HGFA Skysailor Magazine

28 SKY SAILOR May | June 2018 W here to go for our Paramania Australia 2017 expedition was the main point of discussion in the flying paddock mid last year. We’ve done the coast. We’ve done the desert. Yet still so many untouched destinations begging to be flown… In the end we decided to combine a visit to Australia’s biggest fly-in event at Milbrulong, NSW, with Andrew from Poliglide training new students in Victoria and the Paramania Australia 2017 Expedition all into one. To be fair, I was warned before I started my Flight Instructor Apprenticeship that the life of an instructor is standing in the sun watching other people have fun, and it pretty much is. So, when the time came to wave good-bye to the fledgling pilots leaving the nest to fly off into the distance, I was more than ready to burn some miles. It would have been nice to take the new pilots with us, but these flights can be demanding and a potential out landing with pin spot landing accuracy wasn’t really in their skill set yet. One of the biggest hurdles to any XC expedition is getting everyone in the air. It may sound odd at first to say that, everyone is super keen, busting to go. Right? Wrong. There was always someone who wasn’t quite ready, just one last adjustment to be made, one last gadget set-up, while the organised pilots burned off a third of their fuel orbiting the launch paddock. We solved this issue when we introduced the 30-minute launch window: From the published civil twilight you had 30 minutes to get in the air, if you were not, pack up and get in a support vehicle to reach the next landing refuel spot and have another crack at the next leg. It may sound harsh, but we had many, many failed expeditions in the early years when we lost all of the good air waiting for the laggard duck. The interesting thing is, since the 30-minute rule has been in effect no pilot has missed the launch window. Departure time came andwent with six pilots in the air, Marc cutting it very fine with a minute to spare. It was like watching the countdown clock on a B movie bomb, you know he is going to make it, but it adds to the suspense. Five Paramania GTXs and one, we’ll call it ‘the other wing’ (TOW) so it’s apparent lack of performance doesn’t upset anyone who may fly one, flew towards the sunrise tracking for Warranga Basin. Luckily for us, the sky remained overcast, allowing us to complete three of the four legs of the trip on our first day. However, the wind wasn’t so kind – a strong north-westerly blew for most of the day, the second leg had the most northerly run and saw us down to an average of 8km/h on the GTXs, the poor bloke on ‘TOW’ looked at the same cow for nearly an hour when his ground speed dropped to zero for a while. By that stage we had worked out how slow his wing was and launched him 15 minutes before anyone else. The second leg also included an emergency outlanding when we were forced out of the air by a band of turbulence associated with a line of virga. It passed within a half hour and somehow (I still think it was rigged), I was voted wind dummy to go and see what the air was like. Whatever had passed through had cleaned up the rough stuff and left nice smooth air in its wake, we continued north, flying at a much improved ground speed of 15km/h. Things started to pick up once we passed Shepparton, we turned NE and even with an at times 60º crab angle, our ground speed had improved to around trim speed, or about 44km/h. I don’t think I have ever appreciated the speed of the GTX as much as I did on this flight, with a trim out speed over 54km/h without resorting to a speedbar, you can still make headway in trying conditions. Bouncing around in crappy air is one thing when you are at least making some progress, Paramania Australia 2017 XC Expedition Statistics Route: Knowsley Airpark Victoria to Milbrulong, NSW Distance: 313.7km Time in air: 6:21:03 hours Slowest ground speed: 8km/h Fastest ground speed: 116km/h Average ground speed: 49.4km/h by Justin Shaw