webbm

Totally agree mate. There's plenty of incidents out there where just the presence of other people (both in and outside the cockpit) are a main contributing factor. It should be a significant part of human factors syllabus in my opinion.

I agree it depends on your attitude to it. Treat it like the real thing and you'll get more out of it. Do the procedures, circuits - even the radio calls (even if it means putting up with the sound of the wife laughing in the next room). I have saved a lot of $$'s practicing the drills on the sim rather than the air. When I was doing circuit training (for example), I found myself making similar mistakes on the sim as in the air - like keeping straight and level when doing the downwind checks, so I was able to correct my technique (which was all in my head). And if you install the Orbx, OZx and Ant's scenery - chances are you'll have an airfield to practice with that is your own. :)

Thanks for the info fellas - I'm moving to Melbourne from Canberra next month and currently got the exact same question in my head, although for me it's Coldstream or Lilydale (but might look at Moorabbin) My two concerns is that I have flown Jabiru's up to this point (Pilots Certificate, no Nav yet ~40 hours) and it looks like the Coldstream school doesn't use them, so I might spend $$'s getting up to speed with a new aircraft. The published rates are a bit different to. The Lilydale seems to be considerably cheaper than Coldstream. Cheers.

Snowy Aviation organised spin training through a local gliding club for those who wanted it. Maybe more of this? http://snowyaviation.com/page14.htm

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGZWJpenByZC5wb2xpY2UubnN3Lmdvdi5hdSUyRm1lZGlhJTJGMzI1NDAuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D

Thanks Andy. That explains it very well. :)

Thanks for the clarification guys. :)

I don't mind the 2 year period for board members removed by members to be eligible back onto the board. ... But I don't like the proposed resolution limiting the years one can serve on the Board. We have push for some new blood on the board, preferably young and enthusiastic. Say we get someone young, takes awhile to start making really positive contributions, then keeps making positive contributions over the years. By the time he/she is ready to take on a president position (and perhaps just the president we need) - sorry, your time is up!! And to make matters worse, say then only one candidate then put his/her hand up to contest a replacement who not a good person for a board position... Leave it to the members to vote people out. Another question that might already be answered... Why are there so many proposed changes to our constitution now when a Constitutional Review Committee has just been formed? Cheers.

Lovely video!!

Just further to the original post, I wouldn't mind seeing a mandatory introduction sheet given to students who come back after their TIF, which explains RA-Aus, a bit of a history, how it fits into the regulatory framework, what to expect during your training, who to talk to if you have questions or problems and other tips. RA-Aus would make certain text mandatory, but the flight school would also be free to put in other info, such as a list of instructors, the CFI and other staff details, hours of operation, aircraft list, prices, how to book, etc. A lot of this stuff I learnt as I went along but would have been nice to know up front... Nothing fancy, just a double sided A4 that that can be printed at the school... Cheers.

Thanks very much for the feedback guys. How about AIP and CAO? Anyone have those (printed or hard copy?) and find them a useful reference?

I personally would have liked that printed and included in the mag to members than it be posted on a public site, but I suppose it would be scanned and uploaded somewhere anyway - not to mention the cost involved. :) Huge thanks to the people who got that together.

It's a hard topic, all humans do things differently, but I would guess it's up to the CFI to maintain standards of training and consistancy. I went through about 5 instructors and a Jabiru 170, 160 and 120. I found it good to learn different things from each instructor, and they recommended once I got close to circuits that I stick to the one aircraft, which I did. The instructor I was the most scared of was the CFI, but that was probably just a authority thing. I didn't initially like the 1st instructor I had after my TIF, but by the end he was my favourate and I did about 80% of my training with him. The CFI turned out to be an awesome bloke to - did about 15% with him. I would guess some schools are very casual - "Have a good drive to the airfield? Today you'll be flying with *** in the ****". If you're finding this a problem, have a chat to the CFI and ask if you can stick to one instructor and plane. A 30 minute wait for a plane to arrive so you don't have to fly in a different one is time on the ground well spent. Bring along a radio and listen in on the action. :) Cheers.

Yep, they are all downloadable. A good site for that I found is here: http://www.airborne-aviation.com.au/resources/operational-documents.php Cheers.

Hi Guys, I just had a read of this page from Airservices Australia: http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/flight-briefing/document-checklist ...and it got me thinking, what do the pilots here do? What do you download? What do you print? What do you subscribe to? Without the charts, it's looking like about 360 bucks to initially subscribe to AIP, ERSA and CAO. This is the recommended documents for the ultralights. Cheers, Matt

LOL - the guy in the article saying he has a PPL and carries on like that give the rest of us pilots a bad name. Check out the comments - nothing more needs to be said: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279416/My-terror-27-000ft-Jet-door-blew-open-crew-plugged-gap-blankets-says-Briton.html

Problem with video links at the moment is how to make sure only members will view it. No doubt that as soon as link to view a Meeting is sent to members, that link will appear on this site. The next step will be the ability to vote on motions via Internet. There are many ways around this, but it takes time and money....

The only way that would get fixed is if people with those skills nominate themselves for the board. That isn't happening. Or we can change the constitution to allow non-members as board members. Should we have a CASA representative on the board? I would say not, but it is food for thought. Cheers.

From hearing him talk at the meeting and reading his intro when he became a board nominee, I am more than happy with him taking over as Acting Treasurer.

I came away from the meeting thinking it was an effective shake up. The board got the message the "she'll be right, business as usual" attitude is not acceptable. Hopefully there will be good outcomes from the current Board Meeting and the Board will have progress to report at Natfly...

Don't take my post personally. I was commenting to the hyperthical situation of someone talking about finances and litigants on in the one post. Any inference that it was related to your post is purely coincidental. Cheers.

We were also asked not to talk about it... ;)

Agree mate, but we would have spent all day counting votes and not actually talking, so there has to be some commonsense balance applied. In the end, no one objected to using that system and someone mentioned that it was how it is done in law. Maybe for the next meeting, those with proxies could hold up a card issued by RA-Aus that has their proxy count on it.

An RA-Aus Board meeting is today, so I look forward to hearing the outcomes of that meeting, which would be a good indication of the effectiveness of the General Meeting. Just on the proxy issue, it was discussed and agreed that a vote of hands would be taken first and then proxies would be used if needed (ie the vote was close enough to warrant it). This was a commonsense approach as evident when there was a vote and it was actually close enough to actually count the hands - and it took a while (but in the end, when it came time for "those against" to put up their hands, much fewer people did). I'm sure if someone there had enough proxies and wanted them counted, because it would have influenced the vote, then they would have spoken up. But in the end, just about every motion proposed was voted overwhelmingly for or against. It was good to see members also talking one on one with Board Members. I noticed one Board Member in particular go up to people who raised various concerns to have one on one chats with them. Cheers.

It sounds like we needed an audit manager, to categorise, prioritise, apply KPI, monitor, report and finalise... This all costs money though, and that's the problem. I could go on forever about better ways RA-Aus could run, but it all costs money which most Members aren't willing to pay for. Next step for the CASA Audit release to members would be RA-Aus to release what "Non-Compliance Notices" have been rectified and when. I would also like to see stats on how many notices are opened, being actioned and closed, broken down by month. I have only glanced at these audits, so maybe some of that information is already there. I accept it won't give a full picture as I'm sure the rectification of some notices would take time. Cheers.