The Mashonaland Flying Club (MFC) has now been in existence for 52 years, when the Marlborough Flying Club became the Mashonaland Flying Club in 1957.

As you will be aware the club has fallen on hard times in recent years. In the good times MFC had about 850 members, but, as a result of people leaving the country and those remaining having to tighten their belts to cope with rising costs, these figures have dwindled. Currently membership figures are nearer to 100, of which only half are active members in Harare.

Many ex Mashonaland Flying Club students are now enjoying good careers flying for major airlines world wide; Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Thomas Cook, Thomson Airways, easyJet, Air Mauritius, MK Airlines and of course Air Zimbabwe to name a few. MFC has also produced many private pilots and has always provided a warm and happy welcome to all those who have walked under the Vampire arch. One only needs to have a look at the current MFC facebook site, to see how many of us look back on our days at MFC with sheer happiness.

In order to celebrate both MFC’s wonderful history and its continuing survival against all the odds and Concorde’s 40th Anniversary, Fiona Del Giudice, a Sussex based artist, has been commissioned to paint John Reid-Rowland’s legendary photograph of Z-MFC and Concorde at Harare Airport, 31st October 1993.

The water colour in its double mount measures 16” X 20”, the starting bid is £425-00, an absolute bargain for an original aviation watercolour of such a high standard. Please e-mail your bid to mashflyingclubauction@hotmail.com ( please give your name and bid in UK pounds ).

The bidding will open on Friday 27th November and will close on Saturday 12th December at 18-00 GMT (e-mails will be sent out intermittently advising you of the current bid). The winning bidder will be required to pay for shipping of the picture from the UK. Once the auction has closed all money raised above £425-00 will be donated to MFC to help with their fight for survival.

PLEASE BID GENEROUSLY IN ORDER TO HELP KEEP THIS WONDERFUL CLUB ALIVE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS!!!!

Please note: This auction is not being conducted by chirundu.com, I am just advertising it. If you require more information, please email mashflyingclubauction@hotmail.com

A map of Kariba showing the under-water topography has been published and is offered in both hard copy and digital version.

The map information covers the eastern basin from Charara to Photo Corner just beyond the narrows.

The height and river information was compiled from the state topographical maps, completed in 1955. Mapping technology has since vastly improved so the accuracy of these old maps is not great. To improve accuracy the vectors were adjusted to fit, as best as possible, more modern data. The maps were then re-projected onto the WGS 1984 datum (spheroid).

The contour intervals are at 25 FEET vertical distance and water supply level is taken at 1600 feet a.s.l. and thus this is the level depicted by the shoreline.

At a scale of 1:100 000 the physical map size is approximately 1100mm x 600mm. Due to the small size of the market lithographic reproduction is uneconomic and so the prints are generated on demand. They are printed on a 150 gram gloss art paper through a colour laser printer that produces an excellent image which is colour-fast and waterproof. However the restriction on the print size means it has to be produced in two halves and joined down the length. Unfortunately they are relatively expensive. The map can be personalized to include photographs and other specifically provided detail. This option may well be popular for house-boat owners.

The digital version comes on CD with an application that needs to be installed on a desktop/laptop. Global Mapper is a simple application and experimentation will familiarise you with its workings. As the map is geo-referenced the cursor position is shown with a lat/long readout. Zooming in and out, measuring distances and adding your own data are primary functions of this application. You can change view parameters from kilometres to nautical miles, for example A search tool allows you to find any of the named data features.

If you have a data cable you can plug your GPS into your desktop/laptop and experience live tracking. Global Mapper 5 only works with serial port connections so if your data cable is USB you will need to purchase GM version 7 or later. Please note that the map cannot be up-loaded to your GPS instrument.

The digital data also includes A4 sized bitmaps of the lake (Zim side only). These have been supplied so that you can print out copies of specific areas at a larger (1:50 000) scale.

This product is the result of thousands of man-hours and is a very useful tool for planning, navigating, recording and analysing. The cost of one hard copy is USD45 and the digital version is USD40 (includes installation on a laptop). Bundled in a package deal the cost together is USD75.

A copy is displayed in the Fishing Shop in the Golden Stairs Nursery complex – come along and see it when you have time.

Contact Kevin Philip on 744067, 0912 709 350 kevnlea1@yahoo.com for more information.

Kariba on Amazon.co.uk