Moneybox

I had the bottom drop out just as we were approaching the end of the airstrip to land. I don't know the height we were at but it was too quick to react and we seemed to stop in ground effect at a nice level to land however we were still over the grass on the approach. My instructor hit the throttle and said go-around. We did but I thought what a waste of a good landing all I had to do was add a bit of throttle to reach the threshold 🙃

What is classed as a Country Airstrip anyway? I thought I'd see if Cue is there No, Mount Magnet No, Meekatharra No, however some of the smaller station strips are listed.

I felt comfortable following his instruction, he's my trainer, I take it he knows the best procedure, I don't so I need to follow his lead and learn. I say a steep turn however it was just due to the speed we were travelling at and the need for a rapid decent. I'm guilty of turning my rectangular circuit into more of an oval. My secondary instructor has me doing a 30° banked turn apart from during the accent.

One day while nearing the end of the airstrip on the downwind leg of the circuit, cruising at 100kt and 1000ft, my trainer pulled the throttle to idle. He said, you've just lost you engine, what are you going to do? Remembering my study I quickly eased the stick forward, he immediately pulled it back saying "No, look at your speed. You are wasting height". We were cruising at 1000' and easily had sufficient speed to gain considerably more height gaining time and glide distance. I don't remember what height we got but it was well worth using burning off our speed to gain the height. It gave us time to discuss a strategy. Next he said "Where are you going to land"? I said "I can easily make to runway". So he instructed me to head directly to the downwind end of the runway, I headed beyond the end of the runway so that I could turn back but he said "No aim for the end, we've got more than a kilometer of runway to land on but we want to make sure we get there first". Once we reached the runway I did a steep turn and steep decent coming in for a perfect landing on full flaps within the first half on the runway. It was a much steeper approach that I'd done previously or since but felt very smooth and controlled although a quite a bit faster. He never cut the engine and I doubt he ever will.

I'm not interested in getting into your personal spat nor am I qualified to do so. Some time back I watched a very interested video on two Aussie guys who practice STOL in their bush planes. They land anywhere there is sufficient clearing in the bush, obviously not for the average LSA. They were both of the opinion that all pilots should be trained in low level flight so that if ever the occasion occurred they'd be less likely to panic and it may save lives.

The RFDS land once in a while and are exempt of some fees. The closest airports are Mount Magnet 85km S and Meekatharra 120km N. The Dash-8 planes are regular dropping and picking up fly-in fly-out miners adding to the shire coffers. Both those would require airstrip lighting.

Yes there is a decent sized genset there but I doubt it's quite that big 😁

You might think that with a couple hundred residents they might struggle for finance from rates. That's not the case. The whole area is under pastoralist lease, they pay rates, then we pay rates on any mining lease over 10ha, in the case of our mining lease that cuts through our back yard we pay residential rates on top of the mining lease rates. Services provided for a mining lease include unmaintained roads/tracks, no power, no water, no refuse collection or anything else.

I think quite a few are owned or operated by a flying club. Club fees and member labour most likely look after the facilities. Private airstrips are the owners responsibility. Our airstrip is controlled by the local shire. We have 2000m of bitumen fully fenced with pilot activate lighting and a building with toilets and basic facilities. I'm not complaining about the fees but we'll see what happens if I apply to put up a hanger. I'm quite sure it'll be approved because the shire CEO said to let him know if I want to construct a hanger. The only private structure is that tiny grey square near the grey gravel patch at the top of the photo. It has two shipping containers securely anchored with huge concrete blocks and a roof spanning in between.

I've got these couple of Pending leases at Reedy. Just fighting Native Title and Aboriginal Heritage at present. But it was that airstrip that go me interested. Pop up there in the morning, dig a few nuggets and fly home (as long as I'm not over weight) 😉

Yeah "Murphy's Law" tends to kick in.

I'm retired so gold prospecting is just a hobby. Mrs M would like me to be a bit more serious about it but there comes a time in life when you realise doing the things you love are much more important than the cost or payment in monetary value. This is Mrs M with our haul from a few months out and about. Right now I'm more interested in getting the plane in the air but with gold at over $4000 an ounce it's tempting to put a bit more energy into it.

Mrs M wants me to run the detector over it all. I'd be there for weeks but I might check out a few really good looking spots. Most of this ground has/had gold. It's a gold mining lease with another nine years to run. I have no doubt the dryblower would pay well but I've sold that and I haven't got the wet plant up and running yet. There's always the risk of some idiot digging holes in the airstrip.

Yeah Nev, I know what you mean. I'm told there are annual fees to park a plane at the local airstrip so I'm looking for another option. Home Airstrip.mp4 My plane is still sitting in the back yard. It seems ever since covid struck everything takes twice as long to be supplied from just about anywhere.

Yeah I have days like that. I head out to do something, then realise I forgot to take something I needed so head back again. Once getting to my starting point I wonder what it was I needed so I head back out only to remember once I get back to where I got to the first time but I've never had the desire to head to North America.

Crocks used to be scared of us. We spent weeks in the Territory fishing and camping by the streams in the mid-70's and never saw a salty. You'd just hear them hit the water. No doubt we were a little careless with fillets of queenfish hanging from the sides of the 12x12 marquee tent to dry and walking across the creek in waist deep water to get to the other side. There are always more fish to be caught off the other bank. My brother and I made a raft from tying bamboo together with rope so that we could fish the South Alligator River. It fell apart mid-stream so we had to swim to shore while Mum stood on the bank laughing her head off and taking photos. These days there'd be some idiot just up stream hanging a chicken from a string teaching the crocks that we're good for a meal. I think they should be harvested for their skins and meat. (not the people, just the crocks) Each time we visit now a snorkel at Berry Springs is on the agenda 🙃

Most of us eat dead stuff, perhaps we tase like $#!t too....

Don't we still have sea freight? Surely it would work out less expensive.

You can be sure it won't be there after this and there might be a few others taking a look at what they might hit if the same thing occurred on their patch. It's a bit like those safety ramps for heavy vehicles on our steep declines. Some of those use beds of pea gravel or similar so that the vehicle penetrates the surface and bogs down reducing its momentum rapidly. Perhaps something like that could be implemented beyond our airport runways. I remember racing at Mount Cotton hill climb back in the 70's. If you fell off the track at the hirpin turn you ended up buried in Macadamia nut shells and no damage done.

I think if I visited a Fulfilment Centre I'd expect a bit more than an Amazon parcel.

Looked like a very gentle landing. You'd be thinking you were pretty safe at that point but they carried their speed for a very long way as if it was assisted by the engines. If only they'd had the room to slide on the soil it might have stopped without much damage and perhaps no fire at all.

It was on the second landing attempt and they only touched down halfway down the runway? It certainly seemed to be scooting along with very little reduction in speed. I think there might have been more than a landing gear problem. Was it still under power?

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All done waiting for their end to be switched on.

Now I've got to get back up there and run the GPS wire that I forgot about 😒