Flying Lawyer

Charles 'Chalkie' Stobbart will attempt to break Alex Henshaw's Cape Records later this month in this, the 70th anniversary year.

If all goes according to plan he will arrive at Southend in the early hours of Saturday 9th May.

Chalkie, a South African Airways Training Captain, is an experienced long-distance light aircraft pilot. He has been awarded the prestigious 'Major Achievement Award for Outstanding Service to Sport Aviation' awarded by the EAA(USA) and is a past President of the EAA in South Africa.



The aircraft - an Osprey GP4 (home-built)

If Chalkie beats Alex Henshaw's time from Cape Town, he will break the first of the Cape Records which have stood for 70 years.
He has to beat the time on the return journey and the round-trip time to break all three Cape Records.

I attach an extract from an email from him which includes details of his route and ETA.


I plan to be at Southend, and thought others might also like to be present to support a fellow aviator and witness what may be the making of a piece of aviation history.

FL

echobeach

Sounds like a fantastic flight. This might seem a rather uninformed question but what is the current standing record time and what craft is the new record attempt being made in ?

echobeach

Sorry. That will teach me to reply from my phone. Didn't see the picture on first look

Flying Lawyer

echobeach

I was editing to attach the pic when you posted.

More information about the Osprey GP4 and a comparison with Henshaw's Mew Gull here:
Chalkie Sobbart's Henshaw Challenge

topoverhaul

Not going to be easy to beat, to be fair to Alex I hope he is going sans GPS and Autopilot

Michael Birbeck

As a South African I feel honour bound to come down to support this effort.

Voorspoed man.

Is there a planned reception at Southend at +- 05:00 hrs on the 09th May?

skua

good effort. But I seem to recall that Henshaw used Gravesend, so why does Chalkie not use my home base Rochester instead? It is nearer to Gravesend and a lot cheaper. I guess it may be because he wants the comfort of an instrument procedure. On the other hand he would not be allowed officially to fly IFR in the UK in homebuilt would he?


good luck to him.

MichaelJP59

Fascinating, was looking at the Mew Gull in the hangar at Breighton recently and was wondering how he managed to navigate then land the thing at the sort of strips mentioned in the book - no forward vision and not much to the sides either! Time and again he is unsure of his position having dead-reckoned his position over hundreds of miles with no fixes, then manages to spot a strip at night or in fog in the middle of nowhere.

Glad to see someone attempting the record but with modern avionics it will be so much easier. Still a challenge but takes nothing away from Alex Henshaw's feat.

Mark 1

As I understand it, the day/VFR restrictions in AWN52 can be exempted for flights like these. The organisation nightmare must be obtaining permissions and exemptions for every state that you fly through.

I wonder what the legalities of sleeping while on autopilot are?

Good luck to him

silverknapper

Whilst this is no mean feat, one can't help but agree with topoverhaul. The real challenge in the original record would be navigation and flying the aircraft. I can't help but think that most people could do this with the right equipment.

MichaelJP59

So today's the day - anyone know if it's going ahead, presumably the attempt needs a reasonable weather forecast?

Thinking about that, where would you even go for forecasts along that route?

Rod1

You can watch the fun live at;

Follow Chalkie Live !

Rod1

MichaelJP59

Looking at the site I hadn't heard of an Osprey GP4 and it doesn't seem to appear on the LAA list - any reason why not? Is it relatively rare?

Rod1

The Osprey GP4 is not LAA approved and it is plans build which are much less popular than a kit.

Rod1

hum

Looks like not such an early start to welcome Chalkie on Sat...

Good luck!!

4HolerPoler

Chalkie Stobbard, got airborne from Cape Town last night in an effort to break the single engine (200hp or less) record from Cape Town to London & return that has stood since February 1939 -

Follow his progress here.

To date, the fact that no successful attempt at the record has been made, attests to the magnitude of the feat, which was accomplished by the late Alex Henshaw all those years ago, in February of 1939.

His route and schedule:

Cape Town to Brazzaville (Congo) to Kano (Nigeria) to Algiers (Algeria) to Southend (London, UK)

Cape Town depart 20:00 7th May - Brazzaville arrive 06:15
Brazzaville depart 07:15 8th May - Kano arrive 13:10
Kano depart 14:10 8th May - Algiers arrive 22:45
Algiers depart 23:45 8th May - Southend arrive 05:00 Saturday 9th May.

Southend depart 19:00 9th May - Algiers arrive 00:15 10th May.
Algiers depart 01:15 10th May - Kano 09:50
Kano depart 10:50 10th May - Brazzaville 16:50 refuel and sleep 40 minutes.
Brazzaville depart 18:20 10th May - Cape Town 04:30 Monday 11th May.

3 Days, 8 Hours, 30 Minutes

Now in my book this is news - can we please keep it as news (and not Where is He Now?) until he sets the record?

BackPacker

Looks like he took of from SA three hours later than planned. First leg 15 minutes faster than planned, but the fuel stop in Brazzaville took two hours instead of one.

All based on the Google maps data of course.

rans6andrew

there has been no indicated movement, on the live tracking website, for over 2 hours now. I hope there isn't a serious problem. it may be as simple as forgetting to switch the tracker hardware back on after refuelling.

Track Aircraft

Fingers crossed!

Agaricus bisporus

One has to wonder what the Flight Safety Executives of the various CAAs en route think of this kind of semi-comatose flying in deepest sleep-deprivation...

Presumably to qualify in a moral sense he has no electronic nav-aids or autopilot either? That would be like "breaking" Burt Munro's record at Daytona on a turbocharged Honda. You might have bought the record, but you wouldn't have broken it. Not really.

All the same, good luck to him. He'll be needing it!

Flying Lawyer

Take-off last night was delayed due fog.

I hope it doesn't have any repercussions for him later but, for those of us intending to be at Southend for his arrival, it does mean not having to get up in time to be there by 05:00Z!

You can monitor his progress 'live' from his GPS data here -

Follow Chalkie Live!


FL