Passes
Gate prices, all inclusive of parking. Children under twelve come in free with an adult.
Day pass
- Any one of the three days
- Crowd line from the bowser east
- Free parking on the north field
- Programme at the gate
Three-day pass
- Friday, Saturday and Sunday
- Re-entry on a wristband
- Free parking on the north field
- Saturday night braai at R180 extra
Three-day + camping
- Everything in the three-day pass
- A pitch in the north paddock from Thursday midday
- Ablutions and two donkey boilers
- Saturday night braai included
Flightline enclosure
- Inside the fence, forward of the crowd rope
- Shade, seating and your own bar
- Walk the parked flight line at 07h30
- Twenty of these, and then they are gone
The line-up
Four Harvards out of Stellenbosch, in echelon down 09 and then a break over the threshold. The same four aeroplanes have opened Windsok since 2009. They are the reason people are through the gate before ten.
The tightest ten minutes of the weekend. Zelda farms outside Riviersonderend and flies competition aerobatics on the side. The smoke is on so you can see how little of the box she actually uses.
A 1943 Tiger Moth doing about ninety knots on a good day, which is the whole point. Open cockpit, wooden prop, slow enough to watch the whole turn. Wynand Steyn rebuilt her over eleven years in a shed in Caledon.
The loud one. Two high-speed passes down 09 and a wingover at the western end, and then the field is quiet again. Bring something for small ears — the first pass comes in from behind the crowd and nobody is ever ready for it.
A rotary slot over the stubble west of the taxiway, close enough that the downwash reaches the rope. Flown by Tebogo Sithole, who does game capture in the Eastern Cape and has put this airframe into worse ground than a wheat field.
A gyrocopter at walking pace, three metres over the stubble, straight into the south-easter. Dirk sprays for the co-op the rest of the year. He takes the late Friday slot because the light is low and you can see the rotor turning.
Towed to four thousand feet by the Cub, released over the dam, then eight minutes of aerobatics with no engine anywhere. The loudest thing on the field is the wind over the wing. We turn the commentary off for it.
Six jumpers out at nine thousand feet over the middle of the field, stacked canopies coming down and the flag on the last man. They close the show, and the gate opens for the drive out the moment the last one is on his feet.
Gates at 07h00. First display at 09h40. Last man down at 16h00 on Sunday.
Buy before the Wednesday and your wristband is waiting at the gate under your surname. Camping has to be booked ahead; day passes never sell out.
Get ticketsNine minutes from the back seat of a Harvard
One camera in the rear cockpit, one take, the whole of last year’s Saturday opening slot from start-up to shutdown. No commentary and no music — just the engine and the radio. The break over the threshold is at six minutes forty.
Media says
Two thousand people on a wheat field outside Napier, and the only queue all weekend was for boerewors.
Small enough that the pilots walk the crowd line afterwards, and honest enough to say out loud when the wind has beaten them and a slot is off.
The glider slot silenced two thousand people. I have never heard a crowd that quiet at an airshow, anywhere.
Camping
The camping field is the paddock north of the taxiway and it opens at midday on the Thursday. No power, no shade, and the ablutions are four chemical blocks and two donkey boilers lit at six and again at five. Bring a peg hammer that will get through hard ground, and something heavy for the awning, because the south-easter comes up around four most afternoons. Camping is in the R1 250 pass, or R220 a night on its own if you already hold a three-day. Quiet from ten at night — half the pilots are sleeping in the same field.
The food row
Twelve stalls along the fence between the hangar and the gate, all of them from the Overberg. Boerewors and pap from the Napier rugby club, roosterkoek from the church ladies in Klipdale, a coffee trailer that opens at six for the fly-in arrivals, and a proper sit-down braai on the Saturday night at R180 a head. Card works until the field fills and the signal drops, so bring notes as well. Nothing to drink may be carried in: there is one licensed bar, it is next to the hangar, and it closes at nine.
Getting there
Waaikraal is on the R316, eleven kilometres from Napier and twenty-two from Bredasdorp. Two hours from Cape Town on the N2 through Caledon, or three the long way along the coast. The last two kilometres are gravel and fine in any car, though badly corrugated by the Sunday. Parking is free on the north field and marshals will put you in a row; leave early on the Sunday or you will sit in it. There is no fuel at the field, so fill up in Napier. Flying in? Give us your registration and we will keep grass for you.
Airfield rules
This is a working airfield with live aircraft on it. Stay behind the crowd rope, all of it, all the time. No drones inside ten kilometres for the whole weekend — the airspace is closed by notam and we will come and find you. Dogs on a lead and honestly better left at home; the Impala terrifies them. No open fires outside the camping field and no braai fires at all on a red-flag day. If a marshal in a yellow vest asks you to move, move first and ask afterwards. We stop displays for wind, not for rain.
Who keeps this show flying
Get tickets
Windsok · Waaikraal airfield, R316, Napier 7270 tickets@windsok.co.za 028 423 1194 · 082 771 3308 Passes are on sale at the gate from 06h30 each morning, cash or card. Camping must be booked before the Wednesday.