My Top 5 Aircrafts

LN-NAG (Photo: Lisbeth Klastrup)

[Updated July 2019]: There are 127 airports and 86 aircrafts in my logbook. This is the five I have flown the most:

#	ID	Type	Hrs	Comment
1	LN-NAG	P28A	164	My first airplane (I was co-owner)
2	LN-DAH	C172	75	A favorite for years
3	LN-AEG	C172 Sea	65	The $100 Hamburger machine
4	LN-VYC LN-FAG	PA38 C172	51	I learned to fly in this one The mountain flyer

At the bottom of the list are LN-TSW (C150, 0.3 hrs), VH-DMP (C172, 0.6 hrs), and N5432G (C172, 0.7 hrs).

The listing is made possible by my electronic logbook. Generating statistics and browsing my pilot history in other ways than page by page in the paper edition is great fun on a rainy day.

Flight Review Down Under

Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne (Photo: Andrew J. Cosgriff)

Francesco (left) gave me a hard time on my first Australian Flight Review in 11 years, challenging me on vintage navigation techniques. Last time I visited Melbourne, my base was Point Cook across the bay - and I remember the thrill of doing a touch-and-go at Moorabbin, the main airport for light GA traffic in the area, with no less than five runways.

This time Moorabbin Flying Services were my host, and the instructor sent me this task on e-mail to plan the night before:

"MB-EN-DCN-YLEG-WON-GMH-MB".

That is Moorabbin (MB), Essendon (EN) for a landing, then out via Doncaster Shopping Town (DSN), Leongatha (YLEG) for a landing, Wonthaggi (WON) as a way point, then back into Moorabbin (MB) via the approach point GMH.

To solve the puzzle I used the tools listed below, with some assistance from the Melbourne Visual Pilot Guide and AirNav Pro on my iPad.

We departed YMMB in beautiful summer weather and went directly to YLEG for two landings before a diversion and return to base. I celebrated my review with a burger at the beach and a visit to the RAAF Museum at Point Cook before heading to the northern hemisphere.

The basics you need to fly in Australia:

• SPECPL (Special Pilot License, intended to allow pilots holidaying in Australia to validate their overseas license and fly short term. Issued by CASA)
• AVID (Aviation Identification, show that the holder has a current security check, valid for up to 5 years. To fly solo from security controlled airports you need an ASIC issued by CASA)
• ERSA (The En-route Supplement Australia, a joint Military/Airservices publication that contains information vital for planning a flight and for the pilot in flight. It contains pictorial presentations of all licensed airports. The ERSA is updated four times a year)  
• Visual Terminal Chart (1:250.000)
• VNC (Visual Navigation Chart, 1:500.000)
• AUS PCA (Planning Chart Australia)