pmccarthy

The first ever life insurance policy was sold in England around 1850. It was a one year policy and the bloke died on the last day. The insurer then said a year should be defined as 52 weeks of 7 days, so the bloke had died after the policy expired.

I seem to have a maximum loading per two seats, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't think that structurally the weight on seats alone would be different from seats plus luggage, which is right behind the seats. And if the limit is the seat structure or seat mountings then it would be a limit per seat, not per both seats. It matters, because I might be within all up weight and within CoG but not the seat plus seat limit, so am I insured?

How many aircraft have a weight limit for pilot plus passenger? I see a lot of big blokes getting in and out at fly ins and have seen some large instructors with large passengers. With correct fuel loading they may be within all up weight limits and CoG limits, but is there usually also a pilot plus passenger limit? I ask because I am a big bloke myself, fortunately my wife and usual passenger is a slim ( and for the record highly attractive) occupant of the right hand seat. If I take my boofy mates for a fly we are over the P+P limit with no baggage and regardless of how much fuel I put in the tank.

JATO was used on the Catalina Frigate Bird 2 for the pioneering pacific crossing. Have the book on my shelf.

In 1970 GA training cost me $13.50 an hour in a Victa when my income was $2,700 per year. Multiply both by 20. Training at $270 and income at $54,000. That is not an unreasonable situation for someone today, RA training around here is much less. My first house cost $14,000 which would be $280,000 today, about the price around here of the same tired old miners cottage hat I bought then. so again the same. It isn't the cost, at least for country folk that is killing GA. I think a lot of the fun has been taken out of it. Lack of a friendly local Flight Service unit. Lack of a fun aero club full of young people organising parties and weekend trips. Lack of an aerobatic trainer so that you can progress to aeros on the same plane you learned on. Shortage of young women wanting to be flown somewhere for the weekend. No free documents service from the DCA to make you feel important. No ex-airforce dads and uncles wanting to be flown to Tasmania for a few days. No Biggles books. No Airfix kits. No control line flying on every school oval. I could go on...

I agree with the proposed change.

One of the most memorable displays in 2012 was the restored greyhound buses. It would be good to have car or truck or motorbike club displays, perhaps changing from Sat to Sun. The clubs would come to see the planes.

Steve it would be helpful to know just what has happened on insurance. I think you said RAAus insurance is making demands on you? I don't understand that. Have they paid a claim to your "mate"? You might, not know, I suppose. Did you have aircraft insurance that included public liability? It seems strange that any insurance company is having a go at you.

The insurance company takes over and tells the claimant what he must do. Best mates doesn't matter. Once a claim has been lodged the insurance company takes over. I've been there. You may believe you have a perfect defence but your insurance company will decide to capitulate and settle with your mate's insurance company. Neither of you is given any choice in how the thing proceeds. Steve, don't blame your mate, he is caught up in the machine.

A Rudder is shorthand for a labor voter.

I support this. I have seen limited terms work well elsewhere, the reinvigoration is worth the ongoing need to bring new board members up to speed.

The first Natfly Temora was reportedly great, i attended second then third not so great. Third was more of the same minus some of the good bits from the second. So many probably thought like me for the fourth, I know what it's going to be like and there are competing family pressures to do other things, I'll skip this one. A promise of new and interesting events would bring me back next year. I wouldn't go back just to see the same aeroplanes.

That explains why no voting paper. Does anyone else have trouble following all of this? I read the mag and these blogs pretty thoroughly, but as an ordinary member I struggle to follow what is going on. I admit paying more attention to the flying bits, and maybe age has something to do with it, but a lot of the discussion seems to require a lot of personal knowledge of characters and events that I don't have. I'm sure the information is there, it is drowned out by a lot of other stuff.

Thanks Alfa. I was looking in the latest SportPilot ... Not there I think. And I didn't have the sense to look in the Members section of the website, I was looking in News and the Calendar. To complete my admissions of inadequacy, how did the voting papers arrive? I guess they were in the Plastic sleeve for the July Sportpilot, in which case they ended up in the bin. I haven't received a separate letter.

I just filled in my proxy form. I want my state rep to be my proxy - how can I know his address and member number? Don't say ring him, because there are thousands of members asking the same question. He will be snowed. Surely just writing his name and state rep is sufficient?

Then there is a section which says vote in favour or against ( delete as applicable) followed by a list of resolutions which each requires a tick for or against. It is illogical and a very amateur document. It gives me no confidence that we are well organised.

And by the way, when do votes for the election close? I can't find mention of it on this site, on the RAAus site, or in Sport Pilot. Not impressed.

I landed after dark into crossed headlights 40 years ago with 4 POB and scared myself so much that I have never come close to doing it again. I agree with Motz, you will only get caught once.

Area reps can be branch chairs, involved in organising local events, but have no place on the board, for the reasons given above.

The aged appearance of the cockpit in an older GA aircraft is a turnoff to passengers. The trim handle looks like the window winder on dad's old Holden. The " dashboard" shakes when the engine starts. The seats might be a bit tatty. Passenger looks around and thinks " would I go flying in a 1960s car?" Maybe if it is an immaculate restoration, not if it is a working vehicle with tired- looking aspects. The latest LSA can also have negative aspects. That CO detector stuck on the panel. Hand- written compass card. ERSA shoved on top of the panel. All of these say that this machine will not be as reliable as my new Korean or Chinese sedan, which has an immaculate interior. The ideal 21st century LSA would be factory produced, interior trim up to car standards, no need for any customisation or change by the owner. Passengers would queue up, but much of the fun would be gone for pilots!

The appearance and trim on a new Bristell goes close, according to my wife, but it doesn't offer the 300kg useful load that would clinch the deal for her.

Even the Jab230 has only 230kg useful. 300kg would make all the difference. But it isn't possible in our current regulatory environment. The Avocet looks good, but isn't it limited to 600kg with RA Aus?

The aircraft that will rejuvenate aviation needs a slightly bigger payload than a LSA. Allow for two "typical" people today, who may each weigh 90-100kg, and 20 kg of luggage. 100 litres of fuel is enough for a Rotax 912. So nearly 300 kg of useful load. Such an aircraft would be useful and would have wide appeal, like the Cessna and Piper offerings of the 1960s, but in two-seater form and running on Mogas.

My eldest daughter is 39 this year and she started her flying experience in a bassinet in the back of a Cherokee. All the kids still enjoy flying with me when they can, all now in their 30s. I just wish I had taken them flying more often when they were young.

Experience in industry generally is that incident reporting is fundamental to good safety management. Accidents and especially fatalities are too few statistically to point to paths for improvement. So the non- access to fatality information is not important. We need a culture of incident reporting that produces a rich database that will enable identification of root causes and opportunities for improvement. Having said that, my own observation over many years is that aviation incidents are not reported in GA or RA unless a lot of people were watching it happen and might report it independent of the pilot. So we need a change in culture, which I think must be driven by a change in the behaviour of the regulator. We will not have a reporting culture unless the threat of retribution is non- existent. This is well understood in the industry that I work in.

No mate, It's the valley that runs up the middle of Mt Elliot just South of Townsville. Possibly an old blown out volcano from thousands of years ago, as there are a lot of areas of lava rock also ....Somewhere up in there is the wreckage of a DH mosquito that hit in bad WX during WW2. Wouldn't be too much left now...........Maj...

The Sport Aviation section on the CASA website says quite a bit under pilots/sport aviation about RAAOs and its ability to terminate arrangements if they don't meet their safety obligations. So is it possible that after December we will all be required to migrate onto the new recreational GA licence? If that happened, what would become of aircraft registrations? Would they need to be Experimental? I'm told that Warbirds and RAAus cold both be reorganised because of incompetent leadership. I don't know enough about this to know whether the threat is real.

I was told that there is a critical date in December for the Driver Licence Medical exemption CASA ex68/12. Apparently after that date CASA might find it easier to move recreational flyers over to a limited GA licence and closer regulation. Is there anything in this or is it just pub talk?