Georges Hall, 14 Apr 2008

Last week on Thursday I went for my third Navigation Flight with my instructor Shepp, we flew from Bankstown to Goulburn (Bankstown, Cadmen, Mittagong, Goulburn, Taralga, Bindook, Warragamba Dam, Bankstown). I took off for the first time in the center runway, the big, long, wide and nice runway that the Jets use. I made a huge mistake in my planning; you can imagine my planning sheet, a whole A4 page full of numbers for the timing, tracks&headings and heights. Well, the case is that I miswrote a heading of 227º instead of 196º and I ended up somewhere in the Blue Mountains, 15NM* off track after only 27NM (15 Minutes at 110Kt*). This was a good chance for me to perform, for the first time in a real situation, the Lost Procedure! This consists in checking which actual heading one has been maintaining and for how much time has elapsed since the last position confirmation check, and then draw a circle of R=5NM around the estimated position. Then you try to identify landscape features and compare them with your map. But it makes me reeeeally nervous to make calculations inside the aircraft, because think of what the first thing you’re used to do when you get lost driving a car… You just pull over and stop, but you can’t stop an airplane, so every second counts!

Succeeded to orientate myself, after a while we finally got to Goulburn, a very small runway in the middle of a small deserted area between mountains. We changed opinion several times on which runway to land after checking the windsock, since the wind was variable and just after having decided to land on RWY 22 another aircraft was preparing for taking off from 04 (opposite side of the same runway, since 040º and 220º are reciprocal). On CTAF Aerodromes (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency – Radio Communications) there’s no ATC (Aircraft Traffic Control, in other words, control tower), so nobody tells you where you have to land and you have to make your own decisions… At your own risk. When we finally attempted our landing we had to go-around (abort landing) because there was full of black birds flying very low over the runway! We made two more circuits and each time we had to go-around, so we finally headed back to Bankstown. On the way I learned how to use a VOR, a navigation aid which not only indicates you the direction to the antenna on the earth surface, in other words, your heading, but also your actual track, so you can determine you are drifting in relation to the ground. Once in the Training Area boundaries near Bankstown we practiced a few Stallings and two-three circuits before landing pacefully on 11R. So, 2,9 hours for my logbook.

After de-briefing I went with Luke to taxi a Beechcraft Duchess, a very nice Twin-Engine which I won’t be flying until my CPL training. Luke told me a secret, which indirectly means very good news for me, which I won’t mention here (yet)!

*NM=Nautical Mile=1,852KM
*Kt=Knot=Nautical Mile/Hour

Georges Hall, 14 Apr 2008

Last Friday morning I took my stuff and headed to Sydney. I had no special plans but I totally felt like visiting the city since I hadn’t been there for three weeks! So I took the bus to Bankstown, that’s 15 minutes, and the train to Sydney (Town Hall Station), that’s another 50 minutes. So it usually takes me about hour& a half to get to the city. And about $7 (one way).

When I got there I entered the Queen Victoria Building, a very luxurious shopping center next to Town Hall. I had been in there several times but had always headed directly downstairs for the food court, where you can have all sorts of food for lunch, mostly Asiatic. It is a very busy place and there is a connection to the train station as well. So this time I went upstairs and discovered several floors that I had always overlooked on previous occasions. Majestic domes and arcs, massive stained glass windows and antique paintings. All this surrounds the shops where you can find from fashion to art galleries, from souvenirs to jewelry. And from the very top ceiling of the building and visible from the very bottom floor hangs an immense clock (ten meters height and 4 tons weight) with different scenes of the early Australian History, seen from both European and Aboriginal perspectives. An Aboriginal hunter circles the exterior of the clock continuously and several hands display the date and seasons of the year.

I went for lunch once again to the food avenue and had grilled salmon with chips&salad… once again! I called James and meet him at his office for a coffee. He works as a lawyer at the 37th floor of the building just opposite to QVB, with a fantastic vue.

Later I called my friend Federico (Fede). He’s a 26 yr old guy from Valencia (Spain) who I had been talking to on internet but had never met. He has been living in Sydney since Christmas, so only two weeks longer than me, and is studying a Graduate Certificate in Communication Management. We kind of walked up&down the center of the city, we visited some libraries he was interested in and he showed me a bunch of clubs/bars he likes.
Then James called me and invited me to join him in his office again for an appetizer and drinks, it seems that they do this every Friday in the company for all the employees… I took Fede with me and I introduced him to James. I met come co-workers of James, most funny of all, his secretary who started talking to me and Fede about random stuff until someone managed to interrupt her after about 20 minutes. She’s nice girl but it was quite funny. Most beautiful experience, the sunset over Sydney Skyline seen from a 37th Floor, check out the photo.

Then we went with some of them to an open-air nightclub in Circular Quay just next to the Opera House, with view to Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. It was a beautiful place to be at but we got bored quite quickly so I decided to see off James and accompany Fede to a bar near Central Station where he was meeting up with some friends of him. He introduced me to three girls from Brazil, France and Finland, we had a drink and Susanne, the Finnish chick, decided that we should go to a nightclub at Central Railway Square, so after stopping at McDonalds we went. The place was alright, more than what you might expect from a nightclub with free admission, and since it’s a place for tourists and backpackers.. heaps of nice girls!



On Saturday I went for Diana Cojereans’ fairwell. Diana is my Polish-German-French friend. She’s going to be working out of town for about three months in New York, London and also in France, where she is going to stay for some time to visit her parents. We went to Trovata, an Italian restaurant in Darlinghurst, to have dinner with about 15 people. Something that I would like to ponint out in this perfect occasion, since I’m writing about restaurants, is that in Australia there are many restaurants where you can bring your own whine to drink there… That’s really strange. But it’s quite common.
So once more, French dinner! Most of the present people were French and if not, like in my case, we spoke French anyway.

After dinner we went out to Favela in Kings Cross, I had already been there, in fact it had been my first Aussie nightclub! We had heaps of fun dancing to some funky 80’s music! In Neeta’s words Saturday night was so much fun…who can resist dancing to 80’s music!!
That night I had to take a nightbus at 2am because it was too late for a train. But it was alright because at least I got a free seat this time.

Georges Hall, 19 April 2008

Today I'll let you follow me on my way to School!

From my house to the south you can see Basair (it takes me 10 minutes to walk the 1,11Km) and to the north there's Bass Hill Plaza, where I go for my groceries (it takes me 15 minutes for the 1,55Km).
You can zoom in and move around!

All the photos in this webpage are my own and are protected under Creative Commons.

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