Sunday Territorian 18 May 2014
Sunday Territorian; NewspaperNT
2014-05-18
This publication contains may contain links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.
English
Community newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin.; Australian newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin.
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
Darwin
application/pdf
Copyright. Made available by the publisher under licence.
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/250745
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/552844
SUNDAY MAY 18 2014 LIFESTYLE 21 V1 - NTNE01Z01MA I was only in shorts. I was a little more than chilly I was frozen over Katherine, and over the research farm, following the highway, because I knew that going off the highway was fraught with danger, he says. I started looking for potential places to land and the research farm was good, but when I was in a thermal I bumped into a wedgie. He says even with all the technology attached to his glider, the eagle was a much better guide. I followed him out and then into another thermal he was on one side of it and I was on the other, Tucker says. I then followed him up the highway towards Pine Creek, but then he went west and I decided not to go with him. It was then Tucker realised he had to start looking for a place to land, and the Stuart Highway was looking more and more attractive. I was clueless about how I was going to do this safely back then there were no speed limits, he says. But then my friend broke through on the radio I hadnt had communications for a while and he was able to block one direction of the highway so I could land. A truckie came across him and he wasnt happy he was probably wondering, Whos this idiot stopping traffic, Ive got deadlines to meet, but then I swooped across the top of the truck, and landed. His eyes were the size of dinner plates. Its an awesome part of the world to hang-glide in. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS DURING Tuckers time in the north, it wasnt just hang-gliding that provided an adrenalin boost. He was out camping with his squadron towards Adelaide River when he had a close encounter with a rather large reptile. We were camping and we split into groups. A group of three of us decided to go fishing, and we were at this little rock hole, Tucker says. I broke away from them and was wandering around the rock hole on my own, when without word of a lie the tree next to me started shaking and I saw these green triangles of a tail go flying past and then this massive splash. I ran back to the group then. That night, locals told the group fishing at the hole was probably not a smart move. They told us there was a 15ft croc in there, that even they dont go fishing there, he says. They said they had seen it take a horse. We had been sitting on the waters edge all day. From then on, they bathed in waterholes while armed with some serious firepower. He said they would take at least an AK-47 and a pump-action shotgun. We would get there, shoot the water a few times, jump in and wet ourselves, jump out, wash ourselves, shoot the water a few more times and then get back in and rinse. That was how we did it. Fighter Pilot: MisAdventures Beyond the Sound Barrier with an Australian Top Gun (Allen & Unwin, $22.95) is available in book stores and online. Mac Serge Tucker Members of the RAAF Base Tindal Hang-Gliding Club Members of the RAAF Base Tindal Hang-Gliding Club pictured in 1996pictured in 1996 The ejection seat trainer. More pilots have their back injured in this device than were ever injured in real ejections RAAF Base Edinburgh in Adelaide, 1996 Fourship formation made up of jets from all four Australian squadrons: 3SQN (Southern Cross), 75SQN (Diamond Chequerboard), 77SQN (Green swoosh that Nike stole) and 2 Operational Conversion Unit (Tiger) off the coast of Newcastle, NSW, in 1997 The result of a 0.1-millisecond delay on an Mk-84 high-explosive bomb at the Delamere Air Weapons Range in 1990