cscotthendry

5 hours ago, RossK said:

Fuel pump off helps with radio transmission apparently.

 

Technically, turning base is the only call you're required to make, so if he was doing circuits that's all he would be making. But yes, he should have heard your joining call and either spotted you and made room, or called you and let you know where he was, so you could make room.

 

I am aware of some pilots that think that as they are in the circuit, they have right of way, so the only call they need to make is turning base and the onus is on the joining pilots to see and avoid - similar to some guys I sail with who won't call starboard as the the onus is on the port tacker to see and avoid them.

Neither is great when the give way person doesn't see them and a collision occurs.

Both water and air are very unforgiving environments to have that attitude.

Yes, I've encountered people like that, on the water and in the air and on the road. And they might be dead right one day. Like the guy who jumps out infront of an oncoming truck and is certain he has the right of way, but still gets squashed by the truck.

17 hours ago, Garfly said:

 

True, most would agree that ADSB IN/OUT, as currently deployed in Oz, is more of an alerting tool for terminal areas than it is for the circuit, per se.  That being said, reliance on any method of separation in the circuit can be potentially suicidal. And that includes (as the video well shows) good old fashioned 'alerted see and avoid' (radio-on/eyes-out).

Whilst I agree that heads down in the circuit is not at all to be recommended (for the reasons Walrus lists) if, in the case of the video accident, ADSB had been working in both aircraft and set up for glancing at - as opposed to fixating on - the collision surely would have been avoided (a more feasible scenario in the US where ADSB IN/OUT is close to universal). The close and closing threats would have been obvious at a glance (whereas not, it seems, from peering outside into clear blue sky).

 

In fact, the mental load Walrus cites: 'trying to make sense of positions' is precisely what the device's visual display has already taken over for you.   It's 'making-sense' via the oral/aural route that's really mind-consuming: all that half-heard (mis-heard), stepped-upon, garbled, sometimes plain-wrong, info-babble.

 

So it's not smarter to have eyes outside searching sky-left when the threat is coming from sky-right (or, worse, sky-high or sky-low) because someone said (or we thought we heard) "east" when "south-east" was what was meant.  Or, more to the point, "cross-wind" when "mid-field, cross-wind" was what was meant.

 

I've said it before; when properly set up, an ADSB-IN display, can be compared to the mirrors we rely on (but not entirely!) while driving.  Staring into your mirrors trying to work out what the traffic behind is up to is not considered best practice anywhere, by anyone. On the other hand, integrating mirror glances into our driver's scan is expected practice on the road. Mirrors give us crucial info - and quickly - that no amount of full-frontal ever can.

 

But sure, I realise that it'd be a rare case when ADSB would, in practice, come in handy in the circuit if for no other reason that we probably wouldn't have it set up for that 'glimpse' mode.  (Unless we were expecting trouble, which we usually aren't because usually the system works well enough. Until ...)

 

But anyway, just hearing of the cases other posters mentioned makes me, like Thruster, look forward to the day when ADSB IN/OUT (whether the proper ones or our cheap-skate conspicuity devices, becomes more or less universal here in OZ.)

 

Just in recent weeks flying around the fairly busy Port Macquarie - Taree area I've had multiple occasions where my SkyEcho2 has come in useful in arranging safe separation around terminal areas (usually with commercial aircraft like Air Ambulances and choppers and RPTs who are always ADSB equipped.) 

 

Like others, I have been amazed at how often I fail to pick up with my eyes the very close targets that the display tells me (and the radio confirms) are right out there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All this discussion and the fact that other airplanes are hard to spot even at relatively short distances, brings to mind the discussions past about radios in planes.

I remember some comments from people with very simple aircraft that they”didn't need a radio” because they could “see and avoid” and that this was superior to having a radio anyway.

But then, even having a radio is not the be-all end-all either.

I remember a situation at Gympie where I joined the circuit on crosswind with a radio call announcing such. I turned and tracked downwind and at the point where my finger was descending on the PTT to announce my turn to baseon 14  I heard “Gympie traffic Jabiru ???? Is turning base 14” WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!!! Where did HE come from? I heard no radio calls from him prior to that, neither did my pax, a very experienced pilot. I held my breath waiting for the hit and extended downwind and saw the Jabiru shoot out directly underneath me.

Since then and after a number of other circumstances with crap Jabiru radios, I have no faith in whatever radios Jabiru put in their planes at all.

There is also this:
On a long trip with a group, I ended up in a situation where another aircraft was above me in close proximity. I could hear him transmit to me telling me that we were close together, but he couldn't hear me. My guess is that his antenna was on the top of his metal plane and the plane was blanking my transmissions. I'm not sure why I could hear him. Maybe it was the signal strength. That is, the attenuation from his metal airframe had more impact on his received signal than on his transmitted signal.

It was a scary situation because I knew he was close and I kept asking him what height he was at (about six times in the space of about 30 seconds) and he kept calling me to see if I'd heard him say we were close together.

4 hours ago, RFguy said:

I got Astra a month back . I'm 50

I think the best I heard was about life-jackets : 

Astra/Pfizer comparison, like being on a sinking ship, and there are two brands of life-jacket, and one lif-ejacket is known to have a failure rate of 1 in a million.  and people are worried about the 1 in a million faulty lifejackets and wont put those on.... 

Delta R0 is between 5 and 10.... that's the problem. I'm in CBR and currently holding off my 2nd shot of astra to try and get to 7 to 8  weeks between shots  to maximise effectivness. currently I am 4 weeks in from the 1st. No COVID n canberra yet.. yet, YET  but it is creeping down the freeway, and as soon as it appears, in the next two weeks, I will pull the trigger on the 2nd shot.

 

Don't wait. As soon as you're eligible, get the shot. Apparently peak resistance occurs about 40 days after the second one.

I saw an interview with a woman who lost her husband (in the US) they weren't ant-vaxx but were waiting to see which one had the least side affects. While they were waiting, hubby got the bug and died from it. Now she has a Go Fund Me to try to pay the medical bills.

BTW, I've started calling Delta The Republican Mutation after the numerous morons in the US who are ant-vaxx, ant-mask, anti- social distancing, anti-lockdown ... basically anti-everything to keep them safe.

Don't like me calling them "morons"? What else do you call someone who gets their medical advice from politicians and Rupert Murdoch?

The vaccine was never promoted as preventing us from getting the disease. It was always a mechanism to prepare our bodies' immune system to deal with it and reduce the effects.

Each year, I get a flu shot and fairly regularly, I still get the flu. As more and more people get resistance to COVID by either vaccine or by having the disease, this virus will become like most of the other viruses that we are exposed to and get infections from.

The COVID-19 virus is from the same family of viruses that cause the common cold. It mutates like the cold virus and we will still have to deal with it going forward. It is here to stay. But hopefully soon, its significance an lethality will become like the common cold and flu viruses, and then life can go on as before.

What rankles me is that the people who refuse to get vaccinated are walking petri dishes for new and possibly more infectious and lethal strains of the virus and that is keeping the danger level high and as a result, the governments are keeping things locked down to try to stop the spread and reduce the contagion. I also object to paying (through my taxes) for intensive care for these people when they get seriously ill from a disease they could have done something about.

At the rate we're going, Scomo's target of 80% vaccinated before we get back to “normal” looks unachievable. The anti-vaxxers are multiplying by the day and I don't understand their motives or reasoning. I do however, suspect that a very successful disruption campaign is being waged by someone via social media. In the US the choice to vaccinate or not has become highly partisan. I can see some direct actors pushing it there, but I suspect some others doing it behind the scenes as well.
Here in Oz, it doesn't have the party political flavour to it, and it could just be the effect of “If the US sniffles, we catch a cold”. But the effect is the same. The anti-vaxxers are preventing all of us from returning to any normalcy and I'm bloody angry at them for that!

If it was windy (20kt+) and you were in proximity to hills, you may have experienced wake turbulence from the hills. It extends quite a ways above the height of the hills and quite a distance down wind too. As the winds get stronger, so does this type of turbulence. Be very wary of the lee side of mountains and hills in windy weather and expect turbulence there. Below the height of the hills, you can expect Rotor effects as well. Rotor can smash you into the ground and can exceed your aircraft's climb rate which can prevent you from climbing out of it.

I don't mean to frighten you, just to make you aware of where the turbulence is coming from so that you expect it if you fly in those areas in those conditions.

You mentioned paint thinners, is that white spirit? I use that on glue residue. It still takes a bit of manual effort but it works reasonably well. I worked for Bunnings for a while and they used to use metho and turps mix to remove stickers from the shelves. That also required rubbing. I don't know what that glue is made of but it's sticky stuff!

When in doubt, RTFM.

I don't understand how people or organisations with a public voice can get away with advocating that people not get vaccinated. It's not just irresponsible, it borders on criminal. It also ensures this whole mess will be prolonged and exacerbated as the unvaccinated incubate new and more virulent mutations.
However, those who refuse to get vaccinated will help thin the gene pool of some of the stupidity that is circulating these days. I think that when allocating health resources for COVID victims, priority should be given to those who've chosen to be vaccinated. The others? Well, they chose to take their chances…

Yes, I mean what else is a multibillionaire to do with all his money? Pay his employees a living wage? HERESY!

Anxiety will exacerbate motion sickness in a car, boat or airplane. The ONLY way to overcome that anxiety is with familiarity, knowledge and confidence and all that comes from sticking with it.
When I started flying in trikes, I got a few frights which built up a lot of anxiety for me to the point I didn't like flying. Then I developed a phobia about losing control of the trike because of the control forces required for manuvering. So I switched to three axis flying. It still took a while to overcome my anxiety in turbulence and I still get a tiny bit of it if I haven't flown for a while (like months). BUT, it's mostly gone now.
It WILL take time to overcome the anxiety, so be patient. It gets easier every time and the more you fly. Trust me, the reward of being able to get up in the air and the magnificent views make it all worthwhile in the end.

I finally found my flight planning sheet

Three legs to a column, six columns to an A4 Sheet (double sided)

Most of the fields are self explanatory. I use the bottom section for enroute frequencies.

Before you decidenot to use the epoxy to seal the ribs because of the cost, consider this;

Once you put the covering on and paint the wings, it's going to be a very long time before you can ever access those ribs again. Isn't it worth the peace of mind to apply the very best sealant to the things that are keeping you from plummeting to the ground unexpectedly?

I made one with Excel with the static headings protected field so I can't edit those. I can only edit the fields that contain variables like frequencies and runway lengths. Each table is one third of an A4 page so I can get three legs to one sideof a page, or six legs to a double sided page. Each leg has three sections for waypoints/fuel stops.

I'll post a pic if anyone is interested…

On 29/06/2021 at 5:56 PM, Garfly said:

Here is an interesting extended interview with Ken Krueger about his part in the Ranger.

 

 

 

I spent quite a lot of time with Ken and his wife Susan at Oshkosh in 2017 just before the plane was released. He was at the show to promote it. They camped behind us so we talked about the Ranger and Ken's role in it a fair bit. He's a very knowledgeable, but completely humble guy.

9 hours ago, duncan_rtfm said:

Hi Scott,

This is something I didn't think of doing.  Excellent idea.  Fortunately, I have plenty of pieces from two "failed" attempts at building the fuselage, forcing me to return to the CAD package, redesign pieces and start again.  I'm using West System BTW.

Duncan:

From memory I was using a glue called T80 or something like that. It was epoxy. I didn't finish the build and sold the kit. Back then I didn't believe in using gloves and respirators and I've often wondered if I had completed the kit whether I would have become allergic to the glue.

The first pic is the kit I was building and the second is how I was going to paint it.

37 minutes ago, duncan_rtfm said:

I cut all the ribs for the rear wing today.  Every rib is a different size, because the wing is tapered.  Next job: cut the jigs for the wing panels (tomorrow's job).

 

That's just gorgeous. I love seeing wooden airplane components. I think it's the most elegant use of wood possible.

AND, it looks like you're doing a brilliant job cutting the parts out.

1 hour ago, Kenchhidu said:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1501101250251330&id=550825918612206

 

20 minutes ago, FlyBoy1960 said:

NOT HAPPY JAN !

I had a look at the facebook page (not a facebooker so I might not have seen it all) and looked on the airshow home page. I didn't see anything about postponement or cancellation.

Yeah, Some mothers do have 'em. I hope that the businesses that were shut down on the sunshine coast by the Victorian couple who drove up here against the rules, sue them for lost income.

Hi Duncan;

I'm probably telling you something you already know, but are you keeping test pieces of your glue ups?
A long while ago, I was building a glued wooden framed kit and every time I did a glue up, I glued two scraps together with that batch of glue. Back then, I was building under SAAA rules as I don't think RA AUS (AUF) was in existence yet. The SAAA inspectors wanted to see the test pieces and see how they broke, ie the wood should fail before the glue.

We'll be there. Haven't checked the weather yet. I find that the forecasts get a bit iffy more than two days in advance.

9 minutes ago, APenNameAndThatA said:

I can see more why instructors are said to add a few kts to the book as a safety factor, even if it is a bad idea. Your speed has to decay somewhere, so it might as well be a foot off the ground, (even if it takes longer because ground effect decreases your drag). 

 

 

That is what I do now. I do have the luxury of long enough runways to do that. It may not be feasible for short field landings, but I avoid those when I can.

"Your speed has to decay somewhere, so it might as well be a foot off the ground,"

Agree totally ... up to the point you're in danger of running out of runway. But then there is the GoAround option.

Thermals can account for these gusts on relatively calm days. What feels like a crosswind is a thermal off to the side sucking air across the runway.
You felt in a 172. In lighter planes (ULs and LSAs) it can be more pronounced.
In addition, these gusts can catch you out if you don't watch your airspeed close enough. I had one drop my airspeed 10 knots while landing and because I had let the airspeed decay a bit, the drop in airspeed put me into a stall and the left wing started to drop. My aircraft has very benign stall characteristics so I was able to quickly recover with full throttle, and nose down correction. If I had been flying something with critical stall characteristics like one of the scale Spitfires, I probably wouldn't be here today.
Now I monitor my airspeed in the circuit VERY closely.

What Walrus said, or worse, what happens if a lump is dislodged at 200 feet over trees at the end of a runway on takeoff.