As I look out at the awful weather, I'm planning a holiday for autumn 2008, to Australia. I've scheduled a couple of free days, one in Cairns and one in Sydney, to do some flying, either f/w or rotary or both. I'm just thinking of a couple of hours in each place, with an instructor, doing some aerial sightseeing and maybe landing away. Does anyone have any recommendations of airfields, flying schools, places to visit etc?

Whirly

Camden has f/w and rotary schools. It's 1 hour west of Sydney, still in the Sydney basin and right next to the beautiful Blue Mountains. I've been learning on Citabrias there, which has been great.

In 2 hours you could fly clear over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst or Orange and return.

Your autumn is our spring, and you could reasonably expect conditions like this:
http://www.iainhosking.com//images/2007/06/23/warragamba_20070623.jpg

Check your PMs for more.

Whirly,
If I could just add the following, OZ is a bloody big country compared to the UK and subject to different weather zones. The top1/3 of the country is monsoonal which means very poor flying conditions in the summer months. (Dec to March ) with low cloud not much better than tree top level for days on end. Cairns is in this region and with moutains all around it except out to sea and the airport being a controlled one means you are likely to be going nowhere VFR. June to Sept is the opposite in that region, blue sky's and little wind, and is the tourist season up north with plenty of eye candy on the beaches.
Southern parts (Sydney, Melb, Adelaide etc) have more traditional seasons like the UK only at opposite times to the nth hemisphere ofcourse. Summer can be very hot 42'C with lots of thermal turbalance and winter like the UK, fogs, rain etc though no where near as often.
In my opinion if you want to fly here and have a limited time to fit it all in so do not want to be grounded due to weather,the best time is late March till early May. This will give you the best average weather all over the country and is traditionally the best time of year to fly in the south. Start your holidays down Sydney way if that is your chosen place and move up to Cairns last before going home.
Hope that is helpfull and enjoy our weather and scenery.

Thanks, both of you. Nothing like getting info from the other side of the world; isn't PPRuNe wonderful. :ok:

mostlytossas,
I was planning on going in October; I can't manage much earlier, and from what I read, that sounded like a good month for getting reasonable weather over the whole country, or at least the bits I'm planning to see (Melbourne, Alice Springs/Uluru, Cairns, Sydney). Or have I got it completely wrong?

i.dingbat,
Many thanks; that photo looks wonderful. will reply to your pm when my PC stops playing up!

Just rember that Australia is the biggest Island in the New Zealand Archipelago,:O so you have plently of choices.

Hi Whirly,

I flew out of Cairns in late September a couple of years ago, and it was great - good weather and vis and great scenery. I was still a student at the time, so flew with an instructor from the North Queensland Aero Club. We had a wonderful flight up the coast to Port Douglas then out over the Great Barrier Reef - spectacular!

The club is small but friendly and looking at the noticeboard I saw that they organised fly outs to other towns and islands. They had Cessnas when I was there, C150s and C172s, I flew with a very good instructor called Matt Christensen, but I expect he's moved on by now and probably flying for Qantas or something.

Contact details: www.nqaeroclub.com.au Tel: (07) 4035 9438
email: nqaeroclub@<hidden>

Have fun.
Cheers
Marian

my wife and I had an excellent flight in an old Bell 47, painted in aboriginal type colours ( in sure you will find it ) out of Cairns, well worth it :D

Whirly, October is usually fairly good too so long as the wet season doesn't arrive early. Do Cairns first in early October if you can then go down south after that. In the tropical north they have what they call the build up. This is the weather pattens changing from the dry season to the wet and is steamy moist atmosphere with towering cu up to 30000' odd.
Many people say the build up is more uncomfortable that the wet especially if you are not aclimatised to it. Mould and mildew grows every where and you are constantly wet with sweat and it is quite energy sapping. It goes for about 4 to 6 weeks then the wet season starts in ernest. Early October you should be fine.

Can't go to Sydney without doing victor 1 ;)

Head to Bankstown, plenty of operators there. A flight up to Newcastle, Port Macquarie or Coffs Harbour is nice, or down south to Jervis Bay. :ok:

The danger with Jervis is you'll never want to leave.

So Cairns, then the Red Centre, then Sydney, then Melbourne should give me liveable/flyable weather...if I'm lucky? I'll replan the route I'm playing around with when my PC gets fixed - presently overheating and turning itself off!

The way to go. Have a good trip.