Film shoot

Last weekend I was asked to play the part of 'female pilot' in a MAF promotional film shoot. It will be a 1 minute video that follows the life of an engineer.

Watch this space for the final product!

On set (i.e. in the MAF hangar) with Dave Walmsley, engineer and future film star

Update 10/6/20: To see the final video, click here.

Student success

My student Kori passed her PPL (private pilot licence) flight test yesterday!

Here's a photo of her with Marcus Grey, who was her flight examiner.

Arnhem Land ferry flight

Earlier this week I was given the job of flying a GA8 from Mareeba, where it had been in for maintenance, back to its home in Gove, the main base of MAF's Arnhem Land programme.

This was a journey of 813 nautical miles (about 1500 km) - longer than the North Island and South Island put together!

Video available here.

My route shown in red on the MAF aircraft tracker, v2track

Loading the plane with cargo the day before

Departing Mareeba, 6:45 am

My cargo included a staff member's bicycle

First refuelling stop: Normanton

Cloud starting to build up along the coast, Gulf of Carpenteria

Second refuelling stop: Borroloola (about 40C on the ground - much cooler at altitude!)

Pretty patterns at Limmen Bight River estuary

Birany Birany - a typical airstrip and community that MAF serves in Arnhem Land.
Note the cloud buildup in the distance

MFX home again!

I made it!

Thanks to favourable winds (up to 30 kt tailwind at times) I arrived in Gove around 3:00 pm, having left Mareeba at 6:45 am. Two short fuel stops en route and a total flight time of 7.5 hrs.

There's a chance I may get to do other flights like this next year... watch this space!

Some weather info

The last couple of weeks I have been finding it quite hard to sleep - not surprising when you look at the temperatures!

Here's a graph of the daily high and low for Mareeba over the last three months:



In the same period we have only had 3.6 mm of rain. That should change come January when the wet season kicks in...

More weather stats here