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Well, we flew Cootamundra to Holbrook for the Easter fly-in. Good weather and a decent roll-up of approx 50 aircraft, everything from Cirrus to RV's to Thruster T 500 and a sole Drifter. A sizeable coterie of die-hard Wheeler Scout enthusiasts celebrated the 50th (can you believe?) anniversary of this historic birthing of ultralight aviation in Oz. Sadly the wind made demonstration flights unwise, so none happened. The large range of historic types in the museum's collection, on display prompted various reactions ranging from nostalgia to horrified disbelief (there was even a Pteradactyl, one of which I once owned). Oz Runways presented a comprehensive summary of the almost bewildering range of capabilities from our premier EFB provider. This was followed by a presentation from RAAus. Many people had the chance to catch up and share enthusiastically memorable events and stories. An evening meal and guest speaker left all attendees believing that such events are too rarely held and a vote of thanks expressed our collective gratitude for the enormous efforts made by Holbrook Ultralight Club members. Next year hopefully, even more of us will make the trek because this is an event well worth the effort. I overheard at least one observation that it was far more rewarding than Avalon.

If he was colour-blind, he shouldn't have been in possession of an electrical licence. "Woke" is a very abused and misused word today, it originally meant, "be awake" (to conniving trickery, as regards racism and social injustice). There's nothing wrong with people who have some kind of physical or intellectual deficiency being employed in certain jobs, provided they can perform the job to the required standard, and be generally accepted as capable. Now "Woke" is applied to anything that offends conservative senses and established values or positions. There are plenty of incompetent people amongst conservative ruling classes, just look at the recent list of British PM's. As regards employing women, I have employed women dump truck drivers and they had a better attitude to operation of equipment than most males. They had a better maintenance record, when it came to things being broken by abusive treatment. They were better at repetitive, boring tasks than many males. But not all women were capable of doing the job, it was no different to how some men weren't worth employing, either. And when it came to WW2, 30% of the workforce during WW2 were women, and they built everything from machine tools to aircraft, without too many problems. Most of the problems that affected them were related to abusive and domineering treatment by men. The women who carried out transport of new aircraft from the factories in the U.S. to Britain, did outstanding work.

Having now spoken with several J160/J230 owners who have retrofitted Rotax engines to their airframes, and also having spoken with several of the individuals/teams that actually undertook the conversions, It is very interesting to note their experiences and also their aircraft’s demonstrated performance with the Rotax installed. I am not going to repeat them here as the information would be second hand, but it is motivating for us to fit and demonstrate some Zonsen engines in Jabiru airframes. To that end, we now have a J160 airframe being prepared to have the 110hp Zonsen CA510 that we took to AusFly installed. Once that combination is flying, we will be able to provide first hand performance figures for the combination. We also intend to take that aircraft on a demonstration tour to allow flying schools and Jab owners to experience the conversion for themselves. This will also build hours on the engine in real life operation that together in conjunction with other Zonsen dealers around the world, we can start building reliable data about the reliability of the engines. It’s a start…. Anyway, here’s a photo of the recipient J160 that is currently undergoing a full restoration with the necessary firewall forward and instrument panel conversion to be undertaken. Standby for further updates.

Hey Everyone! The lady in the back seat is, Sameena! Sameena and her husband, JaGa, recently move to our area and are currently operating the Astron Twinrivers-United Roadhouse, at Deeral. I offered to to take both of them flying, to show them our area and experience the Drifter and they accepted! I`ve also taken JaGa, flying. https://youtu.be/oentbji3sXY

exactly. i have flown a yellow xair. a red xair and now an orange one.

The green track was yesterday practising circuits and forced landings with a but of dodging the rain and low clouds. The pink was my solo this morning. Fortunately the GPS doesn't show the vertical oscillations upon landing 😉. After the second bounce the full burst of throttle did the job 😅. The engine cut out twice after landing, it appears the idle is too slow and when the windmilling has ceased the engine stalls if no power is applied. I'm a bit slow getting back on the power because the stupid electric flap control is setup for the right hand but I must use my left because the Jabiru only has one centrally mounted joystick. I find it quite challenging to reach the left hand to the centre of the plane for several seconds while in the middle of a touch-and-go.

I'm pretty sure there has been plenty of time and space given to white male able bodied heterosexual aviators so don't feel particularly concerned that those outside that sphere get some recognition In the interests of full disclosure I am a white male heterosexual, though the able bodied bit might be a a stretch these days😁

The 110hp CA510 has no Rotax equivalent. It is fully water cooled, and does not require any air cooling of the heads etc. This explains the different architecture of this model.

1956 or so I think, after the Korean war. OBOE was also bad for dyslexics. My teachers used to say that due to my dyslexia, I'd never be good a poetry, but look at me now, I just made a beautiful vase and an ashtray!

Really unlikely to be mast bumping given that a fair portion of the gearbox came out with the rotor. Very different failure pattern and the 206 not really prone to it. The 204/205 could be induced to mast bump if badly mishandled or severe turbulence. (For reference, I have some experience both as an RAAF airframe fitter and later as a pilot on the 204/205)

YAWN.. stop posturing. The RA-Aus are in the pooh-pooh because they lied in court, hid information and got caught out. The DPP will pursue them aggressively if they feel there is a case to answer otherwise there is no use in talking about this any further. The part that is worthwhile talking about is the fact that members money and obviously significant time resources for the staff, which come at a cost to the members, have been used/wasted in defending something which should not have happened. Let's say that RA-Aus spent $300,000 so far (this has been reported on this website) then they owe me and each of you who are members an explanation about what is going on and why they have had to spend this amount of money. I would be expecting an explanation even if it was $50,000! It seems that they have not learned anything from the coroner's inquest findings and they are doing exactly the same with the membership by lying with omission about what is going on.

It's obvious this fellow could FLY. HE was probably one of the few "naturals" out there. ANY controllable, heavier than air THING with a useable Lift/ drag ratio is a plane in my book. The "Weather" WAS the Factor here. . He even managed to fly in cloud for a while. Someone would have had to Physically restrain him and how could that Happen in a real situation? AS an Instructor I would only rarely touch the controls ALL that stuff should be covered before the flight. at the BRIEFING. I would take over ONLY IF I had to . Nev

Confucious say Man who go on camping Holiday have Naughty intent. Nev

my patterson lakes place is under the moorabbin flight path. i am going to make a fortune.🤣

I asked them. I was told by my previous trainer to go home and get my plane in the air so that I could do my solos in it. RAAus looked into it because the MARAP document on their website says that in most cases it can be used for training. The came back with an old CASA ruling that states that my out of life engine was not allowed to be used in training however it can be used for any endorsements. It's worth making a call or send an email if you want the reply in writing. At least it sets you're mind to rest. My new trainer doesn't have his Sportstar endorsement so we plan to do a navigation circuit lasting several hours him as PIC and me doing the navigation. If you never hear from me again it most likely means I've got us lost somewhere a long way from nowhere.

I'm just disappointed that I never reached my goal. I wanted to leave here tomorrow with my RPC but the change of planes held me back. Of course the weather doesn't help a lot either. Tomorrow is my last day and it's not looking good. My plane is sitting out in the weather at Northam airport and I won't get back there until mid June. The main trouble with retirement is that you don't get time to scratch yourself. I think I need to go back to work so that I can have some time off.

I enjoyed this. Lots of vintage planes and other stuff. You might enjoy too. Cheers.

The best way to pressure test engine systems is to run the engine. This is what we do on all new or overhauled engine installations, aircooled lycons or liquid rotax. Have a second person double check all connections. First start cowl off have an observer. Stop engine check for leaks, repeat as necessary.

Undercarriage mounting brackets. 14 deg +/- 30 mins! Just need to finish the centre spar. She will soon be on her legs.

Some relevant points in Jason Miller's 'Finer Points' latest:

There's plenty of crash records that show, that even fully-trained and highly experienced pilots crash with devastating results, due to misplaced over-confidence in their skills and abilities - and they often take heaps of pax with them. I would hazard a guess that this pilot in question would have ended up killing himself (and possibly others), even if he had done more training hours, because his personality traits showed his penchant for risk-taking was extreme, and his supremely confident opinion of his own abilities was a recipe for disaster, when it came to flying and judgement of suitable weather conditions. I was reading the crash report on the Junkers JU-52 in Switzerland, and despite both pilots being "highly trained" and "highly experienced" ex-Air Force pilots, they were risk-takers in the extreme, and should never have been allowed to fly the Junkers and carry pax. They failed to understand some pretty basic flying skills such as density altitude, flying into enclosed valleys, updraughts and downdraughts in mountainous terrain, and flying too slow. Add in a tired old pre-WW2 aircraft, and the outcome was entirely predictable. Yet these pilots passed all their tests, and even had glowing reports with regard to piloting skills. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/last-of-the-warbirds-the-2018-ju-air-junkers-ju-52-crash-82d41c659dfb

Yes, we're all going for our bushcraft badge.

Well we keep being told there is a pilot shortage so I hope it inspires people from minority groups to become pilots, when they otherwise may not do so. I remember my ex-airline instructor telling me that the few female pilots he came across were better than most of the males as they had always had to work harder to prove themselves in the eyes of the males. And let's not forget the Tuskegee airmen from WW2, and Eugene Bullard (black American living in France) from the Escadrille Lafayette in WW1. Sadly the Orange man in the US would probably discourage it....... Cheers, Neil

There are plenty of forgotten, ignored, and unrewarded war heroes in our world. We've been conditioned over many decades, to believe that heroes only come from the ruling class. Many military awards are handed out on a very unfair basis, as we've witnessed recently in the Afghanistan War, SAS debacle. Military people who spent the majority of their time behind a desk getting high awards for combat roles, and this has been happening since WW1. Have you heard of Charles Arbuthnot Crombie? Probably not. He was a member of the "ruling class". He was a Beaufighter pilot during WW2 and has been credited with a confirmed 12 Japanese aircraft kills, and another 4 possible kills. He abandoned his shot-up Beaufighter over Burma with his clothes on fire, and landed in a "god-awful swamp". After surviving the swamp landing, he had to fend off locals trying to capture him for the Japanese. He was rescued by Allied troops, returned to duty, was awarded a DFC and DSO, and became a Squadron Leader and CFI of 5 OTU. But he was killed just 12 days after WW2 ended, when his Beaufighter crashed short of the runway at Williamtown after an engine failure. He got just a short paragraph noting his death in most newspapers, and no memorial.

yes the comfort plus upgrade. you need to apply to raa for a rooftop camper marap unless your aircraft has an approval from the factory. check your paperwork for an rtc stc

Re did the w&b today and measured the moments had two mates helping out with putting on blocks and rolling onto weight cells. First weigh was 309.45 and 2nd 309.60. No fuel this time. Spoke with Jarod at Tech yesterday very helpful as usual. All images now in a photo record of the weighing and I'll do the other sheets and send in for next week. With luck may get back end of week or the week after. Have the new placard fitted for 600kg. New speed numbers below. It'll be a tough aircraft - rough air max is 112 kts. Shame they are not in schools as not many chances to experience by flyers or students. There is one factory build in South Australia but not hired or used in a school. Listing my empty weight as 310kg. Weather is not the best at present so no rush to fly and still need to do triple check and have an independent check of controls and the fitout. Can't wait to fly the upgraded bird.

It is Nav lights. Same is with Seminole.

RAAus Ltd is a Not-for-Profit company run by and for members. Keith Page was a director of an alternative to RAAus - EELA - which was a For Profit company, but it never got approval from CASA to operate. Rod Birrell has a long history with AUF / RAAus. There are others around who feel they have been snubbed by the changing organisation and have an axe to grind, or look at the AUF days with rose coloured glasses. There are people who want to go back to the days when the Board & employees failed 5 CASA audits and ignored all warnings - CASA then stopped any aircraft registrations and appointed someone to oversee the whole process (at members' cost) until they got their house in order. We still have a plane that was taken off the register then, and hasn't returned. There were complaints that the Board consisted of Flying School operators who were only there to protect their businesses. One downside of the Incorporated organisation, which was moved to Victoria at one stage, then moved to Canberra, was that the Secretary had to reside in the State of Incorporation. When a Board member was Secretary, he had to either reside in that State (or territory) or they had to nominate one of the office staff as Secretary (which usually happened). RAAus will never be 100% acceptable to all members. Part of that is the legislation they have to live within, which is a dog's dinner. Aircraft that can't fit anywhere etc.

Do it quick and no one notices it and it has been known to rain Cats and Dogs. but when a cargo plane blew up over Japan, it rained Datsun Cogs. Nev

What impression did you have of the aeroplane? I did my initial training on one. The best way to get rid of the cat is roll inverted and it will fall away. Don't worry about the cat . They always land on their Feet and find their way home. Nev

I presume this is it:

Let's unpack this a bit.. Everyone on this forum against ASIC, as far as I am aware, has maintained that ASIC (and presumably its lesser sibling, AVID) is for security checks to prevent terrorism. I did not, and I don't think anyonw has portrayed it based solely on some Die Hard type scenario. But, if I, as a pilot, am expected to pay for a security check for my flying activities, it is not fanciful to expect the risk to originate from my flying activities. Were the people and the ISIS cell you were talking about deteected as a result of ASIC/AVID? Were the terrorist activities they were planning or training for involve the use of private aviation? Or was it pure chance that someone decided they wanted to fly and apply for an ASIC? My point is, if the security checks are not related to a risk borne from aviation, why do pilots have to pay for the security check and renew every two (or 5 for the AVID, if it still exists)? And how would that be anything other than a tax dressed up as a security regime to fund more general surveillance activities? If it is based on a perceived threat from light sports and general aviation in the private sense (i.e. non commercial), then how is it fanciful to think that light aircraft would be involved in the scenarios that the ASIC is designed to detect and prevent? And why would it be invalid to question whether the cost is proprotionate to risk, regardless of how convenient it is? And if I can get it immediately over the counter, how is that a proper security check before allowing someone to go on their way and commit a terrorist act before the secutiy check is carried out and they are stopped? And why, at the time of applying for my license (which is a cost) and paying the $90 to the government for my medical (of which all the work of entering the data is done by the DAME), can they just not run a security check anyway and not bother me? In fact, if I was a terrorist, applying for a ASIC (which has security in the name) would sort of deter me (although I admit, they are not all the smartest on earth)? It just doesn't add up as reasonable and to be quite frank, your assertion that ASIC does the job is invalid, because they can run these checks without it.. So I reiterate, it is either a dressed up tax or ASIO & Co are still lagging other coutnries like the UK who have a far higher terror threat for far longer and don't need this crap. And, both ASIO and MI5, and other countries' intelligence services are foiling terror plots daily without the use of ASIC or anything like it. Yeah, it may only be $x00, and a bit of inconvenience, but I am with @skippydiesel on this - its just one of a continuing erosiion of rights and increase of costs with little actual beneift and should be resisted.. Otherwise we may end up with anti terrorist laws that lock up whistleblowers who, after all efforts to rectify the issue through their organisations decide to blow the whistle, while allowing those who are alleged to have committed crimes or at least misconduct to go free without investigation or trial. But, like countries such as even the USA, who promote whistleblowing and even reward it, Australia would not want that to happen, would it? @skippydiesel put the response very well. And all the items you list are where the risk is directly from the user, and the risk has a relatively high probability of occuring. And, we already need to have a licence (or certificate) for various flying activities, so the argument that others need a licence is sort of moot. And the cost and effort you need to go through to obtain a licence is usually proprotionate to the risks and probability of those risks materialising your activity bears. I have no idea a firearm costs, but a PPL is,what, around $20K on average and on average takes how long? I am not sure how much an RPL or RAAus licence/certificate takes, but I would wager it is more than getting a gun licence, and for the average person, a lot longer, too. Also, the sheep/cattle licence, if it is a thing rather than regs on registering your livestock and tracking its movements, is about traceability of livestock in the food chain - quite a big and real risk to manage. I am still not sure that the real risk of terrorism from private aviation is commensurate with that. And, the most common vehicle for terrorism - cars/vans - do we do security checks on every driver and should we not introduce a DSIC? I mean, that would be popular at election time, right?

i just have to bite the bullet and get that rpc. gets disheartening when you have been trying to get it for so long because instructors keep moving on to other things. seems to be a transient job in gippsland. i went in a texan today with a cfi that is not going anywhere. he said i am nearly there. so fingers crossed it might finally happen.

I use the headsets that came with the CT. They are not ANR but do not need to be, no I didn't try Ian's units. Can't remember the make of mine and am away at the moment so cannot check. I also have DC 13.4's Peltor's and a Bose ANR to play with but don't bother because there is no need. The CT is a bit like a fridge. It is white. Open the door the light comes on. If you are cold select more heat, if you are hot select more cool. It just quietly does it's job so no need to change anything just add fuel and service.

Hi Franco. Keep it up. Best regards. Nev

My mining lease where I'm doing rehab good enough to land a plane on already has two badly weathered wind socks that just need a new sock. They are there so that anybody mining can prevent dust producing work when the wind is blowing towards town.

Let me say this, none of this is gonna get any better as time goes on. There will be more charges or restrictions on where you can land so the best bet is that as many people as possible band together and make landing places that are informal not widely published but shared amongst like-minded groups of people, and that way you can stage impromptu fly ins wherever you want on an as needed basis and stay away from the general area is populated by airports themselves. you can have barbecue days get together’s whatever. For those that can build air strips with no restrictions or potential problems well then do it.. I’ve looked closely at this and decided I’m simply going to have a large paddock big enough to land anything in it of reasonable size, it won’t have a wind sock but it will have a weather station link through a large antenna set up on a Wi-Fi hub so you can fly within 5 km of my paddock. Read the weather station with the app on your iPhone or iPad and get wind speed wind direction. How much rain in the last 24 hours and whatever else that weather station will put out. Next, the weather station will also be on the Internet and shared amongst people who are like-minded and may want to come to my paddock and land so that a day in advance they can see the weather conditions at my property. I could even make drums of fuel available for visitors and barbecue facilities. share the information amongst like-minded people and simply have fun doing it without the world or anyone else knowing what’s going on. That way no visible windsock identifies it as an airfield its simply a large grass area. It happens to be conveniently available for aircraft to land on and takeoff. I can even make a car available for people who want to go to the local Bunnings or Supercheap Aerospace to buy Chinesium parts to fix their planes if they need to. The only problem will be the paddock won’t be large enough for 727s to throw big doughnuts in 🤩🤩

I feel for you😈

Point 1 - This post is way off track; its so far off track it does not even register... it had the hallmarks of motivation early on and is now just another forum post of speculation and meandering discussion... Its not even amusing; its just apathetically very very sad. Point 2 - RAA has some seriously questionable internal cultural rot going on at the very top, and it either gets removed now, or, continues to fester and degrade the establishment, its resources, and its public image borne by its members (the establishment's owners). Point 3 - Under the RAA constitution a minimum quorum of 10% (1000 persons) of the total members, as a group, can put forward and vote upon calling for a "special resolution - vote of no confidence" requesting the immediate removal and expulsion of either "individual", or, "all of" RAA appointed Board Members. The Board Members do not own RAA... They are Elected for a position upon the Board through member voting, or, members signing their vote over to a Proxy (aka a Board Member) - this is very bad if the Board is corrupt.. So the question that should be getting discussed here is "How will we, the rightful owners of RAA, assemble ourselves into a quorum of 1000 in order to immediately extricate this malignant toxicity from the establishment?" Solution - Sack the entire Board swiftly in one go and move on by reinstating each vacant position with an officer that is able to display a proven track record of highly respected and developed standards of Ethics and Integrity. That's what needs to happen. There is nothing to discuss about the matter. Time to flush the stinking bog down the toilet and kick the inflated hagas into touch.

Chris Conroy's Sparrow aircraft were offered to me by his sons who were selling off all his aircraft assets as non of them were interested in aircraft. I told Dennis about what was available and he purchased the assets, now stored at Maryborough

these are comfortable but only suitable for high wing aircraft🤣

I just got back from a bike road trip in Tassie. I used my 1 1/2 man tent ( 2.2kg) and a Zempire Monstermat 100 mm thick mattress (3.1 kg) . . 5.3 kgs isn’t that heavy, even in a aircraft for one’s accommodation. I have never found any mattress as comfortable. Steve

He was talking about ROSE in "tilted" wine glasses. Nev

Myself and this site has been there and done that which resulted in opening the door to the business people who stole our Association from us

Some interesting aircraft from early airline days:

Gotta get there somehow. Aviation fuels bloody expensive!

You'd think he'd get enough of it in his DAY job? Nev

ZK-XBD recently converted from piston power to turbine here in NZ by Andrew Vincent, an airline pilot and engineer.