– Steve Hitchen
There are some invitations in life that we should be jailed for turning down. They don't visit upon us that often, so when they do come, "no" is simply not an acceptable answer. It's like refusing to answer a call to duty.
One such call came for me a few weeks ago. Buried in the importance of commas and non-subordinate clauses, I was pleased to be startled by the sound of my phone ringing; hopefully it heralded a pleasant distraction.
"Here's the plan," the voice on the other end said. "We're going to take a formation of five into Melbourne International Airport. Are you in?"
Am I in? Did Clyde Cessna love aeroplanes?
A few nights later I signed into Zoom for a pre-briefing session on what became known as Operation Tulla Bucket. "Tulla" because that's where were going and "Bucket" because landing in formation at an international airport deserves a place on any pilot's bucket list. Our opportunity to cross off this item was now. Within a couple of months, the RPT industry would recover enough for the big heavies to rise again and reclaim their rightful stamping grounds. After that, Tulla Bucket would be an impossibility.
And it was not as if we were five random pilots; we flew together regularly as The Wedgetails out of Lilydale Airport, so we knew what we expected of each other, and what was expected of us. The leader assigned me my traditional Number 2 slot, in which I had carved a comfortable groove over five years of formation flying. My ride was Warrior CWW, ahead of me was Warrior MGV and behind me CT4 PTM, Airtourer FVV and Decathlon KAR. The last in line would provide smoke for effect.
Transit to Melbourne would be a five-ship Vic, changing to an Arrowhead for arrival and landing. ML knew we were coming; both Melbourne Airport Corporation and Airservices were on board. As well as attending to our bucket list, the flight was also a way of acknowledging all our flying mates who were doing it hard in these viral times. Arrowhead was chosen as a symbol of pointing the way forward. It was also thought that a civil formation had never landed at ML since it opened in 1970. This would be the first, fittingly in the airport's 50th year of operation.
On the morning of D-day, we five Wedgetails and attendant observers gathered in a hangar at Lilydale to brief further and rehearse the landing. Runway 34 was on duty at ML. At 60 m wide, there would be plenty of room for the Arrowhead to get down all at once. Our leader lodged a flight plan to further cement the message that we were coming. As if they didn't know; the effusive Angela from Avalon had been nagging at them for the best part of a week. Take-off was scheduled for 1330 and all planes were pre-flighted and lined up outside the ops room.
There was an atmosphere of excitement wafting around the socially-distanced team as the appointed hour approached. I personally was feeling some nerves. I wanted to get this one absolutely right. I wanted to be able to say later "That was the best formation I ever flew." I was putting some pressure on myself that I probably didn't need.
"Right," said the leader, "Let's go."
On the Way
Taxiing for Lilydale's grass runway 36L brought no surprises; it was a well-practised routine that got us through the run-ups and to the holding point, where we had to cool our heels as three aircraft came into land. That was, I thought, a good sign that GA was recovering from its imposed shutdown. We followed Number 1 onto the runway and took up our positions. Within second we were rolling in pairs, with the Decathlon at Number 5 doing its own thing. As the formation swept around onto downwind, all aircraft reported in their slots, and the Wedgetail five-ship Vic turned for MONTY.
We couldn't have picked a better day; crystal-clear with zero clouds in play and a 15-knot wind from the north that would struggle to make itself felt as a crosswind on landing. Looming into my peripheral vision beneath the belly of Number 1 were the soaring towers of Melbourne CBD, with the ice-blue bays of Port Phillip and Corio spreading themselves along the horizon. Not that I got to appreciate the view; my eyes were fixed on the aeroplane ahead.
Just before MONTY, ML CEN sent us into a left-hand orbit. An aircraft was doing a practice approach into Essendon and we couldn't proceed until they were clear of our path. It was a minor delay that might have been irritating on any other day, but nothing was going to queer this exercise for us.
From MONTY Number 1 led the Wedgetails to BOSGI, a waypoint that would line up up with the centreline of ML's runway 34. It was looking all too easy as we swung around to the right and lined-up five miles from the threshold ... and that was when a very large feline was thrown into the flock of grey birds.
No sooner had ML CEN handed us off to ML TWR that it became clear that ML TWR didn't know we were coming! Despite the week of negotiation, talks with the terminal area controllers and having an active flight plan, somehow the message didn't get to the tower. A controller, freshly on shift, told us there was nothing in the hand-over notes. Wedgetail formation had slipped through a crack in the paper trail!
Down and dusted
Final approach turned out to be a series of negotiated landing clearances as ML TWR found themselves on the back foot. Each of us had to contact the tower individually rather than through Number 1 and were handed separate landing clearances. We had to demurr on an instruction to space out 1000 m; how do you space out that far and still be a formation? The landing was a lesson in co-operation as each one of us rolled onto the runway. Number 3 chose an offered go-around into an orbit to the west. Secretly, I think the pilot just wanted to buzz the tower.
Once all five of us were collected by the follow-me Car 2, we taxied in line astern to our appointed park: the intersection of the Sierra and Golf taxiways. We shut down, draped our ASICs around out necks and stepped out onto the tarmac. It was probably not a giant leap for mankind, but it certainly was for this Joe-average bugsmasher driver!
The atmosphere among the team members was a mixture of euphoria and awe. The taxiways were eerily quiet, like the place had been built for a film set and was now abandoned. Our back-drop was a fleet of brooding and bored A320s, B737s and B787s. We were the most animated things on the surface movement area.They say an aeroplane on the ground is not earning any money. If that's the case then we were staring at billions in lost revenue.
The smiling surface movement team was there to chaparone us whilst Melbourne Airport Corporation's official photographer Victor Pody herded us back into our crews for portrait shots. It's unlikely that any of us would ever be here again, and Victor's camera had the responsibility of recording the moment for us. I broke out my DSLR and banged off some shots myself. It was such a unique situation that I didn't know when to put the camera down.
After about 20 minutes or so of being strangers in a strange land, the pilots gathered for a quick departure briefing. The plan was for the Follow-Me car to drag us back down to the Juliet holding point for 34. We loaded up, started up, and like obedient ducks trailed along behind Car 2 as it deposited us in the right spot. On the way, we had each copied our clearance: to LIL via Kalkallo at 1500.
Cleared for Kalkallo
ML's 34 offered us an expansive 60 m to spread out the five-ship Vic. After a very short hold on the runway, ML TWR cleared us to go. Wedgtail formation swept along the runway and rose into the air, passing the tower and taking up a direct track to Kalkallo. Most runways at Australian airports aren't wide enough to pull that off, so it was such a buzz to see the whole formation rising as one.
The job, however, wasn't done. Agonisingly, we'd had to leave our traditional Number 1 at home. Health problems had prevented him coming out whilst the coronavirus is still on the loose, so from Kalkallo we tracked direct to his home where he was stranded in isolation. Returning to the Arrowhead, we passed over his house with smoke streaming from the back of Number 5. The formation was a little tighter now; we wanted that pass to be the best of all. Just for kicks, we put in one orbit, with the smoke scoring our path across the sky. At orbit's end, Number 1 took the beginning of the smoke trail right on the nose. It was a sign we'd done a very sweet circle.
Within 20 minutes the Wedgetails pitched into crosswind at Lilydale, arriving home in our usual configuration. This time, we landed spaced out, each one aiming for out allocated spot on the runway. We were back, having placed very large green ticks against one item on our bucket lists.
Epilogue
There was an interesting epilogue ... we seem to have made a hell of a splash on the ground. Ballarat Aero Club grabbed a shot of us on the way in and tweeted it, I was greeted at the entrance to the ops room by a member of the public saying she saw us over ahead and rushed to the airport. She wanted to know if we were The Roulettes. Lastly, the ops room and Lilydale had fielded several phone calls from people saying they saw us and we looked great from the ground. Can you get a more reinforcing welcome home?
We did this for ourselves and as a way of showing the GA community that we're still out there in these times of virus, and it seems to have had such a positive impact on a lot of people. I think that every one of us, if asked by someone else should they try this, would say "Yes" without any hesitation. The window for GA ops into the international airports is still open, but one day soon it will close. Agreed, the $366 minimum landing fee is, as a landing fee, pretty hefty, but as the asking price for an adventure that won't come around again soon, it's not so much to pay.
Get out there. Experience the euphroria that comes with landing at your local international airport and make sure that when your time is done, you don't list not having done this as among your regrets.
Watch the video below and also check out You Tube for videos of Stefan Drury's journey into ML and The Stooges going into Kingsford Smith.
The Wedgetails
Number 1: Warrior VH-MGV – Graham Bunn and Glenda Smith
Number 2: Warrior VH-CWW – Steve Hitchen
Number 3: CT4 049 VH-PTM "Mango" – Murray and Kerry Gerraty
Number 4: Airtourer VH-FVV "Captain Scarlett" – Tony Self and Angela Stevenson
Number 5: Decathlon VH-KAR – Jock Folan
Home Islolation: Bob Irvine and Linda Reid