Microlighters

So September is not the greatest month for fly-always... well I don't know. So far I have had great flights, even though the met office thought differently.

This morning, the sky gods put a damper on things again by allowing a thick blanket of mist to sit over La Mercy. Kim had been waiting at the airfield since 05:00 to get airborne, and by 06:30, there was still no sign of anything lifting. Ron took his trike up through the mist and declared that although it peaks out at about 550' (300'AGL), at times its light enough to be OK. He came in for landing (safely), and after a couple of minutes did the same. After a bit of friendly "chatting" between myself and David on "chat" 123.45, Kim and I took a gap in the mist to climb above it into heaven.




For those of you who know the area, the little ridge sticking out in this photo is on the East of La Mercy, the pine tree hill, beyond that is the N2 and then the sea. None of which we could see after take-off.



The low cloud stopped at Tongaat though, and beyond that it was just wonderful flying.




My faithful and gorgeous pilot, Kim and I took the scenic route, via Glen Mill. Well worth every km. It was stunning




Finals Eshowe


We were very impressed with all the airfields around our area, most of whom had representation at Showed. There was one trike from (Thanks Craig and Dougie), one fixed wing from Ballito (Dave and Wally), one fixed wing from Cato Ridge (Frans and John), and 2 trikes from La Mercy (Ron, Annie and Kim)




The coast-wise flight was equally great, with whales and dolphins, low level aircraft and all sorts of exciting things.


Next time come along... words and pictures can't begin to describe.

Annie

Oh, and loansharkblv, I got plenty of Eshowe pics. Send me your e-mail address, or email me at comefly at mweb dot co dot za and I'll send lots of memories your way.

Annie

Seeing that so few of the pilots flew with on Saturday, Nature took over and sent some extra numbers... we had a HUGE swarm of bees fly through the parked aircraft while we were still waiting for Ron to land

FF, it looks like you guys also had a great time. The timing just didn't allow us to join you this time, but you can be certain that we will be joining you in the future.

Thanks for the interesting update and pics. Keep it coming; this is what flying is all about.

HI all, looks like some lovely flying and pics. I am still a student, only 16 hours so far. A question for the pro's, the pics are great but show a lot of cloud below, from my understanding of VFR..

"Every VFR flight shall be conducted that the aircraft is flown with visual ref to the surface...and at no time above more than 3/8th of cloud within a 5 miles radius of the craft"

To me that looks like more than 3/8th and less than 5 miles, but as stated I am just a student so how do you make the call between this is "legal" or not?

Dreamer wrote: "Every VFR flight shall be conducted that the aircraft is flown with visual ref to the surface...and at no time above more than 3/8th of cloud within a 5 miles radius of the craft"

To me that looks like more than 3/8th and less than 5 miles, but as stated I am just a student so how do you make the call between this is "legal" or not?

The low cloud stopped quite upruptly just to the West of the runway. This view is to the East, so its almost like "trick photography" in a way :D

You are quite right that its not above 3/8th of cloud withing 5nm, but we had NO cloud over 50% of the sky after take-off and about 7/8 over the other 50%. So I guess if you had to do the maths its marginal

But, we were over completely open ground once we set direction Glen Mill.

Sorry about any wrong impressions caused... Don't fly IMC in a trike

I really need to think up an excuse to go visit my clients Durban offices SOON!

PS - I sometimes fly IFR - "I Fly Roads" but never in IMC

Thanks FF, I thought I was probably only seeing half the picture. I hope to enjoy some of that scenery from a trike one day in the hopefully not too distant future, looks amazing.