I must admit when my Operations Manager Dave Lyall suggested I write a blog at a rate of up to once per week, I thought I would struggle to think of things to talk about. For the last 5 days I have been taking notes on what to put here, and I think we can write a book on it (hmmm….).
The big news of the past week was our promotional event with our sponsor Massel. About one year ago, Mark Caine (part of the family company and Marketing Manager for Massel) brought their RX7 race car to the hangar for a photo shoot. It was there he suggested we get together sometime and race the car and plane.
We recently visited the idea again, and agreed on Temora as the location due to its wide and long runway, and relatively low movement rate. The Council gave us permission to shut down the runway for 4 hours, and CASA gave me an approval for low-level aerobatics over the field, and we were off.
On Thursday I flew to a friend’s place in the Upper Hunter to do some low level training, then flew down to Temora on Friday for the event itself. What started as a cool idea to race the car and plane, was turning into an event bigger than Ben Hur. We had 2 TV networks, multiple newspapers and professional photographers, videographers, race car mechanics and official observers!
We did a lot of runs, with me in the MXS, and Michael Caine, Mark’s brother, in the RX7, from a standing start out and back race (it was always going to be hard to beat an aircraft that can do almost 500 kph!). We filmed a few tight finishes, then proceeded with the promotional shots. These were well planned and briefed shots involving a video platform driving down the runway, the RX7 driving behind it, and the MXS either side slipping next to or inverted 15 feet above the RX7! We have obtained a huge number of photos and video footage, which we will be releasing in the future for promotional purposes with Massel.
Massel MXS-R and Massel RX7
If that was not enough, the next day I was fortunate enough to fly in a new aircraft type for me, the A37 Dragonfly, thanks to the Temora Aviation Museum.
If you have not been out there, put it on your bucket list as it is quite incredible how well these old aircraft are maintained and displayed!
A quick trip home on Saturday evening and I was back home with the family for dinner. Sometimes it is hard to call what I do a job…but hey, someone has to do it!
Until next time.
Matt.
