Prognostications Chris Martinus – President: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association – South Africa As the world trundles precipitously into 2024, fraught with wars and political and economic upheaval, it is a good time to reflect on past chaos and plot the course for general aviation in these seemingly apocalyptic times.Read More →
Special Rules Area Charts – Johannesburg and Cape Town Imagine an aviation chart that has all the essential ground detail like roads and mountains and towns, yet doesn’t need an iPad or a whole EFIS system to display. Imagine a chart that doesn’t rely on batteries that will unexpectedly letRead More →
C182 – NEARLY MADE IT? This discussion is to promote safety and not to establish liability. CAA’s report contains padding and repetition, so in the interest of clarity, I have paraphrased extensively. Aircraft registration: ZS-PHB Date and time of accident: 27 August 2016 1025Z Type of aircraft: Cessna C182QRead More →
March 2023 – Who Guards the Guards? The development of general aviation in South Africa faces three large hurdles: 1) The high price of fuel. 2) The weak Rand and associated high price of new planes and parts. 3) The CAA – which, despite its mandate to develop aviation, hasRead More →
March 2023 – LOOKING AT THE ADVERTISEMENTS for planes for sale is worrying. It’s not just the usual crop of aircraft from people wanting to trade up. There is a far greater proportion of pilots selling everything: their planes, headsets and hangars. In other words, they are done with flying.Read More →
February 2023 – The CAA may like to think that it is the custodian of aviation standards in South Africa, but the reality is that the designated flight test examiners (DFEs) are the keepers of flying standards. Yet they are under threat. THE QUESTION ARISES; who checks the DFE’s –Read More →
October 2022 – Guy Leitch Our South African CAA is a microcosm of Africa, or if you like, Schrodinger’s cat. It is simultaneously both good and bad. LET’S START WITH THE GOOD. In her almost 10-year reign as Director of the CAA, Ms Poppy Khoza has managed that rarity inRead More →
(Guy Leitch Flight Test) – As Avgas prices head for R40/ litre the need for an alternative to Avgas powered planes becomes ever more pressing. The good news is that, for the past 16 years, Jet-A diesel piston engine technology has been quietly maturing. It has now become a well-developedRead More →
“The aviation industry is in trouble.” Is this necessarily true? The latest financial report of the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) weighs-up the possibility of a collapse, blaming COVID-19 and SAA. Is this really the worst-case scenario for this year? The regulatory body reported a near-total loss in revenueRead More →
Around two years ago I ran a series of 12 articles I called ‘The CAA Dossier’ which articulated the frustrations of the aviation community at the manifold failures of the SACAA. However, I became increasingly uncomfortable with that series as it was too often one-sided. The nature of publishing deadlines meant that the CAA could claim that it did notRead More →
