Contribution by Koenie van der Walt
During my time as Marketing Services Manager for Safair Freighters and after the name change to SAFAIR I have had the privilege and honour to experience and enjoy many opportunities where the Hercules L-100 fleet of aircraft were used.
Writing about these wonderful machines, it brings back fond memories confirming the extreme versatility of the “Hercs”, as we even to this day, refer to these great STOL aircraft.
Unfortunately I cannot remember the exact dates of all the operations where the Hercs were deployed and served with distinction. During my time very few photos were taken as it had to be done with the old SLR cameras – digital cameras came about later and mobile phones with digital cameras were unheard of! I am therefore relying on my memory, noting the following, which can certainly be elaborated upon by some of my contemporaries at the time.
One such memory relates to the World Skydiving event in Quincy which is in the state of Illinois in the USA.
Safair regularly supplied either one of two Hercules aircraft, ZS-JIZ or ZS-JIY, to Henri and Ursula Schurch of Swiss Boogie, Switzerland to host their annual skydiving event at the end of December at Phalaborwa. Skydivers, mostly from Europe, but also other parts of the world including South Africa, would attend this annual event at Phalaborwa.
Shortly after Swiss Boogie in December 1985 Safair was approached by a group of South African skydivers with the idea of chartering a Herc to be used at a world skydiving event in Quincy, Illinois in the United States. Imagine, a South African Herc to be flown all the way from Johannesburg to Quincy where it would be used daily to lift groups of skydivers to participate in their, shall we say, unusual sport! To cover costs a group of South African skydivers would fly on the aircraft from Johannesburg to Quincy and back. We had standard economy class airline seats mounted on aircraft pallets which were rolled into the aircraft to accommodate the passengers.
An enormous amount of planning went into this operation for ZS-JIZ with three full crews, technical personnel and coordinators to perform this very successful operation. The liaison with the South African Department of Civil Aviation (prior to it becoming known as the SACAA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to obtain their permissions alone was a mammoth task!
I cannot remember the exact route with all the different fuel stops and crew rest from Johannesburg to Quincy, return, but it must have been something like this:
Johannesburg – Walvis Bay – Libreville or Sao Tomé – Abidjan – Santa Maria, Azores – St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. I’m unsure where we cleared into the USA before moving on to Quincy.
A world record free fall with 120 skydivers connecting in the air to form a star formation before deploying their parachutes was set at this event.
ZS-JIZ with all supporting crew and personnel performed exceptionally well to make this event the huge success which it turn out to be!
Safair Herc Tales 