I was out kitesurfing at Friendly Beaches on the East coast of Tasmania yesterday on port tack heading out about 500m off shore not a soul on the beach or in the water, just me and a 15 knot NE wind when I started hearing what sounded like thunder! in a completely cloudless sky. I started looking everywhere to see what was happening while trying not to crash my kite! Was it the end of the world, a terrorist explosion, a tidal wave, and then I saw it coming right at me from behind my head at about a 1000ft? It was a RAAF Hercules just dropping in to have a look and scare the **** out of me!!! Will I send the airforce the bill for the dry cleaning? Anyone else been buzzed by their friendly airforce??
Those plane's are positively massive!! What a thrill that must've been. Been offline for a while working down in Kwinana, where I decided I'd had enough of driving home so I rigged my 20 knotter and took off from the BP refinery. Took me over 40 minutes of honking downwind just to get to Woodies, switching back feet every 2 kms or so to ease the thigh cooking sensation. And that Austal Ships harbour is frikkin huge. Anyone at Woodies would've seen some crazy bald idiot with a backpack going straight downwind like a bowling ball down a well waxed alley. Then another 40 minutes of flatstrap shoreline carving to reach South Beach, where I packed up and walked home to Freo. Thoroughly worth it and learnt a thing or 2 about speed and how to control it. Would recommend a downwinder to anyone game enough. And yes, my car was still there in the morning.
After we left school my mate joined the airforce. He recounted to me over a BBQ one evening when back visiting Perth, how that day he had just taken out one of the Macki training jets and shot over to Rottnest Island. Going around the back he saw a bunch of surfies sitting on their boards waiting for a wave and so went down for a closer look. He went screaming over their heads at 50 feet and 400 mps. As he looked out his rear vision mirror he said he was watching them pealing off their surf boards and falling into the water. I said, "isnt there a limit of 500' on low flying". He said yes, but then went on to recount a few more stories of what they get up to in the F111's. I still can't help laughing at the image of this even years after.
My sympathy to you benk but .. haha .. yours is a very funny story. Graeme
