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Dick Smith Drops In
Not at every SXGC gliding camp does a twin-turbine five-rotor-blade retractable-undercarriage Italian Agusta helicopter just drop in for a look-see. And not at every camp does Dick Smith just happen to jump out, stroll over and introduce himself. But that's what happened on Easter Sunday at Goulburn.
It was looking a lot like a no-fly day with a high overcast sky. We were D-I'ing the fleet on the off-chance, and contemplating a visit to a vineyard at Mittagong if the weather didn't improve. Delta Sierra Echo (Dick Smith Enterprises?), a navy blue eight-seat chopper, gracefully hovered in while the gear was extending and gently landed a respectful hundred metres from the sailplanes. As the rotor spooled down the front doors opened and the wiry iconoclastic figure jumped out of the right hand command seat. "Dick Smith" he said to each of us as he approached with his hand extended. He had seen the gliders and was keen to find out more. He told us that aviation was his hobby and that he collected aircraft the way some people collect cars. (After he left we asked each other who amongst us had nine cars?). He watched captivated as Steve Korbel, returning from a check flight, landed the DG with Andrew Rickard as self-loading ballast. "That looked perfect!" he remarked (quite accurately) as Steve completed the ground roll.
When Bill Kirkham asked "So what are you doing with yourself now?" he said he was building a boat ("not a white one like Rene's") and was developing a six-wheel-solar-powered sled to take to the South Pole. But he was devoting most of his time and energy to opposing what he sees as the Virgin and Qantas interests in retaining CASA's recent reforms relating to procedures in class E airspace.
"They regard the skies as their own and want to keep general aviation out of the way", he said. As he quickly warmed to his theme we were treated to a display of the unbridled passionate enthusiasm which, no doubt, has contributed to the success Smith has made of his business empire. "They say that without en-route radio calls we're all going to die!" His voice was raised and his hands gesticulated wildly above his head. "But the statistics show that the chance of a mid-air en-route are millions to one. They all happen within ten miles of airports. We are much safer if we are looking out rather than spending our time with our heads down looking up frequencies and writing down call-signs."
The conversation then turned to his Agusta and he proudly opened the nose faring to reveal half a dozen big black boxes with expensive-looking electrical cables coming out of them - you know those ones of plaited gold and copper with transparent plastic coating that hi-fi buffs pay about a grand a metre for. The electronics pervs in the group oohed and aahhed in adulation as Dick explained what the various gizmos did. It was all a bit beyond me - what with electronically oscillating radar sensors and terrestrial warning systems - although I must admit that the black paint job was one of the best I'd seen. After about forty-five minutes of scintillating chat Smith said his good-byes and thanked us for our offer of a flight in a real aeroplane any time he wished to visit Camden. He spooled up the 007 machine and made a very deliberate 180 degree scan left and right before waving goodbye and whirring off towards Canberra as the gear retracted.
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The flight back to Camden
As you probably know, Bill Kirkham flew the Astir back to Camden from Gouldburn. This, I thought, was a pretty good effort. More exacting than cross-country flying out west, so I asked him to write about it. Being a modest sort of chap he was reluctant to do so, but eventually I persuaded him. Ed.
Escaping from Goulburn was great fun. It started at 1.29 pm, leaving the tug at 1750 ft above ground level. Geoff Uther was up circling in the Jantar. The DG1000 was away to the north with Phil Endicott. I was in nice lift, smooth as silk which made it easy for a beginner pilot like me to stay aloft and look gooood. I was waiting for John J to come up as we want to go north as a pair, but Dirty Don was going to do his best to make JJ stay on tow as long as he could, ie, avoiding lift and flying around in sink till above 2500 agl. John J won (as usual) and left the tug to crawl back to where it belonged, on the ground. The noisy brute (the tug, not Don) doesn't deserve to be in the same air as us dainty fly boys in real flying machines. So, it was a case of "see you later Donny!"
John soon linked up with me and we proceeded to step out amongst the fluffy white lift markers, and sure enough every one of them produced nice lift . We had gone about 30km when Phil was heard doing a 'touch and stay' at the Hungry Jacks at Marulan truck stop (got a great photo of his landing spot from 8500 ft). As John was Phil's retrieval crew he bade me farewell and started back to Goulburn. I tried not to wave goodbye to Phil who was on the ground, (no doubt with fries and a coke by then), and continued on to the west keeping away from the not so nice, sea effected, thermals to a great looking bunch of clouds. My mind was toying with the idea that I could continue at least to the half way point of the trip from Goulburn to Camden. However, I was still high and the tail breeze was about 11kt so when I was 75 km from Camden so I made a choice to commence final glide, and took no more thermals after that.
Far away on my left was the sea breeze when I heard the call over the radio that the DG had touched down at Berrima and my heart sank. Andrew and Steve had not kept away from the rolling low clouds and could not make it up to the level of cloud that I was fortunate enough to be in. I had a thought in my head at that stage, when I looked at all that Tiger country under me, to move towards the highway, and ducking under the low clouds at least I would be near to the landing strips programmed in the GPS Can you believe me thinking like that at 8250 ft. (stupid!)
The trip was ho hum from there, so I broke out the biscuits and cheese and had a snack ( I had a nice drink of cold water to go with the meal, bottled 2004, a very good year) Travelling 65kts in a straight line, passed Picton at 5200 ft. 17 knot tail wind and the clouds from the sea breeze nothing but a wall on the left side. I increased speed and lost height to go under the low clouds, remembered to change to the tower frequency and gave a call entering the mighty controlled bug-smasher arena. "Can a little ol' glider from Goulburn join in your dizzy little circle?" The tower was quite generous and bid me to land on 06 grass runway. It was nice to be back in familiar territory, though still at 3300 ft and having to wash off height. I made a down-wind call, but apparently the Level 2 instructor on site did not hear or see me until I was on final, just ready to land. I find this hard to believe as L2s are all-knowing and he might have been joking with me as I tried to get my legs to move, and not my bladder. We had just put the glider to bed when John rang on my mobile to see if I wanted to be picked up (he just wanted a meal).
For you stat heads out there. I spent 30% of the time in circle mode 70 % in a straight line 76 % in sink and 24% in rising air. 186.7 km total distance flown, with the lowest point before final glide 5,730 ft. I started final glide 8,450 ft and landed at 4.59pm I slept like a baby that night dreaming of white fluffy clouds
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Outlanding check
I had the pleasure of attending the Central Coast Club's camp at Lake Keepit in early March, and thought I might relate a couple of interesting 'lessons learned', that may benefit others.
Before flying cross country, I needed to complete an outlanding check. I took off in the Lake Keepit Puchatek with one of their instructors. Conditions were no better than average, and the audio part of the vario in the Puchatek wasn't working, so it was certainly hard work for a relative newbie.
After an area briefing and a bit of general flying, we decided it was time to do the outlanding. We flew over a few decent looking paddocks, and discussed the merits of each. Satisfied that I knew what to look for, the instructor pointed me towards a paddock that is 'pre-approved' (by arrangement with the farmer) for outlandings. It had not been recently cropped or otherwise tended and, after good rains in recent months, was well covered with waist high weeds. We flew up and down and had a look. Everything seemed fine, so we completed the landing uneventfully.
We pushed the glider back towards the fence, to give a nice long take off run. Towing the Puchatek two-up out of a heavily weeded paddock is a big job for the new Husky tug at Lake Keepit.
Then we set about 'pacing out' 800m of 'runway' - just making sure there were no nasties hidden in the weeds. By the time we got back, my socks and shoelaces were absolutely invisible underneath the burrs. I've never had so many burrs on me before. There were burrs sticking out of burrs. Long ones, round ones, skinny ones and fat ones. It took me over an hour to get most of the burrs out when we eventually got back to the airfield. Which brings me to lesson 1: buy a pair of 'sock savers' from the local hardware shop. These are a form of fabric gaiter that covers the socks and shoelaces. I saw several other pilots wearing them, and I no longer think they look silly. As a fashion statement, sock savers are right up there with the ubiquitous Terry Towelling Hats.
We sat back to wait for the tug. And waited. The wind changed. The tug flew over us and radioed down that the wind change was enough to make him uncomfortable about taking off in the direction along which we had lined up. We needed to take off at almost 90 degrees to the original plan.
We had been lined up parallel with what was now the upwind fence line, so we had to push the glider back (through the weeds and burrs) for nearly 800m. And here's where lesson 2 appears. As we were pushing back, we noticed a large obstacle that had been completely invisible from the air - an obstacle that would certainly cause an accident on take-off should either the glider or tug strike it. A dead cow. It had started to decompose, but was still a big, solid lump. This really brought home to me the need to 'pace out' the 'runway' for a paddock retrieve. If we hadn't pushed back past it (or paced out the runway), we would never have seen it - from the air it was invisible and the waist high weeds made it invisible from more than 30m away on the ground.
The tug eventually returned. We explained the location of the cow to the tug pilot and took off uneventfully. I passed my outlanding check, and spent the next three days doing some 'proper' flying, including a couple of days in a delightful LS-4.
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