A family holiday for Echuca’s van der Sluys family requires most of your average preparations – get the engine serviced, kick the tyres, fill the tank up and pack the suitcases in the back.
There is one major difference - it all applies to an aeroplane, not a car.
Adrian van der Sluys has held his private pilot’s licence for 14 years and late last year he moved into rare air (pardon the pun) by building his own aircraft.
And not just your run-of-the-mill kit plane, which putts along at about 50 knots (100km/h), but a Ferrari-like aerobatic biplane which spins, somersaults and dives at about 400km/h.
Adrian and his wife Melinda are owner/operators of AV Builders, but climbing a ladder was never going to be high enough for the father of two.
The same may be said of his children once they come of age.
After just three days on the Earth, three-year-old Asta was on board for her first flight, while Lola, who is almost two, was not much older
“For the kids it’s just like getting in the car. It’s the norm,” Adrian said.
The family recently returned from the NSW outback, flying high above Menindee Lakes.
Depending if you’re a Holden or Ford devotee, the 1980 six-seater (a Beechcraft Bonanza) they took on that trip, equates to a HQ Kingswood or Falcon station wagon.
But the latest edition to Adrian’s “fleet” is more akin to the Lamborghinis and Porsches of the world.
The 480kg blood-red biplane, which took him more than four years to finish (4000 man hours), is half the weight of the unladen six-seat aircraft, which it sits alongside in the hanger.
To the uninitiated, a Pitts Special S1-11, will not mean much.
To put it into context the plane, which arrived as a set of plans, no materials, is one of only 15 of its type worldwide.
However, Adrian is quick to add that modifications to his craft, which was only finished in November last year, make it the only one of its kind in the world.
The Pitts Special aircraft first flew in 1944 and rose to fame for its domination of aerobatic competitions.
“Back then the Pitts aircraft had a 65-horsepower engine, which is the equivalent to an ultra-light,” Adrian said.
“This plane has 400 horsepower and is the same weight as an ultra-light, the power to weight ratio is enormous.”
I am no mechanic, but trying to interpret Adrian’s explanation it was like putting a V8 in a Yaris.
“We modified a fair bit of stuff to change the shape a little bit,” Adrian said.
“There are about three aircraft in the world similar, but this was the first with these modifications.”
Unlike the Ford station wagon or Kingswood, it’s not that good on fuel.
“It will burn 120 litres an hour of fuel, but I only fly it for 10 or 20 minutes at a time,” Adrian said.
“It’s too physically demanding to do any longer.”
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Adrian’s plane is very similar to those Red Bull planes you see blasting between those inflated white pylons on television.
But according to Adrian, his plane even has a better power-to-weight ratio than The Flying Bulls.
The frame of the S1-11 is steel tubing, the wings are made up of not much more than fabric covering plywood, with a touch of carbon fibre.
Two foot pedals and the joystick control the four ailerons that move up and down on the tip of the wings. Then there is the rudder and two adjoining flaps controlling the plane’s movement.
Without Adrian’s building expertise, the cost of getting someone else to build the plan would have been $700,000.
Now he certainly did not spend that amount on the plane, but through his network of aeronautical friends and his own brilliant mind the price tag was significantly lowered.
Oh, and a couple of lounge room “Lego-style” sessions building the plane’s wings with his wife’s assistance.
“It’s 4000 hours of your life that you will never get back, so put an hourly rate on that and it’s still a pretty expensive project,” Adrian said.
His old plane, a 200-horsepower version of the Pitts Special, was sold to a friend.
There was only a handful of people at the test flight and Adrian was not even at the wheel, entrusting that to an experienced test pilot who was a close friend.
“I actually didn’t want anybody out here, I didn’t want the pressure,” he said.
“He (the test pilot) flew it for the first time and then I hopped in straight after.”
By the end of this year a lot more people will potentially know about the extraordinary aircraft.
At that point Adrian could have competed at the national titles, appeared at the Avalon Air Show (first week of December) and shown off his pride and joy at a planned Echuca open day.
Adrian shares a hangar at the Echuca aerodrome with fellow aero club members David Wearne and Paul Napier.
Alongside the assortment of planes in the hanger is an old ski racing “Bullet” boat that Adrian is re-building to keep his hand in.
Echuca Aero Club is hopeful of staging an open day in November.
That’s where you will possibly see Adrian “pulling seven to nine Gs (forces, the equivalent of 810kg being pushed back into the seat on the way up) and five to six Gs heading down (which means 540kg going through the seat belt into the chest).
The essentially home-built plane goes from standing still to 160km/h in three to four seconds.
And its landing speed is well above the average, making it not for the faint-hearted.
Adrian hopes to compete at the Australian Aerobatic and Freestyle Championships, which (COVID allowing) will be in Queensland from November 23-28.
With the open day in November and the Avalon Air Show the same month, the “red terror” could be doing an Australia-wide tour of duty for the month.
“The best way to train is to have someone on the ground, who knows what they are doing and talking on the radio,” Adrian said.
“You can go up to 2500 feet and back down a few times every four or five seconds.
“It’s a pretty wild ride.”
The seat is a parachute, but considering the price tag and the man hours put into the construction, Adrian is in no hurry to test the safety device.
His desire to fly something faster resulted in the S1-11 purchase.
“I couldn’t afford to buy one, so I decided to build one,” he said.
He said everyone had their toys, it was just that his went at 400km/h straight up, while having the capability to twist and turn and head back toward the ground just as quick.
Adrian said he did not think he would ever fly the aircraft at 100 per cent.
“It’s endless what you could try or do with it,” he said.
But here's a tip for his fellow members.
“If you want to fly it, you either buy one or build one,” he said.
“I couldn’t replace this if something went wrong.
“I try and fly it every week, but leading up to a competition I will fly it every day.
“A 15-minute flight is like going on a 5km run at a good clip.
“It’s physically demanding, trying to keep the blood to the brain and even holding your limbs up is tough.”
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