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Busselton Western Australia 2012

Here is the plan for the trip over. We are not going the same way back, still open to Ideas on that one.

Each leg will be no longer than 2.5hrs

YCAB via Emerald for fuel, then onto Longreach stop
Longreach to Birdsville for lunch then onto Coober pedy stop
Coober pedy to Nullarbour hotel stop
Nullarbour hotel via Caiguna for fuel to Esperance stop
Esperance to Busselton flyin March 4th.

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More to follow soon.
 
Looks like a fun trip Jamie. I have done 2 similar trips to N.S.W from W.A in my -6 :).
Looks like I may be doing a fire bombing demo at Busselton again this year so may see you there.

Cheers
Graham
 
Hi Graham,

Keep a look out for my plane.

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Hope to see you in Busselton.
 
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Great looking 7A. Love the paint job. Below is a list of fuel prices that may interest you for your trip planning. These were given to me by a friend that just returned yesterday from a trip in a R44 to the Tamworth Country Music Festival :)

Kalgoolie $2.00 ltr
Esperance $2.08
Caiguna $2.86
Forrest $2.75
Nullabor $2.95
Border Village $3.10
Coober Pedy $2.07
William Creek $2.80
Broken Hill $1.97
Cobar $2.15

Cheers
Graham

PS I will be doing the Fire Bombing demo but probably won't be landing at Busselton for a look unfortunately.
 
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We are now safely at Birdsville, middle of nowhere!!* After a forced turn-around earlier today..* quite a day.* We should be in Cooper Pedy tonight..* but just no way we were going to risk it..

For those not here in Oz right now..* There is massive flooding going-on right across the country, and yep!* ... we got caught up right in the middle of it all.
Flying below the cloud to maintain ground visibility, we hit the rain hard and fast, at about half hour out of Birdsville to CooperPedy (Longreach leg was ok).
The cloud got lower and lower and lower, and we were travelling in full rain at a little above 500 feet!!!* We were suddely then faced with rising terrain (small mountains), and that was it!!* We turned around fast, while still with full rain (and wind now at this stage),* a very delicate manouver.* Let me tell you.. we were both very happy to be safe on the ground again.

However, looking at the weather maps right now, tomorrow we should be ok.* We have missed the worst of it now (hopefully).

Apart from today, it has been a very nice trip.* The plane is flying beautifully, using the auto-pilot for most of it (so easy).* However, fuel is very exxy here at around $3 per litre, and we need around 158 litres to fill the wing tanks, it gets VERY expensinve to fly!*

Anyway, i hope you like some of the photos and will hopefully have internet again tomorrow night... wherever we land at.

PS:.. in one of the photos...* It is SOO hot here on the tarmac at Birdsville, that the tar has melted into the landing gear wheels....* unbelievable!

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finally we have arrived safely at the Nullarbor Motel, right on the very beautiful coast of SA/WA border.

We seemed to have timed it just right (departing Birdsville) and hammered through that nasty rain and crappy weather that was moving across Oz. This time we got to below 400 feet (even lower than yesterdays attempt), but we could see the sky was improving up ahead, so we just carried on.* It paid off and here we are now , ok.
We made a very cool fly over the massive Lake Ayre (with lots of water with all the rain!) , then landed at Cooper Pedy to refuel , then onwards to Nullarbor without any problems.** Average ground speed of 300km/hour - ...nice!!

Tomorrow we head off to Esperance to stay there the night, then to arrive at our destination (as planned), Busselton on Sunday.

The plane is going beautifully and a little bumpy (to be expected in a small plane), but is great fun and a very adventurous trip!

Here's some more photo highlights of the trip.
Take care and check in again soon...
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Thanks for the Info Jamie

Hi Jamie. Thanks for talking over some of the finer details of your build with me at the Busselton Aeroclub's 'Aerofest' today. Fiona and I look forward to the day we fly our own -7A. Wing skins soon to be riveted. Enjoy your flight east when you get to it and I will look you up if in need of some advice. Your southern coastline photos give me motivation.

Cheers.
Chris.
 
Hi Chris, it was great to have a chat with you about rv stuff :)
I think over the day I counted over ten rv's on the field. I would have liked to talked to more, but had limited time.
Later that day around 5.30 pm I gave one of the busselton aero club members a ride up to Bunbury, I think he now wants an rv also :)
I have lots of photos and video I will sort out and up load over the next week.
The only problem I have found so far is that I think I have a loose wire on one of the tank senders, the level now jump up and down a bit, will have to sort that one out soon. For now I will just keep on doing my 30 min fuel log.
I leave busselton at 8am on the 8th for my return trip back to Qld, It also happens to be my Birthday, should be great !
 
Some more photos. ( Note not in order of flight, just random shots )

The last photo on this page ( reply #11) is why I went from the East to west coast, so I could show my mum the finished plane.

This is Andrew and myself inside the 747 jumbo engine that is on display at the Longreach museum. You get a tour all over this huge thing.
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Flooding on the way to Birdsville. A low front went from the north to the south of Oz, just had to let it pass, then move on. This is near the point that I turned back, I was down to around 500 ft here not happy, so back we went to Birdsville. After 30 mins with a 20 kt tail wind we got back, the sun was out and cloud base back up to 2500 ft. within mins that all changed. It turned out to be a good thing as I always wanted to say I had a beer at the Birdsville pub. They have a horse race here once a year in the outback, many if not most people flying in for the great day.

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Salt ponds near Esperance. Mostly white, with the odd green and yellow one.
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Almost at Busselton.
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Seeing mum at my home town of Busselton.
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On my return trip back to QLD , I had another friend Andre' to pick from Perth Airport, here we are at the start of our return trip.

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This is Claus , he and Tania are the Forrest Airport Managers. Total population at forrest is 2 people, make that 4 with Andre' and myself. You dont get much more isolated than that.
Here he is showing us the old tank that needed a spruce up. Claus and Tania looked after our every need, I hope to drop in again and say hello, I will try and bring ice cream next time !

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You can see here someone had cut out the shape of a wedge tail Eagle and it is used in the next photo.

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Forrest was a MET station up until the 1990's. Now they have a meteorite camera, complete with photovoltaic panels, located on the old HUFDUF on the historic trail. This was put in by a college in London and built in Prague. There are now three of these cameras on the Nullarbor to triangulate the position of any meteorite.

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At dusk these fellows are every where. They are vermin, but they do look cute.
Here is a Fact about rabbits in OZ.

The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the No. 1 Rabbit-proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits and other agricultural pests, from the east, out of Western Australian pastoral areas.

There are three fences in Western Australia: the original No. 1 Fence, which crosses the state from north to south, the No. 2 Fence which is smaller and further west, and the smaller east-west running No. 3 fence. The fences took six years to build. When completed in 1907, the Rabbit-Proof Fence (including all three fences) stretched 2,021 miles (3,253 km). The cost to build the fences at the time was £337,841

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The impressive wedge tail eagle looking for something to eat, better run rabbits !
A large brown bird of prey, it has a wingspan of up to 2.27 metres (7.4 ft) and a length up to 1.04 metres (3.4 ft).
The female Wedge-tailed Eagle weighs between 3 and 5.77 kg (6.6 and 12.7 lb), while the smaller males weigh 2 to 4 kg (4.4 to 8.8 lb)
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I like this shot of the sunset over the rail line. A train called the Indian Pacific, passes here 4 times a week. That is how most thing are delivered to Forrest. Freight trains also pass day and night, these can often be over 1 km long, with multiple engines up front.

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Here is andre' you can see behind him the free public transport on offer at Forrest(just under the "stop" right side), yes the good old push bike. I had not been on one of these for years, the next day my backside also told me that I had not road a bike in some time.

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This is just out of the town of Ceduna, the beach look great. The wind was up so no swimming here.

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The Cedun jetty first thing in the morning with the tide out.

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Jamie
I hate to whine, but could you add a few captions so we can understand what various photo's are of/where they were taken (yes, Forrest is obvious).
John
 
Jamie
I hate to whine, but could you add a few captions so we can understand what various photo's are of/where they were taken (yes, Forrest is obvious).
John

Updated for you John, when I posted the pictures I didnt have time to leave comments, I was going to do it later tonight. :eek:

Im planning my next trip now, TBA
 
For a guy who built his first plane, under some challenging times, and turned out a beauty, then with very few hours in his log book(licence only and a couple more), and not flying for 12 years, to now flying across a continent that is not like the USA where there is a town everywhere you look with at least a VOR, he has done an outstanding job.

I was privileged enough to do a great chunk of Jamie's test flying, and coaching him with conversion training, but best of all I have a new mate! And what a journey he has made, probably not cracked 150 hrs yet.

Job well done Jamie, I am very proud of your achievements.

DB:)
 
Thanks Dave, I do appreciate all your help !
I guess all those mini navs Dave and I have done, did pay off.
Yes Australia is a big open remote country, often in the middle, I did not have radio contact with anyone, for hours at a time.
I can now tick another thing off my bucket list.
1) build own plane, done
2) fly own plane across Australia and back, done.
The first leg over was most difficult for me as the other person was not a pilot, and that left all the flight decisions go/no go up to me.
However Andrew did a great job helping in the cockpit.
The return trip with Andre' who is a pilot, but has not flown for many years, made it a little easier for me.
VH-XJL flew great, all I needed to do was fill up and put some oil in every 10 hrs or so. What a great aircraft, thanks Vans !
 
Jamie,

Well done. I hope to get a ride or two next year when I will be on sabbatical in Tassie for a few weeks then on to WA (Perth, Kalgoorlie) for another few weeks. Not sure I will get to QLD on this trip but one never knows!

cheers,
Greg
 
So Jamie, did you take your mum for a ride?

I really like your paint job. Nice job!

Hi Bruce, yes I was able to take mum for a ride, only after I did a big taxi around first. Mum is in her 70s now, she has many hour in big jets, but didnt know about such a small plane.

Im proud to have been able to take her for a lap, that IS why I crossed Oz in the first place.

Thanks RE: Paint job, hope to see your paint job soon, not long to go now !
 
Congrats Jamie - sounds like you had a great trip.

I got a good dose of deja vu from your photos - my trip across OZ for the Langley Park fly-in now seems like a distant memory. Perhaps a sign that i need to plan another adventure.

Cheers,

Jon
 
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