Trikes at the Australian International Airshow

Written by Peter and Anne MacLean

It's was that time again, I thought, as a rash of advertising arrives in our mailbox for the Avalon International Airshow. Anne and I usually only go on a trade day of the air show, as the air show itself.... Well, "we have been there and done that", way too many times.

However this time, the advertising was a little different. There was a leaflet for the Shell Destination Avalon Air Rally and the Shell around the Bays Air Regatta. This did interest us! So off to the phone I went to book us in with our trike for both the Rally and Regatta. The information on the up coming event came thick and fast, and before we knew it, it was upon us. As per normal, we had organized a ground crew.... but you guessed it, at the last minute they couldn't make it, so Anne and I had to do a double job. It all started on Monday, IOth February, and it went like this....0600 hours we got up and packed the car, attached the caravan to the car and headed for Lara camping ground. At 1100 hours we arrived at the Lara camping ground to the sound of an F-15 screaming around the sky. What a place! We set up the caravan and headed back to Yea to collect the trike to join the Destination Avalon Rally.... But could it be that easy? NO!... On the way home a client rang with a problem that needed our attention right away. Well, there went the first part of the rally.

We arranged to have our Rally gear delivered to Bendigo, and we decided to start the Rally there.

Tuesday I Ith, 0900 hours. We departed Yea with the trike behind the ute, for Bendigo. By 1200 hours, as we arrived at Bendigo airport the Rally aircraft start to arrive. What a sight, aircraft of all types entering the circuit from all directions. We had a great afternoon just talking all things aviation with other pilots and crews. 1830 hours we meet back at the aero club for the Rally dinner, which continued till quite late in the night. We met up with Rod Tyson, another trike pilot, who had come down for the Rally from Cairns. We decided to fly from Bendigo to Avalon together, instead of trying to make it all the way to Warrnambool and then fly along the coast back to Avalon.

Wednesday 12th, 0530 hours. Rod had set his trike up the night before, but we had to set up our trike in the dark glow of the early morning. After getting both trikes ready for the flight, Rod and I grabbed a bite to eat at the Bendigo Flying Club rooms, and Anne and Rod's ground crew, George, looked at the maps to figure out the best way to get from Bendigo to Avalon by road.

0700 hours. Rod's dog, Bob, got his helmet fitted, and then proceeded to run around like a mad thing, showing everyone his new headgear. Bob knows he was going for a flight, and his happy meter worked overtime with anticipation! Rod finally got Bob securely in the gear sack in the front of his trike, and we were ready to go. It was a still morning and the sun was a red ball in the sky, a result of the bush fires burning across much of north eastern Victoria. We taxied out, and in no time, were airborne and climbing away to our cruise altitude. We had decided to fly direct to Avalon from Bendigo, which would take us just west of Kyneton and overhead Bacchus Marsh, before a run into Avalon CTR.

The flight down to Kyneton was uneventful, however just after I gave my radio call in the CTAF a female voice called out Hi Peter!!' I thought to myself, I don't know anyone at Kyneton.... So who would be calling me here? "l responded with, Station calling Edge 3718?"But nothing else was heard. One week later I would find out who the mystery voice was. You see, the Kyneton CTAF frequency is 199.000 and so is the Barwon Heads frequency. The mystery voice was Karen Wiener flying her trike out of Barwon Heads. She heard me give my call at Kyneton just after she had launched, and just called to say, Hi!!'

From Kyneton we made good speed to Bacchus Marsh, flying over many reservoirs, all of them were well below their water level. The whole country looked as if it was taking its last grasp before turning up its toes. Flying over Bacchus Marsh I watched a twin, flying circuits, and the pilot wished us a good flight into Avalon.

At last we could see the You Yang's, and could also finally get the Avalon ATIS. Rod and I had had a great flight so far, and it suddenly got a whole lot better... Avalon tower vectored us both in on a 10 nautical mile final for Runway 18 Right. We landed in formation. The tower told Rod to exit via taxiway Charlie. However I was told to exit via taxiway Foxtrot... Great l thought. Taxiway Foxtrot was nearly halfway down the main runway, and I could see a number of landing lights, all on final for Runway 36 Left. The tower contacted me again and asked, Edge 3718 could you make your best speed to taxiway Foxtrot? The Hercules on final is getting a little worried!' I figured the Hercules didn't want me as a hood ornament. I made it off the runway in good time and changed to the surface movement's frequency. The welcome was a good one, and the marshals directed me to my parking area (no photographs are available for this section of our trip because Peter had left the lanyard to secure the camera, at home and the real photographer was doing driving duty!)

Anne and George arrived about an hour after Rod and I had landed. The flight down from Bendigo had only taken us 1.3 hours.... not bad at all. The rest of the day was spent looking around the Trade Display at the Airshow.

Thursday, 0700 hours. Anne and I headed over to the airport for the Shell Around the Bays Regatta. We decided to drive our car over to the airport because we needed to take fuel to the aircraft. Once in the R2 parking area, a courtesy bus took us to our aircraft, and the driver even waited for us to refuel so they could drop our fuel containers back to our car for us. I liked this Airshow; the people continually went out of their way to be helpful. The pilot briefing went well, and then it was off to the aircraft. We started up and taxied to the holding point, where Rod was waiting for us, as we had organized to fly the Regatta in formation. After a short wait we were given clearance to line-up and takeoff. Seeing the formation of two trikes departing on Runway 36 Left felt impressive, and probably looked good, too. We climbed away and turned for our flight over Geelong then headed for Point Lonsdale and the Rip.

The weather was turning a little sour, and the cloud was now down to 1,000' AGL, but it looked OK on the other side, so we continued on towards Tyabb. Crossing the Rip, and passing over Sorrento, I asked Anne if she would like to detour slightly to take an aerial photo of her family holiday house. A deathly quiet ensues. Anne, do you want me to set up for a shot?" Nothing heard, and then a very quiet, apologetic reply, The battery has disappeared out of the camera!" So, there are no photos for this part of the trip either. Luckily, we found the battery, which had fallen down the back of the pilot's seat (instead of taking out the propeller), after we landed at Tyabb to top up the fuel in case we were stacked and racked on the way back into Avalon. I felt the need to have a full tank of fuel for the last part of the round the bay flight as I just had the feeling that we might be placed in a holding pattern for a while.

We departed Tyabb and climbed out to 1,500 feet and headed for Frankston. As we didn't want to get our feet wet we then headed north for Cerberus, a scuttled Navy ship. The sky was clearing and the sun was now shining through, which made an enjoyable flight even better. We stayed well out over the water to keep away from the Moorabbin CTR, fly past Cerberus and then the Docklands development. At this stage the City of Melbourne came into view.... What a sight! Anne took a shot with our wingtip in it, just to prove that we were in the trike. We then tracked over Williamstown, where you can see how the developers are changing the landscape from a beautiful open plan, to a land of over-expensive, over-crowded dog boxes.

We then flew over the old RAAF base Laverton. It's a shame to see the place where I had spent so many flying hours when I was in the RAAF, now only used for driver training. The runways were visible and they looked like they were just waiting for the next military flight to grace their surface. I wanted to turn into the circuit and land there just for old time's sake, but this was not to be, as Rod had spotted the weather front approaching and we really needed to get back to Avalon ASAP. We tracked past Werribee and the Vehicle Testing Ground, and headed for Barwon Prison, our inbound point for Avalon. We ended up cutting the corner as the weather was getting really bad and it was heading straight for us. Rod and I called in, and Avalon tower told us to track back to Rippley, (this was an IFR entry point). We explained that this is not an option and we needed to get down now. They left us in a holding pattern near Lara. We just kept hearing aircraft being told to climb to 2,000 feet and call overhead Avalon for an approach on Runway 36 Left or Right. This would put us IFR, and I had no intention of flying through cloud or landing with a 25-knot tailwind. We watched as the rain blotted out Geelong, Lethbridge and then the bay started to disappear. We continued to contact the tower until they asked us to join on a 3 nm base. That was great, as we were seriously looking at putting down in a paddock. We were just turning onto final when the tower closed the airport. The Cessna in front was told to do a go-around... He made it known to the tower that he had no intention of flying into the approaching weather. So he just landed!

Rod and I were still in tight formation, and we kept up communications with the tower. When we safely touched down, the Air Traffic Controller breathed an audible sigh of relief and said, Thank god they're all down!' I think he might have been a wee stressed out!

We turned off onto taxiway Charlie and contacted SMF and we got a warm welcome. We were directed through the driving rain to our parking area. Our Round the Bay Regatta was all over by I 130 hours. The best part for me was finding out that some of the aircraft that had been hanging shit on the trikes didn't get back to Avalon until 1730 hours. Bummer!

What a day! I loved it, and so did Anne. The rest of the day was spent looking around the Trade Displays, eating at the Shell Aviation Chalet, and watching the airshow display flying. 1800 hours. We were all put on buses and transported to Geelong Yacht Club for a civic reception. This was one of the Highlights of the Airshow and it was great to see Pip Robertson Tom Cobden when he won the second prize for the Rally. He nearly fell off his seat, and his face was wreathed in a grin as big is a Cheshire cat when his name was called out and he won a Garman 196 GPS. Well done Pip!

The rest of the Airshow was great and both Anne and I loved the whole time we spent there. Sunday night, after the public had left the volunteers and aircrew party began. It was great meeting with more aviation-minded people than we had spoken with during entire week. Someone started a paper plane flying war, which nearly everyone in the whole marquee and lasted a couple of hours. I don't know who that could have been! By the end of the night there were over 2,000 paper planes in the marquee. Great fun and a fitting finale for a HUGE aviation week!




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