Hi from French Island

[Mike Gearon]

I’m just back from Nebraska. 3 months fairly constant effort and finally have PPL. Includes night flying which doesn’t seem to be an option here on RaaAus conversion. Night flying in the remote mid west wasn’t much fun anyway with few lights after take off.

 

Looking at at possibilities of planes for the Island. See pic with north south runway possibility.

 

 

 

[prwood]

Hi Mike, you appear to be near a mate of mine ,Paul Madigan. We have flown in to one of his paddocks years ago. Also landed at a strip near the North coast & the prison airstrip when it was operational.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Welcome home Mike, did you receive my last PM?

 

I hope to be down that way late Jan or Early Feb next year.

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

Hi Mike, you appear to be near a mate of mine ,Paul Madigan. We have flown in to one of his paddocks years ago. Also landed at a strip near the North coast & the prison airstrip when it was operational.

 

Yes. Paul is an interesting character ? 

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

Welcome home Mike, did you receive my last PM?

 

I hope to be down that way late Jan or Early Feb next year.

 

Yes. Sorry I’ve been travelling Nebraska back to the island. Just arrived and responded.

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

Airstrip and AirBNB fly in possibilities. Note the house features on Grand Designs Australia. Episode 12 of season 7.

 

options to view

 

1. Free.... low quality YouTube version...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6nVVT6mVn8

 

 

 

2. iTunes Store 4 dollars 

 

Grand Designs Australia, Series 7 by Grand Designs Australia

https://itunes.apple.com/au/tv-season/grand-designs-australia-series-7/id1304136406

 

3. Wait for it to spin around again on Foxtel. I’ve only seen it once. Can’t stand seeing myself on tv. It does however introduce French island fairly well.

 

Airstrip ruminations...........

 

Looks like 17-35 can be 500m long. This is uphill on say 3 degrees (guessing).

 

. I’m 90 hours into flying and can’t judge if this will work well based on USA experience. Started at towered airport Lincoln Nebraska with one of America’s longest widest runways built for nuclear bombers. 200ft wide x 11,000 ft. Moved to Wahoo which was paved and grass with nice CTAF radio replacing the 4 frequencies required at Lincoln. Clearance, ground, Lincoln tower then Omaha departure. 

 

Looking at the BNB accomodation I was thinking on plane during LAX to MEL we could combine fly in with Air BNB. 

 

I’ll ask some of the experienced Tyabb pilots/ instructors as I do PPL to Raaus conversion. Any comments here welcome. Questions I’m asking myself are flying in and flying out mostly downhill into the predominant winds. Would the 41 m width and say crowned grass runway of 15m width be okay? I could take the fence out to 50m for instance and center a gently crowned 20m airstrip. Location is based on dryness and generally flat although sloping nature of site.

 

 

 

 

[laserfly]

Convert to Raaus  at tooradin flying school

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

Convert to Raaus  at tooradin flying school

 

That’s possible as well. ? 

 

 

[Downunder]

No night flying in RAA. Day vfr only, 2 pob max. 600kg mtow for RAA rego aircraft. If you have ppl/rpl with controlled endorsement (it seems you have), you can fly RAA Factory built (24/23 rego) in controlled airspace.

 

 

[shafs64]

A cattle station i deliver fuel to has a person who lived on french island. big change from there to here.

 

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

No night flying in RAA. Day vfr only, 2 pob max. 600kg mtow for RAA rego aircraft. If you have ppl/rpl with controlled endorsement (it seems you have), you can fly RAA Factory built (24/23 rego) in controlled airspace.

 

Day is going to be fine. My CFI said we will do the first 3 night landings and it’ll be interesting then it’ll get boring for the 7 more required. When we did the first take off into black and started pattern I wanted to tell him I just couldn’t do it. Landed and was so amazed by the third that it was just like he said. It became normal. I did start to spot farm house lights and established something of a horizon. That made the difference.

 

I have a bit of learning to do. Just went and found the RAA information you mentioned. Good to be able to go into controlled airspace as an option in the right plane. PPL USA had to fly 3 landings into a towered airport. I used the magic words “student pilot" and the tower couldn’t have been more helpful. Had to do a sudden right turn on final  at one point when an unscheduled Citation started in. I could hear the CT telling the guy off for being unscheduled and he got back to helping me on next approach. 

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

A cattle station i deliver fuel to has a person who lived on french island. big change from there to here.

 

There are only around 100 people on French island. Amazing you’d know someone who lived here.

 

 

[shafs64]

Well when i met him i was surprised to meet someone from Melbourne in that remote area. when he told me lived on french island then was even more of a surprise.

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

[ATTACH]41672[/ATTACH]

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

 

 

[Ian lawrence]

Hi MIKE, my name is Ian Lawrence and i live on Phillip island and have a Thruster TST ultralight ,will the strip be open to visits by aircraft and if so what do i have to do ?........i would like to catch the ferry over and have a look if thats ok .....is there some way we could catch up ?...my mob. 040906856  hope all is good many thanks Ian 

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

Hi MIKE, my name is Ian Lawrence and i live on Phillip island and have a Thruster TST ultralight ,will the strip be open to visits by aircraft and if so what do i have to do ?........i would like to catch the ferry over and have a look if thats ok .....is there some way we could catch up ?...my mob. 040906856  hope all is good many thanks Ian 

 

Great to make contact Ian. I’m still working on runways. They shift all the time.... todays pic/ plan below. (Not sure how to get bigger images up. I’ve seen the thumbnails are clickable. Maybe there’s a way to get them a little bigger.  Last time I was posting on forums I could see the HTML and work out how others do it. Can’t seem to do that here.... I’ll keep clicking stuff...

 

Im looking at setting this up over next month or two. Fencing and moving material at minimal cost (I do most of it) I have a gravel pit in bottom corner of property that’s really just a recent dam that happens to also now be a gravel pit and that’ll keep cost down for east west as I’ll need some gravel (French island gravel is just what we pull out so it has clay in it) to go over the sandy bits. Need to work out liability issues. I’d like in medium term to have fly ins and accomodation. Mobile (by message to provide) or message here for permission to just land and visit if probably going to work. Same as any private strip you’d want to know there weren’t wires strung across or new earth works (ditches). East west will always be dry. It’s sitting on sand and protected by being low. I suspect approach with cross wind would see the wind suddenly drop at about 20 ft. I’ve experienced this while in USA learning. A lined up approach with wing dropped into the cross wind suddenly became a side slip at round out. My CFI was always cool. He just quietly suggested we should get the rudder and aileron sorted or go around. Not sure if this is what would happen. I’ll depend on people with a lot more than my 80 Cessna hours and a few LSA to advise. ?

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

I have just sent a letter to my business partners as discussion on various business aspects and my stepping back.

 

A bit of it was flying. I’ll either be around flying or drop out. Happy to share my thinking on subject and I hope all things related to lift as in planes and wind turbines are the direction I should be heading. Note.... I’ve had invariably excellent contacts with people so far both inside and outside the forum. Seem to be my type of people. ? Well, one grumpy plane importer as exception. Can’t all be fun I guess.

 

I think my near runway crosswind disappears discussion is correct. Happy to be informed/ corrected if not. 

 

Always needs at the end of the day a strong lead who listens to input.

 

3. Other.... I’ll provide ideas without pressure as best I can manage. My own interests lean toward developing a wind turbine for the world. 3rd world country easily built or outback Australia built and maintained. This will keep my restless mind occupied along with flying if it stops terrifying me. Sometimes it feels like getting in a car and driving..... right up until landing and then its suitably stimulating. Apparently when that gets too relaxed you shouldn’t be flying. There are some 60 seconds from turn to final approach to a full stop where you need to have your shit together. It is done in my case and actually everyone else’s by being ahead of the plane. Turn from base to final you have mentally dealt with the radio call, the flap setting, altitude, speed, pitch, roll and yaw compensated for wind. Approaching the runway numbers you’re prepared for instance for the near ground wind to suddenly disappear. Your plane that was originally tilted to the wind and directed down the runway is suddenly crabbing sideways as the cross wind disappears near ground. You’re ready. You reduce rudder (yaw) you reduce aeliron (roll) and adjust elevator (pitch) and add or remove throttle as required.

 

Just showing you you need your shit together to land a plane. Day dreaming can’t happen. Dangerous. Worst case as above for instance you just add full throttle and go around and do it again. You almost can’t force a plane down to the runway with full throttle even 300mm off runway. It wants to climb out. Bad pilots try to land a badly lined up plane. Good pilots go around. 

 

4. Hong Kong. I’d like to have a discussion on this in Taiwan

 

[pmccarthy]

I agree wind often changes in the last 50 feet or so. Many runways have a built-in downdraft on close final due to trees or water or such. I just keep practicing and occasionally get it right when no one is watching.

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

I agree wind often changes in the last 50 feet or so. Many runways have a built-in downdraft on close final due to trees or water or such. I just keep practicing and occasionally get it right when no one is watching.

 

Here’s my one. I was thinking about this after posting. 15 knot from west mostly taken out by those buildings. I’m glad it happened. Only the once and very thankful I had Pat with me and hopefully ready for next time.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Many years ago there was an airstrip up close to Uluru (Ayers Rock). There could be a savage wind change off the south end of the strip as the wind came around the rock.

 

 

[Downunder]

Runway direction. 

 

Short and into the prevailing wind, or long and with a cross wind.

 

Is this what we are talking about?

 

 

[Mike Gearon]

Runway direction. 

 

Short and into the prevailing wind, or long and with a cross wind.

 

Is this what we are talking about?

 

I’m not sure. You can see the grass cross strip there. In this case we had 02 or 31 with 15 knots from 270. 31 made more sense. We were trying to sort my crappy short field hit the spot on 02 because that was likely runway for checkride. I couldn’t hit the spot. Same here I guess where you have to land within a 200ft nominated area? Touch down early and you’re failed because the early spot could have been a ditch before short field. Is that part of checkride here? 

 

 

[facthunter]

 On a largish sealed strip there's a defined touchdown zone each end. Landing  "touching down" outside of it is a fail for some checkies. Your landing charts are predicated on a defined touchdown zone at the required TTS Target Threshold Speed.  I've seen a few heavies float too far at times and have to really punish the anchors to pull up. Questions to answer if you muck it up. Nev

 

 

[Downunder]

If I was building a strip, researching prevailing winds would be important. As well as determining the length required for the type of aircraft I wanted to land there.

 

It's no good building a "convenient" strip which is unusable.