70 SA Flyer Magazinepassenger seats.
As usual, on takeoff from Vanwyksvlei,
the two immediately lost sight of each
other. To make it worse, Helga’s radio
had spontaneously shifted itself to the
emergency frequency and no matter how
loud she shouted into the mic, John still
couldn’t hear her. When she eventually got
the frequency right, she was too hoarse
to say much and so locating each other
remained an elusive objective.
“Do you see one farm house with three
dams?”
“Negative, just one farm house with one
puddle.”
Then later, “How about one farm house
with three rondavels?”
“Negative, only one farm house with
zero rondavels.”
“How about that dent on the horizon?”
“Negative.”
Because John flies a good two miles
an hour faster than Helga, he spent most
of the two hours aloft looking backwards
trying to find her. Consequently, for a while
after landing, he looked at her askance andhad to swallow muscle relaxants for the
rest of the trip. What finally brought them
together were some white spots on the
horizon which turned out to be the Meerkat
Square Kilometre Array outside Carnarvon.
They met overhead and followed the road
to Williston. Any recent reports from the
Minister of Home Affairs regarding aliens
should consequently be viewed with
caution.
In the meantime, Daniella and Selina
had two blow outs. With the first, the jack
collapsed beneath the car which caused
easily as much distress as half an hour of
sustained, bad turbulence. The second
involved the trailer tyre. Unfortunately, the
spare was bolted down so tightly onto the
trailer that even the bakkie drivers passing
by at 160 km/h could see that it would be
difficult to release it – which is probably why
they didn’t stop.
Selina eventually went and stood in the
middle of the road with her hands on her
hips. A local farmer, who had observed the
same body language before from his wife,
realised that things would go easier for him
if he just stopped. So he stopped nicely and
undid the spare tyre as instructed by the
two short tempered women.
Williston Airfield has a donga across
the runway which Helga successfully rolled
into and then out of, resulting in a further
notch in her prop. John, however, was
unable to locate it and so missed the fun
completely. As this was an uncontrolled
airfield, it was not necessary for Helga
to stay on the taxiway, so she proceeded
cross-country towards the hangar and was
soon able to get the front of her trike stuck
in a bush.
John, being younger and thus far less
experienced, opted to follow the boring
old taxiway and consequently had no
such luck and reached the hangar after no
excitement.
Quite some time later, John realised
that Helga was not around, and set off to
search for her. He found her in a turbulent
temper, still strapped to her seat, with her
arms folded and her nose wheel in the
aforesaid bush. She wanted to know from
John precisely what part of ‘search and
rescue’ he had failed to grasp during his
years as a merchant seaman. However, his
tardiness was soon forgotten – you see,
they had landed at around 10h00 and had
to spend the rest of the day practicing how
to die of thirst in the event of an engine
failure over the desert, while the groundPassing time at Williston
Airfield, where Helga went on
a taxiing adventure.Adventure flying
They finally made it to the
'Burn'. L to R Daniela, Helga,
her boet and niece.