Gliding in South Africa
In the early 80’s Bloemfontein was used for record camps and some of the first 1000kms flown in South Africa were flown from Bloemfontein.
Since then we have completed many declared 1000km flights and there have been as many near misses, besides the 300’s, 500’s and 750’s.
Outlanding conditions within a few hundred km’s of Bloemfontein are very straight forward and present minimal risk to even inexperienced pilots. The visibility is excellent and being able to see 100km is not unusual.
The flying area is vast, and varied with few restricted areas. We have to fly west to clear the Bloemfontein TMA, there after we can fly south and south west into the dry areas of the northern Karoo or north west right up to South Africa’s border with Botswana or we can fly east to the Maluti Mountains and the northern Drakensburg. The scenery in this area is magnificent.
The south and south west is the only area where there are not so many out landing fields, in the rest of the flying area there are enough out landing fields to be able to fly without any concerns.