Schofields Flying Club Ltd - 1 Tower Road Bankstown Airport 2200
(PO Box 200, Georges Hall, NSW 2198 AUSTRALIA)
Phone: +61 2 9773 3611 Email: mail@schofields-flying-club.com.au
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SCHOFIELDS FLYING CLUB NEWSLETTER - OCTOBER 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Welcome to the October 2005 edition of Schofields News. There are the usual plus some new features - President's Notes by Mike Allsop, X-Files X055 by Anthony Coleiro, Tips, Tips and More Tips by Paul Daniels, 2004 Kimberley Tour (Day 16) by Grahame Smith, Know Your Instructor by Masamichi (Mus) Akita, Learning to Fly in Australia (Part 3) by Chris Hobbs, Non-Pilots' Competition by Tim Hildebrandt, and The Last Word from Latrodectus. As well, there's the usual administrivia that you've come to expect. So, read on and enjoy! 
NEW MEMBERS FOR SEPTEMBER 2005: Welcome to Mark Rajic, Lenka Hill, Margot Rijnders, Howard Elsey, Allan De Rooy, Malcolm Hanson, Justin McCoy, Ivan Grigel, Alec Zeglis, Derek Fok, Ashley Wile, Gregory Leversha, Marcus Dale and Sam Schumacher.
MEMBERS' OPEN DAY: A couple of months ago we mentioned our plan to hold a Member's Open Day at the Club in November. We have now settled on Sunday November 13th, and have drawn on a number of suggestions from members for some items of interest on the day. More... WORKING BEE - WOMEN POWER! Our Working Bee planned for Sunday 4 Sept was a bit of a wash out thanks to some welcome rain and the fact we let the fellows off the hook being Father's Day!!! A thank you is extended to the "Women Power Team" who planned to revamp the garden the thought was appreciated and a very special thank you must go to Margot Rijnders and Artemisia Dany who came the day before when the sun was shining to mow the Clubhouse lawns. ANNUAL FLYAWAY 2006: The word is out! Full details of the Annual Flyaway for 2006 have been released! We're off to Tasmania for the Club tour of a lifetime! We leave Bankstown on Boxing Day 2006 to visit the Apple Isle, returning a week or two later. You can download the PowerPoint Presentation (2.8MB !!), that was presented to members on 4 September, the Tassie 06 Information Booklet (839kB pdf) and the Booking Form (131kB pdf). Watch for ongoing reports and updates in future Club Newsletters. 
SEPTEMBER AVIATION NIGHT: Our Aviation night was held on Saturday, 17 September with a great presentation done by our friends in blue. Keep a lookout for a full report in a later newsletter. Special guest for the night Snr Constable Tony McAuliffe of the Police Air Wing and the raffle for an hour flying in SFK was won by club member Russell Cameron.AUGUST DUTY PILOT DRAW: The Volunteer Duty Pilot Monthly Draw for August ($50 free flying) goes to Tim Hildebrandt and David Humble. Congratulations! SEPTEMBER DUTY PILOT DRAW: The Volunteer Duty Pilot Monthly Draw for September ($50 free flying) goes to Lynne Lascelles and John Young. Congratulations! DIARY DATES: The Club has a number of social and flying activities planned for 2005. You can check full details on our Coming Events page. Below is a summary of the programme for October and November 2005:
SPORTS FLYING: Good news for those who want to go to the NSW Interclub in future. President Mike Allsop will be visiting the Armidale Interclub in November with a view to getting SFC officially re-instated as a participating club. September's competition was washed out, and our next round on October 16 will include the instrument-less precision circuit as planned for September. We have five competitors and ferry pilots both ways, but it would be great to see another handfull of pilots giving it a go. It's a great safety and currency check for $80, or $100 for 3 circuits. The July competition was our right-hand seat day. A special thank you to Jonathan Pearson for ferrying SFK both ways. Jonathan also came in second place overall. Julian Wilken was third, John Hook came first overall and in instrument and forced, with Paul Harrington winning the spot landing. Wayne Russell was the instructor, but he's having a break next time and we welcome Kim Rowell to the role in October. (This item contributed by John Hook.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As mentioned in the previous newsletter, we had a very busy month in September drawing on the efforts of our volunteers to benefit us all. Early in the month we had a presentation from Nelson Crawshaw, our Director in charge of Recreational Flying, and Wayne Russell, instructor and air tour guide extraordinaire regarding a Club Flyaway to the Bass Strait Islands, Tasmania and Kangaroo Island at the end of next year. Bookings need to be made well in advance for accommodation during peak season, hence the advance notice. Nelson and Wayne did a fabulous job in putting an itinerary together, providing flexibility in "long" or "short" options for participants and also in designing a flyaway which is ideally suited to our Club's aircraft. Get your expression of interest in soon if you haven't already. Details are on the web site.
There will be a number of other shorter single day and week-end fly-outs over the next 6 months, so keep posted. These are great for a short break or even for PPL students who want to share with an instructor and make an extended navex out of it. Your ideas are always welcome, so drop an email
to Nelson on nelsonlift@bigpond.com. Rae Cauchi is putting a draft plan
together for a "top-end" flyaway mid 2006 for those wanting to venture "farther for longer". She will make details available later in the year, so again, stay posted.Many of you were able to attend the Aviation Night in the middle of the month where we were both informed and entertained by our guest speaker from the Police Air Wing, Senior Constable Tony McAuliffe. Not only was the subject matter enthralling, but we also very much enjoyed the dinner prepared for us by Vivianne Blackbourn and her helpers. All in all a great evening at the Club for both members and guests. The final volunteer based activity was held in the last Sunday of the month where we provided a BBQ to all our volunteers in appreciation of their efforts for the Club. This was preceded by a vigourous round of aircraft washing for a dedicated few where we ended up doing a great job on 4.5 aircraft - more than we had hoped. 0.5 you say? Well, we did the underside of the last one before a member went flying in it but did not get to the bit anyone sees! 
On aeroplane matters, we had a month of mixed fortunes on the availability front. Cessnas JNB and JGJ both went in for engine overhauls, all of which take time. Warrior HQR had some preventative work done on its airframe and Arrow JRY has had its magnetos replaced. The most disappointing event though was a touch and go mishap suffered by Arrow JRX while on crosshire, leading to it being grounded pending assessment. Arrow LSG is back with a new engine and interior and we have another Arrow available to us to help pick up the slack where required. No-one said operating a fleet of aircraft
was without its dramas but we seem to have had a spike of it lately. As you know, we will not compromise on maintenance when required, and we are sorry if you have been caused any inconvenience.On a people note, our office manager Suzanne Arnel will be taking extended leave over the next month - well deserved after her 10 years with the Club. Have a wonderful holiday Suzanne. Vivianne has been endorsed on all aspects of our admin, and will be operating solo during Suzanne's break. Well done. For the rest of us, let's hope October provides us with a great opportunity to fly. See you up there. Mike Allsop President SFC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In 1937 the Air Ministry put out a specification for a single-seat twin-engined fighter and Gloster responded with the F.9/37. The design concept had been on the drawing boards at Gloster for a number of years before the specification came out, this was quickly finished off and modified where needed and then presented to the Air Ministry for their consideration. They licked what they saw and two prototypes were ordered.The aircraft was intended to be built by dispersed unskilled labour and so the structure of the aircraft was broken down into several sub-assemblies. It was all-metal in construction with a stressed skin and the original aircraft was powered by a pair of 1,050 hp Bristol Taurus T-S(a) 14-cylinder radial engines. Construction began in February 1938 and the first prototype took to the air on 3 April 1939. The aircraft was found to have a fabulous turn of speed clocking up 579 km/h at 15,000 feet, faster than any contemporary twin-engine aircraft. 
The pilots who flew it heaped praise on the aircraft describing the handling qualities as excellent in both manoeuvrability and stability and a delight to fly.Unfortunately, early in the test programme the aircraft was severely damaged in a landing accident and it had to be returned to Gloster for rebuilding. When the aircraft resumed the testing programme the engines had been replaced with 900 hp Bristol Taurus T-S(a) III 14-cylinder radial engines due to the original engines giving trouble. These lower powered engines reduced the maximum speed of the aircraft to 534 km/h at 15,200 feet. The second prototype took to the air on 22 February 1940 with completely different engines again. It was powered by a pair of 885 hp Rolls-Royce Peregrine liquid-cooled inline engines. In this configuration the aircraft attained a maximum speed of 531 km/h at 15,000 feet. Even though the aircraft had highly satisfactory performance and with the original engines spectacular, no variant entered production leaving the intended roll for this aircraft to the Bristol Beaufighter and the Westland Whirlwind. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Illustrated Ency. of Aircraft - Orbis publication The Complete Book of Fighters - William Green Gordon Swanborough War Planes of the Second World War. Fighters Volume Two - William Green Anthony Coleiro | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Paul Daniels Flight Instructor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Days 16 - Tuesday 15 June - Broome We awoke Tuesday morning in our magnificent accommodation at the Seashells Resort. A pre-breakfast swim in the pool, then a bit of relaxing and reading. Most of the day was to be 'at-leisure', our only organized item being a Hovercraft tour later that afternoon. Tour members did their own thing. Some just lazed around while others caught the shuttle bus to downtown Broome. Grahame and Ken decided that their hair length had reached critical proportions and went off looking for a barber. Helen and Carole had to check out every shop in the town. Helen later spent some time and effort searching for a 'nail artist' to repair her safari ravaged fingernails.
About 4pm everyone piled onto the bus and off we went to Roebuck Bay to join our Hovercraft "Staircase to the Sun" flight. Upon arrival the owner warmly greeted us and soon we were organized into two sub-groups as the hovercraft can only handle about 14 passengers each. Soon we detected the sounds of the two hovercrafts returning across the bay from an earlier excursion. They scudded up the long sand embankment and whooshed to a deflated halt in front of us.Shortly we were boarded. Our pilot informed us that indeed he was a pilot and not a captain or a boat driver as these things actually fly - albeit at about 30cm off the deck. Unable to resist the impulse, he then proceeded to demonstrate to us aviation types just how maneuverable these craft are. Skids to the left and right, 180 degree turns and all that stuff - just like a first solo student caught up in a strong cross-wind. An erudite running commentary about the area and then we were zipping up the long shore at Dinosaur Beach. Here we were shown many actual footprint impressions made by various dinosaurs 60 odd million years earlier. The impressions in rock were clearly visible and when our pilot guide asked several of us to stand in the track, we could see how the animal had plodded across the landscape all that time ago. Back into the hovercraft and out into the middle of the bay where the low tide had left the sandy bottom well-exposed. Our pilot then cut the motor and explained that we could now disembark for a closer look. Not without some trepidation, we alighted miles from shore, all the while keeping one eye on the turning tide. 
However, our anxiety was soon put to rest. Out came the tables, the champagne, beer and orange juice as well as biscuits, cheese and fruit. What a surprise - what else could match this? Well, within 15 minutes we had the answer. The Sun, now setting over Roebuck Bay and the Cable Beach peninsular, shimmered on the wet sand providing a view of the so-called 'Staircase to the Sun'. The ambers, oranges and pastel blue and purple colours were spectacular and well photographed by the Schoies adventurers.After a while, with the incoming tide lapping at our bare toes, we clambered back on board and returned to the hovercraft base. Later that night, quite a few of us repaired to the Old Zoo Café, located quite close to the Seashells resort. There under the watchful eyes of well-trained and hospitable staff, we dined on magnificent seafood and drank a few bottles of Margaret River's best. A great ending to a couple of fabulous days in Broome. Grahame Smith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I have joined the team of instructors in June and you may have seen me around the club already. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce about myself to everyone. It has always been my life long ambition to become a pilot. As a child, I was interested in any moving machinery. My interest in aviation started when I visited the cockpit of a B747 en-route from Sydney to Tokyo. When the aircraft was cruising around the Equator, the captain pointed outside an island in the shape of a butterfly. He said that it was common to have cloud cover around this area and I was very fortunate to be able to see the island. After that experience, I knew what I wanted to be.After my trial instructional flight at the age of 14, I was eager to continue flight training. After completing my training for CPL and instructor rating, I started to work as a part-time flight instructor. I have progressed through to becoming a grade one multi-engine IFR instructor. Before I joined Schofields, I had come to the Club to cross-hire aircraft on a few occasions. Every time I walked into the Club, I was greeted by very helpful staff and friendly duty pilots. I thought the aeroplanes were well presented and maintained, and I just liked the Club's professional yet warm atmosphere. After I had visited the Club few times, I got to know some of the instructors and that was the time when I asked Rodney if there was an opportunity for me to work for Schofields. A few weeks later, I was fortunate enough to be given the position, and initially started as an instructor for the Flight Instructor Course, working together with Peter Kestle. A couple of the trainee instructors are now completing the course, nearly ready to be recommended for the flight test. Now, I am around the Club most of the time, teaching a few full-time overseas students during the week as well as flying with part-time students on weekends. I think teaching people how to fly is exciting and rewarding job as it offers constant challenges and job satisfaction. Mus Akita Flight Instructor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTINUED FROM LAST MONTH
We booked another aircraft for later in the week to try Parkes again. The scenery on the trip to Parkes was unbelievable. My wife Alison has had her palate jaded by hundreds of hours flying over beautiful places in Canada (but not Saskatchewan), but even she was ecstatic. She said the whole flight was "one of the most exhilarating ever". We climbed, as soon as airspace allowed, to 6500 feet for the trip over the Blue Mountains which we crossed at Katoomba. The deep valleys and steep cliffs were breathtaking as we flewover the edges of the ravines. We emerged above the high plateau on their western side and flew over Bathurst and Orange before reaching Parkes. As we opened the door on the ramp the heat hit us. A dry, intense heat which seemed to radiate from everywhere: buildings, the ground, the sky. We had been told, incorrectly, that food would be available at Parkes. Luckily Alison, expecting such an occurrence, had, as usual, packed a small snack which we shared in the deserted terminal building. After taking off, we went to circle "The Dish", a large radio telescope some 20km North of the airport and then set off for Bankstown. With the sun now behind us, the mountains were casting different shadows and the view was again overwhelming.
So, what did we learn? Firstly, to make sure that you get a second opinion about licence conversion when flying in Australia. The first school we went to had a good web page, was efficient and professional but inflexible and not particularly helpful.Schofields Flying Club was a delight. Efficient, professional, extremely flexible and wonderfully helpful. I had booked ahead from Canada at the first flight school and they were unable to accommodate us; we turned up effectively unannounced at Schofields and they made us welcome and reworked schedules for instructors and aircraft to help us. Secondly, that Australian aviation maps are pretty useless. Around Sydney there is a VTC (equivalent to our VTA) which is reasonable but gives no Morse code for any of the NDB and VOR identifiers. Beyond the VTC, there are eight VNCs covering a tiny fraction of Australia. These at least do have the Morse code for the identifiers but do not even stretch as far as Parkes. Otherwise pilots use WACs which do not even have the airspace classifications marked. Yes, flying over most of Australia is carried out with maps which do not have airspace classification and restricted areas shown. Nor do they give the Morse code, or even the frequency of navigational aids. Clearly we need to look out of the window more. 
Thirdly, we at Rockcliffe can learn a lot from Schofields. They have built a professional and friendly club on aircraft rental, rather than on owner-pilots, something at which we have been unsuccessful. Their magazine shews a lively club with regular meetings and fly-aways. Their next big trip being planned is to Oshkosh in 2003 with some US and Canadian flying while there are up here. I'm sure that we'll make any of them that make the extra trip to Rockcliffe very welcome: I'm looking forward to giving Rodney his checkout (wait and see what sort of weight-and-balance calculation he'll have to do).Fourthly that Australia seems to have gone mad over ratings and licences. They have a useful PIFR rating which allows a pilot to fly IFR non-commercially but even this is broken down into an en route licence which allows IFR flying but not departure and approach (sic!), a departure rating and an approach rating. But in addition they have retractable ratings, constant speed propeller ratings and taildragger ratings. Rodney shewed us his licence: several pages long and kept in a binder. And the log book on our kitchen shelf? Well, Carol Hinde, answering a telephonic cri de coeur from Australia with characteristic efficiency faxed the necessary pages to the Australian authorities. Thanks again, Carol. I thoroughly enjoyed my flying in Australia. I would strongly recommend Schofields Flying Club to anyone visiting the Sydney Area. And I would recommend anyone going over there to remember his or her log book. (Chris Hobbs is the Senior Ground Instructor with Rockcliffe Flying Club in Ottawa, Canada. By trade, Chris is a telecommunications engineer. He started flying gliders in the mountains of Central Wales, and since coming to Canada has acquired his Commercial Licence and Instrument Rating. Chris is also a part-time Flight Instructor at the Rockcliffe Flying Club and is the author of Learning to Fly in Canada). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As mentioned in the last Newsletter Schoies hosted another of its famous (or infamous) Non - Pilots Competitions at the end of August and, as always, this was a wonderful occasion. This is the event where the families, friends, colleagues and acquaintances of our members have the opportunity to have a go at taking the controls of an aircraft for the very first time and to experience what their friends or relatives talk about so often. The event itself is simple, after a short briefing and reassurances that this is a safe activity, the somewhat anxious competitors are led to their flying machines, buckled in and talked through the start up procedure and then again reassured that they will be back for dinner. Then the fun really starts. Do you remember your first day at the controls, as an instructor this event reminds me of my mine as I watch these newcomers, concentration intense and sweat dripping, making their first attempt at taxiing a Cessna and trying to keep it somewhere near the taxiway centerline. After a few pirouettes and a couple of very close encounters with the grass the competitors have passed stage one and are ready to take to the air.During the flight our brave pilots are scored not only their ability to taxi in a straight line, but also on maintaining straight and level, climbing and descending and even holding altitude in a turn. There are also bonus points for anyone who can find Bankstown airport again from Prospect on the way home. 
After a second attempt at taxiing, the now competent pilots return to the clubhouse, with larger than average cheesy grins on their faces. They are treated to the Schoies hospitality that we all know so well as they enjoy a wonderful meal, followed by the presentation of their well deserved certificates. Check out the Photo Gallery.For me as an instructor these events are always memorable and very rewarding. Seeing the faces of the new pilots as they return to the clubhouse and then hearing them talk excitedly for the next few hours about the experience they have just had, always reinforces my own passion for aviation. In many cases these stories get more and more exaggerated as the afternoon goes on and I love to hear that we were nose diving towards the ground, or swerving to avoid the other planes and a vast number of other near death experiences, all of which I obviously blinked and missed (or did I??) These stories and then the repeated "Thank You's" at the end of the day are always the sign that yet another person has been bitten by the flying bug and I feel privileged to have been able to offer that experience. So remember to check the date for the next Non-Pilot's competition, round up the family, friends, work colleagues and anyone else you can think of and offer to them the chance to experience this aviation thing that we are all addicted to. Tim Hildebrandt Flight Instructor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ADF SWITCHING: Some of the older style King ADFs sometimes give poor reception when tuned to a relatively weak (or low power) NDB. The problem is due, in part, to wear
and tear of the channel and mode selection switches. An improvement can sometimes be
noticed if the channel is reselected. Move each knob one or two digits off channel,
then back. Also move the mode selector to ANTenna and back. Remember that the
equipment will only give bearing information if the mode selector is set to ADF. The
ANT or BFO positions don't give bearing information, and the operation is even worse
in the OFF position.PAIRED RADIO FREQUENCIES: Some pilots are puzzled occasionally by the tower practice of re-transmitting 123.6 MHz (the training circuit) on 132.8 MHz (the Arrivals and Departures frequency). This usually happens when things are quiet and there aren't enough movements to justify using two controllers . At Camden (on weekends, anyway), ATC often pair SMC and TWR frequencies as a means of conserving resources when it's not busy. Occasionally, even some of the Melbourne and Brisbane Centre frequencies are retransmitted. So when you hear an aircraft taxiing at Goulburn while you're on the ground at Bathurst, you'll know it's not some sort of propagation anomaly. 
LISTEN BEFORE TRANSMITTING: Don't forget to wait at least five seconds after changing frequency (say, from SMC to TWR at the holding point) before transmitting. No message is so important that it can't wait 5 seconds!WEATHER CODE TRANSLATION: I have been asked recently by several pilots about the meaning of expressions such as "WEATHER -RA" or "... +SH" in a MET forecast. The reference for this is in the MET section of the AIP, where it says: "...there is an option for intensity to be described when used with the abbreviations DZ, RA, SN, SH or TS. In these cases, the weather group is prefixed by (-) for light, and (+) for heavy. Moderate intensity has no prefix..." So -RA means light rain and +SH means heavy showers. FEEDBACK AND CONTRIBUTIONS: Well, that's your newsletter for this month. With your help (in the form of contributions, photos, etc.) it should be possible to produce a newsletter every month. Don't forget to check the latest news on the Club's website at www.schofields-flying-club.com.au. Contributions, comments, feedback, and (polite) suggestions to latrodectus@schofields-flying-club.com.au. THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH: A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.
Latrodectus |
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WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE? If you fly with another pilot in a control seat, be sure to make clear who is pilot in command and what duties (if any) the PIC delegates to the other pilot. Aside from serious legal questions in case of accidents, command confusion in an emergency can have dangerous consequences.
ABOUT REFUELLING: The Shell refuelers have asked me to put a request out to all members when ordering fuel. For members who don't know Shell is located over on the other side of the airport behind the hangars abeam Runway 29R threshold and it is a long drive back and forth from Schoies. If they are busy filling other aircraft it may take a while for them to get to us. What they would like is if multiple aircraft require fuel, that we let them know so they can do it all at once, or if you see the refuler outside go and speak to him. Their was an incident recently were the refuler was at the arrow with the pilot and he filled it to tabs. After the refuler finished fuelling the aircraft the Pilot checked to see how much fuel was in the aircraft whilst he was still there, then 5 mins later rang him back up after he got to his office wanting full fuel. Remember, having refuelers is a luxury which a lot of airports don't have.© 2003 Schofields Flying Club Ltd. All Rights Reserved.