03.11.2012: I’m on a business trip to Australia, but managed to stay with friends over the weekend. He is just doing his PPL, and already has a kind of intermediate licence, which allows him to carry passengers but not to leave a defined area around the airport.
He is flying from Warnervale, NSW (YWVA), which lies maybe 50 km north of Sydney. Even though the weather wasn’t too good today we just had to go for a short flight around the area. Here some impressions from that flight.
First of all the airport, with a clubhouse which looks like somewhere in the outback, an impression supported by the fleet of worn out Cessnas.
We flew in a Cessna 172, which had only around 5’000 hrs on the hobbs metre, but that’s probably 15’000 or 25’000 or even more.
Here the panel, with Avionics as I have never seen them before. The radio was regularly making strange noises, and then had to be pushed back into the panel as the contacts at the rear seem to be the problem…
Ahead of us was a Jabiru, a light aircraft manufactured in Australia. That one definitely looked more modern than our Cessna.
The runway is a mixture of asphalt in the middle (with repaired potholes like on a secondary road), with shoulders made of gravel.
We took off in the direction of the coast, to first have a look at the beaches.
After following the coastline for a while we reached a power station, which marks the northern end of the area he is allowed to fly, so we turned south towards Sydney.
On one of the many lakes in the are we saw some water skiers, it’s spring here!
More to the south we reached the coast again,…
…where we could observe the surfers taking advantage of the pretty high waves.
We then passed a spot called The Entrance, where one can reach the sweet water lake on the left by boat from the sea on the right through a small outlet.
Around there we overflew two seaplanes which were just announcing their intention to land at Warnervale over the standard frequency shared by all small airports in Australia.
We then returned back to Warnervale, here two shots of the airport on final.
I actually should have started working for a project in Australia next January, but that has been delayed. Anyway I have all the paperwork ready to endorse my licence again, so that I can fly myself the next time I come here. If my friend has his full PPL by then we might be able to do some longer tours into the outback.
16.11.2012: I’m back in Switzerland, where I learned that the SportCruiser model plane kits Urs and I have ordered arrived. Today I went to fetch them, here a picture of the quite large box:
It’s my Christmas present, so I have to wait a bit to unpack it, but that gives me time to order all the other bits I need such as motor, batteries and remote control. You can build it with either combustion or electric engine, but I will go for the electric version.
For those who are interested, here the link to the manufacturer:
http://www.seagullmodels.com/