Ruth featured in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald, the postgraduate section if you have a copy.

Some of Owain’s photos:

(All photos above credit Owain Roberts)

Some of Ruth’s photos:

Balloon and morning cloud

Finally airborne, and over Penrith

Mist over the Warragamba reservoir

The Three Sisters poking out of the cloud

Valley cloud from over Katoomba Airfield

A n Extra 300

Leaving an Empty Mudgee

(Photos credits above Ruth Skeeles)

Club Foxbat, Dawn

Last minute polish before judging, Waiex (V tail)

Judging

Moth

Looken Peepers

Close call for Moruya's Foxbat

That Foxbat again!

Jamie, Phil, Damian, Milan

Ying, Ian, Dave

Chris, Arthur, Greg

Mark, Greg, Joe

Greg and Geoff

Grandpa!

Perhaps the criticism is right. Adventurism should play no part in modern government, especially diplomacy and military action.

But should adventurism be ruled out at the individual level?

Should we simply trudge to our work cubicles, eat our allotted healthy foods, exercise moderately, love wisely and not too well, and then die of old age in a dignified and and politically correct manner?

Adventure lovers at Natfly

And if we are to have fun, how much is enough? Like Pinocchio, do we run the risk of turning into dummies by chasing after the chimera of endless fun?
As Eric Burdon said, “When I think of all the good times that I’ve wasted having good times“  (SLYT)

But, at the other extreme, if we are to constantly worry about the mortgage, or being politically correct, or become anxious about the bread going stale, what will get us out of bed in the morning?

These are all matters to ponder, perhaps individually, perhaps after consulting our inner voices, perhaps even external voices.

In matters aviation, the act of flying can give you somewhat of a ‘natural high’, often tempered later by a ‘let down’ feeling.

Some would have it that there is to be no adventurism in aviation.  Personally, I like to have ‘just the right amount.’ It’s only polite to bring the plane back in one piece, and I personally never break the rules, but you must sometimes practise just at the point of your comfort zone, how else will you progress?

Every landing an adventure with my mate Muttley

Just as the ancients pondered the methods and meaning of flight, they studied these kinds of questions. We could do well to add a section to the compulsory Human Factors on Aristotlean Ethics:

“the human aim of having virtue of character, or in other words having excellent and well-chosen habits. The acquisition of an excellent character is in turn aimed at living well and … well-being or happiness. In other words, ethics is a systematic study of how individuals should best live.”

That’s enough contemplation for now. Later we might examine 19th century literature, diplomacy and the possible role of feminism in the suppression of fun, but that’s enough for now. See you at Natfly.

Sturm-zilla versus the Foxbat

(Views are the personal prognostications of Jamie Honan. SRFC has no policy on feminism, ethics or monsters versus planes. All fun to be had in a safe, controlled environment under proper supervision. Even then, when things go wrong, it’s all your own fault. Bring the plane back in one piece.)

We welcome two new members.

Noel McGarry

Dave Doughton

Noel flew with the RAAF club at Richmond. Dave is new to flying, has always wanted to fly but has been held back by a medical condition. Finally, after getting the right diagnosis, his life turned around.

Dave also lives on a boat in Pittwater.

Mark organised a first aid course. Owain Roberts sent a selection of photos. Not pictured are Owain and Peter Foster. There may be others I have missed, apologies to you.

Tom tries to teach Greg about babies

Hmm, it was working before

Mark (ahem) saving Chris

Chris fixing Greg's problems

As a passenger, you have time to relax, take photos, and take in the view from the other side.

Phil

Pilot Phil took your humble photographer for a joyride.

Crosswind

Downwind

Base

Upwind, Errol mowing

Damian Skeeles also sent these shots from a trip to Jaspers.

Bee keeping is a legitimate agricultural activity, with numerous benefits to the environment.

Most of the time, bees go about their business without concern to humans. The females work bringing in honey and pollen, tending the nursery, cleaning, guarding, attending the queen.

The workers, female, live for only a few weeks, working incessantly. The drones, males, don’t do much. Their object is to mate with a virgin queen and then die.

So what has this got to do with flying, or Sydney Recreational Flying Club?

Under certain conditions, a hive will swarm. Swarms are quite harmless, the bees are engorged with honey and away from their hives. They are not aggressive.

Swarms occur mainly because the hive is crowded. The workers will establish queen cells, the queen will lay a female egg. The workers feed the incipient queen royal jelly for a longer period than for normal workers, and a new queen starts to form.

The two larger cells in the photo above, pointing down, are queen cells. The one on the left has hatched. The right hand one is uncapped, possibly there is no egg in it. The other capped cells are normal brood, the protruding ones beneath the queen cells are drone cells.

A hive can’t have two queens, one will kill the other.

When these queen cells appear, the hive is about to swarm. The old queen will prepare to fly off with about half the workers. Swarming is a kind of macro-level reproduction for a hive.

OK what has this got to do with flying or SRFC?

Swarms have phases.The first phase to be concerned about is when the bees fly in a large group, often in an excited pattern, or sometimes a seemingly co-ordinated group. This phase doesn’t last long, but is disconcerting. There could be many thousands of bees, in a group ten or more metres diameter. If you see this, I’d recommend not flying through them. Some bees are likely to get in through a ventilation port into the cabin of your plane.

This phase lasts a short time, half an hour or so.

After this phase, the swarm will clump together in a ball, somewhat about the size of a football or soccer ball. They will settle in a tree, under eaves, anything convenient, still searching for a final destination. This phase can last several days.

They are quite docile. A bee keeper could shake them into a cardboard box and take off with his booty to start a new hive.

However, the bees at this point are looking for a new home. Something with a narrow entrance and in the sun will do nicely.

They won’t go for a plane in a hangar, too dark and doubly enclosed. A plane outside, with a narrow ventilation hole might do very nicely indeed. The side of a caravan, nice and warm with a ventilation port also would be tickety-boo. A house with a cavity between a brick wall and the internal gyprock are also favorites.

Back at the hive, the new queen takes a while to hatch. When she does, she makes a ‘piping’ sound. If there is another queen around, only one will prevail.

The new virgin queen must leave the hive to mate. She collects enough sperm from the ‘lucky’ drones to lay incessantly for a number of years, never leaving the hive again, except, possibly, in a swarm.

I often image the drones’s eyes as having large aviator sunglasses, and the drones as hanging around like a bunch of trash-talking freeloaders. Once in their lifetime, if they make the effort, they get lucky, and then it’s all over.

Yep, that’d be right. Aviators to the core.

The Foxbat showroom is shared with the Carbon Cubs

Tyabb have a 50th anniversary airshow coming up on the 4th of March. Previous blog entries had photos.

A Yak apart

Family matters partially resolved, I headed off in style up the Hume Highway, back to Sydney. I couldn’t resist the chance to take a look at Muttley’s block of land at Holbrook Airpark.

Holbrook is the last town on the Hume to be bypassed. You no longer go out to the airfield at the road with the Saphire on a pole, the turnoff is a kilometre north, crossing the construction of the bypass.

The beginnings of the Holbrook Ultralight Museum

Muttly allowed the Holbrook museum to store some of their shed on his site.

From the front of Muttly's little piece of paradise

The country side is flat, no problem with outlandings. And with many airfields in the vicinity, many a happy day can be spent hopping round the countryside. The tarmac in front of Muttley’s property is a taxiway.

Click through the small thumbnails to see the full size stitched panoramas.

Skies as big as all outdoors

In the rain and storms of Sydney, we can only wait and dream.

Auster comes out for a clean

I took the chance to record a piece of history.

Auster Plate

Auster Instruments

Auster Compas

1989, Last time she flew?

Looks better after a clean

Peter Foster, advised by Errol and Muttly, worked on his Saphire.

Muttly, Peter Foster, Errol

Joe brought the new fuel trailer out. It still needs a hose and a few odds and ends.

New Fuel Cart

Newer members may not have met Jack Pittar, who lives in Canberra. Jack has been active in model aeroplanes for some time now. Jack is part of “Canberra UAV‘ (UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle), a group of enthusiasts from a number of disciplines who have entered a UAV competition.

The competition is fascinating. A model plane has to take off, unassisted, completely by its own electronic decisions, fly a search pattern, find and recognise, by iteself, a lost bushwalker, drop a bottle of water, then fly back and land.

Dr Andrew Tridgell, who I know from another life, gives a fascinating hour long talk about the project.

Andrew mentions Jack, in the radio setup phase. He talks about how his software took his model plane from an inverted stall and recovered.
The Hope transceivers he mentions are interesting. I have a few of these and have been meaning to use them for telemetry myself.

Some bloke flying