Great Piper Pub Crawl Hats off to Irene, Vicki, Jan M and Jan P for their vivid account of this great trip.  The boys are noticeably absent in recording their experiences. Maybe it is not a 'boy' thing to write stuff like this down. Maybe it is the call of the hangar to fiddle with aircraft or to get something else on the work-bench to play with, and writing about such a great experience gets relegated. Anyway, after saying to Irene that we needed some 'boy' notes, I had best make an attempt.This will be not so much chronological as trying to recall moments of significance to us chaps well, at least this one and I hope I capture something of the other lads' impressions as we traversed the great island continent. In the beginning:- For me this trip started about a year ago having met up with Duncan and Ray at Deniliquin and the Piper Pilot Proficiency Programme. I had somehow 'convinced' the APS that having a visiting Kiwi Piper owner (and a CAA - NZ staffer to boot) in their midst would not cramp their style too much. At Deni the seed was planted regarding the 2006 Outback trip. A bunch of emails followed over many months and Duncan was brave enough to show some interest in sharing his much loved 'URNie' with me and the confines of the cockpit and accommodation on the trip. This was the easy bit in retrospect. More months and emails were spent trying to sort out a Certificate of Validation for my NZ License to fly in Australia, and obviously to meet Duncan's insurers. At the same time I tried to penetrate the world of ASICs and DOTARS. That was a bit of a nightmare with conflicting advice, opinions and 'requirements'. Happily it all came to naught - so long as I remained near to someone with a red card around their neck at the right time on some aerodromes. Having gotten over to Cobden ( Vic) on the same aircraft as Duncan from Auckland-Melbourne (Duncan was on a tax break ---oops I mean conference), Duncan and Leslie kindly hosted me in Cobden (now half owned by New Zealand - Fonterra Dairy factory) and I was introduced to Duncan's Piper Archer -VH-URN. Lovely looking machine and well equipped. We sorted our gear; we went on shopping expeditions for survival rations, borrowed sleeping bags, sorted out tools and aircraft spares and weighted every thing. We compared flight log plans ( I had been busy with a set of WACs and did it - the whole trip - by hand, a great revision in first principles of navigation, fuel burn estimates , had set up my hand held GPS for all the trip locations).  Ray had sent some data as well and it was comforting to know that on only a couple of legs did we differ by a degree or a nautical mile. Weight and balance checked, fuel loads estimated, we were ready.In the middle:- Well for a Kiwi, it was a challenging experience launching into such vast and flat territory. The hills (yes, you call them mountains) between Cobden and Swan Hill on the way north (-ish) to Mungo provided some line of sight references, but then the landscape took on a whole new flatness to the far horizon. Sharpened my heading holding! Irene and friends have recounted much of our adventure, but what did boys do in the middle (a one girl- Faye of course). Well, first find the strip. If your navigation was pretty good, that wasn't too much trouble. They do stand out against the surroundings. Although as Duncan and I found out (Duncan was flying) it does pay to cross check when sight seeing. Yes, we did a 'Tiki Tour' of Wilpena Pound and were convinced Rawnsley Park strip was pretty much in front of us although our GPS was saying otherwise. Fortunately Ray made a bigger stuff up that day and took out the Billy Goat Award by the smallest of margins. Next thing for the 'boys' was to pull off an acceptable landing (there will be others watching) and get to the pumps - quick. Gassed up, the next mission was to park the aircraft, get the gear out, attend to the tie-downs, put on those absolutely essential security locks, and maybe have a pee. Now the girls were most helpful with some of these chores and did seem to also be able to contain themselves as well. Ok, on the way to the nearest watering-hole, motel, cabins, tents and the conversation turned to performance. Aircraft performance that is. 'What altitude did you try? What speed did you get? How was your fuel burn? Of course the next day, the departure routine was pretty much reversed. One thought about distance to run and a pee ( what did you ladies do discreetly?), undid all the high tech security stuff, pre-flight and pack the aircraft., and then launch into the blue yonder on the next leg. ?Boys? and their toys also meant 'walking the line'. Whereever aviators gather this is a common practice. Aircraft were 'inspected' and some good stories exchanged about performance, the 'gear' on board, the aircraft history and what one might trade up to next. It is all part of the fun. Of course, ?fly-speak? is helped by a food, beer (maybe wine later) and good company. We had this in abundance through out the trip. So the 'boys' were happy. Did the 'boys' engage in the experience beyond flying their aircraft? Well, actually, 'yes'. To fly the outback and not notice and be enchanted by the changes in the landscape from subtle to dramatic is not possible. The patterns of dry river beds, the salt beds, the changing colours of the desert, the rifts and uplifts in the landscape were impressive and overall the sheer size and scale leaves one in awe. Both the desert and then the grandeur of Uluru and the Olgas painted in varying light does highlight our insignificance. To see this from the air suspended in a small structure of aluminium (or some fabric or plastic) and a 'bucket of bolts' makes you think (one thought also being - don't crash here or you are dingo tucker). Thinking about metal and the sky, there was ?A Tower like Alice?. The incident had its moments and the 'boys' talked about it for days. It will be etched in the annals of the APS adventures. As it turned out Airservices might have had a slightly better plan for the influx of aircraft in a predictably narrow time window, but we too could have done better in setting up a flow based on aircraft speed and then ,once under ATC, sticking with the sequence and the use of good airmanship to manage aircraft speeds. But, that is hindsight and a lesson learnt. For the 'boys' aircraft snags were also on the agenda. Throughout the trip everyone avoided having a 'bingle', a term Duncan introduced me to, but there were minor hiccups. For our part we 'lost' a landing light, had a spare, but it wasn't the bulb (prime suspect), but a broken wire to the landing light. Fortunately we had a wire with fitting ( brought from New Zealand too), so soon we were all lit up again. I soon leant that outback Australian airstrips can be rough! On the first morning at Mungo, Duncan and I walked the length both ways removing the larger rocks (stones). These walks became a bit of an early morning pattern for us and a good way to 'size up' strips. The small stones and allied debris left their mark on a number of propeller blades. Fortunately we had a file in URNie's tool kit, and I had had some training on prop filing back in NZ.:- equivalent strokes each blade and retain the aerofoil. No one likes to see 'ally' stripped from their prop, you cannot put it back on, but stress risers can propagate from large nicks and chips and thus compromise the integrity of the blade. The choice is lose a little metal now or risk a big chunk in flight, quickly followed by the engine as the eccentric fly-wheel that the prop would now be does its work. We got these props in fair shape and were able to get a LAME check them out at Alice. By about mid-way in the journey I think we all got better at doing 'run-ups' on the run which tends to minimise this problem. There was a fuel primer problem on one aircraft ( not entirely fixed, but worked around), a 'run-away' electric trim ( fortunately on the ground - temporary fix- disconnect the electrics -get that fixed!) and a door latch broken which is always a risk with Pipers if not parked into wind if there is a stiff breeze. All of these were really minor which says a lot for good Aussie maintenance. After all we had 19 aircraft and if they each did on average 30 hours on the trip, that's 570 flight hours without a major airworthiness issue. Oh, we do not count Bill's 'GPS going down on him' in this category, though it must be a sexy wee thing.  Dust, don't forget the red dust. Just like in the movies, the TV dramas and books on outback life. ?Eat my dirt? applied to a number of departures. The view back over the shoulder of this curtain of red air was a reminder that the air filter could do with a clean before the next 50 or 100 check. Good oil can only do so much and that silica will soon be reshaping the cylinders and the bank balance.What else happened 'in the middle'? Oh, Faye gave the 'boys' a new insight into the Table of VFR cruising levels', but then she is a girl, so there is your answer. We accommodated (as men have to) and 'looked out'. By the same token we loved the way Emilio re-wrote standard aviation phraseology. His intentions were clear and so were our consequent actions. I had struggled with a few different calls with CTAFs, lapsed into Kiwi calls (and Duncan would raise an eyebrow ,or just push the press to talk and correct me), but I soon did appreciate that I could take a more liberal view on Comms work in the Outback.  ?Storms ahead? .?shall we go above of below?? It was on the leg to White Cliffs that for some Aussie aviators the weather turned nasty. No longer clear blue skies, viz unlimited. There were broken clouds at 2,500 to 3,000 up to about 5,500 (probably). We went underneath. So that training in weather-related decision making had to kick in (there is a good DVD on this produced by mates Mark Wiggins -U of Western Sydney and David O'Hare- U of Otago , CASA may distribute). There was some virga in the far distance, it was dull under the clouds but this was not 'bad-weather' over flat to the horizon terrain ( I lie, there was a MOUNTAIN on the chart at 457ft AMSL!) Well, I got a few miles out of that story and gave some encouragement to come and experience flying in NZ where weather and terrain do drive home the message of that old saying , ?if you have time to spare, travel by air?. (OK, I know it is true, you do get real weather in the South East and in the afternoons in the tropics, but you sure do have it good for small aircraft flying with highly predictable weather for days on end and over terrain, though inhospitable in itself, but where its rate of climb is usually well below that of your aircraft- unless you are really dumb). At the end :- After the party at White Cliffs, what do the 'boys' have to show for this trip? There will be some bills for fuel and aircraft related stuff. There will be all those hours and magical destinations in the log books. There will be the photos (I seem to have heaps) of aircraft lined up at the end-of-the day. A Pride of Pipers no less. There will be the time spent cleaning the aircraft. And some where in the bags are those we gems and memorabilia for family and friends back home. It was opals in my case and some inspiring art from the Mbantua Gallery at 'The Alice?, plus a superb desert water colour from Megan - all framed and hung now too. All these things helped no end with the 'leave pass' for this 'boys own ( almost) outback adventure'. I'm sure others have paid off there leave passes now too. All that said though, the most important thing as a 'boy' on this trip has been the great companionship and support. Flying, and Pipers started the adventure, the fun with you all made it the trip it was and equally made the memories that live on long after the log book entries are just dry ink and Uncle VISA paid. Thanks you good guys and gals  Ross St.George New Zealand. P.S. 1. Ewes are not forgiven for all the sheep jokes just yet). P.S.2. There is no secret CASA Report - true). |
|
|