Todd/Aros, gorgeous photos - thanks for posting! I'm constantly stunned at how folks here manage to send such hi-res photos of such small file size. I've simply got to learn much more about how y'all do this.
The airfield the Riverland Flying Group operates from is near a small country town called Renmark, about 250km/150 miles NE of Adelaide. It is on the Net:
rsa.riverland.net.au/
...although I see they no longer offer flying instruction. I was stunned to see the venerable Cessna 172 they used to have, registration VH-DOI, is maybe still going strong (or at least, still on the register).
I guess I probably didn't appreciate growing up with a plane fully, because of course it was always there. My father told me to make sure I never gave the impression the plane was his. I believe the club members all chipped in about $14,000 for the purchase, and it must have been near-new, because it was a 1965 build.
Of course I did not go in the plane with students who didn't have at least a PPL, but I spent many hours in the back while my father checked out already-licenced people for their IFR ratings, etc, with the windshield and windows all covered in cardboard! This was only if the testee was happy for a passenger to be there.
One of dad's many flying pupils was a man called Tom Angove, who was a very wealthy winemaker, and owner of a winery/distillery called St. Agnes. He is credited with inventing the wine cask in 1965:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_wineTom (DEFINITELY Mr Angove to me, of course) eventually got a commercial licence and bought a brand-new twin, a Beechcraft Baron, and had his own hangar built. Poor old DOI always sat out in the elements, complete with tie-down cables, wheel chocks and sandbags in the nacelle!
The pupil who eventually became a very wealthy fish spotter also drove the Tiger Moth open-cockpit biplane which was the gliding club's tug for a while. I got into HUGE trouble when I asked him for a ride one day, when dad was off on a training flight. I left a note saying I'd "gone in the Moth with Mr Warren" and when we landed, my father ran up yelling... of course he was livid I'd gone off in a plane with someone, without his permission, and that the guy hadn't made sure I had permission first!
I "paid" for that one! Dad demanded why I had asked for the ride, and I said it was because Mr Warren was cool. He would stand the Moth on one wing and plummet earthward after the towed glider was safely out of the way. The Cessna of course was utterly NON-aerobatic capable!
Before I knew it, I was back in the Moth, with my father flying it, but this time hanging from my harness as God knows how many rolls, loops, etc were performed. I was exquisitely balanced at 50/50 exhilarated/terrified! An open cockpit experience is truly memorable.