Aviation is Awesome!

Booking an early morning flight at Ballarat this time of year can be a gamble.  Thanks to low overnight temps, almost non-existent winds and a bit of moisture one's plans for a lovely sunrise flight can be foiled by a thick blanket of fog.  With no wind to make it disperse, it can hang around for hours in the morning.  Bye-bye booking!

Thankfully, not this day.  There was fog (as forecast), and on the drive over as I drove through some 'pea soup' areas my hopes were dwindling.  Then, as I was approaching the other side of town, it opened up to clear blue sky!  It appears that it was nowhere near the aerodrome, and there was a clear corridor extending out to the North West.  That works perfectly for me.  My plan was to head out to the training area to do some practice of the things that hadn't been touched on for a few weeks.  I wanted to cover at least steep turns, stalls (not while turning steeply!), practice forced landing, and circuit re-entry.  Then, once that was all done I would return for some circuits so I could really focus on my hold-off technique (I want to do Manny-Style-Land-O-Matic landings all the time).

Perfect day for a fly!  Taken while pre-flighting the Jabiru.  Near the right edge
of this image, you can just make out the fog obscuring Mt Blowhard slightly.

I made sure I checked everything during the pre-flight.  Thankfully, as the Jabiru sleeps in a fully enclosed hangar it was clear of any ice or any other little nasties.  With the pre-flight done, I taxied over to the run up bay - paying special attention to the carby heat check.  I passed some students from STATA having to wash the 172s down just to get rid of the frost.  Glad it wasn't me!  I continued on to runway 18, took off and departed towards Lake Learmonth, the scene of my first area solo.  I now know this area quite well, but it looked totally different this time!

 

Amazing!

The paddocks that I've come to know were replaced by a lovely white blanket of cotton wool (or at least, that's what it looked like!), only slightly higher than treetop level.  I followed the clear corridor, just in case anything unusual happened, and there was plenty of things around to navigate with.

Burrumbeet Racecourse.

North Shore, Lake Burrumbeet.

I managed to snap a short video showing the view out both sides...

Looking East over a swollen creek.

I completed my airwork without too much fuss - My steep turns are getting better.  It was so much fun checking everything out that I found myself for a couple of minutes just looking around.  I hadn't even formulated a circuit re-entry plan yet! Time for the next phase of my plan - re-enter the circuit and do some touch and goes!

I turned and headed towards the airport and gave a slightly muddled inbound call (d'oh!), then joined downwind for 05.  The wind was calm, so usually airport guidelines rule that 18 is to be used in nil wind.  However, there was already a 172 doing touch and goes on 05, so I slotted in with her.

Three uneventful touch and goes later, I heard Manny on the radio.  He asked me to pick him up at the Aero Club when I was done and he'd take me up for another fly.  Yippee!  I stopped in and Manny explained that he needed to do his recency flying and prefers that someone is in the seat - I was that someone!  The fog had mostly gone by then, but it was still nice to be a passenger for once!

Turning crosswind, climbing out of Runway 05.

Disused quarry, just North of the aerodrome.

Fog all gone now!

On final approach to 05.  The wind had come up by this stage, and was now a solid crosswind.

All in all, a great morning!  I got a lot done, and even had time to look around as well.  I ended up doing slightly more than the hour I had originally planned, but I guess every minute counts towards my Passenger Endorsement.  Less than an hour to go!!!

I am loving flying.  I can definitely see why people would want to do this every day!