SGM

I flew over French Island yesterday with my daughter... is this the strip? @Mike Gearon is this yours?

Trip report : Barnbougle Dunes. Where? It's on the north east coast of Tasmania, near Bridport, and if you are coming from the mainland, it's not too far beyond Flinders Island. What's to like : Private airstrip right next to the beach (cross wind join show in video attached) Accomodation is good, you can a book room for a single night, and their courtesy bus picks you up to save you walking the 2km to the Lost Farm reception. Refer https://barnbougle.com.au/ . We paid $260 for one night with an ocean view and were picked up by friendly Scotty. It has a sportsbar, bistro and restaurant. We went to the restaurant which was good, mostly for the ocean views. (Photo with wine glasses below) If you want to go into Bridport (nearest town) there is a private operator who can do this. Adrian is THE man, super friendly, and he was happy to help me fill my Rotax with U95 from the Bridport servo. Contact him here https://www.tassiett.com.au/ . He also runs other tours eg winery's etc. The golf course looks amazing, and the beach is quiet and people-free (photo of beach below) What's not to like : Weather can be a bit fickle crossing Bass Strait. ATC and skeds where helpful as always. I enjoyed the 30kt tailwind home today. Runway gets plenty of use (up to 13 planes have been there in one day apparently) and it's very long, but quite gravelly so I was super careful about runups etc. Reception will send you a PDF of the airstrip - 24 and 06 Bridport is a small town, with not much and it's too far to walk Lost Farm Restaurant food is ok but not remarkable BTW on the way home my wife spotted Mount Chappel Island (pic below) and said "let's land there and expore". We didn't..has anyone? Google seems to indicate it's home to giant tiger snakes which has now put her off ; ) IMG_1969.mp4

In my RAAus training there was a short, pretty easy exam on the following...

Here is my experience with the SkyEcho so far... might be helpful if you are considering one.. received my unit 3 days after ordering (btw it's marginally cheaper to get it direct from UAvionix than the RAAus "special price") filled in the Grant form (I put down business my ABN otherwise the grant gets reported to the ATO as personal income!) setup is pretty easy.. basically your Ipad/tablet/phone will connect to a Wifi called SkyEcho, and the in Avplan the other traffic will appear green (rather than blue arrows) [presumably similar on Ozpilot] this of course means if you use a wifi-only tablet as I do, you will have to choose between the ADS-B SkyEcho traffic OR the internet-based Avplan traffic. If your device has a sim card, you can have both at the same time (assuming you are in mobile coverage) from the ground it seems to pickup aircraft at 20nm range all the time, and often up to 40nm out. Interestingly the green ADS-B SkyEcho representation seems 1-3 nm infront of the blue internet-based Avplan. This is something I wanted because recently I had some (helpful) Melbourne Centre "proximity warning" and then sighted the aircraft much closer than Avplan had indicated. As I have an RAAus aircraft I needed to email [email protected] and ask for a Hex code to put for your aircraft - got a same day reply after I supplied some details. The protocol for the ADS-B "call sign" for RAAUs aircraft is R1234 (where 1234 is your RAAus registration eg 24-1234) The unit requires 2.5A to USB charge, which lasts 12 hours.. so most aircraft will not have enough amps to charge from a 12V USB plug, and hence you either need to bring it home to charge, or take out a decent powerbank if you leave it in the aircraft

Current application number is ADSBRP000197

Both wife and daughter are lightweights - and we were probably going to make seperate flights with only one in the back - I certainly didn't want to discourage either of their enthusiasm for flying.

I had the opportunity to spend last week in Queenstown New Zealand skiing, and noticed a small flying school about half an hour south. It's run by a lovely lady Kerry at https://www.ace-aviation.co.nz/ I booked a mountain flying lesson in her tailwheel Piper Pacer, with my wife and daughter as passengers. Unfortunately the conditions were not suitable, with too much crosswind for the very narrow strip, but she gave me some free time with a ground briefing, and this helpful booklet to read https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/publications/gaps/caa-gap-mountain-flying-may-2021-web.pdf Hopefully next time I go I will get the chance to do a few hours of training - might be helpful for Mt Beauty, Hotham, Jindabyne etc. I thought I would post here a) to give Kerry some thanks, and b) to see whether any of you have tips in flying in Australian Alps areas.

I think Scott Sutcliffe at Full Throttle Aero Pty Ltd is great. Professional, reasonable. He was at Moorabbin now at Lilydale Airport. He does plenty of RAAus including Lilydale Flying School. If you want his mobile number message me.

Presumably extinguishers in small aircraft are primarily of use on the ground or maybe to tackle a very minor cabin electrical fire. I can recall reading somewhere that fireproof gloves were recommended by some - the assertion being if you are flying and experienced any engine-related fire, it would be almost impossible to extinguish it with that much airflow and your focus would be maintaining control during an emergency descent and forced landing (rather than trying to extinguish). I have also thought a fireproof wool blanket might be handy addition to the kit, it having the benefit of extra "utility" as part of a remote survival kit (or even just to cover loose luggage in turbulent situations)

Are there other devices being actively considered by RAAus members?

Maybe Brumby 600 aka J544 (ok ok I looked up the rego)

still rising

Sad. In the middle of the photo is the white top of someone's fuselage, a vertical and part of a black prop. To the left is a flying boat. I had a chat to this owner when I visited December, (at that stage he was putting the finishing touches on the restoration and preparing for a first flight - the Tweed River is not too far away) In the background, on the other side of the North-South runway, are two hanger buildings also well underwater.

I saw this posted yesterday https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-12/old-bar-airfield-tiny-airstrip-with-big-aviation-history/100796410 I've added it to the list of obscure airfields to visit. I have an older copy of the Pilots Touring Guide and have seen Country Airstrips .. is anyone aware of a book with more human-interest and historical content on smaller Australian airfields? Steve

There has been some early comments on this forum about Angel Flight, which I volunteer for, so I thought I would post these videos (with permission) Why??.. 1. By raising your awareness you may be able to mention it to someone you know who needs it (typically regional Australians commuting to city hospitals); 2. You may be in a position to volunteer yourself; or 3. You may be in a position to make a tax-deductible donation

The $1584 is for $51k hull AND $1m Combined Single Limit of liability

On the topic of insurance our renewal was due a couple of weeks ago, and I don't mined sharing my experience. We had $50k hull through PSB (Insurance House), for which the renewal was $1921 with a $1500 excess. I got an alternative quote via Bill Owen/Agile for $51k (which was bizarrely cheaper than $50k) with $1000 excess. This was $1221. This included the "new for old" bolt on. In the end we decided on increased coverage over last year, specifically the $1m Limit of Liability, largely to protect a passenger (most likely spouse/family member) in the event that any (ongoing) medical expenses are required as a result of an accident and they exceed the RAAus amount . This cost us $1584, so significantly less than both last year and the renewal. The note that came with Bill Owen quote is below. Obviously insurance is a highly personal perception of risk likelihood and consequence, so I don't suggest what we decided appropriate for everyone... but I get consistent free advice from this forum so I am happy to share. -------- Liability Limit: We also strongly recommend a minimum limit of liability as part of your aircraft insurance as the liability attached to the RAAus membership is limited. Also the biggest risk with aircraft ownership is not the loss of the hull, but the legal liability you take on as the owner, which can amount to millions of dollars in the event of a claim that involves property damage / bodily injury / death to either passengers or third party (i.e. people / property outside of the aircraft). Additionally, if the aircraft is owned by an individual and the Combined Single Limit of liability is exceeded in the event of a claim, everything personally owned is potentially exposed to claimants, particularly the family home. Of course, the decision is yours, however we do strongly recommend you consider a Combined Single Limit as part of your policy

Thanks.. We did buy a regular PLB, which I hope goes unused. I also hope that in the event of an emergency my mobile phone network traces, Av-plan logs, "find my phone" app, mode-C records and the NAIPS-filed flight plan all prove useful in narrowing down a location. I probably shouldn't worry as I suspect statistically an "incident" in near proximity to an airfield is probably more likely. BTW still haven't worked out which public websites receive our NAIPS flight plan information ie RAAus scheduled arrivals/departures at regional airfields.

RossK, Your aircraft looks a bit like mine! Here was my recent flight near Lakes Entrance... an opportunity to see a rig I previous was involved with (years ago), and also to ask my son how long he thought "90 mile beach" was.. ("don't know") Steve

Perhaps.. but I guess that's really just the same as the "Find My" apple/android app (since I always have my phone with me). If noone has investigated this before I might contact NAIPS and see who they share filed flight plan data with (they must have a public API for the scheduled arrivals/departures pages of airports). I also suprises me that CASA will approve Avplan and OzRunways, but not require approved parties to share live flight data share data with each other. It would be safer if we could all see the planes with the "other EFBs", see conflicting NAIPS flight plans and even have a feed the mode-C bounces that must be available to Webtrak. If we ever want commercial drones to work, then sharing this this seperately siloed data will be critical.

Looking for some advice on how friends/family can track thy progress of an RAAus registered aircraft, with mode c transponder, flying cross-country, under a NAIPS registered flight plan.. My (limited) understanding is 1. Avplan (and presumably Ozrunways) will show your progress to others but only to those the same software (shame they can't share), and of course the aircraft has to be in mobile coverage for GPS coords to make it up to the server, they don't offer the data publically; 2. Flightaware and Flightradar24 will not show anything live because they rely predomainately on ADS-B (which I do not have). They will not record arrival and departs from their airports, even though NAIPS knows. 3. Webtrak https://webtrak.emsbk.com/ would show a flight with code 1200, but only if you are in close proximity to one the (mostly) capital city airports 4. Some airports have an arrivals/departs webpage which seems to be a RPT filter on NAIPS data? The reason for confusion is when my aircraft was registered under CASA, ie VH, it was trackable on Flightaware... and I am sure I have seen a record of an RAAus flight there once, but I can not seem to rerproduce it. SImilarly when I flew to Mildura once I was suprised that my planned inbound flight appeared on an arrivals webpage. Perhaps there is some "trick" to having your NAIPS flight plan data made public? On seperate note, in Avplan, I have recently noticed a number of RAAus aircraft with the Callsign Rxxxx where xxxx is their 4-digit RAAus registration. These are ADS-B equiped (where as I am not). Is it preferred Avplan or other noclamature to have the map-visible "callsign" as Rxxxx? Steve

If the above concept is ok, and there are not extra approvals required or misunderstandings about Point Cook, the only shoreline I can't get to as RAAus pilot would be the Mordialloc area due to Moorabbins 3NM radius.

Turbo, Did you mean continuing the Melb Coastal VFR route until the BOM tower then heading south from there? I was trying to fly the entire bay shoreline if I could. SGM