Flight with Mr Cavil
On the 26/11/12 Steve Cavill invited me on one of his trips to the school of Muttaburra for an RE ( Religious Education ) Lesson. Mr Cavill works with outback Arial missions in which he teaches RE to rural isolated schools and visits property’s in providing spiritual support, a shoulder to lean on and ears to listen. I have known Mr Cavill for a long time and he is a close mentor and friend, someone you can fully trust in and is a man full of love and kindness. We are actually related if you want to get technical as he is my step grandfathers (David) cousin.
Mr Cavill inspecting the Jabiru
At about 8:00am he picked me up and we went to his hanger in which two planes he used were stored. The one that we would be using was the Jabiru; a small aircraft with about 2cm of fibre glass holding you in. However before we could jump into the plane and takeoff, there were many inspections and tests that needed to be conducted in order to ensure our safety and the liability of the plane. He checked the wings to make sure they moved properly, the fuel with a little tube to see if there was any air bubbles in the fuel that would cause implications (thankfully there were none), a brief look at two nozzles that monitored altitude and answered my many questions concerning the ability of the plane to stay in the sky including the air vents which were two holes in the side of the plane. We then dragged the plane out of the hanger and over to the fuelling station which was all of probably 30m. In noticing the differences of the fuel stations setup to that of cars the questions came out again and he happily answered. The process involved attaching an earthing clip, swiping away a special fuel card, filling up both wings were the fuel tanks are and again checking the air concentration in the fuel. We then entered the plane and using the propeller to propel us forward we stopped just before the runway to then complete the technical checks of the radios, GPS, controls the control the plane and that we could here each other. We said a little prayer upon entering the runway, firing everything up as we quickly accelerated down the bituman strip and then up into the sky.
Me in the Jabiru whilst flying the plane
It is the most unreal experience being up in the sky because everything is so small you don’t even feel like you’re high up, it’s like you’re driving in the clouds. I even got to drive the plane and that’s when you feel like your high up in the sky, because every small move you make, in turn makes the plane move in a big way. There are two components that control the movement of the plane; two foot pedals and a control stick in the middle. If you pull the control stick back the plane goes up, forward will make the plane go down and left or right will send the plane left or right. To make sure that we stayed on track was the GPS which had a narrow to govern the set direction and a second arrow that showed were we were heading so you had to keep adjusting the plane back on course as the strong winds kept pushing us around. You then had to keep looking at the horizon to make sure we weren’t rising or descending and if you were Mr Cavill there are also a bazillion other things you must keep an eye on so in just that respect he is pretty incredible. After a half an hour flight we landed, unpacked our gear and secured the plane to these metal wirers that ran for about 100 meters for planes to park. We couldn’t get a hold of the school as the airport is a fair distant from the small town, however a woman saw us flying over and came out to pick us up; just out of the kindness other heart, so there are good people out there.
Arial pictures of Longreach taken from in the Jabiru
When you think about a rural school you think of a rundown school house with limited everything, well at least I did. The Muttaburra primary school is so clean, neat and attractive and has just as many recourse if not more than other larger schools. They had a netted sports shed, mosaics in the gardens, it looked like a rainbow unicorn had exploded in the classroom and there was more technology then a NASA space station. I can tell you right now I wouldn’t have a problem sending my kids away to boarding school in Muttaburra’s education wonderland. Mr Cavil then proceeded with the lesson of the Christmas Story. There weren’t that many kids however you could see the different personalities and the stereotypical roles being filled by the different students. There was an older girl who kept everyone in line and I dare say will be in parliament one day, another boy who was the trouble maker I think and the fun guy. One kid who had made himself comfortable for the story by lying down like a starfish on the floor and various other personalities I had recognised throughout movies and books that always seem to be present to make the story interesting. So all in all it was a pretty cool school and with some awesome people. I think that just goes to show that maybe sending your kids away to boarding school isn’t going to ensure that your kid will be academically great because the same recourses are available in rural schools. We were driven back to our plane and flew home. It was a fantastic experience and a fun outing, in which I learnt a lot about everything and was inspired in many different ways. Thankyou Mr Cavil.
