EAA Fun n Sun Rustenburg

The Fun n Sun weekend threatened to become Fun n Splash weekend, on Friday night the heavens opened and had pilots scrambling to get their prized aircraft into hangars fortunately the Rustenburg residents were more than happy to accommodate as many of them as possible. The bad weather didn’t manage to dampen the spirt and everyone had a great evening of banter at the Rustenburg Flying Club club house.

Early on Saturday morning the weather still looked pretty grim and unfortunately it kept many aviators at their home bases. By 10 am the cloud started to lift and the weather stayed good for the rest of the day approximately twenty-five aircraft made the journey. Many people decided to drive in rather than risk flying in the unpredictable weather.

Paul Lustrucci welcomed everyone to the event on behalf of the EAA. Karl Jensen kept all entertained and informed about all the happenings throughout the weekend, Karl was one the pilots that opted to drive rather than fly.

EAA Fun n Sun originally started at Rustenburg many years ago then travelled around the country for a few years, finally it was held at Brits for five years and this year made a very welcome return to Rustenburg. The people at Rustenburg went out of their way to make the weekend as comfortable and enjoyable as possible.

Century Avionics and Comet Aviation joined in the fun and had all their latest products on display. The ongoing support of Aviation related companies is a crucial part of making events like this the success we experienced this weekend.

Roston Dugmore our very own Junior World F3A Aerobatics World Championship with his Extra 300, what this young man achieves with this machine is nothing short of amazing. Roston will be taking part in the World Championships later this year in Argentina.

A Fun Adventure Rally was organised by Rob Jonkers and Mari Reddy , incorporating seven turning points and, for the first time, an ANR route. The ANR course test the pilots skill in flying in a narrow corridor while it Zig-Zags to nowhere in particular. On every leg there is a few Historical and Geographical questions that need to be answered making the whole experience a lot of fun while improving the flying and navigation of the competing teams. A spot landing competition is held within the competition which really makes things interesting

Ron and Dusty Strik the father and son team walked away with top honours despite having a hard time with quite a nasty storm cell during the ANR section, they flew in a C152.

In second place was the young team of Greg Clegg Keaton Perkins in Greg’s Jodel D11

Pierre Dippenaar and Martin Meyer took third place in a C182

Niel Terblanche and Danielle Coetzer managed fourth place in a borrowed Icarus C42 and also took top honours in the spot landing competition.

Fifteen teams took part and the result was unanimous with all of them saying it was a great test but also lots of fun and they will be doing it all again soon.

The flying died down on Saturday afternoon as everyone made their way to the club house towatch the Rugby test between the Springboks and the All Blacks, unfortunately the Boks lost by one point but that didn’t dampen the spirts in any way.