TOSS Blog

Not wanting to do the great trans peninsula trek on Saturday,
Brendan and myself headed to Signal Hill for what promised to be light conditions.
With the anti gravitational devices firmly active on our Sky Climbers we had a ball in the light conditions.
Up we went... and down we went... depending on just which part of the lift versus sink cycle you were on.
With the whole of Table bay shrouded in mist, the hill was still open,
although the inversion created some interesting bump in flight characteristics.
After telling Mally not to bother coming through... conditions predictably began to improve...
and with Bobby Purnell on hand we started have a really good late
afternoon session from about 3:30 onwards with cool and solid lift out of the SSW.
So sorry Mally, in the end it did come good and we flew till sunset more or less,
while other individuals managed to park a rather large fishing boat
on Clifton's pristine beach, in the same aforementioned foggy morning conditions.
Jeez, what some people do for kicks!

What a perfect evening by the seaside

Just the minor issue of a great whopping trawler in your front yard!

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Guys,

Last Sunday(6/5/2012) was almost perfect at Redd Hill and later Slangkop.Conditions, light but smooth.It was Steve,Bill Damian and myself.

I had the opportinity to fly the HANSKA with all its  new flight modes and even butterflying at the landing.It was great.I even did my firts spin.The landing was OK.Just a little bit to deep into a bush and had to do repair work on the rudder.

I notce that the photo's on the blogg is out of perportion.

Schalk

 

All forecasts got it more or less right this time around.
Three frontal systems stacked up one behind the other,
blew the cobwebs out of the Chapman's Peak site for 3 days in a row.
Unrelenting and at times vicious the slope crew flew themselves to a standstill.
Friday, read public holiday, dawned to the rustle of the palm tree as the storms gathered
on the horizon and Chappies started to light up with moderate, stable and solid lift.
Just a beautiful day had by all who made the trip, between the Black Eagles,
crows and all manner of flying machines. 5 hours later and down the hill we went,
just to repeat the same process on Saturday to strong and gusty conditions
that eventually led to overnight rain. Sunday was a replay once more, however
the lift was just ballistic, smooth and about the best Chappies can get.
Yesterday the mother of all fronts arrived finally and we got as wet as can be,
and this morning there's nary a fart
So some of us old sods (read Mally, Kev, Noel as prime suspects ,
Ryan, Brendan, Rob, Jeff, Lionel and Grahame as the not so guilty parties
and even Steve made a guest appearance) had at up to
15 hours of slope soaring over the three day period.
Talk about sloped out!

I know your probably getting tired of this view, but were not!

Mally and his friend Karel Kraai do a bit of ridge running together

That's pretty darn high up there - think the crow was getting a nose bleed.

Saturdays gusty but awesome conditions

Sunday was just insane, ice cold, and huge dynamic lift that had every
plane screaming like a banshee, while we played pass the radio on the Aldij
which resulted in an hour and a half session - awesome!

 

One of those rather unusual weekends... this is a peninsula after all...
After threatening to be a beaut of a Saturday, an approaching front
decided to take the wind out of the South Easter, just as we got to the front of the slope
and swung a not so elegant Southerly at us
and so we had to trudge all the way back up the hill
and headed off to Kommetjie for the afternoon.
Not to be outdone, Sunday did exactly the same thing, however we were not quite
at Red Hill yet and were able to scarper off to Kommetjie
for some SSW but good lift for the whole afternoon.

One incident for the afternoon was where Bill's Bree wing
got launched into the heavens with the switch off
after landing in the bushes, which then proceeded a good kilometer
down the mountain side in brilliantly perfect trim and
necessitated a somewhat long search and lucky find.
Lesson learnt. Before your "mate" launches you unseen out of the bushes....
just make verbally sure your surfaces are actually working
via a nice old yelling match.

So the Autumn season sets in and we feel the chill in the mornings
but are seriously lacking in the vertical water dropping department
Lets hope those cold fronts get a little bit more steady as we head for June
and the PSS festival - enter now online.

Mally and "that" Aldij, the one that goes on and on and on

Christo, Bill, Noel, Jake and Neal, Mally and myself had a real good Sunday on the slope

 

Hi Guys

Entries open for the Black Eagle Trophy PSS Festival 2012
under the banner above. Be there or be square!
Looks to be a treat this year with some nice toys present and past and new
Lets hope the weather gods favour us as they have done for the last 3 years

 

What a lovely weekends sloping
Friday Chris Leal jets in from JHB, as is his way,
and we end up at a hot and bumpy Signal Hill on the Friday evening.
Not the worst way to end the week I suppose.
Congrats to Bobby for actually putting up the Enyoni in lift/no lift conditions.
Was a real challenge but great fun.
Saturday saw the arrival of the cold front as predicted and
so we headed for Chappies for a real non event day
as the predicted westerly blow refused to arrive, and so we spent the afternoon burning the
volts our of every Lipo we could find in the newly acquired Sky Climbers by Nine Eagles.
These really do fly well in light lift conditions and so the transmitter was handed around
as all and sundry had a go at sloping in real light lift.
Well done to Graham Jackson for actually keeping it up on the slope.
Been so long since we've seen him, thought he might have forgot the technique.
Seems our Chairman's perchance for powered flight might be overcoming his slope tendencies...

Sunday promised better and so delivered better.
As per all predictions the forecasters got it all wrong and a lovely
North Wester hung around for the day. Strong in the morning and lunchtime sessions
we were able to get Aldij's etc up and had a good time on the sticks. By late afternoon
the lift had gone light so out with the Enyoni and sky Climbers once again
and Mally and myself played swop the radio, which proved quite challenging
as you get to take over a new TX and plane simultaneously, (not for the faint hearted)
and Chris just flew the day away till late in the afternoon,
before jetting back to JHB, as is his way.
All in all a great weekend enjoyed by those who chose to venture out.
Christo and the Sky Climber on the west slope when the wind changed
Graham and Christo do the EPO twins thing
Even in dodgy conditions there's fun to be had
Sundays glorious conditions as Mally puts the Aldij through it's paces

Chris mastered the light conditions and had an awesome weekend on the slope

Yup, just another awe filled weekend in the cape!

 

 

OK, so bang on cue we get the first and real cold front of the winter.
Easter Friday delivered the pre-frontal goods with the wind nice and
strong from the North West and the early birds caught the worm
as Brendan was able to really have the vector up and away and
whistling around much better. As the day progressed the wind
did increase but the lift just did not do so at the same time.
In the end a very nice day on the slope had by all,
other than once more being harassed by SANPARKS rangers
for no particular reason and with such arrogance it was hardly believable.
Saturday was wet - just plain wet, with a garden loving down pour
so there was nary a soul on the slope.
Sunday much the same and two intrepid persons headed out to terrible conditions
and headed home not too much later.
Monday went still as a fart, so it was out with the Sky Climber
(an EPO 2m ship that is a lot of fun to fly) and
off to find some slope generated thermals. Had a real good time
with the  spinning anti gravitational device at the front end, getting
one out of trouble when required....

 

And so Eater delivers it's normal pattern
Tomorrow looks awesome with a beaut of a North Wester blowing in so lets make to Chappies lads
Saturday looks to do the traditional Easter rain - amazing how accurate that is
virtually every Easter I can remember is wet and windy...
and so the bunny will get soaked along with the Two Oceans runners,
and then Sunday continues with a smattering of water before
we get to a sunny but cold South Easter Monday.
Just what the doctor ordered!
See you out there if you have not yet escaped the big smoke.

For those who keep up with the Blog you will notice the
blog categories to the top left hand side....
with two build blogs on the go there.
Each  is an individual blog and if Damian will just get us pics of his build,
we could have three build blogs on the go....
What it does mean is that the Black Eagle PSS Festival is very much on the approach
and if you have the time we would be very happy indeed to have you on the slope with us.
In essence and foremost is that this is a PSS FESTIVAL,
and I use the word FESTIVAL in caps because that is the main drive of the event.
Get together and fly PSS planes. Period....and do that over two days with
foamie, correx, glass - you name it- PSS scale aircraft
and we have an event full of fun, laughter and friendship with like minded individuals.
If however you have the need for a competitive side the rules for the
three differing competitive classes are posted above here under
the Black Eagle PSS Festival button.

If the weather plays along this could deliver the best year so far
in terms of scratch build beauties in all three classes just waiting to be maidened on the day!
Man, it's going to be fun. Talking of which, here's some of last years fun.

 

With the change in weather in place we once again
we had a delightful North Wester push through on Saturday
and a wonderful afternoons sloping took place up at Chapman's Peak.
At one stage the cool lift just hit perfection and hinted at the winter
days that will be spent at this awesome site.
A good few lads headed up and between Brendan and the Vector 111
Christo and the Aldij, Rob and Andrew and their collection, Mally and myself with the Impalas
and his Aldij, and Schalk with the warbirds, we had a blast.
The Aldij was coming through something terrible
and just lit up the sky with some serious high speed passes,
from heights we call "Guatemala" because Mally can fly so
bleeding high he could be half way there!

But Sunday was even more of a treat with one of the best Kommetjie days for a very long time.
Cool South Westers caressed the slope and with white horses charging across the sea,
the lift was dynamic and smooth, although landing proved to be a
real challenge as nothing on earth was going to slow down those gliders on that day.
They simply refused to be halted and a few landings were somewhat quicker
than one would have liked, but even a burn to the bottom of the slope
did nary a thing to halt the energy these babies were carrying.

And then enter "Osama", an 11 year old peach skinned lad, accompanied by Dad Niel,
who had gleaned the name "Osama" the previous day at Chappies, when somewhat
heated adult discussions over SAMAA and there role in slope soaring,
had this tiny voice enquire who the hell this "osama" person was
that we were talking about...
Once the fits of laughter had subsided, the name had stuck!

This being their first real ady on the slope we all spent a wee bit of time
setting up their newly aquired BEE wing and it was time for Osama's first lesson.
Now I have had the honour of assisting a few people to learn to slope soar
and thinking that this would take some time I got ready for a good long session.
Not to be it appears. Starting with this tiny individual standing in front of me
between my arms, we went from hands on hand on sticks...
to hands on elbows with gentle taps for directional changes...
to hands off, your on your own mate...
all in less than a mind boggling 45 minutes!

Now you can say what you want, but the PlayStation Generation are just simply unbelievable!
Remembering how many times I had to walk, stumble and bumble
my way around the sky in my own 3 week learning process,
it was just simply brilliant to see the new generation pick up a transmitter,
sans any knowledge and cane the sky into submission in the flash of an eye.
So here's the question....
How do we ensure these new generation kids become
part of the future and take those skills to the next level,
stay within the hobby and become truly great at it?
That's the real challenge.

 

Slangkop, for those of not Afrikaans extraction or understanding, literally translated means Snake Head.
Although a more plausible translation would be "snake hill" as a koppie in Afrikaans
means small mountain/hill...possibly a fair warning to take into consideration
when collecting a glider down the base of the hill. There be snakes in them woods!
But enough of the linguistic gymnastics crossed with geographical positioning
and more about the fantastic slope sessions over the weekend up at Slangkop.
This Autumn spot is one of those dream spots. With a nice vertical face
it takes very little wind to get up a head of steam and
in general produces the most insanely smooth lift, provided we get
the SW or SSW winds that really focus the lift into the bowl.
You can be standing there baking away in the sun and fell nary a breeze on your face
and yet be flying the smoothest lift possible. Just awesome!
and with Autumn now well and truly on the go, the westerlies are starting to push through
and this slope is starting to become a favorite once again.
Saturday produced 25-30km/h winds and although a bit bumpy to start with there was just lift deluxe
and so Brendan, Marc, Mally Christo, Schalk and myself gathered for a sublime
afternoon's slope session. Combat, formation Aldij flights with three up at a time
and then more combat whiled the hours away.
Come Sunday and a repeat performance, this time attended by
Damian as well and formation flying in lighter lift with the Impalas took place.
By the end of the weekend a good few tired and yert happy slopers headed home
with a wee bit of a grin on the face. Roll on winter and the Chappies sessions
which look set to kick off this weekend if the early forecasts are anything to go by.

 

For those that get up somewhat late you may not have
noticed the almost sudden loss of early morning daylight
heralding the approach of winter. As I write there is a 
loverly cool North Wester blowing through... should be on the slope really.
After the TOSS Aertobatics event there was a predictable lull in activity
on the slope as the TOSS guys took a bit of a break from all the practicing.
For those of who ventured out we had a somewhat mixed bag.
A Saturday up at Chappies in light north westers, then a Sunday
up a Signal Hill in an ever changing westerly day, which resulted
in one of the longest walks ever for yours truly...
more or less a 5km round trip to fetch the Impala!
Then last weekend we get our arse blown off Red Hill in 60 km/h winds
leaving you feeling somewhat like a dehydrated crinkle cut chip by the end of the day.
But as winter approaches we will still have those lazy Autumn days as
last Sunday proved where nary a leaf russled in the woods.

Still, that is one of the great joys of slope soaring. It all changes.... all the time.

 

 

I think I am going to start this somewhat backwards...


With a huge kudos going out to mother nature
for once more making an appearance,and this
closely followed by our fantastic sponsors without whom we would never be able to award our
competitors in such a fantastic manner. The Sponsors this year, as before, were were generous beyond belief.
So here are the guys and dolls that we all within the slope community
should really be supporting and as such keeping the slope scene very much alive and well!



Southern Hobbies


Hobby Warehouse


RC Hobby Shop


Anton Benning (AB Models)


Sharklady (http://www.sharklady.co.za/)


AMT


Cape Sailplanes


Traplet Publications

Dixies


InterMet Africa


Dave Greer and Fragram


Russell Conradt


Chris Leal


Kevin Farr


Now back to the action!

Dave Greer and Russell Conradt headed the charge into Cape Town
from Durban and had arrived by Wednesday already to start practicing like the clappers,
and were closely followed by the rest of the Durban crew. We can only thank them immensely for their dedication to slope soaring, in committing 
their time and resources to making this event successful once again.
And so mother nature delivered them two whole days of
intense and perfect South Easters to allow them to come to grips with the
Cape scene once more.
Come the competition morning and the early birds gathered
at Red Hill in the face of 50 km/h South Easters
and the decision was made to move to Smitswinkel Bay
for the day, as it tends to hold the howlers much better.
A brief pilots briefing was held and then the first rounds took place
in near perfect conditions. As the Expert class was up first, the pace
was intense and competition nerves rife, but in all fairness
the level of skills had improved dramatically and the entire class
was far more compressed in terms of scoring than any other previous year.
Next up was the Sportsman's class and enter a dark horse, in the form
of Dave Lentle, previously a Durban resident who now calls the
Cape his home, and who had only entered the night before but has the decided advantage of flying the real thing for a living.
Along with Marc Beckenstrater, these two really took on battle and led the Sportsman's field
in very good lift conditions. Through the 21 pilots partaking in both classes,
the level of skills had improved immensely and the scores were looking close in the top orders of both competitor sets.

Just about lunchtime, the wind did one of those nasty little mood swings
and went a tad southerly, just about enough to destroy the lift. 
As much as Marc Wolfe and myself attempted to get
the second round underway, the lift just simply dissipated and turned nasty.
Steve Meusel led a charge back to Red Hill and called it good, although strong.
Kudos to the entire contestant group, judges, officials, one and all,
who willingly packed it all up and made a run for Red Hill. 


 And yippee was it strong!.. 


 The first round was up and running soonest
 and as the afternoon progressed the wind even ventured to get stronger.
So the rounds went extremely quickly as the gliders were simply pounding
around the sky, screaming like banshies and carrying on much better.
The intense blow back on each move really tested
the pilots at levels they had not required at Smitswinkel Bay
in the somewhat tamer conditions. With round two firmly in the bag and the day waning,
it was decided to retire to the ever present Dixie's and enjoy a cool one or two.

 Sunday was almost a replay of the year before with no wind and hot conditions, 
so we all waited it out at Kommetjie before retiring to Dixies for the prize giving. 
True to form, the scores were really close and in the end. Michel Leusch took the 
honours ahead of Marc Wolffe and Louis Genade in the Expert class,
and Dave Lentle took the honours ahead of Marc Beckenstrater in the Sportsman's class. With all the prizes handed out we closed off one more fantastic event on the Cape slope calendar.

4 years in a row, 4 contests run, what a brilliant achievement one and all!


The Judges - Andrew Anderson, Claude Mackrill and Kurt Mackrill 
- thank you one and all for your time and energy spent up on the judging line. 


Contest Director- the very able Jeff Steffen 
and Safety Marshal-Bill Dewey - thanks for a slick and well run event


The catering team headed by Theunis van Niekerk
Thanks for making sure we were all well fed and looked after once more.


Well done everybody involved and well done Two Oceans Slope Soarers for hosting the event.

Results below:

Sportsman's Class Result
1. 100.00% Dave Lentle 

2. 86.20% Marc Beckenstrater 

3.   83.89% Luke Johnson 

4.   81.58% Dean Halley 

5.   69.54% Anton Benning 

6.   54.20% Mark Phillips 

7.   52.45% Hans van Kamp 

8.   46.78% Schalk Human 

9.   45.24% Noel Cochius 

10.  32.35% Ryan Matchett

11.    9.80% Rudi Smook 


Expert
Class
1. 100.00% Michel Leusch 

2.   93.40% Marc Wolffe

3.   92.81% Louis Genade 

4.   87.27% Kevin Farr 

5.   83.82% Christo Le Roux 

6.   75.29% Steve Meusel 

7.   69.47% Malcolm Riley 

8.   64.78% Dave Greer 

9.   33.00% Russell Conradt

 

More pics to follow...

 

 

 

Put on boots and go for a walk... to make some noise
and that's what 2000 odd souls did yesterday at Chapmans Peak.
Chapman's Peak drive is threatened once more by changes taking place, that
in reality are not appreciated or supported by those in Hout Bay valley and Noordhoek areas.
The biggest worry I personally had was for the threatened removal
of the day passes for those who wanted to have a picnic
/fly a plane/take a run/ride a bike/make out in a car/ on the Hout Bay side of the pass.
A tradition long held and exercised by plenty of local people, without transversing
the entire length of the mountain. All the picnic spots and particularly where
we fly our gliders are on the Hout Bay side and the removal of the day pass
would cost us R 31-00 per direction just to get up to the flying site
on an average winters day. R62-00 for the round trip!
Daylight robbery me thinks!
And so the 2000 made the walk to protest the new tollgate structure,
the proposed building of the Entileni offices on national park land and the day passes issue.
Thanks to the good few TOSSers who pitched up and made a noise
along with the joggers, hikers, cyclists and anybody who uses that area for recreation.
A good way to spend the day, petitions handed over and so nice to make some
democratic noise about things that require change, rather than sitting back
and taking a beating as per usual at the hands of the powerful.

 

Godaarn it's hot.
Last week peaked in the late 30"s virtually the whole week
and out in the winelands we were slapped with 40 odd degree days.
But finally it abated a wee bit on the weekend and
we were able to get some really good time up at Red Hill
practicing for this weekends up and coming TOSS Aerobatics Event 2012.
Hot was not the word as the temp peaked at 30 degrees once again
and you could literally feel the heat coming off the deck and through your shoes
With a record entry of field covering both the Expert and Sportsmans class
this looks to be a good old clash of the Titans in both classes, so roll on the weekend
and the weather and lets have some really good fun.
Some of our Sportsmans guys like Marc and Jeff could well give
a few of the Expert class guys a clap if they wanted to!
Thanks to Dave Greer and Russell Conradt for driving the Durban crew to get here,
and we are so happy to host the 7 souls that will make the journey down here.
Awesome guys, just bleeding awesome!

Notably the half pipe has been a hoot to try and figure out.
Nowhere as easy as it looks and requires some serious energy
to get right. Going to be a few falls from grace if one tries to get a little too clever with it.
Basically 3 center moves and 4 turn around moves make up the routine, which when you add in
1/2 Cuban 8's etc can become somewhat testing to complete and gives the old pip a real test
to link all the relevant moves without tripping up on your own ego...

 

 

 

With just a couple of weeks to go till the TOSS Aero 2012
humping South Eaters should really be the order iof the day. Not so!
Bring on the North Westers for the new year and tweede nuwe jaars days
and lets all haul our kit up to Chapman's Peak for 2 days of North Wester and
near perfect winter conditions. Rain also fell overnight on both days
so the gardens got a good old watering, but this is hardly the fare
as reserved for the traditional summer South Easter thrashing.
With most of the crew gathered for New Years day we had a good few sessions
and much the same to be said for the 2nd which delivered delicious early morning
and lunchtime sessions, before skewing out mid afternoon and then coming
back to perfection later in the day. Some nice aero practice early in the morning of the 2nd
with good few AFC guys on the slope due to Signal Hill being clouded in
and Chapman's Peak remaining open for the day.
All kudos to Mally who managed 3 sessions with the newly repaired
and sparkly Aldij and who in total, must have put in 1 and a 1/2 hours of flight
with that particular glider. Some nice foamie warbird formo practice,
BEE combat and general slope fun had by all.
Damain produced the awesome FW 190 just beautifully presented,
and to think this is just a plastic plane. Awesome!

So on we practice, with the hope that eventually we
will get the south Easters as required, or some of the up country lads
are going to be a bit surprised should we end up at Chappies and
not at the traditional Red Hill for the event.

 

Having just come back from an awesome midday Red Hill session
which eventually went south, but not before a enjoyable 3 hour session,
I am glad to report that the TOSS lads are well and truly practicing for
the TOSS Aerobatics 2012 event in January, which now boasts a record entry
of 25 slopeheads and which whatever way you look at it is just around the corner.
Thanks to a rather large Durban contingent driven to arms by
Dave Greer and Russell Conradt, TOSS is really blessed to be hosting
the premier and only national slope aerobatics contest in the country
....for the 4th year in a row.

Been a bit of an odd summer start though, with a constant
dribble of cold fronts with Westerlies and South Westerlies dominating the scene,
where howling South Eaters should really be pushing through unabated at this stage.
The weekend was a great case for that same proposition.
The public holiday Friday the 16th just stood still and so did the slope boys,
and Saturday followed pretty much suite. Fed up and frustrated looking
at what was supposed to be a light South Westerly on Sunday.
I left the aerobatics plane at home and headed t the slope with
some plastic and little old Chucky for the proposed light conditions.
Meeting Steve, Malcolm, Christo and Lionel at Soetwater it was very quickly clear
that every one of the weather predictions was well and truly out of whack
as a beautiful South Wester pushed through the whole afternoon,
smooth as silk and just awesome flying conditions.
Cursing the age of the internet and immediate and seemingly inaccurate
weather updates we took out the plastic and had the best combat sessions todate,
laughed ourselves silly, flew the built ups for those that actually
bothered to bring them and just generally had an awesome time.
Make mental note! Never leave gliders at home, the Cape is just too
unpredictable to really trust the predictions.
With the holidays well and truly on the go, I just hope we get
more of this to allow for more practice sessions.

What a wonderful day at the Wings and Wheels airshow
Thanks to AFB Ysterplaat for hosting the event
as we have been sadly missing in an airshow since ADD moved north
I'll let the pictures do the talking except to say:

Well done to Marc Wolfe and the boys for putting on a RC display

with the RC jet flown immaculately and well presented
-Grippen is the dogs balls and just rocks - Nice show from "Blokkies" Joubert
-Hawk as always well worth the time...
-Silver Falcons as always brilliant and immaculate...
-Seeing some poor car get trashed from a helicopter drop was stunning
and seeing the petrol heads whip up and down the straight
was a good giggle and in some cases very impressive indeed
....watching the 4x4's get endlessly stuck was real fun.
Overall a wonderful day out and thanks once again to AFB Ysterplaat for a great day
Keep up the good work!

2011 - Virtually a done deal at this stage but still time for
one more event for the slope calendar for the year,
and Hermanus Slope Event 2011 fitted the bill just perfectly.
As always, brilliantly hosted by Atlantic Flying club,
the wind decided to come to the party this year and blessed the crew with
three straight days of slope soaring magic.
As usual the 6:30 am meet up for the TOSS lads at the Engen garage for a stupidly
hot cup of coffee, started the Friday morning off with a bang.
By 8:00 am we were in Hermanus and breakfast at the Wimpy perfectly started
off what promised to be an awesome weekend.
Friday really did deliver the goods with an early Easterly
blowing through, we arrived at the tower to find the Perf boys already on the hill  
and after much meet and greet we relocated back to the tower just in time
for the wind switch. Within the hour we were sloping ourselves to a standstill
in lovely conditions and a full day of fly what you have continued till late in the day.

Highlights included an ecstatic Chris Leal just loving being there,
The Perf lads putting the large scale Correx Mig through its paces,
while filming the entire sequence from just about every possible angle
via a bevy of cameras attached to the beast... and
two Impalas doing some pretty low level formation over the fynbos
and through the font of the slope, while the pilots giggled with glee.
To round off the day, a good meal in town, where oddly enough a large portion of the slope
boys all ended up at the same restaurant at the same time, hacking away at pizza's
and talking kak, just about perfectly rounded off the day....
but a few jack's and a few rounds of lie dice, did in fact round off the perfect day.

A 5am Saturday morning rouse up saw a charge to the lagoon for some
early morning entertainment where Louis Genade gave a nice little demonstration
of what not to do with a powered EPP glider one inch off the deck,
and Nic maidened a beautiful Spitfire acquired from Hans, that flew like a dream
and Jeff collected matchsticks. Due to the the mouth of the lagoon
being open there was a nice balance of dry sand and water, which new slope convert
Tim used to put his Seawind water plane through it's paces.

A breakfast later, at you guessed it, the Wimpy, saw us all back up on the hill
in what was proving to be an ever building SE that just gathered pace at an alarming rate.
By lunchtime the wind was in the 60-80km/h range, making standing
on the font of the slope somewhat uncomfortable, it did however present
the opportunity to put the large warbirds through their paces. First up was Mally
and the large 7 Kilo Impala, followed by myself and the 5 Kilo P38Lightning,
which was joined by Damian and the Mustang for some low level fynbos teasing passes.
Finally Christo and the 7 Kilo P40 Warhawk took to the air and so good were the conditions
that all flew like a dream and landing was just a piece of cake as the wind through the landing
area was so strong that nary a stall was possible. Unfortunately your scribe
was suffering from flu the entire week before and so it came back with a vengeance
forcing an early retirement from the event and a Sunday spent in bed,
rather than on the slope, but by all accounts the conditions remained great
and the guys flew the day to a standstill.

All in all, a well organised event, THANKS AFC... blessed by great conditions,
made up of fantastic camaraderie within the slope communities,
that resulted in an event  that should never really be missed
by anyone who enjoys the spirit and love of slope soaring.
See you next year guys.

 

 

Hermanus right on the doorstep!
Three whole days of slope soaring and general misbehavior
welcomed with open arms, feet and whatever else you have on hand.
To boot the weather looks to be a bomb for the weekend,
with the dreaded easterlies staying away,
and a general afternoon wind push on the cards.
TOSS lads will meet at the guarage on the N2 at 6:30AM on Friday
for those that wish to join the convoy, making sure we get to the Wimpy
in Hermanus for breakfast at 8...

So see you there lads!