Fly Me Friendly

While returning from Nykolai’s scout camp I dropped into Avalon airport (YMAV) to check out Tanker 10, a converted DC10 that’s now used as a super-heavy water bomber. It’s parked in the keyhole and not easily viewed without a huge zoom lens, something I don’t have.

On the day I was there, a QANTAS 747-400 was also in the keyhole, possibly getting ready to depart after maintenance.

Over at Plane Crazy Down Under, we’re trying to get up closer to Tanker 10. If we do, I’ll be sure to get better images loaded here.

 

 

 

 

While I was there, I also grabbed a few photos of Canberra A84-232, now parked as a gate guardian near the entrance. I also grabbed a photo of QANTAS’ last 747-300, ex VH-EBU. Once painted in the Aboriginal “Nalanji Dreaming” scheme, it is currently stripped of engines and remains as just a fuselage & wings painted a base blue colour with a red tail. It was being used to provide spares and keep the other 747-300′s running. Now that they’re gone, it is probably going to get parted out into scrap.

It’s been over a week since I was at Avalon Airshow and I’m only getting around to posting about it now. Sure, I ran up a few Twitter entries about it but I’ve not had a chance to really blog it. This time it’s thanks to lots of work to do since the show finished, plus spending some good time with my son before he visits Argentina with his mom for a month.

I’ve also been editing photos before I can upload them. I’m not someone who can just slam the raw pix up online. I like to weed out a few first, plus edit those that need lighting towers removed (the bane of any airport photographer’s existance :) or any other gear like mobile lighting rigs, etc.

I’m getting there and the first few have been uploaded into the Avalon Airshow 2009 album on my flying gallery. I’ll upload more as time permits and post on the blog when it happens. I’ll also get around to posting what I got up to on the two days I was onsite along with other thoughts about the airshow.

Every two years the Avalon Airshow is held at Avalon Airfield (YMAV) about an hour out of Melbourne on the way to Geelong. Aircraft range from warbirds to super hornets, 747s to C17s, lighties, loonies and the tradeshow. While nothing like Oshkosh, it’s still an amazing show lasting about a week and featuring a night airshow on the Friday (starts at dusk, goes into the night and typically ends with an F111 doing a ‘dump & burn’ and the huge wall of fire – great for killing your night vision). Watching combat jets launch at night on full afterburner is amazing (especially the F111) as is a Super Constellation taking off with the mixture full rich.

I’ve been an airshow volunteer working out on the tarmac at the past 3 airshows and attended a previous one on the trade day. It’s an amazing event and I’m usually working the warbird tarmac, surrounded by beautiful old aircraft. Our home base tent is next to the combat jets tarmac so we’re right in the heart of the action. While I’m on the warbird tarmac, I’m often also found marshalling at the exit of the combat jets tarmac or the junction between taxiway A and ‘the loop’ just in from ‘the keyhole’ (where the heavy iron is parked).

Thanks to this I’ve marshalled jets, transports and lighties, giving me great experience with a range of pilot ability (and a healthy respect for jet-blast). The military guys are precise and rapid, the heavy transports & commercial jets are enormous and they all understand that if you slow down the speed that you wave the bats about, they should slow themselves down too and get ready for a change of direction or stop.

Sadly, this does not apply to many of the pilots coming through in light aircraft. These poor buggers have never been taught how to follow the bats and have no idea. You signal them to keep going where they’re pointed and they turn & come right at you, so you tell them to turn left and they go right. DOH! After a few misadventures, I learned to give the lighties ‘special directions’ (you! go there – you! go there, etc) All good fun but kinda scary at times.

Unfortunately this year I’m not going to be able to spend 7 to 10 days working at Avalon. At first it was because things were flat out in the office and I couldn’t spare large amounts of time away, but now it’s ‘cos I’m unemployed and looking for work. It’s a major shame as I’d been looking forward to spending days on the fun side of the crowd barriers, mixing it up with the noise, catching up with friends and sending updates on Twitter. I am still going to go down for one of the trade days so I’ll get a partial fix, but it won’t be the same.

Better luck in 2011, I suppose.

This morning was the day of the Royal Victorian Aero Club’s “Dawn Patrol” and, once again, I was watching it from the ground. As a tribute to those who flew in the Battle of Britain during World War II, every year around this time a large number of light aircraft take part in the “Dawn Patrol” flight.

Taking off at streamed intervals from Moorabbin (YMMB) at first light, the route takes the aircraft first to Albert Park lake (about where I live) then over the Shrine of Rememberance. After the Shrine they turn towards Point Cook (YMPC) (birthplace of the RAAF) then overfly Avalon Arport (YMAV) and out around the rest of Port Phillip Bay before landing back at Moorabbin. After the flight there’s a cooked breakfast and ex-military pilots tell a few stories.

It takes a fair bit of planning to get this right and pilots attend a briefing about 4:45am, meet any passengers they may have around 5am then head out to their aircraft. Aircraft are assigned numbers and graded based on their typical cruise speed with the fastest ones going first. Ground control will call out aircraft in blocks to taxi out and get ready to go. It’s up to pilots to sort out their start times if they need longer to warm up, etc. Typically the first aircraft are taking off about 6am and, given they’re the fastest, they’re sometimes coming back to land before the last of the slowest aircraft have even taken off.

I’ve flown in two Dawn Patrols, both times with a friend in a Piper Warrior. The first time I was co-pilot and the other time I was sitting in the back with my son Nykolai. A couple of years back I was on the ground at the Docklands (back when there was still some empty grass land there) preparing to launch some hot air balloons when the Dawn Patrol aircraft went overhead. At least for that event I was doing something aviation related, even if I wasn’t involved in the Patrol itself.

Otherwise, like today, I’ve been on the ground. We were supposed to have gone out last night so I didn’t think of trying to arrange a ride. As it turned out, we had to cancel so I could have gone after all. So at about 6am today I was woken up by the sound of the first aircraft tracking past our place on their way to the Shrine. Judging by the sound, I’d say it was probably Judy Pay in her T-28 Trojan as she’s usually flying the fastest aircraft most years. I quickly threw on some clothes and went up to our roof to watch. In the dim light of pre-dawn I could see the outlines of the aircraft and their strobes. Everyone was flying with their landing lights on to help them stand out against the dark grey low overcast. There were showers in the area but the cloud was lifting out over the bay as the first highspeed singles and a few twins went over. After this batch of aircraft went over one after the other there was a lull and with no others in sight. According to the weather report from Moorabbin there were some strong & gusty winds so that may have forced them to hold off on departures until it could be confirmed that the weather was improving.

Sure enough, against the grey south I could see landing lights coming up as another batch of aircraft streamed past. Primarily some of the faster singles, there were a few light twins as well. Not long after this group came the RVAC Formation Flight in their Piper Warriors. Three aircraft were in tight formation (lead plus two wingmen) with another two flying loose second wing positions. These five aircraft were accompanied by two more that were flying quite some distance from the main formation, one on each side (perhaps taking photos?).

Just before this group came over it had started to rain lightly – annoying but not enough to send me back inside. Given there were more landing lights in the distance, I decided to stay and, sure enough, the rain passed about the same time the other aircraft arrived. This time it was more of the slower aircraft although a fast twin came powering through, passing the others and heading off around the bay.

Eventually there were no more lights to be seen so I headed back inside. I think another couple of aircraft went over after I came in but that was about it.

So that was it, another Dawn Patrol has been & gone and I wasn’t involved. Next year if I am in Melbourne I will ensure that I am, even if I have to go as a passenger.

Well, it’s been a couple of days now and I’m pretty much recovered from the Avalon Airshow (although my feet are still a bit sore now & then :)

The big thing about this airshow was that it all just worked (aside from the traffic jam on Monday :). This was the first time that we had an AGO rep in the box with the “Ring Master,” allowing them to discuss the impacts of changes to plans, placement of aircraft and so on. In the past, this had happened via relaying between multiple people over radios and so on. Now that an experienced ground control person was involved from early planning through to execution, good decisions were made, people knew what was going on and bottlenecks were, on the whole, avoided.

This was reflected in comments from pilots saying how well it worked and that it was the best organised airshow they’d been to. It was also reflected in my general feeling that a lot of the chaos, madness & stress I’d experienced in past shows wasn’t present in this year’s show. Sure, we were running about and busy at times, there were occasional stuff ups but, on the whole, it just flowed.

A couple of negatives were the lack of radios for the ground staff (it’s frustrating trying to sort things out when there’s not enough people around with a good picture of what’s going on – doubt they can ever fix this one) and (the biggest annoyance of all) serving tuna sandwiches for the lunch. Not all the sandwiches were tuna on a given day, but if you were a bit late getting back to the Green Room for lunch, the “real food” would have already have been eaten. Bad luck if you hate fish, eh?

Another interesting item from this airshow included a friend of mine launching a new flight simulator based company, Flight Experience. They have a fixed-base 737-800 simulator and are offering flights to people – you can come in and see what it’s like on the cockpit of a new jet. You can also get type endorsement training and so on. Their big market though is people who just want the experience.

Once again I was able to bring Kitt and Nykolai down to have fun at the show on the Sunday, although they weren’t really impressed with the traffic hassles. Perhaps next time we can look at getting them in & out via train to Lara and the shuttle bus over. At least they had a great time and I got Nykolai into the cockpit of the Kittyhawk thanks to Steve Death (the pilot).

All up, I enjoyed it immensely and will definitely volunteer again (if I’m in Melbourne, etc :)

Another beautiful day at Avalon Airport – even better than yesterday. Today was my last day with the Airshow, working to help the remaining aircraft leave.

I arrived early and walked around taking some “early morning” photos of the large aircraft in the “keyhole” area and the combat jets on their tarmac. There were a couple of early folks getting ready to leave and I helped them organise fueling, take down barriers and so on.

The most “fun” was when I helped drag the Whitney Boomerang out of some soft ground. We’d parked it on grass in the corner of the warbird tarmac last night as the pilot had radio troubles and couldn’t leave. This morning, the main wheels were half-sunk into the soft earth. Ooops – didn’t think it was *that* soft when we parked it there…

The pilot and I wound up sitting under the wing (it’s a low wing – not much room) and rolling the wheels forward. We got both forward about 1/2 turn each and they were sinking again, so we hooked the tow bar into the nose wheel and with me pulling on that while the pilot went back to turning one of the wheels, we were able to pivot it out onto firmer ground, eventually getting it onto the tarmac itself. Whew.

Shortly after the Roulettes arrived, prepared their aircraft and left. The ground crew were wearing standard camo fatigues instead of their performance outfits but still went through the usual formation start-up and departure. Some of the photos I have will show the various ground crews from the Hornet, F-111 and Hawk teams in their standard camo fatigues that are being worn these days.

There were some escort duties including bringing the A-37 Dragonfly team in so they could prep their aircraft and then fly home. We also escorted the Roulette ground crew in to pick up their trailer and then head over to their two static display aircraft so they could prep them for travel.

The RAAF 707 left not long after then we wound up sitting in our vehicle on the tarmac waiting to get back to the warbird tarmac. We were in a queue behind a DC-3, Catalina, RAAF C-17 and 6 F-18′s. We couldn’t cut across the combat jet exit because they had an F-15 sitting there doing engine runs. Eventually we got through in time to help clear a couple of lighties, the last few warbirds and the RAAF Hawks (they’d moved over to the warbird tarmac before the F-15 could move out and block their exit).

The HARS Neptune left followed by the USAF C-17 and then the Super Constellation. The Connie’s brakes make an amazingly loud metal-on-metal sound – you can hear it for miles. Very distinctive.

About this time I wound up going over to Yellow section with Veggie in case they needed help clearing out their aircraft. They had everything under control so we sat and watched as a few lighties and a pair of Super Puma helicopters went past via Charlie to the runway.

Shortly after that, JD came back for us and dropped me off down in G1 (near the warbird tarmac) where a couple of lighties were getting ready to leave. We had some jets moving about plus Jetstar coming in and the RAF E-3 Sentry taxiing on the runway so we wanted to be sure the lighties were looked after. They had to monitor tower but didn’t want to drain their batteries so they switched off and I kept an ear open (I’d been monitoring tower frequency all airshow). When tower advised they could start up, I relayed the message and they got ready, heading out before the RAF E-3 came around.

The RAF E-3 was basically a 707 airframe with one of the giant radar dishes on the top. They’d been parked with the USAF E-3 up the other end of the airport and wound up taxiing down to Charlie and then around the loop to Bravo. Along the way they stopped and spent a bit of time inspecting the ground at a pedestrian/vehicle crossing (they were concerned about FOD) then slowly crawled around the loop with people out under their wingtips to ensure they wouldn’t hit anything on the edges. This caused some tension for ground ops as we’d already ensured the way was clear and we had a Jetstar aircraft that had landed and was back tracking on the runway to get to Charlie then follow the E-3 around the loop (delaying Jetstar is not an option).

They finally got around and were far enough forward that Jetstar could get into their terminal area and all without appearing to cause any delays. Eventually, the E-3 got on the runway, started to roll and wound up aborting their takeoff. They sat on the runway and did an engine run up to 80% power on their outboards. Something was still wrong though so they taxied all the way up the other end of the runway and off onto one of the taxiways. There they had to be towed around to the bottom of the runway as there was too much FOD for their liking. Last I’d heard about them, they’d completed a full engine run up and sorted out their hassles and were trying to get slotted back into the departures queue.

By this time, we’d finished with everything at Green and the last few were leaving Yellow. The USAF combat jets were still there but going back on Wednesday, a RAAF F-18 had a problem with its INS and a RAN Seahawk had a problem and couldn’t fly. The F-18, Seahawk and a Sea King wound up parked at the top of Bravo near the QANTAS maintenance hangars.

So, with all that, we headed back to AGO, handed in our equipment, said goodbye to everyone and headed for home. Another Avalon Airshow completed – three now for me (plus one as a spectator :) but others have done 6 to 8. Wow.

The last official day of the Airshow and I left home early to arrive at 7am. I would have been on time, except I forgot to set my clocks back 1 hour before I went to bed (daylight savings ended last night). So, I wound up opening up the Green Room tent at 6:10am – no wonder there weren’t any other people on around. Oh well – the sunrise was great and the peace & quiet on the airfield was wonderful.

Soon enough the warbirds started to arrive and I put a few of them in on my own until some of the others arrived to help. A QANTAS 737 (painted in aboriginal designs) and 747 arrived and were squeezed into the keyhole. Not long after a BAe 146 from National Jet arrived and I wound up batting it into a tight space at Green-5. Lots of fun.

By now the whole team was on site and we were gearing up for another day much like yesterday. There were some slight changes to the schedule and a few additional shows, but otherwise it ran very well and everyone was happy. Early in the day we moved the majority of the light aircraft who wanted to leave at the end of the show down to modified holding areas near the Bravo holding point.

Kitt and Nykolai came down with UK Balloon Pilot Chris and his family in time to see the Super Hornet, B-52, RAAF F-18, F-111, USAF F-15 and the RAAF formation F-18s. They were all very happy to come on down and hang out – I even managed to get some time to join them when we had some quiet moments on the warbird tarmac.

All too soon the show was over and we had a mass exodus of lighties crossing over 18-Center to 18-Right, all the while charters were taking off from further down the runway (at Charlie or Foxtrot intersections). We slotted a number of warbirds in that were leaving and then just worked through the remaining lighties. It all went very well.

At the end of the day, Chuck Yeager came out to meet the F-15 and F-16 pilots so I managed to get some photos of him during these sessions. After this it was off to AGO for a couple of beers (light, unfortunately) then ASDU for dinner and home.

I’m back tomorrow to help remaining aircraft leave, then it’s all over for me.

As yesterday was hot n windy, today was cold n windy with rain. What a change. The carparks were a sea of mud, as were the public areas around the airfield. It dried quickly but it took until the afternoon to settle down.

With the wind came FOD (Foreign Object Damage – bits of garbage blowing around the place) – a small plastic bag was seen being sucked into the right-hand engine intake of one of the RAAF F18s as it taxied back to its parking spot. Fingers crossed it’s not done any damage as this aircraft is part of the Lion formation aerobatic team (also known as the Green Lemons). They put on a very spirited demo in tight formation and with flares, earning them 10 from those of us judging the shows.

The day started off with a flurry of warbirds coming in, then settled down until about 11am when we had to get the Mustangs, Yak 9 and Kittyhawk into starting positions. Once they were started and had moved out to the warm up area, we pushed the A-37 Dragonfly into place so he could start up his jets then move out. About then it started to rain so we headed for the tents, coming out again to retrieve the first lot and then the Dragonfly.

After that it was “time off” for lunch as we had no more work on the warbird tarmac until the Southern Knights formation team went out in their Harvards. A quick push out to start up and they were off. We all headed down to the crowd line to get photos of the RAAF F-18 & F-111, USAF F-15, the F-18F Super Hornet and a fly by by a B-52 (including one pass at high speed at 500′ – wooo :)

Somewhere in there the Super Constellation came out (with brakes squealing) along with the Catalina and three Dakotas. They did a streamed take-off and then a few fly bys although Connie had to pull out and just land as they’d been forced to shut down #2 engine due to some problems (gotta love those big old radials :)

After all that, I wound up working the intersection (where Bravo meets Charlie’s loop section), handling aircraft coming back and going out. Eventually it all settled down and we closed up our tent (known as “The Green Room” ‘cos we’re section Green on the map).

One more public day then I’m back again on Monday to help get everything out that hasn’t managed to get out on the Sunday night.

Today can best be summed up as 40 degrees on the tarmac, 40+ knots wind and dust everywhere. We had dust sticking to our sunscreen, dust on our food, dust in our mouths, dust in our eyes – crazy.

The high winds kept many of the lighties from flying into Avalon, so we had a few moments of peace & quiet, then the warbirds came in and suddenly Green 2 was full. With the Roulettes, RAAF Museum heritage flight & Mustang, Bob’s Mustang, the Yak 9 and a Harvard, we had a warbirds tarmac that was almost full. Yay :)

During the day, we had a chance to go and see Chuck Yeager – he was checking out the cockpit of an F-18 so we hung out near by and took pix (a few at a time, so we didn’t crowd the place out :) Word is he may be near a P-51 Mustang later during the show, which would be great (‘cos hey, that’s the tarmac I’m on – can you say “Full Access”? :)

Not long after, one of the Super Hornets went up with the RAAF Chief on board – it was only a quick flight due to the airshow starting around 2:30, but it seemed to go OK. I was sheparding a RAAF photographer around – he was using a mega-lens but finding it a bit hard due to the wind – he gave me the camera to see what “fun” it was to keep steady in the 40+ knot winds. Ouch!

With the warbird tarmac full and things going quiet, I took some time to get a few photos of the warbirds, then we headed back to the tent to relax. The guys from FightPath TV came by and I escorted them around the warbirds area. They were due to interview the Roulettes so, after they came back from their show, the guys did their interview while I organised a few sessions tomorrow with the warbirds pilots.

Most of us were pretty amazed that the Roulettes went up given the 40+ knot winds over the site. The Airvan and Caribou both looked like they were hovering during their low speed passes due to the high winds.

Chopper 2, the Rescue Helicopter that’s always around when the Roulettes do a show, came in and dropped off the Roulettes ground crew. There was dust everywhere thanks to their prop-wash then it left. Meanwhile, the Roulettes crew took down their tents before they were blown away. Chopper 2 came back a while later with the Roulettes pilots, again kicking up some dust and wind that knocked us about.

A USAF B-52 did a low fly-by down the runway at around 1,000′ then turned around and came by at high speed at 1,000′. It was pretty amazing.

The rest of the day was spent trying to avoid the dust and doing what we could to help aircraft coming in, going around the loop and so on. Eventually the RAAF Heritage Flight and the Mustangs left, doing a quick beat up of the field and a bit of a show from the Mustang.

Later in the afternoon, the winds shifted around from northerly to westerly and then, shortly after, southerly. With this came a drop in temperature of about 5 degrees and all new dust being blown back at us. Rain was on the horizon and a few drops were coming in. If we get the rain as predicted, at least it’ll end the dust :)

Around 6pm a few of us went to dinner at AGO (a BBQ dinner of sausage and hamburger :) then I headed for home. I have to start early tomorrow morning and I’ve seen a few “night shows” already, so I figured it was better to head home, relax and come in very early.

Today started out chilly and with beautiful whispy fog clouds around 200′ – just below the tops of the hangars in the QANTAS maintenance part of the airport. We got to enjoy it for a little while then it was back to yet another day of marshalling lighties as the Regatta went out for a tour of the bay and then back in before the airshow started. One guy in a Texan had some radio problems, coming out, trying it, going back, etc. He eventually scrapped the flight and went off to have a chat with the reps of the company he was renting it from.

During all this, a number of RAAF Hornets came in along with the Roulettes. In between them (and the lighties) was another Atlas Air freighter who had to go-around before landing. Apparently Melbourne ATC had kept him at altitude for too long so he was too high to make a good landing. On his second approach the height was right and he landed. One of our marshalls was going to try to “bat him” as he came onto the taxiway – not a good idea, especially not when you’re standing about under where his outboard engine would be going – oops. I managed to get his attention and got him well out of the way.

HARS came in with their Catalina, DC-3, Constellation and Neptune. There was a bit of a pause while Connie sat on Bravo waiting for clearance to go behind the A321 – it was a tight fit, but they made it.

Once the show started, we got to relax again and I left early as I wanted to be back in town for Nykolai’s school “parent sports event.”