TOSS Blog

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!

Hi Guys

Yes it,s official
entries are open for the Aerobatics Competitions in January
Please enter soonest sop we can get all the correct T-Shirt sizes sorted
The PDF with the schedule will be up in the next day
but please enter in the meantime and look so forward to seeing you on a slope nearest to us.

Entry form to be found here:

http://www.toss.co.za/index.php/aerobatics-competition-2012-2/aerobaticscomprtition2

Sometime soon,sooner or later, we will actually get spring,
and even summer....possibly.
After a somewhat dry winter, spring has been a real wet push
with some serious rain pelting through as cold front after cold front
knocks the edges off the Peninsula.
And so we have spent more time in the last few weeks chasing Westerlies, 
to North Westerlies when in fact we should be at Red Hill soaking up the South Easters.
We did try for an aerobatics comp this weekend, after racing out of Hout Bay
on the back of a North Westerly, only to find it was too north for Slangkop
and too west for Chappies. In the end it came good and
we were able to get the league under way only to have the
wind switch to SW and blow the slope out on a cross wind after the first two
guys in the first round had just managed to launch themselves.
So, maddeningly we waited it out, had a blast with virtual standstill/last man
in the air combat, in atrocious cross wind conditions
and "touch and goes: that had the laugh muscles well and truly tuned.

True as Bob, the minute we sent Kurt our judge home,
the west came back and was cooking by the evening
but by then the twilight and reflection off the sea
made orientation a somewhat tricky affair.
Pointy bit up lads!

And rock on Sunday, a day that was not even supposed to have flying conditions
ended up with ever changing Westerlies once again
and so back to Kommetjie we went
and in between rain, and hail storms ( did I say this was spring?)
we managed to have a complete blast with the BEE wings
while dodging the next approaching storm.

Keep an eye out later in the Week for the launch of the
TOSS AEROBATICS EVENT 2011
entries and PDF of the moves and shakes.

 

 

 

 

Well for those that made the trip to Chapman's Peak on Saturday,
it was well worth the while as moderate westerly conditions
held for most of the day and a lot of airtime was had by all.
Noticeably Mally had the Aldij up on three occasions
and as per usual the thing just cruised without a worry,
Tim spent the day airborne, and who was the man who arrived with the Solo.....
sans the wings? aint going to fly like that I can bet.
Schalk arrived with the new club glider project that was built over a 2 build day period,
quite a feat to more or less complete a fuselage glassing, wing bagging,
tail surface creation and apply all together at the second build clinic.
Well done Hans!

Now Schalk took a bit of an ear beating as we convinced him to 
set up the glider on Mally's radio, despite much winging about
the incomplete state of the machine. OK, so one of the flap servo's
had to be taped in place, but due to fact that we were not going
to utilise the flaps for landing, all was well.
So off to the front of the slope we went, lobbed it off
and boy was that a faultless maiden flight.
The thing just flew beautifully straight off the bat!
With the fully symmetrical Vector wing profile performing flawlessly,
even as the conditions lightened up there, was not even a hint of tail drag
and she stayed buoyant throughout the maiden flight.
Landed like a peach to, and so Schalk's grin could be seen from Cairo.
Well done Schalk and Hans and does this look like a possible future club glider.
You bet!

While we were in the car-park nattering away, we were approached by a young German couple,
Malta Grobbel and Anne. Turns out Malta is involved in slope soaring in Germany,
and going through their website does quite a few things in the slope, power and racing scene.
His notable envy at the Chapman's Peak site tells a story
of just how blessed we are to live in something akin to a slope paradise.
Lets never forget that... Malta insist he will be back in SA, with the Erwin that he flies
just to suck up some of the slope scene. Website is as such:
http://www.mfv-lennestadt.de/

 

Schalk and the Hanska - flies like a dream - very successful club build project

 

Thanks to Jeff, we have a new sparkling quick and efficient website
up and running, with thank goodness all the Blog posts in tact.
Quite a feat to achieve with the over 200 posts being successfully transferred
and a bit of Toss history kept firmly in the ether.
Thanks Jeff for all the hard work

Not long to go to Hermanus lads, and looks like Damian is hard at work
with at least 3 differing rubber planes that should be ready for the fly in.
When meeting Terra firma up at St.James with my rubber Spitfire, after Damian kindly 
ankle tapped me into the side of the hill, I too took on the duty of recovering this 
fantastic little pane that is now at least 18 months old and has taken some kind of a real beating.
End result, a D-Day refit and she is back to cooking around the sky.
Something to be said for the original colour scheme,
although screaming around in front of the fynbos tends to make her visually disappear...
which, after all  was the whole idea.
So there's still plenty of time to get any other rubber planes
you might have in mind complete by the event.

 On topics of Hermanus, has anyone purchased one of the below at a nice scale size?

....and will it be ready to do a tour of duty at Hermanus?

Could be nice - very nice indeed snuggled up to the Mustang, Lightning,  and Warhawk!

Up and running guys, registration is open at:

http://www.atlanticfc.org.za

These are the guys who are up there already on the registration board
Great to see Sean and Bakkies already in the mix. Good one PERF, see you there.
C'mon Tossers, get up and register for what promises
to be another awesome weekend up on the slope and down in the valley!

av8 35.070 2.4GHz	Bruce 35.140	lowflyingfish 35.260	Bobby 35,060	Lee 35.020 2.4
twbaker 35.070 35.040	Andy 2.4	TOSS004 35.080 35.130	uncle kev 2.4 2.4 2.4	nicsteffen 35.430
aimrah 2.4 35.180 27.095	Jeffsteffen 2.4	Ooooeeeaaaaah! 2.4GHz 35.160 27.045	Magoebaskloof Fasst	planestuff 2.4 2.4 2.4
Bakkie 2.4	mikehagemann 2.4ghz 27.45	jontymck 35.050 35.250	Seank 2.4	Jakes 35.150 35.190 35.440
gmo 2.4	roy.white 35.160MH 2.4GH

More of the same this year... one hopes to see some new ones as well

 

Come Saturday the expectant ctrew rolled into the Red Hill
parking lot to the welcome of that devil of a wind, the southerly.
So a quick drive to Kommetjie revealed flyable but bumpy
conditions with a defined side push across the slope.
After bouncing around with the wings we decided to
hold the aero league anyway as should these conditions manifest
themselves during the January event, we would have called a round anyway.
So off we went through the class C and the class B routines
fluttering away on the upwind leg and screaming through on the downwind leg
to attempt to hold enough energy to complete the maneuver required.
Well done to all that took part in these challenging conditions
and actually managed to make something out of what amounted
to very good practice in not so good conditions.
Best part was probably the landings into the wind as it
made the side hill landing a dawdle and not one glider took any damage.

Roll on Sunday and thrashing South Easters pushing through
saw a few of us take an early run. Yes Steve, you were virtually running up the hill.
An early aerobatics practice session in the most insane, smooth, energetic
and dynamic lift helped to iron out a few niggles in the patterns
and helped the learning curve no end.
Later as the crew of Damian, Christo, Malcolm and Bill all arrived we had the most amazing
combat sessions with the warbirds. These tuff little buggers generate
so much humour we had aching stomach muscles as we once more
went into half pipe swings. Basically as vertically high as we could go
on each side  while attempting to tag each other on the way up, or down.
The sheer energy in each zoom doubled up and the dive down into the next one
created huge speed as the dices continued unabated.
One hell of a lot of fun, thats all. One hell of a lot of fun!

 

 

 
  

Well done to all the guys who took part in the SAMAA ratings

a couple of weeks back. On monday I was able to collect the badges for all the crew who took part,

so lets get together on the hill on the weekend so we can hand them out....

and yes Bill, it is a seagull!

Thunk!
Fall out of bed at 3:30 am on a Friday to make the blasted flight to Durban.
Now I know what the Durban guys go through every year to attend the TOSS event,
and bless their souls for doing so. However there was a palatable excitement as Jeff, Christo
and myself converged at the Cape Town airport in the chilly wee hours,
with a correx box big enough to carry a fully grown small person,
yet filled with our precious toys and now to be handed over to the airlines
for transport to the other side.

Following the tail of the cold front that had slammed through
the Cape the day before we made awesome time in the orange tin can with wings,
while chewing away on peanuts handed out by men in orange uniforms...
and landed a whole 20 minutes early at the new sparkly King Shaka airport.
We were quickly whisked off to our lodgings by our gracious hosts,
(Russell Conradt and Dave Greer, not to mention the entire sloping crew in Durban)
for an even quicker of an unpack of bags, and into the car for the trip
to the Inanda Dam slope to greet the advancing frontal system which
promised to push through a strengthening South Wester.
(read North Wester if your in the Cape... land curve/twist/tilt, that sort of thing)

The Inanda Dam slope is not to be fiddled with! A 200m vertical face at the flight line
hits the foot hills eventually, and then tails off for a more or less 600 meter
drop to the dam way down in the distance.
Warnings were given that should one's glider advance down
to the front of the face of the slope for whatever reason,
your glider will stay there... more or less forever...
or till the mountain club can get to it slung up in harnesses and things.
Starting out a bit light, within the hour and somewhere around midday,
the South Wester started to belt through and the lift went berserk.
Between BEE wing battles, a touch of DS, and general flying
Dave and Mark were able to maiden the new Minivec,
Russell was able to make his glider dissapear to a mere dot at the base of the valley
while persons fixing roofing in the valley below waved hammers at it,
and the aerobatics routine was practiced in some of the most energetic lift
we have ever sloped...very much able to rival anything the Cape can offer.
Eventually we all retired to Russels house and were treatred to an awesome braai
hosted by his wonderfull wife Mandy, and man is she good at the hosting gig!
Flawless  food, plenty of the liquid stuff, and much laughter saw all the slope
crew retire before the midnight hour for a well earned rest.

Saturday promised a NE blow, so a change of slope was required,
more or less the backend of the frontend that we had sloped on Friday.
But mother nature as is true to her form chose to desert us a wee bit and
light conditions riegend for the day. Not quite as imposing as
the Inanda Dam slope, this lsope still had a goo old frontal drop off
that made men and cattle wary.
So thermal ships deployed along with BEE wings and we spent the day sloping
the most amazing thermals while waiting for the wind to push.
Late in the day the blow did indeed come through, but the lift still remained scratchy
and we saw a few gliders make an unscheduled trip down the front odf the slope,
to be recovered by the local lads... for a small fee. Come in Kobus, come in!

An early night beconed the now tiring lads due to the frovilities of the night before,
and a well rested crew woke up for the Sunday trip to a slope called Switchblade.
Panoramic is somewhat an understatement for the Natal slopes
and this slope was capable of handling a North west through to North,
through to North East switch.
With the temperature hitting the 30-35 degree mark,
suntan lotion was applied in buckets, caps donned
and our gliders took to moderate and hot conditions.
While waiting for the eventual switch to the North East
we did a bit of BEE wing pylon racing which was duly won
by by Michel Leusch. Eventually as the day waned
we saw the wind switch moved the entire crew to the
East facing slope, Russell called the event, and were able to carry off a single round of aerobatics
A six in cricket as it were, one shot at it, before the lift failed in the evening light,
which was duly won by Michel Leusch once again...

Congratulations to Russell Conradt for pulling off this event.
Yes Russ, the stress is worth it and those grey hairs
will make you look more distinguished.
Hosting an event like this is never easy, but hell, it's worth it!
A huge thanks must go out to all the slope community in Durban.
Russell Conradt, Dave Greer, Mark, Ziggi, Johan, the ever smiling Rudi
and the ever cheerful Adi, Dean- our flight Judge along withLuke,
Kobus who just never gave up...no matter how many times his glider made
unscheduled front face landings to be fetched by the locals,
Simon and his son Ryan, and any of those awesome souls I may have missed in the line up....
and finally Michel, who just whipped our Cappie asses.

To those who missed it...you missed it.

We will be back, I promise you, we will be back!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One more sleep, well actually probably half a sleep
given that we have to be on the Man Go airliner by 6 AM.
Just been looking at the Inanda  Mountain range
on Goole Earth and the Durban boys have it spoilt.
A huge slab of rock 600 odd meters high with a 360 degree view
and what according to Russ has now been shown to have
virtually 360 degrees of sloping ability no matter what the wind!
However, lean out to catch your errant BEE wing, get it wrong
and you have a nice little 200 meter freefall down the front face. Oops.
Really looking forward to this new adventure and kudos once again
to the Durb's lads for getting this together.
Aerobatic schedule attached, as well a the google view
of that particular slab of rock that a few TOSSers
will be flying from over the weekend.

Keep up to date with Dave's excellent blog from that part of the world
http://springfieldchickens.blogspot.com/

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After much baiting, biting and general harresment by the lads
the Durban guys have come to the party and put together a North versus South event.
Sharks versus Stormers, if you will.
Under the tender care of Russell Conradt the event is being crafted and
for the 3 of us who have opted to leap on a plane on Friday,
carrying a bevy of planes, the event promises to be great.
Designed over 3 days from the 16 to 18th September so as to allow
for weather permutations of the Durban area, we are looking at
an Aerobatics routine, speed trials and possibly combat as a last option.
There has been a flurry of activity between Mark and Dave to get their newly
acquired MiniVecs up and running and the first reports are of elation
at the capabilities of this new generation craft.

This is going to develope into one of those lekker needle matches
over a floating trophy, that will see this become a much anticipated
and visited annual event on the slope calendar if the Durb's guys
and us TOSSers have anything to do with it!

So out with the liver tablets, take plenty and try to get some good rest
for what promises to be a jol and a half over the three days!

Below are some pics from Dave's blog...
http://springfieldchickens.blogspot.com/

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With the weekend showing westerlies for the Saturday
the decision was made to get up to Signal Hill and
swamp the AFC boys for a change, on their home site.
Chris Leal and myself were very much on a mission with a
3 Meter Lanyu and aVector to maiden.
Arriving nice and early at 11AM we were surprised
to find the hill deserted with a moderate West/North West
pushing through and were happy to get the maiden flights of the
Lanyu and Vector under our belts. With the lift smooth as silk but
lacking punch we were able to get set-up done and
the Lanyu proved to be a beaut to fly, but with it's 3m wingspan
needed a bit more airspace that we are used to.
It keeps getting big on you rather quickly...
and is no slouch, while looking very graceful in the air.
Having originally set the CG on the spar, and with the CG calculator
telling us it was 20mm back at least, we erred on the nose heavy side,
but true to form the CG calculator was right and the extra lead was removed
for the second flight which lightened up the footprint somewhat
and made her lighter on her toes. Very nice toy this!

Landing at Signals is somewhat of a peach compared to what
we usually have to deal with down south, and throughout the entire day
landing after landing was graced into the super soft fynbos bowl
with nary a hint at any damage to any planes. Within the hour the rest of the
Toss crew arrived. Brendan flew out his Vector a few times
and giggled at the landings, Jeff got off a very successful maiden
of his brilliantly rebuilt Aldij, ( bagged wings-within grams of the original wings weights)
Malcolm maidened his beautifully repaired Impala for some formo with a foamie variant,
Chris spent the day practicing his landings and getting them bang on, most of the time,
and Steve, Christo, and Lionel all had goodies in the air,
all the while wondering where the heck the home crew were...

Bobby and Bruce eventually arrived with excuses about having
to get their hair done...or something along those lines...:-)
and the afternoon then saw a full crew  from both clubs
up on the hill having a blast.
Thanks to AFC for tolerating us up there for the day,
and what great fun it was to slope up there with you guys again.
Lets do it again soon.

Regretfully I took few photos for the day, being just way too busy having a blast
and the DS area and with more planes than we could throw a stick at...
so if any of you have some pics, please let me have hem or post them please.
Steve, Steve, you there?

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