We can all agree that this was a successful event held at a brilliant venue. As we flew in on Thursday I was greeted with a 40 Knot Headwind into Bloemfontein. It was cold and with that wind, there was clearly no flying in the box. Friday morning with icy conditions and wind-chill below 0 deg we got flying only around 9am. The benefit of these cold conditions was good engine performance.

The amount of work that has gone into building such an incredible aerobatic box marked on the ground was clearly visible from the sky above. Wally Goodrich and Conrad Botha have created the best looking aerobatic box in South Africa, if not in most parts of the world.

Gary Whitecross has joined the SAC with his Pilatus B4 Glider and kicked off what hopefully sooner rather than later will become a great new following in aerobatic competition flying in RSA.

Roger Deare and Cwade Rees are two pilots who rejoined the competition circuit after 2-3 years of laying low. Well done to the two of you for flying Graduate - Sportsman and the Sportsman Unknown sequence.

Thanks to the sponsors and organizers and their staff and also to Conrad’s wife for the dinners and lunches. It was one of the best organized events on our calendar.

Brian Spur's aim and timing with the camera captured great images as we got airborne for every competition flight.  These images are viewable at https://www.facebook.com/brian.peter.spurr

The Unknown Sequences:

Low K figures but with mind benders in the unknowns delivered their pitfalls as intended.   From my own mistakes made in the past while flying Unknowns, these sequences were created to teach and to highlight the need for practicing  unknowns more than Free and known sequences and to read the sequence cards properly.

With Nationals a few weeks away we can look forward to a great event with lessons learned from this competition at Tempe.