Home on the plane
Rural Reporter Cherie von Hӧrchner turns aviatrix in outback New South Wales, as she explores the importance of aircraft to rural and remote Australia.
Episode 6: Those mumbling men in their flying machines
Broken Hill is not what you'd call a busy airport. Flying circuits with Jim, I can be reasonably sure I'm not going to be surprised by the shadow of a looming 747 while I'm practicing landing and take off. It's a lonely sky out here above the outback.
But there is traffic, no less hazardous for being sporadic, and complacency in clear air can be as dangerous as panic in a crowded sky.
This is why radio calls are so important. They alert airports and other flyers to a pilot's position and vector, and are the first line of defence against a catastrophic mid-air collision. So it's bewildering as to why so many pilots seem to use their radios so carelessly or not at all, neglecting to broadcast important information or clogging up their airwaves with unnecessary banter.
The worst of all are the mumblers, who seem to think incomprehensible speech is the mark of a pilot just as illegible handwriting is the mark of a GP.
Anyone who's ever ridden on a commercial airline will be familiar with it; the voice of the captain so cool and relaxed his words can barely be deciphered - sometimes, you'd swear he's just climbed from under a doona.
It's probably designed to give the impression of a relaxed pilot who has everything completely under control, and, according to Tom Wolfe, author of The Right Stuff, it has its roots in Chuck Yeager, the test pilot's pilot, who was notorious for his nonchalant radio calls no matter what was happening to him in the cockpit. When he broke the sound barrier in 1947, his aircraft being shaken like a toy and the world's first aeronautical sonic boom making his ground crew fear the worst, Chuck famously documented the historic moment by cooly muttering into his radio: "Things, ah...got a bit screwy on me there." Yeager's cool-under-pressure demeanour has been standard issue for pilots ever since.
But most pilots today are not breaking the sound barrier in experimental aircraft, so playing Chuck Yeager with their radio calls is, frankly, a load of immature BS. Some might find it comforting to know the air is filled with handsome flyboys who are all so cool and collected, but, as a fellow pilot, I'd find it a lot more comforting if their radio calls were intelligible.
Since I've been learning to fly, about a third of the radio calls I've heard have been next to incomprehensible, and it would be a brave student pilot who dared to ask a veteran to please repeat himself (I have a feeling any response would be comparatively easy to understand).
It's bad enough that the airwaves are filled with this sort of mumbo-jumbo, but when jokers on the ground join the party, you've got a recipe for disaster.
One Sunday afternoon, while Jim and I were doing circuits above Broken Hill, the radio began crackling with calls whose frequency suggested more traffic than usual. Of course, most of the calls were barely distinguishable - the odd combination of letters and numbers mixed in with incoherent nonsense - which is why they blended in so well with the genuine radio calls from other aircraft. But when the calls began descending into rude noises and bizarre shrieks, it became clear they were the work of tricksters on the ground playing a prank at our expense. It was a lonely sort of joke, whose ultimate punchline might have been a fatality, but some people lead pretty boring lives, I suppose.
As a journalist for ABC Radio in Broken Hill, I thought the incident was important enough to report upon, and, after hearing the recording I'd made of the calls, my news editor agreed. What was surprising was the response I got when I pursued the authorities for an official comment, neither CASA nor Air Services Australia appearing terribly interested, passing the buck to each other and back again, each disinclined to give me so much as a comment. Turns out there are no security controls in place to protect the airwaves from the intrusion of hoaxers.
Which wouldn't be so bad if one could easily discern between a genuine call and a mumbling blah, but with so many pilots these days more determined to sound cool than professional, it's hard to tell the difference.
Call me a dork, but when I speak into my radio I try very hard to enunciate cleanly and clearly, as if I'm speaking to children.
Because sometimes, judging from what I hear, it seems I am.
Episode 5: Birds, bugs and zoom sticks
You can't see it but you sure can feel it.
The power of wind is hardly ever considered, unless you or something nearby is being thrown around by it.
Practicing circuit lessons can be pretty hard with invisible winds and thermals pushing, pulling and bucking the fixed-wing around.
But there's another hazard that rides on the wind, one that's even more unpredictable, and I encountered it on one of my early landing attempts during flight training.
Flaring in for landing at Broken Hill Airport, I noticed a handful of what looked like chicken hawks hovering over the runway, their attention focused on insects and bugs after recent rain.
While trying to manage the windy weather conditions these birds were taking no notice of the big, noisy bird bearing down on them. For me, it was a tricky problem - with a bit of bad luck I could cop a splattered hawk across my windscreen, and that struck me as an undignified way to end my aviation career, let alone my life.
Thankfully, Broken Hill has a long runway, so I extended my landing for a touch-and-go a little further along than normal.
Bird strikes are common and dangerous occurrences in the world of aviation. They are viewed with some amusement by ordinary folk - people seem to like the idea of a state-of-the-art aircraft being knocked from the sky by a goose. It confirms their suspicions that, no matter how ingenious we humans might think we can be, we will never be a match for the innocent power of nature.
One has to remember that birds haven't had long to get used to the idea of sharing the skies with us. Human flight was not even 10 years-old in 1911 when French pilot Eugène Gilbert, en route from Paris to Madrid in an open-cockpit Bleriot XI, was attacked by an outraged mother eagle, the ferocious assault only ending when the trespasser drew his pistol and pulled off a few rounds. Word has spread in the avian community since then, but some birds still don't bother to observe the standard visual separation rules.
A mining surveyor I know got up close and personal with a seabird that smashed through his windscreen while he was on a job across the Indian Ocean. It knocked him out cold, and it was pure luck his assistant could keep the plane level until he woke up. He now wears a motorcycle-like helmet when flying geophysical surveys.
In the outback, it's not uncommon to see eagles circling as they float on top of hot thermals. Turning crosswind, I once spied a cauldron of hawks riding the same thermal as me, oblivious to my approach. I had to quickly manoeuvre to avoid trouble. The sky, it seems, is full of birds.
But not everything that flies is a bird or a plane. The skies are also full of bugs, and they can, in their own way, be a bigger problem than birds. In 2010, a locust plague across the NSW far west prompted CASA to release a warning to pilots to beware of the critters. Swarms of up to 50 million bugs were posing a danger to visibility, engine performance and even instruments. In November 2013, an Etihad Airbus 300 taking off from Brisbane was grounded because of wasps in the pitot tubes - a near-disaster that harkened back to 1996, when 189 passengers and crew on a Boeing 757-225 were killed in the Dominican Republic because a colony of wasps had caused the air speed indicators to malfunction.
In a less dramatic but closer-to-home example, I copped a bug in my eye before my first ever flight. Like the eagle that harassed Eugène Gilbert over 100 years ago, it seemed to be speaking for the whole of the animal world by telling me, before I even started, that the sky belonged to them.
By the way, if you're ever in Broken Hill and eating at the Royal Exchange Hotel, try the duck.
Episode 4: Stall tales and true
As I force the Jabiru into a vertical climb all I can think of is the hammerhead stall of the Lockheed NF104 in The Right Stuff, where US test pilot ace Chuck Yeager had to parachute himself out to safety after his plane went into a deathly flat spin.
Jim, my flying instructor, is beside me, to take the controls if I "screw the pooch"*, but I can't help but wonder if I have the right stuff. I hope so. I'm not wearing anything that remotely resembles a parachute.
I yank harder on the controls, pushing the plane skywards into a taller pencil line. The Jabiru struggles to climb toward space, until it feels like we're not moving at all, but levitating. The air becomes strangely thick around us, like someone has hauled the world into slow mo.
- Photo: Pilot flys ultralight Quicksilver GT 400 across paddock before stalling. (Press photographer: Ian Ward)
- Photo: Pilot stalls a Quicksilver GT 400. (Press photographer: Ian Ward)
- Photo: Plane heads into stall. (Press photographer: Ian Ward)
- Photo: Ultralight stalls close to the ground. (Press photographer: Ian Ward)
Suddenly, the plane's wings start to shake violently, as if the aircraft is being rattled by the fist of God.
We're dropping, backward, the tail aimed at the earth. Like a falling cat righting itself into a paws-down attitude, the plane turns of its own desire, the nose scooping sideways and earthbound. We fall 500 feet in what seems like seconds.
I slam the engine's throttle on fast while banging the nose down, forcing air over the wings so the ultralight can ride through it like a shark through the sea. The sensation of falling is replaced by the unmistakable thrust of speed and control.
We are flying again.
I look at Jim with relief and pretend I'm as calm as Yeager himself. But I'm not. I'm well aware of the danger we're trying to avert.
Learning how to do a stall is crucial, because every pilot has to know how to get out of one.
A stall in an aircraft is quite a different matter to a stall in a motor vehicle, where the engine cuts and you idle to a peaceful, frustrating stop.
For a start, an airborne stall has little to do with engine torque - it occurs when airflow over the wings fails to produce lift, turning you and your flying machine into something about as aerodynamic as a grand piano.
Plus, there's no road beneath your wheels - you have to get out of an aircraft stall or you're spam in a can.
Stall recovery is a particularly critical skill in the bush, where many working pilots use aircraft for the purpose of mustering or property management - tasks requiring low altitude flight that leaves little room for error.
Too many bush pilots have met with disaster from stalling just hundreds of meters from the ground. Not even Yeager could recover from such an unforgiving situation.
People tend to think that bush pilots have it easy, with the sky to themselves and fewer restrictions to force safe flying.
But with featherweight aircraft, unpredictable air conditions and terrain never far away, outback pilots have to be more skilled than most. It's good to be learning from these guys.
It's a dream to be in the air out here. But recovering from a stall is a stark reminder that the whole point of this flying caper is to get safely back on the ground.
*An old military fly-boy expression meaning to make a big mistake.
Episode 3: It's a mail thing
- Photo: Par avion: Elke Hanel drops off parcels at remote outback stations in far west NSW. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Dean Smith is best known for a telegram he forwarded to Air Mail Service officials after a forced landing on May 15, 1923 where he hit a cow. (National Postal Museum, Curatorial Photographic Collection. Photographer: Unknown.)
- Photo: French stunt pilot Maurice Guillaux and his Bleriot XI monoplane after the first mail and cargo flight Melbourne-Sydney. (Image: Collections of the State Library of NSW: Perier, A. J. (Albert James), 1870-1964.)
- Photo: No waste here: graziers make use of empty drums to collect mail and parcels. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Station letter box sits near dirt runway waiting for a bush mail delivery in outback NSW. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Bush mail postie Elke Hanel drops parcels off in an old 'fridge with legs' letter box. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Rusted box still good for mail. Airmail pilot Elke Hanel drops off the latest news to outback station. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Debra Leigo from Allundy Station in outback NSW collects her weekly mail drop off. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Flying postie Elke Hanel takes a quick break in the remote opal mining town during her bush mail run. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
- Photo: Bush postie Elke Hanel takes time out for a chat. (Cherie von Hӧrchner)
It was a shock to see a woman jump out of the driver's side of the Piper Cherokee (the same type of aircraft that closed the accounts of Prince William of Gloucester and Brazilian champion race car driver Jose Carlos Pace).
It was naive of me - of course there are female pilots. It's just that I'd never met one.
Elke Hanel has a special kind of job. She's a flying postie. It's a job that takes her on a 1,000-kilometre round trip, delivering parcels and letters to around 30 isolated stations across far west New South Wales.
For many living out bush, Elke is their weekly Santa Clause.
Elke gave me the low-down on short dirt-strip landings, how to dodge kangaroos, emus and livestock with flaps extended, and tips on avoiding getting bogged on touchdown.
I quizzed her on how she navigated across vast tracts of nothingness; there's a lot of dead flat out here.
It made me think of America in the 1920s, when the Post Office Department began its first air-mail service, and of the time when US mail pilot Dean Smith was forced to land on a cow with lethal consequences.
Back then early air-mail pilots didn't have topographic maps and instead relied heavily on railway tracks, mountains and rivers as signposts.
These fly-boys were known to draw their own flight paths which would then become regular air-mail routes of the future.
Closer to home, it was the French stunt aviator Maurice Guillaux who kick-started an air-mail service in Australia.
It's 100 years since Guillaux set off in his Bleriot monoplane with a bouquet of commemorative postcards, the virgin flight starting in Melbourne on July 16, 1914.
With a bunch of paddock stops along the way, the flying Frenchman was received by a jubilant crowd in Sydney two days later.
How things have changed in such a short period of time. Hooked, I made plans to join Elke and the local mail run the following weekend.
Meanwhile, I hit the books to study aerodynamics, lift and drag and what keeps a plane in the sky.
Episode 2: Like a virgin
How does a plane fly? What's the difference between an ultralight and a general aviation aircraft? How long will it take before I can get my license? What are the odds of dying a fiery, painful death?
My flying instructor Jim Nesbit ran through the basics of aerodynamics, aircraft movement and the relative safety of a Jabiru ultralight. Many graziers in the region fly ultralight aircraft, because they're cheap and easy to fly (although John Denver would probably disagree).
It was a long lesson, with a lot to take in: pitching (nose up and down); rolling (wings up and down); yawing (nose left and right); ailerons (make the wings roll); elevator (takes you upstairs); rudder (makes you yaw, I think); vertical (up and down); longitudinal (um...); lateral (ugh...).
Already, my head felt hot, pumped full of all this daffy lingo.
Jim tried to take the mystery out of it. He's chief flying instructor here.
A true bushie, known locally for his lamb-marking, sheep-drenching and mustering skills, Jim's spent over 25 years in the sky.
His years of experience relaxed me - then again, our graveyards are filled with experienced pilots (and, more importantly to me, their students).
But Jim believes that safety is paramount. He believes in learning slowly, carefully.
There are many experienced pilots who, in their cowboy haste to get their wings, scooted 'round their safety training when it really counted: at the beginning.
Learn now, says Jim - have it tediously drummed in like primary school math tables - and it'll be second nature every time you plant yourself in a cockpit.
I concentrated hard on pre-flight checks.
Fuel clear of water? CHECK!
Plenty of oil? CHECK!
Propeller free of stone chips? CHECK!
Tyres pumped? CHECK!
Struts crack free? CHECK!
Wings firmly attached? CHECK!
Spare pants? CHECK!
Let's go. Hope I fare better on my first flight than poor old Josh Matica.
Episode 1: Cherie as a bird
- Photo: Eight North American B25 Mitchell bomber aircraft fly over the coast near Darwin 1943. The aircraft belong to 18 (NEI) Squadron RAAF. (Image: Australian War Memorial P02769.001)
- Photo: Vintage Qantas advertising Brisbane-Singapore air service (DH 86) advertisement, ca. 1935 / H.B. Green & Co. (Image: State Library of NSW collection (Flickr.com).)
- Photo: Injured stockman lies waiting for assistance from the flying doctor. (John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. )
- Photo: Doctor from the Royal Flying Doctor Service being greeted by a group of women and children waiting behind a fence in Queensland. (John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.)
- Photo: DHA-3 Drover Mk.3B VH-FDC John Flynn in October 1967 at the Royal Flying Doctor Service base at Broken Hill NSW. (Image: Geoff Goodall)
- Photo: Just the two of us: galahs enjoy the big blue on a sunny day in Broken Hill. (Image: ABC Open contributor Janine Anderson)
My grandfather flew bombers over South East Asia during World War Two.
On one mission, he landed a B25 Mitchell that had a bomb jammed in the release bay, the high-explosive dangling just inches above the runway as the aircraft ground to a halt.
He got a medal for that. For him, flying is a gallery of intense personal memories.
People say I inherited my grandfather's stare. It makes sense to me that I also inherited his memories.
If hair colour or the shape of one's nose can be genetically handed-down, why not love, hate or extreme enthusiasm for this or that?
Scientists have passed messages in the laboratory from one strand of DNA to another. I was not surprised when I heard this. I've been longing to fly for all of my days.
It was a dream, of course. I'm a girl without a natural interest in engines or as much money as John Travolta.
I never thought I'd have the opportunity to learn. But then, I never thought I'd find myself living in Broken Hill, a town deep in outback New South Wales, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest regional centre, at least five hours' drive from the nearest capital city.
Out here, a pilot's license can add years to your life.
The importance of flying to rural Australia is evident in the age of its institutions. Qantas ran its first commercial flight in 1922, a mail and passenger run from Charleville to Cloncurry. The world-famous Royal Flying Doctor Service began in 1928. Many properties in the far west are so vast that flying to town means cutting precious hours - even days - off travelling time.
It didn't take long after arriving here for me to realise the importance of aircraft in the region.
Regular sounds of planes snoring across big, blue skies got me thinking. I wanted to know what it took to become a bush pilot, to depend on a personal aircraft like a cowboy depends on his horse.
So I signed up for my first lesson at the local aero club.
This is about that.
Topics: air-transport, industry, air-and-space, business-economics-and-finance, rural, rural-women, rural-youth, health, sheep-production, livestock, beef-cattle, broken-hill-2880, france, united-states