Airspaces explained

Our cross-country flights from Cape Town to Durban took us through a variety of controlled airspaces from the Cape Town TMA to the Military area around Saldanha and Langebaan, past the George TMA and into Oudtshoorn controlled space, under the PE TMA, through the East London TMA and into the Durban TMA. Here is an explanation of the various airspaces using Durban as the example.. click on the link..

DURBAN TMA - AIRSPACES EXPLAINED

Our KZN Province on the east coast of Soith Africa showing the Drakensberg mountain range to the west and the Durban TMA and sea to the east.

The map showing a portion of our cross-country trip this weekend flying from Cape Town eastwards through various TMA and controlled airspaces.

Fuel lessons

I learnt something new about filling up with Avgas at Kasane International Airport, Botswana. Usually our Sling takes 95 unleaded car petrol which I get from our local petrol station and fill up the tanks by syphoning the fuel out of containers. Car petrol is not generally available at airports when we travel though so we have to get Avgas (Aviation Gasoline) from the tanker or bowser at the airport. This is a higher grade fuel and is not good for long-term use in our planes and also pumps much quicker with the electric pump.

Half-full

I usually pop the fuel cap on quickly after refueling to stop any dust or impurities getting in while the cap is off. The next morning after filling the tanks at Kasane I checked the fuel level and was shocked to see that the one tank had dropped by nearly a third. The lesson to be learned is that if the tank is filled very quickly, the fuel does not have enough time to drain through the buffer compartments in the tank so it looks like the tank is full, but if you wait a bit for it to drain through the level drops significantly. Fortunately I had enough fuel for the next leg and James drained an extra 40l out of his tank at Victoria Falls for me.. but I will remember to wait in future and recheck the level before assuming the tank showing full is actually full. No one wants to run out of fuel on a long 4 1/2 hour flight with not many alternative airfields around.

Refueling with Avgas at Kasane taught me a new lesson