Bit of fun today

[mad max]

Been at an overnight fly in at an old WW2 reconnaissance Squadron Strip at Commarlie Creek about 120km by road. On the way home in a big SE wind I though I'd go visual but there was lots of smoke and couldn't see my peninsular. Forgot to program my $100 gps and couldn't read the dial properly so let the brain take me home. After a while I noticed Hills I'd never seen before and looked at my $15 compass and it was reading west instead of north and the GPS said 82.17 kts. ground speed. Turned north then after a while saw Darwin city and tracked up my peninsular like an F1:11 to sincronise with the departing Ferry boat with my Missus on board. (Who needs drugs when you've got a Gyrocopter)

[WEST OZ FLYER]

Glad you had an adventure. Was there anything exciting at Commarlie Creek other than yourself?

[mad max]

Not as good as the old days. One Harvard giving aerobatic rides. A pits special. Three Gyro's. Mine and Aiden in a Caladus and Steve in an M24. One man band at night. A lady on a horse quoting poetry. A Cesna, a Jab. 4 or five Ultralites. No hot womenThe owner, a retired Uni Prof. Tells the odd story about when the airstrip was an active reco. unit. My favorate one is when a mosquito crew was ordered to fly to Jap. held Rubal and take low level photos. They flew so low they hit the Jap. flag pole and carted some of it including the flag half way home before it fell out of the wing

[RossM]

When I was at Banka Banka Station,north of Tennant Creek, there was a very small pile of remnant parts from a plane from WW2. Banka Banka was a staging stop for army convoys, and a strip there. Apparently a grass fire had burnt the plane that was landed there.

He is a bit of trivia.
QLD, NSW and VIC departments of (what ever it was called back then) roads had the job of making a road from Tennant Creek to Larimah.
They were given three months to do this. There was no official road back then, after each wet, the first vehicles through cut the road.

They were given the task of surveying the route, clearing, forming the road and sealing with bitumen.
At night when they were clearing the track, a off sider for the dozer driver would be out ahead with a lantern, and the dozer driver would aim for the light.
530km of new road was created from virgin bush in 3 months.

[mad max]

Yes Ross, The NT has an abundance of WW2 stories. I never get sick of hearing them. Like the guy at one of the strips was shaving with a singlet and No jocks when the Japs raided so he ran outside, grabbed a machine gun and rested it on a mates shoulder and started firing with the jewels dangling. I trained a bloke from Banka Banka station many decades ago Ross and he had a total engine out on a EJ 20? He phoned me late at night to thank me for training him to land short as he had to put it in trees. He was un injured. Forgot his name.

[RossM]

was not me, as I only started less than 3 yrs ago

[WEST OZ FLYER]

Max did you demonstrate the gyro's capabilties to them?

[mad max]

I don't throw the 'dove' around like the Rosco clone but I did a power off landing with a big red meat eating Aussie bloke on board and a few fly passes with the police siren blazing (Thought i'd better not install the machine-gun)

[WEST OZ FLYER]

Max, are you getting soft??? Or was there some other stuff in another country at another time?