[Music]
Don't need this one. I don't need this [Music] Don't need a life raft [Music]
Today is all about being as light as possible [Music] I've never done a flight of more than
700 nautical miles in this aircraft before even though it's capable of doing that I personally
never have now I need to get up to Brisbane today for a bit of a personal mission and
the flight distance today is 747 747 I've checked the weather it's clear skies I've
actually got Tailwinds for most of the way as well and I know this aircraft is capable
of doing that distance but it does not explain why right now before I set off on this flight
why this flight is actually making me well a little bit nervous to be honest [Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Music] so just bring the mixture back here this is reducing the amount of fuel that's
going in the engine the range for the aircraft has gone up a long way because we're only
burning around 13 gallons an hour a lot of that is to do with this a good Tailwind so
a good ground speed if I zoom out here I do love doing this on the Garmin avionics if
I zoom out my fuel range ring now shows me that there's my destination and that's where
my reserves will run out so I should be making my destination with enough reserve and the
other thing this uh yellow ring here that's when all the fuel will run out but legally
we can't go here we can only go up to this green line now like any good pilot I should
discuss plan B's and I have several so I have it like a plan B a plan C I kind of have a
plan d as well but Plan B is to stop at a place called budgie halfway along the Route
I know I could make it I could make it even if we're running the engine but really really
high power settings if I'm getting to budgie and it looks like I'm not going to make it
all the way to Brisbane I'll stop at budgie refuel my plan C is another stop that's Tamworth
it's another Airport little bit further on it means we can try and get closer to Brisbane
but again if I don't feel like I'm actually getting to Brisbane then I'll stop at Tamworth
I'll refuel and then I'll fly the final link to archerfield with full tanks and then by
Plan D along the way is to divert to any other airport the good thing is there are many airports
along this way the reason why I chose this leg on this day with these conditions to test
the fuel endurance of this serious aircraft is because I have lots of outs but despite
saying all that I'm still really nervous about it because you know when you try something
new for the first time sometimes you need to not be a scared little rabbit and you need
to actually test these things and that's that's what I'm doing today I've never looked at
the end of page with such intensity as I'm doing today [Music]
you know the other thing I can do is I can see if we can get a shorter track we've got
a bit of a zigzag coming up I wonder if we can just go direct vlogger okay Yankee's early
request track shortening if available if we can get direct water okay direct to Wagga
very cleared Lapu direct Bogger Echo Yankee thank you okay it's a small small change I
want to be as efficient as I can on this flight and even not having to fly an extra couple
of Miles all helps in the long run I still I don't know why I feel so nervous about this
one [Music]
that gank is always return right to five degrees reporting you heading okay see the episode
we're turning right heading zero three six air traffic controls just asked us to divert
we're about 25 degrees to the right of where we should be at the moment near the pink track
is the the line that we should be drawing across the ground at the moment but we're
actually heading where that blue arrow is at the moment instead hopefully it won't be
too long and then he'll just give us something like direct to uh director wagger again I
reckon thank you for the help resume your own navigation your weekly direct to Wagga
hi navigation direct Walker Echo Yankee silly no worries and in the aircraft towards water
again this past the three hours to go Mark everything's still looking pretty stable at
the moment ground speed is pretty good the Tailwind has picked up a tiny bit but I know
it is going to drop off as this flight goes on I really don't mind these long flies I
don't mind sitting here for long periods of time but already only after about an hour
and a half for what will be a four and a half hour flight already I can feel that there's
a lot more workload for me in the cockpit here but I did say when I did that fuel tank
change I would reward myself you've got to give yourself things to look forward to on
these long flights just confirming on the map yeah we are now about to contact Brisbane
Center we moved from Melbourne Center who controlled the southern side of Australia
to Brisbane Center to control the north Brisbane Center Echo Yankee Zulu maintaining 90 000.
so here is
just an interesting point of the flight here the range which is the theoretical distance
I could do in the aircraft now 747 nautical miles which is the exact distance from moorabbin
to archerfield the reason why that's significant is I could theoretically then do the distance
that I've done from Melbourne to here right now which is almost two hours on top of the
distance that I need to do from Moab into archerfield if that makes sense but it's just
a nice sanity tank at this stage to say yeah we should be okay as long as things remain
the same it's also getting a little bit bumpier today the clouds are starting to build up
a little bit as well as the afternoon comes on what I don't want to have to do is climb
as long as the clouds don't continue to build up as long as they don't build up too much
we um it should be okay
although I'm not confident
[Music]
just changing the tanks there now so after that last hour I've burnt 12 gallons which
is actually pretty good because I was on 14 for the one previously so I've got 55 gallons
remaining we had a tailwind and like I said it was going to change on display it's actually
moving across to a bit of a crosswind now so we're not moving across the ground as quickly
as we were before that's going to start bringing the range of the aircraft down a little bit
as well so I need to keep monitoring that the other thing I did say I could do when
I change my fuel tanks have the other half of my lunch like I said little things little
treats little rewards they just help the long Journeys move along a little bit quicker [Music]
I'm just gonna climb us up now because I don't like the look of those clouds in here this
is not what I wanted to do I didn't want to climb the clouds were starting to build up
a little bit like around me and say a naughty planned route I want to try and climb up I
also think the tailwind's gonna be a little bit better up here but the engine leaning
has to change so I have to do all that all over again it's no issues this is where it
starts to get busy there we go all good it's funny how your brain can over exaggerate the
tiniest things little movements in the engine a little bit of weather which is not it's
not even weather I've dealt with way worse than that but Little Things become big things
when you're feeling a little bit uh nervous and maybe a little bit overwhelmed if I'm
going to be honest with you
now it was around this stage of the flight about an hour or two left to go until we get
to Brisbane where things started to get a little well look I don't want to over dramatize
it but things just got a bit hard first of all the weather started taking a bit of a
turn for the worse it had been clear skies and I had that nice Tailwind the whole way
up until that point but ahead of me I could start to see some clouds building I'm gonna
just see what it's like going through these clouds up ahead but I may actually descend
us I can't really go much higher that'll just be that the cloud bases are above me now there's
no way I can get above them so it's just going to be riding the bumps all the way to archerfield
now
you see I'd obviously check the weather conditions beforehand and I knew that coming into Brisbane
well I knew that I was going to make it but I also knew the clouds were going to be lower
lower than they were along most of the trip what I didn't realize was that as the train
went up the clouds came down and I started to get squeezed into this little Gap now not
a problem because I'm flying IFR I can fly into clouds if I want but it was a problem
because it started to get turbulent I can't go high because I probably wouldn't have the
fuel to do that now I can't go low because of the terrain down there I've only got about
a thousand feet I could go down so we just have to go through this Cloud now strap in
please make sure your seat belts are securely faster
with your request exactly [Applause] this whole dodging in and out of the clouds that
went on for probably a good 40 minutes 50 minutes and not only did that mean I had to
divert side to side which increased my track distance but I also had to climb and climbing
was the one thing that I didn't want to do on this Lake underneath it's going to be a
little bit bumpier still be able to run the engine
it's been sent to Echo Yankee zuru maintaining 8 000 requests to 77 000. okay Yankee Zulu
there is a no reported Eye-Fi traffic cover this traffic is hitting seven thousand feet
Now spoiler alert I do make it to Brisbane that's where I am now in the hotel the plane
doesn't run out of fuel I don't drop out of the sky but I didn't realize that a flight
that was so long a flight that was that intense would really for some reason just it just
really beat me up [Music] but then but then with half an hour to go I started my descent
I was clear for the weather I literally and figuratively breathed the sigh of relief and
when I knew I was going to make Brisbane oh my God I was so happy [Music] okay out of
the clouds I think all we need to do now is descend into archerfield and land at a completely
unfamiliar unknown airport thankfully it's class D so it's the same as rabbit it should
be pretty familiar in terms of procedures but I've never like I've looked at it on Google
Maps but I've never landed at this airport before so let's see how we go oh locked uh
long day [Applause] [Music] Optical Tower series Echo Yankee golf series Echo Yankees
Hulu is approaching Park Ridge Water Tower 1900 on December inbound with golf
[Music] I know that other Pilots have flown much longer distances than you've seen me
fly in this video today but I'm not comparing myself to others I don't like doing that I
just want to compare myself to me and for me that was the longest flight I've ever done
in Echo Yankee Zulu that's the first time I've ever flown from the capital of Victoria
all the way in one hop to the capital of Queensland and look look look out there that's Brisbane
I flew here on my own in one stop I'm really proud of that