Over the Farm

I haven't taken up any passengers yet in Squibby (apart from Simon, who, as the previous owner, doesn't really count as a passenger).

I decided to take advantage of a quiet Tuesday at the office, with a beautiful day outside, to fly back to Narrogin, and take my Dad up for a flight.

I have flown with my Dad (who I call Bob - have done since I could talk), a couple of times before, when I was learning to fly. I've taken him from Perth to Katanning and back, then from Wagin to Jerramungup to Perth. But they were years ago.

The plan was to pick him up at the Narrogin strip, and fly to the farm, which is about 15 nm to the South, and have a bit of a look around.

Last time we visited my folks on the farm, Bob took us out on the back of the ute, to look at where he's planning to put an airstrip. At the moment, the strip passes through three different paddocks, so it's no small job to reorganise - it will need a lot of re-fencing. We drove along it, measuring out the distance, and ended up with approximately 1500 metres in length, and as much width as you could want. Virtually completely flat. I was calculating that you could probably get a jumbo jet in and out of this strip. Bob says: "yep, I reckon that should be long enough for you."

Before leaving Jandakot, I got my tanks filled to the brim - about 120 litres in each.

The trip was nearly over before it began - I had real trouble starting the engine. I don't have the knack of knowing what the problem is yet. I don't know if it's flooded, and I should lean the mixture, or if it's not getting fuel, and I should go full rich and prime the engine. I foolishly tried a mixture of both, and had three or four long cranks. The speed of the cranks was slowing down, and I realised the battery was running down fast. I just about gave up, then realised I somehow hadn't turned the fuel pump on. I did that, and cranked one last time, and the engine caught. It took about 10 minutes before the ammeter went back to zero - the alternator had a lot of recharging to do once the engine was running.

I have this fear of flattening the battery when stuck at some remote strip - but fortunately once the engine is warm, I've never had any trouble starting it.

There was an unusually strong southerly wind, which mean the cross runway 12 was the duty runway. This always makes things busy, because instead of having two duty runways, you only have one, meaning depatures and arrivals are mixing in with circuit training.

I was departing via Armadale, and runway 12 points you in just about exactly the right direction. You can pretty much maintain runway heading all the way. Even with full tanks, it was just me in the cockpit, so take-off was pretty easy, just launched into the air.

I was just levelling off, when Jandakot Tower contacted me:

"SQB, report present altitude"

"1100, SQB"

"SQB, control zone altitude is 1000"

"1000, SQB - apologies."

I had not levelled off quickly enough from my climb, and shot past 1000, but this was the first time, in all my flights, I had ever been warned by the tower - so I was a bit surprised.

Just north of Armadale is a new man-made lake. I don't know what it's for.

When able, I climbed to 1500 by the time I reached Armadale, then climbed up to 3500 ft. It was a beautiful day, and I know the way to Narrogin visually by now. So I have to say my flight planning was a bit slack today, I had a rough line on my map, and just followed it. I didn't do my 10-minute markers, or any of the procedures I was taught to do. In fact, there were so many lines I'd drawn on my map (from old flights) that I had a lot of trouble telling which was mine. During flight I decided I'd become too slack, and I will resume planning properly in future.

Anyway, it was an uneventful flight, I flew straight over Wandering, and on to Narrogin. I was flying into a 20 knot headwind the entire flight, so flight time was more than 70 minutes, where it's usually under an hour.

It's a very sunny day. We're at the end of summer, so the paddocks are about as bare as they get.

My parents were waiting at the strip, looking out for for me, because they wanted to watch me land. Somehow I managed to arrive, circle over the strip, land, and they only noticed me when I was taxiing in to park right next to the ute. I don't know what happened.

So without messing around, Bob jumped in, and we were ready to take off. We took off on the gravel to the south, which points us towards the farm. We levelled off at around 1000 AGL (2000 AMSL). Bob loved how much he could see from up here. He could see all the neighbours' farms, who was building what, and so on. Within a few minutes we were over our part. The folks have been building a new house on the farm, and you could see the shiny tin roof from miles away. As we flew overhead Bob could see which builders were there today (progress has been very slow on this house). We flew up to the shearing shed, and started to look for the workers in the paddocks. We saw someone in a truck driving along. Apparently Tim, my brother, was at the shearing shed waving, but we didn't see him.

Bob wanted to fly over some of the CALM (government-controlled) land which connects two of our blocks. In the past Bob has got in trouble for making tracks through that bushland, without permission. He wanted to see how visible the tracks were from the air. The answer was that they were highly visible. "You can't hide much from up here" was Bob's comment.

Then we flew over our neighbouring cousin's farm, Yarranabee, and over their lake, before heading back over our farm again. Unfortunately, I had given my camera to Bob, and we were both too engrossed to remember to take photos, because we would have got some really good ones.

The other thing Bob commented on was the salt - you can see very clearly which parts of the farm are salt-affected, and it's pretty grim seeing it all at once. But there's been a lot of tree planting in the salty parts, and those trees are coming up well.

The other things that stand out were all Bob's bulldozing and grading efforts. He has done a lot of contour work around the dams, and has made a big road between the original house and the new house. These all stand out from miles away.

We decided to fly out over Highbury, then to Narrogin, then back to the airstrip. Highbury looks much neater and cuter from the air than when you drive through it. The tennis courts are the most visible feature from the air.

Towns never look as big from the air as I expect. Old Narrogin was looking quite small, because you can see all the boundaries at once.

I was happy to do a really nice landing back at the Narrogin airstrip, Bob was impressed.

Now it was mid-afternoon, and time for me to head back to Perth. Bob said "I can see why you like flying" - he really enjoyed seeing everything from above. It's true - you get a different perspective on the world.

The flight back to Perth was much quicker, because now I had a strong tailwind. Again, I knew the way and hardly needed my map.

Coming back to Perth, you hit the forest. This is what I was nervous about crossing, back during the ferry flight when the engine was going bad.

At the end of the forest, the hills let down onto the coastal plain. Now you're nearly home.

At Jandakot everything was still on runway 12. From overhead I was told to join downwind. I turned and headed to join mid-downwind. Just as I was about to turn left and join downwind, Tower told me to make a left turn - it seemed like they were not sure what I was doing. I think everyone is edgier on runway 12, and the tower seems to watch closely for people getting confused, because this is the second time they told me what to do today.

I was very distracted during final approach - I was worrying about things I shouldn't have been worried about - the guy in front of me, the guy behind me... I let my speed get too high on short final, so when I rounded out I was going too fast. I didn't handle the long float very well, and ended up doing several bounces on touching down, and applying power to control the bounce. It was probably the worst landing I've done yet in Squibby. I hate doing such a bad landing, and I was feeling a bit tired and worn out as I taxiied back.

When runway 12 is in action, they still let fast aircraft (jets and turboprops) land on 06L, so you have to get permission to cross that runway on the ground frequency. I hadn't listened to the ATIS properly, and asked for permission to cross 06R. So for the third time today, the tower corrected me about what I should be doing, so it wasn't my best day in the Jandakot control zone. At least I got a lot of refreshment on procedures for runway 12 - I haven't operated on that runway for about 8 years.

Still disappointed at my landing (and glad I didn't have any passengers for that one), I tied up and went home. It was still a great day - three hours flying on a beautiful day. Taking Bob over the land he's farmed his entire life was pretty special. But I was pretty tired by the end of it.

Now I have to get back in the saddle soon, because after a landing like that, the last thing I want to do is stay on the ground and think about it too much.

New Headsets

I discovered eBay this week. I've never had a need to discover it up until now, but I decided to look for headsets on eBay - after checking my local shop for it first.

After a few disappointing misses, got two sets from a nice chap in the US. He was selling both pairs because he was giving up flying. I've never had any problem with second-hand microphones or or earphones. So I got two barely-used David Clark sets:

• H10-13.4
• H20-10

for US $120 each, plus shipping which was another $30.

Buying these brand new at my local shop would have cost me $600-$700 each, so it's quite a saving.

Now it's a case of waiting till they arrive.

Beautiful Rottnest Island

I was keen to take my business partner, Dan, up in Squibby. When I bought Squibby, I realised that I would have to make an effort to fly it enough. It's easy to get so busy that a month goes by without making the effort - whereas both Simon and the Aero Club have told me that aircraft love to be flown - they don't like to sit there for weeks and weeks. That's where you get problems like corrosion. After replacing all four cylinders recently - I am painfully aware (so is my bank balance) of the problems that arise if your engine starts to get corrosion.

So, I've been trying to set up 'structures', to ensure that I fly regularly. By structures, I mean parts of my life that are set up so that I automatically have to fly. One such structure is a regular meeting. Because Dan & I work out of my home, we're very flexible in our working hours. Also, because all of our work is computer based, we're not tied to any location. So we're planning to spend half a day at Rottnest Island with our laptops every week or fortnight. Basically, we'll relocate our office to Rottnest for a morning.

Today was a dry run - It was Easter Friday, so technically we were on holidays. But we decided to get over to Rottnest. This would

• check whether Dan even likes flying
• remind me how to get to Rottnest
• test whether Rottnest is a suitable working location. By suitable, I mean there's a place where we can sit for a number of hours, with a good view, which serves good coffee. And it should be within walking distance of the airstrip.

I have to report that we got a home run - Dan loved flying (he also took a heap of photos, which you see here), there were no problems getting into Rottnest, and we set up at the Dome cafe - and it was perfect.

Doing preflights. It's an idyllic day. One of China Southern's Citation jets is in the background.

I thought Dan was being pretty artistic to get this along-the-wing shot. I like it.

Rottnest is only about 10 nautical miles off the coast of Perth. Even in slow old Squibby, that's about 6 or 7 minutes over water. Total flight time is around 15 minutes. If anything - it's too close! I haven't been to Rottnest much before - but for a lot of Perth families it's a favourite holiday location. The usual way to get there is by ferry. A nice thing about the island is that cars aren't really allowed. There are one or two courtesy buses, but apart from that, travel is by bicycle. You hire your bike when you get there. Rotto, as it is called, has roads to every little bay all around the island, and is pretty idyllic.

Jandakot was the quietest I've ever seen it. I thought it would be packed, because holidays generally are a great chance for everyone to go flying - and it was a perfect day. But in fact, it was nearly dead. Every business, including the Aero Club, was closed down for the day. It was pure luck that there was a man in the Aero Club building who had been flying that morning, who was able to sign me out a pair of lifejackets.

I still had 70 Litres in the Right tank, and 50 in the Left, from my trip to Narrogin last week, so I didn't need any more to get to Rottnest. I checked the oil and it's only dropped from 8 to 7.5 litres in about 6 hours since Squibby came out of the hangar - so I'm getting virtually zero oil loss, which is good.

The easy way to get to Rotto is by staying at or below 2000 ft. Any higher, you have to think about controlled airspace, which is a bit much effort for only a minute or two. But according to our laws, 2000 ft is the height where we have to wear life jackets. The definition of wearing is pretty vague - these life jackets are packed into a brick-sized block. Unpacking it leads to a $75 repacking fee, so there's a big incentive to leave it packed. It has a strap, so you wear that block strapped to your waist during flight.

I've been a bit worried about starting Squibby since my last flight. I did three priming pumps, and it took two long 15 second cranks to start. When it's cold, I have trouble. It only took a few minutes of warming up before we were ready for takeoff. There was a gentle easterly, so we took off on 06L.

It's fascinating to fly with someone who hasn't been in a small aircraft before - it's always interesting to hear what they notice. Dan said later that he was surprised how much we bump around just after lifting off. It was a pretty normal takeoff, although there was a slight crosswind I guess.

Dan's self-portrait during flight. He likes the headset.

As we wheeled around to face Fremantle, I could hear Dan snapping away on the camera. After only a couple of minutes, we were over Freo. Dan had a great view of the city out to his right. Unfortunately his side window has a number of cracks (my side is brand new with no blemishes), which affects photo-taking out that side.

We're heading west at 1500 feet. Looking north, past the Swan River, up the coastline.

The only traffic was a helicopter at our height heading north up the coast, but Radar warned us about each other, and we were separated by a fair way. Then we were over water. I had about a minute to appreciate the scene - there was a constant stream below us of boats heading to and from Rottnest - on days like this it's a favourite destination - there seemed to be very little swell. By boat this crossing takes usually an hour or so, so our 7 minute crossing means we overhaul all the boats as though they're standing still.

I just like this photo - I like the glistening water.

Almost as soon as you cross the coast, you have to dial up the Rottnest CTAF frequency, and make your 10 nm inbound call. As we approached the island, there was a single aircraft backtracking for takeoff on 09. We could see it taking off as we joined right downwind for 09. Because the main settlements are North of the runway, we do right-hand circuits for 09 to avoid overflying those.

Excuse the scratchy windshield, we're approaching Rotto into the sun. The airstrip is right next to the big lakes in the middle. On the right, the bay is full of boats.

Swell rolling in as we circle around to land.

Dan said later that he was surprised and a little concerned when I powered right back, going onto base. His first thought was that we wouldn't make it to the runway. Now he's experienced it, he won't be worried in the future, but he was surprised. We got some slight bumps and sink as we came in on final over the dunes, but Rottnest is a very nice strip, and the landing was fine.

Turning back onto final approach. We're landing on runway 09, ie we're facing east, so we're looking back to the mainland. You don't realise how much of Rotto is lakes. Strip is at the top-right, next to the lake.

Just a shot of the runway. It's fun to land here - I like the lake.

It was very nice to pull up in the parking area, lock up Squibby, and just start strolling to the settlement. It's only a 600 metre walk to the main settlement, so within a couple of minutes we were sitting down in the main cafe, looking out over the water back to the city. It's pretty neat.

Map of the main settlement. It's a great place to ride around.

Everyone was very much in holiday mode, so we felt a bit criminal pulling out laptops and getting to work. But we got some really useful planning done, for the next month or so. It was just a really pleasant afternoon - it felt like we'd travelled 100 miles from the city, even though it was only 10 minutes.

This is the view from the cafe - looking back towards the city.

Every man and his dog brings his boat to Rotto at Easter time.

When we were ready, about mid-afternoon, we got up, strolled around the settlement for the next few minutes, then wandered back to the airstrip. We saw the Rottnest Air Taxi guy flying around.

Walking past the lakes...

... as we stroll back to the strip.

Ant getting the Musketeer ready for departure.

Those yellow bricks are the lifejackets. We each wear one during flight.

A quick takeoff, this time on 27 (sea breeze was starting to come in), and we wheeled around to aim for Fremantle again. We had a really good look around this time (Dan was taking less photos, and I knew exactly where I was going this time). We could see Garden Island, which has a big naval base to our south. It's the home of a few Collins Class submarines, which stand out like anything from above, but we couldn't see any from where we were. The trip was about a minute slower, because we didn't have the tailwind.

Gently turning after takeoff.

Last view over my shoulder, as we leave Rotto for today.

Again, Jandakot was quiet - from Adventure World we were cleared to join final and land. On Jandakot they were still landing on 06, so I may have had a slight tailwind during landing, I definitely floated for ages - maybe I just came in a bit fast. Anyway, eventually Squibby was ready to settle down, and I did an OK landing, but I took up about half of the long runway.

Lined up on finals at Jandakot - rwy 06L ...

...about to round out.

Put Squibby to bed, and Dan & I were very happy with how the afternoon went - definitely something we want to do more of in the future. Rotto will be a good destination for future trips.

Another Trip to the Office

Negotiating with the fuel man. It's very convenient that they drive right up to your aircraft. This man arrived in less than a minute.

A bit cloudier than the other day, but still looking good.

One day I'm going to get a good picture of these Nanchangs. Here's a pair of them coming in to land. They land in tight formation on the same runway. They are clearly excellent pilots.

Wheeling around to the west, facing the coast. Some golf course in the foreground.

Crossing the coast, looking north.

Approaching Rotto.

Looking up to the west end of the island, which is called West End, apparently.

Wheeling around onto final.

About to round out.

We're about to cross the coast at Fremantle. You can see Perth city in the distance.

This is as close to the city as we get, as we approach Jandakot via Fremantle. The bridge in the foreground is Mt Henry, the one beyond is Canning Bridge.

06L is a lot wider than 06R. I forgot that.

Weather Beats Us

My jet-setting friends Andrew and Jennifer were in town. They have been working in Europe for several years, and are moving to New York. While in town, I wanted to take them for a flight.

I had double-motive for taking them. I was hoping to learn about making movies - both the filming and the editing - so we decided to make a movie of the flight. Again, I decided Rotto would be a good destination.

Unfortunately, despite forecasts, the weather just would not lift, and there was constant low 800 ft cloud drifting in from the west. After waiting around for a couple of hours, we decided to abort the flight, which was quite disappointing. I think they still found it fun coming to the airport - there's always something interesting to look at - and we got out to Squibby and walked around it (I needed to clean the windshield). But we were stuck on the ground.

They did take some interesting photos though. They're good at things like that, I can't tell why their pictures look so much better than mine. Dan tells me it's because of the 'law of thirds'. Maybe.

Optimistically cleaning the windscreen, in case we actually get off the ground.

The weather we'd be flying into, to the west.

Squibby doesn't look this shiny in real life. It must be a good camera.

I was hoping to squeeze in another flight with them before they left, but there was just no way.

Next time.