We pulled the aircraft from the hangar, I thanked the man for his help and hopped in the plane to venture to the fuel bowser. I said goodbye to my Tucson buddies, two lovely people who had gone out of their way to make me feel welcome, took a few photos and was ready to leave. I tried to obtain a clearance but for some reason it had not shown up in the system. Instead, I departed ‘VFR’, or visually and clear of cloud. Once I was airborne I would contact air traffic control again and pick up my IFR flight plan. From that point on they would help me out wherever necessary and I could pass through cloud.
As I became airborne I was given a direction to fly and I was lucky: it was just off to one side of the Boneyard, allowing me to see its sheer size from the air. I picked up my original flight plan and climbed to 12,000 feet, another high altitude required to clear the mountains that zipped only just below. After fifteen minutes on the ground entering dozens of navigational waypoints into the GPS I took to the sky and was immediately given clearance to go direct to El Paso in Texas.
I tracked along my flight path, edging closer and closer to the west Texas town of El Paso, and for a short while just off my right wing I saw the Mexican border. I was excited to be flying along ‘the fence’ and had been looking forward to it for some while. However, my friends from Tucson had told me horrific stories of illegal immigrants attempting to find a new life over that very fence, and so my enthusiasm had become a bit dimmed.
I was heading for Fredericksburg in Texas. Originally I had planned to go through a little town called Dalhart on the recommendation of a ferry pilot, but when John Deakin and his American counterparts had heard that I intended to go to Dalhart they nearly cried. Apparently it was a silage town with an aroma of its own, one that should be avoided if at all possible. That sounded like very good advice. After a little research I found Fredericksburg, an airport with the Hangar Hotel and an airport diner side by side and right next to the tarmac. The airport looked too good to be true so I booked in.
As I neared Fredericksburg the sky began to darken. The weather was not fantastic and it was deteriorating quickly. Air traffic control told me that a storm cell was sitting right on Fredericksburg airport. I didn’t feel like it was an issue and grabbed a chart and looked for the closest airport with available fuel – Junction, Texas. I would land at Junction, grab some fuel for the plane and some for me and head on when the weather had passed.
I turned right, nosed the plane towards the ground and zoomed in over the airport. It appeared to be a very neat airstrip, a cluster of hangars and a lot of cars. Cool. I touched down and taxied to the fuel bowser, clambered out and had a look around. There were a lot of cars but not a person in sight. I could see one hangar door cracked open in the far distance. I wandered in and said hello and shook hands with Sam, the apparent lone occupant of Junction’s bustling airport, who was working on a plane. I asked him for the phone number to order a cab and he laughed at me. Junction didn’t have cabs, he said, or food at the airport, but he offered to drop me off at a restaurant down the road. We hopped in his oversized ute and after driving past a freeway-side McDonalds and various other fast food outlets we stopped at a little Texas shack. He passed on his details and said to call when I was ready for a lift back.
There was no menu, just brisket sandwiches. There was nothing extra to add onto the sandwich, apparently that’s where the brisket came in. It was a case of bread, brisket and bread. I looked around quietly hoping to undertake a little self-education, but with no luck I asked what exactly was brisket. They laughed at me too. Turns out it was a cut of meat. I couldn’t walk anywhere else, as this was the only option within walking distance. Instead I sat down under the Budweiser sign with my brisket roll and a Pepsi. It wasn’t the Texan steak I had imagined.
Sam picked me up and I spent the trip back to the airport telling him just how much of a fan of brisket I was, and how hard it would be hard to leave that culinary delight behind. I climbed into the plane, ready and refuelled, and took off for the twenty-minute flight to Fredericksburg.
It was still a little showery but I had fun flying nice and low and looking at the Texas barns and farmhouses. With the airport in sight I overflew and joined the circuit to land, touched down in a gusting crosswind and taxied for the Hangar Hotel. This was something out of a movie, a war-themed hotel with a classic airport diner as its neighbour. It brought a whole new meaning to valet parking when I shut the Cirrus down twenty steps from the check-in desk.
I unpacked my bags then slipped the Cirrus away in a hangar. I had food, aeroplanes and a bed all within stumbling distance. I was in heaven.
One of the guys from the airport had come over for a chat just after I landed and mentioned that a local pilot would be interested in the flight and would come and say hello the next morning. He did just that and I shook hands with Bob Snowden, who lived with his wife Karen on the airport in what was a half hangar, half house. We walked over to his hangar and pulled up a chair between a yellow Piper Cub and a Ford Mustang. We chatted away for an hour and then Bob took me for a walk though a few other hangars and asked whether I would like to go for a fly. Of course I would.
I climbed aboard a bright yellow Beechcraft Staggerwing, a sleek and fast biplane. To many it’s just another aeroplane but to a pilot it’s one of the most amazing-looking aircraft in history, a vintage machine made of wood and covered in fabric. We started up the radial engine and drowned in a cloud of smoke, then taxied to the runway as the radial burbled away. We took the Staggerwing around Fredericksburg, a different type of flying than what I had been doing over the last month, and I was now in a completely different environment. That’s another reason aviation is so amazing. A slight change in environment, a new aircraft and a new type of flying suddenly turned me into a student again, eagerly trying to learn whatever I could.
Bob and Karen were my hosts for a night out in Texas, an experience in Tex-Mex cuisine that more than made up for the brisket sandwich in Junction. And the Staggerwing flight was something I’ll keep in my logbook forever.
It was bedtime, and in my room I bunked down next to a leather chair and an old telephone with a cord and a round dial on the front. Fredericksburg wasn’t just an airport, it was an experience, almost like an amusement park except that the bar known as the ‘officer’s mess’ was off limits to anyone under twenty-one. I didn’t want to leave, and told Bob and Karen I was good to go with the adoption process when they were.
Next morning I dragged the Cirrus out and topped up the wing tanks, thankful I didn’t have to touch the ferry tank. I taxied to my valet position and loaded the bags, and after a goodbye to Bob, Karen and the crew at the airport I took to the skies, straight into a low-lying sheet of cloud and bound for Tennessee. The Spirit of the Sapphire Coast climbed through a solid layer of cloud above Fredericksburg in Texas and soon I was flying ‘on top’. It was bright, sunny and still – perfect conditions to commit aviation.
I had a planned arrival time into Smyrna, Tennessee, a town just outside Nashville. Jeff Boyd, a very successful businessman and pilot whom I had met at the Frogs Hollow Aero Club fundraiser dinner, had helped to organise the major service for the Cirrus there. Jeff had connections with Corporate Flight Management in Smyrna, which happened to be a Cirrus service centre situated just about where I would require the 100hour service. It was almost too good to be true. Jeff had been in the industry for a long while and had helped with planning, sponsorship, maintenance and so much more.
Corporate Flight Management were expecting my arrival midmorning; it was a fairly large service and they planned to get started straight away. On top of this, my mentor Ken, who was holidaying in the USA at the time, was in Smyrna waiting for my arrival, and I couldn’t wait to catch up.
I levelled off and took in the scenery, still air and the broad accents of each controller. Given the ferry tank was packed away I planned to make a quick fuel stop in the small southern town of Greenville, Mississippi, before continuing. As I neared Greenville and started my descent, I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the rather large grey storm sitting opposite the airport that was well and truly moving towards me.
I rolled to the left and right and as I crossed low over the Mississippi River I saw a steamboat sitting by the river’s edge, exactly as it was supposed to. I conducted a quick orbit to slow down before joining finals and landing at Greenville. As I taxied from the runway I spotted the huge water tower with ‘Greenville’ across the front. I wasn’t even lost.
I climbed out and into the scorching heat. I had parked next to a business jet and in front of a small aviation business, another FBO (fixed base operator) who would organise the refuelling of the plane. I said a quick hello and went off in search of some cold water, to submit another flight plan and to check the ever-evolving weather. I called the 1800-WXBRIEF number and spoke with a really nice guy, telling him that I had come into Greenville towards some serious-looking storms. After a quick look over the forecasts his verdict was simple: I could track south immediately and hope to miss the storm about to pass over the airport, then once clear I could turn around and fly north-east towards Smyrna. It would take longer and use more fuel and there was no guarantee it would work. There was another option. I could book a motel, delay my arrival into Tennessee and not need to stress about anything except choosing what to have for dinner. It only required a little thought.
We began to pack up the Cirrus. By this stage lightning and thunder were creating a show that would play a starring role at the Greenville municipal airport any minute. The pilots of the business jet in front of the Cirrus quickly clambered in and proceeded to undertake a seriously spectacular takeoff. Just after becoming airborne into the now gusting winds they banked hard and left the storm behind them. I taxied the Cirrus to a worn-out, old but phenomenally huge hangar to park and unpack, sheltered from the heavy rain.
I was given a lift to the motel and thinking Greenville was an interesting-looking place. I asked the young guy driving if there was anything to see or do here. He told me that there was a restaurant a few metres from my motel and to ‘sleep there, eat over there and don’t go anywhere else’. I didn’t ask any questions, I just did what he said. Somehow I had the feeling that Greenville, Mississippi might not appear in many tourist brochures.
I was now late for maintenance in Smyrna but after a quick phone call I told them I would be there very early the next morning, so we would lose only half a day. I went to bed and woke up early yet again – at 3am – though with the knowledge that this time I wouldn’t be facing a ten- or fifteen-hour leg but a casual flight of less than two hours.
A young guy from the FBO picked me up and we drove to the airport in his SUV. This guy was into car sound and audio systems and I had to hold my bags on my knees as everywhere else was covered in speakers and subwoofers, even the door handles had been removed. We pulled up next to the Cirrus in the large old hangar, our voices echoing in the cold early morning air. He then decided to show me just what his car could do: I will now go deaf ten years earlier than I otherwise would and the video of my distorted face will remain on the internet forever. It was amazing.
I said goodbye and dragged the Cirrus just clear of the hangar as I jumped on the phone and started to submit a flight plan. A lady answered and I began to provide the details she required: ‘Aircraft type, aircraft registration, endurance, persons on board, departure point, destination point’. She stopped me mid sentence and asked, ‘Where are you from, where is your aircraft from, how did it get here? Don’t try and tell me you flew it here! You’re flying around the world? Why, how old are you?’
Her voice became more and more excited with every question. We spent twenty minutes just having a chat while I filled her in on what Teen World Flight was all about. By the end of our chat, although the flight plan hadn’t been submitted yet, this lady was well enthused. ‘This has made my day, the most exciting call I have had in a long time!’ she said. I laughed as we said goodbye; I was now late again. I started the Cirrus and the sound of 310 horsepower rumbled through the old hangar, a perfect noise to start the day. I took off above the lights and zipped though a layer of murky cloud. To my surprise, above the darkness was a magnificent sunrise.
The flight went quickly: two hours passed like ten minutes. I lined up with the runway at Smyrna, touched down and taxied under guidance from air traffic control to the hangar of Corporate Flight Management. A small group of people were waiting for me but no face stood out more than that of Ken Evers. I shut down and climbed out after a most enjoyable flight, and it was still only time for breakfast.
We all took photos and shook hands. I was introduced to a number of people including Dave Augustin, the co-founder of Corporate Flight Management. I unpacked the plane which was towed to the maintenance hangar, and Dave offered to take me to the motel where Ken and I could catch up for a couple of hours and then offered to take me out to lunch. Apart from not being able to check in at 7am, the morning was fantastic.
Ken and I sat in the motel lobby and caught up. We couldn’t talk fast enough as we now had stories in common that so very few other people had. We spoke for so long that when Dave returned I was still in the flight suit and surrounded by my bags. I quickly changed before we all set off for lunch.
What followed was three days of the famous Southern hospitality. As the aircraft service was major it would take a few days so Dave had decided that the maintenance crew would work away and keep a log of what was completed, a log that I could review before I departed once again. This way there was no need for me to hang around the airport and instead could have a break and complete some other jobs that were well and truly due.
We had lunch with a very experienced 40,000-hour pilot based in Smyrna, the most time of any pilot in the Mitsubishi MU2 aircraft in the world. After an afternoon of jobs I was picked up once again and taken to the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, where Dave and I sat on the stage and watched one of the most famous live radio shows of all time. After the Opry we found ourselves at an Applebee’s restaurant eating some kind of French dip, which may sound exotic but it was far from that, being a glorified roast beef roll that was apparently enhanced by dipping it in a French onion soup. As Dave dropped me off late that night he asked whether I would like to stay at his home with his family instead of yet another motel. It was a wonderfully hospitable gesture to which I agreed instantly and organised a time to meet up the next morning.
With my bags packed I moved from the motel and into a red brick house with an American flag flying on the front porch, it faced a grass airstrip and backed onto a river. It was everything I imagined a house and life in Tennessee to be.
Dave and his wife Danese, along with their kids Caleb and Chelsea, took me into their home and temporarily adopted me. There were still jobs to do such as updating the avionics, flight planning, phone calls and emails but fortunately I had time in between. I had dinner with the Augustins that evening, attended a family birthday lunch the next day along and set off for the Sonic Drive-In with Caleb, Chelsea and their friend Daniel. It was a takeaway where you could stay in the car while they brought the food to you and hung it from your open car window, something I had only seen on an episode of The Flintstones.
When the time came I was very sorry to leave. I had relaxed in Tennessee, as far as that was possible. The aircraft was now in great shape, everything had been looked over and I was ready to move on, though in the back of my mind I knew that things could become very difficult very quickly.
Dave stood by as I started the Cirrus, contacted air traffic control to ask for my clearance and instructions to taxi to the runway.
Without providing a clearance the controller confirmed I was an Australian and then out of the blue asked whether I followed Casey Stoner. Casey Stoner used to be the Australian motorbike rider in the MotoGP series. When I confirmed that ‘Yes, I follow Casey Stoner’, the controller became excited and began to chat on a frequency and in an environment where chats are usually non-existent. I found out that Casey Stoner was testing the 2014 MotoGP bike even though he had retired. How about that? The things you learn.
I waved goodbye to Dave and taxied away from Corporate Flight Management. I lined up on the runway and took off, this time bound for the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the birthplace of flight.
With another few hundred miles behind me, a long list of different states and a change of scenery, I looked into the distance to see a familiar sight. Water, and a lot of it. The mainland of the United States, of which I’d seen an urban metropolis, desert, green bushland, desert, rivers, cities, desert, small towns, huge mountains and a little more desert had now come to an end. I had found the east coast of the USA, and in particular the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Outer Banks were just that: waterways parallel to the coast, and scattered slightly inland of the ocean itself, a long thin landmass that followed the coastline.
I descended towards the Dare County regional airport, a quick fuel stop before landing at another airport a five-minute flight away, the one I really wanted to visit. I touched down, got out and refuelled. It was a busy little airport with aircraft flying skydivers up and banner towing aircraft displaying lengthy messages for all on the Outer Banks to see.
I had enough time to stretch the legs and have a look at a few aircraft scattered across the ramp before I set off for the day’s final destination, Kill Devil Hills or Kitty Hawk, possibly the most famous airport in the world.
On 17 December 1903 two brothers from Ohio changed the way the world travelled. They conquered a dream of many who lived before them, many who strove for the same goal, and proved wrong the many who had not believed in their outrageous aspirations. Orville Wright successfully made the first sustained heavier-than-air powered flight. I was off to the First Flight Airfield, an airstrip only metres from the exact place where he made that very famous first flight.
I took off from Dare County, only just missing what looked like the entire bird population of North Carolina that had come by to say hello. I turned right and stayed nice and low, tracking for the airfield that I could almost see already. I crossed the coast and flew north alongside it, taking in welcome and familiar sight of beaches and bustling tourists taking in the sun. I turned over the airfield, which is done every now and then in the hope of spotting the windsock, but this time I wanted to look down and see the historic First Flight Airfield from above.
I turned and began my descent, scooting down past the busy coastline and touching down metres from Wilbur and Orville’s hangar. Unfortunately the Cirrus wouldn’t fit in it, nor did it match its décor, so instead it sat outside and was tied down close by.
After securing the aircraft, I took a short taxi ride to a small motel. I quickly changed and had a drink of water before taking the taxi back to the airport. I spent a couple of hours just looking around, taking photos and trying to imagine what these hills had seen. I stood next to a long wooden rail, the actual rail that was used to stabilise the Wright Flyer on takeoff. I peeked through their workshop window and stood on a hill alongside the monument dedicated to the brothers and their phenomenal work and contributions. I was mesmerised, standing surrounded by aviation history.
I couldn’t help thinking how aviation had evolved, what 110 years, war and commerce had changed. What would Wilbur and Orville Wright say if they knew a teenager could now fly solo around the world? Would they be surprised?
After a good night’s sleep I was back in the aircraft which was full of fuel and ready to go. I backtracked the runway, taxiing slowly to the other end where I would turn and take off into the favourable winds. I stopped and started, trying to make as much noise as possible and scare away the lurking deer, because I know fast-moving aeroplanes and deer are not friends. After the last checks were completed I took off from the small airstrip and pointed west for the first time since leaving Australia, heading for Wisconsin.
Situated just west of Lake Michigan and north of Chicago, Oshkosh in Wisconsin is home to AirVenture, which calls itself the ‘World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration’. The Experimental Aircraft Association or EAA hold their annual fly-in during July and August each year, bringing in half a million people from all corners of the globe. This year one of those people would be me, along with the Spirit of the Sapphire Coast.
Since the beginning of the planning for Teen World Flight, the one event we aimed to attend was AirVenture, not only as an avenue to promote the flight and its associated goals, but as a way of meeting some of the international sponsors who had supported the flight from the beginning. I would fly to nearby Appleton before arriving at AirVenture, and afterwards head back to Appleton before continuing towards Canada and the North Atlantic Ocean.
A clear blue-sky day made life easy as I approached Parkersburg in West Virginia and flew an instrument approach through some fluffy white clouds that lay a few thousand feet above the ground. After thirty minutes to refuel I was airborne again, next stop Appleton.
I neared a watery mass known as Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes of North America. The nose of the Cirrus pointed directly across the lake from east to west; to the left of the windscreen and in the distance was Chicago while Oshkosh and Appleton lay to the right. As I reached the middle of the lake and aided by a little haze on the horizon, I lost all sight of land in any direction. It really was one of the Great Lakes.
I passed over land and turned right, tracked right past the Oshkosh airport and continued onto Appleton. I was beyond excited. To think I was now here and overhead in my own aircraft was just fantastic, the dream of pilots all over the world. Every year 12,000 to 15,000 aircraft arrive at AirVenture, making Oshkosh’s Whitman Field allegedly the busiest airport in the world for the week-long event. Fighter jets, airliners, home-built planes, private planes, ultra lights, blimps, helicopters: whatever flies will be at AirVenture. The challenge lies in accommodating the wide range of aircraft, having each pilot safely arrive at the air show in between a busy air display schedule. So how is it done?
Usually described in an eighty-page booklet, the arrival into AirVenture can be simplified. Normally air traffic control and pilots communicate with each other, but when flying into the air show in Oshkosh the pilots are not allowed to say anything unless it is vital. Instead air traffic controllers will speak to an aircraft and identify it as ‘the red high wing’ or the ‘blue biplane’ before telling them where to fly or where to land. The pilots then confirm the message has been received and understood by ‘rocking the wings’. The art of rocking your wings, a casual bank to the left and then to the right, has become an iconic part of the Oshkosh AirVenture air show and something that I had imagined doing since I first attended the show.
A very large number of aircraft take off and land on only a few runways, while each afternoon the airspace closes and air show performers zoom through the skies above. Large coloured dots are painted down the centre of the runways, and after being directed to an assigned runway by air traffic controllers situated away from the airport, you fly towards the field until spotted by the controllers from the actual control tower. The now very well-known controllers will clear you to land on a specific coloured dot, whilst you may touch down on the ‘blue dot’ there will be a number of other aircraft landing on the same runway at the same time, all onto a different colour spot. This is not recommended for colour-blind pilots.
I would land on the Monday morning and the Cirrus was being put on display that day. Charles Woolley and the 60 Minutes crew were at Oshkosh to film part of the story. I too was there to work. I had an immense amount of flight planning to complete for the rest of the journey as well as a number of video conferences with schools back at home, organised by Telstra. At the same time, the aircraft had to be prepared for the journey onwards. I knew that the next month wasn’t going to be the smooth experienced of crossing the USA; I would revert to the kind of flying I had already done in crossing the Pacific.
On the Monday morning I hopped into the aircraft at Appleton, while my family, 60 Minutes and a number of interested people were waiting at the show to see the arrival. 60 Minutes had flown to the USA to meet with me as I neared the halfway point, what better place to meet than at one of the biggest aviation spectacles in the world? A number of family and friends, many who had a lifelong dream to attend the Oshkosh air show at some point in the lives, had taken the opportunity to travel over and see the Cirrus and me arrive. With a few days to see through a number of obligations and complete further flight planning, it was an opportunity to also spend some time chatting with familiar faces. All I had to do was land at 11am.
I took off from Appleton with the Cirrus accompanied by the clicking of cameras, nervous because I had read so many stories about landing at Oshkosh. I just wanted it to go well. I tracked low towards a certain waypoint; the idea was to find other aircraft all converging on the same point from different directions and form a single line, which sounded like a good idea. I arrived overhead and quickly spotted several aircraft, picked a black two-seat low-wing ‘RV’ and slotted in behind with only half a mile spacing between aircraft. We all flew a certain height, speed and direction towards a point called FISK. On the ground at FISK were controllers with binoculars; their job was to identify you, ask you to rock your wings and then send you to one of two runways. They did just this, and when I heard, ‘White Cirrus, rock your wings,’ I couldn’t help beaming. I was assigned a runway and continued tracking along railroad tracks and following the ‘RV’ in front. Slowly but surely the Oshkosh Whitman Field appeared.
One by one the tower cleared each aircraft to land. I watched as the ‘RV’ rocked his wings, turned right and descended for a landing.
‘White Cirrus, turn now, cleared to land on the green dot.’
I turned right very low to the ground and flew along the runway, just staying airborne until the green dot appeared and the wheels of the Cirrus touched down.
‘Good job on the green dot, turn left off the runway and onto the grass as soon as possible. Welcome to Oshkosh!’
Woohoo!
I was on a high, excited and relieved that it been a success. I looked at my watch as I held up a sign signifying my parking position. Three minutes to eleven. Spot on.
I taxied into the main plaza of the airshow, the centre and hub where all the action happened. I looked up to see family, friends and my manager Dave Lyall. They were nowhere near as excited to see me as I thought they’d be.
I hopped out and walked up to them where they were waiting behind a barrier. ‘What are you doing here?’ my brother said.
‘Ahhh, it’s eleven o’clock, I am meant to be here at eleven.’
‘No, it’s ten o’clock.’
So some of my friends and some Aussies I didn’t even know, as well as the crew from 60 Minutes, had missed the landing and arrival. I had learned yet another lesson: North Carolina time is not Wisconsin time, and when you set off towards the west you need to change your watch back an hour. Damn.