The Flying Fish

Thursday, 15 December For the first time in 3 years, I remembered the Working on Fire ‘display’ held at Fisantekraal Airfield at the start of every fire season in the Cape. This is when all the aircraft and pilots come together to put on a little show (normally for VIP’s) demonstrating their fire fighting capabilities. When I arrived at Fisantekraal all I could see were pilots in their yellow and blue flight suits. I wandered around a bit, chatted to some of the pilots, and then made my way to a gleaming Ayres Turbo Thrush. This was the first time I’d ever seen one ‘in the flesh’ (I was going to say metal, but, it’s made of both metal and fabric...). Beautiful. While everyone was milling around waiting for the demonstration, I made my way up the tower. It was erected a while ago for a film shoot, and never taken down. Many months have passed and the paint has faded, and the wood is starting to look a little tired. Needless to say I didn’t feel too comfortable standing on the th...

This year, those of us in the Cape had a rather dull airshow season. In fact, the only two were the one at Swellendam, and the one at Stellenbosch, and they could hardly be called airshows (more like fly-ins). So when the time for Wings and Wheels rolled around, I was quite excited. The show was on 9 and 10 December (Friday and Saturday), which is unusual; it's normally on Saturday and Sunday. I opted to go on the Friday, because I figured there would be less traffic and less people. Despite leaving at 0600, I still ended up sitting in traffic for over an hour. But I still arrived before 0800, and I was greeted with loads of parking space, and not a single queue for tickets. In fact, the place was empty. And it remained that way for pretty much the whole day. Because it was a Wings and Wheels show, there were aircraft and cars. Unfortunately, there were more cars than aircraft, and the line-up of aircraft wasn't that great; Dakota, 110 Squadron (Premier 1 and Bar...