Happy Northern Territory Day! Don't you just love the smell of napalm in the morning? But more of that anon. We woke to a clear day and blustery wind which wasn't the best omen for our plans for a low level run through Old MacDonnell's ranges. Nonetheless, we all tramped off to the dining hall to see if the rookie Japanese cook would make the same mistake two days running. Alas there was no such luck. Still breakfast was good and we pulled out our ipads with the latest flight planning software from OzRunways (which just quietly was absolutely excellent) and discussed our plan of attack. Anthony had used his time in the chopper the day before wisely and the pilot had given him a tip on a pretty little canyon about 20 miles north of us, which he thought would be ideal for a morning jaunt. So we went back to the camp, cleaned up and cleared out.
The young chopper pilot grabbed their bus and ran us all down to the strip where we went through our now well practiced ritual of unpegging and preflighting the aircraft and stowing all the gear. Everyone jumped in and we were good to go. It really was surprising just how good we got at this side of things and we were all always ready to go in no time. The Freer's even with their much larger and chronologically diverse media contingent were the best of all of us - and we were all admirers. Anyways the wind was blowing straight across the strip with vigour but the Chopper guy reckoned we were still good to go for the canyon and so we confirmed our plan and took off in our standard sequence.
Once we climbed out and levelled off at 1500 feet we were well behind the A team but we called them up on the numbers (123.45) and headed off in the hope of soon catching them. They were soon a couple of black dots in our 12 o'clock and we crossed the Petermann Hills, Shakes Plain and then the Middle Range, before they called their descent into the canyon. It was long and wide and exactly what we had in mind. The early light lit the escarpments in hot saturated tones and the floor was flat and made up of open forest. We saw camels and brumbies - wild things free to roam at will in this wonderful place. It was pretty smooth in the Valley and we could see Anthony hooking a 360 turn below the level of the escarpment to position the mob for everyone on board to see. Then we had the Camel's Hump in sight and it was time to climb out of our canyon and hook 150 degrees to take up a north easterly track through the Ranges. Our route would ultimately take us north of Alice which was the long way round. But it let us reprise Sonder and Gosse's Bluff and it brought us into the Class D airspace at Alice via the Bond Springs VFR waypoint. This made it a little easier to avoid Pine Gap and allowed us to overfly the town.
It was still a little hazy but we were lower and the skies again were clear for some way. We could see the Idirriki Range with Mt Tate (3908ft) to our left as we tracked straight down the Missionary Plain with ISB and RCN in our 11 and 1 o'clock. We all climbed to 3500 as the wind off the ranges was chopping the air a little and we passed ISB in the climb and soon after went past RCN. We were well clear at about 200 metres and so we didn't say much on the radio but as we scooted past Andrew called us up complaining: 'Hey that's really not fair! That looks far too easy just zooming past us like that' Surely it's got be harder than that'. The retractable makes a real difference to the performance down low and the sleek profile makes it a fetching bit of gear in the air. But we found the difference in performance evened out when we were higher up.
We kept a predominately eastern heading because we wanted to pick up Gosse's Bluff again. It was even more spectacular lower down and we traded the chance to get it all into the one photograph for the opportunity to get close. There was a road running straight into the centre of the encircled mountains and I looked in vain for a strip. There are none marked on our WACS and even the extra ALAs identified in OZ Runways failed to show anything. A strip in there would have an approach to remember but I guess in this wind it would have been a little more adventurous than we'd have liked. Fantasies put to rest we rolled left around the Bluff onto a more northerly heading which would take us by the eastern face of Mt Sonder and just to the west of Ormiston Gorge and Mt Giles (4558 ft) in the Chewings Range.
Epic landscape was all about us with ranges everywhere left and right and a section of sand hills dusted in light green but straight out of the Sahara in their pyramidal forms. It all reminded me of George Lambert's official war paintings of the Jordan Valley, where the Australian Light Horse campaigned in 1918. Here we encountered a shelf of stratus cloud about 1000 feet above us and we lost our incandescent light. Soon after we sighted the airstrip at Milton Park and notifying the others on radio turned eastwards once again to follow the Tanami Highway to Bond Springs our waypoint for Alice. Alice Springs is not a radar controlled airport and so the controller in the tower relies on the position reports from incoming aircraft to separate them. These VFR waypoints are no longer mandatory but they make the controller's job easier and normally provide an easy to follow route into controlled airspace. The airport is surrounded by ranges and tracking this way also allowed us to stay low level. We descended to 1500 feet and over Bond Springs rolled right to take up our southerly track over the town and into the airport, which still lay hidden behind the ranges.
I gave my call: 'Alice Tower, Juliet Charlie Uniform a Cessna 182RG at Bond Springs, 1500, 4 POB, received Charlie. Request airways and landing clearance.' He cleared me not above 3500 feet direct and asked for a report crossing the MacDonnell Range. We got a nice look at Alice and it all looked worth exploring. The good season had been a boon for the spinifex but the Todd was a sandpit. The annual show was clear to see with its bright tents, amusement rides and other attractions and Andrew was pretty keen to visit.
Just as we reached my reporting point he came on the radio with his inbound call. 'Alice tower Romeo Charlie November ... etc etc.' So I'm waiting ... waiting .... waiting. By now I'm well over my reporting point, Pine Gap is in sight as well and the strip is rapidly approaching with the threshold of runway 12 clearly visible in my 10 o'clock. 'Quick everyone get a picture of Pine Gap maybe we can still sell it to the Russians!' Andrew's inbound call done and answered - goodo my turn now - but no now Anthony comes on the radio: "Alice Tower India, Sierra Bravo ... etc etc' Come on guys give me a break. So I'm still waiting ... waiting ... waiting. Back up fellas I'm practically on the ground here. Anthony's call done and answered and Chris jumps straight on the blower: 'yeah mate it's smee and we're here - just look out the bloody window! '. 'No worries', he said, 'cleared to land runway 12' and so down we came onto Alice's 2438 metre long strip. The Walkers were hot on our heels and the Freer's were allowed to use the exclusive VIP runway no doubt because of the presence in their passenger list of the Green Lantern, the Cookie Monster, Spiderman and one still very sorry Giraffe.
It was still a little hazy but we were lower and the skies again were clear for some way. We could see the Idirriki Range with Mt Tate (3908ft) to our left as we tracked straight down the Missionary Plain with ISB and RCN in our 11 and 1 o'clock. We all climbed to 3500 as the wind off the ranges was chopping the air a little and we passed ISB in the climb and soon after went past RCN. We were well clear at about 200 metres and so we didn't say much on the radio but as we scooted past Andrew called us up complaining: 'Hey that's really not fair! That looks far too easy just zooming past us like that' Surely it's got be harder than that'. The retractable makes a real difference to the performance down low and the sleek profile makes it a fetching bit of gear in the air. But we found the difference in performance evened out when we were higher up.
We kept a predominately eastern heading because we wanted to pick up Gosse's Bluff again. It was even more spectacular lower down and we traded the chance to get it all into the one photograph for the opportunity to get close. There was a road running straight into the centre of the encircled mountains and I looked in vain for a strip. There are none marked on our WACS and even the extra ALAs identified in OZ Runways failed to show anything. A strip in there would have an approach to remember but I guess in this wind it would have been a little more adventurous than we'd have liked. Fantasies put to rest we rolled left around the Bluff onto a more northerly heading which would take us by the eastern face of Mt Sonder and just to the west of Ormiston Gorge and Mt Giles (4558 ft) in the Chewings Range.
Epic landscape was all about us with ranges everywhere left and right and a section of sand hills dusted in light green but straight out of the Sahara in their pyramidal forms. It all reminded me of George Lambert's official war paintings of the Jordan Valley, where the Australian Light Horse campaigned in 1918. Here we encountered a shelf of stratus cloud about 1000 feet above us and we lost our incandescent light. Soon after we sighted the airstrip at Milton Park and notifying the others on radio turned eastwards once again to follow the Tanami Highway to Bond Springs our waypoint for Alice. Alice Springs is not a radar controlled airport and so the controller in the tower relies on the position reports from incoming aircraft to separate them. These VFR waypoints are no longer mandatory but they make the controller's job easier and normally provide an easy to follow route into controlled airspace. The airport is surrounded by ranges and tracking this way also allowed us to stay low level. We descended to 1500 feet and over Bond Springs rolled right to take up our southerly track over the town and into the airport, which still lay hidden behind the ranges.
Just as we reached my reporting point he came on the radio with his inbound call. 'Alice tower Romeo Charlie November ... etc etc.' So I'm waiting ... waiting .... waiting. By now I'm well over my reporting point, Pine Gap is in sight as well and the strip is rapidly approaching with the threshold of runway 12 clearly visible in my 10 o'clock. 'Quick everyone get a picture of Pine Gap maybe we can still sell it to the Russians!' Andrew's inbound call done and answered - goodo my turn now - but no now Anthony comes on the radio: "Alice Tower India, Sierra Bravo ... etc etc' Come on guys give me a break. So I'm still waiting ... waiting ... waiting. Back up fellas I'm practically on the ground here. Anthony's call done and answered and Chris jumps straight on the blower: 'yeah mate it's smee and we're here - just look out the bloody window! '. 'No worries', he said, 'cleared to land runway 12' and so down we came onto Alice's 2438 metre long strip. The Walkers were hot on our heels and the Freer's were allowed to use the exclusive VIP runway no doubt because of the presence in their passenger list of the Green Lantern, the Cookie Monster, Spiderman and one still very sorry Giraffe.
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