cscotthendry

Recently CASA started making noises about lowering Class E airspace to something along the lines of what it is in the US. Here's a couple of things about that: a) CASA is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist here in Oz, that is the traffic density that exists in the US. b) They got royally spanked for their suggestion, but don't assume that this has gone away. They'll likely just get it quietly legislated and then announce it fait accompli. And c) if they do that and you want to fly at over 1,200’ AGL or whatever they set it at, you WILL need a transponder.

IMHO, the move to lower E airspaceis a result of a bunch of bored bureaucrats trying to justify their existence. We don't have anything like the traffic they have in the US and we NEVER will.

Re ASIC: A total WOFTAM. I had one for three years and was asked for it only twice, once at Dubbo and once at a FIFO airport, both times by some officious little jerk asserting his power.

On 14/10/2021 at 9:07 AM, F10 said:

Escotthendry, that Legend 600 looks very nice, very Cessna look about it. Who makes that? Rotax engine? Very nice!

The Legend is manufactured in Czech Republic by a company called Aeropilot. Yes, it was deliberately designed to look like a scaled down C182. It is carbon fibre and the cabin area has an extra layer of Kevlar from the firewall to the rear window. Ours has the normally aspirated Rotax 100HP 912ULS. The BEW of ours is 313KG with a MTOW of 600KG. My wife and I can safely take off with full fuel, 120L, and 35KG of luggage behind the seats.

Some more pics

In the second pic, you can see (if you look closely) the cargo area behind the seats. It can accomodate much more luggage than we can safely carry. But even then we can carry 35 KG and remain in CG and MTOW.

In this video, you get a better look at the luggage space.

Some pics of the Legend

9 hours ago, F10 said:

Crab for me…kick it straight on touchdown, stick over into wind. Wing down just complicates things, I’ve seen more getting out of shape lifting that low wing (aileron will be down, on the into wind wing….not great) than stick into wind on touchdown. But I concede, probably a personal preference. Crabs worked for 6500 hrs….not changing now. By the way, airliners gear is engineers with being able to touch down sideways, it’s actually recommended, changing a few tyres in that Bob Janes tyre shop hanging below them, costs a lot less than scraped engine pods and possibly fodded engines.

One of the things I don't like about the “Crab and kick it straight” method is the precise timing that requires and the other thing is changing from the Crab to the Crossed controls at a very critical point of the landing, ie right at touchdown.
If you miss the timing of the switchover, you'll start to drift off the runway, or worse yet, if there's a bit of a bump on the runway (as most I've taken off and landed on have) and you snag a wheel while still crabbing, it can be unpleasant at the least or damage the plane at worst. But in any case, you are still landing with crossed controls.

BTW The aileron on the into wind wing is actually up, not down. If the aileron were down, it would lift the into wind wing.

Finally, this was not meant to sound snarky and I hope it doesn't. As I said before, cross wind landing technique is a personal choice and it comes down to what works best for each pulot and aircraft. There is no “right” answer.

Do birds do recreational flying?

The Galahs certainly do! They also hang upside down from powerlines like some lesser skilled pilots.

I have a Flight Data FC-10 in my plane. It is good and relatively cheap.

5 hours ago, kgwilson said:

I disagree. You do not eventually have to transition to wing down at all. For most crosswinds except approaching the aircrafts crosswind limitations (say 15-20 knots) the wings stay level and you just kick the rudder to straighten up to the runway a second or two before touchdown, and keep the rudder that way and ease off as you slow. You only use aileron in to wind after touchdown and ease that off as you slow. It is essentially a reverse of the method you use for takeoff. When climbing out in a crosswind if you want to keep along the centre line you will be in a crabbing upwind climb.

 

My aircraft is a low wing so will handle crosswinds better than a high wing IMO due to friction slowing the wind closer to the ground. I was trained in a C150 though and the crab/rudder flick was the only method taught then (1980s).

If you're flying straight and level and you kick the rudder over, what happens to the wings?

I think your statement that the wings stay level is not accurate or true. It doesn't matter if you do that at 10,000 feet or 10 feet, the effect is the same. If you kick the rudder away from the wind, the other wing WILL rise. That is how modern airplanes are designed. Worse yet, it will be the upwind wing and if the wind is strong enough it will lift the wing even more. What you are unconsciously doing is crossing the controls at the last instant. If that works for you, that's good. There isn't a right/wrong answer to this, only a preference dependent on your training and the type of aircraft you fly.

I use the wing down method. Because? If you crab in, eventually you have to transition to the wing down (crossed control settings) to straighten up to the runway. If you start with wing down (crossed controls) you fly that all the way to the ground, no need to change methods just as you're about to touch down. Also it presents the pilot (me) with a direct view down the runway on final which I find easier for lining up the centreline rather than an oblique view through the side of the windscreen.

HOWEVER, I'm aware that wing down has its limits for low wing aircraft.

Here in Brisvegas, you'd get a sizeable ticket for doing that speed through the tunnels!

12 hours ago, Marty_d said:

There's a problem with the line of thinking that a businessman would make a good political leader.   I refer you to the USA, 2016-2020...

True enough. We have a doctrine of separation of judiciary and state, and a doctrine of separation of church and state. We need separation of business and state.

And BTW, in Trumpistan, the separation of church and state was sorely tested. If I were POTUS Biden, there are a lot of churches that would lose their tax exempt status for politicking from the pulpit.

Jay;
I am an American living in Australia, but I travel quite a lot in the US and did a little research on flying there. This is what I discovered after just a little research.
There are places that teach Recreational pilots, but not very many. I think the reason for that is the amount of controlled airspace in the US, certainly compared with Oz.

In Oz, (currently) class G airspace extends to 8,500’ and then class E starts. That means that aircraft that don't have a transponder can fly up to 8500 in a larger portion of Australian airspace. In the US on the other hand, class E starts at 1,200 AGL in most places so that means you have to have a transponder. That pushes the price of an aircraft up. Not prohibitive, but still affects the rec aircraft market. Also, around 85-90% of Oz airspace is class G currently, but CASA is trying to Americanize our regs, (eg class E at 1200’ agl) which is being resisted.

Secondly, a good percentage of American airports have towers and so are controlled. That means sport pilots aren't allowed there (under Australian rules and I'm assuming US rules are similar) so again this limits the sport flying market.

But something the US has that we don't have here in Oz is the (I forget what category it is) that allows you to fly without a license. The aircraft would fall into the very light microlight category and I think they may be limited altitudes wise, but still that may be something to look into. But even if you can fly them without a license, you should still seek proper flight training before attempting to fly. These aircraft are exclusively single seaters, so you better know what you're doing before you go up in one, or your first flight might be your last.

Good luck with your flying and please keep us updated on how you get on. I for one will be very interested as I would love to do some flying in the US while we're travelling there and would like to know what other options might be open for me.

7 hours ago, kgwilson said:

I watched the 2 part doco "Fox & the big Lie" & while some will say it is Leftie propaganda it was obvious from the interviews that there are still masses of people in the US who have that indoctrinated and intrenched view & nothing will change their minds. They continue to say the evidence is about to be released, 10 months after they lost all the court cases because they could not produce a shred of evidence. This is the same sort of dogmatic viewpoint of those in the video "Dying in the name of Vaccine freedom" yet this viewpoint is still promoted by senior Republican politicians in the US.

 

There are plenty of supporters of this "idealogical freedom" idea everywhere & it baffles me how they are able to ignore all evidence that is produced and cherry pick tiny pieces of information by someone or some organisation to bolster their view even after that has been debunked. The only thing that I can agree with them on is the often confusing and contradictory information coming from our politicians who twist health advice to suit their own political agendas.

 

 

A LOT of this "My Freedom" BS is coming straight out of the Murdoch media. The Republicans and the Right wing echo chamber have created a self-reinforcing feedback loop of self-destructive behavior and rhetoric.

It is no more clear than the linkage between numerous Fox opinion pieces touting snake oil "remedies" for COVID like Ivermectin, which has caused a rush to the feed stores by the Trump/Fox cult. That has sparked a rash of hospitalizations from poisoning. Ivermectin is a neurotoxin designed for worming horses. The difference in dosage for worming horses and for human use is substantial, but the difference in dosage between safe for human use and potentially fatal poisoning is miniscule.

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.