Sierra Del Barón Rojo

I took UMS up to Bankstown to pick up my wife.

I was delayed again, as usual, due to the heavy loading of frost, plus I refueled the aircraft and stopped the engine and got out to wipe the ice off the wings and had some trouble restarting.

I managed to take off 1.5 hours later than planned.

The trip to Bankstown was initially flown at 7500' and took 1h 2m and I saw ground speeds of 143 Knots and used a total of 47 litres of fuel.

The circuit on arrival at Bankstown

You cannot fly directly from Canberra to Bankstown because of Restricted Airspace and Dangar zones, of note is the Wilton Parachute drop zone, which must be flown around, hence the large deviation in my track from Mitagong to Picton and then back to Menagle.

Deviation around Wilton Parachute drop zone

The Wilton runways and drop zone are relatively easy to see from the air, you often see the Parachute canopies and Paracutists decending to either side of the Hume highway. I think they have an Eastern drop zone for those that fail to make it across the highway.

The Wilton runways


The return trip took longer with the headwind and the later half was flown at 8500', with ground speeds of 123 Knots, and a total of 40 Litres of fuel used in 1h 12m. I wasn't flying as hard to minimize the cabin noise for passenger comfort.

The air was crystal smooth above 6500' on the way back and perfect at all levels on the way up to Sydney.

Bankstown Takeoff

It is a little difficult to takeoff from R29 and turn south as runway heading must be extended and flown at 1000' to underfly the approach path that is maintained at 1500' and until you are right of the 2RN radio mast, because 2RN at 1500' is the inbound reporting point for joining cross-wind onto R29.

Hoxton park is also fairly close to 2RN, and with the inbound traffic, you need to keep a very keen lookout. I saw 3 aircraft on the inbound track and several aircraft to the west of me. I always feel uncomfortable in this airspace because there are many helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft on days when the weather is great and they are concentrated in the airspace below the radar control steps.