Search the skies with ultralight athlete, and daredevil, Kathy Little.
When not running a B&B in picturesque York or teaching high school, Kathy Little, a mother of three and grandmother of eight spends most of her time (and cash) pursuing her passion, up and up and away into the wild blue yonder on a trike, a flying contraption that is little more than a bike with wings.
She writes for Perth Woman about a few of her adventures in the skies up up and away
“I had a brain wave,” my husband Gary said in 2001. “Did you feel the earth move? Why don’t we sell up and go around Australia?”
Work had quietened down in the South-west, so Gary thought it would be a good time to travel the big highway. He thought my reaction was going to be something like “don’t be silly!” but he was pleasantly surprised when I agreed with him.
After all, we were going to do it seven years before when we had set off on the great trek but only made it as far as Kalgoorlie where we put down roots for nearly three years due to work. So it wasn’t as if it was an entirely new idea.
Since that time though, I had taken up a new passion. I was now into flying microlight aircraft and had even bought one, an Edge with a Rotax 503 motor and Executive wing, manufactured in Newcastle in New South Wales.
Five years before getting into the sport I had earned my general aviation pilot’s licence in New Zealand, my original home, flying a Cessna 172, and then taken off travelling to Europe and now Australia. All this had been a big drain on the bank account, meaning very little flying had been done in the interim.
So my answer to Gary was that I would do this trip on one condition. Having spent two years securing my microlight licence I wasn’t about to throw it all away. I would go so long as I could take my aircraft!
Gary wasn’t that keen on this idea. He said it would be easier to just sell it!
Gary is not a flying enthusiast.
Fortunately however I’m not one to take the easy way out and have always enjoyed a challenge. After all, wasn’t this one of the reasons I got into flying in the first place?
I took up general aviation flying at 38 and got my GA licence when I turned 40. My three children were grown up and living their own lives except for my son who was at high school. I was also separated from my first husband so I had the freedom to do something for myself. I was teaching at Dargaville Primary School in New Zealand, with the financial means to pay for lessons.
"When not running a B&B in picturesque York or teaching high school, Kathy Little, a mother of three and grandmother of eight spends most of her time (and cash) pursuing her passion, up and up and away into the wild blue yonder on a trike, a flying contraption that is little more than a bike with wings."
Later, when I settled in Western Australia, I took up another challenge at 45 when I got my aerobatic endorsement in a Cessna 152 Aerobat at Jandakot Aeroclub. Two years later I took up the challenge to become WA’s first female microlight pilot.
Now I had a new challenge - how to accommodate taking an aircraft with us on the road.
On our previous trip, which hadn’t got too far, we had lived in a motorised camper. This time we decided we wouldn’t buy a motorised camper again, for two reasons: they had gone up in price and the budget wouldn’t really stretch that far, and it means you have to take your home with you when you want to drive anywhere. This can present its own problems. Ideally it would be good to have a caravan but you can’t tow a van plus a trailer, and the trailer that was going to house the microlight was going to have to be enclosed for security and protective reasons.
We spent a few weeks looking around before we found a big bus with an enclosed trailer behind it. The bus was too big for our needs and not what we wanted anyway, but the trailer captured our interest. Could this be the answer? It had already been partly fitted out to sleep in as well as to accommodate a car. There were cupboards and lining on the walls plus electricity. We took some measurements and found the aircraft would fit with a small modification to the back of the roof to fit the keel of the trike (another name for the microlight). There would be room to add a stove, fridge, sink, air-conditioner etc. They only wanted $5000. It had to be a bargain. We estimated spending another $5000-$6000 to fit it out. Our budget could stretch to that if we sold some shares.
The trip begins!
Our first destination was Collie for Christmas before heading east soon after. It wasn’t until January 18 we were to finally head off. My adventures flying around Australia started then.
On Christmas Day I decided to go up flying late in the afternoon as the weather looked good. I had flown on this strip before in the club’s Cessna 172 a few years ago so knew the strip but hadn’t flown off it in my trike.
I went up and did a circuit. The air was smooth so I was going to get Gary to come up with me and see his home town from the air. As I was landing, my eldest daughter’s boyfriend arrived so I decided to take him up first.
Another smooth trip
Now time to take Gary up. Full power, rotation speed reached, bar out and we lifted off. No problems so far. Then, at 300 feet, when I had decided to veer to the left early in case of engine failure as there were no landing spots in front due to the trees, I found I couldn’t turn. I seemed to be going backwards.
Eventually I was able to turn but the wind was bouncing us around. A wind change had come through and we were caught in it. By the time I reached circuit height we were being rocked all around the place.
“Get ready to hold the trainer bars if I ask you, as I am struggling to control the bar!” I told Gary.
At 500ft we were being bounced all over the place like a cork on the ocean. The wind sock was pointing one way but we were being blown in the opposite direction. We were being blown towards the trees to the right of the runway. Gary was quiet in the back. Later he told me he was shitting himself!
“Fly it to the ground,” my instructor had told me numerous times, “should you encounter bad conditions.”
I kept the bar in to keep my airspeed up and flew it down and lifted my foot off the throttle just before touchdown. As we hit the ground the wind picked us up and we must have gone 10ft in the air. I put on some power again and brought the aircraft down again. This time we stayed on the ground.
I then taxied quickly back to the hangar. We got out, both surprised we were OK. Gary was quite shaken as he had never experienced anything like this. Neither had I, even though I had done more than 120 hours flying in my trike and more than 100 hours flying GA aircraft. Landing in strong crosswinds was nothing compared to this experience. The aircraft seemed OK so we put it away in the hangar and went home and had a stiff drink.
Our trip was just about to begin and we very nearly didn’t get to go!
I wanted the trike to be checked out properly but decided to wait until we got to Victoria. Luckily we didn’t check it out in WA because had we known the repair bill it might have stopped us from going.
It took us a week to travel from Collie to Mooroopna in the Goulburn Valley 190km north of Melbourne. Because the trailer was so heavy our top speed was only 80kph. At least we had no chance of getting a speeding ticket.
Since leaving Collie for Victoria we had travelled 3,616km, one side of the continent to the other in a week. Our speed averaged about 80kph. Sometimes with strong headwinds we were down to 60kph and other times with a strong tailwind we managed 90kph. It had all been done without airconditioning.
We arrived two days before Australia Day. I reflected on the early pioneers who had travelled these distances without the transport we have today.
I take my hat off to them. The great air rally. The 2002 Great Air Rally was held in late-March. I decided I had to be in it.
All aeroclubs in Victoria are invited. Several legs are flown from various parts of the State ending up in Shepparton on Saturday afternoon for a dinner and then Sunday departing for various towns for lunch and finally home.
I got airborne at 7.30am and was lucky to have a seven-knot tailwind. I had my GPS locked on but soon found it wasn’t reading right. It was pointing in the wrong direction! Oh well, back to basics. I would have to rely on compass direction and good old VFR map reading.
I had only flown this leg once before and that was going in the opposite direction when I had flown my aircraft back from Benalla. When I got closer to Shepparton and recognised an orchard we had worked in I felt better as I knew I was on track and not lost. Flying on to Benalla wasn’t too difficult either as I had the road and the river as a reference.
Finally I could see Benalla. I made my inbound call. A plane was doing circuits which helped me to position myself for the runway in use. The flight over was good smooth flying. No wind on the ground so I had a gentle landing on the grass. I was first to arrive and had to wait over an hour for the rest of my group to arrive. They had been battling a headwind. With a tailwind I managed the trip in an hour and a half.
Finally the other aircraft arrived. There was only one other trike among them, flown by Peter, the leader and organiser of the group. I met another female trike pilot who had driven up as part of their ground crew so asked Dianne if she would like to have the back seat in my trike.
As I turned on finals another small ultralight came in under me and landed in front of me. I wasn’t impressed with his airmanship! I didn’t think he would be clear of the runway by the time I landed so decided to use the grass. I kept a bit of speed on and flared out as we were close to touchdown. Dianne thought it was a good landing, and with everyone watching I felt pleased with myself.
We pulled up outside the clubrooms where everyone was already well into their lunch. After lunch everyone was airborne except for Peter, another aircraft and myself. My ignition wouldn’t turn over. One of the guys came to my rescue and gave me a pull start. Peter taxied up first and I was to follow. I put my foot down on the throttle to get some power and nothing happened. I tried again but still nothing. I called Peter on the radio for assistance. I stopped the engine and Peter, Dianne and her partner Harold came to have a look. Dianne offered her help, saying she had had the same problem on her trike. Out with the tools and she was onto the problem. I didn’t have a clue what it was and neither did the other men but Dianne was able to repair it. Another win for women! Thank you Dianne. The problem must have started when we had flown over from Benalla which was why I wasn’t getting the power I wanted.
Finally we were all airborne. I was at the end of the group as my aircraft had the smaller motor, a Rotax 503. I kept Peter in view for as long as I could in case my GPS played up again. About 10 nautical miles away I lost sight of him. I heard his inbound call and as I got closer I couldn’t find the strip. The trip over had been rough but not as bad as the trip into Wangaratta, which had taken half an hour. This trip was also half an hour because of the headwind we had.
I called to the guys on the radio, “Where is the strip?” “Look straight down,” they said. It was right below me. A paddock with a dirt track! “The Kiwi in Emuland, Fair Dinkum!”, a book-length record of Kathy’s adventures both in the sky and on the ground, awaits publication. Her B&B, Sunset Serenity, is 16km out of York, and can be viewed online at www.yorkwa.org. Look for sunset-serenity under the accomodation heading.
If any brave souls wish to learn to fly a trike there is a flying school nearby that Kathy can put them in touch with and each overnight guest is offered a flight in her ultralight (weather permitting).
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