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Cairns to Sydney, YBCS - YSBK
Last night the weather report
looked good for very little if any convective weather activity
during the long five hour leg to Sydney, so we do not feel
compelled to leave as early as we had originally thought.
Pam advises P & A that we will strive for a 9:00 a.m. takeoff
and the van and driver would be ready at 8:15. It rains fairly
heavily during the night and we hope we won't have unexpected
weather problems tomorrow. Since we are still without weather
detection equipment, bad stuff might cause a delay or cancellation.
We arise and pack and go down
to the restaurant at a little after 7:00 a.m. On the way,
I stop by the tour desk and turn in the rental car. After
breakfast, we checkout of the hotel - Pam was the persistent,
good, negotiator and makes sure they honor the rate we had
been quoted and not what they at first tried to charge us!
- and the van and driver show up and we load our bags.
We don't run into Pat and Ashley
at the restaurant and are concerned that maybe their alarm
didn't go off and that they will be hard-pressed to have a
bite to eat before we go. Maybe they had room service, we
hope. I inquire if the driver could take us and then return
for them, but he has another commitment at 9:30 and says he
has to take all of us at one time. But soon P & A come down,
the rest of the bags are loaded, and off we go. Usually we
have been having two cars to take us both from and back to
the airport, but decided to go with only one here since it
is a fairly lengthy drive and we do not suspect any time-consuming
events at the airport since it is a domestic flight and we
speak the language.
A Qantas handling representative,
Linda, is waiting by the plane when we are ushered through
the gate and out onto the ramp by a friendly Cairns airport
security man. In about fifteen minutes we are loaded, preflighted,
and starting engines.
For the first time ever on World
Flight 2001, we hear the dreaded words from Cairns Clearance
Delivery: "ATC shows no flight plan in the system." Yuck!
We recheck our fax from Universal
that came to the hotel as well as the one that Linda had given
us - which turns out to be an identical copy of ours - and
confirm that the proper date and time are shown. Since Cairns
is 11 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, our 9:00 a.m. departure
on the 29th equates to 2200Z on the 28th, and that is what
the computer printouts that we have show.
"Uh, Cairns, could you put something
in the system for us?" I beg. The very accommodating controllers
soon provide us with an IFR clearance to an enroute fix that
lies in their airspace on our route and tell us to work the
rest out with Brisbane Center. Sounds good to us. We are outta
here!
Pam is flying this leg and there
are some clouds to contend with on the climb out, but only
light rain, no convective activity. In fact, we are vectored
in such a way that it keeps us away from the heavier stuff
over land, and we stay over the sea for a little ways. Nice
when these little serendipitous events occur! We are on top
of nearly all clouds at FL270 and what few we must penetrate
are just stratus and contain no weather activity.
Brisbane Center acknowledges
our request for the clearance as Universal had filed it -
I gave them the routing - and now we are truly on course to
Sydney. We request, and are immediately granted, permission
to deviate a little left of track to avoid some higher buildups,
but once we pass these about an hour after takeoff it is clear
sailing virtually all the way to Sydney.
We are still without autopilot,
Number 1 compass information, Stormscope, and the Avidyne
display. The latter renders our weather radar inop. That is
why we have no weather detection equipment except the old
Mark One Eyeball…one of the most highly-developed and most
accurate weather detection devices the world has ever invented.
Pam decides to nap for a moment so she gives the airplane
controls to me. Our King KFC-300 autopilot will be warmly
welcomed when it returns!
I notice a strange thing and
ask Center about it. Namely, I hear Center tell another airplane
to switch frequencies to something new, and yet I hear both
the acknowledgment on the old frequency that I am on as well
as the contact on the new frequency that I am not on. After
this happens enough times to convince me that I am not dreaming,
I ask Center if he has time for a question and ask what this
is all about. Seems that in Australia they have a method by
which all calls on any frequency that the controller is working
are immediately rebroadcast on all of the frequencies that
he/she is working. How cool! I think that this is a great
system and I compliment the controller on it. If we had something
like that in the States I could have avoided the billions
- well, it seems like billions - of times that I have been
somewhat chewed out by a controller who was working more than
one frequency when I stepped on someone else's transmission…one
that I couldn't even hear! Hey, FAA, look into implementing
this! Okay?
This is a long flight, close
to five hours, so we do the normal thing of snacking and drinking
a little water or soda, followed by a trip or two to the little
aft lavatory. Actually, I can use the cockpit-installed relief
tube, a King Air option that 982GA happens to have. It's Pam
who must take the stroll aft. With the Avidyne unit inop,
we can't listen to CDs, since the player is controlled through
the Avidyne. Poor, poor, babies!
At 0347Z, about four hours and
ten minutes after takeoff, we receive "When ready, descend
to FL130," and Pam starts down soon thereafter. Information
Lima tells us that weather is good at Bankstown and that we
will be landing on Runway 11 Center. We had originally planned
to land at Sydney's main airport, but since the maintenance
facility that has approval to work on U.S.-registered airplanes
is at Bankstown, an outlying airport, that is where we are
going.
We receive radar vectors for
a straight-in approach, see the airport from ten miles out
or so, and are soon on the ground. The helpful tower controller
provides progressive taxi instructions for us since the Hawker-Pacific
maintenance facility we seek is somewhat hidden, tucked down
a taxiway well away from the main ramp.
We find no one is waiting for
us, but soon after shutdown Rod Wilson, the Avionics Manager,
comes out and expedites our getting Pat & Ashley on their
way to the Park Hyatt Hotel. Seems that Qantas, our handlers
in Cairns, had gotten the time change confused and told the
limo service that we'd be arriving an hour later than we were.
Hence, there was more delay than we like to have for the car
to be there, but nevertheless it soon came and P & A got on
their way.
Pam and I stay around a bit to
discuss the maintenance needs with Rod. What about that theory
that bad events come in threes? Gyro (and compass and Stormscope)
problem, Avidyne problem, now, on this leg, the left fuel
flow gauge stopped working! I swap the gauges side-to-side
and restart the engines, but find that the problem stays on
the left. Bad wiring? Bad flow transducer? At this point we
are not sure, but Rod adds it to his list to look into tomorrow.
He has good news in that the replacement gyro unit has cleared
customs in Melbourne and will be arriving in Sydney tomorrow,
Friday.
They put the airplane inside
their hangar, the car for Pam and me comes, and we are off
to the Park Hyatt in a slick Mercedes. Bankstown is probably
fifteen miles or more from downtown Sydney and there is no
direct route to follow. This driver - never got his name -
knows the city very, very, well and provides a nice commentary
as we twist and turn, zig and zag, through the various thoroughfares
as we proceed to the hotel. Wait until you see the pictures!
The Park Hyatt sits right beneath the south entrance to the
Sydney Harbor Bridge, directly west of the Sydney Opera House,
and right in the center of all the attractions of the old
town area known as The Rocks.
Tiffany is the helpful lass who
checks us in and shows us to our room, number 330. Great view!
Being so close to the bridge traffic and the hustle and bustle
of the wharf and its constant stream of pedestrians, noise
could have been a problem. In fact, when the patio door is
open, the noise is a part of the total experience. However,
the architect had prescribed two massive sliding glass doors
to our patio, one behind the other, that are equipped with
clever latches that pull them into an air-tight, noise-tight,
enclosure. Once they are latched, the room is totally quiet.
After unpacking, logging on to
the internet via a great high-speed connection, having a sip
from the minibar, and getting cleaned up, Pam and I stroll
around the wharf, past the ferry docks, and find the Aria
Restaurant, overlooking the Opera House, where the hotel concierge
had made reservations for us. It is a bustling, up-scale,
place and we have another excellent meal.
The bed feels welcome when we
hit the sack at the end of this long day.
Author at Work, Cairns |
Beneath our Patio |
Fix me! Fix me! |
Park Hyatt Room 330 |
Patio View, Sydney |
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