... and a dental appointment later in the week!!

PLEASE NOTE names, times and places have been changed (only insofar as) to protect the innocent

"Subject: RE: Your Tuesday dentist apointment

Thanx for the appointment, doc, my tooth is really hurting, I don’t think I can take the pain anymore.
EY

From: Adriaan Hepburn [mailto:ahepburn@iafrica.com] Sent: 30 November 2007 05:47 PMTo: Trevor Jhonson; Sven Olivier; Steve Mavuso; Rico SUTER; Reinhold Lawrenz; Quinton Hoole; ptroskie; Peter Farrell; Mike Pascoe; John Spargo; Johan Gericke; jbcom@kimnet.co.za; Jacobus Hartman; Hans Sterling; Graham Anderson; Gareth Floweday; Errol Drew; Dolf PRETORIUS; Craig Fussell ; Alan O'ReganSubject: Your Tuesday dentist apointment

Hi,
Tuesday looks like a good option for some of us, how about us all taking a day off and have some fun at the dentist.

I will speak to Rico and see if he can help with aero tow that is if there is fuel.

Regards
Adriaan"

A (serious) training weekend

Hopefully we can get the right weather lined up for Doc (here to train for Omarama)

Saturday
Possibility of CuNimb - probably on the plateau and hail 5mm
Surface wind - SE10, 5000ft E10, 10000ft NW10, 15000ft NW 30, 20000ft WNW30
Wave consistently from 12000ft up (again, the expectation would be for wave at lower levels in our valley)
Cloud BLUE
Max 27.3 Dewpoint 12.6 Trigger 25.1
Expect 1.2 ms - 1.5 ms to 6000ft

Sunday
Hold on to your hats - RAOB says there is a warm front on Sunday!!
"Anabatic warm front, 374km to the WSW vertical motion 73meters/hr
Cloud and precipitation ahead of the surface front.

That brings with it the possibility of CuNimb and HAIL size 4mm
Surface wind - WSW 30, 5000ft W30, 10000ft NW 70, 15000ft NW 90 (peaking at 100 at 13000ft!!!, 20000ft NW 80
Wave at 8200ft at 2.6ms and 18800ft at 3.5ms
Cloud BLUE
Max 25.5 Dewpoint 12.6 Trigger 23.9
Expect 1.2 ms - 1.6 ms to 6200ft
BLUE thermals

SAWB (apples) for Sunday
Olifants R ValSW 25 14 24 35% Fine, cloudy at first
Sandveld SW 25 13 25 Fine, cloudy at first
Swartland SW 20 12 25 Fine, cloudy overnight
Winelands SW 20 14 25 Fine, cloudy overnight
Cape PeninsulaSW 25 15 22 Partly cloudy, light rain overnight (30%, 00-05mm).
Grabouw SW 25 10 24 Partly cloudy, light rain overnight (30%, 05mm).
Ruens SW 15 14 26 Fine, cloudy at first
Garden route SW 20 15 22 Partly cloudy, morning fog
Breede Val. S SW 15 15 27 Fine
Breede Val. N SW 15 15 29 Fine
S-ern Karoo NW 30 16 31 Afternoon isolated thundershowers (30%, 00-05mm).
Klein Karoo W 25 17 32 Afternoon isolated thundershowers (30%, 30mm).
Kouebokkeveld SW 20 11 26 Fine

The weather patern is not yet there, but it is going in the right direction.

EY

The weekend forecast

It is wet (and dark) on the airfield, as Adriaan's webcam shows .... but the weekend should bring flyable weather

Saturday

An unstable airmass with (again) a strong inversion at 6800ft and higher- at this level there is also some turbulence projected

Surface wind - SE20, 5000ft E20, 10000ft S10, 15000ft S20, 20000ft SWS30

Wave - only from 16500ft up Cloud 3/8 4400 - 5000ft

Max 22 Dewpoint 9.4 Trigger 19.9

Expect 1.3 ms - 1.7 ms to 6800ft

Cloud - blue thermals

Sunday

I am, again, at loggerheads with SAWB, as they are forecasting for sunday a SE, going E toward George, whilst i have a W going towards Klawer. The airmass is slightly more stable, but there is no inversion!!!

Surface wind - SW 10, 5000ft W10, 10000ft NW30, 15000ft NW40, 20000ft NW70

Turbulence 5000ft - 6800ft!!!

Wave from 8400ft and all the way up!!!

Cloud 3/8 cirrus at 25000ft

Max 27.4 Dewpoint 9.1 Trigger 25.9

Expect 1.2 ms - 1.6 ms to ft

Cloud Blue thermals

EY

Bluntrunner

On Saturday, very much courtesy of Alan O'Regan, we had another Bluntrunner contest. A relaxed and carnival-like atmosphere prevailed.

the briefing .... and waiting to launch

at the launch point - only old ships

Thanks to Rudi Shurkes and Otto Toenges I had a K8 (GZD) to fly in [THANK YOU OTTO and THANK YOU RUDI]. They also sponsored a number of other pilots - Martin in GAN - another K8, Jerry and Reinhold in a Ka2b, and Adri and Adriaan in a K7. Others flew their own planes, notably Liewe Heksie in a K6 and Arri, the Spatzmeister, needless to say in a ...

Must say, the K8's were certainly the weapon of choice for the day ;-) and well done to Martin who won!

Rudi in the Phoebus

It was a really tricky day (see Adriaan's logfile on OLC) and one had to have your wits about you. I saw Arri do his outlanding at Fischer's and followed the retrieve by Adriaan and Adri (from Rescue International!!) on the radio, whilst flying in formation with Rico in his DG500M (he is now looking to buy a K8 - or twenty of them).

The retrieve from Fischer International - GZD on finals

On Sunday i was on duty as instructor and also had the privilege to fly with Mark Leeuwenbergh, 3rd ranked Dutch team pilot and 15m contender at Lusse. Man, does he fly well!! (again have a look at the OLC file for 18 November)

EY

A late start

Well, with Attie in the JS1, it was a late start to the forecasted day. He only got to 4500m at the first turnpoint at 15h00 (one and a half hour behind schedule) so the 1000 was never on. Nonetheless a very creditable 778 km for the day (see http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1059487938)

As promised some pics taken on Sunday - but don't forget that, sticking to the ridge line, Martin and Otto in TR did 660 km at 151kph - a really remarkable feat!!!

As the front moved in the air became more moist and the foehn gap can clearly be seen, at times the cloud would form around you and GWL was flying with the electric turn & slip on for this very reason. Days like these are really very special and beautiful:

On Saturday we are flying cloth ships!!!

EY

A BIG DAY?

At 16h41 local time, Uys was not answering his phone - this is probably good news as he should be out of phone range and shortly be coming up to final glide.

More later

EY

The JS1 team

A phone call last nite refocussed my attention from the optimistic view Alan and I was taking of flying from Worcester today to Kuruman, the Northern Cape, to advise the JS1 boys of the weather there today and tomorrow (it would be on the western side of their 100okm task area) and did it just look good - see the forecast sounding for today: a firm 5m/s to 16000ft - what would i not give to be flying there today. I will advise of the outcome for the JS1/ASH26 pilots here.

regards

EY

Visitors

We had a splendid weekend's flying, but that is for the next posting. First a few photographs of visitors at the airfield this Sunday morning


But first i have to go back to a thursday not so long ago when i had to outland just north of Dasklip - a hard lesson, but the timing is impeccable, right at the beginning of the season. I would have hated to have made the same simple mistake 800km into a longer flight!!! Hopefully i have learnt something (there was a lot to learn, as always!!!). And to fetch me, guests to our establishment, Phillipe Rossier and Mark Hope, pictured here at the supper on the way home (at OPPIEKOFFIE in Porterville - where the owners helped us well after the closing hour)
.
I think their facial expressions say it all, but nonetheless, THANK YOU so much!!!
From far, far away .... some where such as Francistown, Botswana, an impeccable RV.

From the Eastern Cape - a Robinson R44, and last but not the least



and for the first time a Jet A1 burner (a L 39 from PE) dropped in, much to the delight of us all.


a peek into the front seat of the L39!!!

In the next post i hope to publish some photo's taken from EY on Sunday.

EY

EFATO

This week a Nationwide flight out of FACT lost an engine on take-off. Co-pilot was MGC's Daniel Perry!!

I heard a rumour that it was a reverse thrust deployment, something you really need as you rotate!!!

Well done to Daniel for bringing the plane back!!!

Ian Pretorius reported as follows:

"This afternoon at about 15:50 whilst sitting at my computer involved in the railway preservation internet war I heard a jet engine roaring. The cloud base was at approx 2000 ft over Table View with light drizzle. I thought to myself why is Mike Beechy Head flying practice runs for the Overberg Airshow in this weather (the initial sound was something like one of his aircraft).

I ran to my trusted ATC scanner and switched on and the first thing I heard was the tower talking to Charlie Victor the ground crew. He said get that rubble off the runway immediately. We have an emergency. The aircraft has to return. He then spoke to Nationwide who said to him we have an emergency. We have lost hydraulics and partial disintegration of our right engine. The traffic controller said it is not part disintegration. The whole engine is lying on the runway.

At this time he was vectored to fly to Romeo India Victor (Robben Island) and he maintained 3000 ft on one engine. The air traffic controller when asked by the pilot what they had seen said that on take off he first saw black smoke which turned into grey smoke and then the motor exploded and disintegrated and parted from the aircraft. This happened just short of the cross runway 16/34 which is about 70% of total runway length. There was no way that the pilot could have stopped the aircraft before the end of the runway but they obviously had enough speed at that stage for the take off. The aircrew were very calm and were obviously going through all their emergency procedures.

The air traffic controllers on tower were frantically hurrying on Charlie Victor to clear the large parts off the runway so that the aircraft could return. All other aircraft on approach to Cape Town were immediately placed into emergency hold and there was a lot of banter going on as to how much fuel each of them had and what their reserves were. In the end five aircraft were diverted to George and three to Port Elizabeth. At about 16:10 Charlie Victor indicated that the runway was clear for an emergency landing and the Nationwide flight was brought in from around Cape Point to runway 01 on a gradual descent on ILS as the cloud base was very low. They made a perfect approach and a very good landing without brakes. Fortunately the gear could not be lifted on take off so hydraulics were not required to get them down. After the plane came to a standstill there was a lot of congratulations from other pilots who were in their aircraft on the apron awaiting take off. The Nationwide aircraft was parked on the cross runway 34 out of the way of the main runway 01/19. Passengers were disembarked in the normal fashion as the steps were driven out to that area and so were the buses. The runway was reopened at 16:58 after poor old Charlie Victor had to remove all small particles that had fallen on the runway in case they got sucked into jet engines and there had been hydraulic and fuel spill on the runway. After the Airbus A340 incident last week and this situation today it becomes all the more clear that Cape Town needs a second ILS main runway. If that had been the case no flights would have been diverted in either incident. Billions are being spent on the passenger boarding side but nothing on operating. As for the reason for the Nationwide separation incident there are many possibilities. Debris could have been sucked into the fans causing fan separation, imbalance and ultimate explosion. This debris could have been either sucked off the runway or could even have been a large bird. The fan could have broken and caused an imbalance resulting in the explosion. The bearings could have seized on the fan. It does not necessarily mean bad maintenance although that is a possibility. The controlling body of air safety sent a team from Johannesburg to Cape Town today and they arrived at about 19:30 to fully investigate this incident. From what I heard on the radio everybody acted in an extremely efficient manner. The aircrew, the air traffic control, the emergency services and the ground handling crews really showed that this type of emergency is handled incredibly well when it happens. Good for them. Regards, IAN PRETORIUS "