To demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft, Captain Dreyer once took me to a ‘confined area landing zone’ situated in a grove of eucalyptus trees close to the wall of Mocke’s Dam, a small reservoir located about 30 kilometres east of Bloemfontein. Surveying the ‘hole’ in the middle of the 30-metre-high bluegums from the air, it seemed absolutely impossible to insert a hovering Alo into the available space, but Captain Dreyer seemed unperturbed. After determining the direction of the wind, we crept towards the opening, came to a stop immediately above it and then inched slowly downward. From this point on, most of the time my eyes were closed as I listened for the crunching sound of rotor blades striking tree trunk and anticipated the helpless dread of the death plunge that would follow as, bereft of lift, we hurtled earthwards to our demise.
But the next moment there was a slight bump and we landed, gently and quite safely, on a concrete base at the foot of the trees that normally served as a hardstand for tents at the Mocke’s Dam camping site.
‘When you know what you’re doing in the Alo, you can come back and do this “confined” on your own,’ Captain Dreyer advised.
Ja… right.
After the initial shock of its control sensitivity and quirky characteristics, I seemed to adapt quite well to the Alo III and really began relishing it as a mode of transport, even when, as an essential part of our training programme, our instructors started to randomly reduce engine power, at inopportune and inconvenient times, by pulling the engine fuel flow lever back to idle, simulating an engine failure. Your ‘friends’ in this situation are speed and height. The more of each that you have, the more safely, theoretically, a competent pilot can land the aircraft, by giving himself and the aircraft time to set up a life- and aircraft-saving autorotation.
The autorotation works similarly to the toy windmills that some of us had as kids. When you ran with them held out into the airflow, or pointed them into a wind or held them out of the window of a moving car, it spun a basic propeller or rotor on a spindle.
In the case of a helicopter, like the Alouette III, this kinetic-energy-induced rotation of the rotor, above a certain rpm and in the hands of a well-trained pilot, potentially creates sufficient lift to cushion the aircraft’s impact with the ground in the event of engine failure. This is a finely balanced manoeuvre, and must be practised, in all phases of flight, frequently and repeatedly, in order for the pilot to build the confidence necessary to carry out the procedure correctly.
Mostly, these simulations of engine failure, for me at least, were life-lengthening. My heart always stopped dead with the hideous sound of the Alo’s Artouste turbine engine suddenly spooling down and didn’t get going again until we were safely on the ground in one piece. I reckon that if my heart didn’t work at all during the many, many, many times that I practised auto-rotations, the combined effect would be that it would not wear out as quickly as that of pilots who were able to do auto-rotations without panicking.
Fortunately for me and the crews and passengers who flew with me in the Alo over the next few years, none of us were ever required to depend on my skills as an ‘autorotator’ in the normal course of events. Again, I thank my guardian angel for that not inconsiderable mercy.
In the heady days of the late 1970s, the undoubted highlight of the 87 AFS Helicopter Course took place towards the end of the course, when, for two weeks, the entire school moved to Kelvin Grove, a country lodge just outside the town of Bergville, near the foot of the Drakensberg, owned by an ex-SAAF pilot named James Sclanders.
Rising up from the Natal midlands to a height of nearly 3 500 metres, the Drakensberg produces extremes of weather and changing flying conditions. For aspiring SAAF chopper pilots, the region represents the ultimate challenge to newly acquired flying skills. One moment you could be barrelling along in clear air, climbing progressively higher towards the Lesotho plateau, which lies atop the Drakensberg Escarpment, and the next you could be sucked into a 6 000 feet-per-minute (1 830 metres per minute) downdraft, which, if you did not immediately take emergency action, could cause your aircraft to slam into a rock face within seconds. One moment the sky could be a bright blue and the next you’d go around a mountain and the other side could be engulfed in a thick mist, blotting out visibility and leading almost certainly to the demise of the aircraft and crew. And all of this occurred in an environment of indescribable beauty and grandeur on an unmatched scale.
The ancient basalt formations such as Cathkin, Sterkhorn, Cathedral and the Eastern Buttress are visible from hundreds of kilometres away on a clear day, and hidden behind them are titanic gems such as Champagne Castle, Monk’s Cowl, the Devil’s Tooth and the Bell. Gatberg, situated at about 2 400 metres above sea level and along a precipitous ridge called the Dragon’s Back, is a favourite photographic opportunity for helicopter crews, and landing atop its tiny platform is a feather in the cap for any chopper guy, novice or veteran.
Captain Dreyer had his own favourite spot. One day, while teaching me the rudiments of power loss at higher altitudes, he told me to relax, took the controls and headed full tilt for what appeared to be a sheer cliff face rising up between the massive Cathkin Peak and Champagne Castle and which I recognised as Monk’s Cowl.
Reducing speed as we approached the Monk’s Cowl rock face, which rises 1 200 metres from the saddle between the aforementioned peaks, the Alo crept forward and then entered a narrow chasm in the mountain, the sides of which were thousands of feet high and which had not been visible to us just seconds before. The floor of the chasm rose in seemingly endless steps above us and we slowly climbed into the half-light provided by a thin sliver of sky far above.
It was late June and the South African winter was well under way. In the upper reaches of the Berg this meant below-freezing temperatures throughout the day. As we flew ever higher up the hidden cleft, the water that coursed downwards in summer stood starkly solidified as ice, defying gravity, as if waiting for someone to flick a switch and release it into the valleys far below. Just when it seemed that it was about to become too dark to continue the climb, we came around a corner and the chasm opened out into a 200-metre-wide waterfall tumbling off the Lesotho plateau.
The entire extent of the waterfall had frozen into an intense azure hue off which the sunshine bounced like thousands of fairies dancing and twirling in an enormous and magical ballroom. Countless icicles, some as long as telephone poles, clung to the surrounding rocks, and the sudden brightness of the light stung our eyes and forced us to squint.
I realised that I was no longer breathing.
Captain Dreyer’s landing on a small platform at the foot of the waterfall was the gentlest that I ever enjoyed. As the Alo’s engine quietened and then stopped, none of us spoke at all, completely mesmerised, perhaps even hypnotised, by what was around us. How long we remained there in that trancelike state, or how long it stayed with us, I can’t remember. But the experience is encapsulated in a line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in which Caliban says, ‘And when I woke, I cried to dream again.’ The Monk’s Cowl experience that June afternoon was a priceless gift and the indisputable highlight of my SAAF flying career.