Megle2 – I’ll tell you an interesting story about the intelligence of the some of the level selections I’ve seen. Friday of last week when one of the PA-31’s was inbound to Roma on descent from 10,000, he was asked on the CTAF what kind of winds he had – his reply “ummm, as per my flight plan and as per the forecast, about 250/30 maybe a bit stronger” Hmmm, its been a while but I think the average track from BN – ROMA is something like 270M, now I don’t have a whiz wheel handy but that has to be about 28kts headwind surely… That same day one of the bank runners was operating between 2,500 and 4,500 on his way to the dreaded Charleville, his winds were 110/20, by account it was not only smooth, but the autopilot doing the job let him read a book… (Perhaps a happy-medium could work, say 6000’, or maybe when it is early get down low and avoid the winds, then maybe as the temp goes up and the bumps kick in, and your left hand gets worn out or the blisters peel, start a climb…. It’s called making a charter economical and profitable… Something the drivers up North like the “outback satellite” could teach you about.
Brisbane Observer - “3 hour legs the navajo is quite nice at 10” perhaps if you adopted a level with less than thirty kts on the nostrils you could shave the Brisbane – Charleville leg to 2.5hrs… Just a thought… And I promise ya, navajo’s can be nice for ya at other levels too, the radio calls are just nowhere near as good!! You seem to be very concerned about those dangerous PPL drivers too – I reckon you should avoid CTAF’s in addition to the lower levels, because them folk seem to converge there and most accidents happen around airfields and not in the cruise I hear. (CAVOK Class C flying may be the safest option for ya!!)
Outback, you got it right, it’s a peanut farm!