True Story

[Stewart J]

..as a young Ranger working for the NT Conservation Commission, at Ayer Rock in the early 80’s, I was instructed to turn up at the airstrip to accompany a film crew on a flight around the “Rock”.

 

Met the pilot and a cameraman and a bloke who was ‘The Director’. Gave the pilot a hand taking the rear door off the ‘plane, helped put the film gear in the back (no seats, just a lot of bare aluminium) and in we got.

 

We took off from Yulara and flew to the rock. Seemed to me that no matter what the pilot was doing, he couldn’t get it right for “Herr Director”

 

“Slower, lower…higher, faster,…not there, over there!”

 

I’m pretty sure the pilot was getting more and more XXXXed off as the morning went on. I was helping as much as I could by standing on the foot thingy when he told me to, which tended to make us fly sideways. (This made the cameraman happy) There was also a loud annoying sound that was pretty constant,

 

“What IS that?” I asked

 

“Stall warning”

 

“Oh, OK”

 

I figured if he’s not worried, why should I be?

 

Eventually “Mein Fuhrer” was reasonably happy with what was in the can and we could go back.

 

The pilot looked at me and said

 

“Ever flown a plane before?’

 

“No”

 

“Well, this is how to go up… this is down…..turn left….turn right, got it?” (muffled complaints from the back)

 

“Yeah, seems pretty straight forward”

 

On our way to the Olga’s, he pointed out a few other things on the dash to do with height and if you really were flying straight. (I already knew how to use a compass).

 

After a slow turn around the Olga’s he gave me a bearing for Yulara and home we went.

 

As we approached one end of the ‘strip (at about 90˚ left) I was thinking he’d take over. He just smiled at me and poked his thumb towards the ‘strip and I figured, “he wants me to turn that way”, so I did. The horizon went vertical, there were a lot of crashing noises from the back and yelling of “Jesus (something starting with F) Christ”.

 

When I reckoned we were about right, I flicked it that way and there we were, reasonably lined up and coming in at about 30˚. (I knew the pilot was pretty cool, ‘cause during the whole manoeuvre, his fingers only flicked towards the controls twice).

 

I was kicking the foot pedal things around a bit to try and keep us lined up when this subdued voice from the back asked “he’s not really going to land the f @*#ing thing too, is he?”

 

The pilot gave me a cheesy grin and said, “I’ll take it from here”…….

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

What a beauty!!

 

 

[RetiredRacer]

Pay back to "Herr Director" was executed beautifully.

 

 

[Ben Longden]

Absolute ripper!

 

Ben

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

I was wondering what those foot thingys were for !!!!