As I clamber up the wing and hoist myself in the rear cockpit seat, I step back in time: I am Biggles and I’m off in my flying machine to do daring deeds.
A plume of black smoke erupts from the exhaust as the massive Pratt and Whitney 600 horsepower (they didn’t have kilowatts back then) radial engine roars to life and quickly settles to a rhythmic rumble. There is no sound on earth like a Harvard T6.
My pilot, Danie van der Walt, steers us out to join “Springbok Formation” for a flypast over the Springbok team at Sandton Square. Weaving our way to the runway (you can’t see the plane in front of you without adopting this technique) we stop and “power up”. Last checks made and we are rolling down the runway with canopies open, feeling for all the world that we have been transported to some distant era.
To say it’s an awesome experience doesn’t come close.
And, thanks to the dedicated people at the Harvard Club of South Africa, that experience is available to anybody: they’ll take you up from their base at the old SA Air Force base at Swartkops in Pretoria for a flip over Gauteng. They fly every day of the week except Sundays, and it really is a once-in-a-lifetime experience… even for those who are not plane-crazy. It’s a different kind of travel trip that you won’t have the opportunity to try in many other parts of the world – South Africa has one of the largest flying Harvard fleets.
The planes rotate and after a lazy left-hand bank we settle into a cruise (if 230km/h can be considered a cruise) towards Sandton. Adopting a holding pattern between Rosebank and St John’s school, I am treated to spectacular views of the city and its environs. All the while there is constant communication between the pilots of the formations. While we live our lives in great chunks of time – “See you this evening” – these guys are calculating in seconds. I see the lead pilot, Laurie Kay, showing the thumbs-up and we roll out towards the square.
The formation tightens up, but not nearly as much as my stomach. You have no idea what formation flying entails until you experience it. These planes drift and rise and fall, the pilots making corrections every second, and all this when it seems wings are just metres apart. At 2 000rpm, we rumble towards the square and suddenly we are over and climbing out to 6 500 feet.
The formation then lines up line astern and tightens up once again, this time nose to tail and I can see the rivets on the plane in front of me.
Then, in a perfectly timed, perfectly framed, perfectly fitting end, each plane breaks left and rolls at almost 90º from the formation… wow!
Back on the ground we are de-briefed then treated to a cold beer in the Air Force Museum pub, a replica of the pub built in Korea when our boys served there. Stories of the day, and of the past, are bandied about. I am not sure if I should confess to Danie that my canopy was open the whole time and I am now the proud owner of about 700 photographs of Harvards.
If you have even the slightest interest in aircraft, just an ounce of avgas pumping through your veins, then this is something you just have to do. - Saturday Star
l Harvard Club of South Africa
Web: www.theharvardclub.co.za
Tel: 012 651 3852