I had heard that there was a strip in Hindmarsh Island which was home to a couple of tiger moths. But I'd never managed to locate the strip. So then when Bob Pratt said that he knew the owner of the strip, I was happy that we could make it a fly-away destination. The 5th of October we went over there. Earlier in the week the weather forecast wasn't very positive. But the change slowed down a bit giving us a fabulous flying day.
Now, I thought there was only one strip on Hindmarsh Island. But I was wrong. There are apparently 3 strips. So far I have only managed to locate Barry's strip, our fly-away location. Barry has a nice setup. He got 5 runways. So taildragger heaven. Some of the runways are only for STOL aircraft. The longest runway is around 500 meter. Enough length for the light aircraft most of the club members fly in. The runways are well maintained, but slightly undulating which makes it a slightly interesting landing and take-off. When I took off I was just around rotation speed when I was on top of an undulation. So then the aircraft starts to fly, but not really and another light touch to the ground was there before we were really airborne. Sean Leyden said this undulation is nothing compared to landing on a moving runway at sea.
Despite the long weekend we still had 7 aircraft flying over. A great variety of aircraft. One C182, 2 Jabiru's, 1 Sportstar, 1 Sport cub, 1 Citebrea and 1 Foxbat. Shortly after we had arrived a tiger moth landed as well. The pilot wearing a long white scarf. Made me feel like being in a 1940's movie. Together with the 3 hangared tiger moths there were 4 beautifully maintained tiger moths to admire.
A big thank you to Barry and his wife for the hospitality. We all admire your set up.