Mission 13 – Angels Home Ficksburg – 03 September 2005.

After contacting Rainbow Airbridge to offer my services to fly some missions, I was
pleasantly surprised when I was contacted by Mike Ehrman to fly a mission to Ficksburg
on 3 September. As this was my first attempt, I opted to share the flying with Mike,
although I have had my PPL for quite some time, my cross-country flying experience is
quite limited, so it made sense to first do some dual missions. Anyway, the weather was
fine on the Saturday, and after having some gremlins with the aircraft radio (rented C172), we were off to Ficksburg (I have never been there in my life), with Mike flying us to the destination. No surprises during the flight, except me still learning to work my new GPS and enjoying being a passenger for a change.

At arrival at the Ficksburg airfield (nice runway by the way, but some koppies VERY
close to the base point of runway 26), we were greeted heartily by Helen and Jack, both involved with the Angels Home, which is managed through Ficksburg Missionaries. We offloaded donated blankets, medical supplies and some food, and were then taken to the Angels home, a foster home for mostly HIV/AIDS orphans, aged between 4 and 11 years old. The absolute joy on the faces of the kids was something that will always stay with me, especially as a first timer. The kids are so thankful for just the smallest little gift, which really uplifted my day, making the early rise in Pretoria to get to Grand Central in time really worth it.

After the Angels visit, we were taken for a small snack to a curio shop, filled with the typically trademarked Ficksburg cherry goodies, and I could not resist buying a small bottle of cherry wine to take back home to give to my husband.

All good things come to and end, and after a very interesting lunch where we discussed
all sorts of interesting topics, it was time to go home. This time I flew, with Mike giving
the odd verbal advice. The wind became a bit stronger (typical for this time of year), so
I worked hard in the resulting turbulence, but with Mike’s assistance, the flight went very well and we were back at Grand Central at around 15:30. For me, as this was my first experience flying for Rainbow, I found it to be very interesting, and exactly what I was looking for – an opportunity to brush up my cross country flying, and my flying skills in general. I will definitely join again on the next flights, albeit the shorter ones, but it is a wonderful experience to be able to fly for a purpose instead of just making up your own route to nowhere just to build hours.

Corinda Erasmus