🛫Volunteers Take-off for Community Flights🛫
In exciting news for Community Flights we have started servicing our clients with volunteer pilots. This is a major step forward and allows us to greatly increase the amount of people we help.
There has now been three flights flown without me at the controls, a statistic that will increase over the next few months.
Our first volunteer pilot is Daniel Rich.
Daniel moved to Hervey Bay about three years ago after serving over 25 years as a pilot with the RAAF finishing as the Commanding Officer of the Aircraft Research and Development Unit – Air Force’s Flight Test Squadron. Daniel now works as an experimental test pilot for aircraft manufactures and engineering companies helping to design and then be the first to test aircraft to make sure they are safe before anyone else flys them. In the course of Daniel’s flying career he has flown 68 different types of aircraft – everything from WWII warbirds, business jets, large transports and fighter aircraft.
Daniel has been helping Community Flights for about the last 6 months to put together our volunteer pilot procedures and will continue to help us as a mentor for new pilots.
Any Queensland pilots interested in volunteering please put your details in the register as we'll be rolling out the onboarding process very soon!
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🛩️ Flight Fact Friday- bush airstrips🛩️
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This is a quick clip of a recent trip to Heck Field (YHEC). The east-west runway is a clearing cut into a sugar cane field 10m wide and only 700m long. This is no problem for most light General Aviation aircraft.
Even at maximum takeoff weight of just over 1,200kg, the 200hp Piper Arrow II only needs ~500m to takeoff or land.
Although this wouldn't really be considered truely "bush" it is still a great example of some of the rugged dirt strips outback.
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Over the last 20 years Mark has flown into many short bush strips requiring precise airspeed and configuration management to get in and out safely. Our commercial volunteer pilots starting soon will have advanced training and experience above a private pilot for passenger safety and comfort.
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Comment below if you live near, or have flown from a bush airstrip (bonus points for photos/video)
#communityflights #flightfactfriday #fff #flight #planes #aviation #safety #bushflying #bushpilots #preciseflying
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⭐ Donation tins starting to pop up⭐
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This one at River Heads Pharmacy has been collecting for just over a month, and now has enough to let the plane fly for 17 minutes. #everylittlebithelps
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Tag somewhere that doesn't already have a collection tin... Together we can help more Queenslanders 🛩️
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