Iced

Another 6am start for a ferry flight. This time I offered to be the pick up pilot, which meant S got a two leg turn. Didnt need to fuel up so an early start meant that we were accelerated aloft soon after first light - a good 30 minutes before sunrise.

Merely passenging I could stare at the visuals of the pastel world, well lit up to the horizon and yet dim enough that you could see the glow from street lights reflected back up from the ground as a kind of phosphoresence around the street lights still.

Wispy mists up the Williams River Valley and the Barrington Tops - dark, foreboding and five thousand feet tall to the north.

The Golden Star, Sol blazed into view as the Earth rolled with us in the circuit area at Cessnock.

We arrived to find the Cessna covered in ice. It was wwwway colder there. It looked pretty with its thick white coat. Though scraping it off the windscreen make even gloved fingers sting from cold.

S left me to it and flew back, while I fiddled with pre-flights, and forms, and numbers and stuff. Wiggled into the correct position with the seat and my leg length. Headset, GPS, Kneeboard, map, checks, switches, primer pump, "Clear Prop" start, Cough, splutter, turn ... Turn ... stop

Oh no, flat battery. Aaahhh. S's in flight and out of radio range (me on the ground). Start, turn, stop.

Get out, walk around, stand in the sun and watch the ice slowly melt off the little two seater's white wings. Get back in, prime, start, catch , cough, die.

I tried this several times and three times the engine started then died. Each time if I waited somehow the battery regained sufficient charge to turn the prop over.
Eventually I primed it five times (a record) and yes it starts and stays started. I sit warily, for a minute. Not touching the throttle.

Lift the headset on. Do the harness up. Put the kneeboard and GPS in place. Shut the door. Oil temp hasnt moved and probably wont for ages. Beacon on. Radio on. Slowly throttle up and taxi out to the run up area. Run up checks work, leave the carb heat on for ages. All normal.

Taxi call, line up and blast off to the north. Climbing out on upwind I think about the vineyards here centered around Cessnock. Like for the first time. I notice unusually large buildings with lawns and carparks and realise they are major wineries. Here they all are! I'm looking at them, everywhere I turn! How beautiful they all are among all the remnant forest.

I fly over the house on the way back and the circle overhead while a 737 makes its approach over the river. I notice the frog pond for the first time from the air. It looks great!

Landscape knitting

Another ferry flight out of Cessnock this morning in a bright clear windy winter sky. S was passenging and commented how the vineyards were in oversupply. I said but how pretty are they. They look like they are knitted onto the landscape. I was looking at four hexagonal vine fields that circled a little hill. They could have been wool keeping it warm.