Just a little fly-in'

Just off the coast of Brisbane lies Stradbroke Island.  It is one of the several "sand islands" the dot the east coast of Australia, and it is one of the larger ones, along with Moreton Island just to the north.

Like many locales here, it has a small grass airstrip, which in this case is owned and operated by a private aero club.  Every month, they hold a little get-together fly-in, and this time invited the school from the mainland to hop over as well.

When I first saw the announcement, I knew I wanted to go.  It was advertised as a "ride share" type of flight: split the cost with another student - you fly one way, and the other flies back, with the instructor in the right seat.  In my case, since I am neither a student nor can be PIC without an Australian certificate, this would be a purely instructional flight, which meant I could fly (and yes, pay for) the whole time.

But I was still eager to go.  This would be a nice trip out over the water, a first time to a grass strip, and it's been 10 months (!) since I was last in the left seat.  It was good timing - my work schedule has dropped a bit of its intensity, and I haven't needed to hop on a commercial flight for a few weeks.  This will also be the first fly-in that I've actually flown rather than driven to.

We started the day with a quick briefing.  This private strip is fairly long and hard-packed, so there wasn't too much concern about it being too soft.  But, at 2,800 feet, it still doesn't leave much room for error, and it sits in a small valley.  No matter which way the wind blows, there is a fair bit of turbulence.  Much of the briefing covered the approach and departure.  One interesting tip was to use the rudder more than ailerons for correcting on final approach.  The turbulence can cause a wing to stall, and a guy supposedly wrecked several years ago by banking too steeply. 

Our flight ended up pretty uneventful.  And considering the scales of rust that must be covering my skills, it wasn't as terrible as I was afraid of.  We flew a newer Cessna 172, and I really do like it.  It's a high wing, but it has as modern a "steam gauge" panel as you can get without one of the fancy glass panels.  It also has a smooth-running fuel injected engine.  Very nice plane.

The trip stayed low most of the time.  We planned for 1,000 feet, but the instructor had to take over for a few seconds to dive us down when I let it get to 1,100 too close to the Brisbane airspace.  I didn't get enough muscle into it quick enough.  That's a sure sign of not being in tune with the plane - a combination of time and not sticking to a particular make and model long enough to know what forces and control settings will get you what you need.

The approach and landing at Dunwich were a bit bumpy, and though I was cautious of being too high and fast, the instructor commented that we actually seemed a bit low.  Overall, it looked pretty good to me, but he might have been wanting to leave a bit more room for the unpredictable winds.  In the end, it wasn't a bad landing given the bit of crosswind and a downhill slope.
 

There were about 40 planes arriving within a half-hour, so it was a busy airstrip for the time being.  At one point, we saw three planes on final at the same time.  We had a nice breakfast and then our club planes were the first to leave.  There were more lessons for the instructors as soon as we got back.

The takeoff was what I expected and had reviewed the night before - with one exception.  We started with 10 degrees of flaps, as per the operating handbook.  And then we lifted off and stayed in ground effect to accelerate.  But we also raised the flaps before climbing out, rather than waiting until we were clear of obstacles.  For a non-pilot, this doesn't mean anything.  It amounted to a very busy liftoff phase and then a quick climb through the wind shear layer above the hills.  Another first-time experience.


On the way back, I also saw two more things that I've never seen as a pilot - skydivers right in front of me and sea turtles right below me.  The turtles were pretty fleeting, as we hummed along at 120 knots and 1,000 feet again.  But the parachutes were a bit of a concern, as they appeared about 3 miles directly in front and right at our altitude.  They fly out of our airport, and jump on the beach between there and us.  Needless to say, we deviated course.

After a bit of a wobbly landing (but pretty close to the threshold), we were back home.  A good way to spend real flying time, and a great chance to do some things that I've never done before.  Most FBOs balk at taking the rental planes to grass or dirt strips.  Around here, that's just the way things are - probably much like the U.S. 30 or 40 years ago.