In a flash I’d exchange my house on Benalla’s south western edge with Dulcie’s home and gorgeous garden on the city’s north eastern fringe.
 
You see Dulcie Sanderson, 90, has for 66 years been treasuring her extensive garden, on land where her father and grandfather once grew wheat, using horse teams to plough and sew the crop.   She has never forgotten her grandfather telling her of the beautiful band of self-mulching clay soil which which extends from the main Melbourne to Sydney railway line right through the 120 acres he bought in the 1920’s, to what was then the Hume Highway.  The Benalla Village Caravan Park is on part of that original block.
 
The good clay loam continues right under her garden and has made it possible for Dulcie to grow practically any plant which takes her eye. That has even included tropical seedlings given to her by local botanist Kay Fairley, who recognised Dulcie’s green fingered ability and willingness to take chances.
 
One of those, a rainforest black bean tree, looks perfectly happy in a sheltered spot not far from the back door.
 
But 67 Sydney Road has never been a peaceful spot.  When it was for many decades the Hume Highway, trucks thundering past, albeit much smaller than today’s B-doubles, clashed with the quiet green bubble of Dulcie and then husband Ron’s glorious half acre garden.  They married in 1952 and Dulcie has lived there ever since.
 
So, traffic is much reduced these days, but is still quite busy during morning and evening peaks, which mainly comprise Schneider employees coming or going to work.
 
Glider tow planes are another noise hazard, as they start their initial climb after take-off to the west, sometimes immediately overhead.  However, Dulcie says some of the two pilots make an obvious attempt to turn slightly right or left to avoid flying directly over her house.
 
One, a 90 hp De Havilland Moth Major two-seater 10 years younger than Dulcie, climbs slowly though, heading directly it seems to her, into the branches of some of her bigger trees.  No pilot is allowed to turn a plane at a height lower than 1000 feet, because of noise implications for Benalla hospital patients.  So, as a pilot who once inadvertently few through tree branches on take-off, I can understand the hazard Dulcie’s very healthy and numerous tall trees pose to Mark, the Benalla owner and pilot.
 
One day recently when I was visiting Dulcie, another high-flying adventurer also seemed to be facing the distinct hazard of falling to earth in a messy way.  A young man, 20m high in the topmost branches of a gum tree, was trimming with a chain saw, branches threatening a major powerline on the old highway.  He was no doubt well roped in but still looked vulnerable. 
 
Dulcie still manages to keep her garden spick and span with a little outside help.  And the lovely clay loam paddock her father once farmed and treasured, now restricted to grazing Hereford cattle, still stretches from her garden fence to the train line.  No doubt pilots too, in the remote possibility that their plane’s engines stop when they are doing their damnedest to gain height quickly and safely, hope that paddock remains free of houses too.
 
All power to you, Dulcie.
 
David Palmer

It was an extraordinary sight: an aeroplane wing spiralling vertically upwards about 50m from behind a clump of trees.
Then it spiralled back behind the trees, like a falling leaf, which it had closely resembled on its upwards trajectory.
I knew then that a super. spreading aeroplane I had seen descend behind the trees moments before, had come to grief. I had followed its progress as it came towards the car I was a passenger in, turned left opposite us then turned left again to descend behind the trees.
I was working for Stock and Land newspaper, had been attending a cattle sale near Ouse, north west of Hobart and was returning to the state capital with two stock and station agents who had given me a lift.
As soon as I saw the freed wing, I said to my companions what I thought had happened and that we must try and render assistance.
I was amazed that initially they just wanted to drive on, but I convinced them we had to do something, although I was anxious about the catastrophe we were about to confront.
So we drove a short distance into the nearby paddock and immediately saw the remains of the aeroplane and despite it being winter and the grass green, it was burning because of the spilled petrol.
Some dozen or so metres from the bulk of the wreckage, the pilot, just alive and badly burned, was still in his seat on the ground.
He died as I stood there wondering what I could do. But my journalist’s instincts came out and I took a couple of pictures of the wreckage, but not of course of the pilot.
The Mercury published my picture and others the following day, with the story that the pilot had been in the magistrate’s court the day of the accident, to answer a charge of buzzing the Bruny Island ferry in an aeroplane. I never discovered if he was found guilty.
Then with what remained of the day he decided to spread super. on a farm he knew.
What had brought him unstuck though, was that a new powerline had been installed, since he had last done a job there.
Many months later, I was called from Melbourne to give evidence to a magistrate’s hearing, I think in Hamilton. There I discovered there had been a second fatality in the accident: the pilot had installed his girl friend in the fertiliser hopper, as was the way in those pre occupational health and safety days. But I had no inkling at the time that she had suffered too. In fact when I think about it, I can’t recall seeing the hopper at all.

David Palmer
​May 2017

Journalist David titled his entry to the Benalla Festival's 'The Sky's the Limit' writing competion in 2016 -

 ‘World’s best gliders seek soaring supremacy in Benalla’  
  
The exhilaration eagles and dolphins display, while surfing winds and waves for pleasure, have fascinated us for ever.
 
Palaeontologists believe pterodactyls with wingspans up to 7m, probably surfed waves of wind formed against mountain ranges millions of years ago. In comparison, humans have only fine tuned surf boards and gliders to roughly eagle and dolphin standards, in the last 50 or 60 years.
 
But you could say humans and wildlife now equally enjoy both types of waves together.
 
Terry Dillon of Benalla, Victoria, encountered that close connection when he was gliding near Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne. Initially he became alarmed when a wedge tailed eagle flew straight at him.
 
But it veered away at the last second and disappeared for a few minutes.
 
Then it reappeared to fly in formation just off his wing tip, clearly surfing the air waves the glider's wing generated, much as dolphins surf bow waves generated by ships.
 
Eagles can be aggressive in spring when young are hatching; just this year a 6kg Western Australian wedge tailed eagle smashed the Perspex of a glider’s cockpit in an attack.  Fortunately the pilot was able to eject it quickly before it injured him and he later landed safely.
 
Dell McCann, also from Benalla, farmed on the Delatite River east of Mansfield until early 2016. A couple of summers ago she was delighted to see eight eagles spiralling upwards in just one thermal.
 
Then the next thermal moved down the valley – they start forming in the Victorian Alps near Mount Buller then move west – and there were four more eagles climbing effortlessly at maybe 300m per minute in that one too.
 
The eagles must have come a long way to enjoy the thermals because she only knew of one pair nesting nearby.
 
In Benalla in January 2017, about 180 pilots from 29 countries will be flying some of the most advanced gliders, worth up to around $500,000, to compete in the world gliding championships held every four years. Quite possibly they will be encountering eagles as well.
 
It is not by chance that Benalla was chosen for the championships because the area has some of the best gliding conditions in the world.
 
Certainly there will be talk of “thermalling gaggles,” as pilots manoeuvre under cloud bases where the best lift is usually found, to avoid fellow competitors and gain the height they need to travel to the next thermal on their cross country races.
 
In the 1930s gliders lost one metre of height for every 15m they moved towards their destination in still air; current gliders have more than tripled that efficiency to achieve a 50 to one glide ratio.
 
Airliners surprisingly achieve 15 to 20 to one glide ratios if engines fail. That means that from a normal 35,000ft (10,700m) cruising level, a powerless airliner could travel up to 182km depending on destination ground level.
 
The glider altitude record was set at 15,445m in Argentina putting it well above airliners.
While gliders have been equipped with compasses, air speed indicators, altimeters and variometers for decades, the latter a device to indicate when air is rising or sinking, now colour LCD displays of varying sizes also provide information about what the air is doing as well as fronting multi channel GPS receivers for precise navigation.
 
An ever present question pilots ask on a cross country race is, am I high enough and particularly, am I high enough to reach the finish point, without chasing more thermals?
But ultimately the best glider pilots feel their aeroplane performs as an extension of their arms and legs; that skill commonly enables them to fly at up to 300km/hr over 1000km or more.
 
Last summer Tim Shirley, who retired to Benalla to pursue gliding to his heart’s content, flew from Benalla to Temora and then Hay in New South Wales, before returning on the final leg of his triangular course to Benalla.
 
That 750 km trip took him about seven hours as he side tracked to take advantage of thermals along the way.
 
But once he reached Yarrawonga on his return trip at 6000ft (1830m), he knew he had enough height to reach Benalla nearly 70km away, without seeking more thermals.
 


​David Palmer
October 2016
 

To maintain a licence as a private pilot, it is necessary to undertake with an instructor, a flight review every two years to demonstrate that your flying capabilities haven't evaporated.
 
That normally requires between one and two hour's flying time when you will be required to demonstrate a steep turn, a stall and a recovery from it, a throttle off approach to a forced landing in probably a paddock and a real landing back at the airfield.
 
My last one here at Benalla, also involved a return flight to Albury, to demonstrate navigation ability or lack of it.
 
In the late 1990s I was producing a monthly magazine for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association at Bankstown airport. As a requirement of that role was a current private pilot's licence, I told my general manager that my currency was about to lapse if I did not again undertake a flight review.  As he was a licenced flight instructor, he said he would check me out.
 
In due course we borrowed someone's single engine plane - I do not remember paying for it or the GM's time - and I did the pre flight and radio checks before taxying to the runway.
So after a radioed clearance from the control tower, we took off, but only did one circuit of the airfield before landing and taxying back to the parking lot and shutting down. All of 15 minutes travelling on the ground and in the air.
 
My GM/instructor was just saying that was fine, when I looked down to undo my seatbelt and realised to my horror I hadn't even done it up in the first place. So much for the effectiveness of my preflight checklist, such as it was.
 
I think my boss just smiled and signed my log book to again make me a legal flyer for another two years.
 
Haven’t been able to fake it since though, partly because my original extremely conscientious and still current instructor from nearly 50 years ago, now lives near Benalla and is the most accessible person for doing a flight review of my abilities.