African Ramble | Air Charters | Plettenberg Bay

Welcome to African Ramble, Travel Adventures and Tours

Based in the beautiful Garden Route, African Ramble is an established tour operator specialising in private air charter throughout South Africa.

Established in the early 1990s African Ramble has achieved a superb reputation for the personalised service we offer our clients. 

At African Ramble our mission is simple: To provide our customers with unmatched service, unrivalled flexibility, and unparalleled value.

Kindly call us for more detailed information on our tours and private air charter options.

If you are at all interested in aviation, you have come to the right place!

Fixed wing Aircraft

A fixed-wing aircraft (commonly called airplane in North America (U.S. and Canada) and aeroplane in Commonwealth countries (other than Canada) and Ireland, from Greek: aéros- “air” and -planos “wandering” — often shortened to just plane in both cases) is a heavier-than-air craft where movement of the wings in relation to the aircraft is not used to generate lift.

Safety:

Statistics show that the risk of an airliner accident is very small, so small that the chance of having an accident while driving to the airport in a car is higher than having an accident during the flight. Many people have a fear of flying because they erroneously believe that the risk of death in the event of an aircraft accident is extremely high, when in fact a study of 583 accidents between 1983 and 2000 show that over 96% of those involved survived.

[1] Furthermore, car crashes rarely feature outside local news whereas air crashes are reported internationally, making the risk seem greater.

Aircraft are the second safest way to travel long distances after railway trains. The per-trip safety of aircraft is somewhat safer than cars, but over the long distances aircraft cover, they are much safer than other types of transport

The majority of aircraft accidents are a result of human error on the part of the pilot(s) or controller(s). After human error, mechanical failure is the biggest cause of air accidents, which sometimes also can involve a human component; e.g., negligence of the airline in carrying out proper maintenance. Adverse weather is the third largest cause of accidents. Icing, downbursts, and low visibility are often major contributors to weather related crashes. Birds have been ranked as a major cause for large rotor bursts on commercial turboprop engines, spurring extra safety measures to keep birds away. Technological advances such as ice detectors also help pilots ensure the safety of their aircraft.

Interesting Facts:

The highest altitude obtained by a manned air-breathing jet-propelled aircraft in controlled horizontal flight is 85,069 feet (25,929 m) set by Robert C. Helt and Larry A. Elliott, in a Lockheed SR-71, on 27th/28th July 1976.

The Airbus A380 is now the biggest commercial airliner in the world.

Speed around the world, non-stop and non-refuelled: 186.11 km/h – Date of flight: 23/12/1986

Pilot: Richard G. RUTAN (USA)

Crew: Jeana YEAGER

Course/place: Edwards AFB, CA (USA) – Edwards AFB, CA (USA)

Aircraft: Burt Rutan Voyager (2 Front engine Continental O-240 / Rear engine Continental IOL-200, Front 130 hp / Rear 110 hp each)

Registered ‘N269VA’

Time to climb to a height of 3 000 m: 1 min 32 sec – Date of flight: 06/02/1972

Pilot: Lyle SHELTON (USA)

Course/place: Thermal, CA (USA)

Aircraft:

Grumman F-8F “Bearcat” (1 Wright R-3350, 3000 hp)

Registered ‘N7771’

History:

Sir George Cayley, the inventor of the science of aerodynamics, was building and flying models of fixed-wing aircraft as early as 1803, and he built a successful passenger-carrying glider in 1853. In 1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the first powered flight, by having his glider “L’Albatros artificiel” pulled by a horse on a beach. On 28 August 1883, the American John J. Montgomery made a controlled flight in a glider. Other aviators who had made similar flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher and Octave Chanute.

Self-powered aircraft were designed and constructed by Clément Ader. On October 9, 1890, Ader attempted to fly the Éole, which succeeded in taking off and flying a distance of approximately 50 meters before witnesses. In August 1892 the Avion II flew for a distance of 200 metres, and on October 14, 1897, Avion III flew a distance of more than 300 metres. Richard Pearse made a poorly documented uncontrolled flight on March 31, 1903 in Waitohi, New Zealand, and on August 28, 1903 in Hanover, the German Karl Jatho made his first flight.

The Wright Brothers are commonly credited with the invention of the aircraft [1], but like Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, theirs was rather the first sustainable and well documented attempt. They made their first successful test flights on December 17, 1903 and by 1905 Flyer III was capable of fully controllable, stable flight for substantial periods. Strictly speaking, the Flyer’s wings were not completely fixed, as it depended for stability on a flexing mechanism named wing warping. This was later superseded by the development of ailerons, devices which performed a similar function but were attached to an otherwise rigid wing.

Alberto Santos-Dumont a Brazilian living in France built the first practical dirigible balloons from the end of the nineteenth century. In 1906 he flew the first fixed wing aircraft in Europe, the 14-bis, which was of his own design. It was the first aircraft to take off, fly and land without the use of catapults, high winds, or other external assistance. A later design of his, the Demoiselle, introduced ailerons and brought all around pilot control during a flight. Santos-Dumont is put forward as the true inventor of the aircraft, but owing to the competing claims, the concept of the invention of the first flying machine has substantial ambiguity.

Wars in Europe, in particular World War I, served as initial tests for the use of the aircraft as a weapon. First seen by generals and commanders as a “toy”, the aircraft proved to be a machine of war capable of causing casualties to the enemy. In the First World War, the fighter “aces” appeared, of which the greatest was the German Manfred von Richthofen, commonly called the Red Baron. On the side of the allies, the ace with the highest number of downed aircraft was René Fonck, of France.

After the First World War, aircraft technology continued to develop. Alcock and Brown crossed the Atlantic non-stop for the first time in 1919, a feat first performed solo by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. The first commercial flights took place between the United States and Canada in 1919. The turbine or the jet engine was in development in the 1930s; military jet aircraft began operating in the 1940s.

Aircraft played a primary role in the Second World War, having a presence in all the major battles of the war, especially in the attack on Pearl Harbour, the battles of the Pacific and D-Day, as well as the Battle of Britain. They were also an essential part of several of the military strategies of the period, such as the German Blitzkrieg or the American and Japanese Aircraft carriers.

In October 1947, Chuck Yeager, in the Bell X-1, was the first recorded person to exceed the speed of sound. However, some British Spitfire pilots claimed to have exceeded Mach 1 in a dive. The Boeing X-43 is an experimental scramjet with a world speed record for a jet-powered aircraft – Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph.

Aircraft in a civil military role continued to feed and supply Berlin in 1948, when access to railroads and roads to the city, completely surrounded by Eastern Germany, were blocked, by order of the Soviet Union.

The first commercial jet, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952. A few Boeing 707s, the first widely successful commercial jet, are still in service after nearly 50 years. The Boeing 727 was another widely used passenger aircraft, and the Boeing 747, was the biggest commercial aircraft in the world up until 2005, when it was surpassed by the Airbus A380.