Kitty Hawk Aerodrome Jabiru Fly-In

By Garth Calitz

Photos by Garth Calitz and Esias Riekert

Kitty Hawk Aerodrome, located East of Pretoria, was rather active on Saturday morning when aviators from all over Gauteng descended on the field for a fly-in dedicated to the Jabiru aircraft.

When the name Jabiru is mentioned, there are two distinct responses there are those who love them and those who don’t. I personally find myself in the latter category due to experiences that actually have very little to do with the aircraft itself. In my years of being involved in aviation, I have experienced two engine failures, sadly, both of them in Jabirus SP’s. Neither event was the fault of the aircraft, contaminated fuel and bad fuel pipe routing, but I guess I’ve developed a bit of a mental resistance as a result.

Fortunately, many of the Jabiru-loving crowd made their way to Kitty Hawk, while I was there, I counted 12 aircraft that either flew in or emerged from their hangars to make up the numbers. The Jabies were given prime parking in front of the very distinct Kitty Hawk Clubhouse. All other aircraft were parked on the southern side of the airfield.

The Jabiru aircraft is a well-established Australian-designed aircraft that has become very popular in South Africa. Jabiru Aircraft Southern Africa is the only distributor of the Jabiru Series of aircraft and Aero-engines in Africa. They have vast experience in manufacturing and have been registered as an aircraft manufacturing facility since 1991. Jabiru has sold approximately 2,000 aircraft and 6,000 engines throughout the world. This is a testament to their very competitive pricing and, of course, the low operating cost of these aircraft.

As always, the EAA members came out in force; without these passionate aviators, fly-ins all around Gauteng and neighbouring provinces would be rather sad affairs. These stalwarts keep the general aviation scene alive week after week.

Jabiru have released six different models in South Africa with two basic engine types, the Jabiru 2200cc 4-cylinder and the Jabiru 3300cc 6-cylinder Engine. Recently, Jabiru South Africa completed and test flew the odd-looking Jabiru J432 twin, yes, you read that correctly, a twin Jabbie, they are now waiting on SA Civil Aviation Authority to approve the model to go into production.

One of the visiting Jabirus was the Liquid Cooled J400 belonging to Sean Cronin, the liquid cooling conversion has led to some heated debate between those in favour and those opposed to the conversion. I’m not going to go into the details here, but I will do a full article on the liquid-cooled heads very soon.

After the usual great breakfast at Kitty Hawk restaurant, the visitors started leaving. This is when the members of the South African Sports Aerobatic Club started their weekly practice session in the Kitty Hawk aerobatic box. The SAC crowd are preparing for the South African National Aerobatics Championships that will be held in Phalaborwa at the end of the month. Many aviation enthusiasts make their way to Kitty on Saturday afternoons to watch aerobatic “displays”.

After a rather cold, -2°C, start to the day, the weather turned out great, which definitely helped to bolster the numbers of visitors. The initial forecast for the day didn't look too good, and that alone may have prevented some pilots from leaving their home fields. Hopefully, Kitty Hawk will host another Jabiru fly-in next year, and many more of these little composite aircraft can join the fun.

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