Hi, Flight Report for 13 August 2005:
We have had weeks of less than average weather. Friday night weather forecast said the weekend was going to be fine (yes sure....). Got up Saturday morning to the best weather for ages, no breeze or clouds and about 14 degrees C. Went back in to bed room and said to my wife, Gail, "Weathers good, I've never been to Chillagoe, you wan'a come". So we get ready and are walking out to the car, as we go past my daughter, Sarah's bedroom window. She asks " Where you going?" and I reply "Chillagoe". She then asks "Why?" and I answer "Because we can!". Chillagoe is and old gold mining town surrounded by limestone caves and recently, marble mines. It is 64 miles, bearing 277 degrees true, from my home airport of Atherton, in north Queensland, Australia. Atherton airport is 2450 ft, Chillagoe airport is 1100 ft. 40% of the trip is over "Tiger" country with on one landing option, the Walsh river. It is a 4+ hour drive by car over dirt roads (the road goes around the "Tiger" country). We arrive at the airport as a friend of mine, Brian, is getting out his Jabiru J160 with a 2200, 85 HP engine (same engine as I have). He decides to join us and heads of about 8 minutes before us as his cruise is about 110 kts. We agreed on a 6500 ft cruise over the "Tiger" country. As I'm over pitched on the prop, the climb out 2 up is very ordinary, but we are at 5500 ft 10 miles out from Atherton to clear the first small mountain range. We maintain 5500 ft (I get better fuel economy down low) till the "Tiger" country where we climb to 6500 ft. We caught up to the J160 at 15 miles out from Chillagoe just as he was starting his decent to circuit height. We decide to let him land first, so we open the throttle and descend at 160 kts in the still air to arrive at Chillagoe with enough time to do a little blast around the town and surrounding area. There is about 5 kts on the ground but it is all over the place swing through 100 + degrees (who cares!). Final approach is over trees and the Walsh river and as we cross the rive we find our first turbulence for the trip (again, who cares!). Touch down is aimed at just before the wind sock which all of a sudden swing so I gave cross wind landing with a slight tail wind factor but the wind sock at the other end is pointing straight down the strip at me (again, who cares!). I decide to still land but get dumped on to the strip and have to really work to stay straight (who cares! my wife really cares!) but no problems and we taxi off to the parking ramp. I turns out I was landing in a "Willy Willy" (a very, very small tornado, the starting of a thermal, etc), I probably should have gone round :-). We a little walk round and decided next time to bring walking shoes and make a day of it. We soon departed and the return trip was a bit lumpy till we got above 4000 ft where it all smoothed out, Gail and I took a different tack home skirting to the south of the Mountain range near Atherton. We packed up the KR2 and were back home by midday in time for Gail to run William to soccer and me to help Sarah with her homework. Later in the day I went back to the airport and replaced the single wire $30 aerial with a Comant CI 121 aerial. What an improvement that made, 400% better reception. Barry Kruyssen Cairns, Australia RAA 19-3873 k...@bigpond.com http://www.users.bigpond.com/kr2/kr2.htm
