dodo

Merry Christmas to all, and best wishes for the New Year, dodo (and special thanks to Ian for his efforts in providing the site)

Plenty of skydiving still happening at Goulburn every weekend. dodo

Good point, but it is asking a lot to get more than one line from most people. Especially if they had a good experience, they will have experience only one field, one instructor, always LH circuits and finished happy. It is only if you get messed around and have to go to several FTFs that you start to see a bit more. It is an expensive way to learn, but you do get more out of it and can then post a little more here. dodo

The original poster may find this useful - as well as Mriya and Moz... I got the RA stuff around, where I went to several FTFs, and spent more more effort and money than necessary, before I ended up at Dave's flight school. Originally, I went to a country aero club, but at one point the aircraft was unserviceable for a couple of months, then was a bust up at the club and the instructor pulled out. I went to a commercial FTF, got back up to speed, and got used to the instructor, then the CFI took a permanent job elsewhere and dropped out. I went back to the country aero club, but had trouble getting enough lessons as the instructors were weekend only... At this point, I had put in several years, lots of money, and was getting very sick of the process, and considering throwing the whole thing in as a waste of time and money. As a sort of last resort I tried Dave's flying school, got back up to speed, got used to a new instructor. It took a while, as I think there was a faint suspicion that perhaps I was some sort of reject no one wanted to give a license to, so there was some trust to be earned....so more with Dave on top of a lot of hours with others. I finally got the certificate - in a lot of hours - but I'm still less than impressed with the RA set-up, and wouldn’t go that way in future. Dave's flying school was far more professional than the others. As far as further learning, the nav took a bit over the ten hour minimum (about 12-14 hours all up, I think). dodo

What is is the standard for engine reliability? Shouldn’t an analysis be preformed on all RA engines in use. What about two-strokes? No special mention? And how will CASA work with jabiru on the issues in future...no answers here. It is a rather unimpressive act by the regulator that won't satisfy anyone at all - or achieve anything? dodo

[quote="\Tecnam then Jabiru - so long as both have same features (fixed undercarriage, tri gear and fixed prop then you are fine as they are within your endorsements and are of the the same group A \. Maybe, but I would be happier with advice and a fly with a pilot experienced on type before I flew it away. Regardless of Ops manual, and no need for a pilot examiner.

If you crash and kill yourself in in a Jab 160, when you learnt on a 170, is the coroner going to comment on RA supervision of type certification? Would the coroner appreciate the difference between two types? Litigation, public criticism in the papers, regulation and more audits?

Yep -a check flight sounds normal. Turning that into a formal type endorsement is overkill.

I'll second David Rolfe and John Taru at the Oaks. Competent, practical and very good instructors. I also like them. But there will be other good flying schools - South Queensland seems to have a lot more going on than elsewhere, so you might be able to do better without travelling.. dodo

It's like the little boy that cried wolf...is there a wolf?

I wrote a letter to my three RA local reps when this was first mentioned as a change (Jan 2013 , I think,) got no reply, not even an acknowledgement, and they put the type rubbish in anyway. My reading of it is that you need type endorsement for anything you fly, so you probably are not legal now, until you either get CFI endorsement in your log book or get Ops to recognise whatever your have flown in your logbook. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The letter I wrote to three board reps is attached, I am still really angry that the Ops manual was never put to the membership for comment and improvement - it is after, the rules under which we fly, so critical to a membership based organisation. And things like this could have easily been fixed. dodo Ra type training proposalname removed.doc Ra type training proposalname removed.doc Ra type training proposalname removed.doc

October 1922, Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation,: "We have two immediate ends to attain in connection with navigation: 1.Eliminate engine trouble 2.Perfect the wireless. Both are possible - and quite soon."

That's very neat. Did you make it yourself, or if not, where did you get it made? And how much did it cost to make? dodo

I give up.

I think anyone with a Jab engine or an interest in the process has left or is leaving this Rotax thread

But is wouldn't be bad to have a friendly RA "home" airfield with a clubhouse and a friendly outlook to visitors. Somewhere like Holbrook would be good - with it's ultralight museum and ultralight culture. And it's a nice airfield and a nice town. We could leave the awkward bits like administration, Ops and Technical where they are (or move those to Townsville) dodo

Chocolate and dsam, The government response was to say yes to all recommendations and then qualify that by saying in the explanation "no change" or "watch this space" (or "industry needs to change"). Where there is room for real change is where they have offered to measure or quantify any change. Try reading just one of the recommendations and it's government response with a somewhat sceptical outlook and see if this makes sense, dodo

The response was clearly written or drafted by CASA. It looks like the key to any change is the "SOE" (Statement of Expectations) which is a document that sets out what government expects of the CASA board. SO who writes that? Getting the interest and attention (for instance, interesting them in the ongoing Jabiru engine issue and how CASA are handling it) of whoever writes the SOE would be critical to any change. I assume long term aviation industry people should know who influences and drafts that document? I would have NFI as to who to approach. dodo

Thanks Camel, but this still leaves the definition of type unclear. I can make some obvious guesses, but as "type" is clearly important, it‘s definition should be clear. I agree a couple of hours training is seldom wasted, but I don't think that is a good approach to reading the Ops Manual, dodo

I rad it again, and my initial conclusion was wrong. Howver, I am still confused as to what sort or aircraft I could legally fly. I think the definition of type is unclear... dodo

I meant both cases I think . . I think I am now more confused. I think I mean you may not fly my plane unless you have flown that particular make and model before eg Jab160 dodo

"at least with an instructor beside me"..... Might want to make that "Pilot Examiner" dodo

Has anyone read the new Ops manual? A few interesting new rules and limitations, as usual without consultation... One nice one is that you can't let anyone else frly you plane unless they do it with an instructor (or have prior experience on the type). A few others that seem odd... Any opinions? - after all, it is the majority of the rules we fly under that differentiate us from GA! dodo

First, when something goes wrong, CASA will get blamed (the doctor as well, maybe, but CASA ultimately). You can outsource work, you can't outsource responsibility. Secondly, the legislation makes CASA the delgate to make the decision . I don't know if CASA can legally devolve that delegation, even if they wanted to. The problem really is that CASAs interpretation of medicine is extremely defensive, and also, that they appear sometimes to intrude on medical decision-making (eg which scan or procedure will provide certainty). dodo

Looks like very good value to me. dodo