Rook 4 to King 3

I have started a game of chess with Paraic, it all started with the idea of having a chess board set up in each house and corrospond the moves via email, then we came across all these chess website so we figures that would be easier. As you can see I am lulling Paraic into a false sense of security with my latest dashing and bold move...... and yes, my login name is The Chessmiester.

Christmas Concert

Remember that gig we did a few months ago for the south perth oldies in a cinema, well here is a shot from the audience, as you can clearly see I was busy, head down, feeling the music.....................eeehhhhhh well really looking at the clock at my feet so we could get to our next gig on time.

Flight day: post 7

Hi Everyone, this is the review of my flight in that fighter plane, they are posted in reverse order and I cant figure out how to invert them so for continuity (and to make sense of my referred jokes) scroll way down to Post 1 and read from the bottom up. Thanks.


Airspeed: check, altitude: check, fuel: check, sick bag: Check!!! I nearly had to have a tactical chunder at one stage but it turns out that my decision to have no breakfast was a great idea, all i needed was a few well controlled burps.

Here we all are on the ground, my opponent for the day seriously regretting his red wine breakfast and looking slightly dishevelled

And here is the proof. Red Dragon 1 flown by wee Daniel O Donnell.

And here we are on the ground, Jane and me and mysteriously my co-piot/wingman Finn "The Kid" shows up again, puzzelled as to where i had been. Next time........

What more can i say, it was an incredible experience, i dont think i can ride in a plane again without wanting a few loops and rolls included just to liven it up. It was like having a parachute jump, bungie jump, adrenaline shot and viola solo all at the same time. Oh, i nearly forgot, when I was getting into the plane, i asked Dan if i needed a callsign, he said no, but i pretended not to hear that, so we ran throuh a few and we decided on Raptor, but when Jane and the lads came out to see me off they said, no no no, that doesnt suit him, what about bunny rabbit, and true to form, Dan kept calling me Bunny Rabbit, "Ready for an inverted 4G dive then bunny rabbit"? "Wanna take the stick bunny rabbit"? i'd like to think i showed a bit of raptor when i asked could we do the stall again though. I think that was his favourite/scariest maneuver too so that straightened it all out.

Thanks to all the lads at fighter combat international, thanks to Jane for an amazing birthday present and thanks to the russians aviation engineers for designing such freaking outstanding ways for a viola player to loose his lunch,.......... empty sick bag komradskis!!!, Ruski's zero, Charlie one. Nostrovia.

Flight Day: post 6

A few mid flight photos. Not many of these as we spent half the time upside-down and I was afraid of dropping the camera out this opening in my canopy. It was 30 degrees and we were essentially sitting in a greenhouse 3000 feet closer to the sun than most folk so we needed the draft.

Here is Churchy judging my flight suit again (see below)

At this point, i was flying the plane, not very well though, to fly in formation you have to have the prop and the wingtip of the lead plane in line and your distance is determined by the line from the tail wing intersection with a virtual isosceles triangle from the initial formation propeller/wingtip line. I was busy taking photos (and checking churchys flight suit) so I failed that one.

Here is some land. It was bumpy over land (thermals) so we did our aerobatics over the sea. we did loop the loops, barrel rolls, echelon formation stuff, we did a merge (which is where you fly really fast at eachother, then both break right and circle eachother, which is the internationally accepted way of initiating a dogfight. I experienced 4G's for about 10 seconds during a dive/pullup then suceeded immediatly by a flip-stall where i was weightless for a while before plumeting towards the ocean upside-down. It was incredible. I have never experienced such accelleration (except that one time in Owen Kellys mini) and as for the G-forces, i nearly blacked out at one stage because I forgot to clench my leg muscles when all the blood was draining from my head. Dan says he can take up to 8G's now that he is used to them, he flew a plane that can pull 10G's once, but he wouldnt talk about that one.

Flight Day: post 5

Here we are waiting for the green light. We did a formation take off and landing, which basically means i was crapping myself as this plane taking off was about 8 meters away from us at all times. My plane was the lead (Dan as pilot) and Churchy's plane was flying in formation, which means he doesnt look at where he is going at all, he just looks at the lead plane (us) and follows/trusts our moves exactly, which was freaky at first as every time i looked over there was this fashion critic staring at me in my flight suit (see post 3)

this was my view of Dan. all good until......

....just before we took off the oil cap popped off and Dan had to go out and stick it back on (with chewing gum i reckon)

Here I am looking reassured that the chewing gum was sufficiantly moist to keep the oil cap on for the duration of the flight

Flight day: post 4

Our callsign for the day was the Red Dragons, on account of our planes being of chinese origin. Made in China in the 1980's and designed in Russia in the 60's, the Nanchang fighter has virtualy no electronic components, all hydraulic, so twas no bother to leave my phone on, you'd never know when you get a call for a gig like.....

Here is Dan explaining that its cool to say what you want and scream your head off as long as you dont press the "talk to the flight tower and all the planes around you" button by accident. Noted.

Ok, Dan. Daniel O Donnell form Donegal was my pilot for the day. Yup, you read me. Captain Daniel O Donnell (no relation) is a top ranking military flight instructor who was really cool with all my stupid questions and really made the flight special. Especially that bit where he turned around and waved his arms in the air screaming "who's flying this thing", which was my prompt to either take over or bail out, i decided to stay in the plane.

And here i am sitting in front of a bunch of stuff which all was verbally labeled "DO NOT TOUCH"

Flight day: post 3

Here is Churchy (Jeremy Church) telling me about how all flight suits all come from the same company but the size numbers are all out of whack so its hard to get a suit that fits etc. You know the way musicians rarely talk about music at gigs, i felt this fighter pilots interest in his clothing with certain degree of sincerity.

Mid brief, Dan explains all the maneuvers we would be going through, note how nervous my opponent looks.....

Wingman Finn "The Kid" makes a token appearace mid briefing

"I wanna fly that one"

Flight day: post 2

eeehhhhhhhhhh, mines a large........

Here we go, a flight suit, for some reason they forgot to hand out the parachutes............

Woohoo, i was so excited. We got a full military stile briefing at the start, complete with abbreviations. I just kept thinking of that Family Guy episode, names and numbers names and numbers eg: Victor Romeo 229er, Charlie Zulu 348 Roger Roger etc. There were 2 planes going up, me and my dogfighting opponent for the day, thats him tying his laces, Alex, who stupidly had 2 glasses of wine with breakfast to calm him down. We all HEARD that breakfast re-emerge at 2000 feet about 10 mins into the flight. I cleverly ate nothing after 5pm the previous day in order to avoid such gastronomical issues.

Indemnity form eh........

The two pilots were both militaty flight instructors. Dan (my pilot, more this absolute legend later) has 10 years professional miltary flight experience all over the world, he has flown it all, massive AWACS military sentry planes, F14, F15, F16, F18 and has even had a pint in Cork. The other pilot was Churchy on transfer from the New Zealand air force. Great lads. Churchy is normally a helicopter pilot but does this for kicks at the weekend, as does Dan, the two guys spend the week teaching people how to do regular stuff then go nuts at aerobatics at the weekend with punters like me.

Flight Day: post 1

Here we are, at Hangar 6 of Figher Combat International

Just to be clear, its not just a flight in a plane, its YOU ARE A FIGHTER PILOT!!!!!!!

No flight would be possible without the help of a trusty wingman, heres mine, Finn "The Kid" Morris

The Kid cunningly enough seems to have forgotten his flight suit, plane, and how to speak english, so I had to go solo.....

The great Jon Cope

I do a few of these gigs per week, random brewerys/pubs that require music of a sunny afternoon. Usually these are with Adam (janes brother) but every now and then we need to get a dep because Adam is double booked, so for the last few weeks I have been playing with this charachter, Jon Cope. He is an amazing musician, has toured the world with his music, even ended up as a resident musician in a bar in skibereen for a few months, and now he resides in Perth (centre of the known universe apparrantly). He runs his music in projects, one of which being this. We play all sorts of stuff, we do a great version of 'somewhere over the rainbow', he has some great pirate music, yaaaarrrr, and today due to popular demand we did our rendition of Char-Dash, where I do my best to play the gypsy classic and get it over with as quickly as possible. Anyhoo, here is John after fixing the brewery-owners banjo, which has been under his bed for 16 years, a quick tune up and John is ready to rock! Classic stuff, as soon as I figure out how to put audio files on this blog ill record some of our stuff, tis great like.

ya cant go anywhere....

So there I was, playing a gig in an irish bar, when i noticed that the guy playing pool looked familiar. Sure who was it only Captain Liam Daly of the Army Band, on tour over here for the last 2 years conductiong bands in melbourne and symphony orchestras in darwin, now conducting one of the bands here in Perth. Havent seen him in years but heard he was somewhere in the country. Small world!!!!

Carolyn and Jason visit from Margaret River

Carolyn and Jason popped up to Perth for a few days yesterday, so it gave us an excuse to do all the touristy things we never get to do. We hung out in kings park, had a BBQ in east perth, saw dolphins, went for japanese, heard Sting doing a soundcheck, bought books in a late night funky book shop and we even ate a loaf of bread called "the wave". Great fun with the lads again, here is Carolyn, Jason and Jane on the most comfy bench in all the land

Reservoir Ducks

My sister send these over to us in a recent "red cross package", they are great. Little rubber ducks, when you put them in the bath, the water bridges a connection and activates a colour shifting light pallette in the ducks. So last night i had the idea of squeezing them all into a big glass vase we have and make a sort of duck/lava lamp centrepiece for the bar table. Also, if you are wondering why the blog is all black now, tis because it takes less energy to illuminate a black screen than a white screen just like blackle. A few more environmental jobs like this and Ill be next after Al Gore for a nobel prize...

From a concerned fan

As you all know I am going on a flight this sunday in a WW2 reconditioned fighter plane. I am going to get the works, barrel rolls, dives, loop da loops, everything the pilot can do. Its gonna be pretty scary as i dont even like go-carting. A friend of ours sent me this package in the mail, it is a giant nappy with a note from the MIG corporation sanitary products department, wishing me a suprise free flight by supplying me with the latest revolutionary product being worn by joy flight participants all over the world...and beyond. Top marks to Andrew and Martin for shenanigannary above and beyond the call of duty on that one. I wonder if i should return the post-flight product with a thank you note.........