Jack Taylor airfield was a hive of activity on Saturday 19 August, Krugersdorp flying club hosted the annual spot landing competition.
The event was held earlier in the year but had to be abandoned due to terrible weather.
The turnout for the competition was really good with thirty seven entries, unfortunately not all the entrants could compete due to some aircraft developing technical snags and one entrant never arrived.
The spot landing competition coincided with the KFC festival, which encouraged aircraft owners to display their beloved aircraft.
The morning started off with a very nasty wind threatening to once again cancel the event but fortunately the wind died down and the competition got underway. The Judges took their positions and the first slot got airborne.
As far as possible aircraft of similar performance are grouped together in the same slot as to prevent one aircraft catching up to another in the circuit.
Each aircraft has three attempts at landing as close to the zero (Bingo)line, lines are marked both before and after the zero line atone meter spacing’s and are marked form one to seventeen. The totals are added together to give a total score and the pilot obtaining the lowest score wins.
Overall honours for the day went to Peter Lastrucci in his Cessna 152 he achieved a magnificent 2 points, followed closely by Dale de Klerk in a Cessna 182 only 3 points behind him. Third place belonged to Charles Pratley in a Cessna 172 scoring a very respectable 8 points , seems Cessna’s are winners in this type of flying.
Marie Reddy was the first lady home with a score of 23 in her stunning little Ikarus C42, the first non KFC entrant was Willem Greyling in his Savannah S scoring a 29.
The graeser of the day prize is awarded to the pilot who performs smoothest landing and this coveted prize went to Dieter Bock and what made it more remarkable is that he was in an extremely fast Lance Air.
Without sponsors and volunteers events like this would never get off the ground and this year the sponsors were extremely generous the total value of the sponsorship reached close to R60000-00.
Special thanks must got to the judges, John Addis, James Engelbrecht, Dave Lister, Deon Schlebusch and Tobie Weber who braved the icy wind at the threshold the whole day.
Chris Kayle the safety officer did an outstanding job of keeping proceedings safe and orderly, he was assisted by Paul Lastrucci who played the role of chief Marshall. Steve George manned the tower which was by no means an easy task with arrivals and departures being slotted between the competition slots.
Well done to all involved hope to see you all next year again.
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