Flying things German

Jim Davis has a passion for instructing. He has been training civil and military pilots, in the air and on the ground for 50 years. His other passion is writing, which he studied at Curtin University in Perth. You can see, and buy, his two pilot text books PPL and Flight Tests at www.jimdavis.com.au

I have just taken off from Plettenburg Bay, that charming little holiday town on the southern coast of South Africa. I am flying my magic little Grob G109B and I am turning out for a flight along the coast back to my base in George.

There’s someone with a very scratchy radio who seems to be calling George from a jackhammer testing ground called ZS-AFA. Interestingly, this establishment claims to be passing Plett at 1500 feet, also on its way to George. The occasional words that I catch sound almost like Scully’s voice.

Then it all comes together: my long-time mate is taking a bunch of Germans around the country in SAA Historic Flight’s bloody-old Junkers Ju52. Now, this is an excellent aeroplane for building hours – it’s slightly slower than a VW Combi going up a hill in a headwind. As far as I can guess Scully must have around 30,000 hours, so I don’t suppose he’s doing this to build command time.

The bugger is just having fun.

I ask Scully if he is happy for me to formate on him. He’s delighted, and we both take photos of each other.

But I am having to use almost full throttle to keep station, so I ask him to slow down a tad. When you are flying in formation it’s polite for the leader to fly slow enough so the others have scope for a bit