Mission 11 - JP Morgan trip to Venda and Thohoyandou Airfield.

July 9th looked like a perfect day for flying. Francessco in his 182, myself in a 172 and nine JP Morgan passengers were awaiting at Grand Central, the weather as clear as a bell. All standing by at a totally closed in IMC Rand Airport, were Stephen Bowden in a PA28, Ernie in his 182 and Andre Klepper in his PA235, all with freight, who were due to come over and collect passengers. We had a Seneca airborne out of Wonderboom with 5 pax already en route to Thohoyandou.

So, 6 aircraft and pilots in various stages of anticipation were all waiting on the weather. Met anticipated things to lift by 9.00 am, but at this time with fog and cloud still hemming in the aircraft from Rand, a decision was made to get product over to us at Grand Central by road, and cut some of the passengers, in favour of the freight. Once Ernie had arrived with his product and those lucky students who would go with, a call to Kim in the Seneca notified us that Thohoyandou was closed in and they had to turn around and head back with no possibility of landing.

The Gods were against us. A call was made to call off the flight and myself and Francessco gave students a flip around Harties. A second attempt on the 16th of July, with freight only, saw Francessco, Stephen and Wighard doing the honours, delivering approximately 500 kg’s to an awaiting Edson, his wife and a whole bunch of children up in Venda. Francessco wrote: Sorry you missed this magnificent trip. We were extremely lucky with the perfect flying weather. I have a feeling that everybody in SA was flying that Saturday. Briefing was totally clogged up. I couldn't get through to file my flight plan. It seemed sky divers, gliders the lot were up in the sky. ATNS were really busy, however once we got to the Lowveld it became much quieter.

After re-distributing loads amongst the new pilots during the week, all were ready on the day. Stephen left at seven o'clock local out of Rand, I left at 8:15 out of Grand Central and Wighard at 8:27 out of Wonderboom. With our heavy loads the Gods were looking after us, a good tail wind that had us at a ground speed of 148+ knots and the PA28 at 130 knots. We all arrived within minutes of each other to an awaiting Edson and all his super excited, beautiful kids. (See pics). All the goodies were handed over to Edson and his assistants, with a special greeting from Kim, Ernie and Mike, we paid our landing fees and left for Johannesburg. Unfortunately the return flight was a little slower and quite bumpy, but hey THAT'S FLYING. All aircraft returned safely, with all pilots reporting when safe on the ground. To Mike and Ernie thanks for the opportunity to be part of this good cause see you on the next outing.
Francesco