René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

If you happen to come to Cape Town and want to have a great ride in a plane, I have a good and proven tip for you. As the helicopter rides are only for snobs and sissies, and in addition very expensive, true flying happens only in a plane. Contact the Cape Town Flying Club and ask specifically for the flight instructor Peter Erasmus. He is a great guy, a fantastic instructor and an experienced pilot who will make sure you get an unforgettable experience.

It was last Sunday that we took off from Runway 19 on Cape Town International Airport and headed to the north in our a Cessna 72 RG, call-sign ZS-KSS. Peter had recommended to fly rather north as the weather towards the east was supposed to be cloudy. At the same time he warned that we should be prepared for turbulent weather. Cool explanation: “You can’t do anything about turbulence; you have to ride them out!” Thus, we chose to fly along the coastline above the water where we were not fully exposed to the warm air rising from the ground creating these shaky conditions.

Here we are flying north leaving Cape Town behind us:

Peter also warned that for arrival we would face strong winds during landing. This was a polite description of what I with my 90 flight hours had never experienced before. As the landing strip consisted of a 700 m long dust-strip, we first circled 1,500 feet above the airfield to identify the direction the wind came from. We managed to spot a wind-sock which gave us the indication we should use runway 26 and land into westerly direction.

Peter was obviously pilot in command, but so far I had been the flying pilot. I initiated the procedure for landing, due to the wind we kept the contact surface to a minimum with flaps only to 20° and I aligned the plane into the final approach for landing. What happened next was like a rollercoaster landing with not just a strong cross-wind, but rather hefty gusts which were throwing the plane completely out of direction. I somehow managed to bring it back into a controlled path for descent when the next gust hit with full force. If I had been alone, I would have done a go-around, and maybe attempted one more time. But luckily, I had an experienced flight instructor sitting right to my side. Around 150 from the ground, I backed off and said: “your controls”. Peter took over, not that the wind would have treated the plane better for that reason, but Peter knew how to handle it. With some more shaking and a little bounce-back from the runway he heroically landed the plane safely. That was without question my most exciting lesson so far.

This, by the way, is both the terminal and the hangar of “Lambert’s Bay International Airport” ;-)

Peter modestly mentioned before-take off that he had contacted the fellows from Muisbosskerm and they had said that had prepared some “small snacks”. We got a pick-up with their 190 Mercedes which drove us over a bumpy road to the place which we had at around 6.30 pm entirely for us.

What we received as “small snacks” was beyond belief. A fully prepared luxury meal from mother sea which was rushing 10 meters away from us towards the beach. As a starter Oysters, freshly opened in front of us:

That would have been feast enough. But in the eyes of our hosts, it wasn’t. What followed was an entire cooked fish, crayfish, salad and even a freshly baked loaf of bread. It was such good food in such an authentic and honest environment.

(The champagne, by the way, had unfortunately to be entirely neglected by us pilots.) Although we deeply fell in love with the place, Peter reminded that we should be latest at 8 pm at the airport so that we could get airborne still with sufficient daylight. So it happened and we caught a beautiful sunset from the air, climbing to 4,500 feet heading back south to our home base Cape Town.

Approaching Cape Town International Airport, Peter was handling the radio and the tower advised us that we could enter into a long final on Runway 19 as there were no other bigger and faster planes expected during the next minutes of our landing. So I had the unprecedented pleasure to land a Cessna on a 3.6 km long runway at with fully party-lights on.

I had quite cool flying experiences so far, but I have to admit that this one was the coolest of all. I guess the mix of a completely different environment, the landing on such an uncontrolled airstrip, the stunning beauty of the landscape, the unexpected seafood-orgy at Muisbosskerm and Peter’s great leadership made that difference.