Gold Coast to Hamilton Island in a DHC-2 Beaver

[Barefootpilot]

Recently I was asked to ferry a freshly refurbished De Havilland Beaver just imported into Australia from the Gold Coast to Hamilton Island for Hamilton Aviation. After a false start a couple of weeks ago with some paper work issues we managed to get away last Monday.

 

After a proving flight around the Gold Coast making sure everything was as it should be we set off North with the Chief Pilot of Hamilton Aviation, the new Pilot for the company and myself. The idea was to get the new Pilot as much time on type as possible so he was in the left seat with me in the right making sure he didn’t try and bend the new toy! Perfect weather and a slight head wind meant that we got a ground speed of about 95kts at 2500’ with a fuel burn of just over 100ltrs an hour! Boy I’m glad I wasn’t paying the fuel bill! As we didn’t manage to get away until after lunch on Monday we decided to stop at Gladstone for the night. After managing to find a hotel for the night (not an easy feet) we settled in for a few beers and a good dinner before retiring for bed and an early start the next day.

 

Weather wasn’t the best leaving out of Gladstone and we where down to 500’ for about an hour as we went through Rockhampton following the river and the Bruce highway. The weather started to clear about 40 miles north of Rocky and we climbed up to 1000’ and sat back and enjoyed the views as we slowly made our way north. We stoped in the Mackay to put Adam – The CP into the left seat so he could fly the new toy into Hamilton Island.

 

Once we arrived at Hamilton Island and everyone had a good look through the new toy we did a quick photo shoot with a R44 and then I set about the task of converting the CP and his line Pilots onto the Beaver. They are pretty experience so it only took a couple of hours to get them familiar with the old girl and then I spent the next day training the new Pilot who was pretty low time but managed to get onto of it after a few hours.

 

All in all I flew 17.5 hours in 3.5 days the ferry flight was just under 7 hours and we burnt about 750lts over that time! The aircraft performed flawlessly and was one of the nicest Beavers I have flown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spin]

Great report, always more fun when somebody else is paying for that sort of fuel flow!

 

 

[dazza 38]

Thanks mate for sharing, i enjoyed that story and Photos.

 

 

[Barefootpilot]

The aircraft is from the states it has just had a rebuild by Wipeair. We run 29" and 1900 RPM for cruise which normally give you between 95kts and 105kts depending on the aircraft and how straight it is! I'm not totaly sure about the $$ but it would have been in the 500 - 600k by the time it landed in Oz.