sfGnome

As those of you not in Sydney and surrounds may have heard, we've had a few of a bushfire issues lately. Yesterday, we had intended to fly from Warnervale - north of Sydney - to Jaspers Brush - in the south - for the EMT course that the kind folk were running there. Unfortunately, prior to the entry to the western VFR lane at Brooklyn bridge, we hit a solid wall of smoke trapped in an inversion layer at about 1,500'. Yes, we were clear of it, but there was zero ground reference for navigation and zero opportunity to pick a landing spot should things go quiet. We shot over to the coast, but the smoke went far out to sea. Figuring that it would dissipate as the morning progressed, we went back to base for a coffee before having a second go. Second time was even thicker. At the coast, we tried to descend on the basis that from 500', we'd have adequate visibility, but apart from choking as we went into the smoke layer, we also started to loose any horizon. Didn't hang around there, admitted defeat, and went home. This morning, I was up at the Brooklyn bridge again, but this time on a slightly more earth-bound conveyance, and this is what it looked like. For those of you who don't know the area, this is about half way across the bridge, and there is a dirty great big mountain at the far end of it... I hope the Emergency Maneuvers training went well, because the only emergency maneuver we go to practice was the 'Turn and Run'. Ah well, live to fight another day.

Nup. Seems ok, and it stuck for days home here (in the kitchen - wife has taken to it). I'll give it another shot on the weekend, but give it a bit of a lick-before-stick this time.

Now there's a plane that's in high use...

Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I just bought a crook unit. I currently use a knee pad, but I find that I have to get my head down to read anything, and I prefer to have at least some peripheral vision outside. Hence the desire to mount the pad higher. Alas, it isn't a mini. I wondered if the additional weight of the normal iPad was the problem with the suction, but it seems that at least RAM have the problem solved.

Nope, she starts fine. Just run a little rough if the revs are dropped back to that mid range - lower than cruise and higher than glide, so I only tend to notice it when on base & final. There's definitely been no modifications, but I'll check for loose hoses next time I'm out there.

Ah, Thruster. That's why they were floating free. I've often wondered how you'd go getting out of an upturned, enclosed cabin under water - especially a low wing.

Oh, absolutely. Believe me, there's nothing negative in sorting out the reason behind an apparent failure, and thus working out a way around it to save problems for future users. Passing on your experiences is a really valuable contribution.

Yep, just tried a single location briefing (on YSSY - like I'm ever going to fly there ) and it did as you said - only showed the warning and nothing else. My guess is that it was written with the structure of the Area Forecast in mind (remembering that it used to collect the data directly so that was fair enough) and that it is not recognising the Location Briefing format. Now, to be fair to both Ians, the text does say "Click here for NAIPS and get an Area Briefing", but I'll admit that I never noticed that before either. Perhaps either the main page could add an "Area Briefing Only" warning in big friendly letters, or better still if the output contains no data then it could add a note "Sorry, I couldn't find any data to translate in the format I expected. Did you use the Area Forecast?".

Has anyone had any experience with the effectiveness of suction-type iPad mounting brackets? I tried one a few weeks ago that seemed (on the ground) to hold nice and tight, but 10 minutes into the flight it dropped off and into the lap of my passenger. I noticed that the CASA regulation on EFBs requires that impermanent mounts must be stowed for take off and landing and for flight below 1000ft (and now I know why), but still, 10 minutes seems to be pretty much on the useless end of the spectrum. Do any of them actually work?

There's two sides to this type of story, and I've seen (and suffered through) both in my working life. I've worked for companies where the leadership was technology-centred, and when they left and the MBA's took over, the companies foundered. On the other hand, I've also worked for companies where the leadership was so technology-centred that the companies were on the verge of failing when the MBA's came in and rescued them from oblivion. As in everything else in life, you need a bit of everything and not too much of anything!

Maj, Can you please expand on what you mean by "correctly connected"? Was it a case of someone putting the tubes in the wrong place (which would have caused problems right from that service onwards), or is it some form of adjustment (meaning that it could randomly start occurring if something moved)? I ask because our Rotax has started exhibiting symptoms exactly as you describe in the last couple of months, but it hadn't concerned me because the only other one that I've flown did exactly the same thing all the time.

The plane's nice, but the thing that caught my eye was the hangar. Do they surgery in there as well? Sooo clean...

I've been working in software for long enough to know that when a client says that there is a problem, then there is a problem. Having said that, I've just run through all the procedures I could think of to create the failure being described, and all I could get was either the correct results, or an "incomplete copy/paste" message. When you say that you couldn't progress past the disclaimer, I think that must mean that there is no data being created, because normally the disclaimer is just the first line of the translated weather report that you want. Dunno, but I'll keep thinking... While I'm at it, Ian, I think that the link into the ARFOR on the PilotTools/Weather page is no longer working now that individual logins are required.

Years back, I knew a bloke having trouble starting his mower, so he removed the spark plug, held it against the head and cranked it to see if it was sparking. Unfortunately it was, and he was sprayed with burning fuel from the plug hole. Months in hospital ensued.

Geez. Move those cars out of the way and you can pretend that you're in Thunderbirds. I'm sure those trees will lie down...

I might be missing something important here, but the RA training syllabus requires that the student can "execute recovery from incipient spin". I definitely had to do that during RA training. Isn't that what ausadvance was proposing?

Yep, I had a chat with the owner of one last year. I was running past the Mt Beauty strip (with one eye on the sky, as you do) and noticed this strange looking beast coming into the circuit, so I doubled back and ran down to the hangers instead. The owner had imported it from the states, and it wore a stars and stripes livery. He was quite confident of its single engine flying characteristics. I understand the maths, but at a gut level it still seems amazing that my engine happily pulls me along at 100kt, but he only does 60 with two of them! (Oh, but wouldn't it be great for photos... )

Would a bit of google advertising help, or are there not enough of us to make it worthwhile?

My (pharmacist) wife loved it. I wouldn't advise going in to her shop with a cough any time soon...

I don't think I've ever seen a 1 yo who would keep anything on their head, so I wouldn't get too worried about the beanie. Babies' hearing is much more sensitive than adults - including high frequencies that we wouldn't even be aware exist - and some kids are much more sensitive to noise than others. If bub was happy with the ear plugs in, then I'd guess that you've found the cause of the previous problems.

That's pretty much what my passengers look like prior to take-off too...

Noice! I'm trying to work out from the second photo whether the rego is VH-FOO or VH-POO.

No, I think what the bloke was saying was that if the tourist development went ahead, *then* CASA would not allow it to be used as an airport - ie it was an argument against the development.

Yep. Wife & I both have 'R' licence. She had a ZX6 but broke her wrist in a snowboarding accident and never regained the strength required for the brake, so that was the end for her. I just got sick of lumping a super-sports machine around in city traffic, so it sat in the garage for longer and longer, so I sold it to a mate who wrote it off. Kinda wish I had it back again now...

Thanks for the comments. Yep, Avocet, I should have said that it was a Tecnam. I'll be having a closer look at the nosewheel structure I think. I've got about 70 landings in this craft, and I've only noticed it recently, so I guess something has changed. One of us has tapped it a bit hard, perhaps? :(