Now that I had my commercial pilot's license, I was over the moon. My instructor at National Airways, Francois Botha, was a lovely guy—except for the fact that he smoked incessantly, even during instrument flight training. But that’s just my hatred of smoking talking—it’s not relevant to the story.
Francois, with his thick Afrikaans accent, said to me:
“What you need to do is a low-level navigation course.”
I said, “What’s a low-level navigation course?”
He replied, “Well, I’ve got a friend of mine who was in the South African Air Force. He does a low-level navigation course that’ll take your skills to the next level.”
So I asked my dad, told him the price, and he agreed.
On the day, I flew to Rand Airport—a small airport just South of Johannesburg—and met this illustrious instructor. He was indeed an ex-South African Air Force fighter pilot, he had blown Mirage fighter jets. I honestly forget his name; I only ever had one lesson with him.
The first thing he did was take me up in a Pitts Special to do aerobatics. And I don’t mean gentle loops—I mean proper hardcore aerobatics. I think he was impressed I didn’t throw up.
After that, we set off in KAJ. We were working on 1:50,000 scale maps—very detailed, close-up topographical stuff. In the cafeteria beforehand, we plotted the whole route: a low-level course over southern Johannesburg, through rural areas and smallholdings.
Low-level navigation is exactly what it sounds like: flying 50 feet above the ground at about 160 knots—close to 300 km/h. You have to hit specific landmarks, like a road bridge or railway junction, at the exact second you say you will. Not 10 seconds late, not 10 seconds early. Exactly. Your timing and flying have to be razor-sharp.
He seemed impressed with me. Though in all honesty, he was probably just being polite. It was bloody difficult flying.
On the way home, we climbed to around a thousand feet AGL (above ground level)—just under the TMA (Terminal Maneuvering Area), so we were still in uncontrolled airspace. He turned to me and asked:
“So, have you ever done any aerobatics in this aircraft?”
I replied, a bit primly:
“The Beechcraft Bonanza A36 is not rated for aerobatics.”
He said,
“Yeah, I know that—but I asked if you’ve ever done any.”
I said, “No, of course not.”
He grinned and asked,
“Ever heard of a positive-g roll?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s when you do a barrel roll and maintain positive Gs the whole way through—so you don’t stress the aircraft with negative forces.”
Sounded interesting.
Without waiting, he dropped the nose into a kind of dive—nothing extreme—then pulled up and went into a full rotation. The next second, we’d done a full 360-degree barrel roll and were back on course.
He said, “Okay, you try. Keep your eye on the horizon. I’ll talk you through it.”
So I did. You maintain direction with rudder, commit fully, and execute a proper aggressive barrel roll. And I pulled it off. It was thrilling. I couldn’t believe I’d just done that in KAJ.
The funny thing is, I did it a few more times in my flying life. It was a marvellous was to render your passengers speechless.
Once, I was flying Graham Edkins—an old school buddy Niels’ —to Molteno in the Cape for a weekend shooting trip. I wasn’t invited to the weekend, just hired to fly him down Friday and pick him up Sunday. It was a paid gig of course.
It was a long flight, and somewhere over the Karoo, he was clearly bored and asked if I could do anything “interesting” in the aircraft. So I did a barrel roll. Blew his mind.
Another time, I was flying Pete Becker to Cape St. Francis. The aircraft was stuffed full of beer crates and supplies for a long weekend. Mid-flight, Pete asked,
“Can you do anything interesting in this aircraft?” You know the rest!
And once, I did it with Terry who you haven't met yet—she will feature heavily later in this memoir. She got terribly airsick. Not a great move on my part.
But yes—you can barrel roll a Beechcraft Bonanza. Not officially, mind you. It’s not an approved maneuver by the manufacturer.