FlyingVizsla

He probably made it back to Thandwe airport and turned off the unit - let's hope. His track looks like 2 attempts to proceed with 2 returns - maybe turning back due to weather? It looks like real tiger country he was flying over. Ridges from 200m to 800m thick vegetation. Does he have a blog?

Sue

Another issue I came across when looking after Rolleston & Springsure strips in Qld was Native Title. When the airstrip was extended it required a slight alteration to the nearby road reserve. That gave rise to Native Title issues over the whole strip. I had to go back as far as I could to get documented proof of a substantial alteration of the landscape. At first the only proof was an account for grading some decades after the strip was established. So it would be prudent to collect as much dated data as you can, interviews, photos, invoices etc against the day you will be called to account. I was also required to get cultural custodians of the various tribes (at that time the area was not under claim) to walk the land and advise on any cultural signifigance. This varied from not bothering to visit as he knew there was no activity there, to a zealous collection of broken stones in dozer tracks and sticks that looked scuffed, to the guy who took a deep breath and declared he could feel the spirits. In the end it was determined there was no cultural heritage that would stop the airstrip being used for its primary purpose.

Sue

I don't think the nitty gritty should be discussed here. It will only open a can of worms for people to apply their various opinions, sensibilities, my CFI said, folk lore, ethics, iritation levels, and other yardsticks. In this instance - the fine details should be left with the observer, perpetrator, the authorities (if reported) and any other person who has control eg CFI / employer.

Start a new thread on Good/Bad Airmanship and discuss what is is/not acceptable on there. This will do more for safety than dredging through this issue now, especially as the reporter is now identified. Sue

Longreach will be hosting a number of events - outlined in the attached flyer.

There will be a charity dinner at the Qantas Museum, Guest Speaker Jon Johanson – (world record holder) auction, greet the Wings of Life flyers on their journey around Aust, buy swap & sell, SAAA maintenance course and more. Well worth the journey.

Sue

LONGREACH FLY-IN INVITATION.pdf

LONGREACH FLY-IN INVITATION.pdf

LONGREACH FLY-IN INVITATION.pdf

I think Darky has done the right thing (on this forum) by raising the issue of "How do you report something you think is dangerous" and resisting repeated requests to disclose all.

Pilots in the future will search for this thread after they have seen something that disturbs them, looking for what to do next. That's the advice I would like to see here. After the issue is reported it is up to the authorities to decide if it is an issue worth pursuing. Even if they don't pursue the individual it does add to the body of knowledge that indicates trends and may engender a funded education program, changes in regulations, increased training etc.

It also encourages pilots to comment if they see something dangerous. It is important, especially to new pilots, that we comment on the safety of the action rather than lauding the daring-do. In plain English - if you saw a take-off followed by low level loop that nearly bought the farm - don't say "Wow, Great, Fantastic" etc, say "How dangerous is that .... " and explain why it was wrong, lest someone else try to emulate the stunt.

Sue

Good on you Darky, for standing up for what you believe is right. I've been involved in a number of fatal / serious injury accident investigations where the people around me mumbled things like "we knew this was going to happen" but didn't do anything about it. Good mate of mine who was always pushing the envelope with regards to legality, aircraft performance and his own ability, already with his wings clipped by CASA was preparing to depart, I remonstrated with him regarding what he was going to do, and one passenger/friend decided to stay behind. He ended up killing himself and his passenger in someone else's plane on that flight and insurance refused to pay out. Another guy was reported by residents for swooping and knocking over TV aerials, landing on roads and generally making a menace of himself around town - the local pilots (including me) didn't make the call - but someone did and Middo came out to speak to him and point out the penalties for unlicenced & unregistered shenanigans. This guy had "taught" another club member how to do low level aeros in his Bantam. His father saw what he was doing and read him the riot act, but bouyed by misplaced confidence in his "tutor" he promptly went out and did more, crashed, broke nearly every bone in his body, wrote off the plane and was left with the loan, mortgage, no means of working, no insurance, a farm he couldn't work and a young family with no income. There was another guy "teaching" IFR even though he wasn't qualified in IFR and one of his "students" ended up killing himself on his first real IFR flight. In hindsight we should have done something earlier.

There are some people you can't save, but by standing up to say "this is not acceptable" or "this could be improved" you may save someone else a good deal of heart ache. Unfortunately our society tends to applaud risk takers and rouges. Then others less skilled or lucky try to emulate them. A very good book, if you can still find it, is Darker Shades of Blue - The Rogue Pilot by Tony Kern published by McGraw-Hill 1999. He investigates the reasons why these undisciplined pilots put their own egos above all else and become a danger to us - and how to deal with them. He covers a wide number of aviation accidents - it is a good read.

Sue

Hey Dieselten,

What you said really resonates with my experiences. The higher up they are the more "risk averse" they get. They guy on the ground will go out and do it and probably gets a wrap over the knuckles if he didn't jump right in and do it and if he did and it didn't work out. The senior manager can easily justify leaving things in danger while either following the manual, policies, risk assessing etc. At the inquiry they fall back on this and keep pointing out they had to the make "the tough decisions". When it finishes happily they are the first in front of a camera. Our recent floods - the locals upstream were warning of the huge body of water coming for 2 days previous - management ignored them "preferring to wait for official word" hundreds of homes were unprepared - they then blamed the officials for not warning them sooner. They then get a pat on the back for a good job done. So they are now going to put in another automatic river level gauge, and still not listen to the locals. One of our guys who persisted in ringing to warn them was asked "and what would you know about it?" he pointed out he had lived there 70 years and had recorded river and rain for 120yrs+ and this is the biggest river rise ever. He wasn't "Official Advice" and so was repeated ignored. Another lot refused to allow owners to retrieve their equipment because there was a flood coming ... the locals wanted to keep an eye on the river and take drivers down in a ute so they could drive their stuff out, and if the watchmen decided the water was getting too close to overtopping then they could abandon the equipment and jump in the ute and move out of harm's way. The more senior managers decided not to allow anything until they had done a complete risk assessment. Three hours later the water came over and drowned everything. Success! no personnel were harmed! I actually sat through a presentation by senior management saying what a raging success this strategy was.

In outback areas you can get some height and it is amazing how far you can see. I took a tourist up once and he noticed something I took for granted. The earth curves and you can actually see it, that is you can see to the horizon as it disappears. With a bit of height you can survey quite a number of roads, especially as there are few trees and a stationary car stands out. You can then direct a vehicle to the spot, otherwise there are 1,000s of kms of back roads, that may be closed in sections which is no obstacle to an aircraft. Most outback ultralights have UHF, as do most stations and local cars, so you can check with people who know or are closer to the action.

Sue

Right now the coal price is high and there are lots of mines opening with huge wages. Its fragile, and any number of factors could end the boom and then we will be left with a lot of people whose only skill is driving a big truck round in circles in a highly protected environment. It is back to front - the plant operators are being paid more than the fitters, electricians etc. The spin off for aviation is the number of charters available for remote flyin/flyout mines. It will all come crashing down some day soon.

Sue

Go to Wikipedia and search for "Steam Aircraft". There is a good article there with a lot of references to the Besler steam aircraft. Scroll down to the bottom to find useful links to further information. What's missing is the critique on the design and the reasons it never went past a prototype. According to the 1930's article the engine weighed 180lb. (81kg) and it could do 400 miles on 10 gallons (38 litres) burning fuel oil at 800F (but didn't say how much). A condenser reclaimed the steam, cooling it to be reintroduced to the water tank, claiming 80-90% efficiency. One article claimed the Beslers were aiming for 100% reclaimation "where upon they could remain aloft indefinately." Journalists were clueless back then too! Another article said the engine was 500lb (225kg). There are a number of newspaper archive sites which have contemporary reports, but most appear to be of the "media release" variety - the Yanks being good at publicity. I guess the problems were the fear of sharing the craft with fire, fuel & boiling water and the logistics of including extra weight required for steam generation vs the internal combustion engine. They were also working on a steam driven car.

Sue

Agree with you Jake - the pay system is all mixed up. Step son failed high school, lost job after job, but now operates an excavator at $160,000 pa (7days on 7off) and we are trying to recruit an experienced GP for 24/7 work as the only doctor in town in charge of the hospital (short staffed) and all private doctor work in this and the next town for less than that. I know an orthodontist who pedals machinery at a mine and earns more, with less responsibility and stress, than following his profession. World is upside down.

I think the advantage that the Barcaldine Qld Club were pursuing, was the local knowledge of pilots, their prior SES or Emergency Services involvement / training and flying experience (knew what the land looked like & could navigate). In their minds the scenarios were: vehicles overdue (probably on a little travelled back road), person lost on a property (they measure in Sq kms out there, sparsely treed), plane missing / down.

The understanding was that more serious search & resuce aircraft were a long way from the area and would take a while for the decision to call and to arrive. The previous searches that instigated the offer of help were a woman driving to a property to work (not familiar with the outback) - the car broke down, she waited hours with no water in 40+ temps then decided to walk to the homestead. Alarm was raised hours later after a call to town established she had left on the two hour drive. Thinking was an ultralight could get up high and note any cars not moving and report so someone on the ground could drive there and investigate. The woman died of thirst before she was found, her body clearly visable from the air. A similar thing happened with a German tourist who took a wrong turning and ended up out of fuel on a back road for 5 days. He was found by a property owner flying home (any car not moving is a cause for concern) who took fuel out to him, he was well provisioned, and he ended up staying at the property for a few days.

Outback Qld is flat country, sparsely timbered and great visability. The Club wasn't interested in joining in intensive searches in tiger country, or with lots of other aircraft. They were looking at getting a bird's eye view and getting out early. Being experienced searchers they knew all the tricks of the trade, how people go slightly off course, the direction determined by their Left or Right handedness, when faced with up or down hill, which way they choose, distance possible on foot from vehicle given elapsed time etc. On the ground distance visability is hampered by heat haze, which isn't such an issue above.

Their heart was in the right place, they had a fair idea of what they were doing. But when you promote something like this the organisation has to look at all scenarios over many districts, before approving. In their minds they would have been thinking about the risks of using small aircraft in tiger country to search for a small target, possibly in conjunction with a crowded airspace and airband. I can see why their answer was No Thank You.

Sue

We've got a temporary shelter - described and pictured in this thread http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/aircraft-covers-fuselage-wing.9807/#post-97025 - which cost us about $3.5k, custom built to suit an existing tarp that we had. The idea was it could be disassembled by one, but preferably 2 people and moved to another location. They can be cyclone rated.

I got a quote from a company that does cyclone rated semi circular shadecloth shelters that can be fastened to the ground with star pickets, or other models can span between shipping containers to get more height. Unfortunately the quote was $45k to cover a small plane.

Allshelter quoted approx $12.5k for 12x12x5 and $25k for 16x15x 5.5 for something similar. This is just the relocatable structure, earthworks, fixings extra.

Sue

nafqr

Its very refreshing to see someone so dedicated to the cause. So I am thinking you want to promote and diseminate the cause as much as you want to fund raise.

First thought is a fly-in, where you can do the things on the ground that raise funds quickly - BBQ, drinks, selling specially labelled wine, raffle, auction, commission from trade sales. I see a number of fly-ins are combining with other events eg classic cars, bikes - if there is someone else in your group that has a passion, see if you can combine to increase the public participation. You could do a 'progressive dinner' idea where you fly somewhere, do the event, fly to the next etc breakfast here, smoko there, lunch elsewhere thereby attracting a different crowd at each.

You could fly someone special from place to place. Get his/her story in the papers to drum up some interest in coming out to see & hear and then fly on to the next. If you come up with some spin, like 10 microlights flying along side to show that cancer suffers are supported by their community - message being you too can support someone. People like to "buy" something tangible, so offering "packages" like $100 buys counselling for 3 families, for companies the "Blue Ribbon Sponsor" a predetermined value donation gets advertising, plaque for the business' wall, and mention at events. Don't know what's available in your state, but have a look at grant/sponsorships on offer. The grant may help you initially set up, eg buy branded shade shelters, commercial food van, cost of liquor licence etc. Your local council may provide works at cost or free if you need to prepare a venue. Use all the available "Event" listings to get the word out - this site, Council's what's on, magazines, flyers, local radio. Form teams and drum up support. Perhaps have a road component to complement the flying, teams, each going under a type of cancer (and make it fun), eg "the Prostrate Prostates". Both groups travel raising funds on the way amid a good deal of competition, bribery and corruption - a bit like the Variety Bash. Tie in awareness of the condition, but also Gawler's help for the sufferer. We give so much to research, but while we wait for a cure, we need to support sufferers now.

There are websites that can help you set up a page and spread the word - like http://www.everydayhero.com.au There are some flying related fund raisers in there, like Wings of Life, who have a fly-in and are now doing a flying trip. Try using social media. I have no experience with this but it is used to good effect, but can also turn very nasty quickly. You may need to set up a Not-for-Profit group to indemnify yourselves, and to assure people the funds go direct to Gawler, and to satisfy the tax man that you are not running a business. Main thing is to set your back office policies, procedures, first then plan your event a good way out, so that media coverage is there, teams recruited, and the build up is happening, rather than try to throw something big together at the last minute. I am doing our Shire's Annual Show - 3 days - like NATFLY without the planes - first events this Thursday morning - planning started 12 months ago.

Sue

I noticed that some pilots make their own turbulence through continual over correcting. For some, this is a habit formed in the learning phase, for others it is anxiety, clutching the controls too tightly, pushing on the rudders continually. This should not happen if the instructor is doing his/her job well. The student should become relaxed and begin to respond gently and automatically. When I did my training it was still expected of instructors to yell at, belittle and abuse students. After all, this was how they were taught. It had some throw back to military training regimes I was told. Today there's a better attitude to teaching, somewhat consumer driven - if students give up or walk out the door to another school it's bad for business. The student of today understands they are hiring an instructor and school to achieve a result within a desired budget and timeframe. If there's little progress the student can go elsewhere.

A grade 3 instructor I knew (trained under the old way) got his first job with a very experienced pilot who had spent many years mustering. The Gr 3 flew (creating his own turbulence) remarked how bumpy it was. The old chap took over and with a light touch, explained that he could see the bumps and was correcting for them. It was years later that the instructor found out he couldn't see them, he was just not overcorrecting. He learnt to do it too.

An ultralight instructor at my club wasn't very good at communicating. He was teaching a student to land, they had several bumpy jobs in between demonstrations by himself, when they had a dream landing. He turned to the student and remarked what a magnificent landing you did, only for the student to say, but I thought you were doing the landing. The aircraft actually did the landing, better than either of them. Once they understood, they stopped trying to yank it all over the shop. That aside, one long qualifed ultralight pilot managed to show me one take off followed by 5 landings on two runways, having chosen a cross wind, bounced, went bush, ballooned, crossed to the other runway and did a tango but finally put it down having fought it all the way. It had become habit to fly like that.

Sue

Hi Nafqr,

I am a veteran of many a fundraiser, through Rotary, Apex, Scouts, Aero Club, Church and for worthwhile causes, like RFDS. A lot depends on what charity you are supporting and if you are going it alone or linking with teams at each landing.

Unfortunately, when it comes to flying, there are many who ask me how to fly for charity. In reality (and I am not saying you fit this category) it is more How can I get someone else to fund my flying ..." I've lost count of the number of people who raise money through churches to fund their trip outback, usually to Birdsville, and if you believe their report, the town of 65 (when I was there) had been saved 3 times over, one bloke reported near 100 came forward when he gave the salvation call the first night (and now he had to go back ....). After all the parishioners are unlikely to fund your next trip if you report 1 turned up and only only wanted to talk planes.

That aside, you need to theme your fund raising. This should be in tune with your designated charity (and check their fundraising policies). Some charities already have chapters around the country. If you can, tie in with them and have an 'event' when you fly in, the proceeds of which the local group hand directly to the charity and you chalk it up to the success of your effort. For example fund raising for a rescue service - At each location the locals auction off a donated Trauma Teddy (funds direct to charity) which you then you fly to the next location, building up a collection which you then (in front of press & with charity rep & giant cheque) hand to needy facility. Or you could take something from place to place and have the locals do a BBQ, cent sale, etc. Or Retracing the Steps of Famous Person. Beating the Bounds (going around the boundary) for a geographic charity eg Highlands Rescue, or co-piloting for a blind pilot raising awareness. Basically you want to put hours in the log book, so there has to be an excuse for the flying part.

Risk - charity will want to see insurance and indemnity. Don't plan something with a tight schedule that might compel you to be there fair or foul weather - remember the child pilot in the USA going coast to coast, two adults pushed on into bad weather to meet a press appointment and 3 died. Approach the charity with a well researched proposal. Know your charity - don't plan a booze up, betting on a cochroach race and expect the Salvos to be impressed. To raise money quickly you need something everyone wants with a good margin. Given you can't carry much in a light plane, you may have to plan to have it shipped to your destination, or have the locals do it. Sausage sizzle / hamburgers - sangas, bread, onion, sauce, marg = $1, sell at $2, tea/coffee, softdrink 50c hot, sell $2 cold. You can get bottles of wine fairly cheaply & supplier will arrange a label printed to whatever you want - promoting your trip & charity (RFDS locals do this). Mark up usually 100% or more. Auction donated goods at a "Dinner under the stars" - seen this done at Longreach & Winton Qld airstrips very sucessfully.

Hopefully given you some ideas. Could be more specific if I knew what the charity was about. Sue

When I was on the management of the Barcaldine Aero Club we tried offering the services of drifters, thruster (members) and lightwing (Club's) to the local emergency services. The President was tied up with the rural firies, couple of members were SES. The locals could see the advantages, but higher up all they could see was increased risk. The thinking then was better to have a twin engine high performance aircraft scream past at 200kts than a drifter at 55kts when looking for little boy lost. I half suspect they believed that ultralights fell out of the sky on a regular basis and they were monumentally unsafe. Was canned on the basis of Risk. Controllers were instructed not to allow ultralights to participate or enter the search area. How can we educate them? We need a high profile case of "Kiddy Found by Drifter pilot after King Air Unable to Locate" They went past twice and I waved my coat, yelled and jumped up and down, but they kept going, then two days later Mr Wonderful flew over in his pink Drifter, spotted me straight away. Mother, Mrs Fretful, was incredibly happy to have her son back but questioned why authorities refused to allow the Drifter on the search.

Any volunteers? All in jest of course (no kiddies or drifters were harmed in the making of this drama). Might be an idea to use one on a SES training exercise to show authorities how easy it is to cover a large area / inaccessible area.

Sue

I seem to remember something from RAA (the President or CEO's message in the latest Mag??) saying that the licencing system had been updated(?) and some licences were missing endorsements etc, and to send in a copy of your log book where it was signed off and RAA would rectify it. Don't think it was the 2008 computer crash (and, more to the point, the failure to back up anything) that caused this one. As the better half got his certificate in the 1980's there were no endorsements - everything was low performance, low level. Looking at his paperwork - 2007 no endorsements, then he picked up TW & NW (nosewheel) - not sure how that came about as he only flies TW, only guessing that it was a hangover from the Wheeler Scout he hasn't flown for 20 odd years. Then came HF (after the exam) and then PAX, but no LP (low performance) or 2 stroke, which would be obvious from the date he got his ticket - there being no other type around. We sent them copies of the log.

He has both our copies of the magazine, so I will have to wait for him to surface before I can check. Unless someone else beats me to it.

Sue

Good on you Win! :1st:

Sue

Good show! Good to see more sites linking too. Just goes to show Ian (& mods, & staff) are getting the mix right. Well done!:1st:

Sue

AWPA (Australian Women Pilots Assoc) conference call theirs a "partners program" (not men's).

They do tours, wine tastings, etc and anyone is welcome, no stigma attached to those who do not fly or are the wrong sex .

I have only been with them 15 years and have not seen them try to offer the men "bloke" type activities. Women are welcome on these activities and I have been and found them worthwhile. Then again, I don't class myself as a typical woman, so I can't say what non flying women would be interested in (or the non flying partners of women pilots). Needs to move away from the "women" tag, and the "non-flying". Let people decide if they want to do quilting for trikes, creative spanner arranging or whatever. When heeding this advice, bear in mind that I have only been to 2 Natflys, both at Narromine, attended only one "Ladies'" program - a meet & greet of AWPA members, and none of the other - I was too busy looking at planes & doing seminars.

Sue

Good on you Evan!

Sue

Planning needs to start now. We are a widely distributed membership and I believe an RAAus website is the most appropriate place to do this kind of work, it is, after all, a RAAus event. I imagine there will also be spill over into this forum due the to large numbers of RAAus members here. The RAA seems to lag behind with Natfly. The magazine which turned up in my box yesterday a week after the event is full of "see us at Natfly, come to Natfly ..." The RAA website today is featuring "Natfly Almost Here". It should be featuring what a great time we had. The magazine should have used the space that was spruiking Natfly to promote other things and a teaser for next issue's Natfly wrap-up. All up it gives the impression we were not that interested. Or not that organised. Not what we want to project to future exhibitors, sponsors and people considering entering the realm. I am President of my town's Progress & Tourism Assoc (Chamber of commerce, town festivals & events, tourist info centre, history etc). I also do this on a purely voluntary basis. Our Christmas Mardi-Gras is already organised, just the tweaking and confirmations to happen as per schedule. Natfly is bigger and should be well under way already. So should the Northern Fly-in (Monto 2012). Assume the same Board member will be in charge of that too? I hope the Board member will respect Carol's enormous contribution and full engage her in the process. To do otherwise would be to alienate a good number of volunteers and shoot ourselves in the foot.

Sue

As mentioned in this thread - http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/natfly-2012-call-for-volunteers.27057/ we will have to wait for the Board to appoint a Board member as Natfly co-ordinator. Hopefully this will happen ASAP before we run out of enthusiasm. We will then have to go with whatever this person wants Natfly to be. I just hope they don't wait for the next 6 monthly meeting ...

Sue

I have volunteered even though I have not been to a Temora NATFLY. There are things we can do. For example - drumming up interest during the year - articles in our various aviation magazines - it helps if you are a member of an organisation, you can put up an article for your association's magazine or club newsletter. People like me (and others who can string a few words together) can help you tell your tale. People with photos can contribute them to our brochures, pamphlets, flyers telling potential advertisers, exhibitors, guests, speakers, attendees, pilots, schools, plane owners, builders, volunteers, what a great event it is/was/will be, and why you should be there in 2012. It is not all huge jobs; it's lots of little things that come together to make the whole.

We are hoping there will be a forum or sandpit in the new RAAus website where we can gather to post things, so you can tell us what you think, print off a brochure to give to your supplier, help each other with the planning, discuss ideas, keep you up with the latest. It is getting exciting. Two things I want - 1) look at what you can do, even if it is only a little thing like offering a Natfly photo, 2) Go to Natfly and post lots of pictures, impressions etc, so we know how it went (for those of us who can't get there). Make it OUR event.

Sue

Striving for a better Natfly for members.

 

Cazza

I have put up my hand, even though I have never been to a Temora NATFLY. Even if you don't go, you can still contribute something. Even if you think you are no good at anything, you can still be our "market resarch" group - the people we get to look at brochures/articles and ask, what have we forgotten? does this make sense to you? what plane is that? If you have been, you can contribute photos for our articles, pamphlets, promo gear etc. Thanks to all the people who have contributed their 2 bob's worth about the NATFLY experience - see, you CAN make a difference. As Carol keeps implying - this is OUR EVENT - the members make it what it is. From the volunteers mustering aircraft, to the pilots who bring them for people to see, to the members who welcome, chat and share knowledge. Each adds a bit to the experience, that says what a great sport this is to get involved in, what a great bunch we are.

So, email Carol and say you can do something. What better way to say thank you?

The pay is great, although I will have to share it with all those other volunteers ......

Sue