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Was flying for the Navy/Marines worth it?
- Thread starter landthief
- Start date
I have to know how you've done some of this - especially the ferry flights from Alaska. Was the AUS trip work or play?
I will say everything is relative - depending on the flying you've done in both areas. I've done the FBO burger/b-b-que thing more times than I can remember, camped under the wing of Cessna's at Oshkosh a couple of times, flown in and out of many little grass strips, and enjoyed every bit of this type of flying - all before I went into the Navy. Then I was blessed to have flown single seat a/c for the USN my whole career, off of gray boats and many different airfields, flown over many different countries at high altitude and low levels at 200', seeing sights that the average person never has the opportunity to witness, "fought" against the best high performance a/c the free world had to offer at the time (and one MIG 21) in antiquated A-4's. I'll admit, it was a different era when I was flying, but I had a blast 99% of the time. So yes, my fun time flying in the Navy far exceeded my fun time flying in the civilian world. But as I said in a previous post, I enjoy flying, no matter what type. Everybody is different and different people have different preferences, likes and dis-likes. I understand your point....but to me, my Navy flying was like what I often tell people when they ask me about my flying career...."I can honestly say I lived my dream."
For the Alaska trips my dad does a river rafting trip every 2-3 years up there and sometimes he'll fly his plane up there with the rafts. He's taken his 182 but I helped him fly back a Piper Aztec one year. The other aircraft was a Stinson 108 that he co-owned with an Air Force C-130 driver. The AF guy flew it up there to fly it around all summer and then my dad and I went up and flew the plane back.
The Australia trip was interesting. Again, it was with my dad. He had a near fatal car accident where he rolled a suburban into a river during a blizzard and after he had healed up he decided to pursue some of his bucket list items. At the top of the list was to fly around Australia so we rented a 172 in Bankstown and spent a month and about 87 flight hours and flew around the island/continent.
How hard was it to get a ticket down there? Just some paperwork? And how much does a 172 cost down there? Everything else is so expensive, I imagine it was a healthy endeavor.
I did the trip back in October of 2001 so I can't speak to the cost in today's Australian dollars. There used to be a few outfits that did outback flying vacations for pilots but within a year of 9/11 Australia made it pretty hard to get a temporary ticket and those companies went out of business. If you have your commercial and instrument things are a lot easier (Australia doesn't allow you to fly at night unless you're instrument rated). For my temporary ticket I had to do a flight around Sydney/Bankstown just to show I knew how to enter the "circuit" and "have a go at runway 32." I remember that avgas was ridiculously expensive down there, the aircraft wasn't too bad to rent. Pretty sure this is the company we rented from: http://www.flyplanes.com.au/
Notice that you can't rent a 172 anymore... turns out the plane I used crashed a few years after my trip after making a downwind takeoff, mid-day, with four people onboard. Heard they needed a backhoe to dig the engine out of the ground.
