{"id":312,"date":"2018-03-10T20:48:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T04:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/?p=312"},"modified":"2018-03-10T20:48:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T04:48:52","slug":"thursday-march-6th-11am-vh-tur-1-4h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/10\/thursday-march-6th-11am-vh-tur-1-4h\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday March 6th, 11am, VH-TUR, 1.4H"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My last flight in Australia. Peter picked us up from the train station, but thankfully was not the CFI I would fly with today. That turned out to be another guy whose name I\u2019ve forgotten. When we got to Chieftain he was out with another student and we ended up hanging around for almost an hour for him to get back. It was almost 12pm by the time we got the plane started. Because of the heat here the afternoons are usually a bit windy and bumpy, not the best conditions for my passenger (Tai). Today I had planned a flight to the Blue Mountains which are just a little west of Sydney. They are not really mountains as such, just a plateau at an altitude of about 3,500\u2019 cut up with lots a canyons. So no real mountain flying conditions to worry about, the only concern was a lack of any civilization along part of the route (just dense forest & lakes – so fingers crossed that the engine keeps going, otherwise its a water landing).<\/p>\n

There was scattered cloud at about 3,000\u2019 over the airport, but a weather briefing from the Australian equivalent of DUATS said that the ceilings were above 4,000\u2019 over the mountains with no forecast of getting worse. I decided that I could always make an easy turn back if it looked like here wasn\u2019t enough clearance between clouds and ground. We took off on 11C again and made a downwind departure and headed roughly northwest towards the mountains. The area were headed for is called Katoomba, it has its own airport and I was hoping to land there – however, John Lion (Chieftain\u2019s owner) said no-way. Its an unlicensed airport, over here than that means it is a dirt strip of questionable quality. It is perched along the top of a ridge line and is subject to some vicious crosswinds. I didn\u2019t need much persuading to change my mind. Katoomba is a small town that sits along a cliff overlooking a beautiful deep valley. There is a locally famous landmark called The Three Sisters which is a set of three pillars of rock extending out from the cliff edge (you will see lots of tourist brochures in Sydney hotels for day trips out here). Given that its one of the few natural wonders around here, I was expecting there to be some air traffic like helicopter tours or other GA planes, but apparently the sky here is usually empty.<\/p>\n

Its only about 35nm as the Skyhawk flies from Bankstown to the Three Sisters so we were there pretty quickly. As forecast, the ceiling had lifted as we got over the higher ground so I was able to fly about 800 AGL over Katoomba. This was lower than I would have liked, because the deep canyons were causing some light turbulence which I knew would bother Tai. We did one orbit around the Three Sisters and then headed south flying along Lake Burragorang. The next landmark was a large quarry where I turned back towards Bankstown. We passed Camden Airport taking care to stay out of its GAAP airspace, then over Menangle Park which marked the turn north towards Two RN the reporting in point for Bankstown. The approach and landing went without incident, though you still need to make it steeper than I\u2019d like. This time I wanted to get down to about 800\u2019 over Warrick Farm, but my co-pilot insisted I needed to stay at 1000\u2019, That may be the procedure, but getting down from 1000\u2019 in less than 2nm is pretty steep in my book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
VH-TUR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Over Lake Burrangorang<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Katoomba & The Three Sisters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I really enjoyed the flight today unfortunately Tai did not. The bumps along the way scared him (even if he didn\u2019t get airsick this time). I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve put him off flying, hopefully not for good. We were planning a trip down to Palm Springs in April, now he is telling me he doesn\u2019t want to go. This will really suck. All through my training I\u2019ve looked forward to being able to just takeoff with Tai and fly to interesting places. Flying solo is fun, but sharing the sensation and freedom with your partner is so much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last flight in Australia. Peter picked us up from the train station, but thankfully was not the CFI I would fly with today. That turned out to be another guy whose name I\u2019ve forgotten. When we got to Chieftain he was out with another student and we ended up hanging around for almost an … Continue reading “Thursday March 6th, 11am, VH-TUR, 1.4H”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flying-in-australia","category-flying-journals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brenorbrophy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}