From todays Cape Crimes, er, sorry, Cape Times:
Huey and cry over operator's right to fly 1970's helicopter
A BATTLE between two rival Cape Peninsula helicopter tour operators broke into open war
this week when the owner of one tried to stone his rival's helicopter while it was trying to land.
Sport Helicopters and the Huey Extreme Club have been engaged in a long dispute over whether a Huey helicopter - built in the United States in the 1970s - is safe to fly.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says it grounded the Huey on January 7 because the Huey Extreme Club would not allow a safety inspection of the aircraft. The club claims the grounding is invalid and has continued to fly the llelicopter.
The stoning occurred on Saturday when the Huey was stranded near Bloubergstrand.
A helicopter from Sport Helicopters flew over the Huey while it was being loaded onto a truck to be taken back to its hangar. The Sport pilot tried to land his helicopter nearby, but had to abort the landing when Gary van der Merwe, the Huey's owner, threw stones at his aircraft.
Ernest Macdonald, who owns Sport Helicopters, says if one of the stones had hit the helicopter's rear rotor, it could have led to disaster. The CAA is investigating the incident.
Francois Marais, vice president of the Huey Extreme Club, says Van der Merwe only threw
the stones after he had motioned to the pilot not to land as he was kicking up a lot of dust, making it hard to secure the Huey on the truck.
The Huey had to be trucked back to the hangar because of a mechanical difficulty Van der
Merwe says he noticed when landing at Blouberg.
There is a dispute between the CAA and the Huey Extreme Club about whether the club is a
commercial operation that must abide by strict commercial regulations. Marais says it is a non-profit club that rents the helicopter from one of Van der Merwe's other companies at an
hourly rate.
The CAA has laid charges against the club for contravening the grounding order.
After the club won a high court interdict against a previous CAA grounding in December, the CAA again grounded the Huey when its inspectors were not allowed to examine it on January 7. Van der Merwe owns seven other Hueys that he hopes to restore and return to the air in the next few years.