A STORMY flight I nearly didn't share 

Thanks mini2, that's great to hear.

Hey Karl, thanks for the message. Firstly thanks for all the work you do getting information for us pilots, very much appreciated. But yeah what an interesting day hey. Did you find the weather changed faster than originally forecast or was that just how I saw it from my perspective? Thanks again.

@Stefan Drury it definitely changed faster than expected and made for a busy day when it didn't quite go to plan. From memory, initially, the storm risk was more significant in the west of the state during the afternoon, as I thought the thick mid-level cloud extending over the Melbourne basin ahead of the coldfront was too stable (lacked any strong lift and instabilty) to cause any storms until later in the evening. Obviously, it didn't quite work out that way, which is why we issue warning products like AIRMETs and SIGMETs to alert everyone about unforecast or more serious weather conditions! Just wanted to share my enjoyment of your videos, and in this one, i was particularly excited to hear your really good thought process about thinking through/troubleshooting how to deal with weather en route.

Thanks milk-it, I appreciate the feedback.

@@StefanDrury Pleasure, Stefan!

Haha, noted, thanks Dave.

Hey Dave, thanks firstly for being a long time supporter of my channel, it's appreciated. And thanks for the comment, that means a lot. All the best, stef

Thanks Ben

Thanks Shane, I enjoyed sharing this one so I appreciate the feedback.

Top stuff Stefan, you certainly had your hands full. Very impressive with all your electronics. Thanks for showing what you thought would be a stock standard trip. Clearly far from it. Well done.

Thanks Fred, welcome to the channel!

Thanks Bruce

Thanks Frank, much appreciated and glad you enjoyed it.

Well I'm trying not to make big announcements on the channel these days but yes there is a new aviation series coming in 2023. Filming next month.

@@StefanDrury i wonder what thats gonna be...

Interesting, thanks for letting me know that. I wasn't sure how high the tops were but I definitely remember big cells over the Canberra area.

Thanks Keith, glad you're enjoying the videos and welcome to the channel.

You know it's further round the coastline of Australia than Sydney to London right? That would be a fun video series, but a very long one!

Very Long indeed!

Yes I was hoping to fly directly over it but was given the turn a bit too early. I could have waved at the team I met down there last week!

Thank you, not sure I've ever had one of my landings applauded so that's appreciated! And hello back to Kenya, I'm a big EK fan.

Yeah it's awesome hey, I love it. Made by Vertigo Covers in the UK.

Thanks for watching and welcome to the channel. Great to have you here in the community.

They'd booked their flights already and I decided to fly up and join them. Also my wife doesn't like small planes but I do fly with my daughter.

Ha, you know it! A fair percentage of my flights are spent staring into the distance contemplating my options!

Awesome, I hope you enjoy your flight training.

I've flown that many times when I did my training in Bankstown, but yeah would love to fly V1 again one day. I'll add it to the list, thanks for the suggestion.

Yeah it was blue skies and CAVOK on the forecast then it changed very quickly. Lots of aircraft diverting. Hope you had a good flight Joshua.

Hey John. sorry I only just saw this now. Thank you so much for the super thanks. You really didn't need to but your support is very much appreciated.

Yes, I love Eliud! 🇰🇪

I saw Foreflight were advertising to Australian pilots now they have support for this region, but I haven't looked at it myself. I mainly use Garmin Pilot as it interfaces with my avionics but also use AvPlan EFB here in Australia a lot.

I don't mean to speak on behalf of Stef but I felt inclined to answer this question in case he doesn't as it piqued my own interest! Perhaps with a producer onboard. I doubt Stef does more than move the odd camera around mid-flight as he did in this flight to show another angle. Not the best idea to have a distraction such as live-streaming while piloting an aircraft. I don't believe any legalities exist with regards to live-streaming specifically, however, to the best of my knowledge, pilots are prohibited from using mobile devices (which Stef would need to use to manipulate things like camera angles, share iPad screen etc) during take-off, landing and any non IFR segments of the flight. Theoretically, one could plan a mostly IFR flight and manage the live-stream inside that segment, but as this video demonstrated, shit can hit the fan pretty quickly, necessitating the minimisation of distractions. A passenger could effectively produce the live-stream and that would make for interesting viewing, however, unless you're a pilot or want to be one, most of what Stef leaves out of his videos is quite monotonous. If you see this Stef please correct me if I'm wrong!! Cheers Zac

I can't speak to anything about Australian regulations, but in the US I think it would be allowed on a private flight. The problem is, how are you going to livestream it? Cell reception above one or two thousand feet gets pretty terrible, and the signal wouldn't be good enough for streaming video at a quality anyone would want to watch. Maybe if you had an aviation version of a Starlink terminal, but those are fairly large and you'd have to make some alterations to the aircraft to mount it - if it would even fit. Your best bet would probably be a microwave transmitter like news helicopters use, and send video to a computer on the ground to handle the streaming. That equipment is pretty expensive and you'd need a license to use those frequencies. If you wanted to track a cross country flight, you'd need enough ground stations to be in range of one through the entire route. Basically, the technology to livestream from the air in a small airplane isn't really there yet for individuals. Maybe someday there will be cheap miniaturized Starlink-like services, but right now I think you'd struggle to find something that worked for less than six figures and it would be really complex.

Thanks

Hey Greg, no silly questions in aviation, ask away. My reason for not going higher was based on aircraft performance. I could see some of the storms towering well above where I could climb EYZ to. I was safer (in my opinion) being low so I could see where the showers were falling rather than trying to outclimb the storms and getting stuck IN the clouds. A pressurised aircraft that could get up to say 20,000 feet would have had a much easier day, but for me where it gets hard to climb much above 12/13,000 feet, I felt it was better to stay low and visual to the ground.

That's a good question, but no it's a separate audio recorder and camera that I sync up in the edit. I made a video of how I make these videos here if you're interested: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DZkTzetPWvo.html

@@StefanDrury alright thanks, just wondering as I hate having to sync up audio and you do it perfectly

As I'm always trying to improve and serve my audience fairly, I'd be keen to know what you feel is 'clickbaity' about the title. "The stormy flight I nearly didn't share" is both accurate and descriptive - 1) It was a stormy flight, and 2) I wasn't originally intending on sharing it but then I did. Both aspects (stormy weather and not sharing content) are discussed in full in the video. I'm happy to be called out if people think I'm doing something wrong, but would be keen to hear your reasons for calling this "clickbaity". Asked with improvement in mind, nothing else, thanks, stef

@@StefanDrury first of all the content covered the title, that’s for sure. I also put in a smiley, because I didn’t perceive it as annoying or that you trapped me into watching the video, not at all. But when I read the title I thought that you had almost crashed. That’s all. 😉

Ah ok, I see how you can take that from it. Like I said, always learning, so thanks for the feedback. Also sorry I didn't answer your weather question - that data comes from the 4G connection to my iPad, we don't have ADS-B IN here in Australia, only ADS-B OUT.

Haha, wilco!

Totally agree. Go Kalashnikov!!

It was a great day in Sydney, perfect weather for the parade as well. Proud to share it here on the channel.