Scobell’s Kop Radar site by Dave Walker
Visitors to the area travelling up the Naudesnek Pass may have noticed an immense white mushroom-like structure perched on top of a koppie that is, in fact, on the escarpment. In the interests of a) readers that fly, either as pilots or as passengers and their safety and b) local information, I thought it appropriate to add this article that was published in the Barkly East Reporter on the 7th February 2014 to the guidebook.
In 1999, Jerome Kieser, a structural engineer and a colleague arrived at Walkerbouts Inn en route to a site meeting at Scobellskop (2788m), a pinnacle on the plateau near Naudesnek. It is some 6km off the R396, the road between Rhodes and Maclear. The purpose of their visit was to acquaint themselves with the site, accessibility, Rhodes and the logistics surrounding the construction of a radar site in one of the more inhospitable locations in the country.
Dating back to the 70s, South Africa’s Air Traffic Navigation Systems (ATNS) had embarked on a programme of upgrading the existing radar network to ensure the safety of air traffic in the country. Their website has the following description of their services. “ATNS SOC Limited is responsible for air traffic control in approximately 10% of the world’s airspace. Our services extend further than the familiar air traffic control service, into the provision of vitally important aeronautical information used for all flight planning purposes as well as search and rescue coordination activities and the maintenance of a reliable navigation infrastructure”.
Kieser’s company’s tender was accepted, and construction began in 2000. Needless to say, the weather conditions on site resulted in several delays due to high wind, sub-zero temperatures, snow, sleet, hail and all that the weather gods could throw at the mere mortals toiling away below! Scobell’s Kop is a mere 500m from the edge of the escarpment. This coupled with the altitude makes it one of the most inhospitable radar sites in South Africa. Wind speeds of up to 180 knots have been recorded at the site and whereupon the wind-cup anemometer (a device for measuring wind-speed) disintegrated! Nonetheless, the structure was duly completed, and the project progressed to the installation of the “radome” and associated equipment. This included a variety of sensors and the like that provide ATNS experts at the Bloemfontein airport with a variety of information that, apart from the vital aircraft movement information, shows the status of the site 24 hours a day. A “V-Sat” system ensures reliable communications with the site at all times, including Eskom power failures, nowadays referred to as “outages”. A stand-by generator kicks in automatically and judging by the power supply to Rhodes, diesel consumption must be fairly high as this occurs on a regular basis!
In the course of 2000, Rhodes became the dormitory for engineers and technicians involved with the project. Of the various companies involved, Tom James and Garth Morris were two members of the teams who returned in the 2013 revamp. By the end of 2000, the radar station was up and running – and which it has done ever since. In fact, a requirement is an “uptime” of 99.98%. To get this into perspective, this is equivalent to a downtime of approximately 6 hours a year. The site has been operating within the parameters for more than a decade, a tribute to the quality of the equipment, installation personnel and the maintenance team.
It is a “passive” system and not the “real radar” of the world of war and action movies. It only records the passage of aircraft that are fitted with radar transponders. Apparently, it can “see” aircraft as far away as beyond Kimberley in the Free State, Vereeniging in Gauteng. Needless to say, well beyond Mthatha below the escarpment and East London on the coast. It therefore provides a view of flights in and around the region, in fact, a large portion of the country. Sites throughout the rest of South Africa overlap and provide air traffic controllers with all of the information needed to ensure the safe departure and arrival of aircraft throughout the country. The international airports in Cape Town or Johannesburg have a view of the entire country’s air traffic and are even equipped with fully equipped underground bunkers “just in case”!
In the meantime, technology has improved, and the apparatus is being replaced with state-of-the-art equipment. In fact, the new equipment is 5 generations on from the equipment that was originally installed at the site! The cost of the upgrade is in the region of R26 million, a clear message that South Africa is up there with the best of them and that we have one of the safest airspaces in the world, on a par with Australia and streets ahead of the much-vaunted United States of America.
As fate would have it, former president Nelson Mandela finally succumbed to a long illness Thursday evening, the 5th December 2013. Tom James was accordingly woken at around midnight by a cell phone call from a colleague who indicated that the installation had to be completed and in working order as soon as possible. The purpose of the call was to ensure that air traffic to or from East London and Mthatha was fully covered by the system and providing air traffic controllers with the essential information needed for the purpose. By Sunday, the system was up and running barring fine tuning to render it perfect. This was achieved with the use of a specially equipped high flying jet aircraft dispatched to the area for the purpose.
In a country riddled with inefficiency, corruption and bad government, it is encouraging to know that, other than SARS that has an obligation to try and run efficiently, there is another branch of “government” that is also operating efficiently. A little-known fact is that a submission for hosting international sporting events such as the Olympics brings air traffic control systems under close scrutiny. The recent World Soccer Cup, other than the ground control fiasco in Durban, went off without a hitch from an air traffic control point of view. This was mute testimony to the quality of the system and both the “Front” and “Back office” staff i.e., the air traffic controllers and those responsible for the installation and maintenance of the systems.
The hill upon which the radar site was established was named after Major-General Sir Henry Jenner “Harry” Scobell, KCVO, CB (2 January 1859 – 1 February 1912) who was a British military leader who served as the last officer in command of Cape Colony before the formation of the Union of South Africa. Located on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the Maclear district, Scobell’s Kop provided troops with a fine view of the district in good weather.
In 1899, Scobell was deployed with his regiment to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. As part of the British effort to defeat the Boer insurgency, General French appointed Scobell to command a column of cavalry. Scobell’s command included detachments from the 9th Lancers and the Cape Mounted Rifles. One of the most effective commandos operating in the Cape Province was the band commanded by Commandant Lotter. In the midst of a six day mission, Scobell received information that Lotter’s commando was laagered near Graaf Reinet close to the village of Petersburg in a gorge called Groenkloof. Quickly acting on the new intelligence, Scobell’s column surprised Lotter’s commando and the Battle of Groenkloof commenced on 5 September 1901. In exchange for 10 dead troopers, Scobell’s column killed 13, wounded 46 and captured the rest of Lotter’s command, effectively destroying one of the most successful Boer units operating in the Cape. In recognition of his success, Scobell was granted the brevet rank of Colonel.
With the end of the war, his brevet rank was confirmed, and he was transferred back to his old regiment, the Scots Greys, as its commander on 2 August 1902. He became a Major-General in 1903 and inspector of cavalry in 1907. From 1909 he commanded the British garrison in South Africa. His final posting was as General Officer Commanding Cape District, the position he held until 1911.He died in Rondebosch.
Permanent residents of Scobell’s Kop and environs that have shared their domain with modern-day developments are Slogget’s ice rats (Otomys sloggetti). This is a species of rodent that lives at higher altitudes than any other mammal in Southern Africa. There is even a resident population on the peak at Mont-aux-sources (3282m)! It can easily be seen alongside the roads and tracks on the plateaus and above the escarpment in the vicinity of Rhodes. Apart from being covered in a well–developed coat, a characteristic of the animal is a markedly short and fluffy tail. This is undoubtedly the result of an evolutionary process where ice rats with long tails subjected to the winter elements surely resulted in frost bite. This quaint little rodent was named after Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Sloggett RA, MC (1857 – 1929) who submitted a collection to the British Museum on his return to the United Kingdom after the Anglo-Boer War. One wonders what Scobell and his turn-of-the-century colleagues would have thought of the technological invasion of their look-out point?
Garth Morris, Dave Walker and Tom James by Susan Koelz