Plane Spotting

November 1, 2010
by Rodney Olsen
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Monday’s arrived once again. It comes around far too fast. How was your weekend?

Our weekend was pretty busy as we celebrated having a 12 year old at our place. James had a birthday on Saturday so the whole weekend seemed to be spent partying.

One of the great things we did yesterday was to picnic at Jandakot Airport.

Opened in 1963, Jandakot Airport is the major General Aviation Airport in Western Australia, and is the busiest airfield and largest aviation training base in Australia. Three runways, associated taxiways, tenant leased property and natural bush land constitutes an area of 622 hectares, 18 kilometres south of the city of Perth.

The airport provides access for essential service organisations such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service, CALM Forest and Bushfire Patrol and the WA Police Air Support. Jandakot is also an important training base for international airline pilots, with Singapore and China Southern operating flying colleges and student accommodation facilities at the Airport.

There’s a public viewing area with a few benches and shelters. We found a large shaded area under a big tree to throw down the picnic blanket. James and some of his cousins had Star Wars light sabre battles while others of us spent the time plane spotting.

I’m scared of heights but I’ll fly in just about anything. If I had the money I’d look into flying lessons but that’s never likely to happen so it was just wonderful to sit and watch other people taking off and landing. There was quite a range of small to medium sized planes, including a vintage Tiger Moth, using the airport as well as a few helicopters coming and going.

I don’t know how much the kids enjoyed the location but I can’t wait to go back there for another picnic.



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Is flying still safe?

July 16, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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airplane.jpgIn an article titled Deadly times for flying, News.com.au has listed details of air crashes over the past few months.

The crash of an Iranian Tupolev airliner in northern Iran with 168 people on board comes just two weeks after a Yemenia Airbus A310 crashed in the Indian Ocean off the Comoros with 153 passengers and crew on board, with only one survivor.

That incident occurred just 29 days after the crash of an Air France A330, killing 228. The three crashes make June and July one of the deadliest periods for air travel.

I have to admit that I love flying and while the recent air crashes have saddened and concerned me, I’d still jump on a plane tomorrow if I had the chance.

Has the news of recent air crashes discouraged you from flying? If you had to get from point A to point B would you look for alternate transport? Do you think that flying is still safe?

If you love or hate flying, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Just click on the comments link to leave a few words in the comments section of this post.



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Putting life on hold

March 17, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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House_for_Sale_sign.jpgI love flying.

Give me the opportunity to get on an aircraft and I’ll be there but I remember many years ago sitting on a plane as it circled Melbourne airport. I think I was on a flight from Tasmania or perhaps Canberra. There had been delays earlier in the evening and so there were lots of aircraft waiting for their time to land. If I remember correctly we flew in wide circles for around 45 minutes.

As I said, I love flying, but this was just frustrating. I wanted to land so I could catch my connecting flight and then head back home to Perth.

More recently I flew home from Brisbane after travelling to the Gold Coast for a conference. We touched down at Perth airport and then had to sit in the plane on the tarmac for some time until we could taxi around to a gateway to disembark. All the gates were in use and there were a couple of other planes ahead of us waiting. Once again I felt incredibly frustrated. I was home in Perth but if I couldn’t get out of the plane I may as well have been a thousand miles away. It was as if life was on hold and there was nothing I could do about it.

Life is on hold again.

As I’ve mentioned before we’re selling our home and moving to a different area of Perth. The housing market is slow and so we’re still waiting for the right buyer to fall in love with our home in the same way as we did over 15 years ago. This home has served us well but it’s now time to move on.

In preparation for the move we enrolled Emily and James in a school in the area where we are relocating. That means that Pauline is driving them a long way each morning to school, returning home, then doing the same long drive each afternoon. On the weekend we’re going to church in the new area so it’s another long drive. It seems as if life is on hold. We’re neither in one place or the other.

Yesterday we put an offer on a home we’d like to buy in the new area but as our current home is still for sale we had to make the offer subject to the sale of our home. We don’t know if the owners of the other home will accept our offer but even if they do, we could still lose the home if someone else can make an unconditional offer.

It’s all so unsettling and it feels as if we’re just circling looking for a place to land or sitting on that tarmac hoping to find a way to get off the tarmac. The flight has been great but it’s time for it to be over so that we can move on. We truly believe that everything will happen in God’s timing but we ache for the time that it’s all over and we can go about the job of settling into our new home, wherever that may be, and get on with our lives. We’re tired of being on hold but we look forward expectantly for what’s in store. We don’t know how much longer things will be like this and we shudder when we hear of homes that take many months to sell.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that this is an added stress on top of what has already begun as a stressful year.

Our family would very much appreciate your prayers for our home to sell and for us to find the right home to take us through the next stages of our lives.



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Got the time?

May 1, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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Airport.jpgI see that Perth Airport is going to get a pretty big make over. Eventually the domestic and international airports will be merged so that people won’t have to make a panicked dash from one terminal to the other to make their connecting flight.

It’d be nice if they did something similar in Sydney so that you didn’t have to pay five dollars for a bumpy bus trip from one to the other.

I’ve spent a bit of time in airports recently and I can suggest a couple of things they might want to keep in mind.

The first thing is clocks. I’m amazed at the lack of clocks in most airports. You’re there to catch a flight which leaves at a pre-determined time, yet there are hardly any clocks to tell you if you’re running on time or not.

Even if you’ve got a watch you’re very likely to have just flown in from a different time zone rendering your watch fairly useless. I was impressed at Miami Airport. They gave regular P.A. announcements to remind travellers of the local time. A great idea but a few extra clocks would make things even better.

My watch battery died on the trip from Miami to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago so it wasn’t a lot of fun trying to work out if I was running early, late, or on time.

I guess one other thing they might like to look at is making the air-conditioning constant throughout the terminal. I’ve been to airports where you can go from stuffy and warm to icy cold within metres.

I’ve got a few other ideas but I’d like to hear your thoughts. What would you suggest to a company about to build a brand new airport? What have you found lacking at airports? What do you like about airports?



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Manic Monday

April 21, 2008
by Rodney Olsen
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It’s certainly good to be having a Monday today. It might seem like a rather odd thing to say but I only had about an hour of last Monday.

I flew out of Dominican Republic to Miami on Sunday morning, then flew from Miami to Los Angeles Sunday evening, and out of LA late on Sunday night.

As our fourteen and a half hour flight headed across the International Date Line we only experienced an hour or so of Monday before Tuesday began. I lost almost a whole day.

I know that flights like that are good for frequent flyer points but where do I go to get a refund on losing an entire day from my life?



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