Thank you to all the organisers and volunteers at Loxton Aero Club. The facilities were great, the food was fantastic and the speakers side splitting!
It was an aviation adventure for me both legs, there and back. I got rained in 10Nm out from Murray Bridge on the way back and had to back track to divert to Bowhill. A beautiful little strip with and exciting approach on finals from the north east over the Murray. I had to ask a local where I was and then walked a short 1.6Kms to a general store to buy some lunch. I waited a couple of hours for the weather to change and when I took off, with help from Gary and Elain Noris who flew over head to advise me the weather had changed, it looked like a different day! It certainly made a difference when faced with adverse conditions to be able to switch over to the chat channel and discuss the situation with an experienced aviator, thanks Gary.
It became clear to me how just a couple of crook decisions could have turned an inconvenience into a disaster. If I had chosen to fly higher to avoid the bumps and pushed on closer to my destination in hope of a hole in the clouds over hills. it could have been lethal. If I had of left the decision later at my low altitude I would have been rained in on my diversion track.
So this was a good learning experience for me just how subtlety things can go wrong and how quickly errors can stack up against you.
Although the education was good at the flyin I have a visceral memory of what to look for in the cloud scape to avoid being trapped with rapidly diminishing options. This experience also reinforced my instructors words about humility in the face of forces far greater than our planes and our wills.
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