I am not the best story writer so please bare with me................But on the 15th of June 2010 we were suppose to depart form Upington to Alldays , but this like in most cases when it come to flying was interupted by a 20 knot North easterly wind. So we decided to wait until the next day and maybe the weather man would be good to us and give us no wind or a tail wind.
And would you believe the next morning we had a nice little breeze of a tail wind form the west , so we packed up all we could get into our little RAF 's and off we went. ( I found out the night before that the RAF has huge luggage space , just take out the seat, remove the inner, pack all your clothes , put back the inner and there you go.)
First leg was form Upington to Sishen , 127 miles to the NE. Flight time was 1.6h. At Sishen we were welcomed by Abrie Maritz , a student of my Dad's. We had some coffee and something to eat , and after spending almost 2h on the ground we eventually came to the conclusion that we still had more than 500 miles to go , so we decided to get in our RAF's again and head for Vryburg.
Second Leg from Sishen to Vryburg, 118 miles , still heading NE Flight time was 1.4h. At Vryburg we were welcomed by Dewald , a good friend of mine that is with Toyota and a couple of his friends that wanted to see this little thing that was flying all the way form Upington to Alldays. By this time the wind had picked up a lot and was hammering away at us form the North. So we had it form the side and my wish for a tail wind just blew out door.
Third leg Form Vryburg to Lichtenburg, 121.9 miles , Flight time 1.6h. The flight to Lichtenburg was a little turbulent at times and the wind form the side made the RAF look like a Crab. You wanna fly in that direction but the cabin wants to go the other. heheheheheheheheh We Landed at a Guy called Gerhard. He has a little airstrip just outside of Lichtenburg where he flies his microlight form. Again , what nice people we have in this country of hours and in the flying community. After a little chit chat we refueled and lined up on Gerhard's strip, Eben Snr to go first in DKW. Then me and Gavin, I must be honest here now , not to brag but shit, Gavin @95kg's , me @85kg's, 85L of fuel (70kg's) with another say 30 kg of equipment , clothes, tools, spare tubes, food, cooldrinks, water ext. Gives a total of round about 280kg's on board, 400m ground bush airstrip, elevation 5100 feet. Pre rotated to round about 175 rpm, wind,15 knots form the side about 60 degrees, the RAF poped into the sky at a round about 150m of runway used, and started to climb out 500ft per min, even I was amazed.
Ok enought bragging,
.................. so off we went to Thabazimbi, still heading NE , 134 miles , flight time 1.8hI must say , one of these days there will be nothing left of of those mountains at Thabazimbi the way they are mining it, and I wonder how many of those big tipper trucks has fallen off that mountain while tipping the sand and stuff. It will be a long fall that I can promise you. Ok , landed safely at Thabazimbi, where Jan a local guy that is busy with his NPL greeted us and escorted us to town to get fuel. Only problem was that he only had one 25l can and we had to ferry form the fuel station tot the airport a couple of times. This ate up allot of time and my goal to fly to AllDays in one day vanished.
But still we made good ground the first day and flew 500.9 Miles in a time of 6.4h. So we settled into a nice Guest house for the night and went out to one of Thabazimbi's nice restaurants and had a nice steak and a Rum and off to bed we went.
Next Morning we were up early and departed Thabazimbi To Ellisras 67 Miles NE . Flight time 0.7h. Landed at Ellisras topped up with Mogas and was ready for the last 117.9 miles to Alldays.
I must be honest, the terrain from Thabazimbi to Alldays is the most comfortable to fly over , THERE IS NOT PLACE TO LAND BUT IN A TREE, so you keep it at 2000ft agl to give you a fighting chance if something goes wrong.
How nice it was to listen to all the planes coming form different places and all of them going to Alldays fly-inn. 10 miles out we where greeted by the ATC and all of a sudden it felt like I was back home, very professional and well handled. Well done to the ATC, not easy to handle so many 124.80 pilots. heheheheheheheh
We had a wonder full weekend at Alldays, And to Pieter and the orgenizers well done to a very , very nice and enjoyable weekend. OU MAAT HY GAAN GROOT RAAK DIT KAN EK JOU BELOWE.
Sunday we left again for the long road back to FAUP and again had a wonder full flight home, just the dam head winds that keep on creeping up on me.
All in all we flew 2 RAF's, 4 people
1300miles
17.9h
Average fuel burn of 24l per hour
Average Ground speed 72.5mph
With only one flat tire,
