Weather or not?

[kaz3g]

Well, wouldn't you know it?

 

Melbourne has a certain reputation with regards its weather and I live just 50 km out so, while accepting its ideosyncracies, do so with occasional frustration.

 

I am finally taking some leave after 2 years without getting away. I spent the first week of my holidays (fine and warmish, but windy) doing heaps of chores around home. I cleaned up the head of a big living tree that came down in the wind and burned it along with a pile of blackberries my sister had cut out. A couple of large, dead, red stringys had also fallen and we now have a full wood shed for the first time in a long while.

 

The last few days, I have been watching the weather forecasts and today was going to head off to Temora for the next flying day. Thought I might then go over to Griffith via Leeton for a CASA safety seminar. At least that's what I had planned...

 

I have been sitting up in bed procrastinating about the weather which has been deterorating ever since first light this morning. A few minutes ago, there was a very loud bang from the north of here.

 

 

Mandy shot off the bed and my sister's dog (a man-eating ridgeback/doberman) tried to shoot under it! The isolated thunderstorms forecast for later today seem to have arrived a tad early.

 

So here I sit, dreaming about what might have been and wondering whether or not I should have gone yesterday!

 

kaz

 

 

[Bryon]

Kaz3g,

 

you should have gone friday, it was better weather than yesterday:roflmao:

 

 

[farri]

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Kaz, Jump on any RPT, come on up to Deeral and we`ll go up in the Drifter!.... The weather will be 5/10 kts all week!!!!...........

 

Frank.

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

If you wanna fly in Melbourne, take leave in April and November!:thumb_up:

 

 

[kaz3g]

If you wanna fly in Melbourne, take leave in April and November!:thumb_up:

Hellow Howie

 

I just got to the stage where I had to take some holidays... either that or bust!

 

Yes, April and November are usually stable months although April is the more reliable of the two I seem to recall.

 

I went for a local flight early last week when the strong northlies were blowing and it felt like I'd hit a wall at about 50' on takeoff. Turbulent doesn't describe it.

 

I bounced and shook around the circuit and decided enough was enough. Just about to put the wheels on the deck and got thrown up and down, then sideways by a really strong gust. Still pointing down the runway and decided to persevere rather than try to go around at that late stage. Was very glad to be back on the firma because the terra wasn't all that far away at the time.

 

Is it just me or are we really seeing more extreme weather events than we used to? I'm not talking about the Black Saturdays or massive Qld floods which are at the polar ends of things; it just seems we are having unusually hot or cold days and nights, long periods without significant rain and then a deluge or three, and really strong winds or none at all.

 

It's all very curious...

 

kaz

 

 

[kaz3g]

Yeh Kaz, I'm kinda learning the way it works down here, took my missus for a lap around the city in CMZ on Sunday , was looking good till we turned for coldstream only to have a wall of rain before us, turned around and figured I could shoot up the eastern side of the range ,nope more crap, ended up having lunch at morrabbin while it did it's stuff, ended up scooting back in with fairly clear weather . The hills and valleys here have some interesting dynamics ,the guys at coldstream reckoned it was fine their side and it good on my side but there was a line of low cloud and rain between the dandenongs and hills west of lilydale .

Hi metalman

 

It was like that on Saturday, too. A couple of the guys drove up from the Peninsula via MBN and they said it was really nasty to the south. I could see a solid blanket of rain extending west of Mt D and right along the Divide to the east, yet it didn't seem too bad at all to the northwest.

 

Just as the hill to the east of YCEM has two peaks - Steele's Hill and Bryarty's Hill - so the mountain we all call the Dandenongs also has two peaks - Mt Dandenong and Mt Corhanwarrabul. The latter is the site of the Kyeema crash which occurred in 1938. The DC2 with 18 souls on board flew into the western face of Corhanwarrabul about 50' below the peak in heavy cloud which they had encountered over much of their journey from Adelaide. Tragically, the captain had misidentified Sunbury as Daylesford through a small break in the cloud. All on board died and the resultant inquiry led to the formation of the Dept of Civil Aviation and introduction of a system of air traffic control. Some years later, Macarthur Rob stated that: "The Kyeema air disaster was the most influential event in Australian aviation history; it changed forever aviation as we knew it".

 

http://www.hawkerscholarship.org/download/Kyeema%20Air%20crash%20Address.pdf

 

Kyeema, however isn't the only one claimed by the Mt. on 26 March 1942, an RAAF Lockeed Hudson crahed in the Dandenongs at Kallista. And on April 12, 1962, Ron Flockhart, Scottish race car driver, died when his borrowed Mustang P-51 propeller-driven aircraft spun out of a cloud into the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne. The crash was blamed on Flockhart's lack of experience with instrument flying as well as his little working knowledge of the borrowed plane.

 

 

 

You did the right thing... it's good to stay away from, clouds 'cause you never know what they might hide.

 

Cheers

 

kaz

 

 

[.Evan.]

Living here in Ballarat, I've learned that you must take the opportunities as they come up (especially this time of year!). If you let that one perfect day pass, you can almost guarantee that the actual day you've booked the aeroplane will be s:censored:thouse!