Brits Flying Club Breakfast Fly-In

On a freezing cold Saturday morning more than sixty pilots made their way to Brits Airfield for yet another wonderful fly-in in the bush-veld. Brits Flying Club went all from the friendly greeting followed by a much needed steaming cup of coffee to the wonderful breakfast they sold at a price you couldn’t prepare a spared close to at home.

Breakfast being prepared

The cold didn’t bother anyone too long as they could stand around the “Kompas Braai” which is built by the Microlight pilots of Brits Flying Club and is orientated “True North”. The Braai was first used in August 2013 when the EAA hosted their National Convention at Brits Flying Club. The braai is now also being used to raise funds for more comfortable tables and bench sets for the lawn in front of the clubhouse. Anyone interested can make a donation and a “brick” will be made with your name and aircraft registration this brick will then be immortalised against the side of the “Kompas Braai”, so far two Bench sets have been purchased by selling brick.

“Kompas Braai”

Pilots arrived from far and wide some as far as Groblersdal and Potchefstroom, the EAA chapter 322 as always supported Brits Flying Club with many of their members making their way to this very friendly flying club.

The largest and possibly the fastest visitor on the day was a beautiful Piper Meridian (ZS-SPD) this registration used to belong to South African Airways Boeing 747 SP “Majuba” which must had brought back many memories for the retired Airways Captain Karl Jensen who had flown across from his home base at Fly-Inn Estate in his stunning Cessna 170.

Piper Meridian

Cessna 170

Brits Fly-ins always seem to be very social, pilots and pax seem to spend more time just sitting and enjoying good company where they would normally eat and fly out soon after breakfast. As a result of this the apron was pretty packed most of the day with people catching up on hangar talk with old friends.

Johan one of the local club members took a couple for a flight and little did the young lady know that her life was about to change on that flight, her now fiancé proposed during the flight and judging by her smile when she landed she definitely said “YES”. Congratulations Chanél and Hennie may you have a lifetime of happiness.

Chanél and Hennie

Alan Evan-Hanes arrived in a very special brand new Jabiru, this little machine was the prize in this year’s Dennis Jankelow & Associates aircraft raffle, the aircraft was won by Mark Fouche, Mark currently resides in Pemba in Mozambique and I have no doubt he will enjoy this magnificent aircraft.

Jabiru ZU-IKI

A definite highlight of the day for me was seeing the Evans Volksplane VP-1 go out for a short test flight, this tiny single seater was designed by William Samuel Evans an aeronautical engineer who worked at Convair, Ryan Aircraft and General Dynamics. The Evans VP-1 first flew in 1963 it is remarkably economical to maintain and fly with an hourly cost of less than R300 and your annual MPI will put you back in the vicinity of R1700. This particular VP has less than 200 hours total time.

Evans Volksplane VP-1

The rotarwing component of this fly-in was made up of two Magni Gyros and an ex SAAF Alouette III, The Alo always draws a lot of attention which is very understandable as it was one of the SAAF Bush War Icons and many of the visitors spent some time in them many years ago.

Magni Gyros

Alouette III

After a wonderful day all the visitors headed off to their respective home bases, hopefully with happy hearts after such a wonderful day which was reminiscent of the “Old Days” of flying clubs where the social side of things was every bit as important as the flying.