Tag Archives: Limpopo
When NASA sent A U2 Spy plane to South Africa!
Pietersburg now known as Polokwane in the Limpopo Province, An advance team from the American space agency NASA and the first of seven research planes arrived at the Pietersburg International Airport in preparation for the SAFARI 2000 science initiative to monitor the earth’s environment and atmosphere.
Airport corporate relations the then manager Howard Khosa said the Washington University Convair 580 transport plane that arrived, is expected to be joined by two more hi-tech research planes on that week the aircraft took part in the survey and the famous cold war U2 spy plane,was also part of the survey fleet of aircraft.
The NASA U2 Spy planes also made a series of low level passes at the then DEXSA International Airshow at Waterkloof in that very same year of 2000.
Safari 2000 used the U2, officially the ER2 high-altitude surveillance aircraft, as its main tool to monitor the relationships between antopogenic (the influence of topography on atmospheric conditions), physical and biological processes that create the land and atmospheric systems of the sub-continent.
The study is intended to set international scientific standards for measuring atmospheric pollution, global warming and ecological processes and will include the ecology of the Kruger National Park and cloud physics off the Namibian coast.
The NASA programme is was Pietersburg’s first big commercial project since the airport was commercialised in a 50-year, R5-billion concession to a Malaysian consortium.
There was also a C-141B Starlifter as additional support aircraft. But it and the KC-135R returned to the States the following day.
Nylstroom Taildraggers Fly-in 2018
Modimolle, formerly Nylstroom, is a town located near the southern edge of the Waterberg Massif in Limpopo province, South Africa. It is a medium-sized town that focuses primarily on agriculture and farming as well as wildlife and tourism. The Nylstroom Flying Club is home to the annual Taildragger Fly-in since 2010 and supports & promotes the ‘Fly Safe’-campaign. This was the 9th annual fly in.
The 2018 fly-in was yet again a great turnout and well organized by members of the Nylstroom Flying Club and Tayla-Kaè, Richard Nicholson , wife Mariette, sons Richard and Phillip made the event possible. A total of 106 aircraft made it into Nylstroom this year, as the weather didn’t behave most of the weekend, but it was a blessing it didn’t get rained out.Safety Officer, Nigel Musgrave kept aircraft from any incidents what so ever and allocated them to their parking, with help of the marshals.
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Breakfast was served for pilots and free coffee, and the afternoon one could buy a local boerewors roll or burger and not forgetting the pancakes.
ATNS controllers made sure all aircraft got in and out of the busy airfield with no hassles during the course of the weekend. Some of the aircraft such as the Cessna 195 owned by Archie Kemp who flew in with the ‘General’ Brian Stableford.Ivan van der Schaar flew in with his beautiful Brakpan based Boeing Stearman. Derek Hopkins flew in with his new RV7 ZU-POP and Peter Lea in his RV10 from Barberton.
A couple of helicopters’ also flew in for the day ranging from Alouette IIIs and IIs and a single Bell 206 and Aerospatiale Gazelle.
Most of the visitors decided to leave the Saturday morning due to some weather pulling in, others that stayed were treated to a spit braai and awards dinner and a night of socializing. Next year we look forward to the net Taildraggers fly in.
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Jarryd flew in on ZU-OKR, a Pakistan MFI-17 Mushshak while Flippie and Lettie drove up and made a weekend of it staying at Bushveld Game Farm what a nice get away venue for a few days.
