PPL Test Part 3: from Gayndah back to Redcliffe

This is the third and final post on my PPL checkride last November, previous posts can be found here and here. Promised, I will go back soon to posting photos.

Short field take-off at Gayndah, and soon after the examiner pulls the throttle back to idle for a simulated EFATO (Engine Failure After Take-Off). It is generally considered poor practice to shut the engine down for simulating an engine failure, so running on idle is the next best thing. According to someone who has been through a real EFATO, there is a lot more drag from the windmilling propeller, less responsive controls and strong pilot denial when it's for real.

You have to love aviation for always coming up with five-letter acronyms. EFATO is just like a FLWOP (Forced Landing WithOut Power), the difference being you have a lot less time to react due to the proximity of the ground and the lower airspeed on climbout than in cruise. As an added bonus, if you stress the middle syllable, EFATO almost sounds like an insult in Italian.

The procedure drilled into me throughout the whole PPL training comes out easily: carby heat on, mixture full rich, fuel on (except there's no carby heat on a fuel-injected engine), trim for best glide speed, select a field within 30 degrees ahead of us and glide in that direction. I point to the examiner the paddock where I would go, he's happy with the choice and thinks we would make it. He asks for a go around. Full throttle, right rudder and away we climb.

In the corner of my eye I can see the Big Orange. Believe it or not, there are actually four Big Oranges in Australia, all in different states. The one in Gayndah houses the tourist information office. Not to be confused with the Big Pineapple, which features on the Brisbane VTC chart just west of Maroochydore airport. If you haven't been to Australia you can't understand the thing with Big Things. So far I've been to the Big Banana, Big Lobster and the Big Rocking Horse. Hopefully one day I'll visit Tamworth and finally pay homage to The Big Golden Guitar.

From Gayndah I establish myself on track for the Maleny VOR and turn the nose a couple of degrees right of our south-easterly track in order to offset the southerly wind. The examiner announces that upon reaching a certain point on the track, I will have to perform a diversion. That point is when we cross the Widebay Highway, 45 nautical miles from Gayndah, which gives me some time to get prepared. And the diversion will be to Kilcoy, 50 nautical miles after the diversion. The examiner is kind enough to turn the autopilot on for me while I struggle with re-folding the map and measuring distances and headings with my protactor and ruler.

I make a call to Center to tell them that at 46 nautical miles on the 307 radial of the Maleny VOR I will divert to Kilcoy. The controller pulls out my flight plan and seems confused as to whether I'm on the leg from Maroochydore to Gayndah or Gayndah back to Redcliffe. We clear the confusion and our flight plan is confirmed as amended. A few minutes later I turn onto the new heading. Now comes the time for instrument flying,

The examiner has me put on the hood and I start about 20 minutes of instrument flying, maintaining an altitude and a heading. I know the heading is wrong, since the moment when one puts the hood on is usually when the examiner takes advantage of the temporary blindness of the person in the left seat to mess with the directional gyro and get them lost. Fair enough. I fly whatever heading I have to fly and when told come out from under the hood. The idea now is to find out where I am.

I proceed methodically. Write down the time. Slow the airplane down to 80 knots, lower a stage of flaps, choose an anchor point and orbit around it. Given the time spent under the hood and how much the DG was off the magnetic compass, I draw a circle around where I should, in all likelihood, be. To the West I can see a lake with a dam and I am very relieved to find a lake with a dam inside the circle on the map. That's Borumba Reservoir. The rest matches, i.e. roads and nearby town, so I declare us unlost and the examiner is happy.

We track south to Kilcoy where I expect another engine failure, this time in cruise. I get it after we clear the ranges coming from the north, and luckily enough I am within gliding range of the Kilcoy grass runway. I plan an approach in such a way as to fly two legs of the circuit, taking into account the strong westerly wind. Yes, the wind has changed direction, a sure sign we should hurry up back home. I am lined up on final with the grass strip, and the examiner agrees I would make it.

Around we go for a bit of low-level following the D'Aguilar Highway in the direction of the coast. What follows is a standard approach to Recliffe, staying under the CTA steps. Radio call to Caboolture then landing at Redcliffe. Still high and fast, damn, third time in one day... I taxi back, park the aircraft between the hangars. The examiner goes back in and I clean up the aircraft. So far so good. I feel very very tired, this was a 3.8 hour flight, i.e. 3 hours and 48 minutes. I call CENSAR and cancel my SARTIME.

We managed to beat the weather and perform all the planned test flight. But the oral theoretical exam is till waiting. I take a little break and join the examiner in a briefing room. He looks at the Knowledge Deficiency Report from the theoretical exam and asks me questions about hypoxia, stall speed and the oil system as I expected. No problem here. He makes me double-check in the CAO that the maximum altitude for flights without supplemental oxygen is 10,000ft. Then he asks me a trick question about minimum runway width at unlicensed aerodromes. It takes me a while to find the right answer but I make it. He smiles, tell me I passed and shakes my hand. There's quite a bit of paperwork left, but that's of course quite a pleasure.

I would love to say that I was overjoyed at getting the PPL, but that would be a lie. What I felt instead was immense relief, and also a sense of emptiness. Something was clearly over. I had been waiting for that moment for the last 18 months, and the journey had been just as nice as the destination. Now, what next?

I understood for the first time why some people quit flying after obtaining their PPL. Going from zero to being able to fly an airplane safely to any destination with passengers is a big personal achievement in itself. My theory is that many people think they learn flying because they enjoy flying in itself, while in fact what attracts them is eventually knowing that they are capable of flying an aircraft, which is an entirely different thing.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And it is truly a massive personal achievement, no doubt. The closest thing I could compare it to is getting a PhD. You work hard on doing research for years, you get results, publications, write up a dissertation, the big day comes, and you finally get the degree. Only to realise this was only the first step in a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. Or the lifelong pursuit of tenure and research grants, but that's a different topic. Some people keep on doing research, others are just happy to have done it, get a regular, better paying job and maybe add "Dr" in front of their name on their credit card.

So that concludes the PPL chapter of this blog. Learning to fly was a very big part of my life for 18 months but not all my life. In the meantime I also managed to propose to the woman of my dreams, get married, obtain Permanent Residency in Australia, change jobs and change town. It's been a busy but very fulfilling time.

Thanks for reading that far. More adventures to come in the next months with learning to fly Pipers in Sydney, getting a retractable endorsement and possibly a night rating next Winter. And hopefully there'll be plenty of trips to remote landing strips or fly-ins to report on. Stay tuned!

PPL Test Part 2: from Maroochydore to Gayndah

After taking-off on 18 at Maroochydore, I wrote down our departure time and made a right-hand turn onto the heading which, given the forecasted winds, would take us in a straight line to Gayndah, about 100 nautical miles to the north-west, on the second leg of the PPL in-flight test.

This leg was pure dead reckoning, so no use of radio-navigation aids or GPS. That’s a pity because Maroochydore has a VOR which I would have loved to use to establish myself on track. Instead I had to look over my shoulder to make sure the outbound track pointed somehow to the airport. I must have done a decent enough job because we soon had Mount Ninderry on our left and a few miles later we flew right over the top of Mount Eerwah, which matched the line I had drawn with a black pencil on my map. So far so good.

I was feeling pretty happy with myself at that stage. I knew from another student who was once failed by the same examiner that if he decided to fail me he would ask me to turn around and fly back home right away. Which meant I was still in the race. I mentally warned myself against relaxing and becoming complacent.

Another thing I knew was that the examiner does not normally fail you in the PPL test if you make a mistake, realise quickly this is a mistake and take the appropriate corrective action. This is the difference with the CPL test where everything needs to be done right the first time and every other time after that.

I called the tower to report clear of controlled airspace and they approved a change to the center frequency. The weather wasn’t too bad and I climbed to 4500ft. A Caribou military transport aircraft had departed Maroochydore right behind us and overtook us on the right on its way to Gympie. With a cruise speed of 160kt it’s not that much faster than our Cessna 172SP and its 115kt. But the comparison stops here. They have two engines and an MTOW over 14 tons, 40% of which can be cargo. Compare that with a single-engine, 1.3 ton MTOW and 4-seater-configuration-only-if-you-don’t-take-baggages-and-not-full-fuel for the 172.

I gave a call to the Gympie CTAF after receiving a friendly nudge from the examiner (“just as an information, there may be an aerodrome within 10 nautical miles”). We crossed the Wide Bay Highway later than I expected. This was our half-way point to Gayndah, so I revised my estimate accordingly. We crossed a few more ridges and valleys, some with roads in them, some not. Of course I couldn’t use the Gayndah NDB navaid. I kept aligning compass and DG, flying the heading, maintaining altitude and dutifully performing my CLEAROFF checks.

The examiner took a sandwich out of his flight bag and asked if it was OK if he ate it now. Sure I said. He unwrapped the homemade delicacy and the smell of egg started to fill the cabin. He finished the sandwich quickly, so I thought hey, at least the smell will go away now. Wrong. Even though the descent was well planned and the corresponding increase in pressure so gradual I never had to pop my ears once, the examiner managed to belch all the way down to ground level.

After clearing the last hill I could see Gayndah, Queensland’s Citrus Fruit capital. During flight planning at home I had realised on Google Earth that the airfield was in a bend of the river, with the bend pointing toward me and the town on my left. Thankfully everything turned out to be where it was supposed to be and I joined the circuit for YGAY, the unlicensed aerodrome of Gayndah with its 1265m long paved runway and elevation of 369ft.

The plan here was to perform a so-called precautionary search before landing, in this case simply overflying the runway at 200ft to check if it was suitable for landing, then do a normal circuit and land. My circuit join manoeuvre was acceptable. I ended up high and fast on final so had to use a lot of flaps to slow myself down for the overfly at 80kt and 200ft above ground. The runway looked in good condition with no obstacles on it or nearby so I went around and climbed back up to circuit height. That’s when I made a mistake that would have meant the end of the test had I been attempting the CPL test.

To understand the mistake, remember I did all my flying training at Redcliffe, elevation 7ft. With an altimeter set to read zero at sea level, there is no practical difference between the altitude over mean sea level (i.e with the altimeter set to the local QNH) and the altitude over the reference altitude of the aerodrome. 7 feet is less than the thickness of the altimeter needle.

Gayndah and its elevation of 369ft was a different story. Of course I knew that I had to join the circuit overhead at about 1900ft and that circuit altitude was about 1400ft. I even had all those numbers written on my knee board.

What happened was that I happily kept climbing above circuit altitude after my go-around. I realized I was doing something wrong when I found myself still climbing mid-downwind. The picture of the airport on my left hand-side was wrong too. I reacted quickly: chopped power down and pushed the nose down to recapture circuit altitude.

Of course by the time I levelled off at circuit height I was on late downwind and too fast, so once again I flew the entire base and final leg with the engine on idle and a fair amount of flaps down. What made matters even worse was that I was supposed to demonstrate a short field landing, which means a lower approach speed on short final. I all worked OK in the end, we landed ,taxied to the apron and shut down.

In stark contrast with the stench of the egg sandwich he had subjected me to while airborne, the instructor now commented on how the air on the ground was filled with the smell of citrus fruit blossom. Readers from the Northern Hemisphere, remember means October means the start of Spring in Australia. The air was still and warm but this is not always the case around here: I could see a piece of corrugated iron, probably torn off a nearby roof or shed, sitting high in the branches of a tall gum tree.

I wish I had pictures to illustrate this post, but I had made a conscious decision not to take my camera on that day, not wanting to give the “tourist” impression to the examiner. I got back into the airplane, re-folded my maps and prepared myself for the third and final leg of the PPL test.

So far so good I thought, but I came uncomfortably close to failing. On the menu for the next leg: engine failure after take-off, navaids work, instrument flying, lost procedure, diversion, forced landing without power, low level flying and a flapless landing at Redcliffe.

PPL Test Part 1: from Redcliffe to Maroochydore

So the big day of the final PPL test finally came to pass, 582 days after my first flying lesson. And it was a... success! I’m happy to report that I am now the proud holder of an Australian Private Pilot Licence for fixed-wing aeroplanes.

Sorry by the way for the delay in posting the news. I passed the test more than two months ago but have since been very busy with starting a new job and moving to a new city, which left no time for blogging, let alone flying.

A few days before the test, Rob, the CASA Testing Officer who would be conducting both the ground and air-based parts of the test, called to give me the itinerary I would fly on the day. It all sounded reasonably straightforward with three legs: from Redcliffe to Maroochydore, then to Gayndah and finally back to Redcliffe via the Maleny VOR navaid. The only bit of controlled airspace was around Maroochydore airport. Of course there would be diversions, lost procedures, simulated engine failure and system failures thrown in.

As usual, everything that could be planned beforehand was planned beforehand. Twice this time. I even spent a fair amount of time reading the WAC and VTC charts and making mental notes of ground features that I could use to get un-lost when Rob would get me lost. I double-checked all the figures, prepared the flight notification form and annotated my WAC chart with frequencies and half-way points. I read about the three topics on which I gave wrong answers on the theory test: hypoxia, effect of power on stall speed and oil system. And I showed up on time at 8AM.

I got the weather forecast and all the relevant NOTAMs. Nothing too flash. Acceptable in the morning, then getting increasingly worse in the afternoon with a TEMPO for thunderstorms at Brisbane airport, just around the time when we would be coming back to Redcliffe. I computed headings and fuel plan. Because of the probability of thunderstoms at Redcliffe on the way back I had to plan extra fuel for 60 minutes holding , which brought within a few litres of the legal limit, but on the right side of it.

I discussed the plan with Rob and he proposed to swap the in-flight and ground-based parts of the test so that we would do the flying first thing while the weather was still OK, then come back and go through the oral examination. I was happy with that, the last thing I wanted was to postpone the test, knowing it would probably mean a delay of a couple of months at least.

I pre-flighted and refuelled VH-SPP, a Cessna 172SP, then came back into the clubhouse for a pre-flight briefing. Rob explained what would happen on the flight. I would not use the Maroochydore VOR out of Maroochydore because that leg was about testing my dead reckoning navigation skills. At Gaydah I would do a short-field full-stop landing. After take-off there I’ll have a simulated engine failure. On the way to Maleny I will have to do a bit of instrument flying, then perform a diversion and a simulated forced landing. On the way back to Redcliffe there’ll be some low-level flying following the roads, and the landing at Redcliffe will be a flapless. I was surprised by how detailed the briefing was. I didn’t expect him to tell me when and where things would happen. It came as a bonus in a way.

We took off on 07 and tracked to Bribie Island via Beachmere in order to remain within gliding distance of the land. I re-captured my track at Godwin Beach and turned onto a direct heading to Moffat Head, the VFR reporting point for Maroochydore. I was nearly finished with the turn when I realised this was not going to work.

There was a forest fire on Bribie Island right where I wanted to go. The wind coming from the East was blowing the smoke plume to the west, so I dog-legged my way to the east of the fire. Rob sounded pleased with my decision. With the smoke now behind me, I didn’t bother trying to re-capture my track and tracked direct for Moffat Head, which was clearly visible from where I was.

I gave a call to the Caloundra CTAF, took down the ATIS for Maroochydore and made my inbound call to Maroochy Tower. I got cleared direct Maroochydore via Point Cartwright at 1000ft. Tower asked if I wouldn’t prefer runway 12 instead of 18 because of the smaller crosswind component. I decided for runway 18 because I felt quite confident in my ability to demonstrate a good crosswind landing, and I had landed on 18 twice in the last months, while my last time landing on 12 was more than six months ago, and not very good by any standards.

We were the only aircraft on the frequency, which probably explains why we got cleared to land as soon as I joined downwind. I turned base a bit too early, which got me high and fast for the turn to final since the easterly wind really shortened the base leg. I pulled power off, lowered full flaps and performed a decent landing despite a long float. A powered approach and less flaps would have been better though.

Once on the ground Rob asked if I would be OK with departing straight away or if I wanted a break. Clearly he wanted to get back as soon as possible to beat the bad weather. I thought about it for a half-second and opted for a five-minute break on the ground. I wanted the time to prepare for the next leg, re-fold my maps, have a quick bite at a cereal bar and something to drink. No-one can fail you for taking a break. But flying a leg with underoptimal cockpit organisation and low blood sugar level can lead to mistakes that you can be failed on.

So we re-started, taxied back to the holding point of runway 18, did the run-ups, and I called ready requesting an intersection departure. We got cleared to land with a right-hand turn and a climb to 2500ft. I made my departure report and reported again leaving controlled airspace. “Frequency change approved” came back and I switched to a listening watch on the center frequency for the long leg to Gayndah.

Nav6: Errol Flynn in command

Relating what happened to me on Nav6 is going to take more than one post. It’s not that this flight was any longer than the previous ones. It's simply that the first leg was a comedy of errors so farcical it will take a full post just to list all the mistakes I managed to cram into not even one hour. Hopefully someone can learn from my mistakes, or at least have a good laugh.

This training flight was a dual navigation exercise for the purpose of assessing whether I was ready to go solo into controlled airspace. The first leg of the flight took us from Redcliffe to Gold Coast at 1500ft. This was the same route as on Nav5, but the lower altitude meant I had to exit Class C controlled airspace after transiting Brisbane International and re-enter it approaching Gold Coast.

The night before, I had made sure that everything that could be prepared before the flight was prepared. I had a cheat sheet with all the frequencies I would need for the whole flight, in the order in which they would most likely be needed. I even had an enlarged printout of the Gold Coast airport diagram with enough space to write down clearances and ATIS. All NOTAMs were printed out, read and relevant ones highlighted. Pencils sharpened, maps folded, ruler, ERSA and protractor within reach in the cockpit. I was more prepared for the flight than I had ever been.

After start-up I dialled the first frequencies I would need to talk on as well as that of the navaids. I requested a code while taxying, took off on 25 and switched to Brisbane Radar for my clearance. They identified us and handed me over to Brisbane Approach who issued the expected clearance for transiting Brisbane International: Hornibrook Viaduct, Brisbane Control Tower, Manly Boat Harbor and then direct to the Jacobs Well VOR.

Our traffic was a Bell helicopter coming in the opposite direction, which we only spotted when it flew by us, despite having all 4 eyes looking outside. We switched to tower who asked us to go behind a single-engine light aircraft which was landing on runway 19. After that we tracked for Manly Boat Harbor, which for a moment I confused with the Cleveland boat harbor, right behind it. Lee was kind enough to give me a nudge on this one, and I turned to intercept radial 146 of JCW.

Once the radial intercepted, we tracked for the Jacobs Well VOR. Or what I thought was JCW. Because, you see, I had forgotten to properly Tune-Identify-Test it. And it very rightfully came back to bite me. I found out later that I had tuned in Gold Coast VOR (CG) instead. The error was not obvious at first because radial 146 of JCW and radial 146 of CG are only one mile apart. I realised my mistake when the station passage didn’t happen on time, and I knew from looking outside that the station was behind me.

What happened was that I had tuned the wrong navaid frequency on the ground, as part of my let’s-get-as-much-as-possible-done-on-the-ground plan. But because VORs require line-of-sight radio communication, I couldn’t identify and test on the ground, so I left it for later. And when the moment came to use the navaid, I had forgotten about the missing identify and test. This definitely qualifies as a learning experience.

We then tracked for Gold Coast. I wrote down the ATIS for YBCG, and I was about to contact Brisbane Approach for requesting a clearance to enter Gold Coast Classs C airspace when Lee stopped me. Where are we? Approaching Q1 at 1500ft. And what does the ERSA say? That we may request our clearance directly from Gold Coast tower. Which is also the scenario we had discussed in the briefing before the flight. Which I had forgotten. Bad. On to Gold Coast tower, who clear us to track for Gold Coast airport with a clearance limit of Burleigh Heads. The frequency is very busy with the usual mix of jet and GA traffic.

At Burleigh Heads they clear us for joining final for runway 14. We haven’t been in the air for 30 minutes at that stage and I already can’t believe I made so many mistakes. Did I mention I also completely forgot to make a call on the CTAF frequency for Southport, even though we came within a few miles of the field at 1500ft?

I decide to finish this leg on a good note and apply myself to making a very nice landing. We cross the threshold. There’s plenty of runway in front of us. I remove power. I let the plane go down, and when the ground gets closer I bring the nose slightly over the horizon. The stall indicator goes off. All good so far. We haven’t touched the ground yet and we’re near stall speed, this should make for a nice landing, letting the plane touch the ground only when it decides to.

Suddenly the plane really stalls. Usually this is followed very soon by the nice and reassuring chirping sound of the main wheels touching the ground. Except that in our case nothing but a deafening silence happened for the next two seconds, and then we hit the ground. I could feel the struts absorb the energy of our plane falling down onto the runway from a height of about 2 meters. Lee is laughing. I fell victim to a textbook optical illusion: because the runway here is a lot larger and darker than at Redcliffe, I underestimated our height, and flared too high. For estimating our height, I should have looked at the horizon ahead of me rather then look to the side and down at the runway surface.

We exit the runway, hold short for a Jetstar A320, taxi to the GA parking, shut down and stretch our legs a little. I prepare the cockpit for the next leg. We won’t be able to fly at 6500ft to Kyogle as planned because of clouds over the ranges. We decide to go for 2500ft instead.

Startup again, ask for an amended clearance at 2500ft which we obtain. Take-off on 14, right turn to intercept radial 215 of Gold Coast and we climb to 2500ft and level off there. Just a couple of minutes later Brisbane Approach tells us we’re leaving controlled airspace, which I read back dutifully.


I do my CLEAR-OFF checks and start computing an estimate for Kyogle. Lee points at the altimeter which is now reading 2700ft. I use the trim to make the plane slowly loose altitude and get back to 2500ft. Lee says I need to be more aggressive than that and push the nose down now to get back to 2500ft as soon as possible because we’re currently busting controlled airspace. Busting controlled airspace? That doesn’t sound good.

What happened was that our amended clearance made us leave controlled airspace at 2500ft and fly right below the next Class C step, whose base is precisely at 2500ft. Class C airspace around airports is pretty much like an inverted wedding cake. Flying a bit lower than 2500ft would not have been a big drama, but flying one foot higher is a big no no. Especially when it’s not one foot but 200 feet and the objective of the day is to assess my ability to fly solo in controlled airspace. Needless to say I didn't get a tick on that one.

Mal has an expression for that, he calls it an Errol Flynn day, in reference to the Australian-born actor who apparently had a reputation for breaking anything he touched. My Errol Flynn day lasted less than one hour, but I still have trouble understanding how I could get so many things wrong, even though a similar exercise a few weeks earlier went without problem.

As a consequence, I’ll have to redo the controlled airspace part of Nav6. The plan will be to go from Redcliffe to Gold Coast, then to Toowoomba via the Laravale VOR and back to Redcliffe. This will give us plenty of Class C airspace to get in and out of and hopefully a chance for me to demonstrate that I can do better than on my Errol Flynn day.

Nav1 and plenty of venturis at Wondai

Last Sunday I went out on a navigation exercise with Lee to Wondai (YWND) via Kumbia and came back to Redcliffe via Kilcoy. Redcliffe Aero Club members will recognize Nav1 of the PPL training.

All the navigation was done by dead reckoning. We left Redcliffe at about 11AM and tracked to the north-west, passing the townships of Hazeldean on Lake Somerset, Blackbutt, the Tarong power station and Kumbia. The flight was very enjoyable, with scattered clouds at about 4000 feet, a headwind between 10 and 15 knots and hazy conditions. We did a few corrections for drift using the 1-in-60 method as well as a ground speed check which gave us a figure of 100 knots.

At Kumbia we turned to the north-east and soon had Kingaroy under our right wing. We made a call on the Kingaroy CTAF frequency to let everyone know we were in the area. The Gordonbrook reservoir appeared under our left wing, then the township of Tingoora. Just a few minutes later it was time to start our descent to Wondai and think about how to join the circuit.


There was only one other aircraft in the CTAF, a Texan. I joined crosswind for runway 18 and performed my first landing on a grass strip. The grass was about a foot high, which definitely qualifies for "long grass" on the performance charts! The surface of the strip was uneven, and I had to keep the control column pulled all the way back to prevent damage to the nose wheel and propeller. We shut down, ate our packed lunch in front of the terminal building of this peaceful little airfield and enjoyed the serenity.


I took a few minutes to walk around camera in hand. Wondai is home to the Barambah District Aero Club, which was officially opened by none else than infamous former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.



Around the corner from the clubhouse, I noticed two airplanes in open hangars.

The first one is a small taildragger with rego VH-MSP. The VH Register tells us that it is an Auster J5, first imported into Australia in 1951. Searching the Web, I discovered the work of Ed Coates, who has been collecting pictures of aircrafts for the last sixty years. His amazing Web site has two older pictures of VH-MSP taken in 1964 and 1990. It further identified the type as an Auster J5 Adventurer.

The type was first manufactured in England in 1947 by Auster Aircraft, a British light aircraft manufacturer which ceased production in 1968. Quite a few of these planes made their way to Australia. There are some beautiful pictures taken at the Auster Rally 2007 in Wentworth in south-western New South Wales. The next edition will take place later this year at Goolwa in South Australia.


The aircraft has a surprisingly narrow engine compartment, about twice as tall as wide, with 4 prominent exhaust pipes on the underside. This looks a lot better than the ugly exhaust manifold that can be seen on these pictures of another Auster J5.


The vacuum system is driven by two venturis, one on each side. The venturi on the port side is rather small and looks similar to the venturis found on Tiger Moths, or at least is similar to the picture of a venturi used on a Tiger Moth and featured in Bob Tait's CPL Aerodynamics. the venturi on the other side is similar in size and shape to the venturis of older Cessna 172s, such as VH-DCO stationed at Redcliffe.

I could only open the door a crack to take the picture below. I would not have wanted to enter the cockpit further anyway because of the scary flying insects inside, some of them about two inches long. According to the placard on the instrument panel, the plane was (or still is?) used for glider towing. Wondai is a pretty popular place for gliders and has a winch launch system.

The J5 type was originally designed as a 4-seater, however the placard clearly says “No Passengers” and “Pilot Max Weight 100kg”. Although the aircraft is fitted with dual controls, these were probably only used for training with no glider in tow. Pilots are rarely the jockey type, and the likelihood of finding an instructor and a student with a combined weight under 100kg can be safely considered as statistically insignificant.


The instrument panel is rather antiquated. It has rocker switches for the two magnetos instead of the rotary switch found on modern aircrafts. The Airspeed Indicator shows a stall speed of about 56 knots clean and 30 knots with flaps down. In addition to the altimeter and magnetic compass, one can find oil temperature and pressure gauges, as well as a massive turn coordinator in the middle and a tachometer on the side. A Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI) was added later and sits on top of the dashboard. Only the left stick has a Push-To-Talk button. I couldn’t see any radio inside though.

In the next hangar I found VH-DID, a 1963 Cessna 172D, with two identical venturis, one on each side. The D model was the first one to feature the so-called Omni-Vision rear window which improved visibility but also increased drag.


There was virtually no wind when we started up again, so we decided to take-off on runway 36, which saved us having to taxi all the way back to the threshold of runway 18 over bumps, holes and grass. We took off, kept climbing on downwind and left the circuit overhead to the south-east in the direction of Kilcoy. The tip of Lake Barambah was about the only good navigation fix on that leg. Lee recognized Mt Monsildale, but I wouldn't have found it on my own. We found Kilcoy where we expected it, at the top end of Lake Somerset, then crossed the ranges and started our descent towards Redcliffe, leaving plenty of space between ourselves and the overlying Class C airspace.

Approaching Caboolture I made a radio call to say that we were 10 miles west and tracking for Redcliffe, only to realise that I had made the call on Brisbane Radar frequency... Oops. The call was promptly re-issued, this time on the correct frequency. We made our inbound call for Redcliffe just as we crossed the power lines west of the Bruce Highway. Lee asked if I was really sure I was 10 miles inbound. I said yes, then he pointed at the GPS that he had configured to display the distance to YRED. It showed 9.7 miles, not too bad :-)

As I was at 1500 feet overflying the live side of the circuit at Redcliffe I could see VH-MSJ right below me turning base for 07 at 1000ft. We continued to the dead side, descended to circuit height and joined crosswind for 07. The wind was straight down the runway, a very unusual occurence at Redcliffe. I landed on 07, parked between then hangars and shut down. Lee went back in and I took a few minutes to clean up the plane, write down the figures and repack my stuff.

Before leaving in the morning I had followed Lee's advice to put the flight notification acknowledgment printout at the front of the airplane folder, with a big SARTIME written across it. This was a smart move since otherwise I would have forgotten to cancel SARTIME. I called CENSAR over the phone, gave our callsign VH-RAQ, place of arrival and nominated SARTIME, and the person at the other end of the ligne confirmed the cancellation.

In the short debrief Lee explained to me how to use the DG to establish the airplane on track when leaving an airfield without overflying. He remarked on a few other things, such as the fact that I had started my fuel log using departure time and not the time of engine start-up, and that I did not properly monitor oil pressure on start-up. Appart from that he was happy with mu flying, and nav1 was therefore called a success.

Next step is my GFPT test next Friday. Back to the 152, I'd better make sure I go over the aircraft speeds and procedures again. The forecasted weather is showers of rain with lots of clouds and a near-direct crosswind of about 20 knots... Let's see if the test happens. I really hope it will, otherwise I will have to postpone it for at least several weeks, which would prevent me from going solo on navigation exercises, which would seriously delay the advancement of my PPL training. But I guess I shouldn't complain about the rain.