I recieved an email from Steve, a south african who owns a Cheetah and uses it for photography there.  I thought it was very good information as it pertains to safety and really thinking about our decisions when faced with a situation.  I have included it in it's entirety.  I hope you find it useful. . Jon

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Greetings Jon,

I gather you are well and productively promoting Cheetahs. Your Christmas eve newsletter is well received and with thanks. I was somewhat drawn to the pic of the snow, its because its something we don’t even conceive of here in sunny South Africa.

I did however have a recent “weather” related experience which you may be interested in reading.

Our world has a way of periodically measuring us, by throwing occasional curved balls and I figured that as an aviator, you’d be interested in my ‘test’ of late November.

Heading home, ordinarily a 50minute flight, I crossed over the Bulwer mountain range and the outlook ahead was not very good and since the surrounding mountain peaks were disappearing into the low cloud, I decided that I must descend below the cloud base. I’ll happily bet that you are already seeing the picture that is building up here............

I ended up ‘tight’ in the Umkomaas Gorge, the cloud base tickling the vertical stabiliser of SSG and with (at times) <300’ AGL.  We’ve read and heard of the disasters, all of which start in a valley which is choking closed a flight path, in rapidly failing viz. So discretion being better than blatting a mountain, I turned to retrace my steps. Do I need to tell you what confronted me?

OK, so now I’m kinda ‘forced’ to continue into what is unknown terrain and weather ahead, but the part which is known to me is; I’m being forced lower and lower, the valley sides are getting tighter, I’m also getting drizzle on the windshield and the ‘last straw’ is that Mrs.Garmin is screaming at me “Terrain, terrain”, with an occasional alternate message of “This is not a primary navigation device and is not to be trusted.....” Delightful right!

Now here’s a question over which much fire-side debate could ensue; Do I continue determinedly into the abyss, in the hopes of a lucky outcome, or do I land now at whatever suitable patch presents itself on the river flood plain close below me, or lastly do I panic whilst feverishly scratching for a 3rd option? Maybe you would have to have been there to appreciate just how precarious this was, nevertheless I decided to employ the former two options as a combination. I identified a known flat and ‘good’ flood plain patch (Nkonka Lodge) – previously visited on foot whilst weekending there and with the valley wide enough at this point to accommodate some ‘circuit’ style turns for an approach. Promising myself that I would keep this patch in constant visual contact, I now probed one more step downstream and I climbed, just a little, to a point of making contact with the cloud base.

At this point I could just make out the plateau where Billy Rosetenstein’s runway is and I angled towards there, watching always that my backtrack into the valley bottom was still open. I made it onto Billy’s plateau with <100’AGL in hand. Knowing this turf pretty well, I then figured that with any transect towards Richmond (Stuart McKenzie’s) I would not encounter higher ground i.e. its probably safe to head there, which I did. Let me tell you that when I finally had visual contact with the runway, I experienced the greatest barrage of mixed feelings I’ve ever encountered – from self admonishment, in terms that I’ll save you from in this mail, to the greatest target fixation imaginable – in fact I would have been happy to crash on that runway – so long as I was on it. Such was the relief, from the angst of my predicament only moments before.

If I wasn’t scared yet, here comes the ‘cu de gras’ - If I had elected to continue snivelling along towards Camperdown (only another 10miles), I would definitely not have made it past what is higher ground in-between (the Ngomankulu hills), then when I turned back for Richmond, this runway would have been gone in the mist, because in no less than 5 minutes of being on the ground, the mist enveloped the place. Someone was looking after me and I believe this was almost surely with a purpose; to scare the living crap outta me, to show me that there is no margin for any complacency in aviation, to prove that no matter how many the Log Book hours – the rules are the same for everyone. I’m still asking myself; do I get points for ending the Himeville flight and heading home, doing the right thing - only to simply be very unlucky. Or am I a dammed fool for pointing the sharp end of the plane at anything which looks like weather? Having become trapped, did I do the best I could, or was there some other possible course of action???

As an aside; using my mobile I phoned Stuart from his own runway, in order to announce my presence and also to enquire as to any possible aircraft shelter – well he answered as only Stuart can do, almost like he was expecting my call and totally ‘matter of fact’ “of course I’ll look after you, just taxi on down to my hangar” where I found him, only minutes later, he already had the hangar doors open and was guiding me directly into the hangar. He then approached with wheel chocks and pointing he says “there’s the office, come on through when you’re done and we’ll do coffee”.  I only didn’t hug him, for fear of not being welcome back there – in fact I still might. My darling Schatzie then came and fetched me, wagging her finger at me saying “you really shouldn’t be flying in this weather you know.....” if only she knew.

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I hope you enjoyed the story. I really don’t know why I wrote it at that time – maybe I just needed to somehow offload. You keep well and keep up your good Cheetah promotional efforts there in the US.

Cheers for now,

Steve

PS  While you were on-line do have a browse around in my galleries?  I liken this particular section (link below) of my Gallery to a magic carpet ride around hometown Durban, S.A. and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the ride. Please be aware that this page may take a minute or two to load, as it is image rich. A mouse click on any image will open that image to full size in a new Explorer window. Once viewed this window can simply be closed and you will be returned to the original Explorer window of thumbnail images.

Of course all images were shot using my favourite ‘tripod’ – my Cheetah.