The Leading Edge

For three weeks in February, we attended the big Avalon Airshow which is held every two years. While there, we met up with several Socata owners which Madeleine had contacted by Email. Avalon Airport is southwest of Melbourne, and just north of Geelong. The airshow included mock combat among WWI replica airplanes, more with WWII era airplanes, and lots of earsplitting aerobatics by modern military jet fighters.

After the airshow, we began a driving tour of the western half of Victoria Province, stopping at every small airport that we could find. For example, Tiger Moth World has a kiddy park, a hangar full of old biplanes, a small museum of Tiger Moth memorabilia, and a sky diving outfit. I went for a 15 minute tourist flight under overcast skies. The airstrip was grass, as were most of the small airports, but the Tiger Moth used a small area adjacent to the runway, so that its tailskid did not tear up the runway.

We then continued southwest on the Great Ocean Road, and stayed several days in the small town of Apollo Bay. We took a tourist flight in a Cessna 206 in order to view the Twelve Apostles, which are large rock formations undercut by the surf.

Proceeding north through the hills, we stayed in Ballarat, a city settled during the gold rush of the 1850's. We took a lesson at the local airport, which was constructed during WWII, and even though it featured multiple paved runways, we were instructed in grass takeoff and landing. Madeleine learned to execute steep 180 degree wingover turns.

A little further north, we took lunch aboard a steamboat on the Murray River, the largest river in the dry Australian country. We spent a day at the dairy farm of Steve, one of the Socata owners that we had met. Watching 200 cows get milked was quite interesting.

On Saturday, we returned to a small airport called Lethbridge, where we had been told about a big Saturday barbecue. In spite of the grey skies, there were almost 100 pilots there, working on a vast assortment of small airplanes. Cessnas were in the minority. Ultralights in Australia are allowed to be 1200 lb 2 seaters, and the Australian Jabiru is popular. A builder/owner of a Jodel gave us each a ride in his wooden monoplane which featured a Volkswagen engine.

We continued into the mountains north of Melbourne and visited a large wildlife sanctuary. I got to take a lesson in a Piper Archer at Lilydale airport, and we also spent an hour touring a missionary effort nearby which trains pilots and mechanics for work in Far North Queensland and Papua New Guinea.

It was an enjoyable trip, although the weather was cool and damp. I was glad to turn in the rental car at Melbourne Airport, because driving on the other side never did become a reflex action. The Australians are sympathetic, because most of them have experienced the same problem when visiting the USA.

- John Nogatch