By Charles Hugo
Photos By Timothy Homan, Fiona Hugo, Trevor Cohen, Dian Townsend and Charles Hugo
The final airshow of the 2024 season was held on a late October weekend. This was the second event held at Wonderboom this year, unlike the SACAA event, which was open to the public. And the public arrived in droves, in fact, pre-show ticket sales had reached 6500 by Friday night. On the day arrivals took this figure even higher, attendance was so great that the gates had to be closed due to capacity crowd limits.
The day dawned and all indications were that we were in for a scorcher of a day with temperatures forecast to be in the mid to high 30deg Celsius range, as well as a full action-packed lineup of displays. And yes, we got both.
Skydivers are the traditional act to open an airshow but this was with a difference. Although the Alouette III did take to the skies with three members of the Pretoria skydiving club aboard the first skydivers were radio-controlled versions. This was followed by the traditional human versions who demonstrated the skill and precision of landing close to the crowd line.
The Puma Energy Flying Lions team, led by Ellis Levin performed their display with Scully Levin adding to the commentary with Arnie Meneghilli’s back story and the reason for the Flying Lion's name.
This was followed by the R/C modelling display with young Josh once again wowing the crowd with his mastery and skill in flying his scale Extra, it is incredible the manoeuvres he executes. Unfortunately, Darryl Tarr’s Hawk aircraft went technical and did not fly. This disappointment was soon replaced with the arrival of the Gripen fighter from the SAAF.
The Goodyear Eagles then arrived in a 4-ship formation. Sally Fleck slotted into the number 4 position for the formation displays before breaking away for her solo display. It is great to see Sally back in the air again. We were treated to a crazy flying display with a difference at this show. A Gazelle helicopter was “stolen” and then flown with great abandon, rest assured Juba knows how to handle a helicopter. Scully Levin then displayed the Cirrus SR-22.
Jason Beamish and Nigel Hopkins in their MasterPower sponsored Extra 330’s performed their high-energy display before the locally (Wonderboom Airport) built Paramount Mwari took to the skies. Historic SAAF helicopters from the SAAF museum performed a duo aerial ballet before Trevor Warner, who had led the Goodyear Eagles earlier returned with Van’s RV raptor display team.
Airlink, a leading South African airline have been a great supporter of airshows in recent years and Wonderboom had them returned with their immaculate, black-liveried Embraer E-195 airliner. A short, simulated recovery of a highjacked vehicle by the Telematix (Henley air) team led into Andrew Blackwood-Murray in his Nashua-sponsored Extra high energy solo display.
A new routine then took place, The North American Trainer Formation consisting of an immaculately restored T-6 Harvard, flown by Dion Raath leading the Aircraft Inc Navion team for a series of formation flypasts before the Navion’s formation display. Dion was supposed to follow this but as the SAAF Gripen’s display flown by Lt Col Eddie "Sypher" Seeco was scheduled. Upon the Gripen's completion, Dion returned for his display.
Andre van Zyl, who travels all over South Africa with his Magni-gyro performed his solo show before Juba Joubert joined him for a dissimilar aircraft formation display before Juba performed his display in the Alouette III. The Puma Energy Flying Lions closed off a successful airshow.
The jury is out
Hot FM were the commentators for this event, while their experience at airshow commentating is not under dispute, the quality of the sound system (theatre grade) was excellent they do not (as yet) have the broad in-depth knowledge of the more established airshow commentator. This can be overcome but needs input from the display pilots who need to provide their routines and details to the commentators. The “specialist commentators” (read studio guests) provided limited insight and interesting background information but the whole day had a “radio” station feel to it. As always, the ASSA kept the displays flowing with as few dead periods as possible.
Another major detraction to the attendees is “I did not find a disabled parking area and was forced by the parking attendants to park far away”, whilst not a major issue I can imagine how a seriously disabled person would have had difficulty. Wonderboom Airport has only one access road and this does cause long delays, reports of up to 2 hours in the traffic queue were made as well as entry through the controlled access point (only one) also caused delays. Something the organisers will need to address in future.
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