Real Life Database

I pulled back desperately hard on the stick but it was too late. The ground roared up to meet me, filling my field of view with things terrestrial, before the cockpit panel exploded into shrapnel. Within milliseconds the instrument cluster had struck me a fatal blow to the forehead. "Game over" announced the latest in 3D flight simulator packages.

There is only one thing better than the surreal experience of whizzing through the latest 3D game data base and that's the real thing. So when the 'phone rang last May with the offer of a 'chopper hopper' (rotor head speak for a jaunt requiring at least one refuelling stop) I gladly agreed to swap my games joystick for the cyclic on an R22.

Jamie had to deliver a mustering machine to an operation in Cloncurry so the deal was to fly up in two birds, make the delivery & come back in one. I'm newly licensed and to date Wangaratta was the extent of my bravest excursion. Like the early mariners, who feared sailing off the edge of a flat earth, I had no ken of anything past 'half full' on my fuel gauges. Boy did I have a lot to learn!

We made Queensland from Sydney in the first day, dropped over the border into a little placed called Cunnamulla and I slept the sleep that only someone who has just flown in excess of seven hours straight can sleep. I awoke next morn with left peddle pressure on the bed end!

My companion took pity on me and the next day was less than four hours flying, Cunnamulla to Longreach via Charleville, where the sun was warmer and the Bougainvillea spectacular. I have this vague recollection of wandering about the Stockman's hall-of-fame in a stupor, left hand still twitching from all that cyclic shake.

By the third day I had acquired some stamina; Longreach, Winton, Kynuna, McKinlay, Cloncurry and the daze had lifted a bit. I remembered things! I remember pouring super from a leaky jerry can (happily provided by a jocular local) in a side street at Winton. I recall flying through a flock of kites & landing (grateful to have survived the experience) in the paddock at the Kynuna pub, the pigs head (complete with police cap) over the bar at Crocodile Dundee's watering hole in McKinlay.

Day four found me wilted, almost forgot to put the dip stick back, took off down wind & too heavy from Cloncurry with the side inspection hatch fasteners undone and could not reconcile the Mt. Isa airfield layout with the aerodrome diagram to save my life!

The return trip was uneventful, we shared the flying and the fatigue in my system evaporated. A fortnight later my recollections of the homewards run are clear and laconic;

- From 500' a flock of wild budgies resembles a school of tiny jewelled reef fish. - From 1500' sheep look like maggots. - From 6' outback pragmatism hits you right between the eyes, "Mind those wires on take off," ('gee that was thoughtful' I thinks), "the electrician's out of town this week"! - Emus might out manoeuvre a chopper but they can't outrun it. - Tibooburra is aboriginal for rock (in the plural!) while Noccundra is aboriginal for mosquito (in the very plural) - If you descend low enough over a country road the oncoming traffic will start to flash its headlights. - Its not a case of 'if' your GPS quits but 'when'.

The 3D flight sim has a 'freeze' function, hit the button & the world stops for you to ponder your strategy. As we flew into Cloncurry I was darting in and out amongst some hillocks, big pedal turns amongst the mole hills, humming with adrenalin & wire fear and probably closer to the ground than prudence would suggest. If I could have hit the 'freeze' button then I would have done so gladly. To be suspended in time like a pilchard in aspic, banked over hard with a fistful of collective & a big silly grin on my kisser would be no bad thing!