I posted a story about the times at which the seaside town of Hermanus was involved in the history of powered flight in South Africa in the 20th century. I was astonished at the flood of responses – at last count about 1700 in all. Some contained corrections to what I had written – not a surprise since that is one of the reasons for writing the post in the first place. Thank you, I can now put a much better story on my Facebook page and on the Hermanus History Society webpage (www.hermanus-history-society.co.za). Other readers sent additional information and new images. The purpose of this post is to share these with you: • Evan Austin reminded me about the involvement of his family in powered flight, and I found more information on the internet: My parents were Capetonians who moved to Pretoria in their 20s and lived on a farm where we grew up. My father flew as a means of travelling the length and breadth of South Africa with his family on holidays to every wild place imaginable in Southern Africa. In 1973 during a visit to Cape Town we drove out to Hermanus and dad bought a holiday house in Westcliff. After that, the whole family would pile into the aircraft on the Pretoria farm and fly to Hermanus for the Christmas Holiday. I moved to Hermanus in 1993 as a resident. I kept my aircraft on the Hermanus runway until it became untenable, after which I moved it to Weltevrede airfield in Stanford. which was owned by Jacko Jackson, an ex airways pilot. There I started African Wings which was an air charter company with a single owner/pilot/booking agent/aircraft washer, namely myself. Had many enjoyable years flying whale watching flights with my Cessna 175 and doing Namibia/Botswana private flying safaris from SA in a Mooney 201. The best 10 years of my life. Then, stupidly sold the business to my brother and got a real job. African Wings is still doing whale watching/scenic flights out of Weltevrede so Hermanus still has its own airline. See the whole story on www.africanwings.co.za • Mary Krone: shared the experience coming in to land at the airstrip in the 1970s: I landed at the Hermanus airstrip in the 1970s on one of my early training flights. What made it so special was that lots of tall trees surrounded the airstrip and it was rather a windy/gusty day. The "long & the short" of it (excuse the pun) was that one had to "crab" it in (i.e. the nose of the plane facing the 'wrong way' against the wind ) until you were just at the height of the surrounding trees at which point you had to adjust & aim at the runway itself quickly, or else you would have crashed into the trees due to the sudden loss of wind below the height of the trees. Scary stuff at the time, but exhilarating all the same. So lucky and grateful… • Andrew Embleton sent images of an event many remembered –Harvards using the Hermanus airfield. Have a look at the images with this post. • I went looking for the biography of Sir Thomas Sopwith so that I could include more detail about his links with Hermanus. It is titled “Pure Luck: the authorised biography of Sir Thomas Sopwith” and the author is Allan Bromson. I have not yet been able to find a copy, and if you know where I might get one, please be in touch, best by email: robinlee@hermanus.co.za. See the images with this post for a view of the cover of the first edition • I thought the full story has to include the use of helicopters and fixed-wing planes to fight the all-too-frequent fires we experience would fit in. I am still researching this, so if you have any insight/contacts/ images, please be in touch.