Over Many Seas in Many, Many Jets

Just before Christmas, I received a phone call from Wal at Rotax in Lilydale, inviting one Sport Pilot journalist to attend a new engine launch in March.

In Austria.

After battling it out with Mr Bigg - see photo - he decided I could go (something about a twenty four hour flight in economy for a two day trip not being all it's cracked up to be...) Before I'd even launched into the second verse of the Sound of Music, I had replied to the invite and had my ticket booked and confirmed. Rotax, near Wels, just north of Salzburg, would accommodate me (and several hundred others from the aviation industry) for the two nights over the junket. Around that, I decided to build a trip....

My daughter, Bird (13), was studying the Renaissance and so it seemed only fair she joined me, at least to visit Italy. And then, I have my cousin Jody in Vienna, and, ooooh, looky, an invite from Diamond to tour their factory in Wiener Neustadt. And, here's another from Pipistrel in Slovenia....

And so, drawing upon my Inner Austrian (my mother is from Villach) I made it happen. Bird would go to Cardiff for the work portion of the trip, and we would reconvene in Venice (with my best friend and her daughter) for the holiday portion of the trip.

The world laid out on an atlas seems titchy. When you're sitting on a fully booked-no-upgrades-available 777 for twenty four hours, it seems massive. What a ridiculous choice of aircraft to use on the longest possible distance across the earth. Rotax had booked me with BA, and I'd forgotten how dingy a carrier Birdseed is. Nonetheless, something about gift horses and mouths made me crack open a packet of Restavit, swill it down with a double Bloody Mary and attempt a semblance of sleep to blot out the hour upon hour in a rigid seat blocked in by a large Scottish lady over whom I had to vault for my two hourly visits to the loo. The only time I count my blessings for my short straw in the genetic height lottery is when I'm on a long haul flight...

At Singapore, I was a zombie, falling asleep on lounges and showing an unusual lack of interest in duty free shopping. Bird kept a vigil when I declared we should lie down for a bit, lest we missed the next fourteen hour portion of the flight. When we boarded for the second leg, the Restavit truly kicked in and I passed out for seven hours, only to be woken by Birdseed's sick idea of breakfast.

In the nick of time, when you declare you cannot take another minute of air conditioning, the smell of bowels and eggs combined and that irritating video detailing the distance to run, time at origin and OAT, the captain gives you a minute's voice time to tell you we're landing in twenty minutes, ahead of schedule in London where the weather is cloudy and three degrees.

It's a strange feeling returning to your country of origin - where you understand every nuance and dialect and custom - and not leaving the airport. As we landed at 04.10, whomever is in charge of employing customs officials obviously decided paying overtime to get more than two to process the morning's flights of four hundred plus people would be an indulgence. At six am, after queuing for an hour and forty minutes, eight officials arrived and processed the entire line in ten minutes. The customs official was suspicious of my length of stay and asked what kind of person would come all the way from Australia, not actually visit Britain and then dart around Europe for six days? One who grew up in Wales and would rather see Italy than the tired and familiar shores of Blighty, perhaps?

Having cleared customs to put Bird on the coach to Cardiff, we waited at the bus station for the national express, taking in the various accents and layers of clothing, with me trying to remember who declared the British a "Nation of Anorak Wearers"?.....and Bird declaring she'd never felt cold like it, and me repressing the parent-like comment of "cold? This is not cold. You don't know cold til you've grown up in a council house without central heating having to sleep in a bobble hat.."

Luckily, at that timely moment, the bus drew into the bay and the chirpy Welsh driver grabbed Bord's luggage, telling her to keep the ticket "by her" and whisked her away to Cardiff, leaving me free to find terminal five and my onward flight to Munich.

The Perfect Passenger

A while back, to make up for my general slackness in getting involved in my daughter's school, I offered a flight over Sydney Harbour as a raffle prize at a school function. Many months passed, and eventually I heard from the winner, Katherine, who had purchased the ride for her son, Wesley.

As anyone living north of Victoria knows, La Nina has been dotty this year, with hot muggy days and long afternoon rains, followed by windy days, months of cloud and even more rain. All in all, pants weather for flying. So, it wasn't until last week that Wesley and his father Bob were free at the same time as myself and my trusty flying machine SFR. We agreed to meet at Bankstown, and, as it turned out, it was Ms Nina's rostered day off - for the second time this season.

I was expecting a child, of course, but young Wesley was in fact only seven. He was, however, the smartest, most well behaved seven year old I have ever, ever encountered. He asked only intelligent questions - some I truly had to think about before answering, others I really enjoyed, such as how lift is created, and why we put a cover over the pitot.

We had truly splendid weather - with an afternoon storm forecast, of course - but fine that morning, with the air as calm as a surgeon's hands. Young Wesley was interested in every process of the flight - the radio calls, the instrument panel, the headsets- but nothing was more delightful than his reaction on take off: he shrieked with delight and pointed out how everything was so small. I had indulged him (well, myself really) with a big "wheeeeee" on take off, in case he was nervous (and because it's how I do it when solo) and, refraining from a verse of Come Fly With Me, I continued on with my tour Pilot's job of pointing things out from the sky.

Although it was a splendid day, and the Harbour was busy, we received clearance to go straight into the harbour. Much to Wesley's delight there was a huge ocean liner at the quay. After a few orbits, we headed back to Bankie, just as the weather was showing signs of grumbling.

The circuit was busy, with everyone having the same idea of putting their wheels on the ground before the brewing storm. As we were on base, the wind had backed, and the tower called a downwind of five to seven knots with an option to go around and change directions. By the time the call was processed, I was established on final, and committed to the landing, which was a strange experience. Used to having the wind on my nose to slow me down, I usually make it off the runway opby the first or second exit. With a slight tailwind, I drifted until the fourth exit. But, as we all know, as the only thing a pilot is remembered for is their landing, I made it a good one.

And then I heard those joyous words from little Wesley, "how old do you have to be to learn to fly?" and I remembered why I get out of bed at daybreak to take 700kg of metal up into the sky. Blow me down, I think I might have inspired my first ever future pilot. I sang all the way home...

Sticky Flaps

And so, the time has come. Having blown every cent earned from the sale of the bookshop, and unable to hire my beloved Archer on a dep ed's wage, the search for a cheaper aircraft has inevitably commenced.

The Sharp Eyed Scotty, always on full alert for a bargain, spied an ad in Eddie's coffee shop and urged me to respond.

"Cessna 150 for private hire. $110 wet. Bankstown."

I phoned the owner Mat - a LAME for Aeromilpacific, which is exactly the occupation a hirer desires from an aircraft owner, and arranged a flight check. He suggested I fly with an instructor, rather than him, so I booked my fave fella, Conrado from Schoies.

Mr Sticky Flaps

So, on a yucky day, Conrado and I flew to the training area to give Cessna 150 HPU a whirl.

Now, I wasn't expecting fast and I wasn't expecting modern, but I can see I have become used to "luxury" aircraft after my time in SFR. That said, HPU is comfortable, and has more instruments than I get when I fly over at Recreational Aus. The ADF was of a type so old I had never seen it before (it had a tuning scale, like on an old transistor radio) but then, until recently I did have a policy of not flying in aircraft as old as myself. However, I cannot afford to be la-di-da, and thus decided to focus on the merits of the aircraft.

Truth be told, I've never much liked Cessnas. Fact is, though, they're the Toyotas of the aircraft industry; ubiquitous, cheap and, allegedly, as easy to fly as the Warrior. For me, the high wing is a pain to refuel, requiring a ladder, and the wearing of trousers and flat shoes. The Vernier throttle is anti intuitive and the high wing configuration seems to make the aircraft float for ever on landing.

I knew, though, it was time to get over such predujices. And so, as Conrado and I walked around the aircraft, I tried to appreciate the differences. Two doors! Better visibility! A rear window! Electric flaps!

On take off, she climbed quite well considering her titchy little engine; certainly no worse than a 150 hp old Warrior. And although her cruise was no more than 90 knots - and in a strong headwind you'd be flying backwards - she was comfortable and sedate (qualities I adore in an aircraft). We took her up for a stall, and she was polite and well behaved. We did a few steep turns to get me used to the different attitude of a high wing, and then pulled out the flap for a "dirty" stall and a little bit of slow flight.

Conrado and I have a bit of a history of inflight disasters, so I really oughtn't have been surprised when the flaps wouldn't retract. Last time we flew together we couldn't lower the undercarriage, and the time before that we had a radio failure. So when the flaps simply wouldn't go up, we just grinned. "They'll go in a minute. We'll give it another go"

Nopes. Nothing. Well and truly stuck.

Being closer to Camden than Bankstown, we decided to land and get them looked at by a LAME. It took us 25 mins to get to Camden at 42 knots! I alerted the tower to our predicament, and he gave us a straight in. The final approach seemed to go on for ever, as Conrado said, "don't get too high, we have absolute no chance of a go around. We have to get it down first time"

Luckily, Camden has at least 1400m of runway, so I was pretty confident we'd have no trouble landing. As we exited the runway, the tower remarked it was the longest time ever from the reporting point to the threshold. As we taxied to the maintenance hangar, Conrado tried the flaps one more time, and 'zip' up they came.

Damn Cessnas! Nonetheless, I'll be back for more, no doubt about it....

And, as all good things do, it came to an end. In the wettest summer since last summer, Robbs and I had bagged ourselves a blissful week of weather (note to self: fly with Christians; they always seem to have great weather god credit)

After tying up SFR, and pondering on how soon I could afford to book her again, I mused on how lucky I am to get out and about as much as I do with pilots of experience, such as Robbs (who says things like, "why don't you get Brisbane centre to give you radar vectors back to Bankstown?" and other such big-thinking American things).

While having a post flight coffee and full fat coke at Eddie's, Robb's spied a notice advertising a C150 for private hire, at $110 wet, and all of a sudden the possibility of my next adventure began to emerge...