NatFly on the move?

[Guest Ken deVos]

According to RA-Aus, they are are thinking of putting the location for next Natfly out to tender. They're happy with Narromine and the facilities on offer, however, due to the increasing take up in the southern states, the location could move south. They are also seeking a more cost effective location and if Narromine can compete then they can submit for the event.

 

The following link is interesting...

 

Natfly 2009 - Narromine | Aircraft for Sale, Plane Sales, Planes for Sale - Aviation Advertiser â„¢ - Online Magazine

 

 

[BLA82]

I reckon YCAB is a good suggestion ( I wish)

 

 

[turboplanner]

Fascinating to read the story on the link vs the story on the thread "Soggy Natfly", and what was going on in each camp at more or less the same time.....

 

 

[Admin]

Don't jump around that much...This happens every year and it ensures that Narromine especially the council is aware that there isn't any firm tenure of having Natfly. Every year any council or airfield can always put a better deal to the RAAus however there are a lot of things that they need to consider in terms of amenities and location. That ensures that we the members always have the best event possible.

 

I heard one rumour that there may even be one in the North and one in the South alternating each year but when discussing this very subject of Natfly and its location with Lee Ungermann 2 weeks ago, I was informed that this is purely speculation.

 

The only thing different this year is that the sponsorship is up for tender which will be announced in due course.

 

 

[Tomo]

One a bit further North... Yeah, bring it on!!:thumb_up:

 

YDAY a nice place to come... world's best gliding area you know:thumb_up:

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Moving it has been on the cards for a long time and it would be about time.

 

The article is pretty compelling and does contain direct quotes so don't be surprised if it comes true.

 

Don't believe everything you hear, either way!

 

Somewhere where the fuel doesn't fluctuate up to 40 cents a litre prior to the event ($1.95) would be good.

 

 

[skydog]

Just our luck

 

Just our luck for us Mexicans, they will probably hold one in Echuca or similar and the weather will be great there but us Melbournites south of the divide will be socked in!!!

 

I predict a huge turnout at Bort with lots of us having fly in itis.

 

SD

 

 

[Skyhog]

Almost anywhere (EVERYWHERE) would have cheaper avgas than Narromine at Easter!!We are taken for a ride each year!

 

 

[Captain]

Agree about the fuel. Why should it be so much more expensive there on that weekend? ........ and while it is probably just $5 - $7 dearer for me to refuel there, it is not so much the cost, but the fact that the fuel supplier thinks it is acceptble to charge that litre rate. Does anyone know on what day of the week before Easter that price is established?

 

I've only been going to Narromine for about 5 years and it is getting much the "same" each year for me, so a change of venue would alter that, however the extent of the tie-down cables, the adjoining camping area and the good aero club building for meals & forums is an advantage that will be hard to match.

 

My view is that a change of venue each 3 years or so might rejuvenate the event a bit and give another group, Aero Club or Council a chance to come up with inovative activities and structures that might enhance the event ....... and perhaps encourage those at Narromine who might be taking our attendance & money for granted, to sharpen their pencils & ideas.

 

Just my $5 - $7 worth.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Captain, your machine must run on the power of love or the smell of a bunch of roses. At $1.95 versus $1.45 at Moorabbin, it cost me an extra $50 to fill up there! Almost definitely worth the trip to Dubbo for half that difference, even with the landing fee that us GA types have to pay at regional fields that RA get away with!

 

 

[Spriteah]

Pretty sad that about the fuel.. I stopped at parkes so I did not need more at Narr.

 

The owner of the fuel is also the instructor. Rips the punters off cause he can. What a dill. I always plan my flights away from there anytime of the year because of that.

 

Now I have been chatting to RAA and they have agreed to run the next national event at Lethbridge. They have committed $300000 to develop the area and we will charge $50 per night for all visiting aircraft.

 

Hope to see you there. Oh and watch out for the flying pigs. They have become a problem about our place.

 

:big_grin:

 

 

[BigPete]

You'd like to think that a new venue would be given at least three years ownership which would give them a chance to recover some of the costs for the new improvements most places would need to host this event. i_dunno

 

Our biggest problem at Echuca is lack of town water. :yuk: Everything is in a rainwater tank or comes out of the bore (which has a high salt content). :confused: Council has stopped selling land here (for hangers) because of the water problem. (Ithink the CFA or equivilent have a safety issue as well). :black_eye:

 

We do, however have lots of room to park aircraft, and our club knows how to look after aviators. :thumb_up:

 

regards

 

:big_grin::big_grin:

 

 

[turboplanner]

Don't they have paddle steamers at Echuca? Oh yes, in the Murray River. Adelaide people drink it.

 

Seriously, this looks a good possibility for a low cost membrane plant, the sort used to purify sewerage from Class C to Class A.

 

Sewerage contains pathogens, with the byproduct of potential fatalities from hepatitus etc, but the Murray at Echuca may not have that problem, and may be able to produce potable water.

 

If so, then it would be feasible to purify the Murray water, and it would be a good idea for you guys from Echuca to raise it as a GFC incentive for the town.

 

 

[Tomo]

Don't they have paddle steamers at Echuca? Oh yes, in the Murray River. Adelaide people drink it.Seriously, this looks a good possibility for a low cost membrane plant, the sort used to purify sewerage from Class C to Class A.

 

Sewerage contains pathogens, with the byproduct of potential fatalities from hepatitus etc, but the Murray at Echuca may not have that problem, and may be able to produce potable water.

 

If so, then it would be feasible to purify the Murray water, and it would be a good idea for you guys from Echuca to raise it as a GFC incentive for the town.

And we all die of Swine flu in the process.....

 

Ps. wonder why they came up with the name of swine? ain't that got something to do with pigs?!!

 

 

[Guest Ken deVos]

......Oh and watch out for the flying pigs. They have become a problem about our place.

 

:big_grin:

Spriteah, in the current world crises, flying pigs will not be given airworthy certificates from CASA.

 

 

[Ben Longden]

Aaaaaarrr... Echuca and Shepparton have proven track records in HOW TO do it properly, when it comes to major events.

 

;)

 

Ben

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

Hmmmm! This one is something that RAAus cannot win – it will always be too far for somebody – maybe most.

 

 

Personally I am not interested in NatFly. When I had my school I was always fully booked at Easter anyway, but beyond that once you have been to a fly-in you have been to the lot so why go again?

 

 

Distance is the killer and for years NatFly has been pretty much a de-facto ‘Jabiru Club’ event because they were the only aircraft that had the speed and range to get there in any quantity.

 

 

On the other hand it is very good to see that the membership centre of gravity of RAAus is shifting south while for many years the former AUF was dominated by S.E. Qld and consequently so were the politics. We should be getting more balance now.

 

 

Then again move further south and you will see attendance from those further afield begin to dry up.

 

 

Certainly I wanted to arrange a solid TOSG presence at NatFly for at least one year and rope in the Prototype Thrusters and some Glasshouses etc. But it is just too far for them to fly to get an appreciable amount in any numbers.

 

 

Narromine has really done our movement proud and invested firmly in us. It has worked so why not stay on there?

 

 

Where I think NatFly has fallen down badly is that it has become too polarised to ‘being there’. If you do not go then you miss out. I am specifically talking about the forums – some of which have been quite important.

 

 

This may have been to help drive up attendance figures but our movement is for all members and all should get some benefit if possible. We now have the attendance figures so now how about some more of the benefit?

 

 

It should not be too difficult for anyone putting on a forum to also write up a synopsis. RAAus could have these cheaply printed and then sell them for cost. Any member interested and who cannot physically to the event, then may at least have some of the information proceeds!

 

 

The Soaring Society of America had (or did hold) an annual symposium which was purely presentation of development papers. These were then bound, sold and went like hot cakes! At one such event (1970 from memory) the World Champion, George Moffat, presented a paper on ‘Low Loss Flying’. The theme was to improve overall personal performance by avoiding making a collection of small mistakes.

 

 

I personally developed that theme into ‘Low Loss Instructing’ and from it developed a different method of instructor training and student training primarily via applying lateral thinking. That did well as attested to by hundreds of satisfied students of mine.

 

 

That was 40 years ago and I would have thought that we would have come a bit further by now!

 

 

Aye

 

 

Tony

 

 

[Spriteah]

Whoever wins will have it for three years. Well that was my understandin from the RA crew at Narramine.

 

Jim..

 

 

[jetjr]

Fuel supply for small airports and towns is a big problem, often smaller places have to buy thier fuel from larger place, ie Dubbo. They also dont sell much fuel but have to provide services like EFT etc. Prices are fixed at supplier level, only thing the reseller can do is alter margin.

 

All fuel prices spike just before Easter - have a look at Narromine service stations

 

To compare Avgas at Narromine vs Morabbin is a bit crazy, youd see the same difference in ULP. $0.40/L is fairly std. Dont even start about ineqitable diesel pricing

 

These small airfieds services simply wont be there if we keep diverting to major towns to save $20 - What happens when these guys start gouging?

 

Then we see the agitated threads where councils are selling off or not maintaining airfields as no one uses them anymore.

 

 

[skydog]

consensus

 

As usual this website invites and gets lots of posts about interesting threads like this and it is good that all can read & understand the total issues involved in a relatively simple innocent comment like the fuel cost at NRM.

 

Fuel does go up at Easter and maybe it is hard WORK pumping gas at a time when we are all on holiday enjoying a bit of aviation company. I know what I would rather be doing on my long weekend.

 

Good old consensus, or conformity , the ultimate freedom, this RF site and contributors do it so well.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

It needs to come North if anything, you'll get more attendance from Qld and particular NQld. Not hard for Victorian folks to fly further North up the guts of NSW, they've had it down that way for long enough. Just as many pilots in Qld as in Vic.

 

I do feel that Naromine has been great to us over the years, and a good venue that could still be used periodically....................................................................

 

 

[Captain]

Fuel supply for small airports and towns is a big problem, often smaller places have to buy thier fuel from larger place, ie Dubbo. They also dont sell much fuel but have to provide services like EFT etc. Prices are fixed at supplier level, only thing the reseller can do is alter margin.All fuel prices spike just before Easter - have a look at Narromine service stations

To compare Avgas at Narromine vs Morabbin is a bit crazy, youd see the same difference in ULP. $0.40/L is fairly std. Dont even start about ineqitable diesel pricing

 

These small airfieds services simply wont be there if we keep diverting to major towns to save $20 - What happens when these guys start gouging?

 

Then we see the agitated threads where councils are selling off or not maintaining airfields as no one uses them anymore.

I'm not wanting to bang on too much about the fuel cost issue, but jet's post does beg the question:

 

What is the usual AvGas price at Narromine during the year? Has anyone been thru there recently outside Natfly time that can advise?

 

Re the non-attendees at Natfly, I have suggested it before and cannot understand why the RAA doesn't instal 2 or 3 webcams each Natfly that show the field and activities, so that the other 12,000 members can see what is going on up there over the 4 days.

 

Regards Geoff

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Getting ADSL to the Narromine airfield might be an effort Captain!

 

 

[Gibbo]

I'm going to defend Narromine Ultralights over the fuel prices.

 

I passed thru Narromine the weekend before NATfly and the price was in the high $1.70's. He has just installed a self serve bowser that takes both EFTPOS and CC. This bowser has cost them close to $30k to install. If this had not been installed fuel access would have been limited to certain hours.

 

Outside of Natfly and or gliding comps there is not a huge amount of traffic and it's a perfect place to refill / defill on my way from Vic to Queensland every few months. The aero club is always friendly and open on the weekends and there is always somewhere to catch a few hours sleep. I do need to get more experiance fly around gliders.. They still scare the crap out of me.

 

We need to support these small airports otherwise it's just another service we loose. Whats the next batch of complaints going to be, "I Can't fly anymore in my area because I can't buy fuel."

 

Narromine Ultralights is never going to make any real money from fuel.

 

Fuel Cost over the Easter week QLD, NT and parts of NSW.

 

Weekend before easter

 

Goondiwindi - $1.78 - $20 call out waived (regular cust)

 

Easter(ish)

 

Emerald Qld - $1.73

 

Boulia - $2.23 p/l - $10 call out 'anytime' on weekend (cash donation for pub :) )

 

Mount Isa - $1.73 - No call out cost (delivered to plane by truck)

 

Windorah - $1.94 - No call out (but prior notice req)

 

Tennant Creek - $1.63 - $50 call out for Sat morning, $20 bh

 

Drum fuel outside Alice springs can be almost $3 per litre at present.

 

Bourke - $1.70 - $50 call out week after Narromine.

 

Current cost at Tooradin I suspect would be around $1.7ish

 

Gibbo

 

 

[dlps73]

Hi Geoff - we filled up with Avgas at Narromine on March 29th and paid $1.71 a litre.

 

Cheers.......Doug