Bankstown - That's January

[Grahame Hutchison]

I dropped out early this morning for a few circuits only to find out everyone else had the same idea. When I reached the warm up bay there were six in the circuit, one at the holding point and one ahead of me. The tower gave me the option of listen out on the ground frequency or shutdown and wait for a light from the tower. I kept things running for about 10 to 15 minutes, with a couple of bursts of power to keep the plugs clear, and another three aircraft joined the queue. I finally moved up to the holding point, still on ground frequency, then finally a clearance.

With the queue on the ground I thought three curcuits was enough for my turn so I headed back in, there were at least 8 aircraft in the run up bays, several had shut down. Taxiing back past the 29R holding point and run up bays there were another 6 aircraft waiting there, and it was duck and weave back through the line to the parking bay. The training curcuit was closing from 1030 to 1130 and 1630 to 1730 I believe, and will be this way for several months because of the ATC issues at present. I was listening to the tower while I was photographing, and the one ATC guy had his hands full, calling plenty of go arounds and an alert with two aircraft heading close to each other, one at the others 11 o'clock and close. This will make things very interesting for training.

With the aircraft secure I headed down to check out the 3 Air-Cranes, Clancy, Malcolm and Delilah. Fotunately I met Clancy's pilot on the way down, and had a great discussion on the Air-Cranes, including the differences between each one. He invited me to have a look inside Clancy, the cockpit has plenty of glass area and he said he has had the temp at 50 degrees in Arizona (the visibility is great however). They have no air conditioning, only a couple of small strategically located fans.

The long flexible pipe is for fresh water refills and the solid drop boom is for salt water. With the solid boom they use a radio altimeter mounted on top of the dash with a marked green area for the optimum height off the water. They make the refill pass at 30 knots and it is mainly pilot judgement, and the left seat looking back at the main wheels to guide the distance off the water (sounds like a lot more fun than hovering and dropping the pipe). The radio altimeter display is a vertical strip of different coloured lights, with a green band being the optimal height above the water for the fixed boom refilling of the water tank (10,000ltrs).

Delilah is a true E model, Malcolm a hybrid as it has the F model double wheel main undercarriage, and Clancy is a full F model. The F model also has slightly more powerful JFTD12A SER engines (JFTD12A-4A on the E model) and a different rotor head. Malcolm has a mixed traditional and glass cockpit.

Thank you to the Air-Crane team for a good look around this morning.

Popped my head into the hanger where they are restoring the DC-3, the ailerons are being worked on and stencils in place for some USAF markings. There is still a lot of work to do.

During a quick wander around the rest of the airport I picked up a few other interesting aircraft including the Cessna 208 floatplane.


N178AC "Clancy" cockpit, plenty of visibility but very hot as well with no airconditioning.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_011.jpg

N178AC "Clancy" cockpit from the ground up.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_022.jpg

N217AC E Model "Malcolm" rotor head.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_023.jpg

N178AC F Model "Clancy" rotor head.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_030.jpg

N217AC E Model "Malcolm" main gear.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_026.jpg

N178AC F Model "Clancy" main gear.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_028.jpg

Kawasaki BK117 B-2 CH-FHF operated by Trecked Pty Ltd
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_032.jpg

Vangrusv VAN'S RV-6 Amateur Built Aircraft VH-XPB (2001)
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_044.jpg

Cessna 208 VH-SXF operated by Sydney Seaplanes, a beautiful big beast.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_045.jpg

Cessna 208 VH-SXF operated by Sydney Seaplanes, the nose wheel and double rear main undercarriage retract into the
floats.
http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_054.jpg

[Mark Grima]

Thanks Grahame, great photos and little report. Very lucky to meet the air crane driver!

By the way, does any one else struggle to say 'SXF' out load, feel sorry for ATC with that one (...or is it just me?)

Cheers

M

[Nick W.]

Hey Grahame,

is SXF kept outside permanently? did you manage to see if anything was/is inside the clamback and hennessy hangar?

Nick

[Scott Lindsell]

VH-FHF - Nice machine!
Scott :)

[Grahame Hutchison]

Nick, if I have the right hanger for C&H (the one west of the nursery), it was very clean inside and there were about six well presented aircraft inside, all small singles from memory, and a number of C&H aircraft outside including a PA-28 and Duchess VH-WEU. I have seen the Cessna 208 parked outside over at the hanger below the main helocopter flying school, may have been just for maintenance though.

Mark, I am ok with SXF (I think ?)

[Grahame Hutchison]

Here is the circuit training NOTAM details ...

CIRCUIT TRAINING NOT AVBL
BTN 2230 - 2330 AND 0430 - 0530 (HDS) AND
BTN 2330 - 0030 AND 0530 - 0630 (AESDT) DAILY
FROM 01 302230 TO 04 262000 EST

This is going to be a real pain for the flying schools at Bankstown, at 0800 this morning the training circuit queue was ridiculous, 48 minutes flight time but only 15 minutes in the air.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Hi Scott, FHF was just starting up when I arrived, so no opportunity for a closer look unfortunately.

[Adam P.]

With the lack now of an overflow at Hoxton Park I reckon you would have made just as many circuits if you'd transited to Camden instead of sitting there on the ground...

On second thoughts, don't do that, Camden's getting too busy as it is!!!

[Grahame Hutchison]

Adam, I was talking to a couple of other pilots about this and they said that Camden is also fairly busy these days. When I taxied out to the 29L run up bays, there were no aircraft waiting to depart on 29R. I could have gone to Hoxton, done 6 circuits and returned in the same flight time. When I was taxiing back in however there was at least 6 aircraft waiting to depart on 29R also. It was just busy all around today, and with the training circuit closing from 1030 to 1130 everyone was trying to get in before that.

[AdamC]

Grahame

Thanks for the technical pics of the air-cranes. I didn't realise there was such a big difference in rotor heads between the E and F models. It's hard to think that the main rotor blades are held on by just a few screws and lockwire. It will never cease to amaze me. A lot different from the squirrel.

Not to mention the main gear.


Cheers

Adam

[Grahame Hutchison]

For the technically inclined, here are the instrument panel shots from N178AC "Clancy". A little difficult to shoot because there is so much window area and light and dark contrasts.

Pilot's side instruments.

http://www.16Right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_019.jpg

Pilot's collective control with plenty of functionality, the top red button is for the siren
located outside, just behind the cockpit and pointing dowands.

http://www.16Right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_017.jpg

Centre panel instruments (and pilot side).

http://www.16Right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_015.jpg

Centre pedestal instruments between the front seats.

http://www.16Right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_016.jpg

Left seat instrument panel. The radio altimeter was located directly above the system test panel on top of the dash. It was a vertical
set of lights in different colours, the green section being the optimal height for the fixed pipe salt water refill (done at 30kts)

http://www.16Right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_018.jpg

The overhead instrument panel directly above the centre pedestal.

http://www.16Right.com/MessageBoard/D300-2009-01-31_014.jpg

[Nigel C]

Grahame, try using a circular polarizer filter, you can get these type of shots without the reflection off the glass.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Thanks Nigel, only had the camera with me this time, no extras, but I will give that a go. The Sky-Crane has so much window area, including the floor area and the big side bubble windows. They also had reflective shields in the main front windows for sun protection.

[Jethro H]

Great shots thanks! Good to see the detail of the cockpit. One could imagine the sweat the crew would have since most fires are in +30 degree heat outside in the first place... or 46 in SA this week.

The info I received from my air-support person at the RFS is there are five Aircranes/Skycranes deployed in Australia this season. For the period of Australian operations, three aircraft have been temporarily renamed with Australian themed names.

- "Elvis" (N179AC)
- "Elsie" (N218AC) - temp name is "Bluey" (Australian for 'red head')
- "Malcolm" (N217AC)
- "Isabella" (N178AC); temp name is "Clancy" (Clancy of the Overflow)
- ""Christine" (N173AC) temp name is "Flynn" (John Flynn of the RFDS)
- "Delilah" (N194AC);

Elvis and Bluey original allocated to Victoria
Malcolm and Clancy originally allocated to NSW
Flynn allocated to SA
Delilah is a 'spare'.

Apparently they have signed for a 3 year summer contract.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Clancy's pilot told me that his aircraft was a national asset and could be deployed anywhere.

[Jethro H]

I believe they can be all assigned anywhere, but for contractual reasons they allocated them to certain states.

[Jethro H]

I see that BK117 VH-FHF features in "All Saints" on Channel 7 as well.