EAA gathering at Klerksdorp

by James Bentley

We have just returned from our annual EAA AIRWEEK held at Klerksdorp and I have included a picture of the Jabiru owners who were there. That is me on the left of the picture, Barry de Groot is next, he is the local ace Jabiru pilot who does all the demo flights and regularly participates in air rallys with the factory plane. He is also the manager of the South  African team which have just returned from New Zealand having taken part in the World rally champs. He also managed to get to the Jabiru factory at Bundaberg on the way home. Next is Len Alford who is Mr Jabiru in Southern Africa, he imports the kits and will build an aircraft if required by the buyer. This is allowed in this country and he has his own factory not far from here. The aircraft behind us is the factory demonstrator which has accumulated 400 hours in the last 14 months virtually problem free. The  last person in the group is Brent Coombes who has recently completed his Jab and flew up from East London for the event. I think the flight took him 4 1/2 hours to do the 400nm including a stop for fuel, a little tail wind helped in places. Missing from the group photo is Mike Cathro who flew up with Barry in ZS-JAB, his plane had to remain at home as he is in the process of fitting an oil cooler and had not done any testing yet.His Jab is featured on the gallery page.

My plane is not yet complete, I am sure it will be ready within the next few weeks. I am busy doing the wiring and radio installation at present.

James Bentleys Jab under construction