After a some cancellations due to weather and other commitments it was good to get flying again today. The planned flight was from Moorabbin into Class C airspace at Essendon, then onto CTAF at Coldstream before landing at Moorabbin again. The aircraft just had enough time on the clock left to get this flight in before the 100 hour service.

I logged the flight plan for the flight and went over the procedures again- with the wind a northerly, Runway 35 was listed as the active for departures and arrivals. This would mean a straight in approach from the south. The actual plan was Moorabbin -> Albert Park Lake -> Essendon -> Doncaster Shoppingtown -> Coldstream -> Academy -> Moorabbin. The instructor and I departed from Moorabbin without event, and took on the course to Albert Park Lake, which was clearly visible. I re-listened to Essendon ATIS, which had suddenly changed with 26 now the active runway. Once outside the Moorabbin Class D zone, the transponder was changed over from 3000 to 0100, and Essendon Tower was called just before approaching the lake. As there were two aircraft doing orbits of the city, we were instructed to proceed direct to Station Pier and then onwards to Moonee Valley Racecourse.

Once over Station Pier, I steered for the racecourse, an easy route which was basically following the CityLink freeway over the Bolte Bridge and beyond. The views were impressive of the CBD and Melbourne Docklands area- some of the best flying I have done to date, but there wasn’t much time for looking down as Essendon airport was looming. Over Moonee Valley we were cleared visual approach for Runway 26- meaning join base for 26, and then cleared to land on base. The approach was good and we were soon on the ground on the large runway. Unlike every other airport I have flown at, it is necessary here to accelerate on touchdown to get off the runway quickly. From touchdown to the nearest taxiway was around 1km, so for a moment it was more like driving a car down a very wide highway than flying a plane. At these large airports with excellent infrastructure, the old rule of ‘taxi at the speed of fast walking pace’ goes out the window and the rule of ‘taxi as fast as possible to get out of the way’ comes into play. Once on the ground, I requested taxi clearance for an immediate departure to Coldstream. The pressure was on again as a large aircraft that looked like a Dash 8 was waiting for us to pass. If the C172 costs $3 per minute to hire, then you can only imagine what a Dash 8 costs.

We got the airways clearance, did the runups and were back underway. The controller prompted me to turn the transponder back on as I had forgotten. Soon we were over Doncaster Shoppingtown and the controller gave the clearance to switch frequencies.

I have already reported in detail about landing at CTAF airports, so I will keep this part brief- a few minutes later, I made the inbound call for Coldstream, and joined the circuit. Instead of landing, I did a 50ft pass of the Runway 35. We then headed back via Academy and landed at Moorabbin. The total engine time was 1.2 hours, and flight time was 0.9, but we managed to pack a lot into that time. From here, I will be doing some solo circuits to work on my landings and spend time in the training area revising the GFPT material. From there, I should be ready to do the pre-licence check for the PPL.