Happy Birthday Annie

[Duck Rogers]

Hope you had a great day and wishing you many more

[DarkHelmet]

OH MY WORD!

Happy birthday FairyFlycatcher! Where are the updates on your life? Thanks to this new snazzy forum software and Ducks being bottom feeders reading all the way down!

Cheers, SCHOLL, veels geluk liewe maaitjie!

Missing you loads!

Ian

[slysi]

Happy birthday Annie....it would be great to hear what your latest expoits are, you are certainly missed on the forum

[Tailspin]

Happy Birthday FairyFly

Come back we all miss you terribly.

[Tumbleweed]

And give a shout before you venture into our spot of paradise again.

[lamercyfly]

Thanks for the reminder guys.......... you could have warned me the day before, not the day after

Cheers.

D.

[John Young]

Thanks for the reminder guys.......... you could have warned me the day before, not the day after

Hi,

Give him a klap Annie - he forgot.

Happy birthday.

Regards
John ZU-sEXY

[kloot piloot]

Happy Happy !

From the Schurveberg area !

[Fairy Flycatcher]

Hey everyone

Thanks for the lovely surprise! Tumbleweed, Secunda realy has a special airfield, and the last time I flew in there your appearance in the GT450 made my day BTW, I left there just after 5pm, and had lots of fun waiting for two other IF flights into PMB before doing a very bumpy 3NDB approach, breaking cloud 200' above MDA.

My year has been tough. Nationwide going bang so soon after me joining them was a real downer. The only real highlights have been some limited trike trips. But I have an interview with Airlink on the 4th of November, so there are some things to look forward to.

But I have to tell you about my birthday At 11:55pm on the 14th we drove out of our gate on the North Coast, stressed and stressed and a bit more stressed. On our way to JHB international airport. 6 min later after few grumpy exchanges with my grumpy, he suddenly leans over and kisses me lovingly on the cheek: 'Happy Birthday my Annie' And I'm thinking: 'what a cheek! ' Here I am, planning to drive to JHB through the night while he intends to doze in our very small car, and he thinks its HAPPY? But then I thought about how colourful our life is, and how we are going on another little adventure, sharing the work, the planning and supporting each other again, like so many times over the last 13years, and yes... its a happy birthday

Its actually one hell of a story behind this.

On Sunday Dave Devonish lands at our little Sugar Hill airfield. He has flown since forever and we have heard this story before, never taking him seriously : He wants to sell his trike. This time he says he is serious... but with him you never really know...

On Monday around 11am we get an sms from Johan in the Seychelles. Something about having written off the microlight they fly there after getting into the wake turbulence of a Twotter. David thinks its a joke, but after phoning Johan, the reality sets in. Johan is fine. A broken little finger, but the whole project has come to a grinding halt. So much rides on the microlight and the research, with lots of people from all over the world involved, and with the last critical 3 weeks to go, no trike!

After suggesting many things, David and I phone them and suggest that they should buy a microlight and fly it over. It would be the quickest way of getting airborne. So we suggest Dave's Windlass. Within an hour they say fine. Pack it and ship it, there is a plane leaving JHB for the Seychelles Wednesday at 2pm. Can we please have the microlight there, with all custom's documents sorted out, no later than 9am on Wednesday. The dimensions for the box must please not exceed 1m x 2m x .45m How the hell? It is now 2pm, this gives us 44 hours to negotiate the sale with Dave (letting it leave the country before he has the cash ) Design and manufacture a crate, dissemble and pack the microlight, arrange all custom release documentation and drive deliver it to loading bay 13 Swissport cargo JHB international!

Are they insane? A microlight in 1 x 2 x .45m? How can we do that? Finally they allowed us a bigger crate, which made everything possible David managed 2m x 1m x .65

David and I worked hard and shouted hard and nearly cried for 30 hours straight. And then I left him at the house trying to finish off while I blissfully gave PPL lectures at Virginia airport until a message from Grumpy on my phone which includeded the following choice phrases " @#$^^&H @#$%^ @#$^&*$%@# #$%^^& Get your @#$$^ back here!!!! " So I left the students at 7:30pm, and drove home slowly enjoying the last couple of minutes of peace. When I got there, the wing was still fully assembled on the lawn, and although the microlight undercarriage was packed, we had no idea how to get a 140kg box onto the microlight trailer and ....

Anyway, 7:45 on my birthday I was parked at bay 13, Swissport, FAJS, trying to convince myself that the seat is comfortable enough for a snooze, and the traffic noise is a lullaby... But the next stress started. Customs had not yet released the documents to allow shipping.

Air Seychelles senior management graciously allowed an extra hour (to 10am). At 09:55, customs released the documents .

The next day, at 2pm, the microlight was flying in the Seychelles from Mahe International

Man, my life is interesting

PS. Thanks to Big G for taking countless calls from us (Grumpy kept dialling him in error - I mean , how many JHB numbers are there?) and thanks for your advise on building our own crate... it worked out perfectly.

[zucac]

Well done, and now have a happy birthday
take time out and make Dave pour the wine.

Brett