Most people know what a handicap for a glider would be but, this story is somewhat different: On November, 26th two physically handicapped glider pilots flew an exciting 1000 km FAI triangle after launching from Gariep Dam in South Africa. On that day, the team accomplished the first 1000 km FAI triangle ever flown by…
Tag Archive for South Africa
The Western Cape Regional Soaring Contest
by SC Admin •
The inaugural Western Cape Regionals (WCR) was held at Worcester in the fairest Cape in 2012. This event was hosted by the Cape Gliding Club at their Worcester site. (330 39′ 52.37″S, 0190 25′ 02.11″E). The club is roughly 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Cape Town and most of the members are from that city. …
Interview with South Africa’s Oscar Goudriaan (OG)
by Rand Baldwin •
After the WGC 2012 closing ceremonies in Uvalde on Sunday, I interviewed Oscar Goudriaan of Team South Africa, who earned a spot on the podium for placing third in the open class. Oscar and his brother Laurens have represented South Africa in world gliding championship for decades and are obviously among the world’s very best glider pilots. It was a privilege to meet Oscar and to get his impressions of the brand new 21 meter JS1C from Jonker Sailplanes that he flew to third place in the open class. The JS1C is one of a new breed of open class gliders that reverses the decades-long trend in the open of incremental improvements and increasing span.
Bloemfontein South Africa Report, Flying Day 13 (last) – December 4
by Bill Elliott •
Today promised to be a good day and 5 of us declared 750km flights while others declared 500s. The course was a giant hour glass shaped one with turnpoints at Hertzogville, Kroonstadt, Pramberg and return. The 3d leg of the course was over 300km long! But – it was also my last day and I…
Flying Day 12, December 3
by Bill Elliott •
Another blue day with few or no clouds in the sky. We flew a big task – 498 km from New Tempe to Greylingsdrift, over to Kroonstadt, to Bultfontien and return. I managed the task in about 5.5 hours and OLC optimized my distance at 512 km. I had difficulty on the second leg and…
Flying Day 11, December 2
by Bill Elliott •
It will help to understand today’s flight if you scroll down to the Introduction section below and look at the map of the 3 controlled airspaces. Essentially, 3 of us (myself, Ed Downham and Anders Anderson) flew a task clockwise around the Bloemfontein TMA and down the narrow corridor between that and the TMA to…
Flying Day 10, December 1
by Bill Elliott •
Storms in the area so a rest day for most. I took a 1.8 hour local flight and went out to look at some landing places. Came back as a storm came in. Tomorrow should be a good day.People think that “flying in Africa” is like looking down on jungles and rhinos. It actually looks…
Flying Day 9, November 30
by Bill Elliott •
The confusion continued about the weather and so we decided on a 316 km triangle racing task that would keep us all reasonably close to the airport. However, several of us saw that conditions were better looking toward the second turnpoint so 4 of us decided to do the task in reverse order. It was…
Flying Day 8, November 29
by Bill Elliott •
I can’t recall a day where there was as much confusion and disagreement among the different weather forecasts. SA Weather Service and NOAA were saying completely different things. Commercial broadcasts had a third opinion. Everybody predicted storms somewhere – but nobody agreed where they would be. I finally gave up and decided on a simple…
Flying Day 7, November 28
by Bill Elliott •
After yesterday’s surprise storms none of us were very confident about the weather forecast and so the task today was designed to keep us reasonably close into the airport if storms developed again. I selected a 500km task from New Tempe up to Christiana, and then down to the diamond mine at Koffiefontein. At the…
