Air Safety

Flying overalls, helmet and goggles that hadn’t seen the light of day for years were dug out of storage and dusted off with anticipation. I also came across the old WAC chart I’d used for that VFR flip years before; it still showed the Lismore/Glen Innes track I’d drawn in pencil then. It would do I decided: the mountain terrain wouldn’t have changed – even in that time.

* * *

The appointed day dawns at last, but not quite in the way I’ve imagined. A deep depression to the east of the continent is driving moist easterlies on to the coast, with low cloud and rain developing on the ranges. Moreover, the depression is expected to deepen, so waiting another day or two is not going to help. Any longer than that and I will have returned home and missed a marvellous opportunity. It is really a case of now or never the sooner I can cross those ranges to the coast the better.

By the time I arrive out at the aerodrome, Armidale is overcast by a great sheet of stratus at about 1,500 feet above terrain and visibility is deteriorating: the prospect is not cheerful.

Neither is my flight planning. The distance to Casino is 123 nautical miles. At the Tiger’s airspeed of 70 knots and an estimated headwind component of up to 20 knots (at least for the earlier part of the flight), the time interval might be well over 120 minutes. The machine’s endurance is only 170 minutes, so there’ll be nothing to spare if I am to arrive with statutary reserve fuel. And if the weather deteriorates and I can’t get into Casino,there’ll be nowhere to go! It all looks too chancey for comfort.

But a telephone call to check the weather at Glen Innes inspires a bit more optimism and I decide to refuel there before tackling the long haul over the inhospitable ranges.

I carefully pre flight the Tiger. It is indeed original and with its trainer yellow finish and Air Ministry type instruments, I feel I am in a time warp- it could almost be Point Cook again in 1952.

A local pilot helping, we lift the tail and wheel the Tiger out of the hangar. The wind out on the apron is due east, blowing briskly at about 15 to 20 knots – enough to stand the sock well out. We chock her into wind and I give my young friend a short course in propeller swinging. Reluctant at first,he becomes more enthusiastic when he realises it doesn’t unnecessarily mean losing his arm.

We flood the carburettor and I clamber aboard and do up my harness. My young friend catches my eye. “Switches off, throttle closed,” he calls, just as I’d briefed him. He pulls the propeller through a couple of compressions. Then: “Throttle set, contact. ”

Leaning out, I flick the magneto switches up. “Contact!”

He swings the blade down vigorously and the Gipsy Major bursts into full throated life.

After the engine has warmed and I’ve run it up while he lies across the tail in the prescribed manner, I throttle back and wave to him to remove the chocks. Then he takes hold of the wing tip to help me taxi out crosswind on the paved taxiway.

The 09 strip is right into wind, but it means taxying right across the aerodrome – too far, especially with my friend running alongside to prevent the tiger weather cocking. I settle for the main 05 runway- it runs parallel to the apron hardly more than 100 metres away and is only 40 degrees out of wind.

The taxiway intersects the runway about a third of the way along its length, but it is more than enough. My friend holds the wing tip while I give the Tiger a bootful of right rudder with a small burst of throttle to line up. Then I wave him to let go.

This is it! Gingerly I advance the throttle, at the same time easing the stick forward and over the right to lift the tail and counteract the crosswind. (Careful now, you haven’t flown a Tiger for a long time). But all is well: tail up, there is no difficulty holding the Tiger straight. At 50 knots the drumming yellow wings ‘bite’ and I am climbing away like Biggies. A gentle bank to the left and I am on course for Glen Innes. This is the life!

The first leg is uneventful save for the low overcast and the novelty (after so long) of my head sticking up in the slipstream.

I had quite forgotten how hard it is. Even the simple task of unfolding the WAC chart becomes a major feat with that icy 70 knot blast washing over and around me and invading the cockpit. And it is cold over this high tablelands country. After a while the brain seems to go into suspended animation, leaving only the sensations of noise, cold and wind. In this neutralised state my mind wanders and I ponder if this could account for the old saying about ‘flying by the seat of one’s pants’. Certainly, in an open cockpit aeroplane, the posterior is about the only part of the anatomy with the slightest possibility of remaining warm!

There is something strange about the response of the Tiger too – something I can’t put my finger on – until I realise I am sitting behind the aircraft’s centre of gravity instead of the long accustomed position in front of it!

After While I grow accustomed to the gale howling about me

and things better. In any case navigation on this leg poses no problem _ – It Is only a matter of keeping the New England Highway alongside the aeroplane. But my admiration is renewed for

The pioneers who flew open cockpit aeroplanes across the world In the twenties and thirties; years of flying from within the cocooned climate controlled comfort of aircraft cabins have diminished the memory of how harsh it was.

At Glen Innes, I land into wind on the unpaved 10 strip. After such a long absence, the three pointer is quite passable. I taxi in trying to strike a balance between excessive taxying speed and sufficient power to retain rudder authority on the smooth taxiway

– there is no wing tip assistance to be had here!

Likewise starting the engine again after refuelling. I chock the wheels, tie back the stick with the seat belt, and to my relief the engine fires when I swing the propeller with the throttle almost in the idle position.

Now begins the critical part of the flight. Before I begin to taxi I set the grid ring of the splendid old P4 compass. I do not make any allowance for drift. Under the effect of the deep depression the wind will certainly vary between here and my destination: it will be better just to set track and pick up any drift as I go. Why, oh why, I ask myself, did we ever forgo real compasses like this for those silly little bubble things that sit up on the windscreen pillar? Progress can be ironic sometimes.

I also check the WAC chart again. I have found it difficult to read accurately in flight. And not only because of the slipstream; it seems scarcely possible to wear my ‘look-over’ spectacles (which my ophthalmologist has decreed that I must carry, if not wear, since graduating to the ranks of what the C A A euphemistically terms ‘senior pilots’), as well as my flying goggles. In any case they would look ridiculous!

The track on the chart from Glen Innes is the one I drew several years before for my flight from Lismore. It is so close to the Glen Innes/Casino track for most of the way that I have decided it is near enough- it is not as though I am inexperienced in cross country navigation. But like my belief that I can navigate effectively without my ‘lookovers’, not drawing in an accurate Glen Innes/Casino leg is to prove a serious mistake. Ego can be a dangerous trap.

After take off I climb on track to 4,500 feet AMSL (only 1,000 feet above the terrain elevation at Glen Innes), set the power carefully to 1,950rpm and seek to coax the most out of the Tiger. At this height I am below some of the spot heights in the ranges, but visibility has improved for the time being and I can see the peaks quite clearly. The cloud base has also lifted and I could go higher, but at this stage I don’t want to waste fuel with unnecessary climbing – I am still punching into a headwind and there is a long way to go. The Tiger drones on above the wild, thickly forested mountains and the weather gradually thickens again. After 40 minutes I am over the wide and deep Clarence River valley that cuts a great swathe into the ranges. I am still maintaining an accurate compass heading, but with no particular features from which I can pinpoint my position, I am unable to determine with any accuracy whether I am still on track.

The worst of the mountains are now behind, but this isn’t the help it should be because the cloud base is lowering and I have to descend with it. And it is much too late to think of turning back: I press on.

Now on the coastal side of the Great Dividing Range, I run into light rain, decreasing visibility further. Out to starboard I catch a glimpse of a winding mountain road disappearing into the distance towards the east. I pay it scant attention: according to my watch there is another 12 minutes to run to ETA Casino and my chief concern now is to continue maintaining an accurate heading until I intercept the main north-south railway line. In doing so, I surely cannot be far from Casino.

However, because the track drawn on my WAC chart actually passes a little to the east of Casino en route to Lismore, I have failed to discern there is a major road running east to Casino through the mountains. For a pilot with years of experience it is an unpardonable error. The hill country below now is no longer thickly forested and there are occasional farms. But ridge succeeds ridge, still with no distinguishing landmarks, as I fly on through the increasing rain, huddling forward in the cockpit now to gai,1 what shelter there is behind the tiny windscreen.

Just after ETA Casino I intercept the north-south railway at an acute angle in flat green river country interspersed by stands of timber. Assuming I am still south of my destination, I bank north to follow the line, flying just below the cloudbase at rather less than 1,000 feet. In a couple more minutes I arrive over a tiny settlement. Beyond it, the railway begins twisting and turning between hills, while further ahead, mountainsides can be seen

rearing into the leaden overcast; I must be too far north after all.

I turn back, following the railway south and the country opens out again. Five minutes more and- ah yes- a town is materialising out of the gloom. Casino at last!

It is rather smaller than I remember it, en route from Lismore to Glen Innes all those years ago. I head towards its south-eastern outskirts where its airfield should be, and swallow hard when I finally realise it is not there! It is all very strange!

I head on south, a little shaken by what I have not found, and uncertain what I should do: away from the hills the visibility is better and I can see the railway running on though open farming country into the distance. There is no sign of any other large town in that direction.

Perplexed and anxious, I turn back and cruise around the town, looking particularly at its railway station. On time interval from Glen Innes itjust has to be Casino! But there seems to be no railway line converging from the direction of Lismore either. If only I could read the hoardings on the railway platform! I am tempted to make a low pass, but visions of being interrogated by pitiless Examiners of Airmen rise before my eyes: I decide that discretion is the better part of valour.

Gradually the horrible realization dawns that I am lost: it is hard to admit- the first such time in a long flying career! Humiliation and anger at myself cloud my judgement and for a moment I consider putting down in the green paddock beside the railway line to find out where I am. Then I have the thought that the field will probably be soggy and I may well end up with the Tiger on its back, and sanity prevails again.

I pull myself together. If this is not Casino and the country to the north is all wrong, then Casino must be to the south, despite indications to the contrary. I force myself to fly south again into the unknown. lt takes real will power- I am becoming concerned about the remaining fuel and my senses still have difficulty believing I could possibly have missed Casino by so much! As an added precaution I throttle back to 1,900rpm and the Tiger purrs on smoothly, the airspeed seemingly affected but little.

A few minutes later I am over atiny railway siding in open country; beside one of its scattered houses, someone has an incinerator burning. Its blue smoke is almost horizontal- the south!

Suddenly it all falls into place; the wind has swung from easterly to southerly as I have flown further into the depression’s isobars! With no definite fixes during the flight over the ranges, I have been oblivious of the wind change that has carried me increasingly north of track with dramatically increasing ground speed as visibility has decreased. I peer at the chart again and the jigsaw comes together- how stupid not to have seen it before; the settlement I encountered soon after intercepting the railway line must have been Wiangeree and the town I assumed to be Casino was obviously Kyogle. The wind has carried the Tiger no less than 20 nautical miles off track! Confident now of where I am going, but with my anxiety over the fuel state growing by the minute, I press on south. Punching now into this stiff southerly, the Tiger’s ground speed is probably less than 50 knots. But Casino must hove into view through the gloom soon. In another interminable few minutes it does so- more than a half hour after I could have been there if I’d recognised that mountain road for what it is. What a relief! I come over the town, perforce at considerably less than the regulation 1,500 feet, and find the airfield where it is supposed to be. It is grassed with a single paved runway aligned 10-28. Mindful of my thought about the sodden paddock at Kyogle, I decide the runway will be more prudent, even if it is a long way out of wind.

Trees on the windward side of the airfield make the approach turbulent, but once below their level the air is calmer and a wingdown-into-wind wheeler on to the bitumen becomes a reasonable success.

The tail drops but the smooth surface offers the skid little resistance. With engine idling, and no headwind component to slow it, the Tiger goes trundling on down the runway. Stopping before reaching the end of the runway suddenly emerges as a problem. Shutting down will obviously help and my hand moves outside the cockpit to cut the switches. Even as I do so the engine coughs and dies of its own accord. The Tiger is out of fuel! They say there are old pilots and bold pilots- but no old bold pilots. Well, this was one old pilot who thought he was bold- and learnt an embarrassing lesson, not only about elementary navigation, but also on the folly of kidding yourself that you can read without glasses when you can’t!