What It Looks Like From The Front

If you have ever wondered what it looks like sitting in the front of a jet airliner during an instrument approach, simply click here to see as I can't seem to embed it.

The aircraft looks like a Jetstar A320 if I am not mistaken and the airport is Queenstown in New Zealand. It gives a great appreciation of how an instrument approach looks from the flight deck. The cloud layer isn't that thick and the visibility below it is excellent, so try to imagine if you will, what it looks like when it is dark, windy and raining as you break visual with the runway. Things happen very quickly!

This approach is an ultra-modern RNAV Arrival that uses GPS and the airplane's flight management computer to drive the autopilot(and in turn the aircraft) through a turning, descending arrival in mountainous terrain.

This is unlike the old fashioned teardrop shaped descending turn of traditional approaches.

Thanks to the blokes who set the camera up and caught this little bit of footage.

Cheers.

Melbourne Meandering

My work took me to Melbourne for an overnight last week and we were lucky enough to stay in a city hotel rather than the usual airport version, so I got to have a stroll around the city streets for the morning.

The most obvious thing that you notice about Melbourne streets are the trams.

To the motorcyclist's eye though, you see the footpath parking. As far as I know this is the only place in Australia that it is legal to park on the foot path.

I can only speculate that this leads to higher rider participation rates as bikes just aren't as evident in other Aussie cities but that may simply be because they are hidden away.

Elizabeth Street hosts some large motorcycle dealerships and they also park some of their stock outside for the passers-by to ogle.

It is Melbourne, so coffee shops abound. You can park your steed right next to you while sipping a latte' or in this case, munching a meat pie.

Alas, my stay was short but I must say that I really like Melbourne as a city. It has great food and a real get-out -regardless-of-the-rubbish-weather attitude.

It was soon time to go dodging thunderstorms again.

Not much else going on around here at the moment but if something happens, you will be the first to know! ;)

Cheers.

Final Figures

Thank you to all of my sponsors for your extremely generous donations. We managed to raise $2100 which added to a total just shy of $1.2M nationwide!

 As a bonus I managed to lose about 4kg(9lb) and gain a heap more fitness as well. 1025km(640mi) for the month wasn't a bad effort either. Now, I just need to keep that up.

Cheers.