The longstanding flying training day at the SA Air Force (SAAF) Museum on the first Saturday of the month remains an event for Gauteng’s fraternity of military aviation aficionados and this Saturday will see the added plus of the Elders Flight.
The brainchild of Felix Gosher, the flight first took to the skies above Germiston’s Rand Airport in 2018 happening again a year later before the COVID-19 pandemic put it on hold for two years. Last year Brakpan Airfield on Gauteng’s East Rand hosted more than 40 aircraft – fixed and rotary wing; vintage, veteran and warbird – giving the elderly, including military veterans, an opportunity to take to the skies, thanks to generous sponsorship and owners willing to share their aircraft.
The Elders Flight aircraft flying in to what is now the Air Force Mobile Deployment Wing (AF MDW), previously Air Force Base (AFB) Swartkop, the oldest base in the SAAF inventory on 6 July, will be joined by at least some of the SAAF Museum’s inventory of vintage warbirds.
The event will be kicked off with a South African flag drop while the national anthem plays in the background. For the opening display/mini air show, the Flying Lions and Goodyear Eagles aerobatic display teams will perform, along with an Alouette III display by Juba Joubert, Hawker Hunter flypast, Extra 330 two ship formation, and Gyrocopter display by Andre van Zyl.
Elders will then be flown throughout the day by over a dozen different aircraft types, ranging from Cessna 185s to RV 10s and even a Cemair Dash 8 Q400. Both fixed and rotary wing aircraft – including a Huey helicopter – will take nearly 500 elders into the sky.
The Jeppe Boys Pipe Band will perform a ceremony for military veterans while Chief of the South African Air Force, Lieutenant General Wiseman Mbambo, will officiate during the handout of Elders Flight Wings to elders and crews. A final formation fly past by a two ship North American Harvard formation of the Harvard Club will round out the event mid-afternoon.
Flying aside, those fortunate enough to make the trip to the base opposite what was the SAAF Gymnasium in Valhalla, adjacent to Thaba Tshwane, will refresh memories taking in the impressive museum displays covering the SAAF from its founding days, through both World Wars, the Korean and Bush Wars as well as the former Bantustan air forces, incorporated into the SAAF in 1994.
