By Andre Venter
I arrived at a cold and windy Krugersdorp Airfield for the latest edition of the Krugersdorp Spot Landing Competition, the cold and windy conditions seem to always accompany this event I can not remember one spot landing contest that was flown in ideal conditions. Fortunately, vendors were already set up the coffee vendor proved particularly popular.
As always the good people from KFC had pulled out all the stops to make the day as successful as possible, starting with a wonderful breakfast spread in the very warm clubhouse. I jumped in the queue and while enjoying my breakfast I noticed Dale de Klerk from Alpi Aviation SA moving his aircraft out of his hangar one of them being the interesting little Cvetkovic CA61.
Francois Tolmay the chairman of Krugersdorp Flying Club welcomed everyone and gave a short briefing on the competition rules and format, before introducing Charles Prately, who was the safety officer for the day, Charles briefed everyone on the safety procedures for the competition.
Steve George, volunteered to take control of all things air-side by manning the tower and Rob Nilius took up his role as ground controller making sure the groups of entrants took off at the allotted times. Once all the formalities were taken care of it was time for the first of seven groups of 3 aircraft to get airborne, the wind favoured runway 08 early in the morning but later changed to 26 which made things way more interesting for the spectators at the clubhouse.
Dale de Klerk took part in no less than five different aircraft everything from an Ikarus to his beautiful little Cvetkovic. He was joined by many of his students, competitions like this definitely enhance the pilot's abilities and students should be encouraged to partake whenever possible.
While the results were being calculated, Steve George and Ryno Coetzer kept the spectators entertained with a few formation fly-bys in their stunning Navions.
During the morning Helivate Helicopter Services offered flips in their ex SAAF Alouette III close to thirty passengers were treated to a flight in one of the best helicopters ever built.
The competitors and spectators were all called to the clubhouse for the prize-giving ceremony, it must be added that the prize sponsors really made an effort to make this a memorable year with wonderful prizes on offer.
The greaser award for the smoothest landing went to Marie Reddy in her Ikarus C-42
Dale de Klerk took overall first place with a wonderful score of only 7 points, followed by Johan Nell and Mario Anderson in a second-place tie on 13 points. The third place belonged to Marie Reddy with a very respectable total of 20 points.
Francois Tolmay thanked Nandi Foxcroft and her team for their tireless dedication to the club and all the events they host, The sponsors were also thanked for their ongoing support without their generosity events like this would not have the appeal they do.
Comments