On Monday 7th March, I landed back at Cessnock airport after an uneventful 2.3 hour cross country from Avalon airport. It was quite surreal to arrive back into the circuit, taxi to the hangar, shutdown and unpack the plane without another person around. It was in stark contrast to the week I had just had at the Australian International Air Show at Avalon, and reminded me of racing, where there would be intense moments of flying and media, followed by silent times in private.

The show was an outstanding success for all concerned. I arrived with the race plane on Tuesday to a warm welcome from the organisers and volunteers, and everything was already in full swing from all the other performers. In fact, I was probably one of the last displays to arrive as everyone else had been there from the end of the previous week, getting organised and practicing. After a quick check in, it was off to Melbourne to speak at the 14th Annual International Aerospace Congress. Wednesday dawned windy, though we managed to do a talk to the Airshow’s careers expo, a couple of media interviews and have my display checked as safe by the officials (which I must have passed!). Thursday was some more organising, another practice flight and dinner in Melbourne with some old friends.

Come Friday it was game on as the public displays started in earnest. After talking once again in front of approximately 400 students about careers in Aviation, I flew a clean display (even though the conditions were windy and overcast), and managed to get away before the crowds leaving made the roads unusable! Saturday dawned clear skies, and a nice wind away from the crowd, so almost perfect display conditions. After a great lunch with a competition winner, it was once again back in the cockpit to do my stuff. We filmed this display from inside the cockpit, the entire flight can be viewed on our website set to the same music people in the crowd were hearing (transmitted to me as I flew). After the display, some good time at our stand, signing autographs, meeting people and allowing people to get some photos with the Race Plane. We finished off Saturday as the guest speaker for the Aviators Function.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, and by Sunday night, I was one tired fellow. I had in fact lost my voice after all the talking engagements, meeting people, and answering that most popular question “what is happening with the Air Race?!?!” We packed up our stand, prepared the aircraft for our Monday departure, then had dinner with all of the volunteers for the show at a local pub.

I was very happy with how the display went. I had put a lot of time and effort into designing a spectacular display that was set to music, though was done allowing me flexibility to adjust the display for wind to get the timing and position correct, while at all times being safe. In not only my view, but the views of the other performers and organisers, I managed to pull it off! A key point of this can be seen on our video as I am doing the low level point rolls crowd centre, all to the beat of the music, which was very cool to achieve. My thanks goes to all those who helped me prepare for the show, and helped at the show itself as either a team member, volunteer or support personnel.

The rest of the acts at the show were also amazing to watch. The fighter displays, B1 bomber, C27 transport aerobatic display (!), warbirds and other aerobatic displays were all professionally flown, and were all unique and entertaining. I am sure for those who were lucky enough to attend this show, you walked away with a very large smile on your face.

Now it is time for an engine change (put the spare engine in, and closely inspect the current engine after one year of use), and get ready for the next display coming up in Echuca on the first weekend of April. If you are around, come out and watch, say hello, and enjoy the Aviation environment in general.

Matt.

It’s been a while since I have written so I thought i’d write a quick recap on how the Sydney Harbour Display went on new Year’s Eve.

First a little on the back ground which you don’t get to see or hear about normally. We had to present a flight proposal, then risk assessment for each phase of the flight to both CASA and the event organisers, explaining what we would do in the case of emergencies such as engine failures, bird strikes, structural failures etc.

Once this was accepted, we received our display approval from CASA.

For this, I was approved for flight down the Parramatta River at 500’, over the Southern Pylon of the Harbour Bridge, then operations around the Harbour between 500’ and 1000’, remaining greater than 100m away from the shoreline. Additionally, I was allowed to conduct aerobatic manoeuvres in a box between the Opera House and Fort Denison, on an East West axis, so long as I could maintain a separation of at least 200m laterally and 500m toward spectators in this area.

Lastly, we branded the aircraft completely for our sponsor Massel, doing the entire fuselage and wings with a vinyl wrap. This was only completed on New Years Eve before the display.

For the display itself, once I was over the bridge I was quite busy assessing the surface conditions for the aerobatics while maintaining the limits set by CASA, while also manoeuvring the aircraft quite aggressively.

It was one of the few times I had a chance in my display flying to look around at the crowd though, which was quite amazing.

After a quick lap of the Harbour, I assessed that there was an area that satisfied my requirements for aerobatics, and commenced some race style manoeuvring, some rolls, and some inverted flying.

During this time, I was talking with the TV choppers, and pulled up between them to hover with them! That put a smile on my face. Then, a quick hover in front of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge, and it was time to leave out through the Heads.

A 25 minute flight back to Cessnock, via my house in Merewether, then home by 8pm for my own celebrations with friends and family.

All in all, a good day out, and a great way to welcome in the New Year for MHR!

It is now 2 months since the last race. I must admit, I have enjoyed some down time to spend time with my family and get my thoughts together on what we are trying to achieve with Matt Hall Racing.

The family and I have been able to do some pretty special things over the last few months. For the first time in quite a while, none of us are jet lagged and we have managed to get into some form of routine that always makes life a little more tolerable. We have finally started to do some much needed house maintenance and even some gardening! Mitchell is enjoying learning about tools and how things grow and even has his own vege garden now (even eats his own veges straight off the plant!).

We also had the opportunity to spend an entire school holidays as a family and did some pretty cool stuff such as go cart racing, a private tour through the Westpac Helicopter Rescue Centre, including all the kids getting a chance to fly the helicopter simulator and Cam even went for a fly in the Mustang with me (probably one of the youngest people in the Mustang at age 12!). All in all, it has reminded me the importance of having people around you that you love and love you back. When it gets down to it that is what life is about.

I have also managed to take advantage of the slower time in my life to get cracking on my helicopter license. I have now managed to go solo and I am really enjoying the challenge of flying the helicopter well in all types of challenging environments and simulated emergencies. Who knows where this will take me!

Lastly, the planning of what we are about. I have spent a great deal of time thinking, reading and writing about the vision of Matt Hall Racing and our original display company, Inverted Downunder. We have realized that while racing is very exciting, there are in fact a lot of things that we can do in the interim that are enjoyable, rewarding and motivating. We used the Williamtown Air Show to experiment with what we can do next year, and it was a fantastic success. Not only did we put on a great display (in a borrowed aircraft…thanks Grant!), we were able to meet a huge amount of people, sign a lot of signature cards and caps and give the opportunity for people to grab a photo with me (especially with the kids who we work hard to concentrate our motivation towards). We were also able to represent our 2010 sponsor, Massel, by having the aircraft branded up and looking quite spectacular.

We are now working hard on putting together a calendar of events for next year and working on some sponsorship and support deals to see us through the next 12 months until we have more direction about the future of the race (rules, aircraft limits and types etc). If it all works out well, we will hopefully be able to keep both business running parallel, one doing shows around Australia between races, the other travelling the world winning races….and me somewhere between the two enjoying life with my family!

Without going into all the details leading up to my ‘event’ today, here is what actually happened in the cockpit.

Going into the track, I had mentally prepared for a SW wind, which involved a slight change for one of the gate angles, though it was clear there was only a slight breeze, and it was more from the WNW.

Once in the track, I felt I was flying quite well, back to my normal smoothness and the engine was feeling strong in the cold conditions. In general, at the halfway point I felt I was on a pretty good time.

Coming back on the second lap, I noted to myself that the wind was not as I had planned and I had no need for the angle change going into gate 11, the first of the Knife Edge gates.

Unfortunately, mental preparation is a powerful tool, and regardless, I still found myself going into the Knife Edge gate deeper than I needed to. This then had a follow on effect that I came through the next Knife Edge gate, gate 12, pointing almost straight at gate 13.

It is well known by all the pilots that the turn out of gate 12 is challenging and requires some of the turn completed before the gate, what we call getting some turn room. Unfortunately, I no longer had the opportunity to get my normal amount of turn room, so ended up flying through gate 12 with a very large angle required to make it back to the Chicane.

This is where I made my grave mistake. Rather than taking the aircraft to its limit and seeing if it had enough turn potential to get around the corner, I looked at where I wanted to go and tried to force the aircraft to that point.

Aircraft will only develop so much lift, I know where that limit is in my aircraft, though unfortunately I exceeded this limit momentarily which resulted in a dynamic stall of the wing.

I felt the wing let go and roll slightly to the left, and it all happened pretty quick from there. I was able to get the wing un-stalled and started rolling right and pulling. I felt an impact, which after review was the left wingtip, then I was flying again.

I knew I was still descending so I thought it was probably my gear coming off. I then had a second impact, which felt a lot worse, which I thought was probably the prop and tail hitting the water (it is quite amazing how quickly and clearly you think in a situation like this).

Basically, I just kept flying the aircraft the whole time, not giving up on it, and luckily for me, it retained enough energy and angle of attack to be able to drag itself out of the water (believe me, the water felt as though it was trying grab me).

Looking at the photos, I was quite surprised how much the impact nosed the aircraft over trying to flip me into the water.

From there great support came in from the Air Race. Drew Searle, the race director, was talking with me about how things looked on an initial inspection from the TV camera in the tail. It was he that first informed me that my wingtip was damaged (I did not know that my wings had hit at that point) and I informed him I thought my gear was gone.

I stayed orbiting in the race box so I had support if I had to ditch, had Jurg in the camera helicopter join and inspect me. It took a little while to confirm that my gear was still on, though we were not sure how strong it was.

During this time, my thoughts were for my family who were on the ground watching as this occurred – not something I want to put them through!

I was then handed over to Nigel Lamb who was in his MXS in the hold, who joined and inspected. He informed me that apart from the wheel pant missing, the landing gear looked intact, though the tires may be damaged.

I then flew back to the airfield, declared an emergency with the tower, though emergency services were already on standby due to the efficient coordination from the race.

I climbed up to 2000’ to slow down and conduct a controllability check (making sure I can slow the aircraft down to landing speed without an issue), then flew a wide circuit to land. I was still not sure if the gear was damaged, or the tires were flat, so I had to make a slow and smooth landing, half expecting the gear to collapse, or have directional issues on touch down.

Jurg followed me in, confirmed it looked clean on landing and I taxied off to a normal shut down.

From there, off to the doctor for a quick check up, Pedita was driven out to see me, I did a press conference, then started working on the aircraft.

Now after only 4 hours after the event, I am sitting in my hotel room, rather disappointed in myself, though glad to be here getting a hug from my family.

Jack is packing the aircraft as we speak and it will be on a truck tonight enroute to the factory in North Carolina for assessment and repairs .

Then it is just a matter of me getting my brain back in the game, and the aircraft back in the air.

So, what are the lessons here? A touch of overconfidence, when on a good run, clouded my natural instincts…for me, stay in the present, fly the aircraft, don’t think about the result that may be ahead.

Thanks for everyone’s support, we will be back!!

Matt.

All the teams are now back home getting ready for the next two races, both of which will be interesting for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there is 4 weeks between the Rio and Windsor races, and the aircraft are already in Windsor. This means that there are quite a few teams planning on building their aircraft early and doing modifications to them.

I expect to see a number of different set ups with engine changes, cowl changes, wingtip changes and weight changes to the aircraft for the Windsor race. I even expect to see a few new aircraft racing!

For us at Team Hall, we are planning on some minor things, though we are reasonably happy with the aircraft overall at the moment and consistency is our biggest challenge.

Secondly, most teams will be staying with their aircraft between these two races, as there is only a week off between them…hardly the time to fly internationally back to home, just to get some jet lag and turn around to fly back again 3 days later.

So, once again, I think some teams will take the opportunity to work on their aircraft and also get some flying training in.

This can always lead to a more aggressive flying style, though it can also lead to fatigue leading into the second race. Once again, for Team Hall we are planning on staying in the US and I will keep the plane near me, though apart from some testing and a little training, I will be using the time between the races as recovery time.

Thirdly, the pressure. There are three North American teams who will have immense pressure put on them at these next races. There are 11 other teams who will be flying, who will also have greater than average pressure due to the significance of the first ever race in NY…that alone drives people to want to do better than normal. Just think…the person who wins the first ever race in NY City on the podium…quite a dream.

Then apart from the location pressure, is the championship pressure.

To date, this year has already had quite a few upsets…Hannes finishing quite low in the first race, though after only the third race has charged back to the front of the pack.

Paul, still Mr Consistent, though having two third place results in a row, and no doubt watching Hannes come racing back.

Nigel, with his new wingtips, has flown error free, though still has not broken into 1^st place for a race yet…surely something that is on his mind.

And me…after a frustrating start to the year, I feel I have been consistent when it counts, though I too am looking at the guys ahead of me wondering what I have to do to jump ahead…relying on their errors is not my style…I want to beat them!

Then just on my heals…Pete…my training buddy from 2008. He has a new plane and something to prove in Windsor. I managed to turn all the pressure into positive energy in Perth, I am sure he will be aiming at doing the same at his home town race in Windsor. We have seen he has a fast plane, has never been in the top 4…guaranteed this is the place he wants to get his first podium.

Kirby is getting a new engine and history shows this is his race….regardless of how his season is going, he always does well in this track. Then Nicholas, a man who can fly as fast as the winners, though has not had a consistent set up this year, which is no doubt holding him back.

The lower half of the field is no less capable of being on the podium. Just quickly you have Matthias, who will more than likely be flying a new V3 Edge the same as Hannes at this race. Peter will unveil his new design, which has potential to be the fastest aircraft in the track and Yoshi can always put in a fast time….you watch.

What can I do about it?? Nothing…all I can do is concentrate on myself, my team and my plane. And if I can do no more there, all I can do is relax and enjoy myself, as no amount of thinking and worry will change how it stacks up on race day.

I am interested to see how these next two races go.

Matt.