On Wings of a Trike
During every holiday, in addition to caravans, a good number of cars tow trailers with motorcycles, quad bikes and boats, to be used at the holiday destination. Not seen recently though, is someone towing a micro-light aircraft.
The one time I do remember noticing one, was when it was behind my car on the way to De Put, my friend Charl’s farm in the Karoo. De Put is located distance-wise just about dead-centre between Aberdeen, Murraysburg and Nelspoort. This was the first time I had towed over such a distance, but as the trike is designed to fold up compactly, and due to it weighing less than 150kg, quite an easy tow.
First we had to attend to a make-shift landing strip on a salt-pan (32°18’58.2”S, 23°32’53.72”E).
The trike in the background belonged to a neighbouring farmer. It shared the hangar with an owl, which regularly plastered the wing.
Oh, the pumpkin? Well, yes. The wind started blowing very strongly in the afternoon, and the upwind wingtip needed to be tied down to prevent the trike from being flipped upside down. The neighbour’s wing we could peg down with a piece of fencing post that was on the back of the bakkie, but all that was left for ZS-WGR, was the pumpkin. It worked just fine.
Some of the farm labourers had flattened the bushes, although calling the bushes dead sticks, would be more accurate. Taxiing out the farm gate from the garden, was quite a novel experience. I mean, picture this: “Please open the gate, son. I’m going for my daily water-point inspection”.
Take-off on the road at the homestead was possible, but landing at the same location not, in spite of Charl having graded the road with a blade attached to his tractor to rid it of loose stones. The Class-C road was just too narrow, with a converging telephone line, middelmannetjie and flood-humps to boot; the least amount of cross-wind pushed the trike off track when power was taken off during the flare. This possibility fortunately occurred to us prior to the maiden take-off, and the alternative landing spot was prepared the previous day.
Now might be a good time to mention that I have a bit of a reputation.
Nothing serious, really. In any event, in spite of my reputation I had passengers for every flight. As reward, the guys that prepared the runway were offered a flip, but only one accepted. So up we went, with an intercom connection in the helmets to enable pilot and passenger to communicate with each other. Via the intercom I pointed out the familiar features that my passenger knew from ground level. However, my headset remained deathly silent. My enquiry whether he could hear me eventually elicited a very high-pitched “yes?”, squeaked by my witlessly scared passenger. I realised that the tallest perspective he had ever experienced to date was standing on top of a windpomp platform, hanging on for dear life, looking for missing sheep.
Realising the state of my passenger I returned to base. Upon being asked by Charl how it was, my passenger very politely, though unconvincingly, responded that it was “good”. When pushed for an answer which spot he liked most, the response was a rather more accurate: “Right here where I’m standing now, sir”.