Magic Carpet Ride.
So much so that my co-pilot forgot to take pictures.
The story starts on saturday morning, 7am, Morning Star, Gadget and I met up with Skid and Grumpy. We drove up to Loeries in Skid's softness' Mahindra.
The idea was to fly back same day. We arrived at about 12h00 and met Boet, at the airfield. Out came EPH and it was time for a test flight. I haven't flown for 8 months and was a bit apprehensive to say the least. Fortunately one of my mates, CFD from Morning Star was there and him being a BB pilot as well took me up for a checkride. That went well and I was quickly confident about my ability to fly and land the plane. By this time it was 2pm and the thermal activity was building. I was not keen on being bounced around the sky for 3 hours on the way back. Then we discovered that the radio/intecom was not working. So out that came and eventually I made the decision that it was too late to return to Morning Star so a stay over was required
Boet graciously offered to put us up in his house and laid on the most amazing braai, including hoender for Skid. Hoender it appears is rare, in Loeries, as all these corn fed boys are pure lamb and mutton carnivores. Anyway, Boet's softness managed to drag the owner of the Spar out of the bar to unlock and supply us with some feathered fare and some tooth brushes. Small towns
In the meantime Gadget and I tried to sort out the intercom, that eventually solved, we discovered that plug from the intercom to the radio had a wire broken inside it and we could not key the radio. Boet came to the rescue by lending me a handheld that I plugged my headset into.
A lekker braai followed, lots of kak praat, the odd liquid refreshment was consumed and Grumpy, myself and Boet tickled the strings on a guitar for a while as well
Sunday morning bright and very breezy we arrived at the airfield. Plane was checked out, prop had been repitched the afternoon before and I took her for a test flight. We fueled her, loaded up Gadget with a headset to protect against the noise and me with the handheld and headset combo. I was very nervous, 240 Miles ahead of me over serious klippe. We discussed it and opted to head for the coast and fly via Saldanha. 5 minutes after take off all the nerves had dissapeard and we had a nice 20mph tailwind carrying us along at 105mph ground speed. We climbed to 6500 and headed for Lamberts bay. Once at the coast we routed south to Saldanha where we landed for coffee and to take on some fuel. flying time 1h40
I checked out the engine compartment and noticed a bracket for the radiator had cracked. We spent an hour making another bracket. I also saw I had lost a screw on the spinner, so removed it just in case. 1pm we took off and routed for Morning Star. 40 min later we landed safely. Needless to say Gadget and I punished the beer supply in the bar for a few hours unil Skid and Grumpy arrived by car.
Man it was absolutely lekker
I have attached a Google Earth file showing the route. I am trying to work out how to get te flight path in full 3D
