Dennis Jankelow & Associates

Aircraft raffle

A Jabiru 430 with a PPL course from 43 Air School was the main prize in this year’s aircraft raffle presented by Dennis Jankelow & Associates with the Reach for a Dream Foundation. The winner was Erwin Foce from Worcester. A previous aircraft raffle winner, Annie Boon drew the winning ticket, no 1740, from more than 8000 entries. Annie Boon subsequently became the first woman leader of an aircraft formation team in Africa. All proceeds are donated to the Reach for a Dream Foundation.

  81 year old parachutist

Mike Hartley

A regular feature at South African aishows is a fair number of parachutists thrilling the crowds. This normally includes the Golden Eagles parachute team from the SAAF, Special Force Units to even show jumping rated recreational parachutists. Mike Hartley an 81 Virginia airshow veteran organiser performed a tandem parachute jump to demonstrate “age does not have anything to do with it”.

 Attendance at the airshow staged at the Virginia airfield is rewarding to any airshow spectator. Due to the current sponsorship from the House of Paint (ChemSpec) the organisers pull out all the stops to present a large variety of different displays. Best of all it is show cased over two days which should cater for poor weather conditions. In 2008 this arrangement worked rather well although it remained rather freezing over the weekend for anyone out in the open. One aspect of the show at this particular airfield is the airshow “atmosphere” experienced amongst the attending crowd no matter what the weatherman dishes up. The only other show with this sort of “atmosphere” is Tzaneen. Let’s hope the current weatherman retires this year and his newly appointed colleague has a thorough understanding of “airshow weather” for 2009.

All photos: C. Hugo, F.Hugo, A. Dyason & P.van Schalkwyk. Top Photo: A. Dyason. Photo manipulation: A. Dyason.

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