kasper

Microlight.

Wow - 5 hours drive to your nearest HGFA inspector makes the 3 hours to my RAAus biennial look like a walk in the park

Yet at every opportunity in public I have heard mr Monke say his plan is to return the printed magazine to all as soon as it can be financially supported. All im pointing out is when it comes it’s at least equally valid to say the return had nothing to do with management skills or prudence but purely from significant sustained annual over inflation membership increases. Whilst those fees are management decisions it’s not really management skills or efficiency to explain it ... but RAAus are if nothing else experts at spin ... negative or failed are not parts of their vocabulary

Big tail and Spanish roundels lead me to the AISA/Iberavia I-11b

But have none of you realised the reasons for the increases on increases ? Pure spin we HAD to take away the printed mag because it was killing RAAus - instant massive fee increase because it came with no decrease or even freeze in membership - that magazine then was sold to us at cost(ish) so we know how much it costs to produce three years down the track the 4th year of massive over inflation increases mean our magazine can then be “paid “ for by “good management “ of RAAus without increasing fees - here is you magazine due to our management ... dont be fooled when in a year or two you’re sold the brilliant management can reintroduce at no cost for a magazine. Seen it before in management where what you’ve actually already been charged for is presented to you as a benefit of management skill in action.

Kittiwake has the same very forward noseleg as the pic but not sure they had taper on the outer panel of the wing. Practavia sprite did not to my recall have the outboard dihedrtal but straight sihedetalfeom rhe wing root.

Well I’ll guess Jodel for the wing but twin tandem seating and glider tug... hmmmm.

Easy one. Microlight. Chevron 2-32

Well that's a well known oddball - a ford model A engine on a Dingbat never found out if its based on a taylor monoplane but its a Watkinson Dingbat by my recall with a Carden Ford engine

Slingsby motor Tudor on the RS4 it was referred to as the Desford when it was initially modified from the RS3. The pic is of it in its final form where it had the prone pilot nose fitted. In this form it remained RS4 and the bobsleigh name referenced the prone pilot position.

No, but at least you can feel like it’s a real plane when kneeled ... they are tiny in real life and looking down on top of a high wings wing can make you feel like a giant. For me at near 6’2” I tried getting in one of these and the wing cutout was right in my eyeline ! not one for me.

My details are up to date BUT RAAus know that they are not legally allowed to use anything other than writing in the post to effectively and legally do anything under the constitution so regardless of up to date they have to send me ALL details of any election in the post and they have not. And just to be clear I only am in this post situation to continue to point out to the RAAus great and good one of the errors in their drafting of the constitution that I pointed out BEFORE it was put to members and they refused to consider fixing before it went forward. I really tried to be very positive and constructive with that draft constitution but if you’d been treated as I was in the months leading up to the general meeting abdcat the general meeting you might too decide to remain a thorn in some individuals sides ...

Reid and Sigrist R.S.4 Bobsleigh

Looks like a Cluton Fred G-BMOO

There is a call for nominations is there? id never know it because RAAus AGAIN failed to send me anything about it - despite me being probablybrge only member of RAAus who cannot legally be notified of ANYTHING under the constitution by electronic means. It jyst meabs like like the last two elections THEY ARE DEFECTIVE and I tell the RAAus this each year and all I get is so sue us. Great organisation and just for fun WHERE are the rules for this election on the members portal? Not there. Where is any information on the RAAus website? Not there. And because RAAus are not allowed to use electronic comms with me I’m a member without any actual knowledge of the election. The organisation is running as management want it to. Regardless of rules they themselves wrote and got through members votes. So so I suppose my weekend will be spent writing formal complaints againstt each individual director for mal admin if the election under the constitution. Annual event

maybe a few more - but the GA new entrants outweigh the older member org ultralight group - its too late really

And completely unsupported by a safety need per any accident and incident data ... and other countries look at what we had and have moved towards it. we have lost a lot of the freedoms and they have been given up hand over fist by the current RAAus management to either 1. placate casa on prior failures of admin - that did not actually cause death and destruction so it was ADMIN failure not functional safety failure; or 2. To show just how “good” RAAus can be in GA terms in the attempt to effectively subsume non-commercial GA And in this - in my opinion madness - all RAAus aircraft are increasingly being treated exactly the same. Factory with type certificate. Factory LSA. Home built from kit. Self design from the back of an envelope. ALL being treated the same. And frankly its insane to have a situation we have today that I can and have designed and built several aircraft without any issue of having or holding an L1 maintenance authority but as soon as it’s registered I’m not allowed to maintain it. Equally i I can design and build register and fly my 95.10 aircraft BUT if I desire to modify it after it’s registered then RAAus tech who have never seen it and nobody other than me has or ever will fly it have to approve my use of it after mod. The number of regulation changes brought in by RAAus tech are not large in number but their impacts are very large and completely inconsistent with what RAAus aircraft were and what they should still be. The sooner the tech manager manages to transition to CASA the better. And the sooner the CEO considers his stint with us is long enough in his CV to move to a bigger charity the better.

First thought was firefly... then I looked at the undercart and it’s all wrong. I’ll be back later if I can think of anything ... it’s one of those visually odd ones with a rear fuselage line that looks too high.

Except if they are Asian ga pilots using RAAus as a lower cost method RAAus only keeps them as members for a year at best ... so even if there are 4-500 of them they are not really into rev aviation at all let alone ultralights. But if if you could extend RAAus to higher weight and access CTA wouldn’t it be rather nice if you were a large operation training students for airline entry ... just saying

Hmmm. I’ll bet 20c on SportCruiser from the Czech Republic

T85 short wing with a 503 is the best of the group in my opinion - but a long wing t83 is still a lovely place to float around in. Enjoy.

At $5k you are looking at rag and tube and old. Single seat thruster would meet your desires and you might pick up a fixer upper ... but be aware skins for all the old rag n tube drifters etc are going to cost half your budget and an engine overhaul or replacement will take the other half so be aware what you are looking at and what it realistically needs to get it into the air or keep it there for a year or three. Wereyou to be iver near perth there is a 503 sapphire at near your budget. Not great on short or really rough strips but a heck of a lot of aircraft for your $

How about stopping while there is a logical difference in the airframes and operation limits to justify any different regulation than alrwady exists in GA? might be too late but unless you draw a line and defend it you are on a hiding to nothing when you’ve stepped over it and you are no linger seperate.

http://vocasupport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Smith-and-Guthrie-Finding-Final.pdf and other than the first recommendation which was RAAus to be funded adequately by casa to do the safety acts the last few years have been RAAus play book for change ... without consideration of whether they are valid in light of the difference between RAAus and GA ... so we are becoming self funded GA

And if RAAus has applied the tech manual as it stood in 2004 when mr Coates did a lot of what he did then the concerns of the coroner would not have existed - so yes there was exposure on RAAus simply because it held documents that on their face were not in compliance with the tech manual as it stood. Now the actual coroners report is a very unpleasant read if you were mr Coates or RAAus ... but the recommendations from the coroner could in my opinion be adequately addressed with better admin at RAAus on the operation of the then tech manual and focus on factory aircraft remaining within their certificate. But instead we have had the last 10 years of initial continued failure to administer well followed by increasing regulation of the one size fits all variety.