The Spirit of the Springbok

This article is featured in the IAOPA section of the latest (October-December 2009) AOPA Pilot magazine. 

President Paul Kruger, leader of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek and after whom South Africa’s world famous Kruger National Park as well as Kruger Rands are named lived by the credo “Take from the past the good and build the future on it.”

South Africa was one of the five founding fathers of IAOPA in 1956 and in 1992 even hosted the international assembly of the organization. Yet in later years AOPA in South Africa foundered to the point where it had all but ceased to exist. Now, we are glad to report, AOPA is back, carrying the flag of general aviation not only in South Africa but across the entire dark continent.

It is interesting to note that IAOPA (originally ICAOPA) was founded in 1956 by the USA,  Australia, the Philippines, Canada and South Africa and that not one European country had played a role in this significant event. To this day it is believed that South Africa has the world’s third largest general aviation fleet, after the USA and Australia, with some ten thousand aircraft on the register. The country also had a very strong air force with a proud tradition and history. These facts played a large role when it was decided to host the International Assembly in Johannesburg in 1992 and several hundred delegates from all over the globe attended this successful convention, some even arriving by private jet.

Some of the early pioneers of AOPA South Africa were Guill Marais, Wally Seymore and Hendrik Pistorius and Josh Haldeman, a Canadian. Josh was on the African leg of his round the world flying safari in a Bellanca tail dragger when he overflew a small dirt strip near Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city, liked what he saw, landed and stayed for the rest of his life. This dirt strip later became Wonderboom Airport which served as the spiritual home for AOPA SA and in fact still does. AOPA through the activities of Guill Marais was responsible for much of the development of Wonderboom.

Despite all of the successes, something happened after the highlight of the International Assembly in 1992 and AOPA slowly faded away. What happened was that Nelson Mandela became president in 1994 and led the country to democracy and a remarkable transformation. With it came a change of the political and economic power base of the country and the priorities of the new rulers. General aviation was relegated to the back burner and even the air force dwindled to a shadow of its former self. Membership of AOPA dwindled and the administration became disheveled. Perhaps the very spirit of AOPA was broken.

One year ago we decided that enough was enough. 1994 is a long time ago now and life goes on. Our forefathers paid dearly for this beautiful country and there is no reason to allow everything we hold dear to be discarded on the politicians’ trash heap. On the contrary, South Africa is a land with a treasure house of cultural diversity and technological skills which is without any doubt the potential saviour of this sad and wondrous continent. Our European forefathers have lived here, through peace and war, with our African brethren for the same period as the Americas have been colonised and our futures are inextricably entwined. We have no other home, this is it and we have to make it work.

AOPA SA embarked on the new road, working with our members and the authorities, claiming one small success after the other. Slowly but surely the signs of life are returning to organized general aviation. AOPA is represented on the regular CARCOM meetings with our Civil Aviation Authority and fights all unfair and illogical legislation and so far has been successful in all its endeavours. In fact the CAA has come round to the view that legislation needs to be fair as well as strict. AOPA has had two hugely successful public meetings, one in Pretoria and one in the Cape, which had attracted national coverage in the press and television and AOPA has also published three newsletters to its members. A new website was launched and the old forum incorporated into it. The organization’s administration has been put into order and the finances straightened out. Membership is growing fast but is unfortunately not reflected at IAOPA because of two categories. Only the premier membership are registered with IAOPA.

The successes of AOPA SA has now attracted the attention of the Aircraft Maintenance Organizations (AMO’s) who are poorly or rather totally disorganized in the country and under enormous pressure from the CAA and the owners. They have approached AOPA to act as mediator and an initial meeting was held. We learnt that AOPA has a very important role to play in this regard. A full report of the AMO’s grievances were compiled and submitted to the CAA. It is believed that it would go a long way towards an improvement of the relationship between CAA, aircraft owners and the AMO’s.

We have contracted the services of the renowned dr Jerry Cockrell of the USA to be the keynote speaker at our international flight training conference on 19 March 2010. Already we have been promised the co-operation of our CAA, Air Force and national carrier. We hope to attract delegates from all over Africa.

To this day the call sign of South African Airways, our national carrier, is “Springbok” and the Springbok is also the emblem of our world champion rugby team. Next time you hear the call sign “Springbok” on frequency in and around the major hubs of the world, think about president Kruger’s credo and a small group of dedicated AOPA members keeping the spirit of the Springbok soaring over the African savanna.