Annerie took her first step towards reaching her dream of becoming a pilot during her matric final exam. Her mom took her for an intro flight at the Rand Airport . A flight in a small airplane is completely different from a flight in a luxury Boeing. Sometimes you have a vision in your mind of a certain career and when you get to know the real thing it turns out to be totally different. This was why taking an intro flight was so important - she had to know if flying was what she wanted to do.

The sparkle in her eye and the excitement when she talks about her flying career from where it started up until now, tells you that this girl enjoys what she does.

“The first time I didn’t know what was going on; I didn’t know what a rudder was; I saw all these clocks. Everything was new to me, but when the airplane went up into the sky, I knew that this was it! This was what I wanted to do. This was my passion. Die gogga het gebyt.

I remembered the pilot shutting off the engine and asking me if I thought we were going to make it to the field on the ground. All I knew was what I saw in the movies: when the engine is switched off, the plane immediately crashes. We made it down safely. He had actually showed me how to make a forced landing which I didn’t know at that stage. I thought: “Wow!” It was so exciting, and I just wanted to know more.”

In 1999, while her friends were enjoying themselfs after their final exams, Annerie started her Private Plane Licence (PPL) training in Port Alfred. PPL involves training and taking six exams, clocking up 40 flight hours. After she had completed the PPL training, she started working and did a Commercial Licence course at the Civil Aviation Authority in Brooklyn, Pretoria. This is not a very easy course, as there are eight subjects and 75 per cent must be obtained in every subject. The first exam consists of written exams in five subjects. Three subjects must be passed before a student can go on with the course. After these exams, students can “carry” (write) exams in the rest of the subjects over a period of one year in four sessions (a week a session). If they pass these subjects in the span of a year the Commercial Licence is theirs, if not, they must start all over again.

Annerie did her final test at Wonderboom Airport in 2001, as well as her Instructional Grading. She gave flight training at the Wonderboom Airport for six months, after which she moved to Stellenbosch where she lived for seven months. While she was still living in Stellenbosch, Annerie went for an interview at the SAPS Air Wing in Pretoria, as she had applied for a job at the SAPS before moving to Stellenbosch.

At the beginning of May 2003, the petite, 23-year-old, brown-eyed lady started her career as a pilot at the SAPS Air Wing, Wonderboom Airport.

Her job consists of crime prevention. Air Wing also has a Reaction Unit that is on standby. When, for example, a cash-and-transit-heist occurs, the member on standby flies with the Porter and searches for the stolen vehicle on the ground. The SAPS Air Wing works in conjunction with Tracker. Communication flights with Cessnas are available for commissioners and directors who want to travel to different locations and provinces.

At this time, Annerie is concentrating on flying a fixed wing. “Flying a fixed wing is totally different from flying a chopper. Two different licences are required. I won’t say no if the opportunity of a chopper licence presents itself. I would like to fly both of them.”

For Annerie, giving flight training played a significant role in gaining knowledge to fly, but working at the SAPS Air Wing is exciting. “The training at the SAPS Air Wing is of a high standard and compares to the best. The instructors at the Air Wing are older people with lots of wisdom and experience. I learn so much here. The stuff that I learned at the Flight School doesn’t come close to the quality and intensity of training that I receive at the SAPS Air Wing.

According to Annerie, good hand-and-eye coordination and three-dimensional vision, a clean bill of health and good depth perception are some of the characteristics needed to make a good pilot. It also takes an adventurous and responsible person to fly an airplane. “I once read an interesting piece on being a pilot. It said a person goes through a lot of choices during a day and makes decisions. When a pilot flies, he or she must be able to make split-second decisions. When, for instance, a pilot wants to land an airplane, there are so many factors such as wind, the height, etcetera. That split-second decision can have fatal consequences. Factors like wind, thunder, lightning, mist and rain cannot be controlled. The pilot must decide whether to take a chance or not. Sometimes in my line of work, you want to help people by looking for missing persons in the bush or mountains and then the weather does not play along. The decision is in your hands. You want to help them, but you can’t and that makes it very difficult.”

Although flying takes up most of Annerie’s time, she still has time for modern dancing. She also took up tap dancing at the beginning of the year. And as for any other woman, shopping is also on Annerie’s list of favourite hobbies.

How does the future look? “Although it was my dream when I was little to fly a Boeing, I’m in the position where I’m thinking about getting married and having children. I must be there for my family and can’t be away from home most of the time. This is the perfect place to work when I think about these things. Then you get people who tell you not to let go of your dreams. I don’t know, I will let life take its own course.”