hourbuilding south africa.. advise please...
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hourbuilding south africa.. advise please...
Just wondering if anyone has done hourbuilding in south africa and can pass on any usefull information from there experience there... ive few more atpl exams left now, will be finished the last exam in early november and kinda want to have everything sorted as to what and where to go next..." some direction " ...best to get on this now while i have some time to convert my jaa licences and all the rest ... i was thinking of going to australia or even back to florida where i did my p.p.l but south africa is one im interested the most.. so any help much appreciated.. 
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If you are going on another license, you need to do a small conversion - the Air Law exam and a flight test, but you would have to do that almost anywhere. Find a school that can do the paperwork part in advance as it needs to go to the SACAA first before you can fly and that can all be sorted before you arrive -a decent school will let you know exactly what needs to be done and how much it costs, or do a google search for "Higherplane" there is some info about flying in SA on that site, and Irv Lee, the site owner can advise you on the license conversion process - his email is on his website.
The flying over there is good. Nice weather and great scenery, but make sure your nav is spot on - there are some very remote and lonely places there and also some parts where you cannot raise anyone on the radio without doing a relay via a passing airliner !!. They tend to use 1:1,000,000 charts over there, so nav can be a bit tricky as the charts don't show much detail covering such a huge area and they are also not laminated either which is a pain in the @$$.
Also if you don't know how to do density calculations on the CRP-5, learn. There are some very high airfields in SA, and it gets very hot. Hour building SEP spam cans don't like that and you may find yourself not getting off the ground - especially if you tried to take off with the mixture fully rich !!. (remember the pre-take off checks - it is NOT just simply "Mixture - Rich".....as taught at a hell of a lot of flight schools
- it's "Mixture - Set (rich for SEA LEVEL)")
Make sure you use a well established school/club with a good reputation, like anywhere else SA has its fair share of rouges - I used to fly with Algoa at Port Elizabeth, although APTRAC also at PE, Progress just outside PE and 43rd Air School at Port Alfred are all well known reputable companies. I'm not too clues up about schools in other parts of the country, but do a search on google then cross reference the names on here and it should pull up any threads.
A/c hire over there was around 1/2 what I was paying in the UK. The beer worked out at £0.80 a bottle, and food is pretty cheap too - even in the classy upmarket joints, it can be within your budget if your used to European prices.
Hope that helps. Any questions feel free to PM and I'll try and answer them as best I can.
The flying over there is good. Nice weather and great scenery, but make sure your nav is spot on - there are some very remote and lonely places there and also some parts where you cannot raise anyone on the radio without doing a relay via a passing airliner !!. They tend to use 1:1,000,000 charts over there, so nav can be a bit tricky as the charts don't show much detail covering such a huge area and they are also not laminated either which is a pain in the @$$.
Also if you don't know how to do density calculations on the CRP-5, learn. There are some very high airfields in SA, and it gets very hot. Hour building SEP spam cans don't like that and you may find yourself not getting off the ground - especially if you tried to take off with the mixture fully rich !!. (remember the pre-take off checks - it is NOT just simply "Mixture - Rich".....as taught at a hell of a lot of flight schools
- it's "Mixture - Set (rich for SEA LEVEL)")Make sure you use a well established school/club with a good reputation, like anywhere else SA has its fair share of rouges - I used to fly with Algoa at Port Elizabeth, although APTRAC also at PE, Progress just outside PE and 43rd Air School at Port Alfred are all well known reputable companies. I'm not too clues up about schools in other parts of the country, but do a search on google then cross reference the names on here and it should pull up any threads.
A/c hire over there was around 1/2 what I was paying in the UK. The beer worked out at £0.80 a bottle, and food is pretty cheap too - even in the classy upmarket joints, it can be within your budget if your used to European prices.
Hope that helps. Any questions feel free to PM and I'll try and answer them as best I can.
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I went out to SA last year to do 100 hrs hour building. I booked with a flying school in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area, but after 3 weeks on the ground and no flying I decided to drive down to the coast in search of better weather. (You can get fog / haze and thunderstorms in the summer inland).
I ended up at a Flying school at Virginia Airport near Durban. I paid up front and it worked out at about £60 per hour for the C152 and £65 p/h for the PA28. They also let us have a C152 for a whole week for just ourselves if we guarantee about 2.5 to 3 hours flying a day. In 8 weeks, I flew about 6 days a week. It was blue sky, not a lot of wind, no storms etc. every day. There are very nice land aways.
From Durban:
1 hour away - Richards Bay Airport
1 hour away - Margate Airport
1.5 hours away - Port St. Johns Airport (on a mountain)
All these airports are on the coast so is easy to find. We even flew down to Port Alfred, which I logged 7 hours flying in 1 day.
Beautiful scenery, lots of planes, lots of places to go etc! So I would recomend going to Virginia Aiport. The people are also very friendly at VFS.
Any more questions, or want photos, let me know!
EKE
I ended up at a Flying school at Virginia Airport near Durban. I paid up front and it worked out at about £60 per hour for the C152 and £65 p/h for the PA28. They also let us have a C152 for a whole week for just ourselves if we guarantee about 2.5 to 3 hours flying a day. In 8 weeks, I flew about 6 days a week. It was blue sky, not a lot of wind, no storms etc. every day. There are very nice land aways.
From Durban:
1 hour away - Richards Bay Airport
1 hour away - Margate Airport
1.5 hours away - Port St. Johns Airport (on a mountain)
All these airports are on the coast so is easy to find. We even flew down to Port Alfred, which I logged 7 hours flying in 1 day.
Beautiful scenery, lots of planes, lots of places to go etc! So I would recomend going to Virginia Aiport. The people are also very friendly at VFS.
Any more questions, or want photos, let me know!
EKE
Join Date: May 2005
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EKE, you were simply unlucky. The weather inland in South Africa is far better than the weather at the coast. The coastal weather this year has been especially bad, whereas the weather inland has been pretty decent, although not as good as in previous years.
The wind has been hectic at the coast - was 65 kts around PE a few weeks ago.
Rates for a C152 are around 60 GBP if booked as a block amount.
The wind has been hectic at the coast - was 65 kts around PE a few weeks ago.
Rates for a C152 are around 60 GBP if booked as a block amount.
I did the licence conversion at Lanseria outside Jo'burg and hour-building at Cape Town Flying Club.
All in all, the licence conversion was a hassle and expensive, whereas the hour-building was cheap and fun.
Somewhere there's a long thread on SA licence conversions and hour-building with all the details. It should come up in a search.
MH152
All in all, the licence conversion was a hassle and expensive, whereas the hour-building was cheap and fun.
Somewhere there's a long thread on SA licence conversions and hour-building with all the details. It should come up in a search.
MH152
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There are a few things to watch out for:
Don't use the term "conversion", I think you need a "validation" from what you've described - in other words, your current licence, ratings, and medical will be recognised. If you confuse them by asking for a conversion, that's what you may end up with, and not only is it harder, you'd need a SA medical. I can't see any reason for you wanting more than a 'validation'.
Basically for a validation you will need to do (ground) SA Air Law and a flight test which will often include Nav (but doesn't have to, depends on your history and experience).
If you go for any formal purpose - and that includes even if you declare you are hours building, OR if you want a year's validaton rather than a vacation's worth (3 months), OR if you go to a club that hasn't done enough research, you will be required to do a modern version of the Air Law exam (computerised, SA PPL style). This formal Air Law exam is not all that 'fit for purpose' for visitors as it really is over the top, as it will be testing you on things you'd need to know if you had a SA PPL, and you won't be getting one of those.
As long as you only want a validation for 3 months, and you have no formal objective, the SA CAA approves you doing a locally set air law paper relevant to your situation. The trouble is that as the more difficult version of Air Law 'works' for the shorter validations, so a number of clubs haven't found out that it can be substituted in certain cases, and they (the clubs, not the SA CAA) force visiting pilots through the harder version whatever.
You'll only be allowed to fly aircraft you've already got in your log book. They simply do not understand our UK CAA would have no problem with you being shown a new SEP (non complex) model or even type (in the sense of it still being SEP, not a new 'type rating') by a SA instructor, and you won't convince them, so don't waste your breathe, just make sure you have whatever you are renting in your log book already.
As already stated, you can get all the paperwork done before you arrive, subject only to you passing air law and the flight test as soon as you arrive, and the paperwork becomes instantly valid without referring back to the SA CAA, as they issued it subject to the other bits being done before you use it. Again, a number of clubs don't realise this, so you can have a long wait after arrival before you are legal.
ps: AND - make sure nothing will expire during the period of your intended flying dates there - you will only get a validation to the date of the next 'thing' that expires - AND make sure your UK/JAA licence has the new English Proficiency statement on it. You have to pay our UK CAA to release your details anyway to the SA CAA when they ask, but they won't even bother asking if your licence doesn't seem 'right' to start with.
Don't use the term "conversion", I think you need a "validation" from what you've described - in other words, your current licence, ratings, and medical will be recognised. If you confuse them by asking for a conversion, that's what you may end up with, and not only is it harder, you'd need a SA medical. I can't see any reason for you wanting more than a 'validation'.
Basically for a validation you will need to do (ground) SA Air Law and a flight test which will often include Nav (but doesn't have to, depends on your history and experience).
If you go for any formal purpose - and that includes even if you declare you are hours building, OR if you want a year's validaton rather than a vacation's worth (3 months), OR if you go to a club that hasn't done enough research, you will be required to do a modern version of the Air Law exam (computerised, SA PPL style). This formal Air Law exam is not all that 'fit for purpose' for visitors as it really is over the top, as it will be testing you on things you'd need to know if you had a SA PPL, and you won't be getting one of those.
As long as you only want a validation for 3 months, and you have no formal objective, the SA CAA approves you doing a locally set air law paper relevant to your situation. The trouble is that as the more difficult version of Air Law 'works' for the shorter validations, so a number of clubs haven't found out that it can be substituted in certain cases, and they (the clubs, not the SA CAA) force visiting pilots through the harder version whatever.
You'll only be allowed to fly aircraft you've already got in your log book. They simply do not understand our UK CAA would have no problem with you being shown a new SEP (non complex) model or even type (in the sense of it still being SEP, not a new 'type rating') by a SA instructor, and you won't convince them, so don't waste your breathe, just make sure you have whatever you are renting in your log book already.
As already stated, you can get all the paperwork done before you arrive, subject only to you passing air law and the flight test as soon as you arrive, and the paperwork becomes instantly valid without referring back to the SA CAA, as they issued it subject to the other bits being done before you use it. Again, a number of clubs don't realise this, so you can have a long wait after arrival before you are legal.
ps: AND - make sure nothing will expire during the period of your intended flying dates there - you will only get a validation to the date of the next 'thing' that expires - AND make sure your UK/JAA licence has the new English Proficiency statement on it. You have to pay our UK CAA to release your details anyway to the SA CAA when they ask, but they won't even bother asking if your licence doesn't seem 'right' to start with.
Last edited by Irv; 19th Jul 2009 at 17:44.
Yes, indeed, I was referring to a licence validation. It's only valid for a year.
I can only second what Irv says about many schools not understanding their own system. Lanseria Flight Centre told me the system had recently changed and blamed the SA CAA for the confusion and the reason why I had to do the full online SA PPL Air Law test.
The thing Irv hasn't mentioned is the school's attitude to the flight test. Some places aren't as well organised as others and your flight test could end up as 5 hours flying time! I had an obligatory 'orientation flight' lasting an hour and a quarter, followed by a 'general handling flight' of an hour and a half, and a final 'navigation flight' of over 2 hours!
I should add that I was a low-houred PPL holder, but I flew very nicely and had no troubles whatsoever, so it was not as though I needed extra time in the air to prove my abilities! I would suggest following Irv's advice carefully and ensure the place you do the validation knows the system and isn't out to rip you off.
I can only second what Irv says about many schools not understanding their own system. Lanseria Flight Centre told me the system had recently changed and blamed the SA CAA for the confusion and the reason why I had to do the full online SA PPL Air Law test.
The thing Irv hasn't mentioned is the school's attitude to the flight test. Some places aren't as well organised as others and your flight test could end up as 5 hours flying time! I had an obligatory 'orientation flight' lasting an hour and a quarter, followed by a 'general handling flight' of an hour and a half, and a final 'navigation flight' of over 2 hours!
I should add that I was a low-houred PPL holder, but I flew very nicely and had no troubles whatsoever, so it was not as though I needed extra time in the air to prove my abilities! I would suggest following Irv's advice carefully and ensure the place you do the validation knows the system and isn't out to rip you off.
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pilot training in SA
Hi ppl
I have a Sri Lankan PPL and am planning on going to SA to do the CPL/IR/ME. With regard to what i have read in the previous threads, I have to do a validation of the Sri Lankan PPL to SA license and then do the training for CPL, is it ? Is Lanseria pilot training a good place to go to ? Or any other suggestions pls
Thanks
Thaariq
I have a Sri Lankan PPL and am planning on going to SA to do the CPL/IR/ME. With regard to what i have read in the previous threads, I have to do a validation of the Sri Lankan PPL to SA license and then do the training for CPL, is it ? Is Lanseria pilot training a good place to go to ? Or any other suggestions pls
Thanks
Thaariq
