Student Pilot

Floats are draggy but seem to still function ok. Take an aircraft like the Beaver, the float load is not much different to the wheel load. Or a Fireboss, they work from both land and water admittedly with a reduced load but power overcomes most problems.

They were probably the ones who resurfaced the runway, cheapest quote always wins. That really works out well, look at the state of the roads, new road laid and the first potholes appear within a week.

Great pic, the Thrusters never seemed to get much praise but a good solid aircraft.

You wouldn't say that about a Drom if you flew one 😉 Yes, the bloke who owned the PA20-22 thought it a good idea to convert it. I have to admit it made a very pretty aircraft but...... Virtually no difference in performance or weight and no difference in short field ability. All sorts of claims by the STC sellers and those who want to brag but they are all wrong. It does make a very pretty aircraft though.

Sue, you have a PM

$600 in a 172 these days!!! Are they trying to discourage people?

Talking of Conroy aircraft, any body remember the Sparrow? Saw one a couple of years ago at Evens Head, Chris was demonstrating it.

Used to be one of those Darter Commanders in Bankstown many years ago.

Doesn't mean a lot, personal experience tells me people can shoot and hit aircraft with absolutely no consequences. CASA at local and Canberra level and police were not interested and took no action. If the police aren't interested in attempted murder in an aircraft then why would they worry about toys being shot out of the sky?

Yes there is regulation in place, it is ignored. An example is most chemicals are labelled at 30 litres to the hectare going up to 50 litres to the hectare. At the lighter rate of 30l your quoted 14Ha an hour would need to have lifted 420 litres in that hour. Yes they can be used in very small areas. As for general use, typical advertising hype.

So is lots of stuff that is illegal, doesn't mean people don't do it. An example is spraying of chemicals with drones. They use chemicals off label with total volume rates a tiny percentage of labelled rates. If an aerial operator was to do the same thing with normal aircraft they would be litigated out of business with the various State EPA's. Because it's somehow considered "green" to use drones it's ok to do things illegally.

The first video, 100'000 plants a day with one drone? What capacity seed hopper? What weight per seed? As with most of these drone promotions pretty fanciful. I am not against UAV's, just the bullsh!t they peddle. There are some very able UAV's and countries that utilise them to their full potential, most I have seen in Australia are hobbyists or gov bodies who were sold a flawed concept and spend way too much for what they get. The Turkish Bayraktar is an example of a capable multi role UAV.

A very young pilot in a larger sophisticated machine, he wouldn't have much experience at that age.

Henry Hudson still own it?