FlyingVizsla

I know of plenty of unfinished aircraft builds for sale - if anyone would take them. A lot are going to be more trouble to get flying than if you got something new. Then there are the post accident rebuilds - know a few of them. Getting them back on the Register GA or RAA is going to be a bridge too far for most people, unless you have lots of time & money. Engines are going to be a problem - out of time, rusted up, no parts.

First thing - see your local Council. Find out what is allowed under the Town Plan (airstrip, minimum subdivision, number of sheds etc). Then decide what you want to do. To ask for something more than allowed, you will have to mount a case which will include Planners, application fees, studies etc = money! Assuming you already have an approved airstrip on freehold land - you can go two ways. 1. subdivide airside land into house / hangar lots and sell the freehold. 2. Lease areas of land - you could build hangars and lease these or lease the land and let someone build (but you may have to carry the Council Building Approval process). My experience is that if the land is large enough to have an airstrip it is probably zoned Rural and not able to be subdivided below a certain size (200ha in our shire). It might be worth sending Blackhawk a PM as he was involved in a Development Application to a Qld Council for an Airpark. One lesson from that was to do your homework, because even when it was approved, there were no buyers, so the owner didn't proceed with the works and the DA lapsed. Probably simpler to apply to Council (if you have to) to build a few hangars and rent to users. You retain ownership of the land, can remove trouble makers, can adjust rent to suit etc. Make sure the airstrip and hangars comply with CAAP 92(1)(1) - that is width, distance from centreline etc. This is your insurance - if there is an accident on your private strip and someone wants to sue, the best defence is that it complies with the CASA safety standard. You will also need Public Liability Insurance and should insist that occupiers carry their own insurance (yours won't cover gear owned by them). You may be in the gun for any complaints about flying by them, people ringing the Airservices complaints line or Council, and that may end in restrictions on movements or changed circuit procedures. We've got a bloke with a noisy aircraft practicing for STOL competitions who has been moved on from 3 other airstrips and has now chosen to annoy our neighbours with very early morning low level constant movements. Think about how you will manage that. Our Flying Club is on leased land, but there are restrictive conditions due to the ownership of the land (State Reserve - no residing, no commercial use etc). All buildings have to be approved by the Council, hangar owners pay a one-off fee to the Club for clearing & forming the Taxiway (Council only allow "as required" clearing) and pay an annual fee to cover Public Liability Insurance, maintenance. Owners don't have any rights to an area of land, but agree to keep the area around their hangar tidy. The agreement was tightened due to a couple of members not playing the game - so there is now a clause that if an owner breaches the lease conditions (after warnings etc) that the Club can take ownership of the hangar. In hindsight, the Club should have put these conditions in from the beginning, it would have saved 10 years of on-going grief. The Council's lease runs for 20 years and can be terminated by the giving of notice by either party, with 28 days to remove all improvements. That's a start. If you can be more specific, we can give better experience.

It was voted on by the members and changed. This is not the first time the AUF has been a limited company. They were decades ago, but decided to change back. I would have to trawl though my magazines to find the saga, but I don't think they bothered involving membership back then. As an Incorporated Association (what it has been for most of it's history) it has to be Incorporated in a particular State and subject to that State's rules. I vaguely remember them being incorporated in Vic or NSW, but as a general rule of thumb, National organisations were Incorporated in the ACT, where they have been for years. There was a lot of discussion on the pros & cons on this forum when it was happening. There were rules about where the Secretary could live (had to be in the ACT) and reporting - audits etc. So some positions were designated to be held by employees rather than Board members to comply. The reporting was a bit of a joke. The Company structure is National, so you don't have to be based in any particular State. For members, little has changed. We still have Board members - although fewer and with more legislated responsibility - we are still members, but limited by guarantee (I think that's $1 each), we are still flying, the failed audits and forced groundings are behind us, for those who "just want to fly" the weather is more of an issue than RAA being a not-for-profit company.

I'm still waiting for my Sport Pilot. Mr FV got his and he's still monopolising it, but from the "language" emanating from behind the glossy pages, I would say its a bit contentious. I emailed our Club's contact details etc twice and we are still not in there. Asked about advertising our 30th anniversary celebrations, and that is still hanging in the air. Pace are essentially a travel magazine publisher.

I just heard this morning, on the ABC Wide Bay News Radio that a helicopter pilot has been fined $500 for landing without permission. The story said that no aircraft is allowed to land on Fraser Island, that the beach landing area is for the commercial operator who has permission. The helicopter landed there and it sounded like he compromised the ALA for the commercial flight that was due in shortly. I was in the car at the time, so I only got the gist of the story, so don't know if this was today or earlier. The emphasis was that private aircraft cannot land on Fraser. I have been looking for the Digital version on the ABC but couldn't find it, yet. From FlightRadar24 Fraser Island is popular, a lot just fly around the shoreline. I know people who fly there. Any one else heard this one?

We already have lots of pads of A3 graph paper. What he wants to do is convert the data (x,y co-ordinates) into a life-size drawing on graph paper. He wants to take data like this Data file, and plot it like the Graph file. He is not trying to make a tracing of an existing aircraft. I have explained how much work (plotting x,y & joining the dots) this will be, but he is adamant that this is what he wants to do, he only needs a long roll of pre-printed graph paper .... then a huge table to work on .... Fortunately he has a lovely wife who puts up with him I tried the drafting suppliers. Found a 20 yard roll of Fade Out Graph Paper (the blue lines don't show up on a photocopy and can be eliminated from scans) but at over $10/metre I am reluctant to get the amount he wants. Tried Officeworks, the dressmaking stores, etc. I have an A3 light table, and could use tracing rolls with an A3 graph sheet between. Cumbersome, but I doubt he will accept that. Just thought someone out there might have a supplier of pre-printed graph paper in rolls. Data.PDF Graph.PDF

Mr FV wants to graph an aerofoil, life-size, so he is after some graph paper that will stretch that far, so he can plot the x,y co-ordinates and lay it out for wing construction, design etc. I tried a quick search for Graph Paper Rolls and came up with little in Australia. Thinking like a Plotter roll (or smaller), but with pre-printed grid. Any ideas on where we can get some? I see that Birch makes a dressmaker's graph paper in rolls. Anyone used that or any other suggestions? Mr FV is not computer savvy and has resisted my suggestions of an Excel chart (I did one for him previously) printed on A3 and pasted. He is using x,y plots published in various Aircraft design and Aerofoil design books. He doesn't want to paste A3 graph sheets together either. TIA.

More on this accident including pictures & video Koo Wee Rup airfield: man dead in aircraft crash (news.com.au) The presenter said it may have been caused when his helmet came loose. RIP

ABC news reporting a fatality at 7am Man dies after aircraft crash in Koo Wee Rup, south-east of Melbourne - ABC News

At least this guy has an aviation background and won't need to spend a year learning about ultralights, CASA regs, etc. Hopefully he is a good manager. Remember our last CEO came from the RSPCA. A previous CEO was ex-military. We have come a long way from when it was run by volunteers in their spare time.

And check Spam. My ISP has started sending bulk mail out emails to the Spam folder on their servers. Means I have to log into my email through the web to access that Spam folder, which is different to the spam folder on my Email client which tosses things to Spam too. Really annoying at the ISP level, because they are Spamming things I regularly read and sending junk like Fishpond and Phishing scams through. I am slowly re-educating it.

Last 2 months, our little club has fielded 4 requests for hangars and more requests for people wanting to fly (we don't have a school, just 18 hangars and 35 members). That's more than we got all last year.

Insurance is going up all over the place due to high exposure to risk and covering past disasters (fire, flood, cyclone) and rising costs. RAA includes insurance for all Pilot members as part of the fee (Non-flying and Associate members don't have it). It will go up as all other insurance did, and because the members have been asking for an increase in coverage. But the membership isn't going up, just yet, which is a good thing.

606 ballot papers, each allowed to vote for up to 2 candidates (2x606 = 1,212 potential votes) 1,159 votes cast; (1212 - 1159) = 53 voters opted to vote for ONE only. After the first "Meet the Candidates" I was sorely tempted to only vote for one. However I decided I had to cast a vote for the better of the other three.

Where did you find the Invalid vote count? As far as I can see, 606 valid votes were received (down on last election) and 53 people chose to vote for one person only, making a total of 1159 votes cast (you could vote for up to two). Normally they would declare the number of invalid votes with the results.