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Post by capflyer on Feb 15, 2011 0:42:40 GMT -5
Well, here's the trip from Alpha to Winton. The Chase Plane photographer got this pic while we were getting ready to start up. Taking off - More rain and low visibilities. Break in the rain - From the cockpit - Uggh... does it not end? We're supposed to see what in this race? The airport is out there somewhere.... I think we found it. I don't think we're quite lined up - go around. This is a bit better... Rolling out - Shutdown. Hope the wheels don't sink too low.
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uhug
Member
I‘m only retired... but not out of service!
Posts: 265
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Post by uhug on Feb 15, 2011 12:48:07 GMT -5
„a fair dinkum aussie breakfast with eggs over easy and bacon rashers“.. relaxing on the beach! At 3 pm at the strip, fuelling the aircraft and performing the pre-flight check for the final leg#10 .. all set, taxing to the active Rwy 11 Checks are done quickly in this rudimentary and tight Cockpit.. Take off at time: 5.10 pm .. heading 156° on course inbound RNAF "BCSNC" Cairns Prayer to my old engines.. don't resign! No life vest on board, and I hate sharks! "fly me to the moon!" Twilight.. .. and the world say good night! Approaching the "FAF" and checking the ATIS, my blood reaching the freezing point.. Wind: 093°at 14 gust at 20 knots. Lets calculate: 100kts. GS / heading 140° / drift left 9° / Xwind left 15 kts. Hallelujah! .. a warm and fiery welome.. but.. .. my battles are "the dark forces from the left".. The Rwy lights are too glare, and with full power I try to direct my little aircraft for runway heading.. Gosh! I made it! Nearly half past seven! What a ride.. Cairns, here I am! Andrew, you drove me crazy! ;D, but thanks al lot. It was an spectacular and instructive event.. Thank you! Well then, I like to bid farwell to participants all over the world. Thanks for all the great pictures! It was fun. Cheers from Switzerland and see you next year. Bye now.
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Post by Henk C. Hijwegen on Feb 16, 2011 8:36:48 GMT -5
DC3 PH-DDA passing Magnetic Island. Attachments:
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Post by Bill Von Sennet on Feb 16, 2011 13:36:21 GMT -5
Making circumnavigation of Magnetic Island Waypoint 2 Palm Island Waypoint 3 Ingham Waypoint 4 Innisfail
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Post by capflyer on Feb 16, 2011 14:44:50 GMT -5
Well, weather's a lot nicer today, so on to Townsville we go and the Lavarack Army Strip on the south end of town. We were asked to fly a couple hundred extra pounds of equipment from Winton for a construction company who was working on a project at Lavarack as well. After calculating our fuel requirements and checking against all of our runway data, we reluctantly agreed thinking we'd be okay as long as we didn't spend too long making our touch-and-go at Charters Towers. Once loaded up, some locals from Winton helped us out getting off the ground since our chase plane needed to take off first. One of them was nice enough to take some pics and send them in. Here's us warming up the engines Our chase plane got this great picture of us lifting off at the end of the runway. And from the ground, the local photographer got this shot as we turned towards the north. Once we got to our cruise altitude, the chase plane moved in and took a couple of photos. At Richmond, we were sent this picture as we passed overhead of the airfield. Shortly after, the chase plane got this picture. A nice "atmospheric" shot. Our intermediate stop, Charters Towers in sight. Turning to join downwind. The locals started taking pictures as our big lumbering aircraft turned final. The Chase plane got us just before touchdown. And from the ground. After leaving Charters Towers, we began looking at our fuel situation and were realizing that between the extra few hundred pounds of stuff we had onboard that we hadn't planned on and the fairly stiff headwind we'd been flying almost directly into the whole way, we were going to be really close on fuel. Consulting the charts, we were looking at only have a few minutes of usable fuel onboard when we landed, so we knew we were going to have to take it easy the rest of the way. We spend the next 20 minutes closely watching fuel burn and making small adjustments to our cruise power settings to ensure we didn't run out. Townsville in sight! We got permission from Townsville Approach to go to the east of "Antenna Hill" so that we could use the last minute descent to save a little fuel and be more direct to the airfield. Skirting past the hill The Lavarack airstrip as we start our turn to final. Rolling out on final approach The last three are a sequence from our chase plane photographer that he got from the ground. We shutdown with just a few minutes of fuel left onboard and a few pounds lighter from the sweat caused by our anxiety and the hot Australian day.
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Post by capflyer on Feb 17, 2011 19:36:19 GMT -5
Here's the big picture post (30 shots!). Leg #8 is an interesting one as Lavarack is in very close proximity to the Townsville airport, a fairly large regional airport and a major RAAF Training Base. Add to that, our directions are to fly a lap of Magnetic Island which is located almost directly off the end of the runway at Townsville, and things get interesting. But let's get off the ground first. Our chase crew decided to leave after us as they knew the departure would be interesting due to the short runway. They weren't wrong. First couple of shots are us taxiing to the end of the runway. Once lined up, we set the brakes and brought the power all the way up to 50" Manifold Pressure, quickly checked that everything looked good and released the brakes. It looks closer than it was (telephoto compression), but we didn't clear that tree by much more than about 10 feet. As we climbed out (and they climbed into their plane) they got this nice shot. They quickly caught up to us and got this picture of us backdropped by the airport. And from the cockpit, we set out sights on the SW corner of Magnetic Island Townsville Airport in the background. A few shots of our lap As we returned to the SW corner of the island, Townsville called us up and told us of a nearby aircraft. Turned out to be one of the RAAF's Hawks. Turning out from the NW corner of the island hand heading towards Palm Island From the cockpit DHC-6 just turning off the runway at Palm Island Closeup by the copilot as we make the turn over Palm Island. As we rolled out on the next leg, we get another call about traffic. This time it's an Australian Army Blackhawk. Our chase crew got this pic Coming up over Ingham. Heading north from Ingham, we found the clouds going from nice fair weather cumulus into very forboding cumulogranite. So, we turned a bit right and made sure we kept clear. Then, we approached Innisfail before turning west and inland for Chillagoe. Chillagoe is somewhere down here. Oh, there it is. On downwind. After that I didn't get any pics and our chase crew decided to head to Cairns while we completed the rest of the rally.
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Post by capflyer on Feb 17, 2011 20:59:19 GMT -5
Well, last two legs were pretty lazy, we had a bit of "get-there-itis" though, especially our chase crew who abandoned us on Leg 8, but we were lucky and got a few pics from other pilots and locals in addition to from our cockpit. Pulling out of our parking spot. Takeoff was a bit hairy. Whew, cleared the hill. Heading eastbound to the north of the field. More rain? Really? Mareeba in sight for our mandatory touch & go. A pilot took a few pictures from the ramp of our passing. Turning downwind. What a nice King Air. Final. On the go. Passing the photographer. Uh oh... cumulogranite... I climbed up to 8500 to get above the cloud layer, but closing in on the Flinders Group of islands, I had to descend back down, and was greeted with this sight. Someone on the island got a couple of shots of our passing over. 25 miles from Lizard Island, we can just make out the caldera. 10 miles from Lizard Island, we can just make out the runway. On the island, one of the residents got this picture of us through the trees on final approach. ...just before touchdown. And shutdown with the escape hatch open. One more leg to go, then it'll be back into normal service for this old bird.
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Post by capflyer on Feb 17, 2011 22:20:39 GMT -5
Well, it's finally time to reach the finish line of this month-long rally. As the afternoon sun tried to boil off the white paint from our beautiful beast, we climbed in and started up. The locals who'd watched us arrive came back to watch us depart and took a few pictures for us. Warming up the engines. Taxiing out on the grass to the runway. Lined up for departure running up the engines. Turning southbound for Cairns. Beautiful evening. 35 miles north of Cairns, I captured this beautiful image. These last images are a bit dark because, well, it was dark. Turning final following an MD-80. Taxiing towards our parking area. Shutdown on the ramp next to the old Ansett hangar. It was another great race. Now it'll be up to the mechanics to strip off the stickers and put VH-API back into normal service. Sadly, I won't be here for that as I need to get back to the US for some flight testing on behalf of one of our airlines' partners.
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Post by jazzthom on Feb 19, 2011 11:09:09 GMT -5
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Post by jazzthom on Feb 19, 2011 11:27:32 GMT -5
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Post by pterodactyl (George) on Feb 19, 2011 19:02:13 GMT -5
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Post by jazzthom on Feb 20, 2011 7:58:25 GMT -5
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Post by paulvdberg on Feb 22, 2011 9:28:58 GMT -5
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Post by rattler1 on Feb 22, 2011 12:34:00 GMT -5
Nice day to be out Touch and Go, Charters Towers "Stay below the Townsville Approach" An excuse for a bit if tree-hopping. Somewhere west of Townsville. It's not on the chart, but got a beat-up just the same. My solution to the Chillagoe hill. Land downwind. Silly place to build a runway!
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Post by Bill Hendrix (bgas046) on Feb 22, 2011 12:34:28 GMT -5
approaching YMBA for a touch and go on leg #9.
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