Yep that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation,
floating in the middle of a lake, in full aviation survival gear, my life jacket inflated. Well as
with most stories, this one begins with two friends, two hours earlier, in a distillery
When i originally planned to fly around the world you remember that back in 2020 i ordered this this
is my survival suit which has been sitting in a plastic bag in my garage now for about two years
i've never worn this thing for real and i've never tested it out and my friend michael you
can see in the background here he has used one of these suits for real he has flown around the world
and he thought he can help me so all of us have been in lockdown for the last two years not doing
very much michael's actually been busily setting this whole place up i don't mean this in a funny
way but it looks really professional you have been busy so many people during lockdown started
making alcohol at home because there was a lot to get through this was my first still
which i've called bambi we've got five stills now and we're making gin vodka and moonshine so the
property's 150th anniversary is next year and will be opening to the public in january but you can
buy it online now at rothwelldistillery.com.edu naviator spirit which is a vodka is 50 those of
us who fly seaplanes and naval aviators all of the navy flyers are naviators and so with
top gun openings soon this is what you should be drinking while you're watching can i just
confirm as well michael did you say that was 50 50 alcohol thanks michael see you later bye
so look i i've been sailing my whole life and one of the things we do when we go ocean racing
is um one of the lessons of the sydney the hobart race the first time they ever inflated their life
jacket was when they were jumping off the boat the first time they'd been in a life raft was
when they were exiting the boat and i must say it really surprised me the first time i inflated my
life there so what an absolutely rude shock it is to have this thing go poof we'll put this on
we'll go for a fly and then if you're gonna practice getting wet what better way to do it
than in a seaplane we've been standing here for probably about three minutes and i'm i haven't
even got halfway through getting this on i don't think i've got a thermal top exercise i was going
to put that on as well i want to replicate exactly or as close to what it would be like
because the layers will suck when you're in the cockpit but the layers are going to like you'll
be grateful you've got them on if you're bobbing around somewhere in the north atlantic amongst
all the icebergs if you look at how much trouble you're having getting this on standing up i know
imagine doing that with everything in the plane around you yeah i think the last thing i'm going
to want to worry about is doing what i'm about to do now in the crop because this bit yeah
there he is i could help but i actually think it's important no no don't help i don't want
you to help i want to be able because if i'm in the middle of an airport on my own
where you're going to keep your hoodie gloves are in here
you're going to have a grab bag aren't you i've got a grandpa maybe you keep that in the grab bag
safety gear that i'll have i've got my garmin inreach which i'll be using i've got a light
your garmin unit is just a fantastic bit of kit that works with iridium now i would get yourself
a knife in there as well go to a yacht shop because they've got them for this very purpose
of when you're escaping if something's stuck it'll cut through anything okay done perfect
well we're not gonna miss you you're nice and bright that's half the point as well
so it's around 15 degrees celsius here in melbourne uh pretty average day for
us down here i'm hot already i'm very hot in this so be interesting to see how it
goes in flight in the cockpit itself but i think i'm ready am i ready yeah let's do it
like i'm sweating i've already sweated yeah yeah this thing don't make it cool don't no don't
make it comfortable yep got it this thing is going to stink by the end of the round
this is good that's just an ipad minute yeah yeah yeah that's good beauty of experimental
michael i've known you for like five years now this is the first time we've ever flown
yeah what's funny you know i actually don't fly with people a lot to be honest i um well we're
probably both kind of loners despite our public connections i think that's why we have public
connections yeah we actually like quite like quiet time in the cockpit yeah i prefer flying alone you
know it's funny to have all this space and you've got your nice serious but yeah generally um yeah i
just i just find it easier yeah and it's not that i'm anti-social are you amazed how many airfields
there are that you're flying over that aren't on the charts yeah but there's so many twice as many
in melbourne as they're on the charts yeah all these people with private airstrips hey i mean
what a life imagine having that the main reason i put mine on the chart was just so i could plug
it in what you need is an arnov approach then i could come in at nighttime as well no no actually
i need to work out how i get that well you can't do it yourself no no but i don't it's like whether
you get it how do i where do you go to get an army i've been doing this thing michael where i'm like
trying to let the air out of the sleeves here yeah because it feels and when i do that there's this
waft of warm smelly air that comes out of there it's not very nice yeah of course when you're
going across the north atlantic you're going to be up at a level where uh you'll be sitting pretty
close to zero you'd probably expect it to be eight to ten degrees outside i do have the luxury of air
con as well so i can always bump that up if i need to you really are spoiled in a serious aren't you
it's like people watching and be like what are you complaining about just put the aircon on and
have your latte you'll be fine now we have got a lake over here oh yeah so that's pike's creek
that's a well-known one it's one of the vfr reporting points it is big enough to land on
but i've never even looked up if you should land there i've just made a decision that i won't
a nice cockpit michael it's nicely laid out thanks yeah i'm really proud of it i'm very proud
of this uh what's that one so uh it's an oven timer so i've got uh ferry tank nipples built into
the back of the plane so if i want to put ferry tanks in the fuel connections uh are in the back
the powers in the back and i can turn them on and off here so i can put more fuel in the ferry tank
then will fit in the wings so you don't want to turn the tap on oh no forget about it so
if i turn that around to 30 minutes then the pumps will only run for 30 minutes and that
just mechanically comes back the time it does that's so cool that's really good again what
you can do with experimental i hope that um no cloud at bendigo is accurate overcast 25
okay this might be a problem uh so the clouds have come in a bit yeah okay so we've got two
options um there's no point going over the top because i'd say that's going to be all the way
i agree it does look like it as well yep so just come back down yep typical melbourne day nice
being a bit lower down as well i was gonna say i gather you spent most of your time cruising
up higher normally up there yeah especially if i'm doing longer trips like if you're going to
sydney or something it makes sense to get up it's a bit smoother get on top of the clouds
oh it's out of icing in wintertime all that stuff i don't do enough lower level flying i should do
more of that so i think it's um that's all the testing we need to do i obviously don't need
to get it wet this is fine so we might as well turn back yeah yeah that's that's not happening
you don't need to throw me in a lake michael there is a lake seven minutes ahead oh good yeah
and i can see a couple of power boats down there so obviously power boating is allowed on this lake
now what we're gonna want for today is have a lake that's big enough
that we can stop in the middle and you can jump out without being worried about drifting too far
but i'm having a good look at the water because you don't land on the water until you've checked
that there's not a tree sticking up because you know these are all man-made lakes
there's a shore over there that if something goes wrong i know that we can uh taxi over there and
okay i'm all simply need a toilet break there's a boat ramp there if we really get stuck
so gear is up so we've got three blue lights for gear up i'm gonna milk up the power
i've been in cruise mode so i'm gonna go to zero on the flaps which just helps slow the plane down
pre-landing checks is gift it's gear the gear is up instruments i do a quick scan
of the instruments fuel is uh backup fuel is on flap so i'm gonna go to one blap now trim
uh which is up here which i'm happy with and then uh trim the engines just you've just got
to accept that's what i call it and time and the time's fine i'm going to uh a nice zone
down here so i'm actually going to come all the way around because it's a northerly i want to be
giving myself a fair bit of room off those trees because you know you can get rotors coming down
i want to be well away from the shore just applying a bit of power now
michael that was really smooth that was a good one even you know that was a good one i do so i need
to get do you actually want to sit here you have to put the hood on i'm sorry why well i'll just
you need to test it all right so we've ditched i'm floating around on the water so now i'm doing
and you know and the reason that's so important is so much of the heat's lost out of your head
i think it's 70 or 80 percent so that you need that working straight away i'm going
to put the gloves on in the water yeah that'll be fine okay so i need to go in
i'll be honest i'm a bit nervous because i don't like the water very well three two one
it floats well actually you are floating really well i don't even need the life jacket
i'm really impressed that floats so well yeah and i've got no leaks so there's no water
coming in the water temperature is quite cold i don't know exactly what it is but
i'm not feeling i know it's like i've only been in for about two seconds but i'm not feeling cold
at all the only thing i'm noticing is the thing i've got to get used to is the tide's
obviously drawing me well it's not tiring it's the wind the wind is blowing the plane
it's actually i know this is not a real emergency situation i feel quite relaxed
i feel quite relaxed i haven't even inflated the life jacket as well but i've got a lot of buoyancy
just from the suit so we should test the life jacket michael you need to know what it feels
like when your life jacket goes off and it's not hard to repack so i really recommend i'll just get
away from the aircraft a bit look at this british man splashing around in the water three two one
there we go so that's full protection that's everything on head gloves life jacket seat that's
all i can do i'm happy to go flying for a while and come back and get you you're going to leave
me here michael back oh no come back how do i get in all right hang on i've got this i've got this
how about we don't film it and i come and help you that was the so we had to put the camera
away i'll be honest with you because i couldn't get up onto the back of the boat so michael had
to put the camera down i had to take the life jacket off he yanked me out of the water thank
you michael for saving my life today hey if you ever have ideas like this in the future michael
call someone else you know what you need a drink i need a drink let's go home for
gym thank you next time you go the lake