The game never stops

It is these periods of time that mix my emotions. It was fantastic to be clear minded, sleep in my own bed, get up each morning to my own stuff, and fly my own aircraft when I wanted and not according to a schedule!

So, it is appropriate to write to you a quick update on what is going on behind the scenes back home.

It has been a year of changes again, with new personnel and aircraft still occurring. Earlier in the year, we had the resignation of two of our employees on the home front due to personal reasons of moving interstate and workload at university. Once again, we found ourselves in a little bit of a management hole, though were able to quickly put some solutions in place.

‘It has been a year of changes again.’

One of our contracted joyflight pilots, Scott Bretland, offered to start doing some more work for us, so we gave him the job of finding some replacements for our support staff back home. As it turns out, he has now taken on the position as a part time general manager, with the plan to be full time by the end of the year.

With the addition of Scott, the ball has started rolling and he was able to find a new pilot to be full time for us reasonably efficiently. Enter Emma McDonald, who came on full time as of 9 July, and has been working and training hard ever since. Emma is from a flying background family and is already checked out on our Twin Comanche. No doubt, she will be flying our Extra 300L in no time at all.

Like pilots all around the country, that time of year rolls around where our equipment needs a little more love than usual, and so we put the Twin Comanche into its first annual with our fulltime technician (both at home and with the race team), Dave Finch. It was good to see the condition of the aircraft in detail, and Dave was pretty happy with it. So, it will become busier in the not too distant future and it will be primarily Emma at the controls.

Of our other aircraft, the Extra is going strong and I have enjoyed doing a number of joyflights and media flights in it. It’s always a fun and relaxing aircraft (in perspective of my ‘other’ aircraft) to fly.

Our old race plane, the MXS is also in a good place at the moment. It is quite impressive how strong the engine is in that aircraft, especially when flying it without all the race equipment in it. Moreover, it’s exciting to fly an aircraft that accelerates at 60 degrees, nose high!!

I realised that I had not flown the MXS for fun for a long time, as it was always on the road racing and we always had a purpose for it when we were racing, I have not just rolled it out to go for a fly.

That is now changing, and I really enjoy flying that aircraft for no other purpose than just going for a fly, it’s back to basics, why I love aviation…although that didn’t stop a few people from Red Bull Air Race messaging to ask if I was using the MXS to do some training.

Sorry folks, it’s just fun.

Our Super Cub, which has been in major teardown for some time, is back on the mend again. Dave is slowly but surely bringing that one up to near new condition, and we are all (family, team and friends) looking forward to a summer of flying up and down the beach with the door open. Nothing beats it. Well, not nothing. Maybe it could do with some floats on it too?

And finally, our beautiful Mustang is flying again after 2 years being overhauled. I have not had the opportunity to fly her since returning to the air, though those that have report she is flying well. I am looking forward to being back in her later in September when she visits our area. Then it’s off to Warbirds Downunder in Temora this October.

But it isn’t just our aircraft that have captured my attention during the race break. Our airfield at Lake Macquarie is going gangbusters with a DA approved for five new hangars and a two-story restaurant and café. Construction should start in the next month or so, aiming to be completed toward the end of 2019.

Big steps for a great site, right on the water. We can’t wait to host pilots who might fly in for a bite to eat or a night at our beautiful location.

This brings me to another point. Usually towards the end of the year we host a fly in. Unfortunately, this year it is on ice while the airfield undergoes some development and we work out our operations over the coming months with the construction going on. We’ll nominate a new date, and perhaps do it as something to celebrate the beginning of a new race season in 2019.

BUT, all the above aside…. Racing is what we are here to do. There are so many exciting things about racing aircraft!

There is the teamwork, which is going very well for us at the moment, there is the development too. I think all pilots like looking at the numbers and figuring out how they can do it better. Some want to save time, fuel, money etc. others might look at better performance in aerobatics. Essentially that is what racing is – finding better ways to do things, how to save in one area to make a step forward in another. The game never stops.

As a team, we had some good meetings during this break to come up with some strategies for the rest of this year. But that wasn’t our only focus. No matter what happens for the rest of this season, and where we finish in the race for the 2018 Red Bull Air Race World Championship, we also spent time working on our future as a race team.

We’ve had some great results this year, fingers crossed for a few more to come.

Smoke on….