Hi all. Whew!!!, just managed to clear my registration onto SOH, and looking forward to getting to know you all.
Just in time to "take the plunge" and register for the race. Ok 5 days to go, but I will need all the time available to squeeze racing into my work schedule.
I would like to register in the Golden Age Class, flying the MAAM-SIM DC3 (in the Springbok Flying Safaris livery of ZS-GPL), using P3D v2.4, Active Sky Next weather engine, FS-GLOBAL Mesh, FTXG textures, and the L-M race scenery by Jaap Van Hees. As a
Rookie, my aim is to merely finish in the best time I can, without getting seriously lost and in one piece!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brief history of ZS-GPL.
c/n 9581
Delivered to USAAF in May 1945 as Skytrain 42-23719
Located within USA during WWII
Sold after the war to General Airways, Portland Oregon as NC47573
In 1966 went to North American Aviation in Los Angeles, and in 1970 to Ellee Co. also in LA.
In 1971 sold to Grinair in South Africa (Aviation arm of Grinaker, an engineering company), and based at Grand Central in Johannesburg.
In March 1976 sold to Sand River Safaris by United Air services and based at Wonderboom in Pretoria.
In 1980 she was with Air Services Botswana, where she did duty in then Rhodesia, transporting election officials and politicians around during the Independence Elections (some of whom have inherited this DC-3's longevity as politicians!)
Returned to United Air Service later in 1980 under Wonder Air.
In 2001 she was purchased by Capt. Flippie Vermuelen for Springbok Classic Air, and based at Rand Airport, where she was restored to immaculate condition, and flew the Springbok Flying Safaris banner for many years. This is when I often met her at airshows, and would frequently see her out on flights around Johannesburg (always pre-notified of her presence by that unmistakeable Dak sound).
In 2009 she was sold to Indigo Air, Tanzania, and registered 5H-DAK. As of 2010 she still carried the same livery as she wore when ZS-GPL, but with the Tanzanian flag, and a blue circle "a" logo on her tail. Still flying until at least 2010, she was used on a regular tourist route from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar.
She is now listed as being "in storage" at Kiauni airport in Zanzibar.
On Google Earth a lone Dakota sits forlorn outside a hanger in an image taken in early 2014 of Kiauni Airport. It may be her sister ship ZS-LVR, "Memphis Belle" (Now 5H-LVR), the DC-3 famed for being the only DC-3 to operate off an aircraft carrier. ZS-LVR has a distinctive long nose, which the DC-3 in the image appears not to have, so I think this is 5H-DAK, in which case she needs to be rescued!
To honour this amazing "old lady", and keep her alive in people's minds so that hopefully, she will be rescued, and celebrate her 70th birthday come May 2015, in the air, I have picked ZS-GPL as my trusted steed for this race.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The repaint is my own, done last weekend, as ZS-GPL appeared in 2008, except with the Flying Springbok emblem of the 1930s-1940s SAA added to her normally all-white tail-fin (kind of a mascot for my race, that reveals my nationality to all, and an emblem embedded in my memory as a boy when I dreamed of being a pilot).
Just hope that by adding this emblem and registration I do not fall foul of "patent names", and have a Sir Charles Kingsford Smith experience (please not, Miss Nellie!)
So here is ZS-GPL, all spruced up, over Rand Airport area during my flight training, testing, and brushing up on NDB navigation and ded reckoning. Now stripped of all her modern avionics, she waits at EGUN, ready to race!
Regards, and wishing you all good weather, safe landings, and jolly good fun!
Rob Harris
