why do you like [ or love ] your airstrip.

[tonydenton]

i'll go first. I absolutely love the strip where I fly from , I use the Bundaberg gliding club. originally I was not impressed with having to move to there, but it was pointed out to me that although further in land it was in the middle of just about everywhere.
it's nearly 2 k/lm long and has a at it's widest place about 100mt wide . it also has a cross strip about 1 k/lm long . the cross stip is as rough as , so it also hardly ever gets used by anyone. the club house is right up at the top end and there has to be a severe tail wind for me to taxi down and take off on what we call "three zero." we call it that but actually it's 20 degrees different
the strip compass readings are exactly the same as the Bundaberg HINKLER AIRPORT three two and one four. so as not to confuse any pilots at the main BUNDY airstrip or the club on any half missed radio calls, we always use Elliott field but use the runway headings of three zero or one two. we are all on 126.9 . the poor fixed wing little darlings would have a melt down if they heard me and a few gliders in circuit if they happened to miss the "Elliott field for Bundy airport " part of the message..
the strip is about 20 minutes from the edge of town
the strip is a short 20 to 30 minute fly to the nearest coast, about 30 to 40 minutes fly to the north coast [ about 20 minutes fly to rob p place. [ there is also power lines at 1 end of his strip if your going there now too . [ ring first as always ]
1 of my favourite flys is to the southern end of woodgate beach [ Burrum river ] and then all the way up the coast to ELLIOTT heads and than back to the glider strip . it's a triangle route and no matter which way the winds blowing it always takes me the same time. it's got every thing. beautiful country and the coast and farm land every where.and of course our beautiful coast. beautiful coast line with families out enjoying themselves , good family fun.
on the way back I always check out tall Jamie 's place [ poor earth bound human ] if he is around then a compulsory buzzing past his house is always done to give a wave to him and his kids. the buzzing is out the back of his house and I have his written permission.
getting closer to the glider strip, there are some thermals [ 45 years ago they choose the right place to have the club] so when I want to start coming down I can find myself going up.
in the afternoons the glider boys radios are getting flat batteries so they aren't always able to make calls so the ruling is they fly left hand and I fly right hand , their base station is always good thou and comunications are ok as they keep an eye out for them and let me know. the strip is that big we could do it side by side anyway.
flying from a glider strip thou if I go early morning they aren't there and I quite often get there in the afternoons when they are packing up and heading home. best times is when they aren't there . and no one else around either and have the strip to my self. carve it and do what I want.
practice take offs and down wind take offs and practice landings spot landings and down wind landings. cross landings any which way. if it's a crappy one go back and do it again . and no one sees it anyway.
in this sort of weather I have been getting up earlier and going to the strip and having a fly for 30 minutes in the morning . beautiful mornings beautiful flying. keeps me sane . get to work by 6:30 and I can be almost normal. almost. !!!! always seems to make me have a better day anyway.
the strip is only 20 minutes from CHILDERS AIRPORT. a real friendly club. they just celebrated their 25 year. I joined earlier this year. they a have a fly in breakfast every month [ B.Y.O. ] and a big one every 3 months for ten bucks. fixed wingers from down near Brisbane even make the trip probably 20 planes and 2 trikes and a Robbie there last time , oh yeah and me .
they were all very confused about the rotars , disappointing really considering that we are all fliers.
I can count at least 6 to 8 airstrips within 30 to 45 minutes from the glider strip. that's pretty good I recon.
the club isn't real financial as members are low so the rent is higher than what I recon is fair but as I have sad there are bonuses with the place.
a small bunch of very friendly blokes and a couple of girls too. there is a new member who is minimum age , struth she is tiny. I have a ten year old grand daughter about the same size as her, but she is as keen as so it seems to be working .
a few years ago the caretaker died in a van fire which also raised the club house , that was a set back , I liked Garry, always had a yarn to tell and would always be waiting for me to return if I told him I was going for a fly and when I would be back.
the only place that I could think of a better strip is if I had my own with a house and not in the flood zone. so I really love the strip I'm at.

[hatrack]

I love all airfields! Besides the aviation activity, I like the wide open space with great views of the sky. Especially at the end of the day when satisfying a hard earned thirst.

I got my wings with Stubbs at Elliott in 2006. I loved flying around the fire trail to the east. Before that I used to fly Thrusters at Childers with Richard Pobke. I used to live at Torbanlea in those days and would often fly to Burrum Heads for a swim - on the Woodgate side of the river, that is...
Then I moved north and used to fly out of Moranbah Airport before the mining boom - there were only 6 RPT flights a week back then. But now with 14 flights a day, they've kicked me out and I'm out at a cockies place with a 750m strip. Same again - wide open spaces, and I'm the only one who uses it. One day, I came back from flying and there was a cop car parked in the middle of the strip. I buzzed the strip but they just looked up at me blankly. Annoyed, I went away and burnt the last of my fuel ( I never land without using all my fuel - the machine is so light towards empty, and great for touch and goes or emergency practice). later, while in the circuit, I spied an ambulance, fire truck and about 20 light vehicles homing in on my strip like ants. Two LV's even had to give way to me when I landed on the cross strip. Asking if it was an exercise they told me that a chopper had gone down. Having just flown around town and over the property where an R44 lives, and knowing that my land owner's Robbies were away at the time, I told them that they were mistaken. Besides I would have seen the smoke or dust, or heard a radio call if there had been. So I asked when and where, and they told me - right here about an hour ago. I laughed and pointed out that if they'd been watching me fly, they would have seen the emergency landings I do - which would seem to a motorist from a km away as if a chopper had gone down, and he just hadn't seen me pop up at the other end of the strip. This would have been the first or second circuit I always do before cross country, just to prove that everything's fine with the gyro. It even got a mention on the radio.
And now I'm building my own strip at Mt Perry. I'm doing it with a backhoe which I spend more time fixing than driving, but this new strip will be my favourite. because it's mine

[RickE]

There is something special about airfields, like marinas for boats they are just fun places to hang out. Mind you I've flown into some remote airfields that can be pretty lonely places.
I fly and train out of Somersby which is on the central coast of NSW, it's not exactly a fantastic strip as its a bit rough and surrounded by tiger country in every direction, but it is close to home and also the closest recreational airfield to Sydney.
The strip is 17/35 and touch and go,s are pretty difficult due to the terrain and trees. Within an hours flight of Somersby there are about 6 other airfields with around twenty gyros flying pretty regularly. We fly in a pretty busy area with fairly continuous radio chatter hopefully keeping everyone safe. The beach is only ten minutes away and gets pretty popular with coastal flights at 500 feet pretty common.
If anyone is ever down this way don't forget to drop in, there are now 11 of us flying out of Somersby so I'm pretty sure you will be able to get a local flight with one of the boys.

[tonydenton]

I was a bit later today and when I landed the glider boys were trying to put the wings back together on their 2 seat trainer glider. it had just had an annual inspection, I had always wondered how they kept the wings on and maintained the necessary strength . so when it was proving to be difficult and in between some swearing I got the chance to have a quick look.
very clever to say the least. spars from each wing slide through, behind the rear pilot, right through the fuselage and mount into the other wing , and that wing does the same again back to the first wing.
I'd still rather fly gyros thou.

[WEST OZ FLYER]

I fly out of a coastal airstrip 17/35 at 100' AMSL. It is 1100m of bitumen tall trees either side, a 500m cleared approach for heavy GA aircraft. Two kilometres to the West is the top of a 500' ridge that extends a further kilometre to the ocean with 150-200' limestone cliffs. To the South less than a kilometre is the ocean and East the river. The North is nothing but tall trees. Any cleared areas have power lines, houses or grapevines. The first five minutes flying is constantly being aware of landing areas. Now it is tourist season those areas make choices limited if the trusty 912 should flame out.

However once you are flying along the coast, it is the most spectacular scenery anywhere to be found. I have five airstrips within 15 minutes flying of me whereby I can call in for afternoon tea. Best of all they are all neighbours with large property where I can move on (most of time unsuccessfully) non-farmed mammals from their paddocks.

As with most coastal towns there is always a good breeze blowing. With out a doubt flying from this airfield has sharpened my flying skills immensely. There is no one landing or take off the same, even if you fly an hour of circuits. Strong cross winds, big gusts, lulls in the wind ( they are good fun when you are about to touch down ), inversion layers, mechanical turbulence, wind shear, rotors, eddies, thermals, hot land breeze cooling and descending as it meets the cool sea air. We have it all here, all the time.

There has been times when the windsock was pointing at the ground, (rare occasion) no clouds in the sky but at 500' there is a 30 knot wind in an inversion layer and at 800' the is a 45 knot breeze in a different direction. Too much wind for a cross country flight in the side by side Rossco but if you pull the nose up you can fly backwards for a while . I have climbed out on several occasions where at certain points with certain wind conditions you cannot climb or are even descending as the wind is coming down the ridge or up off the ocean and seems to descent right after the piano keys on runway 17.

Northerly winds would be the most dangerous. I have had to abort one take off. The wind sock read 5 knots take off on 35. In hindsight the windsock was too rigid for 5 knots but the angle was there. In reality it was a 18-20 knot wind but was descending as it cooled. Two 80kg people in a 912 Rossco couldn't out climb it. After using 500 metres of runway to get airborne I knew something wasn't right and all I could managed was tree top height. I landed drained 40ltrs of fuel out as the tanks where full. It didn't really make much difference but the brain was happier. I had to use alot more airspeed than usual (50+knots) to climb out and that got me out of the danger zone. Two minutes later we where over the water in clean air climbing like a home sick angel. Northeaster's you don't fly along the cliffs on the West coast for the same reason.

Thankfully I had good instructors, with unorthodox training methods, as things can get really messy, really quick.

Most of the time I have 20 NM of airspace to myself but it has been known to get extremely busy. This airstrip is amazing as it has magnificent views with challenging conditions. It is not for everyone but for me it is what you make of it.

[RossM]

what is that "round" formation 15km NE of Augusta Airport airport??

[WEST OZ FLYER]

Ross, that is the old BHP mineral sands dam. It was the wet plant where a dredge would recover ilmenite, zircon and titanium. The dredge was supposed to have a depth of 40m but the rock was harder than expected and the sands were too abrasive causing major problems and money loss. At the time it cost $200/t to produce titanium but it was worth approximately $100/t. The biggest problem was some of the clay when exposed to air became acid suplhide and the main concern was the close proximity to the river systems.

What you see is the dam wall (ring around the outside) and the inside is lime sand that was used to fill in the dam. I now use it as my gyro speedway. It's kinda interesting taking off on a curved runway.

[RossM]

Thanks Matt, was wondering why someone would make a crater looking thing.

[tonydenton]

I don't know if it helps westoz , but when no other aircraft are around I quite often back track my 12/30 upto 3 times gaining altertuide each time , always turning to keep the wind under the rotars . I usually do this in winter as the engine takes a while to warm up [ once in the air I back off the power a tad to try to look after it a bit ] but any time it suits as well, I can't remember the last time I took off on 30 as that is the top end of the runway and I always make it 12. I always take into account if the wind is full cross wind or even slightly tail wind. although the forestry has lots of roads and forest trails It can be a bit daunting when I look around but I know the roads are there and wide enough to land on as I have driven down some of them to check.
back when there was quite a few using the strip there was 3 of us coming in to land one day . it is a wide strip and we were about 3 wide but an arrow head formation . I was at the back and we were all at the same height and attitude and everything and sure enough we all found a hole in the air and we all dropped the last 1 or 2 feet, I saw the other 2 drop and I did the same trying as well , so I tried to catch it with a shot of power. it might of made some difference but it never felt like it did any good.
when we met up after everything had stopped turning , it was all a bit of a laugh as the other 2 spoke about their landings. it was even funnier to see the other 2 landing and feel mine as well.

[WEST OZ FLYER]

Tony, most days I don't have a problem. It is only the descending air that I have problems with. Normally attaining a minimum of 500' at the end of the runway is no drama but some days getting the main wheels to come off the deck is a challenge. You get stuck in that half aircraft, half go kart situation where it is skipping along the runway but the nose is trying to find the relative wind (crosswind). Once you get it off the deck safely it may not climb at any speed with full power. It mearly maintains height or climbs up gently. I haven't been brave enough to execute a downwind turn if I manage to get some height in those conditions. It is safer to land and have another go.

[tonydenton]

wow that is a worry. as I have said I have only taken off in the one direction for more than a year now [ can't remember the last time I taxied down and took off on 30 actually ] but I have the luxury of another kilometre or more when I get off on a long take off, so I feel for you there.
I was thinking today when I first went to this strip, I never liked the strip but probably because it was rough too. being a glider strip they use very little of any grassy areas really so the rest of the strip was all grassy but stools of grass and quite rough. back a few years they got a tractor and slasher on the gambling fund and when they have mowed all over it's quite smooth really.
up until a few years ago the 2 x winch cables for the glider launches were actually hi-tensile wire.
the 45 yo winch actually is the back end of a tractor and the winch drums are actually the tractor rims with extra extensions , they were capable of holding about 3 k/lm of wire cable EACH , so when 1 cable was being used there was always another spare ready to be used. some times there were 2 cables out and part way down the strip the cable was "still curly" because of being stored on the drums.
when ever I was taking off I would always go to the western side of 12 and take off away from the winch, but the bloody wire would end up being curly and sometimes be over my side .
taking off, was always taking care of what I was doing, but quite often down the strip a couple of hundred metres the bloody wire would be in my way and curled like a big corkscrew.
I always had to keep an eye out for it and quickly pull up . turn around and taxi back . taxi back and find out where the wire was laid flat, make sure the winch driver was watching [ he couldn't miss me actually ] taxi straight across slowly and hold the stick centre so the rotors are level and no chance of catching the wire flicking up when my wheels passed over them. then pick a new line to take off on and start again and watch out for the other wire if it was out.
they eventually went to rope as the wire was breaking a lot more than they needed.
the rope doesn't curl and just lays flat and usually lays where they have pulled it out .
best part is I usually go there early before they come out in the heat or I go late when they have decided to go home . either way I have the place to my self most times .

[mad max]

Sorry guys. I have a short attention span and have not read all your long statements. I love my airstrip but am forbidden to use it without a sack full of money. So I take off outside of the fence down a fire trail which is great accuracy practice squishing between the fence and trees. The (white) indigenous community CEO told me I cannot do it as it's 'aboriginal land'. I informed the two policemen that occasionally turn up from the 'dark side' and they are quite happy as it keeps me off the road. Happy flying guys and girls and remember every day is your birthday, xmas, new year and the best day of your lives. Gyro's are taking over the skys. I see 12 magnies getting loaded into a US airforce star-lifter on there way to UAE. Hope they don't end up in the wrong hands and become suicide guided misiles!

[RossM]

Zero hanger rent.
you do get a bit of cow poo on the gyro from pats on the runway (paddock)

went for a fly yesterday. The wind sock at times was horizontal.
As usual, did a few circuits before a local flight. just about coming in vertical (exaggerate there I know), defiantly no ground role.
Went for a hour flight into the wind, was a bit cold, so thought I go back for a leak. 15 minute return trip.
Weather observations (BOM) for the area had 11 to 20 knots at ground level.
On Windy. when you get up to 300 feet was a fair bit more wind.
There was a fair bit more wind up in the air. No wonder I gained 2000 feet without trying.

Looked at 'Windy.com' today, if you are flying from West to East today, you will get there before you leave (over 100 knots at 30 000 feet)

https://www.windy.com/?300h,-35.439,138.600,8,m:cGWaj0b

[RickE]

A few of us flew from Armidale to Grafton yesterday morning. It was -5 degrees when we left and were seeing ground speeds over 100 knots.

[tonydenton]

I think I have finally worked it out RICK. you have registered your gyro with the ATO as your registered office for your business and claim ALL EXPENSES AND TIME flying around on your tax. NOW THAT IS SMART RICK . .

[RickE]

I can't be that smart Tony as I hadn't thought of that. Time to speak to the accountant😜

[tonydenton]

I know someone who tried that with a large motor home while touring Australia for several years.it only worked for a while and then they asked him to repay it. not that he had any choice in the matter . good that you and your wife have that life style and you have taken up gyro's and being president. we are certainly better off for having you. 7 years10 months and 1 week to go not counting any leap years.