What with the South African para Olympic team outperforming the able bodied team by a margin of 15 to one and certainly doing South Africa proud, I think the issue of disability is now receiving the attention that it deserves. While high profile organisations like the Para Olympic organising committee, were relatively under funded by some countries standards minority sports, such as flying, struggle to find the funding to provide the necessary levels of service As an example in the year preceding the olympics the South African basket ball team played 8 international games with a largely amateur team, compared to the 40 international games that the UK team played, by the same token people with disabilities in the UK who are disability grants are still able to afford to fly.

This is also highlighted by the fact that 43 Air School in Port Alfred, which is fully equipped to train disabled pilots, for the last 10 years, through the RAF’s Flying Scholarship for the Disabled, has trained on average 7 disabled UK nationals pilots a year. All these pilots are funded by charities and non government organisations.

The fact that we have at our disposal these facilities in South Africa is tremendous, and the fact that it comes indirectly from foreign funding, but what is disappointing is that so few South Africans can afford to take advantage of these facilities.

While as a developing country we can’t expect the same level of funding that our European and first word counterparts receive, I believe that we need to make use of the resources that are available and use it as efficiently and creatively as possible. While DAASA relates to disability, by default we are a development organsisation and needs to utilise this reality to try and involve itself in developing aviation at a grass roots level.

This synergy can be seen at Goldfields gliding club, where the efforts of Klaas Goudrian and the members of the Goldfields Gliding Club are worth noting. Apart from them hosting the disabled gliding, an informal development system has evolved out of a patronage, where potential and interested candidates from the township adjoining the airfield are afforded the opportunity to learn to fly through a sponsorship program. In return for this sponsorship the candidates involve themselves in the club. Without delving into the social theories behind such a scheme, the impact is to firstly give the community a vested interest in the existence of the club (which is no small consideration when you consider the value of the equipment and the potential harm that could be inflicted should rogue elements turn their attention to the club), but also has the potential to inculcate a value system of discipline and cooperation. While this informal program exists, it could easily be expanded into a formalised cadet program for the Airforce and other aviation organisations. I believe that for us to succeed we need to engage the support of the corporate and government stakeholders who can provide us with infrastructure and finance, but could also potentially provide us with professionalism branding and very importantly members should we be able to create the necessary synergy.

DAASA membership has remained stagnant, and though we are receiving more enquiries from our website and general exposure we haven’t translated that into increasing our membership. At the gliding Nationals in Bloemfontein we had a visiting disabled glider pilot from Germany Doreen Sobotta. This afforded us the opportunity to learn more about disabled flying in Germany, and to allow a visiting pilot to enjoy the magnificent soaring conditions in South Africa.

Simon Smith
DAASA