This will be quite an ironic video in some ways in that I want this to be a video about
how sometimes I don't actually want to make a video so I thought the best way for me to
tell you that was to make a video about how I don't want to make... I hope this makes
sense as we go along today [Music]
I'll fold them up when I get to Melbourne, promise.
The reason I didn't want to necessarily film this flight is because I don't think there's
going to be a lot going on in it I think it's going to be a fairly uneventful flight back
home for me I just do some quick checks electrics are all good pillow comes off okay Yankee
Zulu clearance okay stand by one I'm not going to take that clearance just in the middle
of my run-ups because I don't want to lose my place bank checks done back to a thousand
everything's set up Echo yank is really ready to copy that clearance thanks okay thank you
Zulu played to moorabbin Via Acme our planned Route bankstown 8 departure climb via the
Sid to 3000 squawk four zero zero three I'm gonna go to procedures I'm going to go to
departure bankstown 8 departure yeah back Runway we're going off one month's Center
below the departure I'll come off the airport here around follow the line and head out until
I get my next information from Air Traffic Control all right let me just get this departure
done and then once we're up in the cruise hopefully not any of those storm clouds but
once we're up in the cruise I'll talk to you a bit more traffic upwind from the northern
runways making a left
[Music] collapse away 500 feet I can make return
okay actually passing one thousand five hundred percent
oh departures okay so it's here
Sydney departures Echo Yankee Zulu departed Banks now Banks departure passing 2001 00
climbing three thousand yeah
so now what I'm doing is I'm departing by what they call the Sid the standard instrument
departure that originally gets you up to three thousand three thousand feet traffic control
is now set time by the seats are five pounds so I'm staying on this heating two nine zero
yeah two nine zero but now I'm climbing to five thousand feet that's a thousand to go
hopefully at some point they're going to give me a left turn because Melbourne's in that
direction over there and we're heading out towards the mountains and the storms but yeah
yeah they'll give us a turnover in that direction there's also some storm clouds over tomorrow
so it'd be interesting to see how we go but okay Yankee Zulu uh canceled clear direct
to Acme maintain five thousand Council said direct act mayor maintain 5000. so just go
direct Acme activate and then I could go to the GPS steering on here and looking on the
moving map here then that will give me a turn you can see the aircraft is also making a
turn to the left but I'm being kept at 5000 feet there's probably traffic coming into
Sydney above me um and when I'm clear of that then they'll give me a climb up I would assume
that's what's happening in the moment but here we go we're coming to five thousand feet
my issue at the moment is there's a seller here and I'm never going to be able to get
over that one there are a couple of gaps to the left of it and I possibly could climb
up and go through those but it's not guaranteed when I'm going to get the climb underneath
it doesn't look too bad Melbourne Center Echo Yankee Zulu currently maintaining 5000 just
to stay under the weather for now and uh just let me know when you want a little bit more
Eric your answers one zero zero seven and Wilco thanks I thought I'd make this video
though because I do get asked the question sometimes do I record every single flight
I make the answer is no sometimes with people sometimes we find structure if I'm doing instructional
flights and sometimes when I'm just like not in the headspace to make a video but I thought
let me show you one of the flights that I would normally film and let me film it so
at least I can kind of visually show you why I don't film these flights now apart from
the weather that's up ahead of me at the moment very little should happen on this flight and
I don't like making those flying videos which are just me sitting in a plane flying I mean
I used to make some of those in the past but I think other people do it better than me
and I I tend to like you know looking for a story and a purpose for my flying not just
hey watch me sitting in a plane flying for for 26 minutes but I thought it may be a kind
of met away why don't I make a video to show why I don't sometimes make videos so we're
leaving the Sydney basement we're now going over some terrain which isn't very forgiving
underneath me so if anything does happen I'm actually quite low down I don't have many
options it's going to be a quick troubleshoot and then probably pulling the shoot to get
myself cycling down onto the ground I've also got some rain coming out these clouds above
me at the moment I'm really glad that I didn't climb because there's no way I would have
been able to as long as that's not hail no they're just fairly big drops of rain I think
I could probably go a little bit higher in okay because early request traffic climb six
thousand yeah
also got some little rain showers up ahead I don't know whether you can see those which
I don't really want to fly through because of the downdraft so I'm just going to ask
for if there's any traffic off to my right until I'm just making some deviations okay
Yankees literally request traffic up to 10 miles right of track to weather deviation
okay Yankee uh 10 left of it or 10 left and right uh just 10 to the right for echoing
thanks again
okay thanks
[Music]
I these situations where it starts you can you see I'm quiet in these situations where
it starts to get uh it's not scary there's not fear but it's it's high concentration
so in these situations keep reminding myself that the only reason why I'm up here right
now is because I put myself here I choose to be here if it means diverting or even landing
and or just waiting this stuff out I have to tell myself that doesn't matter
and then now that we're around it I can turn my head in maybe back to a heading uh let's
go uh two one zero I reckon and you can see it looks a little bit nicer up ahead one interesting
thing here in Garmin pilot you can see where the aircraft is at the moment see it's in
between those two cells that's not actually accurate because those two cells are now the
ones that were raining over to the left-hand side it just goes to show the delay between
receiving the information on the iPad and what's actually happening in the real world
so if I was in cloud and I would have thought well maybe I'll use this to go around the
left of them try to put myself say somewhere here that actually would have been right in
where that where that rank was coming down so I do use like a weather overlay on my iPad
just for a bit of situational awareness I never ever use it to actually navigate around
weather any other cool thing about general aviation is I've been spending the weekends
in Sydney because my wife and daughter actually flew up yesterday and I chased them up in
Echo Yankee Zulu because they were going to the Harry Styles concert [Music] if any of
you went to that as well I hope you had a great time hope you wore your feather bows
as well they loved it they had a really good time but then we also decided to stay in Sydney
for most of today because today was the last day of World Pride we opened the curtains
in our hotel we didn't realize this when we booked the hotel but the pride apart on the
final day where everyone gets together and walks through the streets of Sydney went right
outside our window all the cars down on the freeway that are passing the March down here
they're all hooting their horse [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music]
it's a brilliant weekend and it was one of those
examples where general aviation and the privilege that we have of being able to do this and
flying ourselves around our countries is so cool because I only decided late in the in
the game that I was gonna fly up and meet Jack and my daughter up there in Sydney and
also flying home I've left now and they've only just taken off because their flight was
delayed an hour and even though they're up there somewhere sipping champagne and I'm
down here bashing through the storms I still know where I'd rather be I still love having
the freedom of choice of deciding when I'm going to leave and exactly which route I'm
going to take to get home doing 230 Delta clear weather now can tractor attack everybody
is making deviations now this is a this is an interesting day actually and I'm not just
saying this to like amp up the drama a little bit but no seriously this is an interesting
fact it was supposed to be cab okay basically no significant weather no significant cloud
ceiling to bother us going into moorabbin today looking at the radar that's what's coming
across Melbourne at the moment there are thunderstorms in the area as well and behind it over here
that's coming in the same direction as well so it's going to be interesting as I get closer
to Melbourne to see how if how whether I can pick my way through the storms
that's very fitting considering his World Pride at the moment
and I just saw a lightning bolt Dead Ahead exactly in my path conversations Victoria
has been issued what the hell is happening it's like Victoria's just getting smashed
by
this storm now [Music] foreign
[Music]
okay
a
lot darker up ahead thank you
oh well it is what it is it's clear ahead of us for the moment we're nice and low as
well so we're underneath anything hopefully so I'll be able to see it up ahead and go
around it if we're if we need to see 1642 my strategy for going into Melbourne then
is going to be staying as low as I possibly can if I'm visual and I can see bad weather
up ahead I might even just break off IFR and go down as low as I can to get into moorabbin
there's no point climbing I'm not going to be able to out climb anything today low is
the name of the game center and uh still Visual and uh we'll be just looking to stay low with
visual interim as well okay okay
it's going to be the case but uh a little bit understood thanks okay the good thing
about maintaining six thousand feet where I am at the moment is you see that 5 300 there
and then you see the 5 500 under that middle cell there four thousand nine hundred and
so on and so on all the lowest safe altitudes on my route now into moorabbin are below six
thousand so if I do go into weather I know that I'm safe from terrain below me if I stay
on this train it does mean though is that I am probably and as air traffic control just
said to me I'm probably gonna fly into weather I've just got this wall of gray ahead of me
in front of me now and I'm gonna have to start making some decisions on what I'm actually
doing let's load the approach here into Murray we're going to be doing a one seven and we're
going to be going in by a harrow I'm just going to load that approach because I have
been given ATC clearance to do that yet
okay we're playing through some of the showers now which means we're getting the downdrafts
which means we're getting riding around all over the place there's also 26 coming from
the right hand side there which is blowing over the hills as well it's still all okay
but this is still within limits this is still you know we're still on track right altitude
aircraft's doing exactly what it should it's just it's not very comfortable that would
approach to Echo Yankee Zulu maintaining [Applause] 6000.0 approach g'day clearance to moorabbin
will be via Harrow events the uh November India for the rmp runway one seven approach
maintained six thousand and the Local Q h1003 I'll just go into my Approach I make sure
I've got Harrow and I just go load approach and activate and it doesn't actually change
anything because if you look on a moving map we were already going by Harrow but it just
means now what it will do is it will sequence on from Harrow into the arnab as opposed to
taking me on my track uh back to moorabbie I'm a big fan of Elliot kiptogie the oh well
I don't want to just say marathon runner he's like a superhuman but he's the world record
holder for the marathon and when he experiences pain during marathons he always says he smiles
less than 200 meters to go Elliott kitchen physically makes him feel better again so
I try and remind myself when you're deep in concentration and the aircraft's moving around
and there's a lot happening smile just remember what a luxury of privilege is to be able to
do this I love being able to do this now on the new Garmin Avionics oh that you can probably
see because we're bouncing around so much 470 and then you can see here I get my minimum
set on my altitude tank there on the right hand side
okay Yankees always decent to 4700 police control airspace descending via the rmp runway
one seven left approach no reporter observe traffic please leave control area onto sound
4 700 uh 317 air traffic controller just stepping me down to get me to the altitude where the
rnf starts which is 4 700.
thank you
and I can see how I can even rabbit Airport you can see the flashing light of the tower
as well which is easy to pick out on a gray day like this afternoon
visual if we can break off for 1 7 right that'd be great okay Roger when you're ready break
off one second right you've been born all right let's break up the approach there okay
he's only Runway one seven right click away one seven right okay minimums minimums
YouTube I Choose I think the moral of the story is I think I probably should film more
of the flights that I don't normally intend on filming because hopefully you'll agree
with me I think that was a really good one