nomadpete

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.

But suspenders can keep the interest up !

Andy, I really hope that you are just having a down moment.

You might have some moments when you think that flying is all fading out of your life, BUT once you've been bitten by the bug - sooner or later you'll find yourself back around aircraft. From time to time I have been away from flying and yes, I lost some skills during each absence. Then I enjoyed the challenge of brushing off the cobwebs and renewing the joy. However, enjoy and foster your relationship first and foremost. Your flying is not damaged by having an on-and-off relationship, but your personal relationship needs constant care. Congratulations on your coming wedding.

Woman Stops Grizzly Attack With 25 Cal Pistol This is a story of self control and marksmanship with an itsy-bitsy shooter by a woman against a fierce predator. What is the smallest calibre you trust to protect yourself? The Beretta Jetfire: While out hiking in Alberta Canada with my boyfriend we were surprised by a huge grizzly bear charging at us from out of nowhere. She must have been protecting her cubs because she was extremely aggressive. If I had not had my little Beretta Jetfire with me I would not be here today! Just one shot to my boyfriend's knee cap was all it took and I was able to escape by just walking away at a brisk pace. It's one of the best pistols in my collection.

But who else has the respect of the scurvey crew? Surely a rebuke from me would not be taken as seriously as a comment from my respected instructor or mentor? There has to be some form of acceptable correction for those of us (well, not ME of course) who do things that are to risky to keep doing?

Maybe you should stop wearing that hoodie when you go shopping !

Ultimate pilot incapacitation - Waiting for aircraft registration to happen !

Arrrrgh ! What have I started?

OK, not really important I suppose. Just that a plastic pilot certificate card looks quite readable after it goes through the wash. Not so, a piece of paper ! Never mind 'peak oil'. Have we reached 'peak plastic cards' ?

Anyone else find that their pilot certificate renewal card didn't arrive? My renewal was a paper copy only. There was a polite accompanying letter saying that 'due to unforseen circumstances, there is a shortage of plastic cards' and to use the paper renewal until the cards become available. Peter

Just love that little chuckle as he rolls up to his hangar.

Translation - "What did you say" really means "You got three seconds to take that back, smartass"

As mentioned above, You don't get to go solo on a glider in Australia until you have demonstrated a 180 degree turnback at low altitude. Note that this must be done in the context of the performance of the particular glider, your instructor is right behind you, and the whole decision making process is as important as the actual maneuver. By the way it gets the adrenalin pumping when you do it. Part of the preflight checks include listing your rope break options (as dodo said). I would hope that we all recite our options for EFATO just before each flight. That way the correct action comes naturally when stuff goes pear shaped.

During a lady's medical examination, the doctor says:- "Your heart, lungs, pulse and blood pressure are all fine. Now let me see the bit that gets you ladies into all kinds of trouble." The lady starts taking off her underwear but is interrupted by the doctor. "No! No! Don't take off your clothes... Just stick out your tongue!"

Adult Scrabble... Rearrange the letters to spell out an important part of the human body which is even more useful when erect. P N E S I People who wroteSPINE became doctors...The rest are all my e-mail friends.

I work in an industry that has some low probability hazards that offer high consequences. We say "one flash and you're ash". Kind of like when I get into a RAAus machine. If my employer can set targets as below, why can't RAAus? "We acknowledge that our goal to have a high performance safety culture is something that will take time and we are aiming for a three year timeframe. The Safety Roadmap provides the framework for how we will reach our goal. This will help define why safety is important at "XXXXX" and it will help communicate the safety initiatives to come." Sure it has its element of BS but I would like to point out that although we all joke about our management's "over the top" safety BS, we have probably got the world lowest death toll in a hazardous industry. I note that our last three fatalities were caused by left field unforseeable events like lightning strikes, and momentary blond moments. Our safety record is the result of a strongly fostered SAFETY CULTURE. And leadership comes from the top. It works.

The CFI and BFR issue: If a pilot has been getting noticed for irresponsible behaviour, or perhaps lapses of skill, then it behoves the CFI to take that into account as well as the actual performance during the BFR. However, I feel that our culture does not go far enough to support the brave CFI who sincerely wants to take action to get a pilot to improve his culture or skill level. After all it will involve a loss of face for the pilot in question, and impose the expense of further training ( and risks the counter argument that "he's not all that bad" and the CFI stands to make money out of it, etc ....) It undoubtably would cause some ill feeling. So we need to offer better support to our CFI's if we are to use them to be the air policemen. As has been pointed out there is not much in our 'self regulation' to allow control. We really don't want to end up with heavy handed government regulation and if we are to be allowed to self regulate then it is up to US the members to regulate those who are creating our cowboy reputation, and those who should do more training.

"At the present time in RAA the CFI's are the ones who signed off those cowboys to operate, no one else so the responsibility rests with them for the bad conduct, unless a layer of auditing and enforcement people takes over that role. " That's what a BFR is for. I wonder how many CFI's would be brave enough to use that opportunity to penalise (ground) these people who are dragging down the reputation and ultimately thesafety record of RAAus ?

Nev, Human factors is not just a load of ass covering BS. It is stuff that we must regularly remind ourselves of rather than ignore. However, nobody was claiming that it is the sole answer to the hazard management that we must observe whenever we do anything (even flying!). The other issue that has been rightfully raised (and it is a human factor) is the safety CULTURE of each pilot. This culture is a combination of the pilot's learned behaviour and the person's deeply ingrained character. Some are just incurable cowboys no matter what their CFI may try to instill in them. Some are naturally cautious and courteous. Happily I find that our CFI and most club members arent too hung up to make a comment when required. And since it is done kindly, the culture is pretty good. Anyway, until the rest overcome our natural tendency to quietly mutter to ourselves under our breath, when we see somebody do something dodgy, the culture won't improve. We all have a duty of care to improve the culture of our fellow pilots, if only to keep the bureaucrats from putting the hobbles on our sport. And another thing .... Accident reports are essential. Just my take on the safety issue.

You'se southern folks are fortunate. I just got mine today - a week after you. I think it takes longer to push it all the way uphill to Sunny Queensland. Nice to see SR still spreading happy reports. Shame though that the Organisation Restructure Committee work has dropped onto the back burner once again.

Now this is really interesting. A bit tedious at first and rather long to listen to in this age of sound bite news, but....... I'll be thinking about it next time I fly someplace in a big metal tube. Luckily Australia is not important enough for the real terryists to do much damage to us. And there I was, just worrying about the cost of ADS-B. The lack of security of the system is appalling. At work we are constantly doing risk assessments, seems none of the aviation safety bureaucrats considered the risks. And now we are stuck with it world wide.

I'm not sure but I suspect that "Merry" does not always equal "gay". Anyway, global warming should cheer up all those drab, greyed out depressed poms.