Juanita, Johan Junior and myself all returned home to Kosmos - South Africa for a week and a bit before the end of November.Johan Jr started ground school and then simulator work and finally finished his Beechcraft King Air 1900 conversion at Lanseria with Captain Andre White doing the ground school and Captain Robbie Robinson doing his flight training and tests. He completed this with flying colours on Wednesday 29th Nov and left for Windhoek again on the Fri 1st December to start flying the new aircraft on his licence.
The picture above is what a Beechcraft 1900 looks like as a passenger plane while the one below with all the windows blanked out is the freighter version of these workhorse aircraft.
Juanita came home after a hectic tour which included amongst others, India, China, Djibouti, Brussels and Dusseldorf. The day After she got back she had to spend the whole day doing Aviation Medicine and write the exam, (a requirement for her license) also passed well.
Last Saturday
Louis' girlfriend Lerika Wessels left for Malawi to join Louis for December holidays and the have visited Club Makakolo on Lake Malawi this week Louis then had Malaria and is recovering now in Blantyre. He says Lerika is really enjoying Malawi.
In the photo from left to right is Kirsty Petty - Johan Jr's girlfriend, me and Lerika Wessels - Louis' girlfriend.
Juanita and myself then went a short break with some colleagues from Cranfield an aviation school where I lecture from time to time in Aviation CRM (Crew Resource Management) to a game farm in the Waterberg called Sambane. We took a slow cruise up north through the bushveld in her little Z3, (see photo below where she is on her way again in the Global Express) and had a great time in the bush with some great fellow aviation people.
Juanita left again on hopefully her last trip for the year on Wednesday night for Arusha Kilimanjaro Scotland and Jersey, and she will be back on the 8th or 12th December, She called an hour ago to say she is now safely in Scotland.
I have leave for most of December and during the last week they really worked me hard, I flew every day, or rather night, Monday to Friday to Cape Town and back and this was aggravated by the fact that on Tuesday evening shortly after departing from Cape Town we had an emergency situation when we had a complete "A" system hydraulic failure. This meant that we had to return to Cape Town - wind the gear down manually land with limited flaps an no nose wheel steering. The net result was no sleep until 10:00 Wednesday morning.
This is an older photo after a particularly difficult approach into a very foggy Cape Town
The rest of the week went OK and I finished yesterday afternoon and went straight from the airport to Wanderers Cricket grounds to watch the Super 20 match between SA and India which India won with the 2nd last ball. Today I took the Suzuki Intruder for a run over to Sun City to watch the 3rd day of the Nedbank Million Dollar Golf - great day in the sun.
The beauty of going to the Golf at Sun City by motorbike, is that they allow you to drive all the way up to the Cascades Hotel entrance, park you in the shade, and from there it is no more than 50 meters to the entrance to the golf. I did the normal thing that Juanita and myself have been doing for years - went to the 1st Tee and watched them tee off, then wandered down to the 9th Green, and watched them all come through, then had a lovely lunch and swim at Santorini restaurant, and watched them all finish at the 18th. A very pleasant guy that sat next to me on the 9th asked me which pair am I going to follow for the 2nd nine, and he could not stop chuckling when I told him that "I dont follow them around, they follow me around, - I'll wait on the 18th and they are all going to follow me there!"
Quite a few thunderstorms developed in the afternoon but just acted as a dramatic backdrop for a lovely the drive home.
l magical costume 
change as illustrated by these two photographs taken a few days apart.
l magical costume 
change as illustrated by these two photographs taken a few days apart.
Th image above is of the Clarence - Golden Gate - Valley which is a real bikers dream with a smooth sweeping road in some of the most beautiful rock formations on earth.
course also fitted with a GPS and this is a shot I took of the GPS on the last leg of the night just before sunrise with a healthy tailwind indicating that our groundspeed was 1079 Km per hour.
