Hi all you high flyers (as opposed to low flyers),
A visit by an old friend from the UK, a former RAF test pilot from the 1960s era, Keith Hawes, was a good excuse to re-visit Thunder City, which adjoins Cape Town International Airport, South Africa.
Thunder City operates the world’s largest ‘heavy metal’ ex military jet squadron. ‘Heavy metal’ means aircraft with a weight in excess of 15 000 lbs empty and thrust in excess of 10 000 pounds static. The fleet consists of four supersonic English Electric Lightnings (the only flying Lightnings in the world), seven Hawker Hunters, three Blackburn (Hawker Siddeley) Buccaneers (also the only flying examples in the world) and a BAC Strikemaster. Quite amazing as the aircraft hail from the 1950s era and an indication how advanced aircraft design and construction was in Great Britain at the time.
The squadron operates for peaceful purposes only and is used for the carrying of tourists (not exactly cheap but if you have the bucks why not an experience of a lifetime?), various aspects of fast jet training, movie making and demonstration at air shows. All aircraft are issued with a South African Certificate of Airworthiness and have been subjected to extremely stringent technical and operational requirements as laid down by the Civil Aviation Authority.
Thunder City is also the only civilian owned ex-military jet operation to attain an ICAO recognised training licence (CAA Part 114) and is used for test pilot training by the US, Australian and British military.
Cape Town’s geographic locality lends itself completely to fast jet flying – it’s at ‘the end of the line’ – ie no overhead traffic . In addition, the airspace over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, which join at the Southern tip of South Africa, is seldom utilised.
The exceptional beauty of the Cape scenery enhances the experience. There are breathtaking vistas of mountain ranges, ocean cliffs, checkered winelands and fertile valleys countered by harsh desertscapes.
Thunder City is the brainchild of Mike Beachy Head who has been described as a business Mr Fixit, inventor, entrepreneur, marketing genius and now mostly as a jet pilot. Mike’s life long passion for jets came to pass when he acquired a Hawker Hunter in 1993 for high speed personal business transport. At the time his national air freight company was operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the opportunity to travel to any of his operations without notice seemed a sufficiently sound reason to make his first fast jet purchase.
At an air show in Cape Town on December 3 last year Mike did a dead vertical 9 km
(5.62 miles) climb in 1 min 42 secs in one of the English Electric Lightnings, the Frightening as it was also known in the RAF. The time could have been quicker but there was a problem with one of the after burners. Another recent quick time was 20000 ft reached in 65 seconds from a standing start.
When one enters Thunder City one is welcomed by a Gloucester Javelin mounted overhead. When Keith looked up the registration number he said that he might have flown that very plane and will check his logbook when he returns to the UK. Now that would be a coincidence!
I believe that Cape Town was recently voted as the world’s most popular tourist city by some group or organisation. So there you have it, come fly with me as the song goes and visit the South African GT40 factories. And of course we have a weak rand which makes dollars, pounds, euros, etc, go a long way.
Flying is the safest way to fly!
Andre 40
A visit by an old friend from the UK, a former RAF test pilot from the 1960s era, Keith Hawes, was a good excuse to re-visit Thunder City, which adjoins Cape Town International Airport, South Africa.
Thunder City operates the world’s largest ‘heavy metal’ ex military jet squadron. ‘Heavy metal’ means aircraft with a weight in excess of 15 000 lbs empty and thrust in excess of 10 000 pounds static. The fleet consists of four supersonic English Electric Lightnings (the only flying Lightnings in the world), seven Hawker Hunters, three Blackburn (Hawker Siddeley) Buccaneers (also the only flying examples in the world) and a BAC Strikemaster. Quite amazing as the aircraft hail from the 1950s era and an indication how advanced aircraft design and construction was in Great Britain at the time.
The squadron operates for peaceful purposes only and is used for the carrying of tourists (not exactly cheap but if you have the bucks why not an experience of a lifetime?), various aspects of fast jet training, movie making and demonstration at air shows. All aircraft are issued with a South African Certificate of Airworthiness and have been subjected to extremely stringent technical and operational requirements as laid down by the Civil Aviation Authority.
Thunder City is also the only civilian owned ex-military jet operation to attain an ICAO recognised training licence (CAA Part 114) and is used for test pilot training by the US, Australian and British military.
Cape Town’s geographic locality lends itself completely to fast jet flying – it’s at ‘the end of the line’ – ie no overhead traffic . In addition, the airspace over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, which join at the Southern tip of South Africa, is seldom utilised.
The exceptional beauty of the Cape scenery enhances the experience. There are breathtaking vistas of mountain ranges, ocean cliffs, checkered winelands and fertile valleys countered by harsh desertscapes.
Thunder City is the brainchild of Mike Beachy Head who has been described as a business Mr Fixit, inventor, entrepreneur, marketing genius and now mostly as a jet pilot. Mike’s life long passion for jets came to pass when he acquired a Hawker Hunter in 1993 for high speed personal business transport. At the time his national air freight company was operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the opportunity to travel to any of his operations without notice seemed a sufficiently sound reason to make his first fast jet purchase.
At an air show in Cape Town on December 3 last year Mike did a dead vertical 9 km
(5.62 miles) climb in 1 min 42 secs in one of the English Electric Lightnings, the Frightening as it was also known in the RAF. The time could have been quicker but there was a problem with one of the after burners. Another recent quick time was 20000 ft reached in 65 seconds from a standing start.
When one enters Thunder City one is welcomed by a Gloucester Javelin mounted overhead. When Keith looked up the registration number he said that he might have flown that very plane and will check his logbook when he returns to the UK. Now that would be a coincidence!
I believe that Cape Town was recently voted as the world’s most popular tourist city by some group or organisation. So there you have it, come fly with me as the song goes and visit the South African GT40 factories. And of course we have a weak rand which makes dollars, pounds, euros, etc, go a long way.
Flying is the safest way to fly!
Andre 40
