World Travel HD

Microlight Flip

January 10, 2012

For xmas this year Hayley and I were given a microlight flight at the Ballito Microlight School just up the coast from us. We were super keen to get up in the air and wasted no time booking our session. Last Sunday morning we got our chance to get airborne and these are a couple of the photos from it.

Hails and her pilot, Brad.

Dyl and his pilot, Chris.

We took off heading north, made our way to the coastline just above Sheffield beach and then turned south, drifting along just above backline along the beach all the way to the southern end of Ballito. We turned just before we got to Port Zimbali and made our way back again before coming in to land.

That’s Hails down in her microlight, with typical north coast scenery (ie heaps of sugar cane farms).

The view from my seat, over the pilot’s shoulder.

Neither of us had any idea really what to expect (heck, we even packed a full bag with jeans, closed shoes, wind breaker jackets just to prepare for any eventuality) but it was all chilled and relaxed. We both went up in our baggies and t-shirts, just left behind our loose items like wallets, sunglasses and flip flops. You also get goggles and awesome earphones and a microphone so you can speak with your pilot. And once you’re up, you just float along, taking in all the scenery taking as many photos as you can :-)

Hails soaring like an eagle (well kind of..)

Aerial view of the “Dolphin Coast” – roughly center is Ballito main beach.

The takeoff and landing were both very smooth and quick – the vehicles are light and super manoeuvrable and our pilots were great. There was the odd pocket of turbulence up above the sugar cane fields but it just added to the fun. Unfortunately, when you’re having fun time flies and before we knew it we were back at the air field, safely landed and chattering away like a troop of excited monkeys.

We managed to get a short video of coming in to land in a microlight but its on picasaweb so you need to click that link to watch it.

The rest of the photos are in the gallery below.

Entry Filed under: Dyl, South Africa. .