eh eh eh.
'twas a Broome Centenary "Air Race" in days of yore with a $10,000 prize if I recall and Carnarvon was a pit stop.
I can't recall the number of aircraft but it was getting up there towards a 100 from Cubs to twins.
Most of the sectors were "time trials" hence the aircraft arrived "more or less" at the same time intervals that they departed around a minute apart.
As each the first of half a dozen or so of the arrivals started checking in with Carnarvon FS, the FS guy started with the usual read back of each of the preceding traffic, it got to the point that by the time he finishes a minute long read back with each new rego and ETA there would be another half dozen waiting for their turn.
It was hilarious, as fast as he could do the requ'd thing he had to repeat it all over again as there were few with the experience that would have them check in with "copied previous traffic".
Then with the calm professionalism, I had come to expect of the FS guys he reverted to a sort of "All Stations Carnarvon there are a LOT of aircraft arriving for the next little while so keep a good look out, preferred runway blah blah."
That didn't actually stop a bunch from yakking away and neither did it mean that they got the runway or circuit direction right, cut in front of each other or just plain didn't see others.
The CAA guy was found hiding in the toilets
Fortunately the daily F28 had been and long gone..
But they all made it, as they seem to do and we still had another 2 days to go and it was great fun.
We were in the habit of providing an "Official" chase or lead aircraft for these annual events and were usually first out and waiting at the next landing strip or flying shepherd. Many of the participants were outside their home airfield and way outside their normal "nav" territory and for most it was a testing and serious learning experience, with the usual professional organisation from RACWA.
There was always a helpful CAA guy with us, who, when it got too hard with dozens of arrivals all milling about in the circuit with arrivals from ALL points of the compass, over some claypan strip in the middle of nowhere we would go find a cup of coffee in a room without windows some where.
There was always a couple of participants who flew right over the top of all of this activity with dozens of aircraft already on the ground, still looking for the strip, ah well, when they didn't come back and there was break in traffic, off we'd go to find a clutch having their own private trial on the next strip up. .
There should be more of these, as apart from getting them out of their usual comfort zone it's a great way of seeing some country and just flying for fun.
What's this got to do with the NAS, see "comfort zone" above.