After five weeks of reschedule after reschedule, yesterday I was finally able to have the flight in a Tiger Moth which Justine gave me for my 30th birthday. The flight, not the Tiger Moth.

Justine, Dad and I made our way down to the Point Cook RAAF base where the Point Cook Flying Club is located. After signing in at the security checkpoint we made our way down the road, past marching army men, past old bombers and disused hangers to the end of the base and the clubhouse.

We arrived slightly early for my 12:30 flight, just in time to see another guy being strapped in for his flight. This gave us all a great chance to see what the takeoff would look like from a great vantage point.

As the plane took off, we went inside for a sit and looked around the sparse interior. The walls were decorated with — obviously — images of planes new and (mostly) old and some interesting vintage RAAF recruitment posters which caught my eye.

The previous flyer entered the room with a wall-to-wall grin, took off his leather bomber jacket which was immediately handed to me to don. I grabbed a quick look and though I’m not sure, it seemed like an actually-issued US bomber jacket. In any case, it was quite heavy and made me look the part.

We walked out and inspected the plane first, and were surprised at how small, light and flimsy the whole thing was. The wings were covered in a cloth or plastic-like substance (maybe carbon fibre nowadays, probably cloth originally). As I climbed inside, most of the controls were still present but the stick was missing from my cockpit. As expected, I was seated in the front (gunner’s) seat. As the Tiger Moths are training planes, there was no gun or gun-related controls. I did, however, have rudder, throttle, altimeter and tachometers in front of me.

The model of this particular Tiger Moth is the “Gipsy Major”; according to the Wikipedia article, it is the second Tiger Moth model (which itself is a derivative of the Gipsy Moth created in the 1920s) and flew in the 1930s and 1940s. I expected it would have been older. Even more interesting is the size of the engine: it is a 4-cylinder engine capable of 145hp (108kW) at full power but from what I saw, we were using the mid range so it was outputting closer to 90kW. It is, however, a 6L engine, which is large compared to a car 4-cylinder engine.

The pilot, Ray, who looked to be in his late 60s or 70s strapped me in and donned my cap and goggles. We had a quick photo session where Justine and Dad snapped a few sure-to-be-emabrassing shots and the pilot started the engine. A few misfires here and there didn’t inspire confidence; as the engine warmed we tested the communications and I strapped myself in tighter — after all, while inverted there would be nothing between me and the ground!

Increasing the throttle, we moved in the direction of a tarmac runway for a few metres, before turning to our right. Over the headphones I was told we were going to take off from the grass instead of the tarmac. I guess these planes were designed for it, so why not? As we accelerated to speed, I noticed the plane skidding left and right along the ground. Bouncing and wobbling all over the grass we quickly gained enough speed to become airborne, and so we did.

In stark contrast a passenger jet, the plane lifted ever so gently off the ground that I almost missed it. The incline was gradual — at least compared to a modern plane. I peered over the side to my right and watched the ground fall away quickly enough to give me a good view early on.

The thing I now noticed most was that it was incredibly bumpy. Think of the worst turbulence you’ve had, and now imagine that it’s happening every few seconds and you’re out in the open in a tiny tin can. Even though I told myself that we were over half a kilometre up and that the pilot could probably land the thing without the engine running it still took a few minutes before I could relax into the whole thing. Luckily there were a couple of nooks I could grab onto in that time to convince myself that we weren’t about to plummet to our doom.

After relaxing a bit, I heard the pilot pointing out a few landmarks. It was difficult to hear him over the noise, which is the second thing I noticed. The noise of the engine is completely drowned out by the wind rushing past your ears (and this is with the over-ear headphones on). If you’ve ever jumped out of a plane, you’ll know what it sounds like. If not, and you’ve stuck your head out of a car doing 100km/h. Imagine that… times three. By the way, once the parachute opens when skydiving (a relief itself!), there is absolute silence; very serene.

A few minutes later, he advised we were about to perform a dive and our first loop. “Go ahead,” I said over the intercom. I saw the horizon raise in my field of view and the sound of the wind rushing past my ears increased. And increased. And increased. Just as the sound built to a crescendo and changed from a “whoosing” sound to an intense screaming sound, I was pushed into the chair and we began our first loop. Partway through the loop I remembered my intention and began to mash the buttons on Justine’s camera while pointing in the rough direction of my head. Moments before this photo the goggles had slipped down my face and then started to go back up and, I feared, straight off my head. I managed to grab them before this happened and we leveled back out.

“How did that feel?” I heard over the intercom in the comparitive silence that followed the deafening roar that had been moments ago. “Surprisingly good.” I said, “Actually, it was really, really good!” I added, to drive the point home. He seemed pleased since he responded with “Let’s do another then!” Yes, let’s do another loop, indeed.

I quickly checked the camera. An orange light was flashing and after a couple of mashes of the buttons I was unable to bring it back on. Maybe the battery was flat, Justine had said it may have happened on the way down. Hopefully I had a good shot already. Forgetting about the camera and telling myself to enjoy the rest of the flight, I left it where it was.

Trying to check the camera was difficult, as my hands were covered in thick, leather flight gloves. In addition, I noticed they were incredibly cold. In fact, so was my face, feet and legs. The jacket kept the rest of me warm, however. Later, my legs would begin to shiver slightly but everything still worked the way it should.

Focusing less on the self portrait and more on the experience this time, I was able to get a better view of the horizon as it twisted and turned during our loop. I also watched the wings as they were buffeted and were pushed around. Lastly, as we came out of top of the loop, the engine throttle was reduced to such a low speed that the engine sounded as though it was about to come to a stop. Leveling back out, and the throttle was pushed hard to near the top end of the engine. Having played video games where you fly similar planes, I understand the reasoning (you don’t want to smash into the ground!), but it’s such a different experience actually being in the cockpit and flying with the noise, G forces and cold that there are fewer similarities than differences.

We began to head back to the air base, when I heard over the radio an announcement that all air traffic over the base would have to cease in the next few minutes for a vintage plane display — which, I knew, was not me but a more modern plane — but not before we performed a couple of maneuvres directly over the base for Justine and Dad.

The loop was again just as exciting, though this one felt slightly slower and possibly larger than the other two — perhaps because were were at a lower altitude. After, we executed a couple of turns where the wings were at or close to a 90 degree angle. I barely noticed the first but the second I certainly knew when I looked out the left of the plane and saw the ground directly in front of me.

It was time to land so the pilot reduced the throttle and, with the engine virtually idling, we performed one last pass over part of the base and headed out over the water. We were quite low to the water and I could make out quite a lot more detail than earlier when we were at over 3000 feet (just under a kilometre). For the loops we had climbed to 4000 or 5000 feet. Again the runway was a patch of grass and the landing was immaculate. Certainly the best grass landing I’ve had but even amongst other plane landings it was still extremely gentle.

As I climbed out of the plane, we were able to catch the flight demonstration overhead from what was still a great vantage point. It took quite a while, but I was finally able to enjoy my birthday present and it was an absolutely fantastic experience. And I got a cool self portrait.

Watching a plane fly overheard while standing on a bridge over the river Aar, Bern.

This is one of those shots that you think “got it!” just as you press the shutter. While we were crossing a bridge over the Aar river, I heard the plane, looked up and managed to compose exactly the shot I wanted with just enough time for the plane to be pretty much where I wanted it. It’s great when a plan comes together.

I didn’t think I’d process this shot in this way, but I really like the effect. The lamp has an old style to it, and the bricks are a bit crusty; the colouring I think works nicely too. The plane could be (but isn’t) a DC-8 or plane from a similar time.

Day Forty-Seven
Over Europe (?)
23 September 2007

Not much to write about today.  We woke at around seven, ate a quick breakfast and headed for the tube.

We disembarked at the wrong terminal but there is a free train between the terminals at Heathrow.  It took 20 minutes before it even left.

It’s easy to see why people take the train all over Europe.  While the actual plane part is fine, all the security having to check in hours before, it’s very time consuming.  We even had to take our shoes off for a scan!

Again a large plane with no personal screens to keep us entertained.  Being in a large plane for a dozen hours is surreal and when you finally get off it’s sometimes hard to remember when it’s supposed to be.

Today only lasts 12 hours (for us), so it’s surprising there’s little to talk about.