Hey all, just thought I'd revive this old post and let you all know what I've been up to. I now have about 130 hrs and am almost finished my instructor rating. I have tw, ts and lp endos now as well - in a 582 lightwing.
I've been an l2 for a while now and have done lots of work on jabs mostly. I have also bought a 160 with a couple of mates. We bought the aircraft in Perth and flew it home over 2 days. A very interesting trip that taught us a lot about planning and weather. We departed kalgoorlie heading for Forrest for our overnight stay but didnt quite make it. We ran out of daylight well before last light but it was stormy and cloudy so the light wasn't too good. We put down on a bush strip about 60 miles short of Forrest. I wouldn't have wanted to do another circuit as it was getting fairly dark. We didn't have any camping gear so we spent a very long night in and under the plane! It blew about 30knots all night and it rained on and off. A miserable night!
We departed that strip at 4:30am and arrived home at YMBD at 5:45, a very long day with headwinds and turbulence the whole way.
Anyway, that's where I'm at and I'm very glad I stuck with it. Reading back over this thread I can't believe the trouble i had at the beginning
But it's been very rewarding!