F10

Yes, interesting case. The yaw and nose up pitch caused by power, in a power on stall, can get you into trouble. Taking the aerodynamic factors or mechanics of an autorotation, the start of the spin, I think what is important here, is there is a difference between the incipient recovery and a fully developed spin recovery. In the incipient phase, the stability or aerodynamic forces acting on the tail, are dominant and if you immediately centralise the controls, (stick neutral or slightly forward of neutral), power to idle, the aircraft will recover immediately. In a fully developed spin, moments of inertia in roll, pitch and yaw, have built up, the aircraft wants to keep doing what it’s doing, according to Newton first law. Most aircraft will be considered to be in a fully developed spin after 2-3 turns. So this is when you need to pull the stick back, to prevent rudder blanking and go check power off, then full opposite rudder, ease stick forward, to install wings. I think it is not vital to “stabilise the aircraft”, especially if you don’t have much altitude to work with. Rudder blanking not so critical in my view. Just start the recovery. Spin recovery can be confusing because for a short period of time, about 3/4 of a turn, the rate of into spin roll, increases. This is because the outer wing will un-stall first, causing a short duration rapid increase in roll rate, before damping in roll suddenly stops it, as the aircraft recovers. At the end of the day, your aircraft flight manual instructions on spin recovery actions, should always be followed.

Good job, you can see he held off the bad leg as long as possible, nice!

Glad to hear you got away with just wet wheels, phew, it was close! I guess that Jab, being GRP, might be ok....? Terrible event, feel for the poor Lismore dudes.

One interesting comment on the 737, from the Max disasters was the fact the 737 airframe has ben pushed possibly...beyond it's capabilities. This is interesting because to me, the best airliner Boeing ever made, was the 727. Now yes, it may not look as pretty with two turbofans on the rear end, (I think because of the size of the high bypass fan, the third engine would have had to have been ditched). But the 727 had more sweepback than any other Boeing, giving it a cruise speed of 0.9 Mach due to the sweep delaying local Mach shock wave development on the wings. The airstairs at the back, no airport equipment required. The grouping of the engines in the tail meant an engine failure on take off, only resulted in the VSI sagging by 300Ft/min, in the cockpit all you heard was the hiss of airflow over the windshield. It handled like a fighter, no heavy engines on the wing to dampen roll rate......Cool machine! Just seems strange Boeing didn't look at developing the 727 rocket ship. Maybe with the 737 issues, a big mistake?

Finally....the satisfaction of actually for once seeing little silvery water drops in the fuel tester...!

Fond memories of flying 152’s with the Durban Wings Club, Virginia Airport, Nadal South Africa, during high school holidays. Every minute was like gold! One incident, stuck my head a bit too far out the open window, and my sunnies got whipped off, to disappear in the sugar cane fields far below….hopefully found one day by a lucky cane cutter.

Desperation I guess you could strap four or five 200 litre drums to the side of the fuselage or under a Cherokee’s wings! Might reduce damage to recoverable levels, but then same problem, leaving it till too late?

Spin is a stalled condition, with this difference, the “autorotation”. When one wing stalls before the other, it drops and the aircraft yaws towards the greater drag of the dropped wing and rolls towards it, as it has less lift than the high wing. Flat spins (aircraft close to level attitude) have high rates of yaw, compared to roll. Nose down spins tend to have higher rates of roll, to yaw. On spin recovery, the high wing will install first. This leads to a sudden rapid increase in roll rate, for about 1/2 to 3/4 of a spin turn, before damping in roll stops the roll, abruptly. This “wind up”, can look like the spin is getting worse, but it is in fact, a sign of recovery.

I wrote to Coastal Aviation recently, enquiring about Skyfox spares. They said they will look, they have quite a lot, then Ron mentioned they are thinking of building 25 and 25N Gazelles again. Interesting, maybe the Ukraine situation might increase incentive and might make a locally produced, affordable and locally supported aircraft in this class, a workable proposition? Hopefully the 100 Hp 912S will be used as an engine, I think this will bring performance up to the level of Kitfoxes and Eurofox, without re-certification nightmares.

Anyone looking for hangar space in the central/south Gippsland area, Yarram airfield spot available. Message me.

while Yeah if there's one thing about a separate trim tab setup, is that it gives you another way to fly the aircraft, if you don't lose the whole elevator. Pitch control with power changes can work, but not easy. Bad sitch really. I recall the terrible Japan Airlines 747 accident when the rear fuselage pressure bulkhead failed due to an old repair done incorrectly. As a result, several thousand cubic metres of pressurized air flooded into the tail section and blew off the entire tailfin, or about 90% of it. Also lost elevator control I understand. They flew it for quite a while using differential thrust, but eventually hit some high ground, terrible event.

Bad news! Foxbat is a nice machine, it would be on my shopping list if I had the folding plastic....Yes, Foxbat, NVG's and a gattling, it would be fun! Russians proving to be as useless as many thought. I hope they bleed big time...I lost a few mates to Russian supplied weaponry in Namibia (South West Africa), weaponry they have absolutely flooded the world with....every loonie rebel or jihadi and his dog, has an AK47 and a ZSU 23-2 mounted on a bloody Land Cruiser. I distinctly remember the Russian gun camera films of their strikes in Syria, they always seemed a bit off target...Every A10 Thunderbolt pilot in the world must be absolutely salivating at the sight of that tightly packed 3 vehicle deep convoy.....the 30mm Gatling would have a field day.

Horrendous! Did that Tiger Moth survive? The one Cherokee had a lot of long grass under it, so probably derelict in some way, but you gotta wonder why others weren't flown out....as I think this airfield has flooded before? Terrible situation.

Brings a whole new meaning to "Hanging on for dear life!" Cor blimey!

Unload....in any stall, spin, base leg stall, unload the wings (stick FWD).....the aircraft will fly again, it has no option but to fly again.... People in the circuit or close to the ground, or frightened....will instinctively pull back on the stick, back means...up...to safety....but unfortunately not in a stalled condition. Back now will mean...down....windshield full of brown instead of blue.....pants too!

Pics of the Gazelle in her new West Sale home. Nose art indicating the old life and the new! Such a pleasure with the Gazelle so much more accessible distance from home wise, and we don’t need to fold wings! Had a fun flight YWSL to YLTV, went walkabout to see for any open hangars for a chat and came across a David, who was prepping a nice looking Piper Pacer for startup. Interesting as this aircraft he said, started life as a Tripacer, but was converted to a taildragger Piper Pacer….apparently as are a lot of Tripacers. It looked good, with nice fat off airport tyres. Dave was off to the run up bay/compass swing bay, to give the engine a run up and power check. Battery was bad so I offered to man the cockpit, held the brakes and selected left impulse mag on his shout, and she started quite easily on the third or so hand swing. Good fun! After that it was a fun flight back to YWSL, with a swing over Sale township, before landing. No better way to spend a few Sunday hours!

Nothing worse than a bad instructor, especially the shouters…really annoys me, I’ve held both helicopter and fixed wing instructor ratings, not current now, but even with my experience, a shouter unsettles me. Now at least I just return to the field and on shut down I say, “Sorry mate, but we’ll never fly together again”. Then I’ve flown with instructors who make it such fun you’re bursting to go fly again. When it stops being fun….Houston we have a problem! Bob Tuck (my boyhood hero) very nearly washed out in flight school, because he was trying too hard. On his wash out check, he kind of gave up and just enjoyed the flight…and flew brilliantly. The CFI said to his concerned instructor when they got back, “Not to worry, he’s just twigged the whole thing”. He went on to become one of the top scoring RAF fighter pilots of the war.

No probs, it's achieved it's purpose of reminding us we all make mistakes and to be aware/mindful.

I would think removing one door would be ok, two could allow to much airflow in cabin and could be a drag problem. Cherokee doors often have opened in flight without big issues, because I think it’s only got one door. Best policy is stick to what flight manual allows!

Haha! Excellent! Fly that over some popular night spots at 02:00 in the morning, and you will have a lot of people give up drinking!

Taking off downwind, we’ll sometimes there’s a reason (runway slope being one), but if you do, increase your rotation speed or lift off speed accordingly. One thing I like about glass fibre or composite, it sure is strong! Probably why he could walk away.

How could they descend below MDA, without having the runway visual? Very strange….

Wheel barrowing can rapidly get out of hand, as the aircraft slows down, the tailplane becomes ineffective at damping out the pitching and you lose control of the bouncing, or get out of synch with desperate elevator inputs to stop pitching (PIO). Prop strike or broken nose wheel is the result. Yeah, Jab brakes, adequate for taxi but going for flights in a mates Jab 160, I did find it a bit uncomfortable having to reach past the control column. feels awkward if not used to it. I'm happy with my Gazelle's very conventional control positions, namely central stick and toe brakes. Having said that, the Gazelle will never become famous for having powerful brakes....Another thing with the Jab, once the nose wheel lifts, you only have rudder for directional control, this may have been a factor? People do mention nose up pitch and normally left yaw with power application, but to me, you need to have a pretty powerful motor for this to exceed controllability surely?

Murphys Law, just noticed the aircraft accidents/Incidents page, happy for an administrator to move his post.

This started with me doing a repair to a broken support bracket on my Gazelles LHS muffler. Every 10 hours of so, I lie on my back and have a careful look at the engine undersides with a torch, through the rear cowling air opening, as the bottom cowling is a bit of a job to take off. I noticed the broken bracket. A rubber strap is attached to the bracket, supporting the rear section of the muffler. A mate did a great job welding the bracket back on. I removed both mufflers cleaned up areas, painted them in high heat silver and attached brackets with new hardware. Rotax Service manual calls for Loctite anti seize compound to be smeared on the exhaust tub ends, so the mufflers don't corrode onto the stubs. This I did. Satisfied with my work, I put back cowlings, oil tank burped engine, checked fuel contents and drained sumps for water, dragged her out the hangar and was keen to get airborne! Having done maintenance, and spent two days looking over the Gazelle in the hangar, I felt I had more than the usual pre-flight and as such climbed in without my final gross check walk around. Taxied for RWY 09 West Sale. Wind was 160/16, not great but in limits. Started my take off, acceleration and rate were normal, speed was indicating but low and fluctuating, things happen fast and she was in the air, as I do, held the climb attitude and saw speed was very low and fluctuating. I watched the flickering IAS needle and was surprised to see it still only showing 20 odd Kts....Then it clicked... Whipped my head left, there was the red "Remove Before Flight" ribbon happily waving at me, with still attached pitot tube cover....I was astounded I had simply not noticed it, despite looking around whilst in the taxi and doing control checks!...🙄🙊🙈 In that instant I thought, land back. But in this crosswind and the end of the runway approaching, I decided a need a moment to assess this situation. I selected the climb attitude and climb power, knowing it would give me the normal climb performance. I selected the GPS page showing ground speed, as taking the surface wind into consideration, this would be a useful speed reference. I flew a 500 Ft circuit, using standard power settings and flight attitudes for downwind and base leg descent. I try fly constant circuits with as few power changes as possible, which gives me a good idea of power settings required in the circuit. All the time I referenced the ground speed readout as an indicator for safe speed. I flew finals and landed without further incident, appreciating the Gazelles gentle handling! Safely on the ground and shut down, I inspected the landing gear for what could have been a high speed touch down and examined the pitot tube for any damage. Furious with myself, 😡 I started up and carried on the local area flight, happily with no further issues. Airspeed indications were now normal and as per usual she sailed along without a care in the world. Well what can I say..... my first pitot tube cover forget in 35 odd years in the game, hopefully my last! I have filed an incident with RAAus, so hopefully some may learn from it.