Today I flew the same route as Tuesday, but I brought my partner Tai along. Because of the problems with the tach in TUR Chieftain told me I had to take one of the CFI’s along as a safety pilot – not a problem and nice insurance to have the local knowledge. Jamie flew with us (the CFI from the first day), a real nice guy and a pleasure to fly with. Not to bore you with all the details again, we took-off on 11C, exited on left downwind and then flew north along the Bankstown lane of entry to Patonga, then out to Barrenjoey Head.
At this point I called up Sydney Radar on the area frequency and requested clearance into controlled airspace. The call went something like this, “Sydney Radar, Skyhawk TUR, at Barrenjoey Head, 1,500’, request clearance Long Reef, Manley, Harbor Bridge”. They asked us if we had filed a flight plan, which we had not, so they told us to standby and that there may be a delay entering the harbor. Finally, they came back with a squawk code. We flew on down the coast to Long Reef about which time we were told to contact Sydney Departures. Here we had to ask for the clearance again. The clearance when it came was a bit confusing, “Skyhawk TUR, cleared Manley, ….bridge, orbit …..bridge”, the “…..bridge” was some local landmark not marked in the chart and I never caught the name. I looked at Jamie and said “You answer the call”. He really hadn’t expected the second landmark either so he kind of struggled to reply, but did a good job. Finally he realized where they were talking about and he pointed it out to me (just a small bridge) as we flew over Manley. We had to orbit here waiting to get clearance into the Harbor. After one turn, we received “cleared to harbor bridge, remain north of north shore and east of harbor bridge, report orbits complete”. This was a little disappointing, normally I understand that you are asked to “remain north of south shore”, which allows you to actually fly along side the bridge and the opera house. Still, we made two orbits at 1,500’ in the area we were given and the view was pretty spectacular. The next call went something like “TUR, orbits complete, request South Head, Victor One”. South Head is the south entrance to the harbor and the start of the Victor One route down along the coast. Once over the head we were told to squawk VFR. There was a helicopter at 1000’ over the North Head flying south. So rather than just turn south and descend to 500’ I flew across the helicopters path (500’ higher than him) and made a descending left turn to drop down to 500’ and came in behind and below him. This was a nice maneuver and I wish I’d thought of it, but it was Jamie’s idea.
We followed the same route back to Bankstown as we did on Tuesday, Victor One south to Jibbon Point and on to Stanwell Park. Then a turn inland flying west until you cross the freeway. Then turn right and follow it north to the Bankstown approach point at Two RN. After the standard call in and we were told to make straight in for runway 11C. This time nobody got in my way on the turn to final. Other than being a bit high over Warick Farm (and so needing a rather steep descent with full flaps) the landing was good. Luckily Jamie opened his window as were taxied back because Tai lost his breakfast out the window, he was fine the whole way, but I think the steep descent at the end just pushed him over the edge. Still, he didn’t seem too concerned and felt better once he was out of the plane back at Chieftain. Today’s flight was great! what a sensation to visit a beautiful place like Sydney and then to fly around it in your own little plane.