The Latest News
Its been a rather quiet start to the year for
most of club members. The start to every
year is traditionally slow as people recover
from the Christmas bills, however this year
has been slower than most. I guess you can
put it down to the weather which has been
rather uncooperative so far. There have
been very few weekends that you’d con-
sider even making the trip to the airfield.
Never the less there have been a couple of
notable milestones that are deserving of
front page news
trifecta with her first solo flight, in which
she also smashed the record for the longest
ever first solo, and then backed it up by
passing her flight test and becoming a
qualified trike pilot. To complete these
achievements all within the first quarter of
2014 is an amazing effort. Made more
amazing, given the awful weather that has
kept more experienced pilots earth bound.
A true testament to Elin’s skills and the
teaching skills of the Caboolture Mi-
crolights instructors.
Mal Homan: OK so it’s been a long time
coming, but Mal finally bit the bullet and
completed his transition from 3-Axis to
Weightshift by passing his flight test and
becoming a qualified trike pilot. No doubt
Mal will continue to fly the beloved Fox-
bat whenever he can, but it’ll be great to
see him occasionally grace the skies in a
trike.
year has hardly got of to a stellar start
at Caboolture. Some unexpected bills
on the school aircraft unfortunately
pale into insignificance following the
recent tragic fatal accident. Whilst the
wreckage has now been removed from
the airfield the memories, especially for
those who witnessed it, will remain for
far longer. I know all of you join me in
wishing sincere condolences to the
family & friends of those who died. As
we head into the Autumn and Winter
flying season, lets all work towards
ensuring there are no further mishaps.
Safe Flying
Do you have a family member, partner or friend with
a sense of adventure and a thirst for freedom? Not
sure what to get them as a gift? A Trial Instructional
Flight (TIF) maybe the answer to your prayers.
Why not share the experience with your family mem-
ber, partner or friend by flying two TIFs together.
For more details contact John Cresswell 0447073151-
Gift Vouchers are available.
Inside this issue:
Navigating Through Life (Ross Poyser)
On a recent trip, some 20 years ago, we had left Inna-
mincka and by driving south arrived in the afternoon at
Lyndhurst on the way to Marree in SA. We continued on,
and after leaving Lyndhurst we were greeted with a bitu-
men (sealed) road.
Chatter between us broke out and we were amazed what we
couldn’t hear on this quiet surface. The car was running
better (or seemed to be), we could talk in whispers and still
be heard, there was a radio station, and the concentration
level of driving on dirt for the past 7hrs or so, had given in
to steering the car easily on the bitumen and enjoying the
trip and the scenery and loving it.
Isn’t it funny how it is always the co-pilot (AKA wife) in
this case, after a period of 15 mins says something to ruin
what you consider the perfect outcome of the day. The
bitumen road whizzes past, instead of the corrugated dirt
track, the quiet sounds in the car, instead of the constant
squeaking, groaning, chattering luggage in the back of the
vehicle. The radio once again works instead of just static
and then she says “Isn’t the sun supposed to be on your
side of the car?” (I was driving a RH drive vehicle at the
time, and we were, as I thought heading north towards
Marree).
“Hmmm” (not exactly what I said, or thought at the time).
It took me a moment longer to reach my answer, and before
I answered I did some quick mental calculations, taking
into account any time zone changes from QLD, and then
saying to myself, the sun rises in the East and sets in the
West, so if we are travelling North at this point in the mid
to late afternoon, the sun should be (whoops), (you guessed
it) on my side of the car and not her side of the car.
After putting tail between legs, I turned the car around and
headed back into Lyndhurst to find the right road north
towards Marree and put the sun on the correct side of the
vehicle to keep everyone happy.
So the lesson to be learnt from the above, always do a san-
ity check at regular intervals. We were lucky being on the
road, we could stop, study the maps, get out, have a look
around and work out where we were and then simply turn
around and go back to a known point and follow direc-
tions. Being in charge of
an aeroplane, you rarely
get these luxuries, you
so to speak.
nym to avoid all or some
of the above..?
The Navigational Lesson: - Just because you think you
know where you are, it doesn’t mean that you are where
you think !
The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul.
* The road south from Innamincka *
* The Thriving Metropolis of Lyndhurst *
* Welcome to the best (only) hotel in Marree *
Page 3
Foreign Correspondent (Col Darling)
another, son long as you turn a blind eye to what we would
see as "normal" health and safety standards across the en-
tire spectrum.
After sanding back last years ant-fouling and applying two
new coats, "Finally My Darling" made it back in to the
water 28th March, and is now secure in a wet berth until
28th April, a day or two after I return from a trek to Gal-
lipoli for ANZAC Day. I plan to travel to Gallipoli - about
400 k's, mainly by small but very efficient local buses, but
will back-pack as much as possible. On April 28th I'll motor
up to nearer Marmaris town about 5 nautical miles to the
north of the marina, to anchor and await the arrival of my
son-in-law Mike who is nearly finished a fly-in, fly-out
work contract at a Queensland coal mine,. As soon as Mike
is back onboard, we'll sail the fairly short distance of 15 nm
to the Greek island of Rhodes, and then on to Crete.
In Rhodes, we'll take onboard a guest for 2 weeks. Having
first met him in Athens last year, our guest goes by the
name of Joseph Papadopolous. Not only is Joseph a jour-
nalist, he also happens to be the President of the Greek
Microlight club, and has a web site called "RibandSea".
Joseph flies a 65hp Rotax powered Polaris Microlight, fit-
ted to a small rigid inflatable rubber ducky hull. Joseph has
heaps of hours flying above his inflatable, and after 8
months last year of my XT-582 Outback sitting on its
floats on the back of our catamaran as an ornament and
conversation piece, we actually think we will get to fly the
beast!
Despite the chance to actually fly our Trike on floats, I've
reached a decision that will in all likelihood see my Trike,
complete with wing and floats coming back to Aus in a con-
tainer ex Malta. As mentioned, we did no flying at all last
year, and although the dream was that we could enjoy both
sailing cruising and flying these amazing coastlines, the
reality is that the flying part was far too difficult to be a
regular occurrence, so home she comes.
On it's arrival back in Aus probably late July, John has
kindly offered to collect the Trike from the Port of Bris-
bane, and take it up to Caboolture. As soon as I confirm
with John that the Trike has left Malta, he'll post it for sale
I arrived back in Turkey 21st March after the very long
flight from Brisbane to Dubai for a 7-hour lay-over, and
then an equally long flight from Dubai to Istanbul. From
Istanbul it was on to Dalaman which is about an hours taxi
ride to Marmaris and the huge yacht marina built in the
southern end of the bay. Marmaris Yacht Marina can hold
up to 2,000 boats on the hard stand areas, and another 900
in wet berths. Late last year, the marina decided to take on
a number of very large super yachts for winter storage and
maintenance, stretching the capacity of the 330 T travel
lift. A couple of fellow Aussie yachties here say the scales on
the crane haven't worked for years, and we expect some of
the larger vessels would weigh in at nearer 400 tonnes!
Every imaginable space is taken up, with small 25' mono-
hull sail boats being jammed in alongside a mega-sized su-
per yacht although everyone seems to get along with one
There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror
* Just some of the “Super Yatchs” in winter storage *
* Marmaris Yacht Marina *
* Finally My Darling *
Foreign Correspondent (cont)
jerry can, fuel drain tester, both a light weight and purpose
built heavy duty cover, and engine log books recording
what will be no more than about 26 hours (depending on
how many hours we get to fly between Joseph coming on-
board and Malta) on the aircraft and Merlin wing.
I certainly haven't however given up the desire to fly, and
both Mike and I are set on buying and being trained to fly
foot launched powered para-gliders like the US built "Black
Hawk". A powered para-glider will take up far less space,
be much lighter and easily managed - unlike the Trike on
its purpose built davit on the stern, and the opportunities
to fly should be significantly greater than than what the
Trike opportunities have been.
Wishing everyone back at Y-CAB the very best wishes, and
please spread the word about a great little XT-582 Outback
coming on to the market later in the year!
on his web site. Still in current RA-A registration, The
Trike will come complete with everything needed to get in
to the air, including helmets, radio, training bars, new 20L
In the space age, man will be able to go around the world in two hours - one hour for flying and one hour to get
to the airport.
Rocky Return (Mark Gentry)
In the last edition I detailed my northern flying adven-
tures, eventually ending up at Hedlow (Rockhampton).
After reaching Hedlow I spent five days flying and helping
Steve Bartlet setting up his new trike hangar and tool shed.
The Yeppoon coast is a nice place to fly. We flew as far
north as we could before entering active military air space,
down to Emu Park airstrip, and out to Keppel Island (but
did not land,). Keppel is a funny place to land in a north-
erly wind. It can get tricky with surrounding hills and
tree's. I was also fortunate enough to view my first salt water
Croc with a mother whale and calf just around the next bay.
The local Coffee Club got a hiding as after doing all that fly-
ing each day a man gets hungry. I could have stayed longer
but there was a weather window for Saturday so planning
started for the trip home. The plan was for Steve to fly down
to Angus waters way and then return home and l would carry
on to Maryborough, land and top up with fuel then through to
Caboolture. Basically the same way l flew up. But this mak-
ing sure to keep the big blue water on my left.
I readied the trike for an early start Saturday, fuel, packed the
belly bag (the only thing to go in to that was the sleeping bag
in the morning), and preflighted the trike leaving only the fuel
drain to do. You could sort of see what you were doing at
0430 so departure time was set at 0500. I checked the weather
forecasts and maps and phoned Cressie to let him know what I
was doing. I got his text back just before going to bed letting
me know of a dying front expected on my arrival at Cabool-
ture and some cloud on the trip south.
Had finished breakfast before Steve arrived and had already
packed my sleeping bag into the belly bag. I final check of the
weather forecast, but not much had changed. Helmet visor
cleaned—l was ready to go.
Hedlow has surrounding hills to the east , not very high mind
you but you don't see the sun first thing. At 0445 l thought it
would have been a bit lighter but we could still what we were
doing and there was no cloud and no wind, so with fuel drain
done it was start up, warm up and taxi time.
Steve followed me to the far end of the runway but still
needed more time to warm up, so l blasted off, the Arrow
wing would soon catch me up.
Just when you need both hands on the control bar and just
before lift off my visor fogged up to the point of total mist
out, could not see a thing. Now if I wasn't awake before, I was
now. What caused it I am not sure there was no fog around, I
guess the combination of cold and my heavy breathing had
caused the situation. Anyway onwards and upward, and set-
ting a course to Curtis Island with Steve some where behind
me.
Rocky Return (cont)
hangers which had trikes in it and gave me a hand,. A quick
comfort stop and l was ready to go again.
Take off was fun with one foot forward and four up. I never
did make the end of the runway, so at 800ft and a left hand
turn over the field
I made course to-
things were better and the GPS was showing nil assistance
from the North. I followed the water between the mainland
and Frazer Island, heading toward Rainbow beach which is
East South East. I continued until about 5nm before Rainbow,
turned South between Cooloola cove and down to Noosa.
I was now on a heading to the South West which would take
me to Mt Cooroy and overhead Eumdundi, keeping to the
West of the Bruce Highway and tracking South home which
wasn’t far away. You must take this course to avoid Sunshine
Coast air space which is active from 0800.
There was a bit of traffic coming from the Burnet fliers break
y, flying back to Caloundra, So with eyes open and the radio
alive (the usual junk being spoken) I definitely knew l was
not far from Caboolture. A welcome back form a certain CFI
doing Circuits with a student in a Tecnam confirmed Cabool-
ture was within sight.
As for the statistics:
total engine hours for the week - 15.5.
Rocky to Caboolture 265mn.
Great friend, great time and great flying had, it was now back
to reality and work - GREAT.
The reason it was a bit darker was there was a cloud band
way out to sea and it was shielding the sun. Steve had caught
up and we flew together for over an hour but in the distance
and against the hills over looking Angus waters was lower
cloud. We said our good byes and l dropped down to get un-
der the cloud, out to sea you could see it was broken with big
holes so if things got to low l would head out that way. As I
rounded the headland the cloud disappeared and blue sky
awaited me as I pressed on towards Bundy with at times
15knots from behind. Made a radio call at Bundy and carried
on towards Maryborough. It was still to early for the masses
to be in the air so I turned the radio back to 126.7. I was just
minding my business when bloody Steve made his inbound
call at Hedlow, so loud and clear I just about jumped at the
trike.
Cloud at this stage was starting to fill in and had a ceiling of
about 2500ft and things were getting a little bumpy. An in-
bound call to Maryborough and I started my descent. Over-
head the field l could see the wind sock was happy to see me
and it was gusty.
The landing was Ordinary and I taxied over to the corner of a
hanger to try and shield the wing from the wind so l could fuel
up and get going again. “Old mate” came over from one of the
* Early Morning Departure *
Shared Lessons
As part of flying, one of the most important things that is
preached is keeping a lookout.
PLEASE be aware that a trike has a very good vis ability
compared to a high or low winged aircraft. And this was a
major point a found when flying with Neil one day in his
Jabiru, you can only see down as your view is compromised
by the high wing. In front you have a motor, can't see
down in front of that, and a not so clear wind screen to see
out of.
Lets take a low wing aircraft like the glider tow plane, pilot
is now seated on the wing, great view above still has a mo-
tor in front of him and can't not see much below him self.
Case in point, what can be 1000ft after take off and at the
end of the runway ? A TRIKE what height do we join cross
wind at ? 1000ft so the tow plane has been descending to
circuit height again his vision of whats in front and below is
compromised.
Maybe it would be a real good idea for us Trike pilots to be
aware of the vis able constraints that non trike pilots are
dealing with. Add radio chatter, pre landing checks, others
in the circuit and very quickly its all on.
Safe Flying (Mark Gentry)
John or Mark to advise of attendance &
planning arrangements)
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