Newsletter South Africa

Christmas issue

Cato Ridge To Plettenburg Bay Coastal Gyro Flight Story by: Billie Jennings. Pilot and MAGNIficient flying machine owner Arthur Gemperle. Billie has had a passion for flying since birth, and funny enough his birth sign animal is an Eagle!. Billie met Arthur three years ago at a paragliding venue and the two of them have been paragliding to-gether ever since. Billie’s longest cross country flight in the para-glider has been a distance of 40km. Billie recons that Arthur’s love and knowledge of the skies makes him a good friend, they often joke by saying the nights are to long as they cant wait to be in the sky again. Arthur is a good friend of mine and a very competent Gyro Pilot, we have had some fun times together especially on our Kruger National Park walk a few years back. Ed See pilot profile on page 9 The excitement built up the night before as we performed a weigh in session, our all up weight including the Gyro and 10 liters addi-tional fuel was 520 kg, while the Gyro all up maximum permissi-ble weight is 550 kg. We took off at Cato Ridge air strip 07H15 Tuesday 23rd Septem-ber 03, fully fueled except for the 2 additional tanks, on a long awaited and well planned trip to Plettenburg Bay in one day, a total GPS route length of 915 km . Arthur and myself had never been on such a long Gyro trip before, but we had planned it well and were prepared to sleep where we landed if need be so. It was extremely cold in the Cato Ridge *Photo 1* area, and I was glad that I had a flight suit and a balaclava which covered my whole head and neck. I, being the camera man and navigator, also had a GPS. It was strapped to my leg from which I confirmed our direc-tion. The first leg consisted of inland flying, mainly over sugar cane farms *Photo 2* , a total leg length of 131.8 km (our distance traveled was 141 km). At Margate *Photo 3* Air Port we refueled the Gyro plus the two additional 5 liter tanks with aviation fuel. Our next stop was Trennerys at the Qolora River Mouth, 6 km be-fore Kei River Mouth. The flight along the Wild Coast was out-standing with many surprises right from when we crossed the Mtamvuna River which separates Kwazulu Natal from the Transkei. It’s amazing how the landscape and sea colour can change so drastically in such a short space. Soon after that, 40 to 60 meter cliffs form the coast line with rock formations that are very spec-tacular, there is even waterfalls that are 30-40m that drop straight into the sea! *Photo 4*

Editor Enjoy this bumper issue all you aviators, and may we take the opportunity of wishing all, a Merry Xmas, a wonderful festive season and a prosperous 2004. My Email address is kevin@ade.co.za

I never knew such things existed on our coast line. We were so privileged to be able to see such scenes as not even boats or backpackers could acknowledge this to their full glory. We cir-cled to film and take photos only to be forgotten in time! Just fur-ther on we spotted the first whale, I had never seen a whale be-fore so we ventured out to circle and film the specimen, only to be spotted by it, then it sank down to deeper water. I spotted and photographed fishing spots where my dad and myself had fished years earlier just south of Port St. Johns. The Hole In The Wall *Photo 5* is also something to witness, so we circled and photographed here too. Trennerys was our next turn point 267 km from Margate (We traveled 301 km) as it was supposed to have the fuel grade we were looking for (95 octane) in the area. The grass air strip was very bumpy, a cutting in the beach shrub where the locals’ live stock graze. With the help of the willing locals we were only offered 97 octane fuel. Now we were grate-ful that we had the extra 10 liters of fuel which gave us an extra 30 min of flight on top of the fuel that was left in the tank. Our next planned stop was Port Alfred Airport but as we could not fill the tank in Trennerys we were forced to make our next stop East London Air Port, 72 km away. Near Trennerys we spotted the spectacular shipwreck of the Jacaranda *Photo 6* which sank in 1917 amazingly still with bow and mast above the water. East London was a big learning curve for us both as Arthur had never landed at such a big airport before. Here we were queued in amongst the Boeing 737s! *Photo 7* And were waved into our parking bay with battens as were the big aircraft! We here refu-eled and asked for special permission to be able to use the sec-tion of runway “one-one” right in front of the tower as we would taxi for ages to the end of that runway! Once we were off the ground and on our way to Progress we were happy, as East Lon-don was too official for this type of outing! Port Alfred was our next turn point but seeing we were forced to land in East London we bypassed it and viewed the famous Port Alfred Marina in-stead. *Photo 8*

Groups of whales were spotted more and more frequently the further we traveled down the coast, and finally we lost count as time was also running out. The coast line suddenly changed drastically once again, it now become as we called it, “Little Na-mibia”! *Photo 9, 10 & 11* The sand dunes are so long and wide, if we had to use our emergency runway, the beach.... We would have literally have to walk for days!! As Port Elizabeth air space neared, we ventured inland toward an air strip called Progress our next turn point 249 km from East London (We traveled 272 km), it’s a flight school where students become pilots. It’s a busy little grass runway so we queued and then landed on runway “one-zero” so as to refuel again. The in-terest shown here was amazing, as at times there must have been about 20 students around, all trying to ask some or other ques-tion! *Photo 12* The amazement on their faces was outstanding when we mentioned that we had flown from Cato Ridge and even more so when we mentioned our destination was Plettenburg Bay before dark! Delay at runways was our biggest enemy of time, and by now we realized that we had to make haste if we were to make it to Plettenburg Bay, 191 km away, before sun down. So we were soon above the N2 highway heading toward Plettenburg Bay. Now we faced the setting sun, the glare was tremendous, our eyes were sore and the salt from the sea on the windscreens made it impossible to see anything in front of us! We literally flew the Gyro by watching the N2 on our right hand side! John Larter, a Bush Baby *Photo 13* and Micro light Pilot, met us 30 km from Plettenburg Bay, above the Storms River Bridge *Photo 14*. He then escorted us into the Plettenburg Bay runway at twilight, it was 18H15 when we landed... Tired, safe and very happy with our achievement, *Photo 15* a total dis-tance of 1020 km in 8 hours air time. By the next morning we couldn’t wait to be in the sky again! So we decided to visit all the paragliding sites, where we had flown 8 months earlier, along the coast toward the city of George. The Cape Garden Route here is very beautiful and it’s a must to see. Later the afternoon Arthur and John went for a flip together in and around Plettenburg Bay, site seeing, landing and meeting different pilots. They even landed on Stanley Island *Photo 16* where they met a glider pilot with the name of Barry Bek.

He offered us accommodation on the island for our last night, so we booked out of the bed and breakfast the next day and moved onto the island. We landed on the island after a beautiful high altitude (8000 ft) *Photo 17* flight up into the Outeniqua Mountains and along the N9. We planned the trip back over 2 days as we expected a bit of head wind.... And head wind we got!! Our total leg dis-tance was 532 km via Cape St. Francis, Progress and our destination was Wavecrest very near Kei River Mouth. Within 30 km of our first leg we started to get a bit of head wind so we ventured inland away from the coastline toward Storms River Bridge, there too it was turbulent with head-wind next to the mountains. At one stage we were therma-ling and gaining altitude by 5 m/s! At one stage our ground speed was 55 km/hr and our headwind was 80 km/hr!! Cape St.Francis is a beautiful smooth grass runway and we even found another Magni Gyro there! *Photo 18* Finally we arrived in Port Alfred where we decided to stay over, 190 km short of our target, due to high head winds and tur-bulence. The next day we again enjoyed the Transkei coast, this time landing at Port St. Johns. The air field there is on top of a mountain and the start of the runway is a cliff overlooking the Mzimvubu River *Photo 19*. It is quite an effect to pre-cede with a final approach toward a shear rock cliff! Here we emptied our extra fuel into the Gyro tank to give us only 55 liters to get home! We could have made Margate our next refuel stop but we proceeded to Cato Ridge only to have out flown the cold front and our tail winds and into the warm front and head wind. The temperature in the cold front at 1000 feet was 18 degrees while the temperature in the warm front at 3000 feet rose to 34 degrees! The head wind increased as we ascended inland and our 3 fuel in-struments coincided that the fuel level was low. So we landed at a private airfield 60 km from Cato Ridge to dou-ble check the instruments. They were spot on, we had only 17.5 liters left. With some small calculations we knew we would make it. We landed at Cato Ridge with only 5 liters to spare.... short but safe after an all up distance of 2500 km in 5 days. It was a fantastic trip with some remarkable views I have ever seen. I was privileged to be able to join Arthur Gemperle as co-pilot and camera man. It was truly a lifetime experience.

Contact Butch or Tony at Benny’s Mica Hardware

Phone +27 11 753 2261/2/3 Fax +27 11 754 1115

Email gyrosa@mweb.co.za

Postcards from Italy Magni Day 13—14 September 2003 By Sonja Viviani

If you ask to somebody that has joined us at least once “Magni’s Day, what’s that?” probably the answer will be something as “ Two days of gyro-fun & flying in September in Italy, with Italian end–of-summer weather, Italian food & vine, Italian atmosphere and Italian gyros!” … “ If you’re a gyro-passionate you should make it at least once!”. Asking then “ ... and this year, how has it been?” Well, I hope that the answer would be “ Even more than that!”. So let’s talk of this “more”!

First of all where: The traditional location in Spessa Po has been changed; this year Magni’s Day has been held in Cameri (NO) a Military Air-port. So in-stead of the flat land we has the Alps as frame to our flights, instead of the Po the Ticino river, no grass strip but a

standard airport with all the space that this means (…. Just think that we’ve used taxiways as runways!). But that’s just a part of the matter … the truly important thing is that it has been held there thank to the cooperation of the Italian Air Force for this year event. 2003 has been an important year for Aeronautics- 100 years since Wright brothers’ flight, 80 from Cierva invention of the gyroplane and 80 since the creation of Italian Air Force – both Ital-ian Air Force and us we wanted to have an “adequate” edition!

2) The number of gyroplanes: have you ever seen 55 gyroplanes (53 Magni and 2 others) all lined up together? Add to this 9 light helicopters and you’ll get more than 100 mt. of flight line. This was what faced the hangar this year at Magni’s Day. Gyroplanes started to arrive on Friday afternoon and it has been truly something of strange and exiting to see them finding their place and park one next the other.

3) Flying: people are used to fly a lot during Magni’s Day, usually, one can hear gyro noise even at lunch time and looking the sky you can always see some coloured spots. This year there were 8 gyroplanes at disposals for rides, and they’ve been kept busy for the two days and at least 5 to 10 gyroplanes were in the air at the same time too. Vit-torio has been kept busy for two days on flight line supervising traffic. PILOTS were sharing the same air with pilots: the Lieutenant General Giulio Mainini of the Operational Air Com-mand and Combined Air Operation Centre Five was there as anxious to fly and as happy as the other “standard” gyro pilots! More than 300 rides to visitors, more than 1000 flights, a fuel consumption of approx 2000 lt., all this with 0 problems.

4) Static display: gyroplane old models are quite common to see but have you ever seen an original CIERVA C-30 autogiro? Thanks to the Science and Technology Museum of Milan we’ve got even this, the only one existing in Italy. Aside of this big father there were Vittorio’s first Bensen, the M4, the MT 5 and the latest M21-Aurora. Some panels has been then fixed in the hangar so to complete the history of the gyroplane and of the Magni range

of gyroplanes. Further more the usual infor-mation desk, with Magni’s Day gadgets, was sided by other stands: Global Eagle Expedition – the attempt of circumnavigate the globe with a Magni M16; Icaro Mo-tori –Rotax Italian importer; Magni– motorbikes.

5) The team: this year “orange-overalls” were not the only ref-erence point, Colonel Dino Fabbri, commander of the base of Cameri, and his staff has been a great help to make this edition so successful.

6) Ceremonies: If Saturday night banquet with award ceremony is a tradition, this year we’ve got some specials too: flowers (sorry … a flow-ered gyro) has been put at the mem-ory of aviators. A visit to the Museum was the natural consequence that most of the visitors appreciated. The award ceremony has been longer, that’s true, but for a good reason, right after Vittorio’s welcome, Lieu-tenant General Giulio Mainini of the Operational Air Command and Com-bined Air Operation Centre Five spoke underlining how flight is a common passion that all the involved people share and stating that he hopes that Cameri will become a tra-dition for Magni’s Day. Colonel Dino Fabbri, commander of Cameri, gave his short welcome speech too. Both have become honorary members of our Italian Gyro Club (CIA- Club Itali-ano Autogiro) and General Mainini accepted to become the honorary president of the Club (he promised to

“protect” us too!). Gyro-pilots, agents, people that flow over half Europe to join us and old friends has been recognised for their contribution. The “spoken” part of the evening party has been ended up with a toast “as Italian Air Force pilots are used to …………….. …. GHEREGHEGHEZ

By Sonja Viviani

Cessna Pilots embark on a 22,000 Kilometer journey and a to-tal flying time of 74 hours across Africa to Europe. If you readers can recall in my last newsletter, I dedicated my article, “History of Gyro” to my friend Guido Warnecke an adventuress German. Guido and fellow Pilot Guenter Schmitz have just returned from a marathon journey in a single engine Cessna 210 turbo. Here are a few interesting facts: 1. A ferry tank of 470 litres has to be fitted in place of the back seats. (Pic1) 2. The highest flight level for the journey was when a climb to 21,000 feet was

required to avoid a dust storm over Egypt. (Pic 3) 3. A non stop sea crossing of 8:30h was flown to cross Continents 4. The longest non stop leg for the journey was from Nairobi to Lanseria South

Africa, a distance of 3120km and a flying time of 10:24h. 5. Maximum ground speed 228 knots or 425 kph The Journey started from Lanseria Johannesburg South Africa in October 2003. The first leg of the journey was from Lanseria to Zanzibar a distance of 2500Km and a flying time of 8:36h . The next leg was from Zanzibar to Addis Ababa a distance of 1800km and a flying time of 6:30h. The third leg was from Addis Ababa to Alexandria this leg was a distance of 2950km and a flying time of 9:54. The forth leg was the leg where they the pilots left our continent and did a sea crossing to Europe of 2170km, and a flying time of 8:30h to Portoroz in Slovenia. The next leg of the journey was from Portoroz to Riechelsheim near Frankfort Ger-many a distance of 730km and a flying time of 3h and a well deserved rest. On the return leg it was Riechelsheim to Egelsbach airport in Germany for a oil change, a leg that I have flown with Guido a few years back in a Cessna 182 and spectacular flying over the Black Forest and along the Rhine River, and then from there back to Portoroz. From Portoroz to Iraklion in Crete a distance of 1550km and a flying time of 4:42h . The next leg was from Crete to Luxor in Egypt a distance of 1380km and a flying time of 4:18h. Next stop was Addis Ababa a distance of 2100km and a flying time of 7:24h. The second last leg was from Addis Ababa to Nairobi was a distance of 1180km and a flying time of 4:06h. The last leg of the journey was the longest, from Nairobi direct Lanseria Johannesburg and a whop-ping distance of 3120km and a non stop flight of 10:24h. Pic 4 is of the pyramids in Egypt, pic 5 somewhere over the Mediterranean Ocean And last but not least bottom Pic is of our two Crazy German Pilots, Guido on the right and Guenter.

Pilot Profile Arthur Gemperle I Am 53 years old & have been a retired mechanical engineer for the past 10 years. I thought that water sports (water skiing , scuba diving & wind surfacing) would be the only ultimate sport for me, but until I discovered that to be in the

air is even more exciting. I always enjoyed to be where mankind is not sup-posed to be. Now I spend my life enjoying aviation to the fullest. I have been paragliding for 6 years The total in the first 3 years was about 1000 flights. Thereafter I had a complete hip replacement due to wear & tear from a car ac-cident 20 years ago. Eight months later I began paragliding again. I then de-cided to look for something where I could land on wheels & not my feet any-more. The gyrocopter became the ultimate alternative. I still enjoy paragliding as a quite way of flying. 6 years later I have 1300 flights & 1100 hours in the air. I flew the gyrocopter for two & half years & I have 460 hours in the air. I know Billie for 3 years & we only used to fly paragliders together . But now he enjoys the Gyro very much & became my best co-pilot beside my fiancée Roshni who still has the woman's altitude record of 16000 ft to my knowledge. Our trip to the Cape was a short notice decision after the much looked forward to Namibia trip which was unfortunately postponed , never less the trip to the Cape was in-credible with similar sceneries like Namibia.

Magni in New Zealand by Butch Brown Butch and Eric are quite the jet setters, I wonder which country will be next on their list for Magni Gyro sales, commission-ing and training?. You guys seem to have had a really good time Butch. Ed When Stephen placed his order for a Magni M16-2000 I was ecstatic that we would have a Magni in NZ. Without much ado I arranged to go across to commission the plane and get Eric to do the conversion to a Magni for Stephen’s instruc-tor. After a few months of waiting for Stephen Chubb’s M16 to arrive in NZ, the day finally arrived for Eric and myself to board a long haul Quantas flight to Sydney and onward to Auckland. We were very happy indeed to walk on terra firma again and meet our new friend, Stephen. Stephen booked us into a nice motel in Auckland. After a lot of gyro-chat we eventually turned in around 2 am. If I re-member correctly we were up around 0630 again to start our drive down to Hawera. The trip took approx. 5 hrs and took us through a number of towns and small cities. Hawera is situated on the west coast of North Island. The town owes its continued existence to the dairy industry. During our stay Stephen took us on a sight seeing tour of the area which included one of the largest milk product factories in the world. The factory has its own electricity generator that is connected to the national grid. At off-peak times the milk factory feeds its excess electricity into the grid. Leaving the SA highveld behind and arriving in an ocean of green was awesome. The Hawera Airfield runways looked better than the best lawns here. We also learnt that the farmers fertilize their pastures using specially adapted crop dusting planes. Once booked into our motel in Hawera and getting something to eat we set about the task of getting our human clocks re-set. Well this took about three days as we wanted to sleep during the day and rev it up at night. We spent the next day or so getting Steve’s plane operational. During this time we met Gary, a local farmer and gyroplane instructor. Gary checked our credentials and obliged us with a NZ gyroplane rating. With the formalities taken care of I headed off to the runway to get Steve’s beautiful two tone M16 into the air to stretch its wings in its new home. Then it was our turn

to fly with Gary and do the type rating with him. Eric spent some time with him, showing what the Magni is all about and imparting the basic techniques we use in our training. This was followed by myself and Gary doing the “patter” bit, and concentrating on the “power off” approaches. Gary took to the Magni like a duck to water and after a little more time with Eric and some solo became the first Magni instructor in NZ. We visited Gary and his family on their farm, to dis-cover that he and many others fly and build gyros in NZ. Gary owns and flies a Dominator and his building another in his workshop. Needless to say he has his own strip and his friends gather there to fly their ma-chines. Seems like farmers all over are the hospitable type. Gary and his lovely wife invited us to dinner and then to lunch the following day.

Something that really caught my interest was a helicopter type contraption in the garden. Turns out it’s a “boom-helicopter” with cyclic, collective and throttle. The whole lot is powered by a Honda Big Red three wheeler 200cc engine. The chopper is attached to a long steel boom and pivoted. It sports a counter balance on the opposite end of the boom enabling the diminutive Honda engine to get the heli airborne with two adults aboard.

Looking around Gary’s farm and being a bit of a “country-bumpkin” myself I couldn’t help thinking what a fantastic lifestyle this is for kids to grow up in. The picture was complete when meeting Gary’s two sons. We duly received some “chopper” instruction from one of the boys and had great fun trying to “fly” the “heli”. I believe the next generation “boom helicopter” is in progress. We spent the remaining days dodging the weather and getting Stephen into his gyro. This proved difficult at times as Stephen being of average build would normally fit into the Magni with ease, but fitting in his broad smile every time was tough. Saturday 21 September dawned and Steve had arranged an open day for friends and gyronaughts to experience the Magni. Some had phoned in earlier to find out if the “show” was still on as it had been raining intermittently for days with wind speeds of 40-60 mph. Steve’s matter-of-fact reply went something like “ Sure, I’m busy receiving training” We did some flipping for those that wanted to go and overheard one of the gyronaughts proclaim that he wouldn’t even think of going to the airfield with winds like this, never mind flying. We really had a great day. The next morning Stephen offered his plane to us to do a little sight-seeing. We headed north-east to Stratford which is about 20 miles from Hawera. We routed parallel to the coast to avoid some weather and then headed for Stratford. Stratford is reasonably busy over weekends and has a gliding club. Around 5 miles out I called Stratford traffic and was astounded to hear some foreign language reply. After some careful monitoring of the frequency I realized that it must be Newzealandic, something that resembles English. After a few more exchanges we joined over head and joined the pattern. We chatted to some people for a while and then decided to head back to Hawera as the weather was closing in fast. We took off and headed south-east with a hope of getting around the weather. Our quick NZ met. leason. No go home today. Back to Stratford at max. cruise to land and park the gyro in a hangar before the rain came down. Fortunately one of the fel-lows we had met the previous day at the open day was the tug pilot for the gliders. We managed to bum a lift back to Haw-era with him in his car. Now Steven and his gyro were parted. The solution to this was that he extended his offer that we continue our tour the following day. He drove us up to Stratford the following morning. The skies were incredibly clear and off we set around the local volcano, Mt. Taranaki. The flight back to Hawera took about 1hr 15 min. We arrived back at the airfield with ivories flashing. (Eric’s got a brand new set) Thanks to Steve, Gary & family and all the great people we met in NZ. Butch.

Gyro goodies and gadgets MAST FAIRING Butch now has mast fairings in stock for your Christmas wish list, get your order in while stocks last. SLIPPER CLUTCH FOR ROTAX 914’s Following discussions with Aviation Engines, we consider that fitting a slipper clutch in the reduction gearbox has some very positive benefits. The most important being the protection of the crankshaft in case of a prop strike. The slipper clutch also allows the engine to run smoother. The price for the slipper clutch installed is R5620.00 inclusive of VAT. This will be done by Aviation Engines within a radius of 50KM from their premises. Additional traveling will be charged for. The price does not include any additional work and must be paid on completion of the installation. Please contact Niren at Aviation on 011 455 4203 We have made our premises available to those that are further away. Please contact me if you wish to avail of this service.

New arrivals We expect 4X M16's to arrive within a week or so for: Hannes Wessels Basie Wessels Johan Muller Peet Thuynsma. The next shipment should arrive end of January 2004 Piet Wessels Jonathan Mylrea We then have two more arriving end February 2004. Undisclosed Available for someone’s wish list

Safety The Silly Season is upon us guys. Please make sure your plane is airworthy and all services are performed in accordance with the Maintenance Schedules. DON'T TAKE SHORT CUTS. PLEASE OBSERVE ALL THE RULES. Invariably a fantastic holiday is spoilt by an event that could easily be avoided. Remember the golden rule IF IN DOUBT, THERE'S NO DOUBT. Don't do anything that your are not absolutely sure are within your and the aircraft's capabilities. FLYING SAFELY IS ABOUT ATTITUDE.

Congratulations!!!!!! Kevin received a Award for Airmanship from the AERO CLUB OF SA recently at the annual awards dinner for helping a biker and a microlight pilot that had been injured (two different incidents) on route to Namibia. He has also lead many "Safaris" to remote regions of the sub continent. A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO KEVIN & LAURA FOR THEIR CONTIBUTION TO GYRO FLYING - Butch

Contact Butch or Tony at Benny’s Mica Hardware

Phone +27 11 753 2261/2/3 Fax +27 11 754 1115

Email gyrosa@mweb.co.za

Agents for Magni Gyro ' s

AUSTRALIA, AFRICA, MADIGASCAR

and NEW ZEALAND.

South Africa