CAMERON OBST’S RECENT TRIUMPH FOR THE RFDS
It’s not every day an aviation record is broken, but that’s exactly what happened in Chinchilla, QLD this March when Cameron Obst took off one morning… then did it 144 more times that day.
When you design and build something functional, you naturally want to test it. For Cameron Obst, breaking the Australian record for take-offs and landings in a single day in the Kangawallafox – an aircraft he designed and built himself – seemed like the perfect test.
“I wanted to prove to myself, more than anything, that I’d built a good, reliable plane.” Cameron said when I asked him about his motivations for breaking the record. “I thought, well, that’d be a pretty good way for me to prove to myself that it can handle it.”
As an RAAus pilot and recently-qualified instructor, Cameron’s passion for aviation is obvious. After owning a number of amateur-built aircraft in the past, he decided to design and build his own, aimed at extremely efficient Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) flying.
“It took me probably 12 months to nut out a design” Cameron told me. “I liked the wings off the Zenith, the fuselage from a Rans S-6 like I used to own, and the undercarriage of a Highlander. Essentially, I’ve taken the concepts I like from other aircraft and tried to morph them into one animal.”
What resulted was a minimalist, brutally functional, high-wing aircraft, powered by the fuel-injected 117hp Aero Momentum AM15. Considered a “Frankenstein” build by its designer, the name Kangawallafox came about because it was a “mix of different animals”. It’s an appropriate moniker, and one that will now live on in the record books.
A supporter of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Cameron’s record attempt gave him the perfect opportunity to host a fundraiser for the organisation. Through online donations in the lead-up to the event, as well as donations made by local businesses and individuals, Cameron was able to raise just over $17,000 for the RFDS.
“We had almost $12,000 in online donations and a bit over $700 in cash on the day. The business I work for, Origin Energy, also ran an internal fundraiser. Any donations employees made, the business committed to match it.”
As a not-for-profit organisation, the RFDS relies on donations to continue their operations. Donations they receive go toward providing life-saving medical care to Australia’s remote communities.
It was a typical day in Chinchilla when Cameron began his first take-off at 6:45am. The previous record was set at 140, which required a pilot to take off, fly a circuit and completely touch down again, before repeating. Cameron took plenty of breaks for resting and refuelling, but with 6.8 engine hours for the day, he managed to complete his 145th landing around 3:30pm. “It had only done maybe 30 or 40 landings in its life, and I put on 6.8 hours and another 145 landings!”
“It was boring,” Cameron said with a chuckle, “I was essentially just flying around and around all day, but it was a good day and for a good cause, so I’m happy.”
With the record under his belt, Cameron set his sights on entering his Kangawallafox in this year’s OzSTOL competition, held in April at Luskintyre, NSW. Competing in the “Bush Experimental” category, Cameron finished with a combined take-off and landing distance of 75m, enough to secure second place. It was his first time competing in a STOL competition, and Cameron was over the moon with how his aircraft performed.
“For me to come in a little homebuilt plane, first time, to be able to jag a second, I was rapt with that.”
Despite all the success, Cameron is planning to part with the mighty Kangawallafox. In fact, at time of writing, the aircraft is listed on planesales.com.au, for anyone interested in owning a record-breaker.
An Australian record and a podium finish at OzSTOL isn’t all that’s on his mind though. In the meantime, Cameron is in the process of setting up his own flight school.
“It’s something I’m just really passionate about, I absolutely love it” he told me about his love for teaching people to fly. Cameron is a two-week-on, two-week-off worker, and in his off weeks has been volunteering as an instructor with GoFly in Caloundra. “For me, my flight school is something I intend to run purely for passion. Because I’m not relying on it for my sole source of income, I can keep my rates as low as possible and hopefully get more people interested in aviation.”
He intends to start training operations in the near future, having ordered a new Brumby aircraft, scheduled for delivery in the coming months. Providing flight training services out of Chinchilla, Cameron has even set up a scholarship program, to be awarded to a Year 11 student from the local high school each year, who wants to learn to fly.
More flight schools in rural areas are something we love to see. We hope to see Cameron and KWF Flight School training up the next generation of pilots very soon.
