I have been trying to get to Natfly for the past 4 years,
but due to work commitments I have been unable to get
away. My work involves owning and operating a skydive/parachute
school and the busiest times are weekends and more so,
long weekends.
Almost 4 years ago I purchased a Mustang 11. I found her
stored in a hangar at the Camden Haven airstrip on the
mid_north coast. She had been there for almost 5 years.
After purchasing her, my LAME and I extensively checked
out the whole aircraft and got her airborne again. Since
then I have logged over 500 hours with her.
I had a couple of brave 'victims' booked in for their
first skydive early on this morning, and fortunately the
weather permitted us to go and skydive before we departed
for Natfly. Guy Allison accompanied us, as we departed
on Taree's runway 04, on what started out as a pretty
ordinary overcast Saturday. I have found, being reliant
on the weather for my work, that Easter is notorious for
cloudy and wet weather. As we had a CAVOK weather report
for Narromine we elected to go 'VFR on top'. We climbed
to our cruising level of 8,500 ft, due to cloud and tracked
direct to Narromine.
Guy is very keen to purchase and/or build his own RA aircraft.
He is a local skydiver and a hang glider pilot. He is
currently looking at his options as to which way and what
type of aircraft he wants. Naturally, budget and performance
plays a key role in his ultimate decision. So, the perfect
opportunity to see lots of aircraft was to hitch a ride
to Natfly and check out all the different varieties available
to him. Now he is totally confused. Each aircraft has
its advantages and disadvantages. At least he won't be
ignorant when he finally decides what to do.
Needless to say the view 'on top' was nothing short of
spectacular. At one stage we had to climb to 9,500 feet
to remain clear, but only for a short spell. The flight
took us around the 1 1/2 hours as we had up to 20 knots
of headwind at times. Approaching Dubbo we were visual
with the ground and approaching Natfly visibility was
unlimited.
We monitored Narromine CTAF whist still 30 miles out,
and slotted into the circuit nicely for an average landing,
for my standards anyway.
As we only had a few hours to look around, Guy and I started
at one end and looked over the entire area, checking out
each aircraft. As I have been around aircraft for many
years, I breezed through, and photographed, much quicker
than Guy. He was in his element, with so many different
flying machines available to him for his inspection.
I don't know about other years, but I found the 'trade'
section to be fairly sparse. We managed to stop at a few
and ask some, hopefully, intelligent questions to satisfy
our curiosity.
Wandering back to where the Mustang was parked, we elected
to stand by the taxiway and watch a few aircraft taxiing
and departing. Watching Dick Smith depart in the new Cessna
Citation CB was impressive as was the UFO we saw (still
haven't worked out how one gets in and out of that 'aircraft')
Well, the time came and we had to depart. After confirming
that our destination's weather at Taree, was acceptable,
we backtracked with a couple of other aircraft for departure
and did one orbit for a couple of overhead photos, then
tracked direct, 'VFR on top' at 9,500 ft. This time, we
had a TAS of around 170 knots, so it wasn't long getting
home.
We both enjoyed our day out at Natfly and will try to
fit it in next year, too. Maybe Guy will be able to fly
out in his own machine?
