Dear reader,

 

Once again, we return to our saga.

On current estimates only another decade and a half awaits us, (breathlessly) and we will have achieved epoch making status, as having outlived, (in relative terms) ‘Blue Hills’.

 

Blue Hills, yes folks for those not old enough to remember ‘Blue Hills’ is not a special accommodation home for depressives, nor is it what happens to the colour of hills when uranium isotopes are en masse dumped amongst the mulga.  ‘Blue Hills’ was Australia‘s longest running radio show. It went on for years and years essentially unchanged, just like the Coalitions climate policy. And it was reliable as it was always on the same format, just like Deaths in Custody, whereby, you could tune out for several decades, and reliably whenever you tuned in again, they were still being knocked off by the SYSTEM and NOTHING EVER CHANGED!

 That’s what’s comforting about criminal justice and First Australians, there’s always gonna be new meat for the grinder, just as in Ukraine, but no heroics. Just the simple methodology of bureaucracy, a ‘subject people’ and the obdurate blind stupidity that keeps the whole thing going.

Perhaps the same applies to our heroes? 

Last thing we heard they only had 500 miles left in the tank. And according to our Aviation expert, the Rotodyne is notoriously unreliable as far as the precise fuel consumption relative to air pressure, humidity and other inflight characteristics.  Bali may be a bridge too far? 

But then, so is a sensible policy towards incarceration for Indigenous Australians. We haven’t got the time for this , but we return as quick as a flash to our heroes who are desperately hanging on, and time is running out.

‘Cant you get a little more grunt outta this thing’?

Ces Tapped the fuel gauge and watched it drop further. ‘I’m afraid were going as fast as we can terry replied, we can toss a bit of weight off, but we’re travelling pretty lean as it is, and I spose just 100 kilos might make a bit of a difference’? We all looked at Sophie bundled up in the back, the thought was tempting, but we were moral, and realised that turfing her would make us no better than those criminals hell- bent on pursuing us.  But it might make us happier.

 

‘Well then, aim for that cloud. There might be an updraft, perhaps we can get airlifted so to speak. Its just a chance’ Terry stoically replied; ‘but if they’re Cumulo nimbus on top of a Strato cumulous and underlying base of Nimbulo numbus, we might get some extra lift.

Though we’d never heard of Nimulo Numbis we took Terry’s descriptor as accurate as he was trained in atmospherics as an engineer at Maralinga.

‘Will it get us to Bali’?  Quent enquired nervously.

‘Dunno’, Terry grimaced, ‘but at this point if were not for chucking Sophie out, we’ve got Hobsons or, he sniggered at the irony, Sophies’..

Terry gunned the Rotodyne, its rotors whirring at a higher pitch. He flung the craft headlong into the cloud formation and with barely a murmur, from bright tropical sun we found ourselves inside a vortex of atmospheric fury!

Once again, from light, we were plunged into darkness.

At first is seemed surreal. We were just aware of the engine and the sense of weightlessness as the updraft carried us upward.  But then, Sophie resumed her caterwauling; “ You miserable bastards!! My husband is president of the Victorian branch of the Liberal party and when he gets to youse you’ll be ground up into little pieces and manure spreaded across the back paddock.  And your intestines, bones and all will grow a crop of Sorghum, and’ …..

Her abuse was cut short as with a sudden gust the entire aircraft was lifted at an accelerated pace right to the top of the cloud formation. We couldn’t see a thing, just the instrument panels glow and the altimeter turning crazily as it went off the scale…Right off the scale!  And the next thing we knew we were freezing cold.

‘Jeez, Terry is this cabin pressurised?

Nup mate, it was only meant for low level cross channel crossings and I’m afraid this is all new territory for me.  Its bloody cold, what does the altimeter say? Can’t tell.  It stops at ten thousand, … by the looks of things’.. He pointed to the ice on the windscreen, ‘we must be upwards of thirty’… and he pointed to the rear of the cockpit; ’this oxygen might come in handy’.

But then, just as we debated finding warm clothing, the Rotodyne took another upward gust, and with lighting, torrential rain, hail and the surreal glow of St Elmo’s fire illuminating the stubby wing tips we held on for grim fear.   The Rotodyne was tossed and turned and pushed about like a plaything, or perhaps for our local audience, like a recently incarcerated northern Territorian until we were no wiser as to whether we were upside down or downside up and through it all Terry held firm.  Terry just nonchalantly put another Camel in his mouth and lit up as if nothing untoward was happening. We all appreciated the fact; Terry was a cool head in a tight squeeze…

And above it all, the twisting, the ups and downs and the atmospherics we were reassured by the constant roar of the Rotodyne engine’s.

Reassured that we’d get thought this debacle.

Reassured that destiny would be ours.

Reassured, …. Until all of a sudden.  They (the engines) stopped.

 

Will our heroes survive the Rotodyne engine failure?  Has Terry got the guts and the right stuff to see this through?

 

Find out in our next Rotodyne themed episode;  ‘Around and around squared’, or;  ‘Though Santa never made it to Darwin, Shapelle got to Bali and rather wished she hadn’t’.