From the left:  Nora Kreher, Alex Böger, Carol Zeederberg, Georg Brunts, Joe Holmes, Joan Cameron, Sven Kreher,   Andrew Cadman, Avroy Shlain, James Hersov and Bill de Pinho.

Wow! What a year this has been for The Bateleurs! We have flown 57 missions in this calendar year - averaging fractionally more than one a week and representing approximately 346 flying hours.  Just amazing.  So a huge thank you to our volunteer pilots, our directors and our sponsors, all of whom have contributed in so many different and always generous ways.

We have even more unbelievable news:  We have at last secured sponsorship for the building of our offices at the Johannesburg Zoo!  At this stage the Donors wish to remain anonymous, but AUB Projects have been commissioned to design, build and project manage our new home.  And what a home it is going to be!  We are going to get an Environmental Building!  Sod roof, solar heating, straw-bale walls, huge old steel girder to cradle the roof, and the use of as many second-hand products as possible.  And the great thing is that the project team from AUB - Alex Böger, Georg Brunts (pictured below) and Sue Clark - are as excited as we are, if that is possible.

From the outset Bateleur director Sven Kreher (who had been given the 'house portfolio') had this vision of a 'green' building, and this is really what has made this project so interesting.  Alex and Georg loved the challenge - as well as what The Bateleurs do - and Alex immediately consulted with and brought in solar heating and cooling experts, and the architect, Sue Clark, who has to be a wiz because the design is terrific.  It is going to be a lot more than just an 'environmentally friendly' building - it will be a prototype of a green building.  They plan to start in April so it should be finished in the second half of 2007!  Yipeeeee!

Then, I hope, it will be a meeting place for all Bateleur pilots and friends, and a superb place from which to plan all future missions.

Meanwhile we have flown many interesting and diverse missions since our last newsletter, as you will see below.  I urge you to read about them as they all deal with the aerial perspective of environmental and conservation issues.  
 
To those pilots who flew but whose names and missions have not been included in this newsletter, either because of legalities or space, these will be featured in the first newsletter of 2007.

Dr Ian Player  (circa 1950) as he appeared in his wonderful book "Men Rivers and Canoes".  A new edition of this book is being published by Echoing Green Press and will be launched in January 2007.

... Bateleur Patron and LightHawk Pilot, adds our logo to his plane.

Michael, together with his great friend Kirk Johnson, (also a LightHawk pilot), spent four days at the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Alaska, flying VIP delegates over their home turf.  For their untiring work both Mike and Kirk were given LightHawk's Great White North Ambassador award.  

Michael has been at the forefront of critical Alaskan conservation struggles over many years, working and campaigning on a wide variety of fronts. 

A map of the Klip River wetland.  

The story of an urban wetland as seen from the air

"A group of scientists and the Programme Manager of Working for Wetlands took to the air through the generous support of The Bateleurs, to shed light on the nature and causes of degradation of one of South Africa's most important wetlands, the Kliprivier Vlei, which is situated south of Johannesburg and Roodepoort. 

Environmental scientists have long contended that the Kliprivier Vlei is valuable for the goods and services it provides to people in and around Johannesburg and especially to downstream communities along the lower Klip River and the Vaal River in the Vereeniging area.  In particular, the wetland is believed to significantly improve water quality coming out of catchments on the Witwatersrand that have been impacted by acid mine drainage arising from gold mining and by treated wastewater from sewage treatment plants. 

The scientists, Terence McCarthy (Wits University), Fred Ellery (University of KwaZulu-Natal) and Jaco Venter (Council for Geoscience), were interested in why and how the wetland has degraded over the past few decades, while the Programme Manager of Working for Wetlands, John Dini, was interested in being put in the picture with a view to possible action that might be taken. Terence and Jaco have been working on the Kliprivier Vlei for a number of years now, and their recently published paper (McCarthy & Venter 2006) has revealed the importance of this system from the perspective of removing pollutants from surface water coming into the system from mining and sewage treatment works amongst other things.

Research has now focused on degradation of the Kliprivier Vlei, which has happened steadily since gold mining started in Johannesburg, but which has undergone a sudden dramatic acceleration since about 1960. Degradation has taken place through erosion of channels in areas where flow was formerly diffuse, leading to a dramatic decline in residence time of water in the wetland, and to an associated loss of wetland function.

Our flight over the Kliprivier Vlei presented us with an overview of a wetland system that is not possible to achieve from the ground. What we saw was probably common to most wetlands in urban settings - a wetland being turned into a wastewater drain due to human activity.

Our hope is that we can reverse this negative change into something more positive, and that one day our children or grandchildren will enjoy the benefits of our desire to heal natural systems rather than abuse them. Restoring the wetland will also go a long way towards protecting the Vaal River in the area of the Barrage from the negative effects of nutrient pollution such as seen at Hartebeespoort Dam, for example. The ongoing research into the Kliprivier Vlei has benefited greatly from the flight afforded to our group by The Bateleurs, and we thank Jan Hugo in particular for his professional and passionate engagement with our work, and for making our flight memorable."

This photo shows the interbranching flow paths that link eroded channels.  Over time water will seek out the most favourable of these paths and convert this into an eroded gully.

A waterfall is a rare sight in any wetland and indicates severe erosional degradation. 

Jan Hugo volunteered to fly over the Klip River wetlands in Soweto, in his Robbie 44, doing two circuits of the area to accommodate four passengers, who needed to assess the status of the wetlands.  This is his enthusiastic report:

"I was very pleased to wake up to a cloudless sky on the 21st November. After many days of rain I had been worried that the weather might cause me to miss my first flight for The Bateleurs in my R44.

The flight request came from Fred Ellery of the School of Environmental Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The area to be covered was the Klip River Wetland from Kibler Park to Lanseria, with the purpose of seeing the Wetland from the air.  Please see the map above, indicating the extent of the Klip River wetland that was the subject of this investigation.  The scientists intended doing a survey of the sites of degradation in the Wetland in order to understand the anatomy of wetland degradation. They also hope to be able to determine the presence and location of any erosional nick points within the wetland.

We had agreed to meet at Panorama Flight Park at 08h00 on 21 November. I arrived early and found that my four passengers were ready and waiting. After a quick tour of the area on a lap-top and a very basic explanation of the project, I took off with three passengers. Panorama is located inside the helicopter G.F. and although there were a number of choppers around, we soon found ourselves next to the R59 highway where the survey area starts. At an altitude of between 300 and 500 ft and at 60 to 70 knots we were able to get a great view of some of the channels which have been created in the wetland and which present a potential threat to the Vaal River. We circled in places to take photographs of particular points of interest and continued to the sewage works west of the N1 highway. Here one could clearly see the effect of the sewage water being dumped into the wetland. The amazing thing to see was the fantastic condition of the wetland west of the sewage works. The scientists assured me that it is their intention to return the damaged wetland to its original condition.

We returned to Panorama, dropped off two of the passengers and repeated the same flight.
 
This, my first flight for The Bateleurs, was a real eye-opening experience. I found flying with such experts in their field hugely interesting and I really hope that we can make a difference by restoring the damage that has been caused. Needless to say, flying a chopper early in the morning on a clear day on the highveld beats most other things in life!

I look forward to my next Bateleurs experience.

Dr Sean Fennessey of the Oceanographic Research Institute (ORI) in Durban has been conducting a survey of the various fisheries sectors in the Richards Bay area for the past five years, and recently he asked The Bateleurs for assistance with flights over the Mhlatuze Estuary.  The reports below are from Sean Fennessey, first, and then Donavan Bailey, the Bateleur pilot who volunteered for this mission.   

"One aspect of surveying various fisheries sectors which is proving difficult to assess is the illegal netting being undertaken in the Mhlatuze estuary, adjacent to the Richards Bay harbour. This part of the original Richards Bay estuary was partitioned from the main harbour in the 1970s to provide a "sanctuary", enabling the estuary to retain some of its original function as a nursery area for prawns and the juvenile fish of many species.  The estuary also hosts the largest mangrove forest in South Africa.

However, local communities continue to use gill nets and seine nets there, despite the prohibition on netting in estuaries. There is little information on the extent of this fishery, both in terms of the number of participants and the amount of fish and prawns that are being caught. Regular surveys of the estuary are conducted by means of a rubber duck, but information is difficult to obtain as the fishermen are extremely wary, owing to raids by Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and the Water Police. Also, the estuary is very shallow, so accessing the area is difficult.

So, I decided to approach The Bateleurs for help, in order to try and get a handle on the amount of illegal fishing that was taking place. To date, two flights have taken place.  The first, with Donovan Barton-Hobbs in a microlite twin trike in August, took off from the strip at Empangeni. The trike provided a clear all-round view, and the slow speed made for some great photos. I had never been in a microlite before, so the experience was nerve-racking at first!

The flight was late on a Sunday morning which made it a bit bumpy, and perhaps also accounted for the fact that no fishing activity was observed.  The fishermen are definitely more active in the early morning and late afternoon. A circuit of the circumference of the estuary was flown in about 15 minutes and the whole flight took about 45 minutes.

The second trip, early one morning in October, was with Donavan Bailey in his Cessna, departing from and returning to Virginia in Durban. The ORI observer this time was Sean Bailey (coincidentally Donavan's cousin) and several fishermen and boats were observed operating on the estuary.

The flights will enable the ORI to prepare recommendations for the management of fishing in the Richards Bay area."
 

Photo:  If you look carefully, you will see three illegal boats in this picture.

Here is Donavan Bailey's report:

"We were finally able to do our trip up to Richards Bay this weekend for the Ocean Research Institute (ORI) after the weather has been so bad for the last few weeks. We left at 06h00 from Virginia on Saturday morning in a slight haze. As we flew further north it started to clear. Once we had reached Richards Bay the North Easter had picked up so it was a little bumpy over the estuary for taking pictures.  But Sean from the ORI was able to see at least 10 people fishing, using homemade boats and nets. It is sad as the people are most likely doing this just to survive, but this estuary is a major breeding ground for some of our big fish species. By using the plane Sean was able to see where poachers hide their boats, which he can't do from the ground as each time these people are approached they run and hide in the swamps and are very hard to find."

From the left:  Tony Kent, Bateleur pilot;  Philip Owen of GeaSphere;  China Tshabalala, the SABC cameraman;  and Maria Rydlund of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC).

We were contacted by Philip Owen of Geasphere who needed an aerial perspective of a timber plantation establishment in the Sourveld, grassland fragmentation and the status of the Upper Olifants and Crocodile / Nkomati river systems.  Tony Kent volunteered to fly this mission for The Bateleurs and this is his Pilot's Report:

"Geasphere had requested a Bateleur flight in order to assess the impact of plantations on the indigenous fauna and flora in the Mpumalanga Lowveld and Highveld.

I arrived at Nelspruit at 10h30, with far more cloud around than I expected, where I met  Philip Owen and other Geashpere folk, Maria Rydlund from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, and Amanda Coetzee and cameraman "China" from SABC TV.

A visit to the tower and a call to Kruger Mpumalanga confirmed that the cloud was breaking up, and more importantly, was lifting. The SABC was making a short news snippet of the mission and the conference, and they requested a take-off and landing to be filmed while the camera-man was on the ground.

After completing two circuits for filming purposes, China (with his rather large camera made larger by the confines of a 182 cabin), Maria, and Philip were ready for the mission proper. Our first call was Sabie to the north (which we could not see due to complete cloud cover), Hazyview, Graskop, Pilgrims Rest, Blyde River Canyon ( and the Three Rondawels don't look "right" from the air!), followed the Blyde River for a while in a southerly direction, before heading west and breaching the escarpment to the highveld of Lydenburg. Then we routed south and orbited over the Ngodwana Sappi factory, then continued in a southerly direction to Badplaas. From here it was an easterly track to Barberton, before heading south-east for Piggs Peak in Swaziland, and finally heading north-west to Nelspruit, via the new Driekoppies dam situated on the SA/Swaziland border.  After a short delay (kept orbiting abeam Barberton), ATC cleared us to land at Nelspruit Civil, two hours later.

Our guests expressed satisfaction with the flight, having achieved what they hoped to observe from the air. After greetings, they left.  An unexpected (and un-rehearsed) interview in English and Afrikaans followed, courtesy of Amanda and China.  A pleasant return trip had me landing back home at 16h50, mission accomplished!  A long day, although only 4.5 hours of flying time . . .

I would like to acknowledge Kruger Mpumalanga ATC as well as Lowveld Information for "humouring" us and being very helpful in making this mission happen. It could easily have swung the other way in view of the marginal flying conditions at times.  It was also an "eye-opener" for me to see the difference between a "natural" area vs. a "plantation" area.

Good luck Geasphere - keep up your good work!!!  To The Bateleurs - many thanks for the opportunity and privilege to do this kind of flying!"

An example of UN-natural vegetation - a timber plantation in Mpumulanga

"Just a quick note to let you know that we appreciated very much the flight over the plantation infested area of Mpumalanga.  [This photograph is a good example of such an infestation.]   I am very happy that the weather turned out perfect - we glided 'like a Boing at 40 000 feet'.

I am sight impaired and don't see well, often watching through other peoples eyes. But this flight allowed me to see for the first time from the air this model of development which we oppose - large scale industrial timber plantations of alien timber species.

I could verify how these plantations have spread, choking out the indigenous grasslands, smothering the rivers and the wetlands and the fountains and the life of our land. The invasive nature of the eucalyptus and pine trees renders the model practically impossible to manage - vast resources will be needed to unclog the waterways and rehabilitate the Wetlands.  In areas the trees are so tightly packed in such remote terrain that even the toughest forester will cringe and skulk away to start up a community forestry project somewhere else (like in the eastern cape or northern Kwa-Zulu Natal).  So I am more motivated, and more convinced that this 'new struggle' is well justified.

Maria Rydlund of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation also had the opportunity to see how these plantations (primarily for northern consumption) impact on our land. Vast plantation estates steal jobs from farmers who used to work the land to produce food, they steal from the hunters and gatherers who find function in the 4,000 plant species inherent in a grassland. They steal food from the antelope and the birds of prey and the leopard and the grasshopper.

It was nice to meet 'China' (the SABC camaraman) - cool and confident. And it is good that SABC will produce a inset for national (and continental) television. It helps to create awareness which one day will lead to change.

Tony instills confidence and from the moment we met we felt great to be his passengers. It was the smoothest safest glide - good to be high up in the sky, privy to the voices of the pilots and the traffic controllers.  It was a huge privilege - and we thank you!"

Although this story has no relation to a Bateleur Mission, it is a flying story of courage and expertise!!  The risk of scaring some of our passengers or potential passengers is far outweighed by the fact that this incredible report by Bateleur pilot Mark Adcock may, by example, save some pilot's life in the future.  All aircraft, big and small are bird-prone - much as cars travelling at speed are subject to collisions with cattle or wildlife.  Mark's presence of mind and his expert piloting in the face of disaster is to be applauded.  Well done Mark!

Collision with a Marabou Stork - by Mark Adcock

"I had a bit of an unfortunate incident the other day, when a Marabou stork went through our plane's 9mm thick window at 300kph.  Looks like a meat bomb went off in there, and they say that the stench will never leave. He was in a full dive to avoid me, and hit the cowling (bonnet) so hard that it bent it, and the vertical firewall, down about 120mm, as well as denting the vertical tail fin on the rear. I never saw him until he appeared from the top of the window in a flash, and then BOOMWHOOOSHHOWLINGWIND in a millisecond.

I had been leaning over looking out of the left window, and had just started turning my head back, when it happened, and some of him, and the broken plexiglass hit me, mostly on the right headphone which broke my glasses and took them and the headset away in the screaming wind. With blood and guts all over me, glass and guts in my right eye, no prescription spectacles and the screaming wind, I had some difficulty understanding where I was going in the short term.

The dashboard landed on my lap, and the impact had seized the aileron control so tight that I had to use two-handed force to fly. I had been flying at 5,000 feet, and by the time I got my head together, I had dropped 1,500 feet, and was now at 3,700 ...  500 above the ground. I recovered the headset using the cord, and my spare glasses in the same way, as they were blowing around behind me, and pushed the dash back as best as possible, so that I could see some instruments. The overcharge light was burning, and the radio stack was all bent, and forced up from the impact on the firewall at the back, and some instruments weren't working.

I called any any aircraft on the frequency to assist me by flying alongside me, and doing a visual inspection, because I feared that there had been other external damage, which had caused the aileron seizure. This was a challenge, as the headset sound reducing cuff was gone, and screaming into a mike that is practically IN your mouth, with your one hand cupped over it to stop the howling wind, while trying to force the jammed aileron with the other hand, and trying to hear any aircraft, stretched my normally calm composure further. Ducking behind the remains of the dashboard, I could hear another aircraft call, and a  woman pilot gave me some good calm advice - go into a stall and test the flying capability of my aircraft - thanks Britta!!  Although this was great focus and advice, it was not so simple to achieve, as maintaining altitude was not easy  and a full power climb started overheating the engine. I managed to get to 4,000 feet by running very rich to keep the temperature in check, and brought the speed back to 75 Kts.  She was still stable and flying cleanly, so I was then happy to fly back to Maun 50 kms away.

Some of the Marabou had been driven through the hood lining into the wing spar, so I attempted to pull the bits out to see if I could free the ailerons cables that run inside. This caused another storm of flying debris and guts inside the plane as I let the bits go, and the ailerons were still jammed pretty tight, so I concentrated on flying instead.  Interesting contradictions, as she was all over the place and needed constant corrections from jammed ailerons and free elevator.

I finally got the Maun controller to understand my shouting request for  "direct in", and let the flaps down incrementally, to test that they were not going to send me into a spiral turn one way or the other. On 'hand over' to final control, and gingerly adding full flaps, I lined up with 85 Kts on the clock, and on very short finals, my 'dumb thumb subconscious wheels down double check', sent a message to my confused brain that I had indeed forgotten to put the wheels down - just in time, and adding to my load, the light finally came on as I started rotating to land.  Whoosh, and I was back at 30 feet as I was hit by what I thought was a whirlwind. Hey guys, not now please!  I powered up and wobbled on trying to gain control, and then powering off I hit the next one, and had to fight through that one in the same way.  The jammed aileron now obviously needed much more effort and input, due to the lower speed.  In desperation I flew the plane onto the ground, and landed all over the place, spending some time on the front wheel and bouncing all over, finally slowing into ground control speed, way down the runway near the hangers.  I taxied back to maintenance and had difficulty walking, as my legs belonged to someone else.

The ambulance service arrived, and departed when I declared that all was well - cowboys never cry in front of their horses - and so Cathryn from Sefofanie Air took over, offering a shower, a clean shirt, some very sweet tea, sympathy, cleaned the plane and also managed to get MRI to come, even though I am not a member.  Thanks Cathy!!  After flushing some 'foreign bodies' out of my eye with a bucket of saline solution, I was allowed to go free, but not without the guys checking on me three times in the next 36 hours whenever they saw my vehicle in town somewhere. Thanks Bret and Warren - for the beer too!!

On reflection and evaluation,

* Only by the most incredible luck, was I passenger-less that day.  Margie or Anna or Eve could so easily have been with me, and they would certainly have been killed by the force of a 25 kg missile hitting them in the face, with glass shrapnel for added effect.
* The full  force of my hit was spread, and absorbed, by the headset cup with a nice soft cushion to distribute the load and protect me, leaving me with only a small 10 mm cut on the temple, a graze along the right side of my face, an eye that bled internally for a short time, a cut on the cheekbone from flying glass, a minor puncture in the chest, a graze on my right arm, a jaw that now clicks again and is sore on the other side as well, a bruised and aching right temple and ear area, and numerous nicks and bruises that only showed themselves later - even on my left leg inner thigh?!
* The ''whirlwinds' were actually the airflow being 'scooped' by the gaping hole, as I rotated to land, that sent me ballooning skyward again.
* Cessna 210s don't fly so good with the sharp end turned into the blunt end - trying to fly a windsock comes to mind.
* They say that the recovery by truck to RSA will cost about R40,000, the repair should be sorted for about R120,000 and the stench of carrion will never go away.
* We need a new GPS and all our bags, as they are broken and splattered with blood and carrion and stench, the paperwork that still remained in the aircraft needs refiling - separate file for blood soaked!
* I need a new shirt, shorts, UNDERPANTS and glasses, and need to remember for next time that all the blood dripping from me may not necessarily be my own!
* Take a sleeping pill on the 3rd day.

Have a nice day
Best regards
Mark Adcock