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Labour Day Yarrawonga BBQ
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Am reading another ripper at the moment: Flying the Knife Edge by Matt McLaughlin. This is about PNG flying in all its gory. Lots of yarns about the fine art of trying to stay alive whilst flying into no-return valleys and landing on runways that are little more than a smudge on the Owen Stanleys. And we worry about some runways in Victoria; these blokes (and they mostly are in this book) were daily in the position of get-it-right-or-die, and many of them didn’t get it right. Lot’s of adventure, humour and tragedy and a lesson or two about making good decisions. If you can get a hold of it, I’d recommend it very highly.
I haven’t read this one yet, but have read most of FitzSimon’s histories. His style is very fresh and manages to get you right into the action by injecting human expression into the text without sacrificing accuracy. Some of his titles you want to look out for are Tobruk, Batavia, Eureka, Ned Kelly, Kokoda, Fromelles and Pozieres and Gallipoli. He has also done Mawson, but I haven’t read that one either … yet.
Having spoken to some people around LFS, the idea was touted that I could have started with one and gone to two at rotation time. This would have kicked her into the air at a faster speed, not having used the second stage in the take-off run.
Sunday’s nav challenge was a beauty! From LIL to Penfield/Sunbury (one instructor thought it prudent to do a low pass to check the writing on the hangar) then down to a challenging landing at Torquay for lunch. Parachutists everywhere! There we caught up with two members: Jock Folan who did some aeros over the field in Decathlon KAR and Dave Woodland who was flying jumpers in a C208 Caravan. Home via Wine and Water (Portsea). Congratulations to team All Stars who took the win. Thanks heaps to Murray (pictured at the controls of the Sportcruiser) who organised another great route, and LFS for springing for lunch. There were seven aeroplanes on the trip: one Bonanza, two Warriors, two Jabirus, an Arrow and a Sportcruiser.
Dave, yep, I reckon stay away from bush fires. On Sunday tracking ECH to HEAT we encountered what I think was a DSE burn directly on track and went around it. There’s a lot of convective turbulence coming from bush fires, and the really severe ones can even cause pyro-cumulus clouds to form. I don’t envy the firebomber pilots; I reckon they’d have a pretty rough ride.
Yes, the plan is to hold it on a Saturday morning. At the moment I am waiting for the Chief Test Pilot to let me know when he’s going to be available. The GA10 is very close to certification now, so Wheatie is pretty flat chat. I’d like to get this done before the end of the year. Need more interested people, though, so let’s get the word out there.
