nomadpete

At least you agree with my gliding training. thanks

Thank you to our RAAus office staff. My plastic Pilot Certificate has arrived, accompanied by another paper copy of the pilot certificate. Pity that we have to collectively wear the expense of this associated rework by our office staff. They have more than enough work on their plate without having to mail things out twice. Multiply that by 8,000 members (or however many we really have) and it represents a lot of money and effort wasted. It's not the office staff to blame. I hope someone takes ownership of this wastage and puts some better processes into action.

A real engine fail on takeoff is completely different from a rope break on a glider launch. With a glider, there is no grey area. Rope breaks - it is instantaneous and unambiguous. You are usually flying at 20kts or so above stall speed and can use that to execute the 180 without massive height loss. So the training kicks in instantly since there are no other decisions to delay things. However, when an engine falters it is seldom an instantaneous failure, and a first reaction (whilst the mouth is checking for the right expletives) is to scan the instruments and assess what is going on. Those seconds are all it takes for airspeed to bleed off even if you did put the nose down (draggy ultralight verses a slippery glider) and you cannot get it back without trading off a lot of height. Next reaction is to try to stretch the glide whilst turning low............ very risky. I'd rather opt for a controlled survivable crash rather than the likely stall and spin that would be next. One other consideration is this: I had my Lightwing fan stop at about 300 feet. Now, if I had everything going for me and I managed to instantly execute a perfect 180, (in reality it would need closer to 500' height) I would have another big problem. I would be landing downwind with a set down point that left me with less than half of the strip to get on the ground and come to a stop before the fence stopped me. In the event I landed ahead and rolled to a stop just past the end of the strip. Lightwing glide ratio = 9:1, Training two seat Glider ratio = 30:1 That's three times further.

OK Andy. It looks like the wheels are starting to turn. Maybe I will soon be humbly apoligising for my earlier cynicism. That is, if a certain re-resignation is not re-retracted tomorrow.

Did somebody say something to upset him? There's plenty of time to retract it again, I say!

Has anybody heard any news about the Barnaby Wainfan designed Facetmobile? There surely is a lot of scope in the amateur building arena for a ultralight of this type. A pity that he appears to have shunned the opportunity to release plans for his well developed design. If a few u/l versions were built, it would raise the general awareness of this form or aircraft and give him a better chance of raising finance to get his business afloat. Peter T

Engine Reliability: I am interested to know if there are any statistics about aircraft engine failures - that are related in terms of MTBF for each brand/ model? It is no good just saying that 'X' number of brand 'Y' engines failed this year. We need to know in relation to hours flown, just as accident statistics should be related to hours flown, and numbers of landings, not just to the calender year. As it is now, we get to hear individual cases (some folk delight in bagging out a particular brand) which cannot be extrapolated to give a realistic picture of reliability. Since all failures should have been reported to RAAus, it would only take a modest data filter to provide a list of engine reported failures related to brand/model/hours in service.

OK. Sorry about the drift. Does anybody else have any cynical predictions that they can support with evidence? I have been watching this space as advised, and so far there has been no announcement of any of Andy's predictions coming to fuition.

Now you're really splitting hairs. Or am I just being Cynical?

That is what makes a true 'grumpy old man' Well, it worked for me.

In GLIDING (please take this in the context of glider activities) - Murphy's law dictates that there will seldom be an ideal wind blowing straight down a strip. So, PRIOR to take off, you check the wind sock and predetermine which way the cross wind component is. Then you say to yourself, "In the event of rope break at (X height) I will pull the cable release, lower the nose and turn downwind, then turn back". All in the one movement. That way, the downwind part of the turn (away from the strip) is made with the greatest glider speed added to the crosswind speed, and the last part of the U- turn is made after speed has bled off, allowing the cross wind to drift you back onto line with the runway. After that you still have to deal with a downwind landing. The goal is to avoid a 'S' turn onto final at low air speed and height. Of course, this practice would only translate to noisy aeroplanes at a much greater height. Generally a glider is being towed with an airspeed that is gives a higher margin before stall speed, than can be expected with a powered aircraft set up for climb. Combine that with a much nicer sink rate, and the manoever becomes a practical emergency procedure for a glider whilst still being very risky for a powered aircraft. The decision to turn a glider back MUST be made automatically and instantly, whilst airspeed is still high. That is why it must be rehearsed in the mind as part of each pre takeoff checklist. The height at which it is a safe option will depend on all variables such as obstacles, wind speed, lack of safe ground ahead, aircraft performance.

Kaz, Can I conclude you are of the same Gurney family? Peter

Well, that argument spiralled down into a depressing hole

My point is this - If things are as bad as all the suggestions imply, the sooner official action takes place, the sooner we can get on the road to recovering our flying privileges. Waiting will only make the end worse.

Maybe the first step forward is to clear the air of any possible legal repurcussions. That requires outside intervention. So who should bring the possibly criminal transgessions to the attention of the authorities? Which authorities could be able to (and be encouraged to) investigate? Which actual suspected incidents should be investigated by the authorities?

There are only two times when you won't understand your woman - before the wedding, and after the wedding........

There is a Moral to this story - "Be very careful who you trust"

It shows how jittery and skeptical we all are. Still half expecting skeletons to come out of our RAAus closet. I just re-read the HGFA President's well articulated report of December 2009. Published in Soaring Australia. It seems that they have been through it all before we did. Their "Special General Meeting" resulted in the removal of five Members of the Board (out of nine). They got themselves a new President who assured members that "the assumption drawn here is that members were not only voting to arrest the direction of the board..... but were also sending a message that the style of the board was not supported" and "I have yet to see any evidence that additional layers of bureaucracy.... help in getting services to pilots.." I like his style shown in the report. He also intimated that there was a need to bring together the two groups - the disgruntled reformists and the 'happy as we are' members in order to unite members. Which is another thing that we need to work on. All stuff that RAAus has so recently been through. Their revolution was more thorough than ours has been, and seemed more effective for that. Perhaps we were too gentle in our approach. Luckily there are a few new people who are starting to open the doors of communication a little. "Thank you" to those people. But by comparison we still seem to have a dinosoar of a board, appearing to be acting like all is well. No signs of real changes yet !

So, apart from Andy having a bad day, it looks like nothing actually happening.