Silver Creek Gorge Estate Annual Pancake Fly-in and Camp-over

By Garth Calitz

Silver Creek Gorge Estate's EAA Pancake Day has become a hit fly-in event for pilots from Gauteng, Northwest, and Limpopo. The estate features a 1200m long and 10m wide tarred runway, making it ideal for even larger aircraft, like a Beechcraft A90 King Air landed and joined the festivities this year. This fly-in event continues the success of the annual "pancake" fly-ins that started in 2020. The picturesque estate is nestled in the foothills of the Magaliesberg, just 2 nautical miles east of Buffelspoort Dam.

A bunch of excited pilots headed over on Friday and camped out for the night, enjoying a festive evening in the bush with the folks from Silver Creek. I think the RV Fly-in at Kitty Hawk might have slowed down the camping a bit since some pilots wanted to support both events. It's a shame the organisers don't try harder to avoid scheduling overlaps like this.

When you're coming in for a landing on Runway 26, you'll be flying over some trees, so planes usually touch down a bit further along the runway. No worries, though, because the runway slopes uphill from both ends to the middle. If you're thinking of visiting on a less busy day, just watch out for wildlife on the runway. The Estate is home to animals like Wildebeest, Zebra, Kudu, Eland, Giraffe, and Rooibok.

I arrived at about 8:30 and there were already well over 30 aircraft on the ground, and many more arrived in a steady stream for the rest of the morning. The stream dried up and I realised it's because the Rugby test between South Africa and New Zealand had begun. Fortunately, the great people at Silver Creek had made provision for this with two separate viewing areas set up for the game. At half-time, some rather sad aviators decided to leave; at that stage, the Springboks were losing 10-7. Sadly, for the guys that left the game turned in the second half, and the Springboks walked over the Kiwis and managed a 43-10 win to the delight of most people, I did notice one NZ supporter, but I didn't see him after the game.

The real star of the day has to be the pancakes. After the Boks crushed the All Blacks, you'd think it would be hard to impress, but those pancakes totally delivered with a huge range of sweet and savoury fillings. The machine they used is pretty awesome too, cranking out a mind-blowing number of square pancakes super fast.

It was great to see that some aviation companies like Coment Aviation and Aviation Direct are supporting the smaller events rather than only attending the larger shows. Some local vendors also took the opportunity to display their goods to the visiting aviators.

Silver Creek Gorge Estate was built on the 1000-hectare family farm of the late car industry legend, Lindsay Saker. Now, it's owned by Louis and Lawrene Jordaan. Since the closest school is pretty far away in Hekpoort, they turned the old dairy on the farm into a charming country-style private school. Students get to learn in a peaceful environment and even have the chance to interact with the horses on the property.

As I mentioned earlier, the RV fly-in was hosted on the same day must have put a slight limit on the numbers, especially the number of Vans RVs. There were, however, very close to 50 and maybe more aircraft that made their way to this wonderful piece of paradise just a short hop away from the big city. I did notice that not only the apron busy, judging from the makeshift car park, many people chose to drive in for the morning.

By midday, most of the aircraft were leaving, everyone being very mindful on the radio to negate the dangers of the inability to see what was happening on the opposite threshold. This was important because, as wind was constantly changing, and with it, the active runway.

The awesome folks at Silver Creek always know how to make everyone happy. As the pilots and passengers headed to their planes, people were already buzzing about the next event they’d be hosting. Big shoutout to Sean Cronin, Arjan Schaap, and their team for putting together another unforgettable day in paradise.

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