ntyhobbies

Hi guys,

My family and I are due to emigrate to Australia in the next few months and what I wanted to know is where can I fly jet turbines, what are the rules, are there many clubs for jet turbine flying and were?

I am looking at South Australia but maybe looking to Queensland, who knows.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Nice one guys,

Nigel

digitech

My Feedback: (10)

So how many years did you get?

ntyhobbies

LOL - Nice one Digitech - nothing ventured as they say.............can't be all bad can it?

Good weather for flying though........compared with good old wet and windy Blighty!

[sm=drowning.gif]

Dave Burns

Hi Sandor,
Nice one, you just wished you were 'out' here, Dave

Hello Nigel,
Interesting concept of yours, South Australia ofr Queensland? Firstly they are about 18 hours driving apart, the weather patterns are completely different, and South Australia land mass is about 1/3 of Queensland.

I guess you would be looking at weather patterns and temps more than position for jobs I take it? So firstly, SA has some first rate model flying fields for jets, predominantly grass fields but the major jet field is Monarto, about 1 hour from city centre of Adelaide.
Adelaide holds a major jet event each year, Adelaide Jet Action, run by Rick Davies. Rick is also our Secretary for our National jet body, the Jet Aerosport Association of Australia (JAAA).
House and land packages are relatively cheap compared to some other states in Australia.
$ bedroom, 2 bathroom, double garage, swimming pool, land approx 1/4 acre about $400,000 AUD.
Weather is mainly hot dry smmers up to 40C, winters warm and windy. BUT SA also has the Barossa valley, the worlds best vineyards.

Queensland is another kettle of fish. VERY large state in Aust. large cattle farms outback that reach 10 of thousands of sq kilometres, mining rch state of Aust. Very tourist orientated for its entire coastal length, rich rainforests towards the tropics.

Has a number of good flying sites and clubs, some tarred, some ex WW11. Our JAAAA VP lives in Brisbane. Can get hot and humid sometimnes during summer (the humidity takes a while to get used to).
House and land packages in the 300k to 550 k.

If you want I can get you the websites for each state, but I guess you probably have done this already.

If anyone needs help with hols or moving to Auss, just get in touch [email protected]

Regards
Dave Burns
IJMC Rep Aust/New Zealand

aussiesteve

Yes - 100% agreed to everything that Dave said - Except that I think Perth has even better - the Margaret River and Swan Valley regions for vineyards
(Oh yes - there's also plenty of work there if you are from the resources sector and some excellent flying sites).

the links below are to the Model Aeronautical Association of Australia websites. (Aussie equivalent to AMA or BMFA).

[link=http://www.maaa.asn.au/states.html]MAAA State associations[/link]
[link=http://www.maaa.asn.au/]MAAA homepage[/link]
[link=http://www.maaa.asn.au/sig.html]MAAA Special interest Groups[/link]

Dave Burns

Hi Steve,
Prolem with Magaret river you gotta fight the mossies off with a shotgun
What's an Aussie doing for a quid in the middle off China

Hi Nigel,
Here is the address for the JAAA.
http://www.jaaa.org.au
Regards
Dave

Henry Chua

My Feedback: (5)

Hi Dave,

There's no better place to stay in Australia except next to your house!

Free ice-creams, Free beer, free kero and free turbine sound in the morning...

I'm moving with wife and kids.........here we come Big Dave....

Best regards

Henry
Singapore

aussiesteve

Hi Dave - You must have been there on a quiet day for the mossies.
(I live in the smaller wine area - the Swan Valley but prefer to upset the vineyards by removing the vines and replacing them with horses for the missus). I'm playing with some engineering consultancies here and exporting a limited range of the best quality ARF's that I can find that are not already covered by the other importers. (Mostly 50cc and above IMAC and a few F3A planes) - not a big business but it helps offset the teenagers flying costs.

SimjetAU

Hi Nigel

Well congratulations on being able to emigrate to the convict settlement....the place everyone seems to want to come to I know the process that is required and its pretty tough now days unless you can bring lots and lots of dollars...we accept rich with open arms.... just pulling your leg

You have a tough decision to make...I am in Queensland and live on 2.5 acres (10,000 sq mtr) about 35 km north of the GPO in Brisbane. I personally believe I live in the best state in Australia we have rainforests, fantastic beachs and surf, deserts, outback life, big sharks, even bigger crocodiles (Steve Irwins Australia Zoo is 15 mins from here), snakes, spiders and almost every single most deadliest creature alive hahahah sorry couldnt resist that one..anyway I cant be wrong because about 1.5 million australians have moved here from other states to Qld in the past 10 years...the only reason I know this is it was in the newspaper only 3 days ago. But I can tell you we know it anyway because the traffic in the city now is terrible. We have had a heap of South africans move from SAfrica up here to the sunshine coast and down to the gold coast (Surfers Paradise). The sunshine coast club (Coolum) has the best grass field in Australia with out a doubt (about 45mins from here) and I fly there and also on a few turf farms around my local area and another place I fly regularly is at Evans Heads. This is a decommisioned RAAF airfield and we fly off one of the 3 bitumin runways that is in Northern NSW (about 1 hour drive south of the Gold Coast) about a 2.5 hr drive from my place. I stay overnight at a fellow modeller friends place when we go there. I also fly at my local club field its a tad small for a fast jet but the Boomerang XL is no trouble at all but a slippery one does have a problem landing if you land a bit long. You may know David Gladwin he emigrated to OZ a few years ago and he lives on the mid north coast of NSW he flys at Maitland which is west of Newcastle I think its around a 1.5 or 2 hr drive for him and its a grass field. South Australia has a great bitumin runway out at Monato about 75 km north east of Adelaide. South Australia is a nice place to vist but better to live in QLD.... hahah sorry I am biased of course. The one thing that you will need to get used to is the distances...the whole of the UK can fit into QLD just one state in Australia about 5 or 6 times..we have cattle stations here bigger than your whole country. The largest jet meet in Australia is held at Wangaratta in northern Victoria each year. I drive to there from here it is some 1750km one way and takes around 19 hrs if you try to do it in one day like we normally do with 2 drivers. On a side note I have a ex pommie living next door to me and he and his wife went back to the UK last year to visit family and when they got back I asked them how they went....their answer was .....it was great to see the relatives but they couldnt wait for their trip to finish as they wanted to get back here where it wasnt freezing or raining...England wasnt the same place they left 15 years ago and each time they go back for a visit they are glad they live here. So how is all that for a sales pitch?....The convict colony is open


Regards

Mark Kyle
Simjet Distributor and service centre

MAX NITRO

My Feedback: (1)

Nigel,
No matter where on Oz you go it is a nice place to fly.
We want to ceceed from the rest of Oz here in W.A. but the federal government would go broke $$$$ hehe
Perth is an Oasis and we are BOOMING! we have a lot of Jet flyers here.

djindivik

Hi Nigel, well i'm off to steal a sheep !
I envy you your coming adventure. I can honestly say that looking back on the last 68 yrs of my life, the biggest regret i have, is not taking up the governments offer of a £10 assisted passage to Australia, when it was available in the '50's. I'm too old now of course, but I wish you well my friend. Gods speed !
I'd love to leave all the crap behind in this country. Ray

digitech

My Feedback: (10)

wish you the best.

my Fathers brother moved there in the 60,s.
i have found them some years ago by luck googling our surname.
have lost contact again.
if it wasn,t for my son , i would have moved there believe me..

growingupisoptional

Nigel, my two cents.
Everyone from England moves to SA. I don't know why but the place is just full of em.
We have an excellent climate for model aircraft being able to flying 365 days a year. O.K it does rain sometimes but not much.
To be honest the flying fields here for jets are crap. We don't have the ex- RAF runways laying around all over the place like you do in England.
We have monarto which is bitumen 180meters long, no where near being level and to top it off, rough as guts, do not drag a wingtip or you won't have it left.
Basically it's all we have. It's also an hours drive from the city and longer from north and south as it is up the freeway and over the hills.
It's a north/south runway so unless it's cloudy you cannot fly before lunchtime as the sun is in your eyes. The run off area in case of an excursion in also rough as guts and garaunteed to trash your undercarriage. If you want to see the field goto youtube and search "jet powered rc plane - takeoff and crash" by trevidau it shows the grass area before the strip (only in winter) and also a nice f18 crashing into a tree after running out of room.

Have flown a eurosport with a P80 out of constellation which is grass, and took nearly 300meters to get off the ground. Ground is too spongey and fairly rough.
Finally a club up north in the barossa valley has put in a new grass strip of 180meters, with little care is should be nice.

Adelaide is closer to all the victorian clubs than queensland but still some 7 to 12 hours drive depending on where you are going.
Bit negative but it's how I see it.

Craig B.

Hi Nigel,

We have a couple of great flying clubs here in Perth and I will let you know a little secret but make sure you don't tell anyone else........Perth is better than SA, Queensland and Victoria! I have lived in New South Wales, Queensland and now WA and I reckon we have the best all round lifestyle and great flying facilities with a strong local jet contingent that is growing by the minute!

We try to keep Perth a secret to keep to many people from moving over here. Seriously though, Queensland would be my pick if I was not here in WA. I have not been to the flying fields that Mark mentioned in QLD but have seen them on dvd and they look really great.

Best of luck with your move. You will not regret it.

Kind regards,

Craig.

ntyhobbies

Well I have to say it guys, I am overwhelmed at the response! There is some very useful information coming through and it makes my choices even more difficult...LOL

All your comments and advise are really appreciated and I have had a chuckle to myself reading them.............

My family and I moved to Adelaide back in 2004 and we lived in Lyndoch overlooking the Barrossa Valley Hills which was really beautiful, but things were not working out and we returned to the UK back in 2005. We now feel ready to give it another go as this time around we are in a much more fortunate position in various ways. We also fancy a possible alternative to Adelaide, nice as it is.

Keep the advise coming as it's a great help in deciding which state to have a crack at next...........................

Hope to maybe catch up with a few of you later this year, you never know, you may be flying next to a pommie b-st-rd sooner than you think![sm=wink_smile.gif]

Dave Burns

Hi Nigel,
We don't mind letting in the pommie *******s to Australia, its just the whinging pommie *******s that we tend to dissuade - or we send 'em to Adelaide by the sounds of it.
Sounds like you are headed towards the east coast of Auss, and we have jet flyers from Victoria right through NSW (thats where I am) and on up through Queensland, so dosen't matter where you pick, you should be ok.

As you know Auss is a huge country (7,444,000 square kilometres - British Isles 243,000 sq kilometeres), and our dedicated couple of hundred jet flyers are spread right around the coastline. So if you are picking a place with a predominate amount of jet flying, compared to say, womens alligator shoe shops, you need to pick wisely.

You have had responses from some of the main players in the jet scene here, anyone of them will be more than willing to give info on their areas.

regards
Dave Burns
IJMC Rep. Aust/new Zealand

SimjetAU

Hi Nigel

if its not inappriote to ask but will you be searching for employment or will you be retiring?...the reason I ask is certain areas here in Australia have different employment opertunities...some places are easier to get jobs in than others...although Australia is desperately needing all types of tradesmen at the moment and our unemployment is low because we have lost a lot of good people to overseas and also local resources boom here

Regards

Mark Kyle

growingupisoptional

Now perths turn.

Good points- Beautiful city, won the americas club there and the sailing is great, full of sandgropers which are some of the nicest people around, weather is great. Clubs are good with friendly members and they also get the red bull air race every year. Went last year and it was excellent, except CASA hamstrung them and made them fly in the middle of the Swan river, buts thats another story.

Bad points- Most expensive housing and living in australia recently blew past sydney for that honour. Their all miners so they have bucket loads of money. Eating out needs a loan now days. So far away from the rest of australia they might as well be in their own country. So far in fact they are 3 hours behind the rest of us. ;-) Can't drink out of taps in front yards as the water is bore and tastes like rubbish. Their loosing a football field to salination every hour and really other than perth and bunbury and the bottom of the coast it's a great big desert not much good for anything but 4wdriving and mining.

Don't worry about going to jet meets because other than the WEST AUSTRALIA JET RALLY MAY 2, 3, 4 all the rest are so far away as to be ridiculous.
Monarto would be the next closest at 2000km's away ADELAIDE JET MEETING, SOUTH AUSTRALIA MAY 30,31 AND JUNE 1ST, a couple of guys come from perth but their retired millionaires because no one else could afford the travel. ;-)

Forget the next two because their both over 3000k's from you. WANGARATTA JET MEET, VICTORIA. APRIL 11, 12 and 13 ,and TEMORA R/C JETS, NEW SOUTH WALES, SEPTEMBER 19,20 21

Don't get me wrong, we love it over hear but if jet flying is your passion it can be a very big country.

I was going to do Queensland next but I don't have enough space for all the problems they have up they. They don't call it "far north queensland" for nothing.
Was a great place until all the Victorians immigrated up there and wrecked it. Not to mention the heat. LOL

ossie

Sydney and surrounds is really not that jet friendly either, for two reasons 1. Fields are not suitable, and 2. Most clubs prefer not to have them.
It's a 5 hour round trip for me to fly a jet.

Dave Burns

Hi ,
OK ossie??? lets get real here.
If you live on the south side of Sydney, its 1 1/2 hours to Nowra (tarred strip, excellent facilities) and the whole south coast to explore.
If you live north of Sydney, its 1 1/2 hours to maitland - grass strip, well keep, excellent facilities, the whole north coast to explore.
If yopu live west of Sydney, 40 mins to Windsor, grass strip, well manicured, plenty of room, I ran the Sydney Jet Event there for 3 years.
East of Sydney - wellllll, I haven't seen any jets here yet with floats...............

I think some people make problems where there really aren't any

regards
Dave Burns

ossie

Hey Dave, how are you mate.

I agree Nowra is great place to fly, the same with Maitland. But you got to get there and back home.
The 1 1/2 hrs (one way) you mention is right as long as you live in the outskirts.

Now, the Windsor club you mention, I guess you mean Pitt Town, you forgot to mention the $3000.00 joining fee IF the books are open.

Not complaining here, in fact I don't mind the drive to Maitland, but I wouldn't like to give any false impressions..........

Cheers
Ken

garrett_mcdonal

Hi Guys,

Well, I'm in Canberra and it sounds like I actually have it pretty good. Less than 15 mins from my home to my field where I can fly (big Boomerang) any day of the year (except fire bans) and less than 15 mins to town.

The down side is that the strip is rough at times during the dry season and on the short side but we have plans to fix that and put in a longer, synthetic surface (industrial matting) up to maybe 150m in length. I can also drive 45 mins and fly off Lake George when it is dry. That gives you many kms of flat surface in every direction but access is limited to a small group by the land owner.

Mind you, unless you work here and enjoy an active outdoor lifestyle (hiking, climbing, skiing, fly fishing, etc) then Canberra may not be your cup of tea. We also have a long, relatively cold winter with mornings down below zero and daytime temps in the low teens...C's that is rather than F's.

Garrett

HaveBlue

are you kidding???? is it that much..man I envy you guys..I can't afford a jet but I am a speed nut..I own a few jett powered prop jobs a couple of ducted fan engined planes pushing pylon props...my club use to frown on me as a speed nut..not that I got to fly much...but one of the locals complained about noise(no.not me..I didn't get to fly my speed stuff so flew a warbird with a four stroke ..hardly loud) but none the less they banned IC engines ,this club use to be near st mary's in sydney..they are strictly electric now..I have been anxious to get out to windsor...but the drive to get there isn't something I would want to do on a regular basis and now hearing the price tag definitely takes it out of the picture....does it cost you anything to spectate or visit???

I tell ya I haven't flown for over a year now..I've had to resign myself to only being able to racing my 1/5 FG evo at moorebank race track only benefit is, dont have to worry about insurance etc it's only $80.00 a year...but then again drivin isn't the same as trying to bust 200mph in a prop job

guys that live close to their fields are very lucky..now I have to wait for the kids to grow up then I might be able to move out to the sticks and fly on my own property!!! only another 15 years to go...whoa!! and counting!!!

growingupisoptional

Hi Garrett, I'm looking down the barrel of a posting to Canberra at the end of this year. My parents live there so went and looked at all the clubs at xmas. Was mightily disappointed in BMAC short dead grass strip and CMAC short dead clumpy grass strip with gulleys at each end,QMAC was a little better but a long drive. 5 years of drought will trash all grass I suppose. Yass was O.K as they had put in a new grass strip, but again a long drive. I didn't even know there was any jet flyer's there, none of the clubs told me they had any. Where are you? I take it there are no bitumen strips anywhere in ACT?

At least the cold mornings will be excellent or my other passion of hot air ballooning.
I'm a little worried I won't have anywhere to fly jets from except maybe lake george, or to hit up dick smith for access to his private field.
Hopefully your club will come good before 2009. I needed a set of undercarriages that are unbreakable with large tires for grass fields. ;-(

Must be good for flying jets over on the East coast by the sounds of it. I'd go there if I was you Nigel.

Dave Burns

Hi Garrett,
You back in town for good from Dubai, or just visiting?

If the weather holds out we are going down to Nowra this saturday for the second set of test flights for Skymaster with the big A4.

But the weather forecast does not look promising

regards
Dave