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aro

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Everything posted by aro

  1. aro
    Big difference between building an airstrip and landing your aircraft on your property. Kind of like parking a car in your backyard vs building a carpark.
  2. aro
    Totally dependent on engine design. Look at modern engine design and rpm vs older engines and the comparative efficiency and lifespan.
  3. aro
    Did you learn about best angle of climb, best rate of climb and best glide in your training? All I said was higher speed aircraft often have trouble meeting the 5200 rpm minimum at best angle/rate of climb speeds. You are arguing with that but somehow saying you don't need to fly at those speeds? Yes, "subject to terrain clearance" is the important bit. There have been many accidents that might not have happened if the pilot had flown the correct speed for best performance. The quoted performance figures (takeoff distance, landing distance, rate of climb) are null and void if you don't fly the specified speeds. Flying small aircraft requires accuracy, when you care about performance.
  4. aro
    Maintaining rpm above 5200 by adjusting attitude/angle of attack is not climbing at best angle or best rate airspeed. Faeta best rate seems to be 59 knots (the POH isn't completely clear). 5200 rpm at 59 knots and 120 knots at 5500 is double the speed for only a 6% increase in rpm. Pretty good, if true.
  5. aro
    Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Pilots often have a personality where they don't like being told they can't do something. But the reality is this sort of thing impacts all of us, because it ultimately results in extra restrictions being imposed. We should be aiming to enjoy our hobby as much as possible without making other peoples lives worse. Taking off/landing low over a neighbour's house obviously makes their life worse. Don't do it, unless you have discussed it with them and have permission. A related situation, a person I know built an airstrip on their property. The local flying schools found out, and started using it for practicing precautionary searches. The neighbour was OK with the owner using it, not so much with multiple aircraft making multiple low passes over their house. The flying school's attitude, at least initially was "it's legal you can't stop us, bad luck". Like I said, these attitudes impact us all.
  6. aro
    Don't believe everything you read! People would rarely use best angle, but when you really need it you don't want to be worrying about your engine. I think many Rotax powered aircraft with cruise over 100 knots or so have trouble meeting the 5200 rpm minimum at their true best angle/best rate speeds. I know e.g. the RV-12 recommended below 5200, despite Rotax recommendations. They now use the injected engine, which is a lot more flexible. Evidence? If you operate WOT below 5200 there is a higher risk of detonation and sudden failure, other than that I haven't seen any credible claims.
  7. aro
    The 5200 minimum is full throttle (wide open throttle/WOT). It's related to the propeller not the throttle position. Closing the throttle for lower rpm is no problem. Some say it's better to operate the engine above 5000 rpm but I've seen no convincing evidence. Personally, I don't like hitting the thermals hard and using more fuel just to keep the rpm over 5000.
  8. aro
    True, I left out part of the statement: The static rpm that results in a minimum 5200 rpm WOT in climb will depend on the propeller and aircraft speed. I knew what I meant! With a draggy aircraft, going faster gives up a lot of climb rate. A leisurely climb is fine once you have some altitude, but initially you want something close to best rate so you have options in case of a problem. I do tend to climb less steeply above circuit height for more rpm, but it takes a significant increase in speed for a small rpm increase.
  9. aro
    5200 rpm is the minimum recommended speed for WOT operations to protect against detonation. 5300 is better, 5400 better still. In practice, it's probably the minimum rpm for climb at Vx. The static rpm will depend on the propeller and aircraft speed e.g. I get about 5300 rpm static but only 5200 on climb out. If you have controllable pitch, you might want 5800 for maximum power in takeoff & initial climb, with the ability to set 5500 (maximum continuous) for climb or cruise.
  10. aro
    If you want to set up a flying school or charter business, I would expect that to work, but people who have done it report it's much more difficult than expected e.g. documentation acceptable for an existing business might be rejected for a new business. For a parallel alternative to RAAus - extremely unlikely.
  11. aro
    If members, aircraft, ops manuals, CASA exemptions etc carry across from one organization to the other I wouldn't call them new organizations - just a restructure/rename. A new organization would mean developing manuals from scratch, recruiting members etc. Totally different story.
  12. aro
    SAFA was HGFA, which has been around for how long?
  13. aro
    That doesn't matter. He shouldn't have had a license. Otherwise, what are training and testing for? Why not make training optional? There's a really big difference between weather at 20 knots vs weather at 120 knots. That's one thing that you would expect the training to focus on.
  14. aro
    If he had been properly trained you could say it was the fault of the pilot, but since he didn't receive the required training it's just speculation to say he would have done the same thing. One of the things training is supposed to give you is skills and information to make better decisions. It's the instructors job to assess the safety of the pilot they are training, if they are not safe they shouldn't be signed off to take the test. His girlfriend was training for PPL, so she would have know what training he should have received.
  15. aro
    Are any of the current organizations less than decades old? The rules have been written around the existing organizations, I don't think any new organizations have been created under the SASAO rules. In theory you could create a new organization, in practice you would need to spend millions of dollars, with no guarantee that CASA wouldn't just say no or slow walk until you ran out of money.
  16. aro
    When you say nothing, you mean nothing other than approval by CASA (including rewriting all the exemptions to refer to the new organization) and obtaining insurance coverage. If insurance companies decide they don't want to be in the recreational aviation business, that would be a big problem for new and existing organizations alike. Private aviation is small beer for insurance companies, if it becomes more trouble than it's worth they will just decline to write policies.
  17. aro
    It's partly out of CASA's control, unless CASA indemnify RAAus. If the insurance coverage is denied because of actions of RAAus or a claim exceeds the insurance coverage, or the insurers just decide they don't want to be in that market, RAAus ceases to exist and pilots and aircraft are grounded. Personally, I think some in CASA would like to see the end of RAAus. The various simplified medicals and the ease of conversion of a pilot certificate to RPL undermine the reasons people join RAAus, and appear to be designed to attract people back to GA from RAAus. If RAAus ceased to exist, would CASA just rewrite the existing exemptions with reference to CASA instead of RAAus?
  18. aro
    So you would have seen where the Coroner says when the ATSB does not investigate an accident involving an RAAus registered aircraft, "RAAus has provided investigative assistance to state police forces and coroners". That seems to accurately describe the situation - state police forces and coroners investigate, RAAus provided assistance. What was the Coroner unaware of?
  19. aro
    If you read the Coroners report, he is very aware of that and is specific about the problems. The report is very good, the Coroner seems to have an excellent understanding of the issues.
  20. aro
    ATSB don't do investigations for CASA. They are an independent body, and can investigate CASA if required. If you're worried about lawsuits, the last thing you want to do is an investigation. Anything discovered in an investigation can and will be used as evidence against you (as they say). A problem documented is much worse than a problem you can plausibly deny knowledge of. It appears that the lawyers have given that advice to RAA, which is why they stopped doing investigations.
  21. aro
    The question is not whether threats exist, it is whether the ASIC is a useful tool against them. Rule #1 for security is don't tell your adversary what you know. If you deny an ASIC, you tell them what you know. Maybe some ASICs are denied for trivial reasons, but if someone who is a real threat applies the ASIC must be granted to avoid tipping them off. So the ASIC is useless, arguably worse than useless because people assume that someone with an ASIC is not a threat. I have no doubt that real checks are done behind the scenes but they are not voluntary, you don't know they happen and you don't find out the result.
  22. aro
    If you look at a chart you can see it's not true. Lack of access to CTA forces you lower over tiger country. There's plenty of routes where through CTA and higher altitude would be safer. Suggesting the opposite is rubbish. But the problem in Australia is that you're likely to get "Clearance not available" even if you have the qualifications.
  23. aro
    Do you really think they flew this flight without an adequate briefing?? 100+ knots, 200 feet, at night near a busy airport? Military flying can be dangerous by necessity and people are killed in accidents occasionally. But it shouldn't be putting civilian traffic at risk. There's no justification for a route at 200' below landing civilian traffic.
  24. aro
    This accident really has to be blamed on whoever decided that helicopters flying at 200' below aircraft at 300' on approach to land was OK. The second factor was whoever decided that visual separation at night between aircraft in that situation was OK. With those factors in play it was just a matter of time and luck before this accident happened.
  25. aro
    There are a couple of videos on Youtube demonstrating how they work. Seems reasonably convincing. Arguably not as good as dynamic balancing, but it looks like the material should redistribute to reduce rotational vibration whatever the cause - maybe even blade pitch and tracking etc. They will always start out of balance due to gravity, until the vibration distributes the balance material. They will not do anything for power pulses through the gearbox, so won't allow lower idle RPM on a Rotax.
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