More from the 'things you do after you get your licence' file!
I was lucky enough to get a back seat this morning with a mate in a Citabria. I wasn't doing (much of) the flying, just sat back and watched and enjoyed - off to a grass strip literally next to the Hume Highway (main road between Sydney and Melbourne) near Marulen for a fly-in breakfast organised by my mate's flying school. About a dozen aircraft went down (which meant some 'fun' in the circuit for the private strip we flew into!!) - a few Citabrias, a Pitts, a Tiger Moth, a Stinson plus a few of the usual Piper or Cessna offerings all made the trip - a big conga line following the highway all the way.
Had an awesome morning - did a few aileron rolls and wingovers on the way down which is GREAT fun and I think I'm hooked on the whole taildragger/aerobatics thing... this has the potential to turn very very expensive for me!!
Then a challenging landing on a rather undulating grass strip, brekkie and watching a bit of the action as others went flying around for a bit - a few were making the most of the opportunity to fly into an 'unimproved' strip with a few circuits or even aeros in the near vicinity. I was out very near the strip, camera in hand of course!
Then fly home again, following the highway as the weather was starting to look kind of dodgy (IFR -I Follow Roads!!) in a long line of various aeroplanes. Back into Camden, shutting down just as a rain shower started. Perfect timing as always! So - I had a great morning... then I went to work but that's another story.
For me, this typefies what private flying is all about. A bunch of pilots flying a variety of types into a small private strip for the sheer heck of it, and having a lot of fun in the process.
All I have to do now is learn how to fly a tail dragger!!!
