Category Archives: Photography

Witteberg teaser

Wow…what a weekend away at the Witteberg Private Nature Reserve.  I’m filled with experiences, thoughts, views, fresh air and photos waiting to be published.  I’m also completely bushed.  Here, therefore, is a photographic teaser (courtesy of the camera of John Roos):

Sunset flight in the Witteberg Private Nature Reserve

Winter soaring bliss

Long Pete on the Aspen 4 overhead Judas Peak
Long Pete on the Gradient Aspen 4 overhead Judas Peak

UPDATED:  This time of the year (late August through to October) is one of the best for soaring flights along the Cape Peninsula and surrounding mountains.  As the frontal systems make their march to the south for the summer, the cold fronts lessen in intensity, with more more moderate prefrontal north-westerlies and lingering postfrontal conditions.  The air is cold and moist but the sun begins to reappear, leading to beautifully smooth soaring interspersed with the promise of good instability and thermal flying.  It is certainly the ‘high’ season for the Cape pilot’s classic route:  Signal Hill/Lion’s Head across to Table Mountain, southerly along the Twelve Apostles, and then back for sundowners or onwards into the lesser-flown for the brave (and those with dedicated retrieve drivers!).  For many years this route was more frequented by the hang-glider pilots with their better glide and speed range (the NW can exhibit a strong wind gradient as one climbs), but as paraglider technology has improved it is now achievable by pilots on almost any wing.  Come along on a tour, illustrated with my photos from today…

Continue reading Winter soaring bliss

Goedverwacht Paramotoring

Goedverwacht Microlight Air Strip on the fringe of Durbanville – between our hang-gliding ‘home hill’ (Rondebossie/Haystacks) and Fisantekraal airfield – was the focus of an informal ‘Fly & Braai’ for local paramotor pilots yesterday.  The strip is privately owned and used by a few microlights, but the farmer/owner generously made it and the clubhouse available for us ‘floppy wing’ pilots for the day – and a perfect day it was, too.  Everyone with an aircraft of any description anywhere in the Cape was out flying, if the airwaves and local airspace was anything to go on.  It was a challenge for paramotor pilots, though:  with nil to very little wind all morning and a waterlogged runway, takeoffs were not easy.

Goedverwacht

Once in the air, however, it was bliss:  Countryside a patchwork of yellow and deep green, dams and streams full to overflowing after the recent rain, birds and buck frolicing in the patches of wildflowers beginning to blossom in the uncultivated land, dark distant  mountains capped with sparkling snow under a cobalt sky.  Couldn’t be much better 🙂

Snow-capped Du Toits mountains

A fun challenge for the day set by our local guru – navigation without GPS (logging in a sealed pocket) around several turnpoints in the farmlands.  Before setting out, an estimation of leg and total times as well as fuel consumption had to be logged.  The fickle and unpredictable wind made the time estimation tricky, test-flying a wing (a Paramania Fusion) for the first time and leaving my cue-card on the ground didn’t help, but the task was still great fun and the views snatched between scanning the ground for my turnpoints and intermediate waypoints were beautiful.

Airborne over the canola

I guesstimated my leg times at 11, 10, 16 and 14 minutes respectively, and then flew 11, 9, 14 and 14 – not bad for a rank amateur.  (Click here for the tracklog on Leonardo).  In the end, between the trouble launching and the attraction of sight-seeing, no-one else took on the challenge of the 32km course, leaving me to win the small prize sponsored by Xplorer Ultraflight by default.  Oh well 😉  Much kudo’s to Keith/Xplorer for the trouble of arranging the task – it certainly made me appreciate the challenges faced by our national PPG team, currently on their way to Spain for the World Championship.

PPG Challenge turnpoint 3 - wind turbines

While some pilots who had been flying from early in the morning retired to build a fire and get the braaivleis sizzling, a few others decided to fly across the valley to Paardeberg to visit a friend.  I decided that the latter option sounded like fun, and I had another glider to test-fly – the MacPara MacJet.  After an aborted takeoff attempt featuring a switching thermal wind and an argument with the fence that left my ego and pants in tatters, I got off nicely and chased off after the group.  Unfortunately, despite the speed of the MacJet, by the time I reached the area they were inside having refreshments without a radio, and I had very vague directions and no GPS location.  Unable to spot them from the air, I went on a wandering XC tour of the countryside, with an equally vague plan of creating a triangle in the light northerly wind.  The wind, however, had other plans, and after experimenting with a southerly became quite fresh from the west.  Worried that it might become stronger and result in fuel issues, I worked crosswind back to Goedverwacht.  With the air so busy, I spent most of the flight below 600ft ASL and often less than 100ft AGL, enjoying the rich pastoral scenes interspersed with swollen streams, patches of wild flowers, small wild buck and countless birds.  Sometimes I followed the streams to see where they led; elsewhere I cruised just above the crops through the biggest fields I could find, dodging farmhouses and turbulence-inducing trees.  Magic.

Canola fields with Table Mountain in the distance

Even though it was well into the heat of the mid-day with notable thermal activity, I flew most of the way with the trims wide open in great comfort – kudo’s on this round to MacPara for a fast and stable reflex wing, which is a pleasure to fly.  I was surprised to land with a fuel burn of only 6 liters after 90 minutes in the air.  Imagine my added pleasure when MaxPunkte spat out a 52km FAI triangle  – another first.   Leonardo tracklog here.

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Quick snaps… Agusta 109 ZS-HMD

Recently I was at the Red Cross Air Mercy Service hangars at Cape Town International Airport to work on a pilot study (pun intended) for my master’s research project.  I was lucky to catch (and use) the beautiful Agusta 109.  Here are a couple of hasty snaps:

Continue reading Quick snaps… Agusta 109 ZS-HMD

First 9/11… now 8/22?

Demonstrating (what counts for me as) great personal restraint, I have held back the obvious Lord of the Rings puns all day as we bid farewell to the two Athlone Cooling Towers… but I can’t help note the allegory to the more unfortunate US event fading rapidly into our combined histories.  Ours, of course, came as less of a surprise – but still somewhat unexpected.

The cooling towers have been a feature in my landscape for as long as I’ve lived in Cape Town: my whole life.  I still recall driving past them as a child every time we set off to Betty’s Bay for a weekend.  The coal power station was still operational then, and one could see the cascades of water through the air intake fins at the bottom of the tower: a living example of the principles of physics that I was foggily beginning to grasp at the beginning of the long process to creating light pour from handy switches around the house.  My father could explain the entire process all the way to Somerset West, and I was enthralled.

The Athlone Power Station shut down years ago, and since then the towers have gradually declined.  I once missed a chance to abseil from them during a rescue practice because of an ophthalmology tut I was too scared to bunk: what a waste 😉  The city council announcement that they had become structurally unsound and would be demolished didn’t come as much of a surprise, but it certainly jerked a few Capetownian tears.

Despite the girl and I both being badly post-call, neither of us was at all willing to miss something being blown up almost in our back garden.  I had done some reccie work on my trusty Dakar (LOTR reference coming:  it’s name is Hasufel) and selected a spot along the river just across the highway from the towers.  We arrived with dog in tow about 90 minutes early, picnic in hand, and selected a prime piece of river frontage replete with uninterrupted view for my cameras (HD video and DSLR).  As the time passed if became more and more festive, with people from all walks (and limps) of life filling the bank.  Everyone was delightfully polite and careful not to obstruct each other’s views; children played together and Kaptein earned much attention and praise.

With about 30 minutes before the 12h00 detonation time I settled in behind my tripod and did a full systems check: ready.  My watch had been zeroed to SA Standard Time before leaving home.  Occasionally we’d catch a waft of sound from the press tent on the golf-course across the river.  Time passed slowly but lazily, with a festival air.  At T-minus 5 minutes I decided to start my video camera rolling at T-3 just in case of an early detonation, and was shielding it from a short rain shower when we heard a sound drifting across the river…. “…. 3…. 2….. 1….”

AAAARGH!  Just over 4 minutes early!  Everyone scrabbled.  I hit record and yanked my SLR out of my jacket as the explosions zipped across the face of the tower and was shooting within seconds, but the more distant tower was already consumed in dust and smoke.  An unwelcome stranger charged in front of all of us, blocking the video camera, and earning a bout of curses from the petite aunty next to me…. then everyone was whooping and cheering and asking “Did you get it?”

Well, sorta.  Enjoy, the end of the Athlone Ladies.  Click on the images for an enlargement – the second in the series is a beaut to check out the bending and fault lines.

Damn the b@st@rds who hit the button early: I hear the Argus didn’t get a single good photo from their guys on scene and the E-TV reporter looked more shocked that the gulls perched on top when the bang went off 😉

The new view:

Random Photo – Welcome to South Georgia

Right Whale Bay on South Georgia - diversity, desolation, life and death

South Georgia is without doubt one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.  I first set foot there in Right Whale Bay, late one summer evening, and was confronted with pandemonium – more seals than I had ever seen before, mixed with more penguins than I could comprehend, surrounded by other birds on the ground and the wing combining to create a cacophony amidst a visually overwhelming background of sheer splendour:  beauty, terrifying austerity, diversity, desolation,death, and life in abundance.

Random Photo – Ice in Cierva Cove

It’s not only the wildlife in Antarctica that is photogenic: the landscapes, sea and ice combine in innumerable ways to create awesome beauty.  While slowly cruising around Cierva Cove on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the groups was captivated by a pair of crab-eater seals.  Turning around, I shot the sculpted ‘bergs beneath a brooding sky instead.  I don’t shoot in black-and-white often, but the emotion was unmistakable unavoidable.

Cierva Cove under a brooding sky in black and white