Vive La France (2)

MontelimarFrench FoxbatPilot subscriber Ferdinand Colonna-Cesari responded to my ‘Vive La France‘ post with a link to some photos of his Aeroprakt A22 aircraft based at Montélimar in France. I have never visited, but this looks like a wonderfully French picturesque medieval town in south eastern France, originally built in Roman times and dominated by a castle.

An interesting link for Australians is that Montélimar – apart from being the world nougat capital – was the birthplace of navigator Louis-Claude de Freycinet, who, along with his brother, Louis-Henri de Freycinet, joined the French navy in 1800 and sailed all the way to Australia, re-visiting many of the places originally explored by Englishman Matthew Flinders. The Freycinet brothers returned to France and published their map of the Australian coastline in 1811 – at least 3 years before Flinders managed to do the same, so there is some ‘discussion’ as to who first ‘discovered’ what parts of Australia…

There are several places in Australia named after Freycinet: the Freycinet Peninsula, a wonderfully scenic part of the eastern Tasmanian coast, including Wineglass Bay; the Freycinet Estuary in south Western Australia (WA) and Cape Freycinet, further up the WA coast.

Finally, if you want a more obscure connection with Australia, have a look at Ferdinand’s aircraft registration – F-JUOZ.

So what initially looks like a simple link to a few photos of an aeroplane, turns out to be a serendipitous couple of co-incidences which brightened my Sunday morning! Thank you, Ferdinand.

Vive La France!

Blue white & redIt’s amazing that even after over 150 A22 Foxbat deliveries in Australia, I still haven’t managed to get all four standard colours – yellow, white, red and blue – together in one place, side-by-side for a photo. Not to mention the half-dozen or so non-standard colours – orange, dark blue and green to mention but a few.

TricolourHowever, the occasion of two new owners collecting white and a blue aircraft from Tyabb at least allowed me to add Mike Rudd’s venerable red Foxbat to the line up and celebrate ‘les couleurs’ of the French flag.

Thanks to Gary Gould and Matt Coleman, both based near Orange in New South Wales, for their orders and giving me the chance to photo the bleu, blanc et rouge.

PS – you might just see a peek of the yellow A32 Vixxen lurking in the hangar behind!

Click the photos for larger versions.

Foxbat ferry flight – Tyabb to Townsville

VH-ZGQ handover

Foxbat VH-ZGQ hand over to Cleveland Bay Aviation

New Foxbat owners Cleveland Bay Aviation from far north Queensland, collected their white A22LS Foxbat VH-ZGQ from Moorabbin Airport on Thursday 17 September and departed to the north for their ultimate destination – Townsville. Pilots Adrian and Chris are taking the scenic route home, via all sorts of outback destinations.

Follow them on their Facebook page – click here: Cleveland Bay Aviation Facebook. As of writing they had stopped for the night in Hay, New South Wales, and the next day were approaching the Dig Tree, near Innamincka…envy, envy, regular subscribers may recall this was the intended destination for our recent outback trip, which ended with 4 days of bad weather at Broken Hill. See below for a list of the post links recording our progress – or lack of it!

When the aircraft finally arrives home, it will be put to work as a flight trainer. Contact Cleveland Bay Aviation via their website by clicking here: Cleveland Bay Aviation Website to book your flying lessons.

The aircraft is well equipped, with a full 10″ Dynon SkyView digital instrument panel, back-up analogue ASI & ALT, with Mode S transponder, fuel computer and high quality German VHF dual watch radio.

STOP PRESS! Sunday afternoon, 20 September; VH-ZGQ has arrived at its new base near Townsville. Well done Adrian & Chris for their 1300 nautical mile trip.

Trip to Innamincka – day 1
Trip to Innamincka – day 2
Trip to Innamincka – days 3 & 4
Trip to Innamincka – day 5
Trip to Innamincka – day 6, 7 & 8
Trip to (the edge of) the outback & back

Brazilian Red Bull Foxbat

A22 Red Bull 01My colleague and fellow Aeroprakt agent in Brazil – Wander Azevedo – has sent me a selection of photos of a new metallic grey Foxbat, decorated in Red Bull colours. It certainly looks good!

Maybe we should organise some of these unusual colour schemes in Australia…

Click the photo to go to the photo gallery, which has this one and more Brazil Foxbats.

 

Sport Pilot Magazine reviews the A32

A32 Sport Pilot Review

A32 Sport Pilot Review

The September issue of Sport Pilot Magazine (the official publication of Recreational Aviation Australia) has a flight review of the new Aeroprakt A32 Vixxen. You can read the article by clicking the Sport Pilot link above and turning to page 30.

Written by Andrew Murray – an A22LS Foxbat owner – this is a candid, comparative and objective review of the A32 aircraft.

Thanks to Andrew for taking the time to write the article, which, I think you will agree, has a certain style about it which makes it an easy read.

PS – As you’ll read, the new A32 is not just a quick update of the A22LS Foxbat, it’s a whole new aircraft. As a result, the name ‘Vixxen’ is currently being used in Australia to differentiate the two aircraft.

Bat out of heaven

G-YOLO owner John Mann (L) with UK Aeroprakt agent Ray Everett (R) - click picture for article

G-YOLO owner John Mann (L) with UK Aeroprakt agent Ray Everett (R) – click picture for article

Microlight Flying – the British Microlight Aircraft Association (BMAA) magazine – has recently published a flight test of what in the UK is called the ‘Foxbat A22 Super Sport’. This aircraft is the kit version of the current A22L2 model, with a 450 kilo gross weight on an empty weight of about 264 kilos.

I like the call sign of the test aircraft – G-YOLO – which owner John Mann says stands for ‘You Only Live Once’. The aircraft is painted in ‘mid-life crisis red’ he says. A man after my own heart!

It’s good to see UK Aeroprakt distributor Ray Everitt of Dragon Aviation appearing on camera – he played a large part in building my first A22 Foxbat all those years ago. That first (kit) Foxbat was originally registered G-XBAT and I brought it to Australia in early 2002. It subsequently became VH-VPH and then, when sold, 28-4163. As far as I know, it is still flying, somewhere in New South Wales and is the only original design, ‘long-wing’ A22 in Australia.

Imported Australian Foxbats after G-XBAT (which, by the way, was the first aircraft I ever owned) were initially the A22L model, which had a slightly shorter wing, slightly higher stall, and better cruise speed. (For reference, the stall on that first ‘long-wing’ A22 was just under 25 knots!) The 450 kilos gross A22L was effectively superseded in Australia by the very popular 600 kilo gross weight A22LS.

Aeromusical

Click to view video

Click to view video

Just for a change, here’s a perfect piece of aerial whimsy. I don’t know why anyone hasn’t done this before but the aerial ballet of two pilots, flying in a confined space, is magical and very enjoyable to watch. The skills of both the male and female pilots are remarkable, considering how low they are flying!

Don’t forget Ausfly!

Ausfly reminderA last minute reminder that the 2015 ‘Ausfly’ show at Narromine, NSW, is scheduled for Friday 4 and Saturday 5 September – only a week away!

Foxbat Australia will have on show at least one current A22LS Foxbat as well as the new A32 Vixxen – its first formal public outing since its first flight in Australia only a few weeks ago. We are also hoping to show the latest A22LS Foxbat from Moruyair, with controls modified so that disabled pilots can learn to fly it.

The show is jointly sponsored by the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia (SAAA), AOPA Australia, Australian Warbirds and last but not least, Recreational Aviation Australia (RA-Aus). As a result, there should be a wonderful gathering of all types of aircraft, from ultralights to heavy metal and all points in between.

There are air displays planned for both Friday and Saturday, with warbirds, solo aerobatics and the RAAF Roulettes strutting (or should that be winging?) their stuff.

The weather is looking hopeful at this stage – certainly for the Narromine area – but it’s still a long way off in weather forecaster’s terms, so my fingers are firmly crossed that the cloud will be high over the ranges.

If you manage to get to the show, come and say hello and have a look at the A32 Vixxen for yourself. The show site layout is still a bit flexible but Foxbat Australia will likely be on the apron between the indoor exhibits area (hangar 10) and hangar 17 – look for our black teardrop flags with the red & white Fox head logo.

Foxbat – bush destinations

Cygnet Pearl Farm

Cygnet Bay Pearls Airstrip S16°26’23.22″ E123° 1’2.48″

Here’s news from would-be Foxbat owner Bruce Brown, of Cygnet Bay Pearls, near Broome in northern Western Australia. This is what he says:

“We are the oldest pearl farm in Australia and for the last 5 years we have opened to the public, a situation bought on by the GFC and our need to diversify.

So it was a pleasant surprise this morning when I found a Foxbat sitting on our airstrip! Peter and Stephanie set off from Queensland a little while ago and are heading all over Australia. Both are keen bird watchers and Peter uses the aircraft for bird observation and recording. A few days before they arrived, we also had a group of other Light Sport Aircraft come in and stay a few nights. We are located about 5 kilometres east of Cape Leveque which is a popular place for touring aircraft to visit.

Cygnet Farm 02We want to publicise our airstrip and facilities to attract more touring people. We are only 40 miles from the famous ‘Horizontal Waterfalls‘ and adjacent to all the rugged Kimberly wilderness country. We are only 100 miles North of Broome with our own 1200 metre hard red dirt strip with no stones (unlike Cape Leveque Airport). With a little prior notice, we can supply fuel and we have Safari tents, standard tents, old pearlers’ cottages, and a camp ground, as well as a restaurant and swimming pool. We ferry people from our airstrip to our facilities. We offer pearl farm tours and boat tours of the tidal Buccaneer Archipelago.”

Sounds pretty much like heaven to me…and you can see it all by clicking here: Cygnet Bay Pearls

Thanks for the information Bruce and very best wishes for a successful future – I hope you get plenty of visitors!

Brazilian Foxbat – a trio of videos

Brazil Video 01

Brazil Video 02Brazil Video 03

Here is a very nice set of three videos from Eduardo Fernandes Gontijo, A22LS owner in Brazil. Although fairly long – 6-11 minutes each, they show great views of the interior of this vast South American country. The music is good, even relaxing, and the various view points he’s used for the cameras also adds interest. It’s also good to see the aircraft being used to visit friends!

I can’t be certain but it looks like Eduardo has an MGL iEFIS installed in his A22LS with maybe a Garmin 695/795 for navigation. So far in Australia we have installed mainly Dynon equipment – anyone any experience of these large MGL screens?

Anyway – thanks for the video links Eduardo, it looks like you are enjoying your flying!

As usual, click on the photos to go to the YouTube page for viewing.