and asked for him to airfreight the spare engine to us on Olympic Airways ASAP.
After a couple more drinks, we went to our rooms to shower and change. It was then that Roy must have phoned his wife in Johannesburg.
That evening at dinner, a loudspeaker announced; “Captain Roy Mathews, please take a telephone call from South Africa at reception.” I went pale, and when Roy got up, I said, “Hell Roy! Who knows we’re here?”
“My wife,” he muttered.
Roy came back to the table looking a little sheepish, and said, “Mercedes says Hi.”
I said, “Well don’t tell her where we are in future. That could endanger our mission.”
About four days later the zero-timed P&W 1830 engine arrived, and the off-duty Greek Air Force mechanics started changing the engine. The following
JEFFERY KEMPSON
The 5200nm route flown by the Dak from Munich to Lanseria.
afternoon the newly mounted spare engine was successfully run and cowled up. I went to the tower and told them we wanted to do a test flight. After many phone calls we were informed that we could fly the next morning, but not now, as they would not risk us closing the airport again during their busy period.
We refuelled, and I paid the two Air Force engineers a couple of thousand dollars. It seemed that the military brass was aware of our arrangement, and not happy about it.
That night we went out to a disco and while returning a pair of men called us from across the street. One of the men said, “Mr. Captain Sir, they are going to impound your aeroplane tomorrow, so you must leave before the Civil Aviation Department opens.”
“Why?” I asked.
“There are many questions to be answered.”
I pulled out $50 and said, “Thank you for that information.”
Early the next morning I paid the landing and parking fees, filed a flight plan for Luxor, and we departed without incident.
He pushed my hand away and said; “Keep your money please, I tell you because of friendship.”
I was very touched, thanked him and we shook hands as he said, “Bon Voyage. I think you are adventure pilots.” That still brings a smile to my face.
Entering the hotel I said to Roy; “This new scenario is a damn nuisance. I wanted to get that seized engine on-board and properly tied down. Fields at Rand Airport could probably overhaul it. Instead, we’ll have to leave it there.”
Someway across the Mediterranean, Roy went back into the cabin and looked out at both engines. Returning to the cockpit he said, “Jeff, that right engine is pissing oil.”
The oil pressure gauge was still reading normal so I said; “Give me a heading and ETA for Cairo.” Out came the big green one in a million map, and my metal E6-B ‘prayer wheel’ Nav computer. There were no fancy electronic Nav gizmos available back in 1981.
We landed at Cairo without further incident, fortunately with oil to spare.
We found a local aircraft mechanic of unknown provenance. After some negotiation he removed an engine cowling and, finding a loose oil pipe connection, managed to tighten it satisfactorily. However, it had taken most of the afternoon for him to borrow a ladder and find the right tools for the job.
We then did an engine run and were pleased to see no oil leaking out. He said, “You want me to sign logbook?” I replied, “No, we don’t have them on board. It’s not legal to carry them with us.”
He laughed, and I said, “How much do I owe you?”
He scratched his chin and said, “five hundred American Dollar.”
“That’s a lot of money for two hours work.”
“I have to borrow ladder, and Dakota tool from friend, and my wife is sick.”
I thanked him, handed over $500, and didn’t get a receipt.
It was by then too late to continue the flight, and too far to head for Djibouti direct from Cairo. We had reasons for not wanting to route via Khartoum, so we booked into the very comfortable Sheraton Hotel in Heliopolis, but the windows should have been double glazed because the Cairo traffic hooted all night.
The flight to Luxor was happily uneventful, and the licentious health officer was absent, but sent his young deputy to collect his required ex-German girlie magazine from the confines of our green quilted cockpit roof lining.
The long desert leg to Djibouti was also happily uneventful, and we relaxed in the steaming humid crossroad city on the Gulf of Aden.
Accommodation was scarce so I shared a room with Roy. After showering I changed into fresh clothes, and was surprised when Roy took off his shoes, then walked under a cold shower fully clothed.
He dried his hair, and after retying his shoe laces we walked out of the hotel in search of a convivial bar. Roy steamed in the hot afternoon and left soggy footprints.
JEFFERY KEMPSON
Roy Matthews in corporate pilot mode on the bus to the airport.
We were mildly surprised to note the local girls frequenting the bars had almost Caucasian features. One whispered into Roy’s ear and he turned toward me.
“We only have money for Avgas, engine oil and beer,” I said.
The disappointed girls moved away.
The next morning saw us mostly following the Somali coast towards Mombasa, where we landed uneventfully around lunchtime.
At the ever-charming Mombasa Beach Hotel there was a large influx of German tourists, and the dinner menus were printed in both English and German. An enterprising German and multi-hotel owner in Kenya, Carl Rudin, ran a DC-8 from Basel in Europe to Mombasa on all inclusive holiday flights.
Over dinner the hotel public address paged Roy for an international call. On his return, I asked him if the call was from Mercedes in Johannesburg.
“We’re just ferrying that Dak outside from Kenya to Lanseria.”
“Funny registration,” he said, “Stuck on too.”
“Yes, just a temporary reg” I said. “I think it’s going to be used for aerial survey.” He nodded and wandered away.
At a suitable time, we took off from Blantyre and had a smooth flight, landing at Lanseria half an hour after dark.
Once again we were instructed to park some distance away. The airport manager took our passports away to be stamped. Even Immigration and Customs officials had been warned to stay away from that Dakota.
scattering from our unstable approach
He nodded and I told him that if she didn’t stop calling him while we were flying these now indiscreet delivery flights I would not give him the option of flying the third and final flight. He said he’d talk to her.
The next day’s flight to Blantyre was uneventful, and the weather perfect. I felt guilty taking the money. At Blantyre we killed time to comply with the Armscor edict to arrive at Lanseria after dark.
Roy asked; “Why don’t we terminate the flight at Swartkops Air Force base, where the aircraft is actually going to be delivered by a SAAF crew?”
“Because they say we don’t have clearance to land at Swartkops,” I replied. Just then a cheerful male voice said; “Hello Roy, hello Jeff, what are you guys doing here?”
We looked around to see a Lanseria based Citation jet pilot.
Walking into the restaurant my girlfriend greeted me, and Roy opined; “With Customs and Immigration being kept away, I could have brought a Porche back and not paid any duty on it.”
About an hour later we heard the aircraft taking off for Swartkop’s Air Force base. I watched it climb into the night with mixed feelings.
Even the military crew had been advised not to see or speak to us. Any information about possible unserviceable items would have been passed to the airport manager on our landing, then be conveyed by him to the Swartkops based head of the transport squadron.
Glad to be home, I enjoyed dinner and relaxed company. Two down, and one last delivery to go.
But the third Dak waiting for us in Munich was the least serviceable of the trio, and we’d already used the spare engine. So, I hoped our luck would last a little longer.
SPACEX TO THE RESCUE
IN A HUGE BLOW FOR BOEING, NASA has decided it’s too risky to send astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth on the Starliner spacecraft that carried them to the International Space Station in June.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the decision was made out of a “commitment to safety.”
What should have been an eight-day shakedown mission for the two veteran astronauts has turned into an eight-month epic that will see them replace two of the four astronauts that were to travel to the ISS on a SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle in September for a planned six-month stay. They will finally go home in February at the end of the long-planned mission.
The announcement was made at a news conference which Boeing did not attend, but issued the following statement: “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”
The Starliner experienced failures of five of its manoeuvring thrusters and numerous helium leaks, and Boeing and NASA have spent much of the past three months assessing the issues.
Boeing will try to recover its multibilliondollar spacecraft with an autonomous
undocking and reentry for a parachute landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in early September to make room for the SpaceX capsule.
Boeing’s quarterly earnings report reveals that the company’s losses on the Starliner spacecraft have increased by an additional $125 million, bringing the total losses to approximately $1.6 billion.
NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 to develop human space transportation systems, awarding Boeing $4.2 billion for the creation of the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner and SpaceX $2.6 billion for the development of Crew Dragon. While SpaceX successfully launched its first crewed mission with the Dragon capsule in 2020, Boeing faced significant delays. It wasn’t until the second quarter of 2022 that Boeing completed an uncrewed orbital flight test with Starliner, following multiple delays and a malfunction during its initial flight test in 2019.
Boeing Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
H125. Safeguarding Our Biodiversity
Pictures and Text: Grant Duncan-Smith
SANPARKS AIR SERVICES South Africa
SANParks Air Services thrives on the diversity of its challenging and dynamic operating environments. These range from the bushveld of the Kruger National Park to the rugged Cape Town coastline.
SOUTH AFRICAN National Parks (SANParks) Air Services are based in the Kruger National Park (KNP) in the northeast of South Africa. Their core functions range from tackling rhino poaching, conservation, darting of animals to VIP transport.
David Simelane is the Chief Pilot. He says their responsibility is to provide the aerial support for vast distances, expanding their footprint outside the borders of the Kruger National Park (KNP), and servicing the rest of the 19 parks of SanParks. It’s a formidable task, with each park stretching across vast expanses with long borders.
Air Services has three Airbus H125 helicopters based in Skukuza, KNP. In the near future they hope to increase this to four helicopters. David says that they can easily convert from a utility configuration to a VIP configuration, and that the general ease of operating the H125 is a benefit.
the Airbus H125 has sufficient power reserves
SANParks utilises the Airbus H125, which is famed for it’s versatility. Being agile, having ample luggage space and power, the H125 is particularly suited to the wide range of tasks that SANParks requires of it. One of the challenges is dealing with summer temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius but the Airbus H125 has sufficient power reserves to cope with the high temperatures.
There is a benefit of consistency and familiarity in using the same helicopter-type across their operations. The sliding doors on both sides of the cabin provide good access. With cargo ranging from baby rhinos to K9 units and their handlers, easy access to the cabin is imperative.
In spite of aerial resources being limited, SANParks utilise the Air Services to cover the other parks, including operating in the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) in Cape Town. The TMNP is unique as it is surrounded by a densely populated urban area and is an open-access park with about 800 km of trails.
Table Mountain is 3563 feet above sea level, with changeable weather conditions around the mountain and at the summit.
Summertime coastal winds are prevalent, escalating upwards of 35 knots in the afternoon, especially near Simonstown and the Cape of Good Hope.
The operating environment is diverse and in stark contrast to the Kruger National Park. During COVID, restrictions to crowded areas, indoor areas and a prioritisation on health pushed many people onto the mountains for exercise and social gatherings. Street people and poverty increased, and crime from the city expanded into the National Park.
participants were attacked during a major trail running event, attracting international attention to safety. Public numbers on the mountain reduced substantially.
In response to this environment, SANParks, TMNP, City of Cape Town (CoCT), South African Police Services (SAPS) and various other organizations instituted a coordinated response.
Africa represents a significant market
Public confidence in their safety and the policing of the TMNP dipped substantially, especially during the latter part of 2023. High profile armed muggings occurred at various hot spots on the mountain. Some
During key seasons such as over Christmas 2023 and the recent Easter holiday period, one of the Airbus H125s was flown to Cape Town to support the local
SANParks teams and Sea Air Mountain (SEAM) Special Operations Rangers.
The previous Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Ms. Barbara Creecy, visited the TMNP to lend support to the SEAM Special Operations Rangers of SANParks.
The Cape has particularly challenging helicopter conditions.
SanParks Airbus H125s have to operate safely over challenging terrain.
SANParks has 112 rangers based in the TMNP, of which 15 are members of the SEAM team. These are highly skilled rangers with a K9 unit of six fullytrained dogs for specialised operations. This group covers multiple functions which include visitor safety, search and rescue for lost persons and illicit wildlife crime such as abalone poaching.
SEAM Rangers have made a large impact through visible policing and targeted operations, including antipoaching missions along the coastline, to apprehending suspects in mugging incidents.
the SANParks helicopter, assisting with daily aerial observation during the festive season.
To find out more visit: https://www.sanparks.org/ news/sanparks-outlines-table-mountain-national-parkfestive-season-safety-and-security-plans
positive public sentiment
The rangers in TMNP recorded 36 successful apprehensions since their deployment. Their presence in the marine protected area incorporating Cape Point, Simons Town, Hout Bay and stretching up to Robben Island has seen over 18 successful operations in 2023.
The aim is increased visibility on the ground, sea and mountains, and increased aerial deployment with
I joined SANParks on two of their’ operations. The first featured aerial support during the Simonstown fires near the end of 2023. The base of operation was at the Simonstown Navy Base, which was a flurry of activity, featuring Working on Fire Bell Hueys, Leading Edge Aviation’s Bell Huey and UH-60 Blackhawk, South African Airforce Oryx and the SANParks H125.
SANParks were tasked with a support function and keeping track of the fire’s spread, whilst the other helicopters focused on the water-bombing of the fire with their Bambi buckets.
SanParks shares the Newlands firefighting helibase.
The SanParks Heli is able to perform key evacuations from challenging points such as Little Lion's Head above Hout Bay.
The Easter patrol included flying along some of the key operational areas and crime hotspots of the Cape Town CBD and coastline, including Lions Head, Camps Bay to Noordhoek and some of the Eastern seaboard.
The general sentiment of the public on social media regarding the helicopter and its deployment over this
period has been very positive. If in future a helicopter and crew could be based in Cape Town permanently, the momentum in crime-reduction and positive public sentiment would surely continue to grow.
AME Doctors Listing
PILOT FACES PRISON FOR LYING ON MEDICAL
IN A LESSON FOR AFRICAN SAFETY standards, where lying on your CV has become an apparently forgivable misdemeanour, a Nigerian pilot in the USA faces jail time for not disclosing a criminal background on his medical application.
The American Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported that a federal jury has convicted a pilot of twice making false statements to the FAA on his application for a Class 1 medical certificate.
The case involves pilot Olukayode Ojo, 36, of Dallas, Texas. Ojo was found guilty on August 16 on two counts of making false statements.
According to the TSA announcement, Ojo, whose LinkedIn post shows two years’, eight months’ experience as a first officer for Dana Airlines in
Nigeria, had pleaded guilty and was convicted on two misdemeanour theft charges in February 2023 in Kentucky, for stealing luggage from the baggage carousel at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Ojo then falsified his applications for an FAA Class 1 medical certificate in March 2023 and March 2024 by unlawfully not reporting those criminal convictions.
After his conviction on the federal charge of lying to the FAA, Ojo was ordered to be detained pending sentencing, which could involve up to five years in federal prison and fines of up to $500,000, according to the TSA announcement.
Olukayode Ojo, from his LinkedIn page.
AVIATION CONSULTANTS DIRECTORY
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CAPE TOWN
Litson and Associates (Pty) Ltd
+27(0)21 851 7187
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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 your private piece of Wildlife Estate wilderness.
Hangar to Rent
Hangar available in White River area:
T-hangar available for rent at a secure private farm airstrip near White River. No landing fees. Power available. R2200/m. Contact Jeremy (064 931 1642).
Aero Engineering and Powerplant AMO
BACKPAGE DIR ECT ORY
208 Aviation
Ben Esterhuizen +27 83 744 3412 ben@208aviation.co.za www.208aviation.com
