C172 Visits YSSY

[Brad E]

A presumably rare type to visit, a very clean looking C172S (N5224A) touched down this evening, around 7pm. I spotted it on finals for 16L from my balcony and decided to drive down to confirm.

A quick search found it for sale in the US with an asking price of USD240,000 - I guess someone in Australia is the lucky buyer. Interesting decision to stop in at YSSY due to the landing and parking fees (compared to Bankstown).

[Nigel C]

Sydney has customs and quarantine, so if it's a ferry flight then Sydney might be the first port of call in the country.

[Brad E]

Ah! Makes sense then. I saw them stopped and escorted around the GA parking area by the Sydney Airport cars.

What happens to them from there, they jump in a car and get taken to customs to be processed?

How many GA ferry flights would pass through Sydney?

[Mick F]

I once flew a C206 into YSSY back in 2003 on a Friday evening. Good fun!

Mick

[Nigel C]

There's no guarantee that's why it stopped here, just a guess.
If that's why they stopped here, Customs and AQIS would have met them in the GA to process the people and aircraft.

Not many small GA ferry flights come through Sydney as far as I know. I presume many would make Norfolk Island or Brisbane their first Australian port.


Floody, I remember the post on the old board of you coming here. Was that really 2003??? :eek:

[Mick F]

Certainly was. 29th of August 2003. When I had all of 300hrs.

[Nigel C]

I had a quick squiz at the 172 tonight. It was well and truly set up for a long ferry flight, with the 3 passengers seats removed and replaced by internal fuel tanks. Visibility out the right side would have been a challenge, and there's not a lot of room for the pilot to stretch out.

[chrisb]

26th: Cessna 172S N5224A has departed Santa Maria for Hilo. Flight time is 19 hours 55 minutes

28th: Cessna 172S N5224A has departed Hilo for Pago Pago. Flight time is 22 hours.

3rd: Touching down at Sydney, Australia was Cessna 172S N5224A.
(The dates are slightly off by the look of it)

Source:

http://galonghaulnews.blogspot.com/search?q=N5224A

[Mick F]

22hrs in a C172!!!!! Stuff that!

[Nigel C]

With that much fuel on board, do you think he used the callsign "Heavy"? And how close to or beyond the max take-off weight would he have been?

[Mick F]

Assuming he had about 24hrs of fuel onboard (roughly 840L's), he was probably in the order of about 400kg's overweight. Only guestimations though.

Mick

[Nigel C]

He must have needed some serious runway length with no obstacles within cooee of the runway end!

Ground effect across the Pacific like the Catalina's in WW2?

[Dave Powell]

22 hrs in a 172?? .... he'd need serious bladder control too:D

[Nigel C]

You wouldn't want any turbulence....

[Nigel C]

I had the pleasure of driving the pilot to his aircraft for departure to Bankstown shortly. He had quite an interesting story on his flight; his longest leg was a total of 26 hours in the cockpit.

Mick, you were right with the fuel...he said he was about 400kg over MTOW, but had FAA approval as it was a ferry flight. He said he still had 750' climb on departure from mainland US at the start of a 14hr totally black night enroute to Hilo.

I didn't ask him about the bladder issue...

The aircraft will be based at Bankstown.

[Adam G]

That guy deserves a medal - I use to struggle doing a 3 hour Nav in a C172 (and use to have the student looking for every knot of tailwind to shorten it!), I can't imagine 26 hours!! My physio would certainly be making a killing for a few weeks after that!

[Jason H]

Any ideas where it is parked in Bankstown? I wouldn't mind speaking to this guy myself :P

[Shayne G]

He went from a 26 hour leg to an 20 min leg during this ferry flight :D


Departed Sydney 16L at 8:40pm and arrived at Bankstown on 11C at 9:00pm.


These small aircraft ferrying pilots have some interesting adventures!

[Nigel C]

Even more so given it was his first ferry flight ;)

[Shayne G]

Came across this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKCAJJJePGA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo-M3DIDC0w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CD9OPg-RQs

:D