The $600 Hamburger

[Guest Brett Campany]

16 June 09.

 

Another great day of flying has been had. This was the big nav I'd been hanging out for! Last night I found it hard to sleep because I was so excited about getting my first big nav done. I was up at the sparrows to be at Serpentine by 9am. I arrived about 15 minutes early only to see Ed getting the Texan ready, but we weren't to take the Texan today. It was getting set up for another run by another student who just needs to get hours up.

 

It didn't matter at all, I was more than happy to take the Storch, she's a great little aircraft and lots of fun to fly!

 

We had a quick brief, sorted out the figures, wind etc and we were on our way.

 

It was an awesome day, no cloud at all, about 21 degrees C and a very quiet day in the air.

 

We departed RW05 and tracked direct towards Cockburn climbing to 1500ft then turned north for the coastal run to Jurien Bay. On the way up it was just a magic site passing some very familiar beaches and coastline.

 

Perth city looked amazing with a light layer of smoke around just to make it interesting! It was a very smooth run north with a 10kt headwind but that didn't bother the Storch as she maintained an easy 95kts.

 

We reached the Lancelin bombing range which was deactivated today but there was no better time to do a diversion so we took the east bound route before tracking direct to Jurien Bay.

 

I made the 10nm inbound call and could clearly see the airstrip. It's a strange one with a 2ft camber in the middle of it which has caught out the occasional pilot.

 

I managed a nice smooth landing and we pulled into the parking area and called a cab for the short trip into town.

 

There's a great cafe in Jurien Bay, just next to the BP servo, that served one of the best hamburgers I've had in a long time!

 

Ed bought along 2 10lt jerry can's so after a quick lunch we filled them up, called the cab and made our way back to the airstrip. We worked out that the Storch only used about 32lts for the 2 hour trip north. Not to bad considering we had a headwind!

 

The run back was direct coastal at 1000ft, only climbing to get away from the sea breeze bumps.

 

We arrived back after 3.8hrs of total flight. I was feeling much better about flying the Storch. Last time I had a few issues getting her on the ground but I reckon I've got that sorted now. I also used a cushion on the seat this time and didn't suffer any back pain what so ever! So I was pretty happy with the whole trip.

 

I've got about 4 hours of nav flying to do and that's it, I'll be done and dusted. I'm pretty happy with where I am right now, the training has been excellent and the experiences have been just amazing, but this is only the beginning!

 

 

 

[Relfy]

Good work Brett, sounds like you had a great trip!