Coober Pedy Air Safari August 2017

Ihave been an aviator now for a decade. I have become an expert, like the majority of city pilots do, mastering the heights of the environs of Sydney, a leisurely flight to Cessnock, Moruya, Wollongong, Bathurst, or just a flit over Warragamba to rewrite a recency.

But I have always wanted to discover the lands beyond those horizons. I have enjoyed reading articles about flyaways to places with exotic Aboriginal names. I savoured the details in these articles about where, how long, how high, the interesting people, the hospitality, the views, the mildly amusing stories…

And then the planets aligned. I had a plane. I had some funds. I had the time, and I had found the perfect destination — Coober Pedy.  I read about the proposed route there and back - Coonabarabran, Thargomindah, Innamincka, William Creek (population 17), Coober Pedy, Hawker and White Cliffs. Interesting sights like Siding Springs Observatory, Thargomindah – a town completely fuelled by solar energy, the famous Cameron Corner, Dig tree, Lake Eyre, Painted Hills, underground hotels and Marree Man.

 It all seemed like a nice eight days, leaving on the 12th August and returning on the 19th August - a bit of fun flying, seeing some sights, buying some opals for my friends and maybe a bush hat or two… 

…as I now write this account, I laugh out loud at that other me, back then, that lived in a misconstrued romantic world of what city pilots think a flyaway to one of the world’s most deadly and barren landscapes is. It has nothing to do with opals, hotels, dinners, sightseeing or making lifelong friends with some inhabitant of the outback who in reality cares little for pilots who think they are special, especially when 19 of them turn up at once to his establishment.

You see, now I am an outback pilot, desert strips and all, and I can snigger at that city pilot that was once me.  So, when I sat down to write this account, my initial intent was to mimic the Australian Pilot magazine’s recount of times, distances, etc.etc.etc… But when I thought about it, it would have been great if someone had written an alternate article about the gritty side of this thing called a flyaway — something that would have prepared me for it, mentally. So my decision now has changed to giving you the top ten things I learnt on this flyaway.

1. When it’s your first time, surround yourself with experience

Everything you have known as a pilot may become irrelevant very quickly amongst the desolate, hot, unpredictable weather and elements the outback can throw at you.  Aim to travel with a group that has pilots that have experienced this all before.  The collective counsel in arriving at decisions rapidly builds self confidence in this environment.  In retrospect, to go out there alone for the first time could be a drastically wrong decision for a city pilot.

2.  Leave the tourist you at home

This is about surviving an aviation outback adventure. Be focused on making the numerous daily decisions the right calls, so you bring yourself, your pax, and your plane home. Consequences in the outback, ranges, channels, and more importantly the deserts can be dire if you are not committed. This is about flying four hours a day, every day on a strict timetable. If you want to buy outback relics, or spend a day sightseeing, buy an airline ticket to Coober Pedy.

3. Know your plane, your life depends on it

I had the luxury of knowing my plane intimately, having flown it solely for the past year.  But  most city pilots, jump from plane to plane and don’t understand the intricacies of whether the fuel gauges work correctly or the reading on the oil temp is slightly out of position.  Fly the plane — well before the flyaway. Make the effort to know it, it will comfort you when a gauge is hovering on a red line in the middle of a desert or mountain range.

4. Get a bigger plane

Some of the legs in the outback are long with limited fuel options (understatement!). If you get a substantial headwind, as we did relentlessly for the first four days, hovering between 20-40 knots, the endurance you work out on paper as a city pilot disappears quickly. My resolution now is to get a bigger plane, or at least fit long range tanks to my C172. During this trip I looked longingly at the Archer and Cherokee Six and their endurance and speed capability in this unforgiving environment.

5. Have a reliable GPS

This a show stopper. We sat for hours traversing endless deserts with no roads or other landmarks. Dead reckoning can be a dangerous thing when the leg you are flying is extending into its fourth hour due to a hefty headwind. Not knowing if you are on that magenta line or not is something you don’t want to be in doubt about, amongst everything else that is going on. If you miss the mark and have to put down out there, there is a high probability that although you will come home, your plane probably will be staying there as a tourist attraction

6. Onboard Garmin or iPad (OzRunways / AvPlan)?

For GPS both are great and reliable. A bit like Ford or Holden each has its stalwarts. For aircraft owners, reality is, a Garmin costs twenty thousand dollars, and is bound to a single aircraft.  An iPad costs six hundred dollars and is mobile, so you can program it in the hotel room. It also offers a delayed identifier of other iPads in the air (proved not to be accurate), replaces all the paper we used to carry around in our flight bags, and best of all, can be transferred from plane to plane.  Have a good iPad OzRunways lesson prior to the flyaway — this will become your best friend in the air. Warning: flying west into the sun in the afternoon, an iPad suffers from overheating and will shut down in less than half an hour of exposure to direct sunlight. Also, carry a rechargeable spare battery power source. This is your lifeline… don’t let it die mid-flight!

7. Take the biggest steel hammer you can find

This is dedicated to a lesson taught to me by Colin. City pilots pack a nice lightweight (let’s conserve weight) plastic hammer and pegs for tie downs in a five knot breeze on soft grass. In the outback you can be dealing with fierce (30-45knots) winds with no mechanical interference, that is, the wind screams unhindered across the desert — straight to your plane! The ground can be virtually rock. The option of finding your plane next morning somewhere other than where you left it is high unless it securely tied down — hence buy the biggest steel hammer and pegs you can find! Not much of a choice when considering the extra weight versus the security of your ride.

8. Test the forecast

A significant weather challenge in the outback can be the intensity of winds and the heat, even in winter, and the impact this has on aircraft range and pilot fatigue.   The daily ritual dictated an early morning start to discover what the forecast presented to the fleet of seven planes. City pilots look at the 40 knot forecast and go back to bed. Outback pilots test the forecast with a second and third flight option available, as sometimes staying where you poses significant challenges, with incoming blistering weather. Fly the weather, test the different heights, talk with the fleet to confirm or dispel the forecast. More than one day started on one route and then moved to a second back up route. Work the options with two or three flight plans on hand if necessary. Be prepared to flip a plan, many times if need be.

9. Expect the unexpected

Be confident in your crosswind landings, expect a tailwind at 500 feet when you are on final, but an upwind on the flare. The outback has its own rules. Be situationally aware of what is happening, not what you would expect to happen. There is no shame in going around two or three times as we sometimes did to test what was going on with the wind.

10. Don’t delay…go on a flyway

Finally if you take nothing else away from this article, take this away: flying the outback with a well organised group of pilots is a life changing experience. If you have been blessed with the ability to have maintained a pilot’s licence in this amazing country, you must go on a flyaway.   I pointed out at the beginning, I thought I was a pilot. Now I laugh - I learnt more about aviation in the first 48 hours with this team of pilots, some experienced, some first time, than I have in the last five years.  Make it happen for yourself, don’t make it one of those, I-will-do-it-one-day things.