Mike's Flying

Lord Howe Island

2012-02-07T13:10:00.000+11:00

436nm offshore is a Dash-8 is a long way to travel, especially in bad weather. Well, bad weather on the arrival, which is pretty normal for Lord Howe Island. We needed a mainland alternate for this particular flight. That's a fair bit of fuel tankering, plus working out a point of safe diversion that will cater for us to reach the island and then be able to fly back at 10,000ft depressurized, as that is the worst case scenario.

Anyway, all the flight planning hassles aside, and the distance, and the numerous different things that can go wrong, i did my first flight out to the 'rock.' The captain always flies out and lands and they need to be specially qualified and do simulator training for the privilege. Lord Howe has a small runway, only 1006 meters in length. It's one of the few places where the 3 different wind socks will show 3 different directions of wind of 3 different strengths. It was quite bizarre to witness. I was there on a very low cloud ceiling day, but we were able to get visual below a large gap as we approached. I'm told that the flight out is usually 2 hours of boredom with 30 seconds of sheer terror on the approach. Well it was pretty amazing for the first time. It's such a small runway and there is no margin for error.

Overall a good experience, which i had tried to not do for a while, but i'm happy i did it. It was good to do something different for a change!

Sunsets, storms and other.

2012-01-24T09:38:00.001+11:00

I have done some interesting flying recently, including some Melbourne to Sydney ferry flights, which was fun flying the dash and near empty weights. There was a lot of weather on the way as well, and since we were empty we decided diverting 100nm to get around it wasn't as important. Plus, it was Friday afternoon!

We managed to weave around the worst of it at 23000ft, but it was still a fairly bumpy ride which involved being pushed up and down around 500ft and a lot of ice accumulation on the airframe. We had our crew dinners on the front seat of the plane, which were loaded there before we closed the door. Neither of us elected to eat it, mainly due to it being around 5PM, and we both had a much nicer dinner waiting at home. Im pretty sure they ended up somewhere on the floor, but we both actually forgot to check what happened to them through the bumps. Did i mention it was Friday afternoon?

Anyhoo, we got through around 80nm of solid muck and bumps, into the most random smooth and clear evening into Sydney i had seen in a while, so there was no excuse for a bad landing, which i'm pretty sure, wasn't one of my best. But i blame the captain, he put the pressure on :)

Nothing like jet envy! That was a 767 from Melbourne to Sydney. We saw about 3 other jets overtake us. Gotta love turboprops!!

Crew meals. Not sure what happened to them!

The engine from i think row 3?

Getting a beverage from the galley down the back. They had no water on board weirdly, so the order was 2 coke zero's.

The storms and weather that lay ahead. Didn't look to bad or as big from this point, but it made the next 80nm go quite quick.

2012-01-12T14:37:00.002+11:00

Sydney's epic storms last week, was probably the worst flying conditions i have ever encountered. We were doing the late Moree in the Dash-200, and as we departed we could see a big line of storms forming to the west towards Dubbo and western NSW. That didn't really bother us, with a light 200, best rate of climb through the build up, and a few early turns to the north and we were able to have a smooth, clear flight the entire 280nm to Moree.

After a quick turn around we departed to Sydney. Enroute almost instantly in the last remaining daylight we were able to visually, what looked like a cell, but wasn't showing up on the weather radar. After a 30nm diversion to the east, we saw a lot of lightning coming out of it and were pretty happy with our decision to avoid it. As we approached closer and closer to Sydney, we could see more and more cells appearing on the radar. At range 100nm, and showing no ground returns, when you see orange and red being painted so far away, you know its going to be bad. Sydney was also approx 100nm on the DME distance.

I couldn't get a good shot as we got closer for the main reason, as we had a high workload, talking to approach and working out our plan of attack. Also the bumps were so bad i couldn't get a clear shot, as you can see in the second photo.

Most of the jets were going into 34L, and we were for 34R into Sydney. I think we were the only plane to the east of the field and our instructions were basically, manoeuvre as required to get in. We were cleared to 2000ft, and eventually a radar lowest safe altitude of 1500ft. The weather radar was basically painting magenta coloured cells about 5nm in length and thickness with just small gaps in between them. There was so much lightning around us, rain, bumps and cloud it was fairly disorientating.

Somehow, we were able to get a short but direct visual path to the airport, where we intercepted an abbreviated ILS to finals from about 5nm. We saw about 5 planes waiting for takeoff on that runway as we landed. However due to the storms around Sydney, it's airport policy that the ground guys do not work when there is lighting. So we also sat on the ground for around 58 minutes waiting for ground power, and ground marshalling to the gate. The weather was bad enough that were letting planes turn any direction from the parallel runways.

Truely, i cannot say i learnt a whole lot from the experience, other than that myself and the crew worked very well together over the whole situation. We were aware of what was going on around us and how to organise ourselves to avoid the weather and operate safely in the conditions. It was challenging flying though, which is satisfying once on the ground.

2011-12-28T13:17:00.002+11:00

Dash-8-ski. I have seen fans like this in the russian planes, but in one of our planes without an APU, there are fans to keep us cool during summer turn around's. Surprisingly effective, but seriously vintage! Thought it was kinda weird and funny. I also didn't really notice it being there till the captain pointed it out to me. Don't know whether i should admit that point however.

Anyway, all the best for the Christmas holidays, hope its been great with good family and food! Once again thanks for reading and the support!

Forgot this one was here

2011-12-16T12:54:00.001+11:00

Not sure if i posted this on a previous post, but it looks good, although slightly blurry!

Wing to wing with a C441 from a baron.

Late Moree

2011-12-08T16:08:00.001+11:00

Flying the Dash-8-200 back from a late Moree, was a pretty amazing sunset. With daylight savings we don't get a lot of night flying at the moment, but we do get some amazing moments like this. Taken at about 8:45pm, i couldn't help but take a photo.

2011-11-29T09:48:00.001+11:00

We had some interesting weather all around Sydney and the sound east coast. There was one day where i think every flight from Port Macquarie did not get in! On that day i flew to Tamworth, which was pretty bad also, requiring an RNAV to the minima on runway 12. Not really a lot to say, its been fun flying and the past week has involved 2 ferry flights to Newcastle/Williamtown Airport.

It's military controlled, so it's just like being back in Darwin, although there is a lot more fast jet activity. I think both times i have been there, i have seen squadrons of Hawks and FA18's doing circuit work. Always good to watch. Kinda feel a little slow in a dash-8 next to them!

Anyway, from Sydney, its only 76nm with a flight time of around 25 minutes each way. The flight required us to sit on the ground for a few hours due to available slots into Sydney, so sitting around in an office with not a whole lot to do, was again, just like being back in Darwin. Anyway, wasn't a bad duty off a reserve period.

Williamtown on a pretty average day!

Pretending to be a passenger! We had the APU running as a Brisbane based crew was taking this aeroplane, so we had to stay with the plane until they took it off us.

Till next time!

787 in Sydney

2011-11-16T15:39:00.001+11:00

I was lucky enough to have an ASIC that gets me around the jetbase at Sydney. I was also lucky enough to be on reserve with no callout, and even luckier that another friend who was called out to fly gave me his 787 open day invitation. It was fantastic to see up close, and i also got to see the new Qantas Boeing 737 sky interior planes. Overall a good day! Here are some photos -

Business seats, above and below on the 737 -

AVOD on domestic flights is definately good.

737 cockpit above and 787 below!

First glimpse of the 787 in the jetbase

Engine shot. Not small.

Wing and engine -

And more. Notice the raked wingtips

Enjoy.

2011-11-08T11:18:00.002+11:00

It's been really good flying recently. CAVOK days, and suprisingly little delays into Sydney, which is very unusual. Although, i did encounted not only my first go-around in the Dash-8, but also my first diversion.

In terms of not getting to a destination, i can't recall of anytime that i haven't been able to get in to where i was going. Once i had to divert to Yuendumu, going into Alice Springs in a 210, but just waited 30 minutes on the ground till the storm line had passed through the field. Another time out of Darwin i go so far overwater in Single engine over crocodile infested water that as i started to backtrack managed to find another way through the weather and get to my destination.

We were doing the routine overnight, had finished our crew meals, and after recieving the AWIS broadcast, knew it was going to be challenging. I think it was from memory, visibility 200m, cloud overcast at 200ft. We were going to do an instrument (RNAV) approach, which the minimums is around 600ft above ground level. At this particular aerodrome, it's about 4100 on the altimeter. We also briefed our minimum fuel for diversion to our alternate, and briefed the actions to take in a missed approach and what we would do.

We requested direct tracking to the initial approach fix, configured early for the approach. Upon passing the final approach fix, 130kts, flaps 15, gear down, checklists complete, we entered so fairly think fog/low cloud. as we approached the minimum descent altitude (MDA). Standard calls meant i called the pilot flying at 100ft above MDA, and the missed approach point he called decide. I replied no contact, and with that we iniated the go around procedure. The trick is to not rush and treat it as though it's a take-off. In the dash-8-300 we have no FADEC on our fuel control system, so its very easy to over torque the engines and cause damage if you panic and throw the throttles foward.

Set power, flaps 10, gear up, after take off checklist. I was very busy as the pilot monitoring. The pilot flying did just that, flew the aeroplane, i reconfigured it, called centre, called company frequency, reloaded the approach. There was a lot to do. So much head down stuff infact that i was a little disoriented when i did finally get breathing space to realise we had already completed the missed approach procedure and climbed to the 25nm minimum safe altitude. We decided to give the approach one more go, although it was fairly obvious we wouldn't get it.

In the end we divereted about 40nm to the south-west. Our passengers were bussed to the original destination, and possibly the best part about it, was that the weather was forecast to remain bad, so operations bussed our passengers to us in the morning, meaning we got an extra hour and a half sleep in on a minimum rest overnight, and our morning departure out of Sydney was allocated to a different crew as we wouldn't get into Sydney till after the departure time.

Unrelated photos to the events described, but just some i have taken on my phone recently.

Fog

2011-10-19T14:51:00.000+11:00

All through winter, i have dealt with severe icing (that is, by Australian standards to all those Canadians reading!), i have dealt with storms, weather, low cloud, low visibility, high cross-winds, virtually everything mother nature could throw at me - except fog!

Now, we weren't trying to land, so it wasn't a big deal at all. We were coming off the overnight and arrived at the airport with 200 metres visibility. However, this meant we couldn't depart. By Australian standards, the Dash-8 is a 'qualifying' twin engine aircraft - That is we are multi crew, have an autofeather system, above 5,700kg and have a guarenteed climb performance on one engine above 2.4% in the second segment (This relates to the gear up in take off configuration to an acceleration altitude, which for us is normally 500ft above the aerodrome elevation - unless there is a special procedure due to high terrain.)

So our problem became the required vis for take-off. Normally is it 550 metres, but the runway lights at this aerodrome were 90 metres spaced, as opposed to the normal 60 metres, which meant we required 800m visibility to legally take off. Australian airspace used to have low-visibility operations, and my company teaches it in the sim for training, as there are specific procedures and requirements that we need to follow to allow us to operate low vis. Low vis is visibility down to 350 metres, however it has been abandoned at the moment, and currently 550 and 800 metres are the legal minimums for us to take-off.

So for the aerodrome we were at, this required us at the very least to be able to see 8 rows of runway lights so count the 800 metres. Unfortunately for us, we were able to see about 3 lights, and to add to it, the runway has a slope in the middle, which prevents you from seeing lights over a slight ridge.

The captain and myself did an inspection in an airport ground vehicle to check out each runway end, and after listening to the automated weather unit, we decided to give it a shot. We started both engines, taxiied out the end of both runways, with all intention of taking off, but it wasn't to be! We ended up taxiing back on the apron to wait it out, and unloaded our eager passengers. We figured it would be a bit of a wait and it was more comfortable for them in the terminal.

So we were forced to wait it out, until it lifted - about 2 hours later! We finally departed through a very thin layer of overcast cloud at this point into a smooth beautiful clear sunny day everywhere else.

To all those that follow, thanks for the continued reading. I have been slack at posting and taking pictures of recent times, it's hard to know how much i can say or post about now that i'm flying for this company.

2011-09-28T11:51:00.001+10:00

Sunset over Dubbo, central New South Wales.

Checked to line for a week, and flown a total of 2 sectors! I was meant to be doing an overnight tomorrow night to Armidale, however i'm now operating as the safety first officer for a new hire doing their first flight. So the jumpseat it is!

I did however have my first cyclic in the simulator, which straight after my check was an intense week. It involved an engine failure at v1 on a pretty average night weatherwise out of Townsville. The take-off to the south has some pretty high terrain and therefore there is a company procedure, which was at 1DME TL, turn 100 till 6DME or 2000ft, whichever comes first and then track outbound on track 030 till lowest safe altitude or radar assigned level. I requested 3600ft which was the 10nm minimum safe altitude and in the northeastern sector it was 3000ft.

Once we did our checklists and secured the dead engine, i requested direct tracking to NIKKY waypoint which is the inital fix on the VOR 19 approach. Normally i would do an RNAV however there was a RAIM outage for the time that we were departing. (Means that using the FMS for an approach would have produced flags, resulting in a one engine missed approach)

We did 3 holding patterns at NIKKY, to confirm the approach checklists were done, the cabin was secured, the briefings complete and that both pilots were satisfied that we were in a safe configuration and understanding to commence the approach. The VOR to TL must be handflown once the gear is put down, as per company SOP's. I configured at 11DME to be configured an stable by 8DME which is the final approach fix. From there is was a matter of crew co-ordination and flying to get the plane down. We landed safely and the exercise was over.

The next event was by the captain into Cairns, doing an 15nm DME arc arrival 15 ILS. Handflown with a pressurisation fault and roll control fault. All handled well. After our break it was time to get back into it.

Next was an uncontrolled engine fire on descent into Tamworth. Again the associated drills and checklists were done, it was time to get the plane on the ground and simulate a mock evacuation. Shortly after we had to do some bad weather circling approaches at night, which are always challenging. My excercise was all engines operation, so i could use the autopilot. The captain on one engine had to handfly his, not easy, and his involved a missed approach from 300ft.

So 4 hours later we emerged absolutely tired and mentally exhausted, but good to fly the line for another 3 months till the next check. It was a good experience and despite it being stressful and hard, you have to consider the sim as a day at work with abnormal operations and just deal with the problems that occur, as you would the real aeroplane if you were flying on the line. It was good to see that my procedures and drills for abnormal operations were better and more understood than when i was doing endorsement training in the sim nearly 3 months ago.

Cheers

2011-09-22T16:51:00.003+10:00

Hello, hi, welcome, ahoy - i am still alive. I do apologise for a severe lack of posting of recent times, but it was due a few reasons, one massive problem, which i would rather not delve into on the online community, but overall, its been a fairly stressful few months, and finally, after almost 5 months since my induction, ground school, simulator training, i am finally - CHECKED TO LINE! (watch out unsuspecting captains)

So yeh, i haven't actually flown the line yet, had my first day of reserve and didn't get called in, which was a little weird as i was fully expecting it. It's been really nice weather in Sydney at the moment, CAVOK days, so i guess people aren't really dreading flying in challenging conditions and therefore don't mind working. It seems that everyone gets called off reserve when there are challenging conditions and delays at Sydney airport.

Although that brings me to an interesting point which airline flying has kinda challenged me in. And that is, the visual circuit into an uncontrolled aerodrome. It is probably the most dangerous thing we do, and that is decending through 10,000ft and entering the realm of VFR piston drivers, lots who don't tune up CTAF frequencies or have transponders. I actually had a TCAS RA on a line training flight. It's hard to know who was at fault, or whether our TCAS was faulty, or the pilot didn't turn is transponder on till the last minute, but all of a sudden we had traffic 1000ft below us, on our track, climbing through our level. Naturally, we turned out of the way and followed the TCAS instructions, and thankfully nothing came of it. But talk to nearly any captain on the line and they have all nearly had some incident involving traffic.

However apart from all the traffic we encounter, which just adds to the workload and maintain a vigilant visual look out for traffic, when its instrument procedures, it is often easier to plan a flight and manage the workload. What i mean by this, is when you have an ILS or an RNAV approach in marginal conditions, you have a defined set of rules and flight profile to follow.

For example, when we do an RNAV approach, there are defined altitudes to be at the final approach fix, the intermediate approach fix and the initial approach fix. At the initial approach fix, there is a set of speeds we also need to adhere to. So from top of decent we can plan in the FMS to be at a height and a speed at a certain space in time, and then commence the approach. By the final approach fix (usually a five mile final to the runway), we need to be configured for landing and speeds below 130kts. From there is it usually a decent to the minimum altitude and we decide whether we will land or do a missed approach for whatever reason.

I bring this up because when you brief plan for instrument procedures it somehow ended up being easier, having a set of rules and decent steps, with known speeds and 'gates' (aim points) to configure and carry out the approach. Most of my training had been in instrument procedures, partly due to training and partly due to the actual weather at the destinations, so all of a sudden we have really good weather and we were doing visual circuits and visual approaches, i was actually a little lost in what to do. Remember apart from circuit training, you actually practise very little visual procedures in the sim.

So anyway, training is complete, and i'm looking forward to flying the line. It's been a massive learning curve. I can't stress the difference in flying between my general aviation days and flying in a multi crew airliner environment.

Anyway i'll try to get posts a big more regular now with more photos. I have my first sim check as well in the next week, just in case i wasn't done with everything!

Cheers.

Ahh well.. it's about time for a post

2011-08-16T12:20:00.000+10:00

Hi all, thanks for continually checking up on my lack of posts! It's been pretty crazy with all the training, reading, training, re-reading, training etc. Airline flying is probably harder than i expected and more intensive than i ever realised. I'm sure once im settled in to everyday life and flying the line with a variet of different people and not so focused on flying the plane and company procedures, than it will be a different kettle of fish again, but at the moment i feel as though i haven't had to work this hard ever!

I finish reading the FCOM, the engineering manual, and other associated texts, only to basically start reading them again. I have spent a lot of hours just reading and re-reading manuals, learning specific limitations of the airplane from memory, recalls from the QRH word perfect (company requirment), on top of learning the syllabus in the training file.

So yeh, good times!
Line flying is a lot different to anything that goes on in the sim. Just some things you cannot replicate, and in marginal weather, you just need to be on top of everything the whole time. The biggest challenge in flying a bigger aircraft in a multi crew environment is the constant management that flying it requires.
Anyway one particular thing of interest in the Dash-8 is the ice protection systems and the penalties when it comes to landing and taking off. As you can imagine there is a lot of emphasis on speed management and situational awareness in the Dash. This is partly due the Colgan crash a few years back, and also because we don't have any autotrottle system, so its very easy to reduce power, get distracted doing something else and all of sudden be at minimum speed in no time flat. That why we have very defined pilot flying, and pilot monitoring roles.
Also with ice protection on in the dash, it increases your Vref (min speed landing in that configuration) over the fence for landing. This actually an automatic speed bias in the stall warning computers, which is triggered by the propeller heaters and also the increase ref speed switch. At a high weight its about an extra 15 knots. In windy conditions, by the time you apply a Vapp speed (basically a target speed to provide some protection over Vref - We use 1/3 the windspeed or all of the gust to a maximum of 15 knots) So by the time you add the ice protection speed coupled with a high Vapp, flaps 15 instead of 35, into a short runway, which is high elevation in miserable weather, it makes for some challenging approaches and high workload situations. With the ice protection on, then its a significant weight penalty for take off as well.. this is due to the speed bias in the stall warning computers which i mentioned earlier. Since you need a high speed, you therefore need more runway, which therefore limits your maximum take off weight.

I hope that made some sense to those reading at home. Anyway line training is 2/3's of the way through now and almost finished. I have a progress check in the next few days and then a check to line early september at this stage.

So thanks for continuing to check it and read my blog, i will get back to being more regular with my postings when im all checked to line.

2011-07-23T17:31:00.000+10:00

Some photos from line training. About a third of the way through it.. massively study intensive and making a me hermit. Hope you enjoy, i'll be back to normal blogging and stories soon, but at the moment quite literally too busy.

Thanks for reading.

Line Flying

2011-07-06T16:59:00.000+10:00

Start flying the line on Friday, with my first flight to Port Macquarie, which is on the mid north coast of NSW for those not from Australia. Is very exciting but also pretty scary at the same time. I don't ever remember being so nervous about flying a plane before. I guess its finally the real thing. You train and learn so much in the sim, that when it comes to crunch time, it seems foreign to actually get into a real plane.

I will be doing the majority of all my flying down in Melbourne, but the first two flights are based out of Sydney. It will also be the first time that i will fly in and out of Sydney International as pilot flying, and even from the right seat of a 19T aircraft! Pretty cool. It's definately a weird feeling to be achieving i guess what was my dream growing up, watching the planes arrive and depart, and now to actually be part of this and being part of the operating crew is something that i can't really put into words.

So the sims went without a hitch, actually, i lie. I had to repeat one item, which wasn't a fail, but the instructor basically said that he wanted to see it done better. SO, i repeated it, and did it better :) and then my final check was over, and i am being let loose on the line to finish my training. The company requires 100 hours with a training captain to get checked to line as a minimum, so lets hope i'm up to the challenge! Exciting times ahead, plus in the next 2 weeks i will be flying in and out of Melbourne Tullermarine, Sydney Kingsford-Smith, Canberra, and various smaller regional areas. I guess i have wanted to work flying on the east-coast of Australia out of these destinations since i started flying, so its so so so SO cool, that it's finally happening.

Hopefully bring you some pics and other news shortly. For now back to the FCOM and study, preparing my Jepp plates and making sure i know what im actually doing on Friday haha.

Cheers for reading.

apologies

2011-06-30T21:53:00.002+10:00

Sorry for the lack of posts of recent. Its been pretty insane finishing up the endo. If all goes well i will be dash-8 endorsed tomorrow afternoon. I will be finished with all sims including the cyclic program by Monday and start line training mid next week!

Will keep you all updated soon!

2011-06-16T15:16:00.000+10:00

A lot of my sims were cancelled this week. It's hard to keep reading the same text over and over, and it feels as though im skimming over it at the moment in the vain hope that i 'know' it. I guess it is at the point where i just need to keep going in the sim to get it all done. We had 3 out of 6 cancelled this week, mainly due to a sick instructor. So thanking him for not spreading it around! Last thing i want right now is to be sick and have to call in sick during training.

Im on that very weird line of not working enough, and enjoying the time off a little too much, and i should be head in the books again. But i have 2 sims the next 2 days so it should put it all back into perspective. We did circuits the other day, and it was a good experience not only going through all the drills as pilot monitoring but also actually hand flying the thing in the circuit, doing stable approaches and normal landings. I think thats the extent of normal procedures i will encounter! and as of tomorrow everything and anything abnormal starts to happen, with roll/pitch control jams, to engine failures at V1 into IMC and then conducting the instrument approach around for a landing. FUN....

Anyway, good times ahead, hopefully start line traing in the not too distant future once the endorsement phase is done.

2011-06-09T12:41:00.000+10:00

I'm having trouble being able to post comments on my blog or on anyone elses, so im sorry if it seems i'm not replying, or commenting - i'm not able too!! If anyone has any clues as to why this is, i would like to know!

The photo above is a photo of the PW123E engine. Awesome right? I prefer looking back at these, and they sound way cooler in Disc, than any piston! Actually, Titans do sound super cool, but nothing beats a turbine!

Hope you like it as much as i do!

First sim session

2011-06-08T21:02:00.000+10:00

Was awesome! Was a great experience, and possibly the best feeling going to a sim centre to learn to fly an 'airliner' or box kite - whichever you deem more appropriate.

I wont say too much! But it was one of the best experiences of my life, and 3.7 hours went so so quick!

Keep you all up to date soon.

2011-06-03T08:26:00.002+10:00

Fits in the awesome category! Final approach 16R Sydney.

waiting and waiting

2011-06-01T10:36:00.000+10:00

My friend in V Australia recently referred to the plane i fly as a "box-kite." I thought that was pretty funny, so i will probably start saying box-kite more regularly. I guess to his 300T takeoff weight, a 19T box-kite must appear tiny, especially on the ground!

Anyway, on to the training side of things, i can't really argue at all. I have had 2 weeks off basically to study for my sims, and 'try' be as prepared as i can for them. The hardest part is learning recalls, and how to action them. Recalls are essentially the phase 1's of a failure, or fault with the plane, which are commited to memory for immediate actioning, before the checklist is pulled out and used. An example is the depressurisation. The recall is, Oxygen - on, mic switch - mask, passenger signs - on, power levers - flight idle, condition levers - max, and airspeed - Vmo. Now its good and ready to have that memorised, but actually doing it in a 2 crew situation and the exact ways to action it, makes it slightly more involved.

For example, in a depressurisation, and the plane is in Autoflight, then both pilots would don the oxygen at the same time and set up the mic switches. The Pilot flying would then disengage the autopilot and bank the plane 30 degrees left or right and pitch down to 20 degrees until Vmo is established, and maintain that speed till at least 14000ft. He would also say during this time have said "emergency descent recalls." The pilot monitoring would then have actioned the recall, confirming each one. The oxygen and mic switches are obvious checks as well as the passenger signs, and naturally the pilot flying would have already retarded the power levers as the emergency descent would be commenced. After saying and confirming those, he would get to the condition levers and say "condition levers max." The pilot flying would confirm this, and the pilot monitoring moves the condition levers to max. The airspeed should be at Vmo, and the pilot monitoring would say "recalls complete, reference next."

At this point he would also be saying to ATC that they are conducting an emergency descent and declare a pan pan or mayday. Set the transponder to 7700 for emergency and if time permitted advice the passengers and cabin crew what was happening. I believe cabin crew are trained to recognise a depressurisation and what their actions should be.

There are a lot of these recalls, and i guess the secret is going through them precisely and accurately in a timely manner, without rushing anything or missing anything. Although, they represent emergency situations and not normal flight conditions, they should be completed calmly and in the proper two crew coordination.

Im looking foward to the sims! I should be Box-Kite endorsed by the end of the month!

2011-05-24T12:16:00.000+10:00

Haha, no this photo is not me or anyone else i know. Infact it was pretty much the first photo that came up in google when i searched for "wet drills." So that's what i'm going to talk about today. We had to do all our emergency procedures last week, which involved ground emergencies and also ditchings. We don't actually carry life rafts on our planes, so it was a little silly, but it's more for the rare occaison of a double engine failure or something and a search and rescue plane would assumedly drop one in our position till further help could be made.

So the day starts off with a lot of theory and learning basically what each bit of equipment is, where it's located, how it's used and also the limitations. A lot of this was box ticking exercises, but it was also very interesting to see it in a practical manner, rather than just reading about it. There is virtually an acronym for everything in the airline world, and an acronym on how to use the before said acronym. So for all the equipment we had SLOP (serviceability, location, operation and precautions.)

This meant for the fire extinguisher, that the serviceability was the pin in place, its in its holder and it was full pressure, located in the cockpit, forward cabin and 2 at the rear, operation was the PASS acronym (pulls, aim, squeeze, sweep) and precautions included the BCF can be quite harmful to breathing and in a closed space, and that you cannot use it on metal fires. I won't go through too many of these, but trying on the portable breathing equipment, such as the smoke hoods and also the pilots quick don oxygen mask was kinda cool. Its weird, you put them on it and it's like you forget how to breathe normally. Anyway, it's basically to show you so you have a feel for it all before you go on the line to fly.

So the first day also involved going to the plane, seeing the equipment stored, and also playing with the emergency exits, and how we would do a brief for a land evacuation. It's fairly involved as to what equipment a first officer carries and what exit he is responsible for. (PS- we are the first to find an exit and get out of the plane!! just saying!) So it was definately a good experience. The second day was an exam and the practical ditching side of things, where we exited a mock cabin into a pool, inflated life jackets and did a few exercises involving rafts, such as climbing into it and also trying to set up the roof that the raft has. This was not easy!! They also turned off the lights and have a huge sprinkler system in the roof that simulates rain. We got very cold and wet trying to do this, but it was also a really good experience.

So thats my EP's done for 12 months. I guess the biggest thing out of this was really how hard cabin crew work on safety and how much responsibility they have in the cabin. For just about everything, pilots have a locked door policy in flight and are virutally forbidden to go back and check out anything. They have to deal with fires, passengers, angry passengers, potentional threats, passenger safety, and know it back to front, all while keeping a smile and having good customer service. I don't think i could do it, so a big kudos to them for keeping the cabins safe.

2 More

2011-05-18T14:39:00.000+10:00

Training is going well. Got all the emergency procedure training and wet drills (in the pool) the next few days, followed by the FMS course. That concludes the ground courses as such, and then comes the simulation endorsement and training. Once that is done, i will start line flying! Lots to look forward to, and even more to study. It's a lot of work in areas you just don't realise. One of the hardest parts is forgetting everything you already know to learn new procedure so you can focus on actually flying the new plane.

arrggghh

2011-05-10T23:06:00.000+10:00

Learning the drills, and cockpit sequences is seriously a lot of work and study. It is a pretty steep learning curve from what i am used to doing. Don't get me wrong, i'm all about the challenge and ready/up for it, but it feels like never ending work at the moment.

Between learning the QRH recalls, the FCOM standard operating procedures, the correct calls, the correct read backs! It's definately an amazing experience though, and putting everything from the books into a 3d picture doing observation flights is great.

Next stop, the simulator!

The new plane

2011-05-02T15:03:00.000+10:00

Sorry its been a while since i have posted! Been very busy and intense to be honest. Not sure what i expected, but it was a lot more work in a short amount of time than i anticipated. I still have another month of ground courses, ranging from an FMS course, to emergency procedures and wet drills.

It's a big learning curve! I struggled getting my head around the electrical system, which is basically set up in 3 main areas, each with a system redundancy. We have the left and right main electrical bus, which is driven by the DC system of the plane, powered by the DC generators, which also doubles as the engine starter. We then have the left and right secondary buses, which are powered by the AC system, but supply DC power via 2 transformer rectifier units (TRU). Power to the secondary buses can be connected so that it powers the main bus, and vice versa. It essentially means we can lose 2 DC gens, 2 TRU's, or a combination of each, and still supply power to the entire DC system.

The DC system is also supplimented by the battery system, which feeds the left and right essential bus, the hot battery bus, and also supplies emergency power. The batteries are charged and kept charged via the main buses, which also feed power to the essential buses when the plane is operational, on the ground with external power, or the APU, or with the engines running. The hot battery bus has essential items such as fuel cut-offs in the event of a fire, and other critical items that need a direct power source. The essential bus feeds things like avionics, so in the event that all was lost, the batteries can still supply power to critical flight instruments. The avionics need AC power to operate, so there are 3 inverters to convert the DC power into AC.

The AC system is powered by 2 AC generators which supply 2 AC buses. One generator can supply enough power for both AC buses. As stated before, the AC gens feed the TRU's, which also supply the secondary buses on the DC system.

Well thats about all my brain can write about now. I have finished the engineering side of the groundschool, now i have performance this week, which should be interesting. Photos to come soon. Enjoy, again apologies for delayed posts, but i have to find time to study, let alone writing a blog. Thanks for reading

Starting the new gig tomorrow

2011-04-17T11:19:00.000+10:00

So i start the new job tomorrow. Very exciting. Im told to bring a suitcase for all the training books and manuals we are meant to be given. Lots of study to come, and once again becoming a hermit.

The drive from Darwin to Sydney was really really long! But made it safely back. My car was covered in bugs, and im pretty sure the suspension is completely destroyed. Lets just say it wasn't designed for country roads at 130km in the Territory and 110 all other places.

Here are some photos from the trip -

I thought this was cool

2011-04-10T14:28:00.000+10:00

So you can see the evolution in my career. The first 2 bar's i wore literally dissolved due to sweat, dirt etc. I think i must have wiped my face on my shoulder a few too many times, and you can see how scabby they become! My dad would have hated seeing something as gross as that. But he wasn't here to complain. The second set of 2 bars was my room mates old ones which were donated to me because he thought mine looked "unprofessional."

I actually had over 500 multi engine command before i got 3 bars. The only reason i bought them was that everytime i did the RPT (regular public transport) flights all my pax started commented that they "had the junior pilot!" Naturally i couldn't have that, but the crux came when i was flying with a more junior pilot than myself, but they had 3 stripes and everyone thought they were checking me to line. Petty aren't I? Anyhoo, thats the evolution of my GA uniform. 3 sets of wings, with a 4th to add soon. I start driving south tomorrow, exciting stuff.

Ok i lied - one more post!

2011-04-07T16:10:00.000+10:00

Just to keep you all entertained i uploaded some of the photos off my phone the other day. Some i have no idea why i took, others are pretty self explanatory. There is one when i closed the main airport at Darwin due to blowing a nosewheel on landing.

For those who want more details of the new job? Yes it is still in Aviation, it is still flying, i have to wear a coat and hat, and it burns kerosense, with around 6.6x the power of the current plane. And roughly 5x the amount of people! Its on the East Coast of Australia, and i will be based at Sydney International.

This is from a Baron about to head over Bathurst Island in the dry season.

This is a funeral plane, carrying a dead body. It was on Bathurst Island. It was one of 7 flights i did in a single since i was checked on twin engine aeroplanes.

Troughten Island! This in my memory was probably my favourite charter in GA. If not my favourite, it was in the top 3. Thats actually not a bad blog post - 3 most memorable flights to date.

Approach into Darwin at night. From memory this was from a Titan, returning from Ramingining.

Following a 747 on the taxiway at Darwin. I stopped here to avoid jetblast. It is really bad if you get to close to a 737 or 717. I didn't even test the 747! It went via a Malaysian Airlines flight number.

Finally, yours truely blowing a tyre on landing. The first incident i had that closed the main airport, and caused 3 jets to do missed approaches! Sorry to them if they read!

Enjoy!

My last week of flying in the Northern Territory

2011-04-04T14:17:00.000+10:00

Yup, thats correct, it's my final week of flying piston powered aeroplanes in the 'top-end' of Australia. Greener pastures await, and i'm moving back home, much to my parents dismay! (I don't think i'll be living there for too long - I think it's a mutual decision)

I found out the good news a few weeks back, and found out the really good news around 2 weeks ago, with a start date, my basing, and the type of planes i was allocated. To say i am stoked, is an understatement and it is literally a dream come true at this current point in my life. I worked incredibly hard for this position and don't think i have ever studied, practised, put effort into, stressed about etc etc more about anything. BUT thankfully, it all did pay off in the end, and i was awarded a job i have always wanted and cannot wait to start!

The only down side of all this, is the bitter sweet reality of it all. Don't get me wrong, getting out of general aviation is the goal, and has always been the goal. Handing in my resignation was definately awesome, but i am on good terms with all my bosses, trainers, operations etc. Going back to Darwin after visits home is the hardest thing in the world to do! I guess what i'm trying to say is the journey ends. It's been over 3 years abroad working in some of the remotest areas of Australia. 3 seperate moves to start at a new company and a new circle of friends to be made. And it starts again! But i'm incredibly satisfied with this move. I guess as it comes to an end i look back on it all with fond memories, but there have been some of the worst memories, some of the best memories, sad moments, fun moments.. memory loss many times and a lot of hang overs thrown in.

Anyway, i still have the drive from Darwin to Sydney, that will be interesting and long. I semi-dreading it, but it's a good feeling knowing it will be the last time i do it, and the last time i live in a remote area of Australia.

Anyway, in a flying related story matter of speaking. Just to make my last few weeks at work interesting they threw in another tropical low/developing cyclone to make the conditions extra challenging, for one last time. I also love passengers great comments. I'll set the scene for you. I was flying from Tindal to Lake Evella to evacuation the teachers due to the cyclone risk. I was in solid IMC and buildup, rain etc etc, bumps, weather radar painting a picture i'd rather not see. After arriving at the destination and buzzing around at the lowest safe altitude (no approaches into Lake Evella) i eventually find a hole and manage to get below the cloud, avoid the muck and visually land in Lake Evella. Upon getting the names and doing my manifest for the flight + weight and balance paperwork, i was asked possibly the best question in 3 years of flying.. "is it going to be bumpy or is there any weather on the way to Darwin?" I seriously looked at them and laughed and told them "you chartered a plane due cyclone risk, there is weather surrounding us everywhere and i'm 30 minutes late due to this weather - it's going to be smooth of course!" You ask a stupid question you get a stupid answer! That flight was acutally uneventful - a little bit bumpy at times, but ended up doing an ILS into Darwin, at night, down to minima's! That was a first for me. Was very cool seeing the approach lighting appear through the muck and then the runway lights.

However, my other favourite comments from passengers were "have you put enough fuel on for the flight?" followed by "are you sure you can fly this thing?" All you ever have to do is a good landing, and all of a sudden you are the best pilot in the world. I'm sure there are a million others as well. Weirdly when the engines on the 404 bog down, no one has ever said anything about that, and as a pilot i cringe when it happens! Strange. (Bogging down is too much fuel - and the engine as you apply take off power tries to die on you. Its our company procedure for this reason to increase power to over 29" of manifold pressure, while holding the breaks so if it does happen, you are not rolling down the runway at speed.)

Another first for me was doing an ILS to the minima as a storm front hit. Lets just say in 5 years of flying, that was the scariest landing i have ever done! Anyway, my thoughts for the week. I probably won't get a chance to post till i start the new job, so enjoy and i'll have a whole new set of pictures to post!

In response to the comment on my last post

2011-03-21T13:48:00.000+11:00

Hi, i appreciate comments and definately love hearing what people have to say about my blog/posts. So im writing this in response to one of the comments. This isn't meant to sound negative or even a justification, but more just to explain my actions in a safety/commerical viewpoint. Well thats my aim at the moment anyway.

This was the comment. Again, i found it interesting, well enough to stimulate a post response!

Cedarglen said...

Mike, I just found your blog and this is the first post that I've read. I DARN good one, but I am surpized that no one has mentioned the IMPORTANT Safety Lesson that you learned. (OK, I'm a Safety Nut, especially for modest-hour commercial pilots.) As you relate the story, I find SEVERAL missed opportunities to either stay on the ground or return to ground sooner than you did. I can imagine that there were a few more 'hints' that have slipped you mind. In the most simple terms, if anything makes you question anything, stay on the ground until the concerns are resolved. Not taking off is NEVER a bad idea. I also have to wonder about the climb from 2000 to 2500. You knew there was a problem at 2000, but... Nuff said. You fixed your problem and learned an important lesson. Completing the take-off procedure with one engine is something that you are well trained to do. Having to actually DO IT, when there were alternatives, is a questionable decision.

I look forward to reading your new posts as well as your archive. Please don't take my comments as a personal attack. As noted, I am a Safety Geek and I miss few opportunities to encourage safety. -C

In the commercial, general aviation world, which exists in Australia, there is definately a tendancy to 'get the job done' mentality which has existed in every company i have worked for. It is within my rights to cancel flights due weather, ground planes due defects etc. I have done this many times before, and im sure it will happen many times in this future. On this particular occasion i had done run-ups and completed my pre-flight without problem. I had done fuel drains, signed and sighted the maintenance release, obtained a clearance, and was therefore satisfied that the aeroplane was airworthy.

We use a class 'a' maintenance system which means we have a maintenance release with the different actions required by certain dates, or hours flown and finally a deffered defect list on the rear. It is checked everyday by the pilot and is also crosschecked on the computer spreadsheet at work. However, when a defect is written up, it is written on a seperate book which is then put in the maintenance controllers records, as well as kept with the aircraft MR and with the pilot paperwork.

I will say this was an oversight, in that i did not scroll back through this book to see if things had been written up BEFORE, on the previous few flights. I generally haven't had to either, as when things are written up, the white piece of paper is left in the MR to signal that its either been fixed, or needs fixing, so the next pilot is aware of the problem. If the paperwork is missing, then it's usually a DDL item, and is not required for dispatch via our minimum equipment list. Anyway i am deviating from the point. I am trying to say that other pilots had similar experiences in this plane, however had either not mentioned it, or had written it up so it wasn't faulted when inspections were done. Apparently they only received vibrations on take-off, and no other time in flight. Either way, it was not the first occurance of it happening. Maybe it came down to their inexperience, but more should have been done or stated then. However, it wasn't and you already know how the events unfolded. But i come back to the point - i did run-ups and i couldn't fault it, and when the maintenance guys took the plane off me once i had written it up, it still couldn't be faulted.

So back to the flight itself, once i received weird feelings on take-off, i had normal indications on the gauges, i also had power. I was also not 100% current with the 402C. All these things considered, plus my run-ups and MR items seemed to be in check, i did not feel that there was any reason to not take-off, or at that point to continue the take-off. Again i will state i was unfamiliar with the 402 and really put it down to that initially. Once i reduced power and it still didn't feel right, then its time to trouble shoot the problem. (It's all good and well to sit on the ground pondering the problem or make a rash decision and turn around, when it may have been something simple, but in a commerical sense, i need to be sure that there is something wrong. Had i not taken off, the engineers again wouldn't have faulted it, and i would have just wasted a lot of time in being told that.)

However, at this point in flight i was still getting power and i was still slightly confused as to whether it was an engine issue, or me not being used to a plane. Once the vibrations got so bad, then i decided it was definately the plane and not my currency.

I defiantely agree that continuing a take-off with a dubious engine with a load of passengers in a piston twin, is virtually suicide especially in the crocodile infested water that surrounds everything here! If you did survive a crash, you would probably be posed with getting eaten as the next problem. However, i was airborne, i was still getting power, i was flying a SID, and i was troubleshooting a problem at the same time. If i was to turn around on a hunch, then how do i explain it to operations, maintenance and anyone else? I have done that before and got roasted over it, because maintenance couldn't fault it, i couldn't exactly tell them what was wrong, and it wasted a lot of people's time and i guess money.

So once i knew the extent of the situation i was in, then i made the decision to turn around and return to Darwin. I knew from my experience that -

The engine was producing power, but was causing airframe vibrations, which probably meant something wasn't right in the engine, but i had normal indications.
The moment i tried to 'lean' the engine, it started coughing and almost died - but fuel flow indications were normal. As was manifold pressure.
The vibrations were getting worse as flight continued

I know there are 2 sides to every story and safety is paramount and i agree, that it's my moral obligation as a pilot carrying passengers that safety is paramount and everything else is secondary. However, i believe i did everything correctly in identifying the problem in the air, and turned around when i was sure that something was pear shaped.

Anyway my feelings on the matter. Again, i enjoy the discussion and feedback.

2 Things of Significance

2011-03-17T10:56:00.000+11:00

It really gets harder and harder to think about things to write about. I'm sure there are a million things i could describe or go through, but some of the time it will end up making my company look negative or me look slightly dodgy, even if this is not the case, so i avoid mentioning things in that manner.

However the first thing of significance. I 'almost' had my first engine failure, shutdown, emergency blah blah whatever you want to call it last week. I was flying a C402c for the first time in a while. I was doing the standard overflow from the Metro down to Pork Keats, and had 5 people on board. It was not a heavy payload at all, and i only had 800 pound of fuel on board. As i advanced the throttles forward, there was definately something that felt odd in the right engine, but i didn't recognise it as a safety issue, as i still had full power on the gauges, the engine gauge indications were normal and i had not flown a C402c in nearly 3 months!

As i rotated the aeroplane climbed normally and with full power there was a bit of vibration, but again, i kept putting it down to that i was not familiar with a C402, figured as a reduced power it would go away, and that maybe the props weren't as synced as they could be. As i reduced the power and synced the props, the vibrations were becoming worse and worse and all of a sudden it felt like there was a problem. I was climbing through around 2000ft at this point on a heading of 250 after take off from Darwin 29. I suddenly thought that maybe there was too much fuel going into the engine and tried leaning it a tad. Bad choice! The engine coughed and spluttered and i felt the yawing in the airframe and the engine decided it did not want to spin. As i put the fuel pumps on, and put the mixture back to full, it started spinning again, although the vibrations were extreme at this point, to the point where the control column was shaking and moving back and forth a centimetre or two, reasonably violent.

At this point i was 2,500ft and requested return to Darwin, ops normal, but with possible engine trouble. Even as i was reducing power for landing, and slowing the plane for landing configuration, the vibrations continued, and possibly got worse (but that just may have been my nerves at this point!) I made a landing without any real concern and taxiied back to base. Although the maintenance guys ran it up, they couldn't fault it on the ground, and i realised the issue had been raised in the previous 3 days that the plane had been experiencing similar problems. After they pull parts of the engine out, it was discovered that a few the fuel injectors on the right engine were blocked. I had to fly the same plane empty down to Tindal that afternoon and was extremely jumpy about it as you can imagine. It was really bad weather on departure (well the entire flight was pretty bad due weather, storms everywhere - whent he inbound Qantas 737's are doing 180 degree turns to avoid the storms) but everything was normal and the plane operated fine after they replaced the injectors.

The other part of significance, is i finally got my 100 hours of night command, and can finally get my ATPL license. The min requirements for an Australian ATPL license is 1500TT where 250 has to be command, i think the rest can be ICUS or co-pilot, and 750 needs to be in a VH registered aircraft. It also required 75 hours in IMC, and 100 hours night command, ICUS or co-pilot. I had the other requirements for a long time, but getting night in the top-end charter business is not easy. There are no night contracts really, and the one that we have is on a Metroliner. The C441 do a bit of night doing charter work from time to time, same as the Barons. But the C404 rarely does any night charters. But luckily, due to a late arriving aircraft, and then another return to Darwin due passenger request, we ended up being nearly 2 hours late for the job. So when he finally completed the job it was on last light, and i was able to depart for the 300nm leg home at night. So pretty happy.

Im very, VERY close to turning a new page in my aviation career, but no news on a start date as yet!

Thanks for reading.

2011-03-07T12:28:00.000+11:00

This is the 'new' titan. Apparently its only being borrow, not bought, so its only a loan aircraft, so to speak. I dare say it stays on the line for months!

Temporary while this titan gets fixed! I have more photos and the full story, being a witness/next plane to land when this happened, but until i hear some further news, i'll keep this under wraps for now. But for all those wondering, no i wasn't flying it, but it is a plane belonging to the company i work for.

New Rego

2011-03-02T10:31:00.003+11:00

I just got back from a week of leave. Not only was yesterday my first flight back at work, but it was in a completely new plane my company has bought. Still a Cessna 404, but it was bought from the East-Coast of Australia. For this reason it has been fitted with a lot of extra kit, such as de-icing boots (possibly just warmers though - I wasn't sure if they were boots or just pads that warm the wings. It also had these pads on the tail, and props too!) These add to the empty-weight and also affecting its performance, in terms of climb and speed.

It is pretty rare in the top-end to find planes with these sorts of mods as they are not needed, add a lot of extra weight and as i said affect the performance of the plane. So it was a first for me. The only difference inside with the extra gear was just a few extra switches, which i left in the OFF position!

The plane itself looks pretty good, with a nice new blue paint job. Semi looks like Japan Airlines tail with a big blue orb. I will take photos soon, but i keep forgetting my camera. The only thing i found really bad with this new aircraft was the GPS. It is the oldest Trimble i have seen or ever used. Most GPS only take a few seconds of fiddling to figure out the basics, or setting a route or flight plan. The rest can come later with exploration and fiddling. But i sat there for a solid 5 - 10 minutes doing run-ups before i remotely worked out how to get my destination in the screen! Was harder than flying the plane no doubt.

(For those who read this and are not in aviation - run ups refer to running the engines of piston planes before they fly for a few reasons. If someone wants to correct me or add to this feel free!)

But the main reason we run the engines up, is to first warm the engine and oil. Advancing a cold piston engine to take off power is pretty much a recipe for an engine failure with the rapid thermal change and cold oil trying to force itself around the engine. I usually taxi the plane to the run up bay in the morning and do my required paperwork sitting there while they idle to make sure the Temps and Pressures (T's and P's) are in the green operating range. Living in the tropics, the engines warm very quickly and usually remain quite warm. I haven't had to experience this is really cold weather!

In the Titan we then increase the engines to 1500RPM. The Cessna 400 series have a governer check, which i haven't done in any other piston plane. This involves pulling the pitch levers back to the feather detent. The RPM shouldn't change, however it is normal for the Titan engines to lose maybe 100 to 200RPM. Then when you move them past the feather detent, you test the feather of the aeroplane. A lot of places make you do this test 3 times..... I don't actually know why? However, its our company policy to just do it once of the 400 Series Cessna's, so thats what i do. As you do the check, you want to see changes in the oil pressure gauge and manifold pressure gauges too.

Once thats checked, and still at 1500RPM, i check the magnetos, so make sure there is no fouling of the plugs, and that the drops are within the limits specified in the flight manual. This is 150RPM max drop and 50RPM difference between the 2 engines. Usually this is all in limits. If its really rough, then i will clear the engine, by running it at a high RPM (sometimes near take-off power) with the mixtures leaned. This usually clears the foulling and lets them run smoothly. If it doesnt clear it, then its usually something else and maintenance is required most likely.

We then do the idle check - make sure the engines won't cut out? Im not 100% sure why we do this check. If im at low power on the ground and i think an engine will cut out, i put the low pressure pumps on. It usually cuts out due low fuel flow and a hot temperature. Especially if the plane has been heat soaked in the sun all day, the fuel vapourises before it reaches the engines. If this is the case you need to purge the fuel lines before starting, with high pressure pumps, throttles full and mixture at idle cut off.

After the checks are done, you can be satisfied that your plane is safe, as you have completed virtually everything on the pre-flight inspection and engines are run up and warm.

So after getting all this done, i finally worked out the GPS!

Playing with a Dash-8

2011-02-20T09:50:00.002+11:00

I was weirdly left to run wild in a DHC-8-300 with the ground power unit connected. It was good fun, and we didn't touch anything we weren't supposed to, or do anything stupid before anyone asks or thinks that we did! We pretty much just sat there and i think the most outlandish thing i did was turn on the landing lights in the hangar. They are bright.

Here are some of the photos!

Tropical Cyclone

2011-02-16T11:16:00.003+11:00

There is a tropic low over Darwin at the moment. The airport is closed, and a few of the boys/planes had to overnight in Katherine. I was able to get back in before the really bad weather hit, but it was by the skin of my teeth, with the wind gusting to 30knots crosswind. When i left the cyclone warning had not been issued, and i didn't need alternate fuel. By the time i got back, the airport was below alternate minima, but i did not have the required fuel to get to Tindal, even if i had needed too. Instead i shot the ILS, visual at 900ft, severe turbulence, and windshear, but made a decent landing nonetheless.

Yesterday was decent IFR. Spent the majority of the day in cloud, shot 3 RNAV approaches to the minima, and even had to do one go-around, which is only the second time ever off an apporach (apart from training) that i have had to do one. It is very unnatural in the Titan, and you have to be very gentle with the geared turbo continental 520 engines. I did 2 ILS's, both with a lot of wind, rain, turbulence and low visibility. Good experience, and was really down to the minima. Becoming visual probably at 700ft, but that was with the approach/PAPI and runway lights shining through the muck. The ground was still obscured by the torrential rain. Good experience, but one can't help thinking that flying around in 35 year old piston aeroplanes in these conditions can't be good for the pilot, passengers or plane!

Anyhoo, till further notice, airport is closed and all flights cancelled or suspended.

Here is the Darwin TAF/TTF for those interested -

TAF AMD YPDN 152237Z 1600/1706
01025G40KT 3000 RAIN BKN005 BKN025
FM160300 04035G60KT 3000 RAIN BKN005 BKN025
FM161200 08035G60KT 3000 RAIN BKN005 BKN025
FM161800 11035G60KT 3000 RAIN BKN005 BKN025
TEMPO 1600/1603 VRB30G50KT 1000 THUNDERSTORMS WITH RAIN BKN008
SCT020CB
TEMPO 1603/1706 VRB40G70KT 1000 THUNDERSTORMS WITH RAIN BKN008
SCT020CB
RMK
T 25 26 26 26 Q 996 995 993 992

TTF SPECI YPDN 160004Z 19017KT 2500 LIGHT RAIN SCT010 SCT045 OVC100
24/24
Q0997
RMK RF00.4/001.2
FM0004 01025G40KT 3000 RAIN BKN005 BKN025
TEMPO 0004/0304 VRB30G50KT 1000 THUNDERSTORMS WITH RAIN BKN008
SCT020CB

SPECI YPDN 160004Z 19017KT 2500 LIGHT RAIN SCT010 SCT045 OVC100 24/24
Q0997

Basically issued at 8:37am on 16/2/11. wind is from 010 degrees and 25 knots gusting to 40. 3000m vis in rain, broken cloud at 500ft and 2500ft. From 12:30pm wind will be from 045 degrees, 35kts gusting to 60kts. QNH is 0997.

So essentially it is below the alternate minima, due wind, visibility and cloud considerations. Plus there is 60 minutes holding fuel required due to the 24 hour TEMPO period. The closest alternate is Tindal, which would need roughly 80 minutes worth of fuel with variable reserve.

Tragic ending

2011-02-08T19:59:00.002+11:00

This is a pretty sombre post, but i feel as though i need to say something, not only for myself, but for the tribute of a good friend. Jamie Stephens was a good friend to all the pilots up here, worked hard, partied hard, and was a loyal friend in every way. He followed his dream of commercial aviation like all of us and i was fortunate to work with him at my first job in Kununurra. The pilot fraternity in Darwin is close, and this is a huge loss to all of us.

He was only 22 years old, and had achieved so much in a short time. It's so tragic that he is not around to continue his dream and his goal. To say goodbye in such tragic circumstances is horrible and i hope to never witness, or see this happen to anyone else. RIP Jamie, you will be missed mate.. To your family, i can't even imagine what you must be going through.

It is such frightening wake up call. Flying is such an amazing thing, an amazing dream to follow. We love it and we do it so carefree. But something like this is such a wake up call and is something that all pilots either have already dealth with, or inevitably have to deal with eventually. On Saturday 5/2/2011, his Cessna 310 twin engine aircraft crashed 1 mile north of Bathurst Island airstrip at 10pm. The dangers of flying are very real. We must all do what we can to fly safe, for ourselves, or families and our passengers. I just witnessed that it can happen to anyone.

RIP Jamie, you were a good friend to a lot of people, and you will be missed greatly.

Recently

2011-01-30T09:54:00.002+11:00

There has been a lot of average weather, as this picture from my balcony shows. It was relentless for about 4 weeks straight, and has cleared up now. I miss the weather, as it kept the temperatures cool and it was a lot nicer at work, even if we did get wet and more stressed with approaches and delays. I won't comment on Darwin's air traffic control, but 50 minute delays at the holding point with no obvious arrivals, and 4 planes in front of me definately makes you ask some questions.

Anyhoo, one of our planes has the autopilot go unserviceable and despite it being fixed and cleared off the maintenance release, it kept breaking, either due water or something else. Therefore we cannot do IFR charter or RPT operations unless they are manned with a second pilot. I had to do two days of the second pilot duty, which basically mean i sit there doing the paperwork and make sure there is nothing going wrong, which of course the pilots i work with are awesome, and generally we were just talking the whole time. And we mix up the flying because the other pilots want an easier day too!

So it was a lot of fun, made what was relatively a full on day at work easier, as we shared the duties between us, and shared the sectors. The rostered second pilot usually flew the last flight of the day with a different pilot again. I flew the second sectors between Darwin - Croker Island - South Goulburn Island - Darwin.

Now that the weather is a lot better at the moment, it's hotter, delays are less frequent, not really doing approaches, and the build up is virtually disgustingly bumpy in the afternoon! Pro and cons of the IFR world.

You may recognise it from previous posts!

2011-01-18T00:01:00.002+11:00

No i wasn't flying, and i don't know the entire story! But it isn't something you see everyday! I know the pilot did a good job in the circumstance, professional and what engineering advised him to do.

Lots of Approaches

2011-01-09T14:16:00.002+11:00

Well it seems to go with the job. You have some time off and you don't just gently get back into it, it's full on and without time even think, let alone eat! After the past two days i have been so tired and fatigued from the flying. It has been really average weather in the top end since i got back, not just the usual storms and 'wet season' weather, but just lots of low overcast cloud, rain and instrument approaches everywhere was the normal. I did 8 sectors on Friday and did 7 approaches, all RNAV and ILS's into Darwin. Yesterday i did 9 sectors and 5 approaches. I have to say though, doing an approach in bad weather is better than going to an aerodrome that has no approach, which i also had to do yesterday.

I was scheduled to fly to Pepperminarti, which is south of Darwin, about 200km. It's a sealed strip, but with no approach. My alternate was Darwin, as the weather was really average, however, my first option was to divert to Port Keats, which is 40km to the west, and i knew planes were landing there. As we arrived at the lowest safe of 2300ft, it was solid cloud and rain. I decided to fly overhead the field and see what would happen. Magically, the sun sorta broke through the cloud so i continued on track another 3miles and found an opening in the cloud. I was able to do some spiral descending in the gap and get below some of the low cloud. At roughly 500ft above the ground, i was able to see the runway and managed to get in. Within about 5 minutes of landing the weather that i had just flown through hit the aerodrome. Was weird to think that i wouldn't have gotten in if i'd been 5 minutes late departing, but i guess that's the way it works in this business. It is a good feeling to get into a place like that, but it's also not the safest method, and with this weather, flying piston twins, it's no wonder that our minimums to fly them is as high as most of the airlines. Having said all this, the minimums doing an instrument approach is often more stressful as you are not visual, you are hand flying the plane, scanning, and also referring to the chart on your lap. Not the greatest situation, but definately an 'enjoyable' challenge. I say enjoyable, as there is a feeling of accomplishment when you do well executed approach in poor conditions.

So i will say i'm a master of doing the ILS into Darwin. Done a lot of them in the past two days. Descend from 3000ft at Howard Springs NDB, 257, on track 286. Final approach fix at the outer marker at 1380. Good times! Its good finally doing a lot of the RPT flying in this weather, i guess it forces you to fly to a higher standard. I have to say, if im flying these approaches and in this weather, it's also nice to be in the 404. There is one part of the 404 i don't like however, and that is company policy to leave the pitch and mixtures in their approach setting for landing. It is really bad for the geared engines to put them into fine pitch, and put the taps back on full, and so when a go-around needs to happen, it feels unnatural. I don't know if it's just for me, but a few of the boys had to do go arounds the past few days and all of them said it was a bit foreign for them. And it definately is an extra few seconds of thinking while you go through the procedure, as opposed to just power up, gear up, flap up.

Anyway, i would have loved to show you photos of wings and the grey background, but photos like that are uninteresting really, unless you were there. Plus my camera is still somewhere i have yet to find! It will show up i'm pretty sure.

All the best and thanks for reading.

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T10:53:00.002+11:00

To all the readers of the blog, apologies for the lack of posting recently! I have been enjoying a very well deserved and needed 2 weeks holiday back home in Sydney. Been amazing weather, and great to see my family and friends for a proper catch up. It's quite hard for me to get leave approved (i guess it's the nature of the business) and i think since August 2009, i have had a total of 3 weeks off! So as far as i'm concerned, very well deserved. Although back to the slog come Tuesday.

So anyway, to keep it short and simple, wishing you all a happy new year and hope everyone had a great Christmas and hopefully a little time off!

I'll be sure to post more in the next few weeks as i kick back into work mode!

404

2010-12-10T10:42:00.003+11:00

So as far as pistons go, if i am going to fly one, it should be a 404. It's big, not underpowered for a change, and even at max weight still performs. Im sure jet and turbine drivers would disagree but i'm not at that level yet, so i will enjoy what i've been given!

There are a lot of differences between it and the 402, despite them looking fairly similar from the outside. That main difference is the engines. They are the geared version of the turbo lycoming 520 engine. I think its geared to a ratio of 0.67. Roughly at full power the engine is going at 3300RPM but the prop spins at 2200RPM. Due to the geared engine it's a lot quieter in the cabin, and passengers don't need earplugs. We climb them at 1900RPM and cruise at only 1700RPM. The engines on hot days get a lot more fuel than whats needed for them to operate efficiently. This is known as bogging down, and it basically feels and sounds like an engine is about to fail. For this reason we usually hold the brakes till above 25" manifold pressure till the fuel flow has stabilised. I have been told one method to avoid bogging down is to increase the power till this level with the mixtures leaned, and then as you increase to full power, but the mixtures to full rich. Not only is it bad for passengers as they get worried, its not good for the engine either.

The titan is a bigger plane and can hold up to 13 people if the 13th seat is installed. Generally we fly them with only 11 seats, as they are mainly used for our RPT network, and maximum passengers for single pilot is only 9. It also has trailing link undercarriage, which means 99% of landings are awesome! It also has hydraulic fowler flaps, as opposed to electric split flaps of the 402.

Overall i'm really enjoying the titan. I remember when i first went looking for a job 3 years ago, i went for a flight with a mate in a titan, and remember thinking how good it would be to fly one. 3 years later and i wrote the exact same registration in my logbook. I guess we get to where we need to be and beyond eventually. Hopefully the next step is not to far away either.

Spot the Difference

2010-12-06T01:47:00.003+11:00

Above is the wing of a C402C.

Above is the wing of the C404! Yes is a new plane, and im all checked to line. Very similar overall, in terms of flying, speeds etc. But enough different that it requires more training. The main difference apart from the airframe is the bigger donks out the window.

Very cool aeroplane. Sounds good, much better for passengers, bigger and more power!

More to come.

Engine Management and Cost

2010-11-27T12:13:00.003+11:00

I have a few things i want to write about soon, but i thought i would go through some piston engine management, and also how we try to operate aircraft, both efficiently and operationally to try get the best results without compromising maintenance times.

I'll give a little run down into how it costing works firstly. Lets for an example use a 402. I'm actually unsure as to what my company charges per hour for their aircraft. As line pilots we just do the flying, and leave the operations and bookings to the operations staff. However, for example lets say it costs $800 per hour for a 402. Then for a flight that should hypothetically take 2 hours on the maintenance release, then costing should be $1600. So the aim of the line pilot is to try do it within that 2 hours. Usually it's pretty spot on, but sometimes other variables means you will go over. Such things as holding, or weather deviations, a go around or instrument approach etc are all things that will increase your maintenance times. Maintenance times are done in 6 minute intervals, so therefore an extra 6 minutes of flight time will equal an extra .1 of an hour to the maintenance release. When we consider that its $800 and hour, then every .1 will equal $80 saved or spent. Therefore as an aircraft operator, i do what i can to increase efficiency and do what i can to reduce my flight times.

I do this by usually doing straight in approaches where i can. Nearly every runway is east-west up here, and the wind is nearly always from the east. Most of these runways are long enough, and sealed, that even a slight tailwind doesn't pose any real problem. Unfamiliar strips, or dubious dirt strips always require an inspection first. There is a comprimise of safety and efficiency, which is where basic airmanship comes into play. I do other things such as climbing or descending to different levels to see where the best winds are. Usually going east, the winds are lighter up higher, and heading west, a lower altitude gets you the best groundspeed. The most efficient way of working out winds is talking to already departed company aircraft and seeing what groundspeed they are getting at a level, and levelling off at a lower or higher altitude and compare. Other ways of reducing track miles is requesting direct to waypoints or aerodromes. This is done frequently when we have to divert left and right of track, it becomes more efficient to track direct to the next waypoint than manoeuvre back on the original track.

So with all this in mind, engine management for piston aeroplanes plays a big factor. Big piston engines are not like turbines and you cannot just pull back the taps to slow down. There is a constant reduction of power, till you retard the throttles on landing. The aim of the game is after reducing from take-off power to climb power is that you don't actually increase the powers again, unless in an event, such as a go-around requires you to do so. This was the same from flying C206 all the way up to the C402.

Without turbo engines to deal with, the normal range on normally aspirated engines is 20 - 25" of manifold pressure that needs to be looked after. To reduce the power too quickly especially on descent will cause shock cooling which will eventually crack the cylinder heads of the piston engine. So to avoid this, and look after the engine, most companies have a standard operation procedure on how they want their engines operated and power reduced when descending. On normally aspirated engines, we keep them full throttle till around 6000ft, which equals roughly 23" of manifold pressure. We keep them at 23" which is about an inch of power every 500ft - 1000ft worth of descent. This equates to an inch of manifold pressure every 1 - 2 minutes. When we are through 3000ft we reduce it to 21" of manifold pressure and reduce it again through 2000ft, back to 19". From there it is pilots discretion to keep the constant rate of descent and power reduction smooth and consistant till retarding the powers on landing.

This gives you a rough idea of how we operated the singles and baron's. Using this method we avoid shock cooling the engines, and also keep our speed up until near an aerodrome, which helps reduce flight times, without being detrimental to the aircraft engines.

So i will now talk about the engine management in the turbo engines. It is much the same philosophy as the normally aspirated piston, but with a much higher manifold pressure. The C402 cruises at 29" of manifold pressure. So we keep a constant rate of descent of 500ft. When we go through 3000ft, we reduce the power 2 inches, back to 27". Through 2000ft, we reduce it back to 25". This is actually where the turbos cut out, so its essentially back to a normally aspirated engine at this point. It is still important to give it a minute or two at 25" though for adequate cooling and adjusting. (on this note, if your descent rate happens to be higher, either to catch profile, or because you had to descent later, then obviously you would reduce the powers a little earlier to keep the 2 minute spacing between power changes.) In the C402 we keep the powers at 25" until we are gear down, full flap, pitch full fine, mixture full, and then start reducing the powers till retarding them for landing. Once we have landed, we also need to allow a minimum of 3 minutes for the turbo engines to cool on landing. For this reason i nearly always use the entire runway and backtrack (when operationally available) so during the cooling phase the aeroplane is always moving. I have discovered passengers hate sitting in a stationary aeroplane with the engines running, but if im taxiing around after landing no one really minds. So i always try use the entire 3 minutes just backtracking and vacating the runway. Doesn't always work, and in Darwin the taxi to the General Aviation ramp is about 4 minutes, so in some cases it doesn't pose a huge problem.

Hopefully this makes sense to all you readers. If you have any questions please ask, just a little insight into how i have been taught, and am expected to operated company aircraft. Im actually starting on the C404 soon, which is a little different with engine management from the C402, as it cruises at 31" and has turbo, geared engines, which are quite sensitive to shock cooling and have to be looked after more diligently than the C402.

Thanks for reading.

Flying to Umbakumba

2010-11-18T11:40:00.004+11:00

I think thats how you spell it. I will just call it umk for the purpose of not writing its full name. Umk is one of the few strips i have been into, when i was flying singles that i stuck out as being dodgy, short and with crazy cross winds. Its right on the coast, on Groote Eylandt, roughly 40km north-east.

I remember the first time i went to the strip, was in a C206 with a whole bunch of computer equipment. It was during the dry season, and i have a horrible headwind the entire flight. Now the flight to Umk is 357nm. Couple this with about 2 months of solid baron flying, then going back into the slowest 206 on one of the longest flights, i was not a happy camper, as such. Anyway, i remember arriving at the strip and the wind was easily around 25-30 knots, all cross. Even though i have over a 100 hours on C206 aeroplanes, it felt foreign since i hadn't been flying it as recent, and it doesn't take long to lose your feel for it.

So we arrived and it was one of about 3 times in my flying career, where the only thing i was thinking was "this could go either way." Not a very good feeling! I remember as i landed with full aileron into wind, and full rudder i was still being dragged across the runway. Eventually i stopped and backtracked, uneventfully, but that was my first memory of that strip.

Fast forward to yesterday and the day before, im told im going to umk in a C402 with a lot of gear for a few blokes who are overnighting. So we departed just before first light and did the 357nm, reasonably slowly at 9000ft, and arrived at a very calm umk, no wind, and the strip looked and felt better than i remembered! So not to worry. Unloaded and was asked if i was picking them up tomorrow! Naturally i had no idea i would be, but as it turned out, i was doing the return charter.

Umk from the air and from the ground. These were taken at about 8:30am on the first day dropping the boys off.

Now the return charter was bumpy being in the afternoon with lots of build up happening. But none the less, arrived over Groote Eylandt and saw no less than 3 cells around the umk areas. It was rough while descending, and i even reduced power early to try give the least impact to my mid 70's built chariot. Did a solid circuit over the strip to make sure i knew where the wind was coming from and did an uneventful and windless landing?! Again, i was suprised, but all was good.

Now for when we finally departed, those little areas of buildup were now a solid line of storms. Every time i thought i found a gap, all i could see was huge amounts of lightning and more cells behind them. I think i ended up diverting 20nm to the north and eventually found a gap. Even though i had weather radar in this aircraft, i found it was actually easier and most likely safer to remain visual and go lower/find the gaps. Worked well, and after about 20 - 30min of storm dodging we were in reasonably clear air with just isolated cells around, but none on my track to Jabiru for my fuelling stop. I needed fuel, mainly due to the holding requirements back into Darwin, but i had also done a few extra stops on the way to umk, combining 2 charters into one, as i was empty over there, it made operational sense. One was to Bickerton Island, and the other to Ngukkur.

Line of cells i was dodging about 20 minutes into the cruise. I was tracking virtually north at this point for around 20nm to get around them.

So we eventually arrived at Jabiru, and although being a reasonable sized airstrip for Arnhem land, it has no lights, but the fuel there is a lot cheaper than elsewhere... when it works! Since it has no lights, and i landed at around 18:15, that gave me roughly 45 minutes till end of daylight for departure. Not a problem to put 300lbs of fuel on a 402. But as it turns out Jabiru had been hit by a massive storm about an hour earlier, which after a few calls found out had busted the bowser. Luckily i know a few of the boys that work for the local companies in Jabiru and was able to get one of them to come out and try reset the switches. Eventually it worked, and we were airbourne at around 18:55. Close! The last thing i wanted after such a big day of flying was to overnight in Jabiru!

Flying over Kakadu National Park at 6000ft on the way to Jabiru for fuel. The terrain in this area is around 2500ft.

Anyway, thats the story of yesterdays adventure. I'm going to write more about "how is this going to end" in a future post. I have some good stories, and weird occurances that have happened, mainly doing mailruns in central Australia. Most times it's been external factors, that was happened, but its crazy just how quick you can think and remember things when you have too. till next time, enjoy some of the photos!

I have also uploaded a video of me landing a C402B into Maningrida. Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz1ibW3W_WM

On the back of a ute at Bickerton Island. Good times.

Numbalwar from the air! You can see the strip on the left hand side.

YTTI

2010-11-03T11:03:00.005+11:00

Troughtn Island, or YTTI, was a place i always wanted to visit. I don't know why i did to be honest, but the idea of landing on a small strip in the middle of nowhere. Literally all the island has is a 980m coral strip (with PAPI!) and a few donga's/a hangar. There was also a ute that was missing its doors. Good times.

http://www.shorelandsgroup.com.au/images/troughton2.jpg - That may be a better idea of the place.

I flew out there to take a few guys fixing the meteorology station out there. Troughton is run by the Shorelands group, and i believe its used as an alternate for all the big offshore oil rigs out in the Timor Sea. Truscott is the main airport nearby, only around 30nm away.

There was about 25kts wind, virtually all crosswind. Max for the C402 is 20kts, so it was definately an interesting landing. In my eyes it was a good landing, but im sure my passengers were convinced otherwise haha. With lots of drift, on a short strip such as this, all i wanted to do was get the plane down on the threshold with the into wing low. Bit of a cruncher, but i pulled up in around 600m and in my eyes thats what mattered. Flight to and from was uneventful, just all over water, lots of cloud and rain, but no real weather as such.

Anyway to make this charter even better, the moment we landed we were offered a coffee, which was well needed and 'deserved.' Maybe not deserved, but very much appreciated. Then we were made big chicken salad rolls, and all sat around chatting for a long time. Signed the visitor book and saw that a lot of my colleagues have also had this pleasure!

All in all, was a great charter, one of the few that makes me so happy for my experiences working in general aviation.

The coral strip, looking south, towards the Australian Mainland.

Pause Button

2010-10-31T11:39:00.004+11:00

I was wondering about things to write about the other day. There are only so many pictures of communities, airstrips, clouds, storms blah blah that one can take photos of and still keep it interesting. Some of the more interesting stuff happens at night and the photos just dont work. So i was thinking of some more hairy times i have had. Maybe hairy isn't the right word, but when the workload gets to that level where you suddenly realise there is more going on in the aeroplane and outside and suddenly you are behind the aircraft trying to catch up. I like to think i'm a good operator and this doesn't happen very often, but i can think of at least 2 times when it has.

I used to play a lot of flightsim before i started flying. I loved it, and it actually did give me a firm understanding and grounding in aircraft/airspace procedures, terminology etc. Even so, i remember when there was a lot to do, i could pause the sim and set everything up and even look at a big map and figure out exactly what was going on. I don't have that luxury anymore, and even though it's not a hypothetical 767, I often have 8 very real passengers depending on my skill and expertise to do a flight safely and professionally.

I can't actually think of exact moments where i have wished there was a pause button, i just remember times when i have been thinking "what is happening, what is going on next." And it is a horrible feeling. Especially in IMC, with a dodgy autopilot, flying turbo aeroplanes, on minimum fuel, being told unusual vectors. The other day I was flying back into Darwin, and was given a vector straight into a storm. Naturally i said, unable and was given almost a reverse track due to other arriving/departing traffic. I was then in solid cloud, bumps and was fairly high for my DME/distance to Darwin. (FYI - We use a descent profile of 5 for our descents. Therefore at 9000ft, we use 9 x 5, and would need to descend at 45nm. But obviously common sense says that if there is a howling tailwind, and you are going straight in, then you would descend earlier.)

I was given a lower level and was finally visual and was then cleared a visual approach. I could hear Brasilia's and a Beech 1900 going around into Darwin, and this was the first alarm bell in my head. However, from where i was i could see everything. I kept descending and going towards the field. I was virutally established on the ILS anyway, so i knew my profile and speeds were in check for a visual approach. Yet as i approached 2000ft, i realised, i was visual with everything in Darwin, bar the airfield. There was just a curtain of heavy rain over the field, which was not even mentioned in the ATIS. I then requested to shoot the ILS approach and after the outer marker was able to get visual with a very wet runway.

Now this wasn't particularly a 'bad moment'. But for starters, i was doing a visual approach, i didn't have my plates ready or briefed for the approach. That was a few minutes of rummaging and pulling them out. It was an unexpected workload to then do the approach and have to reconfigure the aircraft for where i was in the approach. I just remember getting on the ground and it was just a messy and not really in line with my own single pilot procedures. I think every pilot has their own way of operating, and when they are suddenly forced to do it a different way, thats when mistakes and accidents happen. And it was just a moment where a pause button was needed.. just to stop, think and reconsider and reevalute the unexpected situation. Having said that, its situations like these that make us better pilots, as they usually force us to learn from our mistakes, or be better prepared for next time. Was i naive not to have a plate out or brief it already? Thats up to interpretation. Im flying single pilot IFR and probably should always expect the worst so im prepared.

Either way it was an uneventful flight in the end, and it was an experience i have taken under my belt in the game of learing. In other news, for all those pilots from Australia who i know, getting paid nothing to work in Indonesia, so that you can call a 737 your "office," get some real experience, command time so you too can experience making single pilot command decisions.

MGD at night, for the coroner

2010-10-13T11:11:00.003+11:00

Sometimes i get some interesting flights which happen at odd hours. One happened yesterday, where i had to pick up a body for the coroner from Maningrida. I departed at 5pm for the 80 minute, 200nm flight in the baron. There was a lot of weather around, and this is why the flight was done in a twin, rather than the C206. We normally do coffin runs, or these sorts of flights in the C206 with the seats removed, but as per company policy and overall safety, we only do flights of this nature at night when there are thunderstorms around in twin engine aeroplanes.

Yesterday wasn't bad weather for myself as such, lots of rain, a little bit of cloud and dodging bigger cells, but for some of the other poor GA warriors flying last night, they were in the thick of it, without weather radars asking for help from centre, and requesting vectors to avoid the big storm areas. There was a big line of storms stretching around 150nm long, between Katherine (Tindal) and Oenpelli. All the jets flying to Asia were going up to 40nm right of track to avoid this line.

So picking up a body in a body bag sounds pretty gnarly, and by all means isn't my favourite thing in the world, but it's amazing how you generally don't think about it when it's in the plane with you. The only difference with this body was that for the first time i could actually smell it, and it wasn't overly unpleasant or anything, it was just a strange smell, once i landed and it got a bit stuffy in the cabin; so i couldn't work out what it was straight away, and obviously i eventually registered the source!

Flying IFR at night in marginal weather without a radar is definately not fun, however up here in the top end, the monsoonal storms aren't overly aggressive, or long lasting either, unless a tropical depression/cyclone develops. They are very isolated too and the flashes of lightning can be seen everywhere, making the worst of the weather reasonably easy to avoid. This is not always the case when there is embedded storms, but this doesn't happen all to often.

Straight after take-off i was handed to approach, who vectored me around some inbound vfr traffic from the north. I was actually passing 6000ft by the time i flew downwind to Darwin airport. I am then transferred to the class E frequency of 129.85. Class E in Australia means IFR traffic is seperated from other IFR planes and is radar monitored. We are given traffic infomation about VFR traffic only. If i was below 8500 (Class G) then i would only recieve infomation about IFR and VFR traffic and it would be up to me to avoid them and take suitable action. Mostly around Australian airports, Class E extends around 90nm above 8500ft. Its lower level beyond this becomes FL180 and anything below this becomes Class G. Up in the top end we are radar identified till around 140nm out of Darwin at 9000ft, and about 100nm at 8000ft.

From leaving Class E, i then get transferred onto centre 124.1 (Class G), which is patched with a lot of other frequencies, and covers a large area. As i get around 50-60nm out from Maningrida, i transfer to what we call the "MAF" frequency. Well, i call it the MAF frequency, because Mission Aviation Fellowship, which operates out of East Arnhemland, always make their CTAF and traffic calls on Brisbane Centre. There is no law against or for this, but when the frequency is busy with IFR traffic, it can be hard to get a radio call in, on top of hearing VFR traffic heading coastal at 5500ft to some unknown Aboriginal community blah blah. It's their company policy though, so i guess they are just adhering to what they are meant to do.

Anyhoo, this frequency for me is 123.4. This is patched all the way down to Tennant Creek, across the Horn Island in the Torres Straights, and basically pretty close to Cairns. It covers a lot of area, and is always cool when i hear some of my mates who fly out of Alice Springs and Tennant Creek on the airwaves. Maningrida, and virtually all the places i fly into (apart from Tindal) are all on CTAF procedures. Maningrida has the CTAF frequency 127.5. Maningrida also gets VHF on the ground, so no need to use HF radion for a change!

So i waited on the ground for a bit in MGD until the body arrived. It was in a big precession, with about 10 cars, and probably over 200 people accompanying it. They do a ceremony as they load it into the plane which is quite amazing/odd to watch for the first time. Mostly everyone is really respectful and are quite gracious to the pilot for these jobs, but i have seen people start smashing their heads into the sides of the planes and causing possible damage, so i always keep an eye on whats going on. Yesterday ran as smooth as it could, and the police at MGD were good blokes who helped me out.

Departure and return to Darwin was uneventful, despite going through a lot of rain and cloud, and having lightning going off in the distance. All in a days work i guess!

I do have photos of some of the events, but i don't know how disrespectful it is to post some of it, so i might just keep them hidden for now.

More 402

2010-10-09T12:11:00.004+11:00

Well the wet season is coming stronger and stronger. I have now had to do a few ILS's into Darwin on the return leg from a days flying. The weather is usually ok up until the mid afternoon and then it turns sour. I'm not 100% what a microburst is, but i assume there have been a few near the field with the windsock literally swinging around in direction every few minutes, up to 25kts from east to west and north to south. Made for one or two hairy approaches on the edge of the storm. However 4km of runway and the C402 doesn't pose me a huge problem, even with a 25kt tailwind. Having said that, when you are turning a 2nm final over the field and you can feel yourself being dragged towards the strip sideways in the base turn, it's definately not a procedure i want to practise regularly.

I'm feeling a lot more confident now in the C402, with fuel figures and understanding the aeroplane. I find the hardest part is all the conversations, which is really a recipe to fail unless you are diligent in your calculations. What i'm trying to say is constantly converting between litres, kilo's and pounds can lead to the wrong figures in the paperwork, wrong weights for max payload take-offs, and the wrong amount of fuel being loaded. We use pounds in the flight plan, and also the planes fuel gauges are all in pounds. This is easy to use as the plane burns roughly 100lbs per engine per hour. So if each tank is showing 300lbs, as a rule of thumb you know you have 3 hours of fuel, and around 2.4 hours till you will hit your fixed reserves. Now we have to convert the pounds to litres for the refuellers. This is done by dividing the pounds of fuel by 1.58 for avgas. We then use kilo's for the weight and balance, so pounds divided by 2.204 gives you the weight in kilos. Again, its not hard or challenging, you just have to think about which conversion you are attemping and make sure you do it in the correct order.

As a rule of thumb in regards to fuel, the boys always substract 50lbs off the final fuel figure (we call it our 'gravy'). So basically whatever fuel figure you are using from the previous paperwork, you know there is roughly 30 litres of extra fuel in the tanks. When available (depending on the job) we also use a 10% extra policy, on top fixed reserve, flight fuel, variable reserves (15% of the flight fuel) and plus whatever holding is needed. This ensures adequate fuel, as even though our planning is around 200lbs per hour, it ends up being roughly 230lbs with take-off, climb segments included.

I have been flying the C402C a lot more as well. Definately a much nicer plane to fly. Significant improvements are the vortex generaters which allow greater lift and payload. They also have 50 more horses on take-off, and the turbos boost the engines to 39" of manifold pressure, whereas the B model only goes to 34'5" of manifold pressure. So the take-off performance is a lot better. The wing also looks better without the tip-tank, and best of all is the tank-to-engine fuel systems. No need to change tanks unless you are crossfeeding to balance the tanks. It also holds about 200lbs more than the B model, total fuel being 1236lbs, roughly 785 litres of fuel, for those of you using the metric system.

Other nice features on the C model is the weather radar. They are probably from the stoneage of aviation, but still when flying in the soup with weather around, it gives you are better informed idea of where the significant weather is so you can avoid it. It's definately not great, or even colour, but its better than having no radar!

Till next time, thanks for reading.

Apologies

2010-10-04T11:11:00.002+11:00

Sorry its been a while since i last posted! I have actually had 2 weeks leave, which was well earned and deserved as far as i'm concerned. So haven't had a whole lot of photos to take or things to write about, in regards to flying at least.

Although my first flight back was down to Hooker Creek (south of Darwin 355nm), and returning in the late afternoon into Darwin, was my first proper taste of the 'wet season.' I was in and out of huge areas of cloud build up. I tried to avoid the big ones but sometimes its hard, and you just need to ride the bumps with the powers turned back. Anyway once visual there was a line of thunderstorms to the south of the field i had to navigate around (without weather radar, for those playing at home!) I was lucky in the sense i was able to see a tiny gap, where a semi-visible horizon was seen, so i made a bee-line for it before the gap closed. Worked a treat. Darwin at this point was being hit by torrential rain, so i was cleared the VOR 11 approach.

http://airservicesaustralia.com/publications/pending/dap/PDNVO01-124.pdf

So anyway, i don't think i had done a VOR approach since my intial instrument rating test! I have done many ILS, which cover me for VOR recency, however not a VOR. I barely got visual at the minima, and finally a little to the right of my line of sight i could see the PAPI lights glowing through the rain. Once i selected full flaps and landed, the runway was completely saturated and another first on this flight, actually experienced aqua-planing and had very unresponsive braking.

So there is nothing like a 2 weeks break from work, and have an unfamiliar approach down to minimums to get you back in to gear. It is also one of those experiences that makes you confident in your ability, but also makes me realise how much there is to still learn. Flying piston twins in weather like that is no my favourite thing in the world, im also lucky i don't have icing conditions to deal with either. There is no mucking about doing an instrument approach like that, and for the life of me cant figure out why i didn't ask to do the runway 11 RNAV. Either way, it all worked out!

Anyway, i'll get some photos up soon of my holidays! Take care.

Cessna 402

2010-09-16T10:49:00.003+10:00

Im flying the Cessna 402 more and more now and am finally checked to line, and have been let loose by myself. Definately doesn't perform as well as the baron, and is less sports car-ish, but its really nice to fly something bigger, with a proper cabin, air conditioning and turbo engines. We operate 2 different types of 402, both the B and C models.

One of the check and trainers on my check flight.

I have done a few ICUS (in command under supervision) flights in it where i took some photos. Most of my ICUS was done in the 402B model. The B doesn't perform nearly as well as the C, and has dramatically less performance on take-off, less uplift and less range. Our B model aircraft have 5 different fuel tanks and a silly 1960's mentality of design where the more complicated the fuel system is, the better. We know this is not the case, and the 402C just has 2 fuel tanks, one per engine.

The B is essentially a big baron in terms of payload and range, but is able to take a lot more bulky items. The main difference in appearance between the B and C models is the big fuel tanks on the wing-tip. These are the main fuel tanks, and have 300lbs per side. The aux tanks have 180lbs per side, and we also have a wing locker fuel tanks with 120lbs. Sounds simple enough, but to use the aux tanks, you need to burn roughly an hour out of the mains, as the aux tank fuel pumps deliver twice the amount of fuel needed to the engine. The excess fuel is pumped back in the main tanks, and thus fills them up as you use the aux fuel. If you haven't burnt enough fuel then you end up venting it in flight. Not optimal for a max range, max payload, min fuel flight. To use the wing locker tank, you need to have at least 120lbs available to fill up the left main tank, and then use the cross-feed system to balance the tanks once its transferred. In summary far to complex and having a single fuel tank per engine is a much easier, safer design philosophy.

You can see the tip tank of the 402B in this photo.

So in contrast, the C has model is much more simple and straight forward, has about 50 more horses in the engines, can uplift an extra 300kg, with a lot more range. It is harder to land though in my opinion, but i might not be used to it just yet.

Anyway im sure i will have more stories to tell soon about it, but here are some photos for now.

Apparently this plane comes into Darwin regularly, but i have never seen it, or heard it! The biggest equipment Darwin gets regularly are A330's, and military C-17's.

Parked at Oenpelli.

Cabin shot in-flight. I have flown these guys in singles, barons and now the 402.

It's back!

2010-09-06T12:02:00.004+10:00

Sunrise, again! It's really hard to capture just how red that sun is. And how scenes like this never cease to amaze me.

The 'wet season' is starting to happen again. This period is known as the 'build up.' Lots of humidity, big cumulus clouds, unstable weather with the occaisional storm, and of course rain. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing really to worry about flying either as the cells and big clouds are usually isolated and its easy to navigate around them.

However, put yourself into a baron, at 5:00am in the morning, on a moonless night, with layer of cloud sitting at 10,000 feet. This makes the darkness feel even darker. One of the aspects of night flying in the Northern Territory, is that it's black and often hundreds of miles between seeing any civilisation on the ground. Couple all this with no weather radar, and i'm flying blind, on instruments. This isn't normally a problem, but i cannot see what's ahead of me, and on this particular night, it happened to be a storm. Not a big one, nor a fully developed monster that the wet season brings. But nonetheless was still an experience.

This baron has a light to show the leading edge, mainly to see if there is ice buildup. You can sort of see the streaks of rain over the leading edge.

So i took off from Darwin, on the Darwin 4 departure. This entails tracking runway heading till 900ft, and then turning to your assigned heading. As i levelled off at 8000ft, i set up the plane for cruise and did the paperwork, then settled in for the 90 minute flight to Kununurra. About 15 minutes into the flight i could see the strobes blinking in the darkness and everytime they blink, it looks like stars/particles around the wing. Now, i felt a little slow for not realising it was rain straight away, but i couldn't see it on the windshield ahead of me, and i couldnt hear it due engine noise/noise cancelling headset.

A photo in the bumps and in cloud!

Anyway i was a little shocked at first, and there appeared to be a lot of rain. (There was not much mentioned on the forecast of rain etc.) As i went a little further i ended up in cloud for a fair while, at which point i turned off the strobes as they are blinding at night in cloud. Soon though there was more flashing all around me, which was when i first got a little worried. When you fly close to a storm you hear the unmistakable streak of static in your headset as the lightning goes off. The bumps got progressively worse and worse at which point i was handflying as servos on the auotpilot don't mix well this amount of turbulence.

Once clear of the weather, looking back towards what i had come through. The main brunt of the storm was about 50nm behind this build up.

Long story short, flew through this for till about 100nm from Kununurra and all of a sudden it was clear! Good times. Interesting to say the least, and a good experience. Strangely enough, everyone in Kununurra and Darwin had seen it on the computer weather radar, and were asking if i flew through that area. Wasn't as bad as it looked on the radar though. And the be honest, the bumps i had to endure during the Alice Springs summer thermals, doing the mailruns low level, were definately worse.. i didn't even hit my head on the roof!

Arrival into Kununurra!

So i returned to Kununurra yet again, and this time had a coffee with the Chief Pilot of my old company there. He was actually the last guy of my season to be hired, but he has done well for himself there and seems to be running a good operation.

Part of the Ord River that runs between Kununurra and Wyndam. I hadn't flown over this area in almost 3 years.

The charter was flying some telecommunication blokes to a place called Forrest River, or Oombulgurri. It used to be a reasonably big/busy community, but as evident when i went there, it's virtually a ghost town, with only 50 people there at maximum anytime. It was actually a lot nicer to visit when it was like this, as for the first time ever that i have visited it, there was no trash all over the streets! I sat in the clinic and spoke to the nurse there for a few hours.

Oombie street scene - Clean and nice.

Overall was a great charter, enjoyed going to some of the old places and definately enjoyed the night flying/experience i had in the morning!

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks to all who commented last post.

PS!

2010-08-28T09:25:00.001+10:00

So was wondering does anyone still actually read this blog? I know the old man does, but am just curious?

Anyway, i get stuck for ideas to post about, so if you do read it, please leave comments on aspects/photos of my job you would like to see more of.

Regards, Mike

Dugong, Groote Eylandt

2010-08-27T11:46:00.003+10:00

Did an overnight on Groote Eylandt, and they put me up at the Dugong. Was definately one of the few perks general aviation has to offer. Generally accomodation for us bug smasher pilots is limited to a donga, with rattling aircon, bugs and no clean linen! So definately a nice change.

Anyway, was flying 3 doctors running a cardio clinic at some of the local communities and clinics. Had a nice dinner with them last night and now im waiting in the room to head back to Darwin. So i thought i would post a few photos of the surrounds. Enjoy.

There you have it, the Dugong!

Coyote Mine

2010-08-11T12:40:00.003+10:00

I did a big flight to Coyote mine last friday. Was good night hours, and readers of this blog will know how much i love flying at night! Coyote is right near the Granites and Tanami mines, which are right in the middle of the Tanami desert. Coyote is in Western Australia, just over the border from the Nothern Territory. The distance was roughly 470nm each way from memory. It was about the length as flying Darwin to Tennant Creek.

Sunrise after taking off from Kununurra.

A very rough idea of how much in the middle of nowhere this flight was!

I departed as early as i could to maximise the night hours, and flying west made meant sunrise was later than expected and was able to log 2.5. (Basically i need 100 night hours command, co-pilot or ICUS to qualify for the ATPL licence, and im getting really close to that now). I departed at 4am, and flew the leg to Kununurra for extra fuel. I took full fuel (737 usable litres) out of Darwin, and refuelled to full tanks at Knx for the leg to Coyote. I did the GPS/DME arrival into Kununurra as it was still night. Arrival to Kununurra was cool and the bowser is right near my old work. Was kinda cool seeing all the new hire pilots getting the airvans ready for the 6am scenic flights to the Bungle Bungles. (Western Australia is an hour and a half behind darwin. So from memory it was roughly 5am when i landed in Kununurra.

A view of the Bungle Bungles on the way down to Coyote. They are roughly 110nm from Kununurra.

The flight to Coyote was good. I had 192kts groundspeed on the way down at 9000ft. On the return leg at 7000ft i had a similar speed. Total flight time was just over 5 hours. Basically the charter was to pick up a worker who needed to connect to a midday flight back to Brisbane. Coyote is serviced by my company every Wednesday by 19 seater Metroliners. When i left Darwin at 4am, it was around 20 degrees. At Coyote at 8am, it was roughly 8 degrees on the ground. I didn't have a jumper so i remained in the plane for warmth!

The mine itself. i flew over it and near the accomodation there so they knew i'd arrived and joined a downwind runway 25. It had a slight tailwind, but it was better than landing directly into the sunlight.

This is a picture of the strip. Its about a 20 minute drive from the mine site to the strip.

Cheers for reading, Mike.

Flying to Kununurra at Night

2010-07-21T14:07:00.006+10:00

Back again to where i used to live and work for my first job! Kununurra-- is in the north-west area of Australia in the Kimberley region. It was a good flight, and i left late evening, almost at last light. Was nice to fly there in a twin finally and not worry so much about the crocodile infested water below.

At the moment in Darwin, there is a military exercise called pitch black, so getting slot times and taking note of the restricted airspace in the notams is important. My traffic for arrival into Kununurra was a squadron of F-111 jets doing low-level flying. Was also waiting at the holding point in darwin for 20 minutes for a squadron of F-18's to land. Always good (and loud) to see them in action.

Darwin after take-off.. lightish on fuel and empty down meant good performance.

Anyhoo, flight was last minute down to Kununurra (I had just returned from a charter to Elcho Island). The flight to knx from Darwin is 238nm. Got some good photos of the sunset which the photos really didn't do justice. Because it was night when i landed in Kununurra i did the RNAV rwy12 approach. Mainly because i don't like doing visual approaches at night and also to keep my instrument recency.

RNAV approach plate.. The baron doesnt have control column clips so you need to brief and understand the plate before you start the approach as its often hard to read it in the dark while flying.

This was the best photo of the sunset, but still, the photo does it no justice. Cheers for reading..

Bored doing an all day wait

2010-06-25T12:28:00.004+10:00

The only reason im writing this is to cure boredom. So if its rambles or just pictures, apologies in advance. I get borred quite quickly, and with newly acquired music im happy to sit here typing away listening to it!

I have done a lot of flying recently. I went to Tennant Creek recently and flew back at night which was a cool charter. Was weird to be back in Central Australia. I had actually forgotten the dry heat, the smells and just how different it is to the top end. But it was good hours for the logbook, nice to meet up with some of the boys from my old company, and even a dude i worked with in Kununurra was there. Good news San Diego!

Flying down to Tennant. This is near the waypoint DOSAM which is about 150nm north of Tennant, near Elliot.

A blurry photo coming back into Darwin at around 1am. Was really hard to get a shot, and this was the best result!

Other than that the flying has been pretty routine. Similar places etc. I did goto Robinson River the other day. Its only about 100km from Borroloola which i have spoken about in 2 previous posts. Thats one place in the NT i hadn't been too which was pretty regular for my last company. So was interesting to go there, even if all i did all day was watch cable tv.

Lining up at Milingimbi with a conquest backtracking behind me.

Some of the coastline between Maningrida and Milingimbi.

Anyway till next time.

200nm Over Water

2010-06-20T13:26:00.004+10:00

Not really a big deal, but was the longest i had ever been over water, especially in a piston twin. Was pretty cool seeing nothing but blue the entire way around the aeroplane. I was flying to Kalumburu (western Australia), which is probably on the most north-western area of Australia. I used to go there a lot when i worked at my first job in Kununurra, as its reasonably close.

As you can see there isn't much! No radar or VHF out here so all positon reports were made on HF radio.

The baron sitting at Kalumburu. Last time i was in Kalumburu it was a dirt strip! So it was good to see it was sealed.

Kalumburu from the air. I joined a right downwind for the purpose of the photo.

Welcome!

Flying to Gove, Groote and Bickerton Island.

2010-06-06T10:22:00.003+10:00

I got the sort of charters i love doing. I got the fly to Gove empty at night (im always after night hours!), then overnighted, and flew a technician to Bickerton Island, which is about 15nm from Groote. We then flew to Groote, then back to Gove. I then flew home empty from Gove back to Darwin. Good flying. Although by the end of the return leg i went a bit crazy, plus my headset broke on that leg. I dont know how, but i ended up using earplugs, the hand mic in the plane and the speaker on the roof. Was ok when i was talking to centre, but was a bit tricky hand flying the plane and talking to approach.

Anyway was pretty cool. Its now hit the dry season, like someone turned a switch. No transition, just one day it suddenly wasnt humid, wasnt raining and is blue sky. Although there are a lot of fires all over the places, which makes everything really hazy.

This was the haze after take off from Darwin. Im sure the sun and light at the time didnt help, but it was almost like flying above a layer of cloud.

I get bored at night.. easily! This was the best photo i took. I think i had the overhead light on. Flying at night also means doing an instrument approach so i dont kill myself. I did the RNAV rwy 13 via WC.

Flying to Bickerton Island the next morning. Was awesome flying over the water!

Approach in to Bickerton, i think!

A picture from the main wharf thing on Groote. Was a nice day as well, so i didnt mind being outside.

Night flying.. Again!

2010-06-02T11:17:00.003+10:00

So this post is all about the pictures. Had to do a charter where i picked up a doctor from Timber Creek and then flew her to Yarralin for the day. Then return to Darwin in the afternoon. I love night flying, and im less scared from it now that i have a second donk on the wing.

I think i departed at quarter to sixish, which is about an hour of flying at night. Anyway twin flying at night is one of the few things that still gets me really excited about flying.

Its really hard to take a photo at night, thats in focus, while waiting for a 1900 to take off before you on the runway at YPDN. This is with a bit of help from my friend boredom and photoshop is the final result.

Sitting on rwy 11, using my landing lights for a change as the 1900 taxis into position. They let him depart ahead of me due seperation, as we were both tracking south. And from memory a jet departed ahead of us, so also due wake turbulence.

1900 in position and holding..

Slowly rising sun and 8000ft.

Finally, sunrise from 8,000ft. Good times, good times.

Man Vs Wild

2010-05-23T11:41:00.002+10:00

Yes, thats me with Bear Grylls from Man vs Wild. Great show. He came into work as they were filming him and using our DC-3 which i wrote about last post.

Here are some recent photos flying. Loving the baron. The one in the photo is an E-55. Has an empty weight was 1581kg, instead of 1730kg of the BE58, but has the same engines, making it the pocket rocked. Indicates around 170kts which is pretty decent for a piston twin.

ciao!

DC-3

2010-05-17T14:26:00.003+10:00

I recently got the experience to fly on a DC-3 recently. Unfortunately i didn't have my camera for the inflight part, as it was semi unexpected and i was actually walking out the gate to my car to go home when i was asked if i wanted to jump on for the quick flight. (Note: This is actually a C-47, which is the military variant of the DC-3)

But i did manage to get some photos earlier in the day when it was sitting in front of the hangar.

Its quite amazing how big they are inside and up close.

These are some photos i took before i had to go flying.

This is the flight deck of the DC-3.

Looking out the window. Massive engines and sits a lot higher off the ground than i realised!

Looking from the tail up to the flight deck. This DC-3 i believe holds 28 passengers.

From the ground looking up at the big Pratt and Whitney radial engines!

All in all a pretty cool experience. I can add DC-3 to the list planes i have been on.

New Plane!

2010-05-12T11:25:00.004+10:00

You might notice there is something out the window that isn't usually there? Correct, its a second engine. Got checked to the Baron the other day and has been awesome flying it again. Beautiful plane, reasonably fast for a piston, and just good for a change. I have around 1200 hours on Cessna 200 series, so something new fast and a bit of a challenge is refreshing. We also fly them IFR so its good to have something to do in flight. Instead of monitoring centre, i actually talk to them.

So i got a charter to Gove. Normally a cringe at the sight of that in a single, but as im flying a new plane, it was quite refreshing to do a long leg, and get some hours. Its 350nm each way, and if you have read this blog enough, you will know i have done similar distant flights many times in singles.

Gove is basically a big mining town on the very northeastern part of the Northern Territory. As said before, apart from Far North Queensland, there isnt much of Australia that sits beyond it. But i had a good day in Gove. I met up with a few of the pilots that live in Gove for other companies, went into town and visited the beach. Apparently Gove is ok to swin at, despite sharks and crocodiles still being a threat. Its stinger season at the moment, so i resisted going in!

I got bored and started taking photos. Here is the main passenger cabin. It sits 4 people in club seating. 3 is bareable, but you can't really take 4, and usually put one up the front.

The photo below is part of Gove airport. I have no idea what it was used for or its function. I don't think it was ever a control tower, but was unaware what it was used for.

Anyway thanks for reading.

Some new charters!

2010-04-28T10:31:00.003+10:00

Its been a while since i have posted, and sorry for that. I have been incredibly busy working 2 jobs and seem to be constantly working or sleeping.. with the occaisional drinking and eating.

This post i will talk about a slow charter to Elcho Island in a C206. It is about 300nm, and with a headwind, it seemed to take ages. We had to take a 206 due to the heavy equipment they had for soil testing. Not sure what the reason was, but we were there for only 40 minutes before we headed back home. The return leg tailwind was much appreciated.

Anyway the trip to Elcho, goes over some of the most northern parts of the Australian continent. Probably the most northern parts, except for the Cape York and Horn Island areas in Far North Queensland. The direct route flown meant we pass near Maningrida and Milingimbi, which i have also flown to recently and will talk about in later posts.

All these areas are served by regular charter flights and RPT operations, with planes as large as the Emb. Brasilia and Metroliners. I believe Vincent Aviation operates Beech 1900's as well, but that might just be the Groote and Gove runs (2 Other places i have recently been to!) (Gove is also served by 717's that go between Darwin and Cairns).

So without boring you too much i'll go back to the usual post a bunch of pictures and talk about them.

A view from the street in Elcho that i sat for 40 minutes odd. I didn't really get many shots of Elcho itself, nor the airstrip, due to doing a straight in approach which was pretty much all over water! Next time i'm that way i'll take a photo of the relation of Elcho to the mainland.

The last 3 photos were from the very northern coast as we were flying. The pictures turned out well, and having been flying for so long around all areas that people pay a lot of money to see, i don't really appreciate nor look too hard out windows these days. But this definately made my head turn and i think some of the passengers even grabbed their cameras.

So i promise i will do another blog post sooner, that i did this one. I also went flying with a mate who visited from Sydney which was good, and got some photos of that, into Milingimbi.

Thanks for reading.

Class C to Class C

2010-03-31T15:25:00.004+11:00

I know i have done it before, but it would have been when i was still training. That is flying from a radar controlled aerodrome to another radar controlled aerodrome. No CTAF calls, no changing squawk code etc. I have done Sydney to Canberra, Albury and Essendon. Possibly Tamworth? However its been years. So last Saturday i had to fly from Darwin to Tindal (Katherine) which is a military controlled aerodrome. Although not always active, it happened to be on Saturday. Nothing really overly exciting about it, but was kinda cool for a change. Katherine is about 350km south east of Darwin for those of you playing at home.

The town of Katherine. Fairly small, only 10,000 odd people. Have driven through there many times in my travels!

Most interesting thing i have seen in ages. A DC-10 tanker operated by Omni air. Not sure what it was doing in Tindal, but one would assume refuelling operations, of the mid-air variety.

Passengers on todays flight. Back home from school.

A rainbow. Turned out a lot better than i expected it would.

Finally - Tindal aerodrome. You can see all the military hardstands. The RPT/Charter apron is the far right side off the end of the rwy.

Anyway.. thanks for reading.

A few dodgy photos from my phone

2010-03-22T17:27:00.003+11:00

I have been meaning to upload and edit some of the photos i took of my flight to Elcho Island and the shorelines of the very northern areas of the Australian continent, and thus have forgotten to take my camera with me recently. However, i had my phone with me to snap these shots! Not the best quality but still, you get the idea!

I'll spare all the details of what happened, the company etc etc. Not really fair to write about it, when the details of how it happened are cloudy at best. We all know the supposed story, but i dare say the real story is being held very close. There were 2 C206's involved at a remote airstrip. The other one is in a hanger across the way, but this one is probably here until they figure out what to do with it. So i snapped some pics while i still have the chance to see it!

I'll get some more blog happening soon so you can keep up to date with my flying adventures. Its very busy at work, but will remember to pack my camera soon!

All the best!

Sitting in Lake Evella

2010-03-09T14:28:00.003+11:00

Im on a wait (again) in Lake Evella (again!). Its good though we get internet in the top end communities so the waits with my laptop, movies, food and ipod is pretty cruisey. Its hit March and it seems the wet season is virtually over. Not too many tempo periods on the forecast, no more insane scud running, no more instrument approaches (well.. on the ATIS anyway). So i thought i would post a few photos from the wet which i have taken.

Other than that i have not a whole lot to report, except moving apartments and starting a second job to help pay some bills. We have a big day ahead of us on Sunday as its a AFL grand final on the Tiwi Islands, and we are moving something like 300 people. This involves to my knowledge doing "hot" turn arounds in the metroliners, which involves leaving one engine running while deplaning and boarding the aircraft. I will hopefully capture some of this next weekend and post it here.

Big storm over Howard Springs which is the initial approach fix of the Darwin rwy 29 ILS. I was going to Bathurst Island and had to wait a little bit before i got back in.

Both were on the way to Borroloola. Not bad storms at all, but they are still cool to fly around.

This was taken on the ground in Palumpa. That was one of the worst days i have had to fly in terms of dodging weather.

Enjoy

Odd Freight

2010-02-21T15:09:00.003+11:00

At this new job, it seems nothing is impossible. I say that in the best possible way as well, because flying is all about repeat business and customer service. Having said that, I guess if there is a will, then there is a way. I haven't really had to deal with too much odd freight in my time. Sure we have had planes absolutely chocked full of mail, newspapers, mining equipment, books etc etc. But this last job caught me off guard a little. I didnt really know how to load it, or how to even get it into the plane. When the guy delivered it, i asked him to bring it inside to weight it. He laughed at me. Once i saw what it was i understood why. Having said that, it was all fairly liftable, so weight wasnt a problem. It was just.. not really suited to a single engine cessna even with the seats removed.

The freight offloaded!

Its not as clear in the photos as to how crazy it was loaded and what the freight was. I believe it was a small diesel generator, and its mounting, plus a few lengths of what i think was cement piping. When you have jobs like this in 34 degree tropical heat, it makes me wonder why i even bother ironing my white shirt or showering in the morning. I think id been at work a total of 40 minutes before i was drenched in sweat and dirty from loading.

The freight was for a community on the Tiwi islands called Snake Bay. Its a sealed strip and about 60nm away from Darwin. Anyway long story short we eventually got all the freight in. Even the bloke that helped me load it was laughing that we got it in. We got talking and apparently his brother is a Cathay Pacific 747 captain. He took a photo himself to show his brother.

Snake bay from the air and the ground. There is regular public transport operated here in C404's and C402's.

Some Recent Flying

2010-02-14T12:21:00.004+11:00

I have been flying a lot lately. I have been back to Borroloola (Brl) twice now. Not quite as long as Alice to Brl, but within 40nm. Its 384nm from Darwin to Brl, which is longer than flying Sydney Melbourne, for those of you playing at home. Then obviously 384nm on the return leg. You usually get good winds one way which makes one of the legs semi enjoyable! I took off on the first trip early to get some night hours. The C210 that i was flying is decked out with all the gear so its nice to have good avionics.

This was taken after leaving controlled airspace. I was at 7500ft initially, but then decided to descent lower as the winds were better. You can see its got some good gear in the plane from the photo!

This is a photo looking into the Gulf of Carpentaria, which runs between the NT and Far North Queensland. Taken on the return leg.

This picture is similar!

Sunrise. Not quite at 35000, rather... 5500. Only 30000ft difference to a jet. Maybe one day i'll post photos from 35000ft. I hope so anyway.

I have lots of photos of storms, and weather, water, islands that i was going to post, but i'll save them for another post i think. I have one more photo of the community of Ngukurr. Pronounced "nooker" i always heard people talk about it, as a lot of pilots are based at remote communities, and Ngukurr was a reasonably common base for pilots. So on the way back from Brl i detoured to get a photo.

Enjoy.

NT news

2010-02-02T23:03:00.004+11:00

Thought i would post some good headlines from the Northern Territory newspaper. There are actual websites/facebook groups dedicated to how silly some of it is, and i don't know whether they do it on purpose or whether there is simply nothing better to write about. Im not sure what percent of readers are Australian or international, but if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

(These are only a small percentage of silly headlines i have seen)

Croker Island

2010-01-29T17:24:00.004+11:00

I have been to Croker Island twice in the past three days. Its 120nm from Darwin, which about 80nm is over water! Pretty fun/scary... etc in a single engine plane. I did it in a C206 and a C210. I definately prefer to fly the C210 no question. There are very strong winds at the moment due to TC Olga in the area, and the groundspeed in the C206 on the way back was down to 88kts, and in the C210 it got down to about 110kts.

A view of Melville Island about 40nm north-east of Darwin. This was taken on the C206 at 5500.

On the left hand side you can see a company C206 heading to Croker as well. I cant remember what height he was at!

Croker as per the GPS in the plane. There is lots of military airspace around Darwin (as you can see in the GPS) so its important to check the notams every flight.

Finally Croker Island strip! This is the strip, which i have found out 2 days in a row always has a howling cross wind. The settlement is around 6nm further north-east. An advantage of flying in the top-end is that most of the strips a sealed. This one is an exception to the rule, however they are very well maintained and take a lot of rain.

Lake Evella Charter

2010-01-22T20:40:00.004+11:00

I think thats how you spell it. Today was some good wet season flying, but i didnt get to snap to much of the storms as i was too busy dodging terrain and remaining visual to snap photos! Either way i got some of Lake Evella and the flight there in the morning. Enjoy.

Main street in Lake Evella. The 'top end' communities seem a lot nicer than the central Australian ones. It's definately smoother flying, with sealed runways and VHF coverage most of the way.

210 i was in today, parked at Lake Evella.

Mission Aviation Fellowship airvan, doing a mailrun i think, similar to my job back in Alice Springs. Can't say i miss flying the airvan. 300 hours on type is more than enough!

Some build up in the morning over the Alligator river. We provide life vests in these planes as its a legal requirement and we do tend to fly over large areas of water often. But the crocs in that river would render them useless.

Smooth air at 7500ft. Awesome.

Looking at one of the most northern areas of Australian coastline. Next stop would be Indonesia or East Timor.

2010-01-21T22:51:00.003+11:00

Some might remember the old photo i had as my blog header! I guess the ones who actually read it may have some idea which photo i mean!

This blog is a tribute to a friend who became a good mate through a friend of a friend. It is always hard to goto a new place, new city and not know anyone to help you out or where to go etc. But without even meeting me, Dave was able hook up some pizza, accomodation if i needed and answered everything a young fresh commerical pilot needs to ask!

The man himself!! His advice and support has helped me through all my work in GA. I definately owe him a lager or 6.

The instruments and throttles of a C404. I dare say in a year this is all i will post photos of as i progress forward! i hope so anyway.

The plane being loaded by one of the agencies that organises the bookings for these flights.

And finally the original photo from the header of the blog. It all comes back to where it kinda started! This is taken across the ramp back towards the company i work for.

I was a fresh, green and inexperienced pilot back then and didnt know the world of GA like i do. But his one bit of advice was to get into same company he worked. And with a bit of luck and lots of hard work! (a successful interview helped) im now there. Funny how this picture takes me back to the time when i was longing for that good GA job, with no experience in aviation except a few pieces of paper that allowed me to fly aeroplanes with people inside for commerical operations.

Anyway its late night, and its my food for thought! Thanks Dave, your words of advice were acted upon!

Night!

206 Charter

2010-01-18T17:26:00.003+11:00

So the new company i work for has a pretty diverse fleet. From the C206 all the way to the metroliner, and soon to a 32 seat Embraer Brasilia. Also operate a fleet of cessna 404 titans, 402's, Barons and conquests! So there is definately great opportunity to fly great aircraft.

This particular C206 is decked out with a Garmin 530, Autopilot and some sort of weather radar thing. I don't know how well it works yet, although i'm sure i will out soon enough being the wet season.

We departed runway 18 at Darwin and then a left turn to 220 to track south-west. I managed to get a good shot of the city.

At the moment im checked to line flying the C206 and C210 for something different! C206 is a fun plane to fly, although its a lot slower than what im used to. But at the moment im enjoying to scenery and smoother air to complain :) It's also nice to be in a radar environment with a clearance delivery, ground, tower approach and departure frequencies to deal with.

Darwin is still pretty small compared to most cities, but its definately bigger and feels better than Alice Springs to live in. Although i do miss the friends i made in Alice a lot. So enough chit chat, i'll show you some pictures of my flight to Channel Point. Its only 60nm from Darwin, and is basically a row of nice houses in the middle of nowhere! However they had all the bells and whistles, including cable tv and comfy leather couches haha.

Here is a view from the shore at Channel Point. The water is full of saltwater crocs and stingers to no swimming. Most people here go for the barramundi fishing.

Outside view of the house we stayed in.

Not a bad way to spend the day and get paid!

New Job

2010-01-07T19:28:00.002+11:00

So i have started a new job, up in the tropics of Darwin. Its the wet season here and we have had lots of monsoonal rain. So its a nice change from the desert, although it's making me sweat due the humidity!

The new company is really good, lots of progession and nice planes to fly, so im pretty happy about the move. I will take some photos soon and post them.

Till then all the best, hope you had a great new year.

A few photos i found.

2009-12-24T14:00:00.002+11:00

Im not sure whether i posted this photo before. It was taken between Tennant Creek and Alice at the DERAK waypoint, on the W177 airway. We were about 20nm off track due the storms, was defiantely one of the best yet worst days i have had flying.

Departing Kiwirrkurra one day, one of the rival companies planes was there. In a C310 he was faster than me, and passed me as we climbed away. Luckily i had my camera to capture this.

A shot of Ayers Rock i have taken somewhere at sometime?!

Ayers rock looking back from the Olga's.

New beginning!

2009-12-20T17:50:00.003+11:00

So i have resigned from my current job. I'll keep you all updated very soon, and i dare say i will have some great new stories and flying to post about. Very excited for this move, but im not going to say too much yet. In fact it all seems to go back to square one, but i'll explain that in a later post.

Until then, i'll see if i have some past photos i never got around to posting. But the tales in the desert have come to an end! All the best for Christmas and the new year, i will be back very soon!

Mike

Middle of the Simpson Desert

2009-12-03T13:12:00.004+11:00

So i thought i would post 3 photos of what an exploration camp in the middle of the Simpson desert looks like. I will say this is the actual middle of nowhere. There is nothing around anywhere! It is only about 250km from Alice as the crow flies, but still. I have been flying miners/drillers here in a 210 as the runway isnt strong enough for a twin or caravan. Its actuall long and fairly firm in the middle, but its quite narrow and very soft around the edges. You sorta fly over all these desert dunes, then you see a patch of trees.. and you know its slightly to the right of the trees. And then all of a sudden a sad excuse for a runway appears! haha. Its known as Simpson 2, but im unaware of what they are looking for, even though im sure i was told.

Enjoy.

Few new photos

2009-11-26T11:21:00.004+11:00

Hi all.

Not much to report with flying, except its hot and bumpy. Just thought id share some new photos taken on a recent mailrun and a few odd charters that i have done.

Here is the gap between Papunya and Haasts Bluff. Its only a 13nm leg, so as a shortcut we fly through the gap. Lots of fun, although sometimes pretty bumpy.

This is the gap seen from the ground at Papunya.

Coming into King Creek station, which is near Kings Canyon. A pretty big tourist area in the red centre along with Uluru and the Olga's.

This is approaching Kings Canyon again. Pretty cool formations. Was apparently once upon a time an inland ocean? Who knows, kinda looks like it would have been though.

The most essential part of my days flying. This isnt on the minimum equipment list, but it may as well be. Flying without one means certain boredom.

Taken at the helm of SWT. A nice baron to fly.

Random survey DC-3 with PT6 powerplant converstion, registered in South Africa that was using our hangar for maintenance for a few weeks.

Borroloola

2009-11-03T14:05:00.004+11:00

So i finally went to Borroloola (Brl). Was good to go there, as it is a remote base for the company i work for, however i dont envy the pilots that have to live there! I had to fly some school kids returning home for school holidays, via Rockhampton downs, which was pretty much on the way. Brl is 425nm from Alice, so its a long flight! especially in a C210.

Main street in Brl. Its actually not as bad as it looks, as remote areas go. Its closer to Mt Isa than Darwin or Alice Springs. Its about a 3 hour flight to Darwin from here as well. Its right in the Gulf area of the Northern Territory. I have spoken about the Barkly mailrun which goes near Brl.

Random view out the plane. I actually meant to upload a picture of the MacArthur River mine, but cant seem to find the photo i took of it. They dont like us flying over the mine, as it gets quite a bit of turboprop and jet traffic.

The view at Rockhampton downs, you can see it was quite windy! In fact i dont think i have encountered heavier winds on the ground as this day. The only saving grace was that it was calm and smooth about 6000ft, which is rare this time of year.

On the way up there was massive amounts of wind and dust blown everywhere. Questionable VFR flying conditions, but none the less was still able to maintain visual contact with the ground etc and don't believe that safety was ever in question.

On a wide base into Brl. It was really busy when i came into it. There was a C404 Titan departing, a second C210 in the circuit and i was also following a C182.

Brian, one of the pilots outside his living area. Good guy from Tasmania, so we give him a bit for being from there, but none the less, a good bloke!

The line up of planes at Brl. I was refuelling and snapped it when i was finished. You can see lots of C210's, C310's and also a C402 which was cut out of the photo on the left hand side.

Anyway, enjoy the photos, till next time.

Flying the Baron

2009-10-01T15:19:00.005+10:00

Well its been awesome! I cant say how much im enjoying life with a second engine. Dont get me wrong, its not a full time thing, but just flying it once or twice a week is good for me, just for something different and its definately faster and a lot more fun.

I had to take the token engine shot! Also nice to be back into a low wing aircraft!

The baron is a sports car of a plane - looks good and goes reasonably fast for a piston. It isnt really a charter machine though. Its comfortable etc, and presents well, but it doesnt really have good fuel range or payload. Essentially its a C210 with a second engine of equal power. So its great in the climb! After doing 2 flights in the baron, the 210 felt incredibly under powered and wrong haha. I guess thats pretty normal when going back to a single engine.

This was on approach into Elliot. Its about 150nm north of Tennant Creek, on the Stuart Hwy. We were flying some doctors there, so they could run a clinic.

Token shot of the baron controls inflight!

Finally, the baron parked at Warrabri. Its about 80nm south of Tennant Creek.

Enjoy!

Also a youtube clip of us landing when we returned to Alice Springs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBXqJQnJ17c

The last month

2009-09-11T12:38:00.007+10:00

Hi all. Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I went on 3 weeks leave to Japan, and havent been flying a whole lot the few weeks before and after as i have also been sick. So in lieu of a flying story i thought i would post some pictures from my Japan trip as it was definately more interesting than most of the recent flying i have done! In other news on the flying front, i start on the beechcraft baron next week, so fingers crossed my checkride goes well (as i started writing this a while ago - i have done my checkride, which included assymetrics and instrument approaches in IMC - which im happy to report went very well!). I wont be flying it all too much, but it will give me some refreshing new stories and pictures to write about for the purpose of the blog.

This picture is self explanitory haha. You can see the route the pilots took to Singapore from Sydney. This was due to massive headwinds over central Australia. The normal routing (haha i hear them all the time on Melbourne Centre is Alpha Siera (Alice Springs) then either waypoint Timmi and Schee, which is the boundary to Brisbane centre.) Hope that made sense.

So i went to Japan, with a few days in Singapore. Was a great trip and thoroughly enjoyed being away for a bit. Japan is an amazing country and i would recommend it to anyone thinking of travelling to Asia. It was also good to spend some time with the old man ie - dad, as i dont think i had travelled or hung out with him basically since i had to move away fro flying. So it was great to catch up and just enjoy his company as opposed to his voice on the phone!

So we started in Tokyo Narita airport and from there we took the airport express into Tokyo city. This takes about an hour. We stayed in Tokyo a total of 5 nights, 3 in the beginning and 2 nights at the end before i flew home to Sydney. Covered a lot of ground in Tokyo and ate some amazing food. Some of this amazing food im pretty sure i dont want to know what it was, because the hindsight thought might not be as pleasant as the experience was when eating it.

This is a photo of the fish markets at around 5am on a fine and hot Tokyo Friday morning. Was great to see all the different seafood and the tuna auctions take place. Was definately a highlight of the trip as its something i have always wanted to see.

From Tokyo we headed south-west towards the 4th largest city in Japan, Nagoya. Nagoya was a great place, reminded me a lot of Sydney to be honest (found out later they were sister cities!). But it was a big city without the crazy amounts of people that Tokyo has. In Nagoya we visited the Toyota car factory, saw the castles and took a big walk around the pottery area in Tokoname.

They have some trains where you can view the trip from the drivers perspective. Was very cool! This was on the trip to the Toyota factory.

This is the main CBD area of Nagoya as viewed from the Hotel.

From Nagoya we continued to Kyoto and saw some amazing temples. I really enjoyed Kyoto, as i had read Memoirs of a Geisha and wanted to check out some of the places mentioned. However, once i arrived i couldnt remember a single place apart from Gion. So we visited Gion and enjoyed the ambience of the city. We were staying in a hotel opposite Nijo Castle, so of course i checked it out. The castle's floorboards are constructed in a way that they make a noise if you walk on them, no matter how quiet you walk. It is meant to resemble birds, and was made like that in ancient times so no one could be sneaking around. Was pretty amazing, the softer you walked the more sound it made.

This is the view from one of the temples which gave a good overview of the city of Kyoto.

From Kyoto we took the Shinkansen down to Osaka (a whole 15 minute journey). Osaka was just like Tokyo, and i cant say i didnt enjoy it, but it was so crowded. A few of my Japanese friends told me that Osaka is like Tokyo only less busy and compared it to say Sydney vs Melbourne. But i disagreed. I thought Osaka was so busy and had so many people all the time that it became a little overwhelming at times. But anyway, Osaka had a cool aquarium which we visisted purely to see whale sharks. Amazing creatures, big fish! We also did a day trip out to Nara, which was about an hour on the train, and saw some temples and the big deer park where deer just roam around. Definately worth the visit.

These are two pictures from Nara. The temple was an amazing structure, and housed a giant Buddha statue. And also one of the many deers roaming around. Living by the philosophy that you kick someone when they are down rather than help them (this is a joke we all say in Alice when we drink - im not that much of a jerk!!) i found it rather humerous watching other tourists feeding the deer and creating monsters out of them.

Here are two pictures from the Osaka aquarium. One is of a jellyfish and the other of one of the whale sharks. Im not one for that sort of thing when i visit the city, but im very happy i did!

From Osaka we also did a day trip to the North Island of Sapporo. We flew ANA and departed from Kansai airport. We arrived in Sapporo to a full ILS, which from my pilot perspective was kinda cool, love being in the soup. But it was a miserable cold and raining day, so we didnt do a whole lot.

In the soup either departing or approaching Sapporo. Was well cool!!

After Osaka we headed further south to Hiroshima. We visited the atom bomb musuem and saw the memorial there. That museum was quite moving and the effects that bomb had were so devastating. It was incredibly hot in Hiroshima and there was a Typhoon of the coast which im sure didnt help. I enjoyed Hiroshima a lot, but there wasnt a whole lot to do, the one night was more than adequate.

From Hiroshima we went back to Tokyo which took 4.4 hours in the Shinkansen. The journey was 894km long, which meant the average speed was 203km/h. But that doesnt include all the stops it made (roughly 8) so it definately is high speed and very efficient.

Tokyo Tower as viewed from the rooftop of a building in Roppongi.

Well apart from that i do not have a whole lot more to report! I am going to a new place tomorrow so i will take some photos of that and report on it later.

Cheers!

What to blog about?

2009-07-28T14:34:00.003+10:00

Well, i havent really done anything particularly new or interesting over the past month of flying. I sat at Ti-Tree for over 8 hours one day, which was rivetting, let me assure you.

So this post i think i will just put up a few recent photos i have taken.

I snapped a few photos from a troopie when i was driven around Kintore on a wait. That was a good wait, with full cable television, internet and comfortable lazy boy chairs!

This photo is from Kintore just near the Clinic. We were in a rush to get back to Alice before last light. Its 250nm from Alice Springs, on the 272 radial (almost due west). You fly past Kintore on the way to Kiwirrkurra which i spoke about in a previous post.

This is a sign on the refuelling bowser at Warburton. I just found it interesting and was walking around as Steve was refuelling my plane.

I climbed Mount Gillen again which i think i may have spoken about before, but its all in the quest to stay healthy.

A photo of our feet dangling over the edge!

I also uploaded another landing to youtube.. this link is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBJVNkDUi84

Alice Airport

2009-07-02T11:32:00.004+10:00

I have a few photos of Alice Airport i thought i would share. For some reason Blogspot is being weird when i upload photos so i will do my best. Most of these were taken from the tower on a pretty rainy day for Alice. Whats normally CAVOK, was "expect the ILS rwy 12 approach." The cloud base was about 500ft off the deck.

Alice airspace is whats known as Class D. I dont know much about the rest of the world's airspace but class D means that it is all based on procedure and time. Basically clearance is via a radial and to stay above or below certain steps depending on clearance and whether you are IFR or VFR. What makes Alice airspace unique and slightly ancient is that there is no radar at all. It is the only tower in Australia to not even have a secondary radar to help them out.

Here is a photo of the guys in the tower. As you can see there isnt much in the way of modern equipment. But they do a great job with what they have.

There are 4 guys who work the tower, and working on the airport you learn their names and their individual ways of controlling. Sometimes its impossible to get a clearance being a VFR C210, other times you can get in with 3 jets inbound. For General Aviation planes, coming into Alice when instrument approaches are being used can be pretty difficult for fuel planning, as the closest Alternates are either 180nm or 250nm away. Which is a good hour and a half of fuel needed ontop of the fixed reserves.

These photos were taken on the viewing area on the control tower.

Here is a photo of a C-17, which comes in every tuesday for Pine Gap. Its callsign is always "reach 5 echo 1."

And to finish here is Alice ramp area on a normally sunny bluesky day. Thanks all for reading!

Mount Isa and a New Plane

2009-06-22T10:18:00.005+10:00

Hi, sorry its been a while since my last post. I have been very busy and also my internet connection was being so unstable it was impossible to write anything and upload pictures without it cutting out. But today i have mostly off and it seems to be working well, so time to capitalise!

So i have been doing much the same flying as i have already spoken about. We got some good rains and i got some amazing shots of planes landing on ungrooved runway surfaces from the Alice Springs tower. But i will save most of them for another day and another post.

So i did a charter to Mount Isa. For those who don't know Mount Isa, its a large mining town in central Queensland with a population of 30,000ish. Its a long flight, 370nm, which in a single engine piston takes about 2.5 hours. But its a good setup there, i left to get some lunch, talked to some of the local operators and dreaded flying back home for 2.5 hours haha. But the shell refueller helped me load 80 litres into the wings and off i went. I snapped a few departure photos. You can see below the extent of some of the mining and the main part of town. The airport was directly behind me.

My company also aquired a Cessna Conquest. It is a nice plane, twin turbine and pressurised. I dont know when it will get business and who is going to fly it just yet, but its a good looking plane and my boss snapped a few photos of it on my camera as he needed one and i had one in my flight bag, so i will share some of them.

I also finally learnt how to edit and crop photos better then i had been, so i will post a few older photos i got of other planes taking off at community strips.

Im pretty sure this is Joe taking off from Tjukurla.

William Creek

2009-05-19T16:46:00.005+10:00

Well, last monday i got a phone call telling me that i had to goto William Creek for a week. I cant tell you how much a phone call like this sinks even the highest spirits. Doing time in remote Australia can test anyone. So, i wont say i was negative about it, but my spirits were definately lifted when i found out another pilot i work with was going down with me. On top of that they didnt explain that id be flying for the week as well.

We were sent down to help a company out doing scenic flights over Lake Eyre in South Australia. All their pilots had run out of duty and hours and 2 planes needed maintenance. Its about 340nm to William Creek from Alice Springs.

So when i arrived it was dark, and met the owner and got set up in one of the houses they had. I should let you know, William Creek has literally a pub, a campground and the two houses that the company doing scenics owned. So its very remote, located on the Oodnadatta track, between Coober Pedy and Marree.

Here is a photo of the William Creek pub. The bloke on the left is Rich, who is an awesome bloke and hope i can somehow keep in contact with him.

Anyway all things considered, i had a ball! I was well looked after, good meals and accomodation, good fun with the boys that worked there full time, made some friends and learnt how to ride a quad bike. The flying and scenery was amazing to put lightly, so i didnt mind doing the scenic flying, although its not my first choice. I hate cramming 5 tourists into a C210. However, they all seemed to enjoy it, and i got to have some fun flying and a good change from doing mailruns every week! I can say that if i was looking for a first job all over again, i would definately consider this company, as they looked after their pilots, good flying and overall a lot of fun.

I'll leave you with some photos of the Lake taken at sunset.

Random

2009-05-10T23:13:00.007+10:00

Not sure what i am going to post about, so i thought i would collect some random photos of the night flying and overnights i have done recently.

Here are some photos of my accomodation whilst i was in Lajamanu, which is also known as Hooker Creek. Apparently i was lucky to get this accomodation and the other facilities are quite a bit more rundown. I guess i was very lucky that it wasnt too hot and wasnt in summer,

I have been trying to get some night hours so when i have early departures i try to leave an hour or more earlier to get some night time. Same as a late departure, i will wait around till dark. Sometimes it doesnt feel the best to do in a single engine plane, but i guess the plane doesn't know it's night time.

These photos are a pictures of me flying home from Warburton, which is around 420 something nautical miles away. When IFR we go via waypoint rooks, Ayers Rock and arntu. The photos i'm going to post arent that clear, but its hard to get a good shot at night without a tripod and while flying a plane!

Alice rwy 12 ILS.

The next photo is primarily for my dad. Its a picture of some Bluff thingy he asked me about, and although i know the name of it, it eludes me everytime i think of it go to talk about it, but for him here it is!

I also recently did a tour of Giles meteorological station which is right near the community of Warakurna, which isnt too far from Warburton. I got the tour as i was flying a guy who is responsible for fixing some of the gear they have down there. Was an interesting day and i learnt a lot. I also had the absolute correct winds from the weather balloon they lauched earlier to me arriving, so i didnt need to get any extra fuel thanks to that knowledge, which worked out well as the bowser they have at Giles was broken.

The last photo i will leave you with is sunrise inbound to Tennant Creek. I cant remember what charter or mailrun this was, but its a cool photo and made getting up at around 3am worth it.

South East Mail

2009-04-24T09:51:00.005+10:00

I did the south east mail recently, a run which i used to do a lot but hadn't touched in months. Its a good run for the hours and reasonably quick. Basically covers the top eastern cattle stations of South Australia, and some in the Northern Territory. Its good as its mainly cattle stations and not communities, so the load is light and there is nearly always someone to meet you, sometimes with a coke or pie!

I will let the photos do the talking today, as there is not a whole lot to say about it. The furthest south we go is a place called Todmorten. Its reasonably close to Coober Pedy, the opal mining town in South Australia.

This is at 6:55am, Alice Springs Airport. One 210 just departed doing a Western Mailrun, the plane in front is doing the same water run i posted about a while ago. This on holding point bravo, rwy 12.

Rwy 12 at Alice Springs. It has just been recently resurfaced, but they havent grooved the surface yet, so all the jets need to use the full length to backtrack when they land.

Nothing but sand dunes and barren landscape between 2 cattle stations, Numery and Andado. This was taken at around 8am.

This is on approach into Finke. Finke is the only community that we land at on this run. You can see we have no troubles buzzing the community when we land on rwy 15. Weirdly rwy 15 is also on the 150 radial from Alice airport, so to go directly to Finke from Alice, its a slight turn after take off and a straight in approach. Finke is also the the community where people overnight on the Finke desert race, for all those into motorcycles.

Approach into New Crown Station. It's about 15nm from Finke.

Mount Dare Strip! Took me a while to actually work out where it was the first time i flew here. It used to be our refuelling stop, but not anymore for some reason. It has a weird "taxiway" at the end of the runway, which is like a dirt road that leads up to the hangar.

The weird "taxiway." This is looking back towards the runway.

Typical bush Australia type photo! Couldnt resist.

This is a photo of Lambina Station. The runway looks a lot harder to see in this photo than it actually is.

I'll leave it at that, hope you enjoy. I also posted a video on youtube of a landing at Umuwa which i spoke about last post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFJEpZADClw

881

2009-04-13T12:12:00.004+10:00

Hi all. Time for a new post as this public holiday i am by myself at home, with not much else to do apart from washing my sheets and making another coffee. So i am going to post about the 881 flight that we do. The 881 is a good flight, 4 and a bit hours, and you are home by 1pm! 881 serves the communities in the very northern areas of South Australia. So it takes an hour and a half to fly there and a little bit more to fly back. However its only a few minutes between all the stops, making the day very cruisey.

This is a photo of the passenger chieftan. He overtook me shortly after takeoff from Alice Springs. Im not sure if he is 500ft above or 1000ft in the photo. Although the photo doesnt look as though he was that close. We are both enroute to a community called Ernabella.

After Ernabella the passenger chieftan goes to Umuwa. In the 210 i have to go via a small cattle station called Kenmore Park and take them their mail bags. Occaisionally i get a passenger on this leg as the chieftan cannot land on the short strip at Kenmore. This leg is only 15nm, so its cruisy and a bit of fun departing over the hills that surround Ernabella. After Kenmore Park its off to a predominately white community called Umuwa. We wait here around 20 minutes to stay on time.

After Umuwa its off to Fregon. This is also only around 15nm down the road (Literally). There is a road straight after take-off which i follow which puts me on a straight in approach rwy 15.

Here is a photo of the strip at Fregon. Fregon gets busy sometimes and i have seen a few 402's on the ramp at one time.

Here is a Chieftan taking off from Fregon. Good looking plane! From here we go on the 30nm leg to Mimili. I forgot to mention - When i was at Umuwa i had a strange request. I was asked to transport an injured bird back to Alice Springs. I wasnt sure on the correct procedure for this, as im sure im not really allowed to fly animals in the cabin without them being properly caged etc etc. However, it was in a pretty bad shape, and without wings to fly i put it under the back seats for the flight. I figured it was a mercy flight for the bird and checked on him at every stop.

He was pretty angry and kept trying to bite me, but we got him to Alice in one piece and the Wildlife Department place picked him up the moment i landed.

Here is a picture of Mimili, our last stop. The strip is around 3nm to the right of this photo. This photo was actually taken on my first week of work at my company! Im pretty sure i was in the right seat for this leg as the other dude wanted to have a fly! From here its 205nm back to Alice Springs.

Happy Easter.

Camooweal

2009-04-02T17:58:00.005+11:00

Well this was probably one of the best charters i have done. It was to take one kid home from Darwin for the school holidays. He was a good kid, as indigenous kids go. Talkative, helped me out and was well behaved. Had a lot of luggage for one person though!

That line you can see is the border between Qld and the NT. I was suprised to be able to see such a distinct borderline, but there it was, right where the GPS said it would be!

So i flew him home to Camooweal which was my first landing in the state of Queensland. Camooweal is just over the border from the Northern Territory on the Barkly Highway. It is a big refuelling stop for cars that are travelling from Queensland to the Northern Territory and vice versa. It even had a sealed strip which is a luxury with my flying. Means a lot less dirt on the underbelly when i have to clean it.

The top picture is of Camooweal from the ground. The second one is Camooweal from the air after departure. You can see the Barkly Highway going through the town, onto Cloncurry and Longreach.

The charter consisted of dropping him off where i met his father who shook my hand and drove off after. It was a 350nm leg and i had a groundspeed of 180 the whole way which is really impressive for a 210. I then took off for Baikal where i had a refuelling stop. On the return leg i expected to be very slow, but i still had a groundspeed of 150, which is decent for a 210.

A picture of "Baikal international Airport." That is our fuel supply, which is pretty much the only feature of the strip.

A photo showing how you refuel out of a drum by yourself in 35 degree heat!

At Baikal I just put 50L in to get me home. Probably could have gotten home without it, but would have been on minimum fuel. The trouble with that is, around Alice Springs there are pretty much no strips nearby if you cant get in for any reason. However, in the unlimited visibility blue skies it isnt a problem most days. Although more than a few pilots have been caught out by this. As per usual i will let the photos do the talking! I even uploaded a video this time, shows me landing rwy 15 at Baikal.

4 Hours to Go!

2009-03-23T13:38:00.004+11:00

4 hours till im meant to take off too Murray Downs. It always seems like a short flight, but its the same distance of Ayers Rock to Alice Springs, about 180 miles. In a 210 thats around 75 minutes. Im not looking forward to todays flight for a few reason. Its in a plane with a new engine so im probably going to have to sit in the bumps and heat. And most likely i will get the plane ready and be at work for a few hours for a no show passenger. But such is life.

Anyway, i thought i would post some photos of last friday. I had to do a flight with one of the blokes i live with. He was flying the passenger Cheiftan and i was in the freight 210. Was a good day. We both operate efficiently and managed to get home a few minutes early. In doing so we managed to get a few photos of each other landing. I had some good opportunities to get him taking off, however my battery died as i was about to snap. Again, such is life.

Some of our photos to people who dont fly much would think they are a tad dodgy, but it was an extremely windy day and i thought we both handled it well. Its good when you fly with a mate, just makes the day go by a lot quicker. And you can have some fun!

This is the windsock at Mount Davies. I cant pronounce the Aboriginal name, although it sounds a bit like "pip-il-jarra."

An action shot of me landing at Mount Davies. As you can see by the windsock photo above, i needed some crosswind technique.

Ever wandered how much dust is blown over from a departing aircraft at all these unpaved strips we land at? Well this is an action shot Phil took of me taking off from Mount Lindsay or "Wattaru." This also demonstrates why we have to clean our aircraft so often!

I believe this shot is of yours truely taxiing out at Amata. Its the only paved community strip we goto on this run, apart from Ayers Rock and Alice Springs Airport.

An inflight shot of me in the 210 taken from the Chieftan. We were inbound to a place called Nyapari. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the stories! feel free to comment.

Thanks for reading.

VH-AJS

2009-03-16T15:30:00.004+11:00

So i lost my handheld camera.. somehow. Im not sure how it happened, but it did. So i have been forced to learn how to use my SLR. Not a bad thing, but also not that convenient to carry.

However, back to the title of the post. This is the rego of a Westwind aircraft, operated by Pel-Air, that crashed on approach into Alice Springs back in 1995. This is the ATSB report for the crash for anyone interested.

http://http//www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/1995/AAIR/pdf/aair199501246_001.pdf

I wont go into much detail with it, but it was definately something, although a tad morbid, i enjoyed researching and seeing the wreckage. They were doing a NDB/Locator approach, which used 3 different navaids, which was at the time unique to Alice Springs airport. There were a whole list of things that went wrong, however the crux of the crash was that the FO set the minimums of the approach to 2,300 feet, rather than the 3,100 required for CAT C aeroplanes. However, the captain agreed with the minimums that the FO set. They also had excessive decent rates after the final approach fix. And finally decended to the circling minima before being within the circling area, and being well below the MDA. When you see the crash site, its sad to know that if they had been around 20ft higher, they would not have collided.

This is a photo of the rock where they first collided. You can see aluminium scratch marks on the rock and then the trail of destruction begins. This is on the Northern Side of the Ilparpa range.

Some wreckage which you can follow along the trail. I have taken various shots of aircraft pieces. We found everything from the DME, to some of the cargo that was on board. Apparently when it crashed it was carrying a fair bit of money and it was said to have scattered money all over the ranges.

This photo shows you the southern side of the Ilparpa range. You can see a tiger A320 coming into land on rwy 12. The Ilparpa is on the Southern side to the Macdonnell ranges.

This is part of the main wheel and wing assembly. This is located in a small valley down the southern side of the range.

This is a piece of the fuselage. Hard to tell if its part of the cockpit section or the side, but you can see how devastating the impact was. We found one of the cockpit seats and it was almost unrecognisable as a seat.

Kiwirrkurra, 992

2009-02-25T13:46:00.004+11:00

Its been a while since my last post, but i havent been flying a whole lot and when i did, i always forgot my camera. But most of the flying was similar routes i had already spoken about. However, there is one routing which i seem to do a lot recently (3 times in a month), and a few people have dubbed me the 'Kiwirrkurra King' at work. Mainly because they think their use of alliteration is linguistic genius. So i will talk about Kiwirrkurra and all its glory. I say this sarcastically, as when one of the nurses that works there saw me taking a few photos, she asked "does Kiwirrkurra really need a photo?" I'll let you be the judge.

Kiwirrkurra is a small community located in remote Western Australia. Its vertically in line with Kununurra where i used to work, and horizontally in line with Alice Springs. Its 345nm which equates to roughly 639km as the crow flys. To drive there takes 8 - 10 hours due to the bad dirt roads. With good winds its about 2 and a bit hours to fly. With bad winds it can take nearly 3 hours to get there. I have only been into the community once and spent about an hour in the school playing soduko and listening to music while a man i had flown out inspected fire damage for insurance reasons.

So its a long flight for a small single engine plane. I have had to go there on charters and also we do a regular mail run on tuesdays called the 992 or Westmail. On the 992 we take the community bags, the Australia post mail, and supplies for the medical centre and store. This can include anything from blood samples to big tins of money. The 992 is the only C210 mailrun where we also take passengers if they book in advance. Im usually lucky and dont get too many. Only twice i have had a full bus, but only in one direction. Its rare you get passengers both ways. This is one of the few runs where taking aboriginals is better as its such a long and bumpy flight in the summer, and generally they are used to the bumps in light aircraft. Most who havent travelled in light planes leave quite a mess, if you catch my drift.

This is a photo of Lake Mackay. This is a big salt lake, which is around 90nm long, in the Great Sandy Desert. That photo actually shows the border between the Northern Territory and Western Australia, somewhere! I have seen water in it once! But it was only for a brief period.

So there isnt too much else to say about Kiwirrkurra. The photos i have taken were when a company plane was at Kiwirrkurra, so it was nice to see a familar face. Kiwirrkurra isnt too bad in the sense that the people who work there are nice and willing to help us out as much as they can. They help us refuel, and make sure our fuel stocks are always kept adequate. One of the blokes who helps me is from Texas out of all places. He is good for a chat. The photo above shows the drum we get avgas from and the pumping device for those who have never refuelled from drums. All the drums at the moment are warped from the intense heat and getting the pump to screw in can be challenging. Coupled with 40 degree heat and lots of flies, it can be very frustrating and annoying.

As usual thanks for reading. This picture above is assorted freight which i brought out. They usually put the outbound mail and freight under the tail of the plane. The other photo shows the beechcraft baron 58. Very nice aeroplane, i did my initial instrument rating in one of those. I hope to fly them for the company soon.

Lately

2009-02-13T11:42:00.004+11:00

I havent been doing all too much flying lately. However i have been doing a few more charters than im used to. In some ways its easier flying because there is less paperwork to deal with, and less stops, but also more stressful at times.

One such example was picking up 2 aboriginal kids, one from Nyrripi and the other from Yuendumu. The Nyrripi kid named Joeseph was good. He arrived on time and his family was helpful and he was talkative, telling me about his football match that he won the previous day. After briefing him on the bumps, giving him ear plugs and a bottle of water, we set off for Yuendumu. Yuendumu is a largish community, you get mobile phone reception and the strip is quite close to the airfield (also sealed!). After we got there and no passengers turned up, it became a calling game and a waiting game as a team of locals went round trying to find her. Eventually they did find her and she refused to come!! So in the end after waiting on the ground in 40 degree heat for nearly an hour, with my other passenger, we were on our way back to Alice Springs. Because of this wait on the ground in Yuendumu, we were time critical as Joseph needed to make a connecting flight to Darwin for school. This is a picture of the Nyrripi apron. You can see that it is sealed! Quite a luxury in the areas that i fly. I think there is less than 10 sealed strips in the entire surrounding area.

I also find with passengers, i must fly a lot better and think ahead about what my plan is. I try to avoid the chaotic bumps, either by extending the landing gear and slowing down early if on descent, or i will try climb as high as possible to limit the heat and bumps in the cruise. I find i fly a higher and less chaotic curcuit when i have passengers so as to not scare them with a steep turn onto finals. Little things i do in the cabin as well i try to limit. Like using the autopilot and getting extra paper work done in the cruise. Is this ok when you have 2 paying customers expecting you to fly the plane.

I had one example of this the other day when i flew a couple who didnt want to sit on a bus to Ayers Rock for 4 hours. So they hired me in my C210 to fly them there. Good charter to get, they were friendly and i even organised their car to come meet us on the apron of Ayers Rock airport. But it was a suprisingly smooth ride, and we had a good groundspeed. I had the autopilot working, and it was behaving itself. I had a fair bit of paperwork to do, and it would have been a good opportunity to get it done. However i would see this as unprofessional, not to mention unsafe if i was to bury my head in the paperwork while flying the aeroplane VFR.

Anyway, just a little food for thought. Im writing this as im on standby and have to do a charter early saturday morning. Just to Ti-Tree and back, which is maybe 2 hours flight time return, but none-the-less, still a good flight.

PowerWater Run

2009-02-11T22:04:00.005+11:00

Im back with another post, this time about the PowerWater runs. PowerWater is the main supplier of electricity and water in the Northern Territory. They are also responsible for the quality of the water in the smaller communities. This is where my company comes into it. We are chartered to fly to the communities once per month to collect water samples. These are reasonably big runs, around 5 - 7 hours per run and there are 4 different runs.

I have only done 2 of these runs. They are fairly easy to do, as all you need is a big esky to put the samples in and continue to the next stop. The paperwork is also easy too!

I have no idea where the photo below is taken, but its a suitable intro to the flight! Its very rare to land at a sealed strip. Makes it fun i guess, but i get weird when i have to land on bitumen these days.

So i have included a few more photos to tell the story for me. To start with, i will say that we had a lot of rain in the preceding few days, so 2 of the strips were closed and also my refuelling stop was underwater! (I found this out once i overflew the strip of course - So i punched on forward, knowing fuel would be marginal, but still legal if i continued)

This is a photo of the Canteen Creek community. Im pretty sure i was on finals for runway 16. Its largish community for this region! There is always a lot of freight to this community when we do the mailruns.

So here is a photo of the Canteen Creek Strip. Again, im not sure how or when i took this, but you get an idea of it. It may look like just a rough dirt strip, but its actually very well maintained and can handle a lot of rain. The people are usually friendly too!

Here is a photo of my ride today! This C210 has the most hours on it in Australia, and possibly the world. Just over 25,000 hours! Pretty amazing this plane still flys - let alone flys straight. But despite the derelict paint, its actually a great machine. Flys decently, has a good autopilot and doesnt struggle to get good speed. It is weirdly tail heavy though, so you need an extra 5 knots in the landing. Otherwise it will sink - FAST!

Onwards to Warrabri. This little box is where they put the water samples. Sometimes they will come out to meet me and hand the samples over, other times they are stored in these metal boxes with an ice brick to keep them cool in the desert heat.

I snapped this shot of the Stuart Highway. Its the main highway between Adelaide in the south and Darwin in the north. Covers around 2500km. Very well maintained and i followed it from Warrabri, to Burrow Creek, to Ti-Tree and then back to Alice Springs.

And finally i return to Alice Springs. My house is located in the cluster you see in the foreground. You can see the MacDonnell Ranges in the back ground running left to right. Behind them is the Airport. Further to the right of the photo is the only prohibited area in Australia, known as pine gap. Its some US military installation.

Anyway, i'll keep it short and sweet. Regards!

Barkly Mail

2009-02-09T12:59:00.001+11:00

So i said i would write about my trip to Tennant Creek, and here it is! The photo below shows Tennant Creek in all its glory. You can see airport in the distance. I was on base turning finals for rwy 29.

This mailrun is known as the 'Barkly.' The name Barkly refers to one of the 5 regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. Every Thursday evening to Saturday morning, my company is contracted to fly and deliver the Barkly mail which runs from Tennant Creek (YTNK) on the friday. The mail mostly goes to the remote stations located all the way towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. The township of Tennant Creek is a small town about 500km north of Alice Springs, which has a population of about 3000, making it the 5th largest township in the Territory.

So getting back to the Barkly mailrun. For this flight we need to leave on the Thursday evening and overnight Thursday night and Friday night in Tennant Creek. This due to the restrictions on our duty time. So on thursday when i arrived at our base in Alice, the weather showed bad storms in the area of Tennant Creek and the Barkly region. I did a phone around to the stops on the mailrun, and most of them (suprisingly!) reported serviceable runways. (If we can get to at least 50% of the stops then we go. Less than 50% and we cancel the run). So after preflighting the plane, refuelling and waiting for the company phone to recharge, i blasted off to Tennant Creek in the C210. I conducted the flight IFR due to the forecast weather. We fly IFR in the single engines due to them being IFR compliant with autopilots and being freight only configuration. We dont have this luxury if we are carrying passengers. A lot of people get worried about single engine IFR, and sometimes i get hesitant about it, but generally i figure "the plane doesnt know its in cloud."

The photos above show some shots of the conditions on the way up to Tennant Creek. Although its probably nothing compared to what you see when you fly long haul in jets, its still a handful in a single engine piston. The last photo shows rain and big clouds out the east as far as the eye could see. Luckily i missed flying into it by about 20 minutes, as it had just passed over Tennant Creek. When i arrived the place was virtually underwater. Flying in over the fields (its meant to be the desert!) was like flying over water and i could see the suns reflection off everything. When i arrived i was positive my mailrun flight would be cancelled for sure. Nonetheless i met up with Phil and Adrian who both work for my company and had dinner with them. Phil was covering for the aeromedical pilot in Tennant, and was flying a modified 402C, and adrian was on a Royal Flying Doctors Service charter in a Beech Baron.

When i woke up early on Friday morning, i was suprised to do the phone around and discover that only 3 out of 11 strips were unserviceable due to the rain. You have to be careful sometimes as a lot of people will tell you that their strips are ok just to get their mail. And since all the strips are dirt, its very easy to become bogged or worse, propstrike. Luckily they were being honest with me and i didnt have trouble with landing at any of the strips. In fact, at one of the stops called Kiana, i received word that a cattle station called Calvert Hills had called them to tell me that their strip had dried up enough for me to land. I usually say to people when im unsure if i can land that i expect to see that they have driven up and down the length to make sure their strip is ok and the tyre tracks arent too deep. Any tracks deeper than a 10c piece and it becomes risky to land.

However, the main places that i needed to land at for the compulsory fuel stops were ok which is the main thing. This run is impossible to do without a fuel stop, sometimes two. I'll let the pictures do the talking in describing the mailrun.

This photo was taken right after departure. The rain had made the air humid, and the desert ground was an unnatural green! However, the damp ground meant that the flight was virtually smooth. However i think i fail to recognise light bumps these days as im so used to the savageness of desert thermals.

This is a photo of the landing area of the first stop. I forget the name of this station, but they are friendly and usually get to the plane quite quickly, which makes my job a lot nicer as i dont have to deal with the flies.

This is an aerial view of Walhallow. This is the 3rd stop and we refuel here. Surprisingly they have a bowser, so refuelling is easy. The photo below shows a picture of my plane after refuelling.

As ive mentioned before we have had insane amounts of rain this year. And to highlight this, the next photo is meant to be part of the "red centre." But as you can see, its more like rolling green fields. Quite an amazing site.

The photo below is one of the last stops on my mailrun. Its called Redbank mine. This strip has been closed for about a month due to the rain. This is quite close to the Queensland border in the Gulf country, which is the far north area of the Northern Territory. Half of the strip was underwater, but i could see that the rest of the strip was serviceable, so naturally i gave landing a go! Flying a C210 the way it should be flown is always fun.

This is another photo which shows the amount of water we have had. Massive lakes! Im not sure where they were geographically, but i was pretty amazed to see roughly 20 miles of water in the middle of the desert.

So after doing the mailrun, and dodging the rain and storms all Friday, i made it back to Tennant Creek in one piece mid-afternoon. Was a good flight and logged just under 7 hours for it. When the weather is marginal, this mailrun is hard to keep legal, as its long enough that even after refuelling once, you arrive back in Tennant Creek with the minimum amount of fuel required legally. However today i needed tempo fuel as well for my return to Tennant Creek. Basically this means i needed the ability to hold for 60 minutes due to the forecast rain and storms or have a suitable alternate. The 'suitable alternates' do not exist in the desert! However, because i bypassed 2 stops with unservicable runways, it saved me enough fuel to give me the right amount to arrive at Tennant Creek with.

This is a photo of one of the cells i flew past on the way back to Tennant Creek.

Instead of continuing onto Alice Springs, we also overnight the Friday night as i previously mentioned. This is because we need to bring back the Saturday edition of the Northern Territory newspaper. These come from Darwin, and arrive at midnight in Katherine. From Katherine, they are flown to Tennant Creek, and from Tennant Creek i fly them to Alice springs, at around 6am. We have a work phone and a pilot sms's me the details of his arrival into Tennant Creek for the transfer of cargo. I usually have the plane run-up, and refuelled so i can blast off when the papers are loaded.

After having to hand fly the plane for 2 hours back to Alice Springs since my trusty autopilot wasnt being so trusty, i arrived back in one piece and unloaded the papers for delivery. Part of my saturday duty is to man the office till 1pm on the saturday. So i washed the plane which was filthy from rain, dirt and bugs, and helped a few guys out getting their planes ready.

This is a photo of final approach into Tennant Creek. I look low and i was a little bit, however for a good reason which i probably shouldnt state on this blog. You can see how my dirty my screen was due to the bugs! Was a good 3 days, but im always happy to be back from Tennant Creek. Alice Springs isnt the best place to live, but compared to Tennant Creek, its paradise.

Thanks for reading.