kgwilson

Aluminium is highly flammable and burns with intense heat, much worse than carbon fibre composite. During the Falklands war HMS Sheffield was hit by an Execet missile and its superstructure was aluminium as a weight saving measure and very thick. The ship burned fiercely till it was just a floating hulk. That was the end of aluminium in warships. Lithium batteries are no different from other batteries in that they store energy. An internal short circuit, incorrect charging or heat from an external source can cause thermal runaway which releases this energy as heat very quickly. The main difference from other batteries is the energy density, so the heat is much more intense. Note that the original Boeing 787 Dreamliner had a lithium battery thermal runaway issue that grounded the entire fleet until they sorted the problem out. Boeing still has a cost saving above engineering attitude in my opinion.

A lot of us followed the Max 8 debacle at the time & while it cost Boeing billions and had their share values plummet as well as the embarrassment, Calhoun, one of the main perpetrators kept his job. Even the CEO at the time who was their fall guy got a multi million dollar golden parachute. This is corporate America closing ranks and protecting its own. Who cares about the travelling public. They don't have much choice especially in the US.

Interestingly the approval for use in NZ is only with a proper mechanical mount. Suction cups are not approved. Given the number of pilots who have had the SE2 fall off (including me) it seems that was a good move. I just pick it up, realign it, suck it back on & keep going. Not really a problem but that would depend on location and aircraft. The left side of the bubble canopy is a good location for me as it is out of the way but with good GPS visibility as well as forward and side visibility. I did some initial tests & while not in any way scientific I made various turns to see when the aircraft I picked up disappeared. I had visibility from about 185 deg through 360 to about 130 deg so only the right rear quadrant I got no signal.

No. It has to be Mode S compliant and even then has to have extended squitter capability. Then you can add an ADSB out module. Price installed about 6k. Best option is to get a SE2 for about $550.00 after rebate. Then you can see all other ADSB out equipped aircraft & they can see you if they have ADSB in.

This doesn't add to the reputation of the 787 Max. Apart from the failure of the trim system that they didn't tell anyone about, Boeing was having problems with contracted suppliers though this was over 10 years ago. Parts were supplied out of spec and had to be modified before assembly. That was when the bean counters over ruled the engineers. This panel certainly didn't make the grade though.

This is a clear case of Human factors issues or as the Japanese press release stated "Human error". The main things being stress & fatigue. A lot of work in preceding days plus 50 minutes taxiing. How much sleep had the pilot had. Did he have other issues in his life affecting his decision making etc. The fact that the red Stop Bar lights were inoperative is a minor factor but a factor none the less. Given No 1 by ATC just means takeoff order and shows the Dash 8 had priority for takeoff, not approval. The Japanese culture is generally to follow rules and authority. The CVR will provide any indication of whether the co-pilot said anything when the captain decided to enter the runway without clearance. The co-pilot may not have felt he should question the pilots decision for any number of reasons. The rest of the crew were probably oblivious to all of this. To then sit there on the runway ready for 40 seconds is also odd. If they had clearance they would normally do final checks, flaps set, pitch full fine, spool up and go & on a busy runway this is often done at the holding point and just the spool up on the runway.

That'll give you good visibiliy and reception. I mount mine on the side of my bubble canopy & it falls off periodically, usually on to my lap. A good clean of the suction cup & the canopy fixes the problem for quite a while till it falls off again.

The fact that 34R was not used as a landing runway for the prior 19 minutes is completely irrelevant. All runways can be used for either at any time. Also if the Dash 8 had been taxiing for 50 minutes there were landings on 34R during that time. I can't see why the usage of No1 has anything to do with it. This is the order of take off as assigned but the holding points are specific. Just because you are No 1 does not mean line up on the runway.

With the Dash 8 on the runway facing away from the approaching A350 it would have been almost impossible to see. The only indication are the Nav lights on the wing tips and possibly a red beacon on the tail. The runway lights define the runway which is just black between those lights. Juan Browne is an airline pilot and that is his summation. Why the Dash 8 thought he had clearance when the last transmission from him was the correct readback to taxi to holding point C5 is what needs to be established. He only made 2 radio calls, the first to establish communication, Tower provided the taxi instruction, Dash 8 read back correctly. Nothing more. Assuming the captain survives, the investigation will try to find out from him what he was thinking & why he made the decision to enter the runway.

This crash demonstrates to me (as Juan Browne said) the importance of correct readback of ATC instructions. The commercial transcript is not clear & while in English, it is with a heavy Japanese accent & seems to tell the Dash 8 to taxi to the C5 holding point. Some reports say this is disputed by the Dash 8 pilot though he is apparently very severely injured. The transcript does not say hold short but also does not have any indication of proceeding on to the runway. The readback (if it was made) is not in the transcript. The initial report that should come out quickly (but it won't) and should include the ATC recording of all of the communication between ATC and both aircraft (but it might not) will be very telling.

It is amazing that everyone aboard the A350 got off. The Japanese do seem to respond well to instructions as they were told to get out and not take anything & they did. I've see other scenarios that end up in tragedies where stupid passengers are grabbing their hand luggage and others falling over them trying to get out. The resultant chaos that ensues ends up with injured people on the slides from failure to follow instructions, crashing in to one another, falling off or being hit by idiots and their luggage. It seems ridiculous but it has happened and has all been videoed.

Well one of them was on the wrong runway at the time or ATC f***ed up.

I don't think personal flying cars or whatever you want to call them will be an authorised form of transport unless fully autonomous and only after a lots of testing and real world operation is able to prove at least 99% reliability, performance and compliance. First will come semi autonomous taxi style commuter transport with a pilot to make sure that the computers do what they are supposed to do and everything goes to plan. These are quite likely to begin as airport to inner city drop off & pickup points, much the same as what billionaires and executives do today with helicopters. Later will come fully autonomous aerial taxi services and lastly personal transport but with an automated computer as chauffeur.

I remember my first commercial flight in a DC3. I was about 12 years old and it was deafening. Heading to Europe in the early 70s everything was pretty good except for the smoking. Airlines in Asia and middle east were atrocious. In India they had people, chooks, and goats in the passenger cabin & the aircraft were dirty & didn't look maintained at all. This was on the internal airline Indian Airways. Almost all of the people of Asian & Arabic descent smoked like chimneys. I flew BOAC, BEA, TWA, & Pan Am & they were good other than smoking. I am glad I travelled over land coming home 3 years later. I had planned to fly with Indonesian airline Merpati from Denpasar to Darwin but the stories I got from Aussie surfers about crashes, luggage disappearing, delays, cancellations etc put me right off. We might be crammed in like sardines now but flying is infinitely better now than whatever the golden days were.

It surprises me how many recreational pilots get APs installed. I built my aircraft to fly it not be a passenger.

Hi Matt, PM me and I'll give you my details. My S100 is hangared at South Grafton. I went for a fly today in fact. I live at Corindi Beach. Kevin

Merry Christmas from me too. It does seem a bit ironic though, that an aircraft designed as a killing machine should be used as a symbol of peace and goodwill.

A quick search shows the LS1 weighs about 425lbs and an IO360 about 280 to 330lbs so it would appear to have a reasonable weight penalty plus the redrive and rear counterweight for balance.

What does it weigh? I turned the sound down as the redneck conversation drove me nuts. Single ignition so it would need to be very reliable. Also I wonder what the fuel consumption is.

Recreational Aviation Incorporated does not exist. It is Recreational Aviation Australia Limited and has been since 2016. https://raaus.com.au/about/

As RA-Aus changed from an Incorporated Association to a Limited Liability Company a few years back I assume it is governed by ACT Companies legislation. The discussion here seems to relate to incorporated associations and of course each State has its own legislation and rules vary. I assume this also applies regarding Companies legislation.

In NSW the original model rules became the "Model Constitution" when the Associations Incorporation Act 2009 was passed in to law. For organisations that adopted the original model rules, the new model constitution was initiated by default. Those who had their own constitutions had to modify their current one to address a number of issues. Our Club and Hangar Owners had to do this. Two of the issues that had to be addressed were the number of consecutive terms that a member could hold an executive position and unless specifically allowed proxy voting is automatically disallowed. There were a number of others as well. When I joined the club there was a lot of dis-satisfaction with the management committee and funds were being depleted. What would happen is that one or more of the committee executive members would contact a lot of apathetic members & get them to sign a proxy appointing that executive member so the existing committee had a continued stranglehold over the club management. That is now history with the process being more transparent and open with major benefits including the club assets going from around 25k to now over 300k in 12 years. The problem really is that a number of Incorporated Associations ignore the rules, and many have no idea what the rules are and just continue the way they always have, completely illegally. They get away with it because no-one ever challenges them and they just file the annual report. Unless someone makes a formal complaint to NSW Fair Trading nothing gets done about it. There is very little difference between an Incorporated Association and a Limited Liability company. The former has members whose liability is limited by law to the amount they owe the association, usually just the membership fee. The latter usually has articles of association dealing with all things they do and has listed shareholders with a specified limit of liability.

30 minutes drive for me, mostly on 110kmh highway. This is no problem. I also do a lot of aerodrome maintenance work so am there usually 3 days a week.

At the moment live in the dead of Winter Coal is producing zero energy. Wind produces the most by far, approximately 48%, Gas 25% & Nuclear 14%. The UK was exporting quite a lot of renewable energy to Europe over the Summer. Coal fired power is only there as a backup and it takes a lot of time to fire it up to production capability. It is the dirtiest and heaviest emitter of all of the old technologies which is why it is being phased out. Same here. https://grid.iamkate.com/

I was wrong about the US$1billion bailout. The bailout was $US85 BILLION shared between GM and Chrysler & then the US Treasury became the biggest shareholder of GM. GM sold a lot of its subsidiaries (Opel, Vauxhall etc) closed others like Holden & Chrysler & it's Fiat partner went on to eventually be swallowed by Stellantis now based in Amsterdam.. Neither company should have survived. They had become fat and lazy and were producing the same old stuff while Japanese car makers were producing vehicles that actually sold and they made a profit. GM though has morphed back in to what it was using its size & (too big to fail mantra) to try and bully the government in to letting them continue to produce stuff that the planet cannot sustain. VANS on the other hand is a miniature by comparison and their products are good. They just failed to keep up with changing market conditions and rising costs and continued to make bad decisions till eventually filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If VANS does survive it will be a very different organisation to what it is now.