On 22 October the Krugersdorp Flying Club hosted its annual spot landing competition. With record entries this year the competition was packed with aircraft ranging from a vintage Piper J3 Cub to a turbine Rockwell Commander 690.

The event started with a safety briefing by the flying club’s safety officer, Chris Kyle. All aspects of the competition, including the rules and emergency procedures, were covered in detail. This strong message by Chris led to an incident-free day.

Safety was further ensured by Steve George and his wife Louise providing advisory air traffic control from the tower. Although Steve had sleepless nights about his responsibility prior to the event, I don’t think that any professional controller could have done it better.

This year local student pilots were allowed to participate, provided that their instructors accompanied them with the specific rule that instructors could not touch a control! This created some additional pressure on the ‘ou manne’ not to be beaten by the rookies. Overall the students performed well and we were pleasantly surprised to see many of them in the top half of the field.

Dave Lister, Tobie Weber and Johan Addis endured the heat of the sun again this year as they judged every landing and approach and we thank them and the other marshals for their essential efforts.

During the results ceremony, the walls and roof of the clubhouse vibrated with applause as each entrant received a prize.

A special word of appreciation goes out to AviMap, Wimpy, Somerson Angling & Camping, Pratley and Shell for sponsoring the prizes.