Blue Max Marble Hall breakfast trip

[BONZAI BELL]

Jumped into Bonzai bell 7am yesterday morning for a breakfast at Pauls farm near Marble Hall. An hour later Paul came looking for me. We made radio contact, and met each other about 15 nm from his farm. landed and had a lekker boerewors breakfast. then had a quick tour through the chalets. This is a great farm for a fly in , sleep over and come back the next day. Any way , we phoned jhb.met. which gave me clear weather for springs and cloud at 4000ft. Got back in the air round 10h30 am , and back to Springs. A couple minutes after i had Bronhorstspruit dam behind me , i noticed bad weather in the direction of Springs. As i got closer , i realized that there was no way i could land there. The weather looked slightly better towards the east , so i decided to divert to Delmas. By the time i got there , the wind was quite gusty and strong. First did one fly over . Now the wind was pumping and 90 deg. crosswind on the runway. i attempted to land , but with the gusting conditions i decided to abort landing. At this stage i now , i did not know where to go to. Then decided to have another look at the weater back in Springs. On my way back there, soon realised that Springs was not an option at this stage. Now i got nervous . looking at my fuel gauge , nearing the empty mark . Next moment over Eloff i noticed a fairly quite tar road running almost north south and decided to go in for the landing.Now at this stage , i was sweating. Did a good landing and pulled off the road next to a house on an agricultural holding. Moments later the owner of the property came to me and asked me if everything was okay. The next moment it started raining and he invited me into his house for coffee. Now after a three hour visit and four cups of coffee , waiting for the weather to clear , he is now very interested in Gyro flying. and will soon come for a flip at Springs. At 15h00 the weather was fine , and Jimmy , my host drove out with me , his workers blocking the traffic from behind me , and him blocking the traffic from ahead. Had a very nice take off , greeted them as i flew over , and 12 min. landed safe back at Springs. What an experience !!
Cheers till later. And to all ,hope we have a great 2011

[Condor]

Glad everything turned out OK. Kitty Hawk would have been an option once you reached Bronkhorstspruit Dam.
Hope to se you soon at FAKT.

[fransstrydom]

Swannie,now you are learning.All the experience gained makes it easier and easier for the next time.Good decision to abort landing when you feel unsafe,and also not flying into a thunderstorm.Remember it is summer.Always allow for a possible thunderstorm.
Scary Pilot

[Ashley V]

Well done Swannie!

Just for the record, make sure you do the necessary paperwork with CAA. To land on a road is a reportable incident, and rather you report it, than have someone else do it!!!

Somewhere in one of these threads, Glen Poley had an engine out with his wife on board - he did the paperwork.

Regards and Safe Flying.
Ashley V

[BONZAI BELL]

Hi Ashley
Thankyou for this info, i was not sure what to do about the incident. i did try to get hold of my instructor once i was on the ground, but still waiting for him to call me back. if anybody can help me with the correct procedure , with tel. no. and who to speak to , i will report it immediately.
Regards
Swannie

[Ashley V]

Hi Swannie

CAR 12.02.2 states - "The PIC, and any other flight crew memeber, operator or owner, as the case may be, of an aircraft involved in an incident, other than an air traffic service incident within the Republic, shall as soon as possible, notify,
a) the Commissioner, or
b) an air traffic service unit,
of such incident.

If you check on the CAA web, there are telephone numbers and who is on stand-by for you to contact.

This will also be a learning experience for you.
Regards
Ashley V

[Ashley V]

Hi Swannie.

As I logged off, there is a topic under "GYRO TALK" labelled "Reporting of Accidents and Incidents"

It's worth a read.

Regards
Ashley V

[Blue Max]

Hi Swannie,
Doen die oefening en vertel ons daarvan.
Dalk moet n ou maar n stuk grondpad kies in die vervolg. !!!

[Vertical Tango]

Just for the record, make sure you do the necessary paperwork with CAA. To land on a road is a reportable incident, and rather you report it, than have someone else do it!!!

And you thought that some were you best friends ! Part of your licence, you will also have to learn how to KEEP A LOW PROFILE !
Avoid bringing on this forum these types of incidents. Reporting might be the law, I am failing to understand what is it bringing apart from more paperwork !

[THI]

I have heard that if an aircraft has landed on a public road (for any reason) then a COMM pilot must be used to fly the aicraft away when eg repaired.

Any truth in that?

[Vertical Tango]

Yes, that's on the PPL side. A light aircraft might require few more skills to take-off from a road than a gyro. A total disregard however for the PPL pilot that had to put it on the road in the first place and the skills required to do that. All of a sudden he is not good enough to take-off again ! However gyro pilots I think should be more qualified for odd places and do not need Rand or Grand-Central to practice.

[BONZAI BELL]

So i contacted Caa this morning and explained what had happened, and Jacques Grobelaar from caa understood the situation. he said that he would just make a note of the incident. but did not make an issue about anything. All he did say, was that i actually should have done , was to contact the SAP to block off the road for take off.
At the end of the day, i am happy with the way i have handled the whole incident. By reporting it to CAA , i am now in the clear.( Thanks to Ashley for the advice )
I must say i have heard of pilots not reporting such incidents , and having their licences suspended for 30 days , and having to re -wright some exams.

[Jabbanaught]

So i contacted Caa this morning and explained what had happened, and Jacques Grobelaar from caa understood the situation. he said that he would just make a note of the incident. but did not make an issue about anything. All he did say, was that i actually should have done , was to contact the SAP to block off the road for take off.
At the end of the day, i am happy with the way i have handled the whole incident. By reporting it to CAA , i am now in the clear.( Thanks to Ashley for the advice )
I must say i have heard of pilots not reporting such incidents , and having their licences suspended for 30 days , and having to re -wright some exams.

Well Done Swannie !