Aish, what a journey How can anyone in their right sense of mind(but then again, this obviously excludes trike pilots
) even consider leaving on a journey at sunrise the morning after the Sharks won their match. Oh, and FF and I had our final 'fire-circle' braai with some close friends at La Mercy on Saturday night as well. Oh, before I forget, I seem to recall that there was another team that also won their match on Saturday.So ja, this journey was destined for surprises......................
Anyway, off to an uneventful start at about 7.30am (already one hour behind schedule.) But, we were ahead of schedule with number of cups of coffee..........
There we go, chasing the sun to the western horizon, on our trusty rotaxes, leaving town before all the jealous husbands and boyfriends lynch us from the nearest set of rotor blades.
But, not all is well. Brett is hauling ass off to Newcastle in England, and I am not doing too bad hauling ass off to Dundee in the same Queens country........ Aish, rugby and farewell braais
Problem stems from eye sight, or lack of it. FF gives me her 600C GPS 'just for in case'. Donnerse 'in-case' nearly sent me to the U.K. Better to have just followed the mountains that I know so well. Anyway, when I check Brett heading off, I scheme it's time to turn on my 600C and make sure we are heading in the right direction for Jozies.. Problem no 1. I can't see the damn thing. It is hanging around my neck on a bunch of cable ties, and it is TOO DAMN CLOSE TO MY FACE. So, I make blurry entries, and now I'm off to Queens country
So, I just switch the bliksem thing off, and carry on following my instincts. BINGO, we find Greytown. Now we're in business, and so are our bladders.Brett chirps on the radio, "Dave, I'm going for a piss"
Not bad I scheme, letting everyone on 124.80 know what we are doing. With that he just hooks that ol' Aquilla into a screeming dive and lands on a Sappi strip, somewhere, in some forest. So I follow him in, but man, that strip is made for crop sprayers, with donnerse big suspension. We land in the only cut grass section, have a leak, grin like idiots at each other, and haul back into the glorius early morning sky. I must share with my readers, that we have now done 1hr 08 mins, in the calmest of calm conditions. Lekka stuff.
Now half way to Dundee(now reading Dundee S.A.). over the Tugela River Canyons(nasty place), and I realise we are starting to slow down.
This means only one thing ......... the DREADED HEADWIND. Now, uninitiated readers, let me tell you about this monster. Your mother and father never told you, so I will. This monster lives under your bed, and sometimes in your head, and he is a nasty fellow. He has got bloodshot eyes, a fire-red beard, with tremendous strength. He can take the STRONGEST aeroplane, and turn it around and send it home. If you have met a pilot who has encountered this monster, he will lose his tongue and start babbling if you ask him about the monster. So don't ask, just beware, the monster will get you one day..........)
But I don't skrik for this ouk! Brett, he just schemes we got a tail wind, cause his GPS says 58mph ground speed, but his ASI only says 48mph. He forgot about calibration for altitude. You know, that 2% per 1000f ASL stuff. So, for him, just Kool. Angels into the mouths of demons innocently go..............But I know, hier kom K*k.
Just before Dundee, I tell Brett, "Hey Brett, you still O.K. Cause I'm just going to drop down and circle a farm down below. It belongs to a friend of mine. He owns a Windlass and has a little strip." So I drop down, set up and do 2 orbits around his farm house. No friend comes out, but as I set course again, I look over my shoulder, and there 'ol Dirk is Standing in his White Bath-robe, waving frantically at us. Back I go, and Dirk is waving his arms, trying to tell us to come land. I think this is what he was saying. It is a very unique kinda arm language. It is kinda a wave, point, shake around, up-down and dancing movement. I scheme it means 'kom land'.
But!!! last time I landed on Dirk's 19m2 windlass cow-patty bumpy short field, I broke a prop on take-off (loose stones). But what the hell, bladders are full again, and Dirk's runway looks lekka from up here.
So, land we do, and off to Dirk's house for Tea. And boerewors. And home-made fig jam. And bread. And home-made beef biltong. Jislaaik, but that was good biltong.......... 50 mins later, back into the trikes and off to Newcastle. This leg, from last pit-stop, took 1hr 12mins.
By now we are running about 2 1/2 hours behind schedule, and Bennie is 'biting-at-the-bit'. He has been waiting for us since 8.30. But this head wind is really slowing our progress. What should take 45 mins from Dundee to FANC, takes 1hr15. We eventually land there at about 11:15am.
Bennie's pit-stop goes well. 50mins later, we are ready to roll. Start up, taxi around the hangars, and there is a R44 with rotors spinning, blocking the taxi-way out of the hangar area??? Dof hey! So we just did the trike thing, tilted a wing under the rotors and put-foot
I think Bennie started having misgivings about my decision making skills (ask him) From take-off in FANC, for the next 30 mins, we flew maximum power to get ahead and over the mountains. And even then, there was a stage where we had to create an alternate diversion through a saddle if we did not manage enough height. The reason I did not take the saddle in the first place, was due to the fact that the headwind would venturi through there, and make our progress even worse. We made it with about 400 feet under us. And you just have to keep climbing, and keep climbing. It is amazing.
But now we are into serious headwinds and thermals and orographic turbulence. But it is winter thermals, and only 20km/h wind, so I am O.K. with the conditions. But for Bennie and Brett, this was BIG SKY. Yaw factor through some of the bumps was as much as 45degrees left and right, combined with pitching and rolling. Bennie was a busy boy. I was enjoying the panaromic view, which was obtained without even having to turn my head. I just looked straight ahead, and my view was 20degrees up and down, and 90degrees left to right
Now, what this did to Bennie, was make him just a little bit sick. Just a little bit mind you, Cause Bennie is a hard-core ouk!! So he did not tell me until it was actually a serious case of 'if we don't land now I am going to puke'.......... Nice, very nice. Amongs the hills, rotors, thermals, telephone poles down one side and a fence on the other, power lines all over the place, and not a decent road in sight. So, find a road, one of those where two cars passing each other must slow down and sort of leave the road a little........And the wind is crossing at about 20degrees Aish, aish, aish. A man' gotta do what a man's gotta do. We land, now it is Brett's turn. Brett, if you are reading this, WELL DONE!!! Bennie walks around, drinks water, Brett has another pee and tops up his fuel ( Hey, before I forget, to any pilots out there. If you are going on a fly-away, and Brett is with you, he needs a leak every hour
)Airborne again, and now over the flat-lands towards Standerton and on to Springs. But it is slow going man. Slow, slow, slow. And bumpy, bumpy, bumpy. But not dangerous turbulence. Just normal winter thermals. So I'm just sitting there, getting a good view once again, without turning my head, and there goes Bennie's voice "Dave, I'm going to be sick". Now there is really no-where to land. Just single lane farm roads, also the usual telephone poles and fences and long grass on the sides, and it is gusty, man it is gusty. The thermals were triggering about every 3 minutes. Between thermals it was not bad. On my first attempt, I spotted a huge gust coming through the grass, and Bennie gave full power to abort. Lucky, as we would have been holding-off into that one.
Just to let you guys know, I was in the back seat of a cobra. That means NO rear throttle, NO rear steering. All I had was training bars. So Bennie, if you are reading this, WELL DONE.
On the second run, we came in during a quiet cycle, and managed to land O.K. Bennie does his 'de-sick regime' and Brett stays in the air orbiting(by the way readers, Brett left on this journey with about 92 hours total time. He clocked 100 on this journey - another mile stone WELL DONE).
Ready to leave again, and Bennie is now in the back seat, and I am going to fly on to springs. Just as I am going to get in, a moerse thermal comes through, about 15kts, and rolling. The bliksem thing picks up our down wing, flips it over, and there the trike starts going over, with Bennie in it. Jislaaik, I scream, jump for the flying wires and hang on with all my mighty mouse powers. Aish, that was close
And off we go, happily, happily, merrily dancing through the skies on our way to Standerton and then Springs. I must mention that we had a heating problem with the 582, with water readings topping 90degrees many times. So engine management was very critical. Using the fuel enricher (choke), we would fully enrich, while simultaneously compensate for loss of RPM by about 3- 400. This would bring EGT's down from 580 to 490ish degrees. We would hold it there until water temps were back to 78ish, and then reduce power by 3 - 400rpm and close the enricher. If you did not do it this way, then the surge in power when you closed the enricher, would emmediately shoot the temps up, and also cause the nose to pitch up, and then Bennie gets sick
again
So, a busy cockpit in the Cobra.Flying time FANC to FASI(springs) was 3hr 45mins!!!!
The Cobra used 65lt of fuel for this leg!! This was due to using the enricher to control temps. I walked over to the club house to bum a ride from some biker dude to go buy fuel, and instead I find Rika, who used to work for Rainbow. What luck. She lends me her car and fuel sorted. Thanks Rika
Because the wind was coming from the North of the Magaliesberg, I decided to not approach Kroon from the Pine-dene route, but to cross over the ridge at Cullinan. Springs we routed East of Petit, Bapsfontein, Kitty Hawk and on directon Roodeplaat Dam. I pointed out all the airfield to Bennie, but had lost Brett at Bapsfontein Frequency, cause Brett could not get his radio to change frequencies in the second decimal.(lesson learnt, get to know you equipment!). He uses common sense, and activates 'scan' function. He picks me up back on SRA East.
Wonderboom could not accomodate us, so we stayed South of the Ridge, and flew on the boundary of Wonderboom and Waterkloof. FAWB was closed, so it was just 'FAWB traffic'. We crossed over the ridge at the Poort, and continued SRA West until we got to Kroon.
Springs - Kroon 1h15min
A sunset landing at Kroon, with lots of great guys waiting to wellcome us.
Total flying time La Mercy - Kroon 8hours 30min This means 5 hours of hard cross-country for Bennie and 8.5 hours for Brett.
A lovely fire, a simple braai with ice cold beer, hospitality from Dawie and a rustic beautiful club-house to sleep in, and we passed out.................
If you guys managed to read through all this, and you want to hear about the return journey, let me know, and I will post part 2, the return journey. I will title it ' Part 2, Brett's bladder, silverback jackals and mielie leaves...
