Melbourne Odyssey: Day 5 Flying through the day

By the numbers

11.7kms

15,764 steps

 

I decided that I would sleep in as I had somehow come down with a little bit of a cold. Instead ofg getting up around 7 to go wandering, I ended up getting out of bed around 9am although I had a fitful sleep due to sneezing and runny nose. Its one of those things that happens when you are run down especially when you had a long day at the start of the week with getting from the airport to the city in the early hours. I took my time in doing anything at all, which was good for the morning. As the day wore on I seemed to be feeling quite a bit better than I had earlier.

 

I had a ticket that was specific to getting the train from Southern Cross to Lara, the station where I would then get a bus to Avalon airport. I had never been to Avalon before and I don’t think I really want to fly there as its pretty far out of the city. It takes around an hour of travel by train to get to Lara and then there is nothing really there. You have to walk across the rails and are held until the train has gone before you are allowed to cross. Not everyone got a ticket combo, so they had to pay to get onto the back to and from Avalon. I could have used Skybus, but that would have been the more expensive route. It was pretty easy getting into the event too. Though the glare from the sun had to be shielded on my phone so they could scan the code, and then there was the bag search, which was open my bag and that was it. They did a body scan too, which they just let me in. It didn’t sound like the scanner scanned me sound as it would have picked up my belt. At least it didn’t wipe my door card for my room.

 

I could see aircraft for days. There were big ones in the distance and little ones too. I felt like I was trying to be recruited to join the armed forces, or even one of the many other companies like Boeing that were on the ground. Maybe that was the purpose of the airshow? I did see several drones and they were pretty big and not small, but the Navy did have a small one that held no weaponry. I came across an electric plane that had a range of 40 mins. I thought that was interesting. A few Australian designed armoured personnel carriers were on display too that were only prototypes from the looks were sitting before the aircraft. As I made my way towards the stationary aircraft, Qantas did a flyby with two jets either side, though I should say it was all part of the program. What I did notice however was the airport was still running as Jetstar still flew in and out during the day. I wanted to see the Japanese defence aircraft flying as it was a cargo plane. It was sitting on the tarmac with all the other planes. While there were stunts like the parachutes with flags and a helicopter flying the Australian flag, everyone started running to the runway as soon as they knew the F22 Raptor was going to take off. I decided to follow them as I thought it would be cool to watch. They had to play ACDC during the show, although they played them pretty much throughout the day including Dangerzone several times. The aircraft did stunts to prove how maneuverable they were. Throughout the day one after the other there were flying displays especially the bigger planes like the Japanese Kawasaki C-2 cargo plane and the one that does the refuelling as it showed that off with two jets. The Republic of South Korea did acrobatics with their aircraft. The biggest problem I had was getting my reflection on the phone screen and not being able to see the view. It was enjoyable to see so many aircraft and it was popular too. I did walk through the entire length of an American cargo plane that could hold quite a few people walking through. Germany had a cargo plane as well, while I would have liked to line up and wander through several of the aircraft, I thought it would be just like getting on a plane to fly out. Many other countries had their machines there and that included Black Hawks, Chinooks and so on. I never knew Australia had Apache helicopters.

I ended up wandering the whole area to see what there were. There were definitely businesses that were selling their wares and nearly every Australian state was represented in some way or for through military contractors. I wandered past some of them in the tents and while they were interesting, no one was many any of the booths so they couldn’t tell you what they were selling. Some did look like they were for space observation like a radio telescope that was near Melbourne somewhere. There were plenty of civilian owned light aircraft away from the main action areas. I did spot a Mad Max 2 prop gyrocopter thing. Its always interesting when you see radar equipment used by the military and some that they have on display purposes for everyone to look at and people around to answer questions.

 

After spending most of the day wandering around the showgrounds looking at aircraft and being blasted away as well by the noise, I decided that I should leave around 7pm. It was funny being on the bus to Lara as the road was lined with spectators who were sitting by the side of the road watching the airshow, or had big cameras to watch the aircraft flying.  By the time I returned to Southern Cross it would end up being 830pm and no one checked to see if I had a ticket like they had that morning on my way in. If I had left towards the end of the show then I might not be home until around 12am. I don’t really want that long a day. I think I had enough sun for one day and my eyes were sore especially when the planes would fly into the sun or near it. I would say the glare from my phone screen too as I literally could see my face reflected back at me, but not the sky. I was glad it was a reasonably warm day even if I got a touch sunburnt.