Recently

There has been a lot of average weather, as this picture from my balcony shows. It was relentless for about 4 weeks straight, and has cleared up now. I miss the weather, as it kept the temperatures cool and it was a lot nicer at work, even if we did get wet and more stressed with approaches and delays. I won't comment on Darwin's air traffic control, but 50 minute delays at the holding point with no obvious arrivals, and 4 planes in front of me definately makes you ask some questions.


Anyhoo, one of our planes has the autopilot go unserviceable and despite it being fixed and cleared off the maintenance release, it kept breaking, either due water or something else. Therefore we cannot do IFR charter or RPT operations unless they are manned with a second pilot. I had to do two days of the second pilot duty, which basically mean i sit there doing the paperwork and make sure there is nothing going wrong, which of course the pilots i work with are awesome, and generally we were just talking the whole time. And we mix up the flying because the other pilots want an easier day too!




So it was a lot of fun, made what was relatively a full on day at work easier, as we shared the duties between us, and shared the sectors. The rostered second pilot usually flew the last flight of the day with a different pilot again. I flew the second sectors between Darwin - Croker Island - South Goulburn Island - Darwin.


Now that the weather is a lot better at the moment, it's hotter, delays are less frequent, not really doing approaches, and the build up is virtually disgustingly bumpy in the afternoon! Pro and cons of the IFR world.