A golden landing

Years of training and competing reaped gold and bronze at the World Air Games (WAG) for pilot and navigator team Frank and Cally Eckard flying a Cessna 172.

“The WAG was held in Dubai over the first two weeks of December, and included skydiving, aerobatics, gliders, para-motors, micro-lights, balloons, air ships and helicopters,” said Cally, who lived in Ballito for many years, and often visits her family here.

The Eckard team was selected for WAG from their results in the World Rally Championships in Poland in 2014.

“Frank has been flying rally and precision competitions since 1983. I joined him as his navigator six years ago. Besides competing, Frank is a great believer in giving back to the sport. He has organised over a hundred fun, national and international competitions.”

Frank said the discipline used for the WAG is a new one called Air Navigation Race (ANR).

“For most teams, ANR was a brand new sport requiring a brand new set of skills.”

He said the teams were given a zigzag “corridor” on a map and were severely penalised for infringing out of the corridor, and only the start and finish points were timed.

The husband and wife team arrived in Dubai with the intention of learning how to run this competition and how to fly it on a competent level.

“Day one and two were training days, and we came in last position. A few team discussions and adjustments to our methods gave better results in the competition. We came fourth for the navigation category,” said Cally.

Frank said flying conditions were difficult and the maps were not very helpful.

“We flew over a lot of desert, and had to judge the width and length of the corridor based solely on visual comparison to the map and the few available landmarks. The maps, however, were in Russian and not current, so there were many new features on the ground that were missing. It was a very challenging and interesting exercise,” he said.

The landing competition proved to be equally challenging.

“We had crosswinds of 20 knots. Cessnas should not go above 15 knots. Added to the challenge was the fact that the airplane we were going to fly was not one we had ever flown before. Spot-landing an unfamiliar plane in such winds is not for the faint-hearted.”

Nevertheless, Frank took off and landed the plane one metre from the zero line.

Next was the engine-off landing, using just flaps to guide the plane to the landing spot, and the land-off landing.

He nailed both, which put him in first place.

Frank and Cally were awarded gold medals for the landing competition, and bronze medals for third position overall at the official ceremony held at Sky Dive Dubai Palm Drop Zone.

“I am so proud of Frank for training so hard at landing and finally receiving recognition for his efforts. We are very excited to introduce the sport to South African aviators, and hope it will inject enthusiasm among participants of the current precision and rally competitions, and encourage new pilots to join.”