Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Happy 80th Tiger Moth!

After quite a few rainy days we were not really sure if we can make our long weekend trip to Leeton, NSW and Benalla. The rainbow Friday night looked promising though

our street on Friday

Saturday morning welcomed us with some very low clouds that eventually disappeared and we could put this sign on the table:

we'll be back in two days

We quickly packed the plane, fueled it up and hit the air towards Leeton.

freshly mounted new equipment

Weather got better and better with every mile we traveled and the significant tailwind was speeding us up.

beautiful Cu's in the lense

After 2 hrs and 15 mins we joined the very busy traffic circuit in Leeton International Airport and landed on one of the two huge and beautifully maintained grass runways.

don't mess up with me

The Fly-In was organized to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Tiger Moth. Although we didn't fly in one people kept coming to have a look at MOM and chat with us. They kept us busy for a while and then we decided to have a walk and look at their toys.

Tiger Moths in Leeton

more and more

The perfectly red soil over there caught my attention.


Each one of the planes was kept in the original condition.


Even the way of refueling was almost original ... sort of ;-)


The winner though was this pitot cover:


After the quick walk around and organizing the dinner tickets it was time to put up the tent before sunset. It was brand new but Ziggy (of course) didn't care much about RTFD (reading the f..... directions) and decided to proceed without it.

An hour later ...

the Man confronted with organizing the shelter for the night

I finally convinced him to read the directions that by the way already landed in the garbage bag. Fishing them out was followed by a complete success:

the sun can set

just a quick pumping up of the airbeds

and here we are:


The six-pack of beer that we brought with us was almost finished by then and the Man sat down to finish it off. He seemed very pleased with himself and his performance providing shelter for the night.


We then had a beautiful dinner in the clubhouse, watched the sun setting over the planes and headed off to get some rest. The music was still playing at 3 am ...

tent matching the Tigers



Tiger's birthday cake

Leeton facilities

We had a great sleep in the tent and a real country breakfast in the clubhouse the next morning before we headed to Benalla.
A quick pit-stop for fuel in Narrandera International and we were ready for the long 20 kts head-wind trip to YBLA.

security controlled airport in Narrandera

MOM tied down for the night in Benalla

Our friend Tim invited us to stay with him over night so we didn't get any more practice in putting up the tent. A nice dinner and the best coffee in Benalla instead.

old facilities - YBLA

no comment needed ;-)

The ad's always say either open or closed glider trailer for sale. Hmmmm, how would someone advertise this one?

"a little bit of both trailer"

All there was left Monday morning was topping up MOM with some gas and fighting the headwind back to Horsham. Our Benalla friends were very helpful and wanted to tow MOM to the gas station (around 20 meters) presenting their brand new towing equipment. The towbar though didn't really want to make friends with MOM and kept disconnecting itself every time they tried to tow it. We ended up pushing the plane which took us not more than 20 seconds.

"one more try and then we'll just push it"

We landed back in Horsham happy but pretty tired. Who said aviation was not challenging?

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