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nomadpete

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Posts posted by nomadpete

  1. 2 hours ago, RFguy said:

    WHAT is missing and is really stupid in aviation, if I may say so myself is SELCALL to radios.

    IE your radio goes beep beep beep if it receives a specific code, entered by another radio user

     

    This SHOULD HAVE been mandated in radios 30 years ago. 

     

    If couriers and mobile dispatch people in the 1970s can have it....

     

    In that case, the ADSB-OUT that carries the ship's callsign  would be used by ATC to alert the operator with a direct code sent to their radios.  (Mode S has this facility) 

     

    AND it could be sent out on 50 frequencies simultaneously in 0.1 second.....

     

     

    RF Chap,

    What is really missing is the increased safety that would be brought to aviation by changing from antiquated AM, to FM.

     

    Can't see why shipping has a more functional VHF system than aviation. Marine radios can instantly add GPS coordinates to a voice transmission.

  2. On my lightwing, cowls overlap the fuselage. It only had two clips on the top section. I'd use dzus wingnuts. They should be easy to visually check, easy to release/refasten without tools, and difficult to drop in long grass.

    The lower cowl was fastened to fuselage by three csk screws on each side, with csk washers and captive nuts.

    This setup adequately kept the cowlings in place.

    • Like 1
  3. Absolutely awesome, Phil

     

    It shows their great skill, with mounts, tracking mechanisms cameras and post processing.

     

    And to think it's the work of so called 'amateurs' in their back yard, with modest sized telescopes.

    Galileo would be so stoked!

     

     

    Thank you.

  4. Nev, I think you might be over complicating things.

    Gliders teach energy management better than powered flying appliances. After all, gliders don't have the luxury of extra energy on tap.

    And most gliders ideally land in a three point even though their nose doesn't point as skyward as noisy tail draggers. 

    As you point out, proficiency in one machine sure doesn't assure competence in a different machine.

     

    I'm no instructor, but I really think that glider experience greatly aids progression to powered flying.

     

    • Like 2
    • Agree 1
  5. Risk takers........

    My tale is not of an accident. Rather its about an accident looking for somewhere to happen. So maybe it does qualify as 'hooning'.

    I live on a hill half a kilometer from a river. My front deck is 700' ASML, but our driveway is along a narrow valley which rises to an end behind our house, at about 1000'AMSL.

    So, when I heard what sounded like a Rotax coming up our little valley, I started scanning to see the aircraft. I spotted it through the tree trunks, still below me, and it was heading up our narrow dead end valley. As it went past the last possible U-turn point, couldn't believe there could be a reason to drive into narrow rising ground. I heard the throttle open up. I lost sight of it and started listening for the sound of breaking trees. The pilot managed slightly more than a 90 degree turn on full climb and just cleared the hundred foot gumtrees behind our house. It had my adrenaline going. It looked like maybe a Foxbat.

     

     

    Human factors?

    Showing off?

    Poor training?

    If I had my camera, I would have identified the aircraft and made a complaint to RAA because, apart from flying at less than 500' over houses, it looked like reckless behaviour of the sort that gives us all a bad name. I hope there wasn't any passenger.

    • Like 2
    • Informative 1
  6. 5 hours ago, kasper said:

    If Governments want to change the charging for road infrastructure from excise on liquid fuel to a km rate and base that rate on GVM I am perfectly happy to do that.

    Just picking up on the Discourse on Victoria's proposed mileage tax for electric vehicles.....

    As proposed, it is a clear disincentive to EV users.

     

    If they want to implement this tax in its present proposed form, they will cop a beating.

     

    If they want to revise vehicle registration costs wholesale, and I suggest it is a good idea to do so, all they have to do to gain acceptance, is to charge ALL vehicles a tax per kilometer (relative also to GVM).

     

    It should fit in with the right wing concept of 'user pays'.

     

    Why should my mother-in-law pay the same car registration as me, when she only does a few thousand k per year but I do 30,000k per year? Clearly she shouldn't have to shoulder as much expense toward road maintenance as me?

    • Like 1
  7. Aaah the war wounds! Mine are fading now, too.

     

    My darling wife keeps trying to mother me. Recently during a break between the neighbours trefelling activities I grabbed my chainsaw to deal with a couple of saplings. Her good self, ever watchful, screamed out "Put that f........en chainsaw away!".  Of course, cowed, I put it away. So did the other bloke half a mile up our valley! 

     

    Take care, Bex, that's the only body you get to live in, so make it last a lifetime (well, as far as we know. And that's when the fight started)

    • Haha 3
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