Ian

2.3m sounds pretty tall. Australia's tallest person.

Has anyone used an electric bike/scooter or similar to get to/from the airport?

I actually think that there will be a resurgence in flying due to the ability to work remotely far from the office. Modern knowledge workers don't need to live in major cities and these cities are perceived as unattractive by a significant number of these workers. The attractive places to live are often poorly served by RPT however many of them have airfields in varying states of repair and it takes too long by car to get to a meeting and back. The requirement to go onsite is often just a monthly or fortnightly requirement however there are still the issues below. Planes as a package needs to get better, the fact that a homebuilt plane can be better what the market provides is a bit of a damming indictment. You can't build a car that comes close to what the market provides. Secondly costs of training needs come down significantly if you actually want people to fly, why is a driving instructor with a car $45-$75/hour and the cost of flying so much higher. However if this pans out, the majority of this new group of "aviators" will be simply commuters and may not have a passion for flying. But at the very least it could stop the atrophy which appears to be occurring at the moment with land developers buying airports. You may also be right about drones, doing most of the flying as generally they can do a better job for less, a military pilot hasn't defeated an AI in the same planes in a decade. However drones will need airfields, hangars and other infrastructure. Given the choice between $20000 of instruction and the ability to buy a self flying commuter what are most people going to choose? But that's sometime off right ;-)

One of the things that I like about Rutan was that he tried things and moved on. Some of the designs worked and others didn't, in his later years there's nary a canard design to be seen. Personally I thought the Voyager was a really clever design. All design is a compromise, in exchange for simplicity and safer flight characteristics you get longer takeoff and landing rolls because you can't approach unsafe angles of attack to wring the last bit of lift out of the plane. Rutan worked on spin recovery for the F4 Phantom and this strongly influenced his views on how planes should behave and this is reflected in his designs. The RFDS requires the ability to operate out of less prepared dirt airstrips so if the P180 was shortlisted I'd question their judgement. It's a bit like choosing a Ferrari as a police car. In relation to the comparison between driving, boating and flying there are different risks however all of these activities can kill. Luckily in planes there's a whole other dimension so you're unlikely to collide with another vehicle however the consequences are generally higher. There will always be people complaining that there are too many drivers who shouldn't have a licence or that pilot training is inadequate however in reality the industry is dying. I'd prefer a thriving industry with a lower barrier to entry supplemented by technology to assist people with their judgement. For instance weather cams at popular airports, simple web apps which provide advice on routes weather conditions. A single desktop computer with a graphics card is more than capable of calculating proximity alerts for every single active plane is Australian airspace based upon ADSB data and performance characteristics.

Have the options changed around the ACT and is the following summary accurate? Comments appreciated Canberra Airport, rumours are that it's not GA friendly, is there any GA hangar space available at all? If so at what price? Can anyone comment on this. Tralee, closed/developed Goulburn Airport, unusual fees charged on some taxiways, some discontent between the existing leaseholders and and the owner. Court cases relating to fees. Tumut Airfield, very nice looking area, but a long way away through the mountain pass, much longer by sealed road. Polo Flat, purchased by Snowy Hydro and not interested in GA Cooma Airport, privately owned no hangars Nice looking private strip near Michelago, limited by council with powerlines across the strip. Williamsdale Airstrip - Great idea just never got off the ground. It would have come in handy during the fires of 2020 to help control the fires in Namadgi and Michelago. http://www.canberrasecondairport.com Kennedy Field near Adaminaby, great rates and it appears to be a group of people with a passion for flying but it's a bit of a hike from Canberra and the strip is a bit shorter than other options. Cootamundra, Young, Cowra are all a hike Did anyone keep running with the Williamsdale option?

No, not common and I'm just in the process of taking possession of it so it's a bit early to comment as yet. Once I've done a few hundred hours in it I might be more confident.

Not sure if it was one of his better designs but yes there STOL canard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Grizzly

Why do you say that canards are harder to fly? The following link would appear to imply that's not the case, accidents related to control loss are significantly lower than the rest of the homebuilt fleet in canards (except for the quickie which has ground handling issues). https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4016414

There is still a lot of interest in flying however there are significant barriers to entry and ongoing accessibility issues and a government bureaucracies which aren't interested in GA. To learn to drive a car or boat costs a few hundred dollars, to learn to fly costs about $20,000. If you live in Sydney and can afford a plane you're not going to be located anywhere near where you can house a plane. Canberra has to be the only capital city in the world with only a single airport, and that airport doesn't cater the general aviation. For example to drive a car I can learn from someone with experience in the vehicle of my choice and pass and examination provided by a Government body or a private examiner. To get a boat licence I can pass a test and gain experience with an existing boat owner. To fly a plane I need to interact with a flight school with multiple levels of instructors, chief instructors etc, fly in certified aircraft etc. Some schools can offer shortcut training programs where they qualify with fewer hours, for example commercial pilots can qualify with fewer hours through some programs. While I agree that the training associated with flying should have more rigor than a car licence that doesn't justify the current broken system. The system should be broken out into instructors and assessors who are individuals with qualifications rather than the present mess which tries to create a business model.

As someone who recently went through the process if getting their pilots licence and buying a plane there's a few things that you might want to consider. Find an instructor who you're comfortable with and do the training from start to finish in one or two runs. The whole couple of times a month doesn't work as you need to constantly reinforce skills and life gets in the way and suddenly you're back to square one. Do the theory and exames first, it might give you a clue about your ability to complete the program. What the mission, do you want to cover distance, visit family, fly with your partner, fly over mountains and oceans, short field operations or hard long strips. Do you want to go further with your qualifications IFR, night operations, fly above weather I ended up going down the path of a centreline twin, experimental as I have a family dispersed around the country, run a business where I sometimes need to travel to rural areas at short notice, and wanted the reliability of twin engines without the problems associated with asymmetric thrust. Flight schools may push you towards longer training periods however that's to suit their cashflows and resource constraints rather than your needs. Personally I think that the experimental pathway is a much better approach simply because it's the part of the aviation industry that's thriving. I would have preferred to buy a commercial offering however the industry is moribund and overpriced and sells decades old technology which isn't fit for purpose. There should be a vintage airplane licence and any plane which doesn't have a completely automated engine management regime should be classified as vintage. The theory about how to manage fuel/air mixtures turbocharger wastegate operations, carb ice, detonation management etc should be relegated to this category.