kevb

Loved the First approach mate, looks like a great day's flying.

Welcome

Hi Hargraves, not really sure but you could try the guy's at the Top End Flying Club, there e-mail address is [email protected]. If you have no joy there message me as I have a friend that attends every year and I will get onto him. I hope to be attending in the Hornet this year myself so I would love to meet and have a couple of cold beers if your keen. Cheers, Kev.

Hi Everyone, Once again the members of the TEFC gathered for a BBQ Breakfast, this time at an old WW2 Airfield, Coomalie, which is situated approx 25nm South of MKT. It was a great turnout by the members of the club, taking advantage of the great flying weather on hand at the moment. Coomalie still has infrastructure and relics from its time as a war time airfield and it was great to be able to wander and check out the history. Had the wife in the backseat for this trip and she had a blast checking out the views and has even expressed an interest in gaining her own pilots certificate. Gonna be pretty hard to bug out for the weekend if that happens. Here's some pics from the morning. Kev.

Hey BP, I wish you all the best and hope that you have a speedy and full recovery, I hate to see anybody have to make changes to their life due to injury, take it steady,recover and you never know what may happen in the future. Drifters are a pretty hard habit to break. The best of luck mate, Kev.

Can't wait, we should have some great trips this year, everybody seems really keen to get out n about.

Hey Frank, Not a Drifter, but still a great bird. The wife will be a little more comfy in this for those longer trips. The Drifter will still be getting plenty of hours, more so that the dry is just around the corner and the camping gear is getting dusted off. Can't wait. Kev.

Thought I would try to keep this thread going, here's a couple of the Hornet doing her thing. kev.

Hi Everyone, Members of the Top End Flying Club flew to Wildman's Resort for Breakfast this morning, a great morning was had by all with quite a few of the members turning out for a fantastic mornings flight. Wildman's is located approx 40nm to the East of MKT overflying the Adelaide River and a range of wetlands. I was lucky enough to take my youngest son for his first flight in the Drifter today, after the flight he is now hell bent on obtaining his pilots certificate. That's gotta impress mom. Anyway here's a couple of pics.

Hi Ian, I love this site and check it pretty much every day, the information and experiences that other members bring to this site through their love of all things flying has been of great help, and an inspiration. Keep up the great work, and as my own knowledge base slowly builds I hope that I can contribute a little as well.

Thanks Frank, I would to pick your brain at some stage with regards to this, Im working out all of the costings at the moment with view to keeping the costs as low as possible, as long as it pays for itself at this stage I would be happy.

Thats interesting Frank, I was thinking of using the drifter for training up here because of the interest level is so high, I was only going to do it as a part time operation on weekends mainly to offer tail wheel and 2 stroke endorsements. Might have to put a bit more thought into it I think.

Once again I love the pics Frank, I'm trying to follow your lead and am taking as many people up in the Drifter as I can to try and keep the type of flying that the drifter offers alive. The amount of interest that people show in the aircraft is great and I take every opportunity to offer a flight. It was your posts, as well as others on this forum, that got the Drifter bug fired back up in me when I started looking to buy an aircraft to fly. So please keep posting, put's a smile on my dial every time.

Here's a video of the flight over the weekend, great time of year to fly up here, can't wait for the weekend. Kev

Hi Everyone, Finally got back into the air after a couple of weeks of bad weather and the possum incident. I took a fellow forum member up for his first flight in an ultralight, Jarrath Haigh, a young bloke who's extremely keen to start his flight training, and he seem to enjoy the flight. You never know we may even have a future Drifter pilot. We took off from MKT and tracked to Southport, Darwin River Dam, Manton Dam, Adelaide River and back to MKT, all up, close to a two hour flight. It was another great morning flight, here's a few pics. Kev.

Lol, thats what my mate said, he thought it would be as funny as hell, me, I'm not so sure.

Hi Everyone, During a pre flight check I found this little chap, a possum, had taken up residence behind the battery in the Drifter. After a battle, I was able to get him out with all of my fingers intact. The amount of damage that he did to the wiring was unbelievable. Had to pull pretty much the whole front end and most of the instruments out of the plane to repair the damage, he even chewed through a wiring bundle. All good though, repaired the damage and did the test flight and will be flying again tomorrow. Could have been worst I suppose, could have been covered in scales, six foot long and angry. Kev.

Wow Frank, That's a lot of water to come up overnight, bet that sort of thing keeps you on your toes in a big wet.

Top pics once again Frank, loved the sunset one, water wise it's pretty much the same up here at the moment. Can't wait to get into the air again.

Hi Mate, The total hours for the trip was around 32 hours, I can,t remember the fuel off the top of my head and all of my paperwork is packed into box's at the moment, but I was using roughly 90L per day. I worked it out with all the extras that I carried on the plane that I was burning around 17L per hour. The camera is a Go Pro Hero mounted to the A Frame with a standard Go Pro mount, seem's to work pretty well. I have also mounted it to the tie down point on the wing and it seems to work just as well. I took it pretty steady on the trip up, flew from first light till around 11am then rested for a few hours. I then finished off with a few hours in the afternoon, seemed to work ok and it kept the fatigue levels down so I enjoyed the trip even more. Can't wait for the next one.

And here's part two Kev

Hi Guy's, It's been pretty wet up in the top end over the last couple of weeks, so I've been grounded for a while. Been going through all of the footage that has been taken over the year and here is some snippets of the trip from Bundy to Darwin in April. Sorry about the music, I had a couple of glasses of red while putting it together. Here's part one. Kev.

Hey Des, How have you been, hope you and the wife had a great Christmas. Kev.

Love it Frank, I wasn't game to drop a hint about going for a fly, hope you and your family had a great day. Kev.

Hey Guy's, It's pretty wet up here at the moment, so I've been going through some of the footage that I've taken over the year. Here's one of the Hornet at Dundee Beach. I went looking for camping sights and landed at Dundee Lodge for a cuppa and ran into a friend, he was keen for a fly so I took him up. It was his first time in a small aircraft and he was a bit nervous, the knuckles were pretty white as he was clutching the A frame on take off but the smile on landing was pretty big. As you can see it was a great day for a fly. This is my first time posting from you tube so let's see how it goes.