I walked outside on Saturday while the toast was cooking and glanced
upward at the most oppressive sight in days.
eight eights blue sky is a common term but doesnt convey the
oppressive nature of all that blue. ...truely it was an impressive
eleven elevenths blue sky that day.
"Hmmm, got to make use of this" I thought as the muffled kerplung of
the toaster resonated behind me.

a quick flog on to the airservices web site showed that the day was
doable. just the mere trifling of a 20 knot headwind to keep life
interesting.
the BOM site showed pretty coloured satellite photos that looked
pretty if not interesting. winding the weather radar out to 256km
showed not a cloud to darken the day.

"myrtle wheeeers me road map. I've got some flying to do!"
....you idiots would love it if I actually said such things wouldnt you
:-)
no. down with the toast and coffee. out with the wac chart and lordy
me it doesnt even need the creases glued back together this time.
pencil and whizz wheel flew into action.
up to northam 33 nautical, hmmm douglass protractor where have I left
you???? ahhh there it is. bearing in the middle of (you'd just love to
know that wouldnt you?)
Northam to Goomalling with the egg digesters, 22 nautical and,
tweaking for mag variation 20 degrees close enough.
Goomalling to Dallwallinu 65 nautical and 353 degrees.
Dallwallinu to Perenjori, 50 nautical and 340 degrees.
hmmm 205 nautical miles or thereabouts.

wind is 25 knots from 20 degrees. hmmm 96 knots to Northam, 95 knots
to Goomalling, 98 knots to Dallwallinu, and 100knots for the final
leg. slow as snails all the way but what a blue sky to do it in.
hmmm about an hour 45 or so to do the trip.

whats it on the way back? hmm turn the whizz wheel around backwards.
138 knots out of Perenjori, 142knots to Goomalling, 144knots to
Northam and 142 knots back home.

will we give phil a ring first? hmmm no this will just be a navex to
check fuel consumption. besides he might have CASA see me as a trophy.
nup we'll just check out the consumptions after the carby refurb.

stuffing around when the weather is as good as this saw me takeoff
fully fuelled at just after midday.
the flight out to Northam saw lively traffic on the radio as all and
sundry were told to nick off out of encroached airspace. the stealth
pilot was flying on blue maps though 'cause he left the brown ones
home by accident after studying them and realising that nothing had
changed. the old blue maps knew better than to poke me into c.
I just flew on with the circus occurring all around me.
'hey stupid wots yer altitude'
'3700 feet'
'thats wot we thought, nick off outa our airspace 'n do it real quick
or you'll end up as a hood ornament for that A300 that's making a bee
line through where you are'

lordy me you think that the aeroclub types would learn to read maps 'n
stuff :-)

over the top of Northam we started climb to 4,500ft and pointed toward
Goomalling though for some reason the eggs werent visible in the
distance. At about Karrabein Hill we trimmed out for the cruise at
viewing height and realised that if we didnt keep looking at Dowerin
then Goomalling would look suspiciously like the group of eggs off to
the left. a little course correction and over the top of the eggs we
went, turning left at the intersection in true procedural IFR style.

(btw I've always wondered what the eggs actually are)

Over the top of Konnongorring we corrected a little ( 'we' as in me
and the aeroplane, which has probably almost forgotten that it's name
was Penelope when I bought it :-) ) and poked out just to the right
of Wongan Hills.
about this time I noticed that the circus on the radio had gone quiet
so I dragged out the brown erc low. a couple of minutes perusal and I
was thinking to my self what a useless bodge job they'd done on the
map. one of the frequecies I needed was overprinted with a brown strip
and even in strong light with the glasses on it was indecipherable.
you'd think they'd check what they put out.
anyway the frequency wasnt critical because I wasnt transmitting so I
picked the one for the destination end of the trip and amazingly got
reception.

While I was doing the pilotage stuff I noticed that the layout of the
lakes wasnt matching the map. a bit of a peer in the sunlight revealed
that Lake Ninan had vanished completely into the furry glued up edge
of a fold in the map. hmmm time for a new wac chart I thought.

Just past Dallwallinu with nungadong on the nose I saw something that
would make an agronomists eyes water. there was a huge plowed and
seeded paddock. very clearly through the paddock was the lines of an
old water course, all the way along the side of the water course were
plowed in small billabongs. how did I know this? they were all green!
the rest of the paddock was brown and it was all as flat as a rice
paddy. I wonder if the farmer has ever realised that the soil in the
old water course is different from the rest of the paddock. my bet was
that the soil had a trace of clay through it and this was retaining
the water in the soil. the effect on the growth of the crop was
astounding. I took a photo.

Out over Wubin I could still make out the accomodation units beside
the pub that we'd spent a month working out of in the early 70's when
we were preparing for the topographic mapping through there.
The bloody place hasnt changed in 30 years it seems.

Buntine, Maya, Latham and Bunjil all slid slowly under the nose as the
first popcorn whisps of cloud from the frontal activity up north
passed just over my nose. It wasnt a trick of the light I'm sure but a
sign of recent rains the area was greening up as the crops emerged.
In fact over toward Perenjori off to the north the area looked
positively verdant.
From Caron I lowered the nose and managed to have the old girl over
the ton for the first part of the flight.

Off in the distance lay Phil's airstrip. a huge gravel Y shaped thing
to the north of the town.

Now as slack as he may seem the Stealth Pilot never lands at a remote
stip without a good precautionary search or two. it's a bloody long
way to walk home if you break the aeroplane.
Down to 50ft for a fang along the side of the runway. hmmmmm I must
say that this strip looks pretty damn good. Up and around for a
circuit and one more look before committing. Luckily the town is all
on the airfield side of the main road so I made a pass along the side
of the town to determin where the shops were and whether any were
open. An ice cold Coca Cola would go down really well.

I realised by the end of the town that 2:30 on a saturday afternoon
really did amount to what it had always done in these areas. the
bloody town was shut! not a single sign of life existed, even the pub
was sitting marooned on the side of the road with not a parked car in
sight. nothing for it but to make my last precautionary search and
land on what looked like the far side of the moon.
the second precautionary reinforced the sense of quality that first
run gave me so around for a last circuit and in.

The second flight past the town showed that it was shut alright. dead
as a drive in theatre at midday.
The actual landing reinforced just how flat the strip was. Whoever
built it did a beautiful job. the gravel was just large enough that it
didnt flick up into the prop or the tailplane and just small enough
that it didnt feel like ball bearings under the wheels.
I pulled around into the flying doctor park.

Not a single soul stirred.
A barnstormer would die of poverty out here :-) I wonder if they're
the guys buried just off the end of the runway :-)

I hopped out and dipped the tank. after all this was a fuel usage
test. My heart skipped a beat. the flight into the twenty something
knot headwind had taken exactly half the tank.
now you probably dont see the reason for the heart irregularity. half
the tank up, half the tank back, what's the problem?
well the last 50 miles of the return trip is over absolutely
unlandable tiger country. running out of fuel there would be curtains.
ah well tackle that later.

I walked almost all the way into town and not a soul stirred which
didnt really matter because I knew it was shut. I took photos to prove
to Phil that I'd actually been there. Circulation restored I walked
back to the aircraft pondering the future. It was 2:30 on a saturday
afternoon. absolutely everything between me and perth was shut!!!

you mere mortals who have never flown will not realise that we pilots
are confident in our technology. the 25 knot tailwind, if it still
existed, would sort the matter out. better get out of the town and be
on the way before it abated.

I took off and circled back past the town and still nothing had
stirred. nothing at all! No wonder that Phil asked me to ring ahead,
he probably has to fly in a "population" whenever anyone visits :-)

Up around 4,500ft again the winds were pushing me along at the best
speed of the flight. higher and lower altitudes were less so it was
200ft under the clouds and bugger the pilotage, gps plot me a course
direct to Northam. At one stage a very reassuring 142 knots was on the
GPS. The chosen height was also so that I would skim the underside of
the class C into Northam. At Northam with 138 knots on the GPS it was
'goto Mt Dale'. Three quarters of an hour spent over tiger country
soon passed and I was over the top of the emerald city and in for a
circuit and an uneventful touchdown.

The tank dipped a reassuring 26 litres beside the clubhouse and it was
in for a goffer.
3 hours 28 minutes went into the log book that day for a flight to
Perenjori and back averaging 20.2 litres per hour at 122 knots
indicated.

not a bad afternoon's trundle If I do say so myself.
98 litres of high octane avgas was all it took.

Gee phil. you must have the best dirt runway in all australia up
there. pity all the world for 50 miles around was shut when I visited
:-)

your pal
Stealth Pilot

( Barwon Field ???? that's a bit pretentious isnt it? )