Aviation Generosity

Henley Air

As the airshow was about to start an emergency call came through to the airfield. A hiker had fallen down a cliff face whilst hiking in the Drakensberg and was badly injured. As his medical insurance did not cover the costs of an air evacuation Henley Air kindly donated their helicopter and crew whilst the ER24 medical crew provided the necessary emergency personal for the flight. ER24 also provided the transportation to the local hospital once the patient had been brought back to the airfield.

Thanks guys for your generosity.

Airshow Stalwarts

The perennial airshow pleasers in the form of Mike Weingartz with ZU-IMP, Scully Levin and the Control Instruments Pitts Specials as well his Gabriel Piper J3 truck landing act and then with Arnie Mengelie and the others of the Academy Flying Lions gave their normal polished displays to the thrill of the crowds.

Another stalwart was Glenn Dell with the T-28 Trojan and as he flown the Trojan down his Red Bull Extra was back in Gauteng. This did stop him from demonstrating his superb aerobatic skills as he gave us a thrilling aerobatic display using Johnny Smit’s Slick 360. Johnny displayed his skills to the crowd later in the afternoon using the same aircraft.

As is the norm the LSA’s were displayed for any prospective buyer of these entry level aircraft. Several seldom seen aircraft, such as the Polaris was also on display. Another aircraft that seldom appears on the main airshow circuit was David Gouws in his immaculate Yak52. In fact with the large number of Yak 52s and 18s in South Africa it’s surprising we do not see more of them on the display circuit.

Little yellow Cub

Not to be outdone by the full size aircraft a scale R/C modeler flew his Cub. To all intents and purposes, other than the size when seen in real life, this behaves and looks like the full size aircraft.

Cub radio controlled