Jaba-who

Good news. As long as it works. We were doing a flying safari through there a number of years back and got probably the worst service from a refueller we have ever got anywhere at Quilpie. Not only poor but dangerous. Have since done inconvenient detours just to avoid the place. Might put it back on the options list.

Sadly we had them here to. Was run by a loony woman and the “religion/movement” was called Breatharianism. I kid you not. Was just another cult type thing until some poor woman with mental issues joined the cult and the lead guru convinced her to stop eating and drinking. The patient got sicker and sicker but the Hutu convinced her it was because she was not believing enough and should try harder. Eventually died and there was the outcry after the event. World is full of crazy people and crazier people who think they have the answers for everyone else.

I have same sort of play in mine and I spoke to both Rod and Jamie at Jabiru about it way back when I built mine in 2008 or so. Both confirmed that it’s standard for those cables to have about that amount of play. Neither was concerned and even said that despite my concern about flutter they felt it wasn’t an issue. Mine has done about 600 hours on the same cables now and I don’t really think the play has gotten any worse.

Only thing I can suggest when comes to driving there daily is go early. I didn’t drive so I’m only going on what I observed as we came in by bus each day. But the parking and distances to walk from the far parking areas looked a bit daunting. They have buses and trolley cars all over the place but I don’t know about the parking areas to the gates. Perhaps one of the group who drove can comment on that?

I have to agree with everything said so far. Myself and a mate went in 2014 for the first time. This year my wife and I and several other couples from our local aero club are going. We did the trip with one of those tour companies so pretty much everything was done for us. Stayed at the university of Wisconsin in Oshkosh. Dorm room accom and a great dining hall with cheap food. Bus service specially for the event laid on from the front door. I have to say that we came away thinking we had still not seen everything to see. I reckon if you’re a die hard enthusiast you do need the whole week. We still found stuff on the last day we hadn’t seen before. But then we are avid builders and maintainers of our aircraft so we spent lots of time in the big hangars with the product displays looking at avionics and stuff we could install in our aircraft. And we spent a heap of time in builders alley or what ever it was called buying hardware and tools. I had to buy another suitcase to bring home the stuff I bought.! But what I would suggest is you join the EAA and then prepurchase tickets. The cost is dramatically cheaper for members. We are going for the whole week and if I recall the saving is over a hundred dollars each. Only one of you has to join. A member can buy a second ticket for same cost. You also get their magazine for a year ( electronic version for free and paper copy for a bit more ) Do a google search for Oshkosh EAA 2018 and there are links to joining as well as ticket and prices. You can do it all on line. Including get your tickets sent to you to print out. I’m not sure if the savings are as good for only a few days but worth checking out. Have a great time there. Might bump into you.

I have been to a lecture where the local guru here at the James Cook Uni gave a talk about some of this stuff. Might even have been the same guy for all I know.He outlined some of the ways they have inferred some of the past events. Some of the corals (I think it might have been brain corals but can’t remember for sure) some of the coral bommies can be sawn in half and the layers examined. They apparently have colour and mineral layers analogous to rings in trees. When the coral goes through stress periods and does it’s bleaching stuff apparently the layers representative of that have certain colour and growth rate and when it’s dead it gets other colours etc. things that leave a discernible line and then gradually it gets grown over by new coral and the layers start to grow again. Obviously his use of the word fried is metaphorical since frying requires very high temps and oil. So what he means is the corals died rapidly from heat stress rather than just bleaching. But I have no knowledge on what temperature rises that needs. He’s obviously using some hyperbole. And that’s part of the continuing problem. As I said originally The use of hyperbole by people who claim to have the moral and scientific high ground make their own broader positions and statements unbelievable when the disbelievers hear the hyperbole and state the obvious contradictions in the arguments.

Yeah. That’s usually ( at least here) after the bleaching it dies then the dead skeletal coral gets a layer of algae of a different sort on it. That’s the slimy greenish coloured stuff. Not the same type as the coloured stuff that gets taken into the coral.That then leads to a different population of grazing fish who like slime algae. And it doesn’t support as many fish so the whole ecosystem changes.

FB - it's probably better no to interchangeably use the terms bleaching and die or die-back. "Bleaching" is a specific type of event and the coral is NOT dead when it bleached. It's alive but stressed and if the cause is removed it may become healthy again. But this takes time. In the old days stressor events supposedly happened infrequently enough that the coral had a chance to unbleach and get going again. After that they die and then they turn to the white skeletal coral that has no living polyps on it and can't regrow except by slow recolonisation from distant sites, if at all. Healthy coral, despite being smashed up in cyclones etc can cope and grow back. Healthy coral is very resilient. The current concern is rate of stressor events is accelerating. The reef barely starts to recover when it's hit by another stressor event. Each time the coral is starting off further behind the eight ball. With bleaching - What happens is coral ( the soft fleshy live polyps - not just the hard mineralised skeleton) - is naturally white but it takes into its tissues coloured algae with different corals preferring different algae. Hence particular corals/ species being particular colours. Healthy coral and algae get along fine and the algae provide nutrients for the coral. Particular stressors cause the coral to eject the algae and go back to white. Trouble is bleached coral can't make some of those required nutrients and if the stressed coral does settle down and reabsorb the algae it will eventually die. Many corals bleach with specific stressors. Temperature being one. Thus all other things being equal bleaching can be a marker of single stressor events. But they can also be made worse for multiple stressors. The biggest bad thing everyone is worried about is a constant background of microstress ( the increased carbon dioxide level which raises the acidity just a little but enough to provide a background stressor. Then add to that frequent temperature stressors associated with global warming. So the corals eject the algae but don't have the environment that encourages rapid return to health. Then before they can get their act together another hot day comes along and they eject more algae if they can or just get knocked back a bit more. But as I said that's background biology. The cause of the temps, whether they are as much as they say and are enough to actually cause the problem. Whether there is as much problem as they say? I don't know. The truth is hard to find.

It's a fine sentiment but relies on correctness in the belief that your personal minimum is valid.How would you feel if enough evidence were presented to you that your current personal minimum was actually excessive and that you could safely continue at a lower minimum? Of course we are all tempted to lower that standard as we can't reach the old one. The real challenge is being correct in the interpretation that the lower standard is just as valid as the old one not just wishful thinking. If it's not but you accept it anyway it marks the onset of incompetence and I agree that's not something to encourage and I don't wish to allow it to happen to me. In the light of the current debate about the Basic Class 2 the current Class 2 standard has been shown to actually be set way too high and that lowering the standard does not mean you would be flying unsafely. Merely that the previous standard was inappropriately high. There is no shame and much gain in amending your standards where appropriate.

I have no idea who's right and who's alarmist and who's not because the facts are distorted by self serving parties from "both sides". I'm living in the middle of all the Great Barrier Reef stuff. it's in the local media all the time and as one who has an interest and who sees the media stuff all the time I am confused as to what the real picture is. And despite my conservationist side leanings I am a scientist and am highly qualified to read scientific literature and I have to admit that the least trustworthy descriptions have come from the side of the conservationist and GRMPA. But of course it's not always just the original author to blame. It's often a slightly selective statement that's first released then it's given an even bigger slant by the first media outlet and then further slanted by the next outlet till very soon a near factual statement is converted to a completely wrong one. As examples: Going back a couple of years the initial statement and study was that for a singular reef to be considered positive for bleaching it only had to have some visible bleaching. So a reef with say 5 % of its area bleached was positive even if that bleaching only counted for a few square metres. That reef ( being labelled bleached) then was added to the total number of bleach positive reefs and the statement made that x% of the entire barrier reef is bleached. When what should have been said was x% of the reefs show y% or more % bleaching. The first statement gave the impression far more was bleached than actually was. The media then take this and run with as if every reef affected was 100% bleached. This then gives the opposition ammunition to denigrate the study and the outcome and the proposed strategy to fix the problem. Then the opposition gets credence and noises made saying nothing needs be done. But then there are elements on the opposite side of the fence that then write endless tirades in the local media railing against what is undeniable fact and making statements that reefs are really not affected at all when clearly there is some bleaching. So all in all, it's really hard for anyone who is not actually there to know what the real situation is. There are unfortunately so many vested interested and people whose ongoing livelihoods are dependant on their particular agenda being given credence.

umm. Yeah. Sort of. They are not the things themselves but would be the predominate factors in generating each of those. Certainly enough knowledge in that principle when going for pilot exams. Easy to overthink these things.

[quote="turboplanner, post: 652740, member: 655.....snip...... Take up or not doesn't really matter to CASA; if the doctors don't want to take advantage of the protection available under this system, they can simply post the rules, and step out of any involvement at all That’s what I said! Bazinga!

“Deepest pockets is deepest guilt”Bad outcome equals negligence in most people’s minds. My latest copy of my medical defence journal carries a salutary story where a surgeon was found negligent this year for not using a particular technique in a hernia repair. Two “experts” gave opinion it should have been done a particular way. Two others said it was standard modern technique to NOT do it that way. ( and I gas for at least one hernia a week with about 5 different surgeons and not one has used that technique as standard for a decade or more. ) But the court found surgeon negligent for not doing the technique even though no currently accepted reason to do it. The literature is full of similar stories. The two doctors who gave Barry Hempel the medicals prior to his crash where a passenger died were pursued for about a decade and they just fulfilled the old style medical without making a detirmination of his fitness to fly.

But when a bad outcome happens everyone involved is lumped together. Regardless of common sense everyone gets tarred as being culpable. The less input you have the less risk you carry.So make no decisions you carry much less risk.

Are you meaning poor take ups of DAMEs wanting to have the authority to give pilots a pass medical.?The suggestion is that its because the DAMEs are reluctant to expose themselves to the medicolegal risk (of being sued by a relative of someone who they say is fit to fly but who has a medical event that kills them. ) I don’t understand what you mean by “they are the benchmarks”.

It’s actually a bit different. The doctor is expected to have done it correctly. But CASA does not let the doctor actually decide if what they have observed and recorded equates to any ability to understand if it makes them able to fly safely. It’s more like you examine the patient for specific things that CASA has asked you to look for. As you do the examinations you tick the boxes when what you find is normal. At the end of the examination if every box is ticked you pass. The doctor doesn’t actually decide you are fit to fly, he decides if you fit the list defined by CASA.

I have been advised by AOPA senior DAME that the DAMEs taking up the authority represents only about 25% of DAMEs. There appears to be no great interest in DAMEs adding this authority to their resumes because predominantly of the risks of litigation if someone they have deemed fit has an event. If 75% have said they are not going to get the authority it would suggest the idea is an abject failure.

Yesterday I read the latest AOPA magazine which had a somewhat mixed-enthusiasm article about the current state of the medical reform by the AOPA chief DAME representative. I emailed him about it and got an interesting response. Essentially among the lack of information that CASA are giving, even he has not been given any information about the detail of the rules relating the the Basic medical. The other interesting thing he said that at present only 25% of DAME have taken up or have expressed any desire to take up the authority to give on the spot passes for medicals for standard class 2 medicals. It seems it’s not an across the board general authority to give the pass. For a DAME to have the authority to give it they have to apply and be granted approval. Otherwise it’s business as usual - send the findings of the medical to AvMed who wil then adjudicate on it as is done now. Most are not going to be part of it predominantly about concerns of litigation should there be an issue after they have said someone is fit if they have an event. I assume same will apply to GPs when the private Basic Class 2 comes out. So once again it will probably be a case of CASA painting a wonderful picture about change while knowing that the status quo will remain.

Some aircraft have temperature limitations in the operating manuals and so not only would it be unpleasant it might actually be illegal to fly on days which exceed those temps.

Short answer - no It doesn’tLonger answer. Yes it does but for the purpose of calculating a couple of more useful numbers ( pressure altitude and density altitude) we pretend it’s an independent variable. QNH ( pressure) is affected by lots of stuff. Movement of air in horizontal direction due to gradients of pressure elsewhere , mass of the column of air above that layer of air. Yep local temp will expand the air causing some decrease in pressure. But The pressure from the mass of air above will be mostly the same because the air expands so it’s volume gets bigger but it’s mass is the same. So in effect the top of the atmosphere gets higher but mass stays the same. But yes some of it will expand outwards not all upwards so yes it will have some small and inconsistent effect. So Yes local temperature and temperature of air above will effect it a bit but in a complex way. But the simple derived calculations by feeding it back into the equations (regardless of any effect it might have) provide usable numbers that give usable markers of It’s effect on flight characteristics.

As a general principle I would prefer it.The Chinese government aren’t likely to swamp my pages with ads for things I looked at a month ago or places I’ve visited recently. That’s something that really bugs me. My wife and I recently went back to the resort where we were married, for our anniversary. I emailed the place direct and have not done a search of any sort on line. No need. Have the contacts, know what it’s like, know the room we had and got it again. But every day since I get ads and video clips of the place on Facebook, YouTube etc. I don’t need the ads and they are only sh..ting me off. I’m more likely to never go again because of the ads rather than be enticed to go again soon. Frankly I’d rather see some ads for places in China I have never been!

For most of us oldies (making some huge assumptions about the assembled masses there) you are of course completely correct.I personally put very little information on line, I have a few friends on Facebook and purposely have not added any for years despite the constant harassment to add more. I don’t click likes and I don’t respond to many things except for denegrating CASA every chance I get. Having an internet footprint like that is pretty much devoid of usefulness to a third party. However to play devil’s advocate that apparently is not how the majority of users treat the internet these days. Apparently very large numbers of users do put significant amounts of personal detail on their profiles in various platforms from which much demographic data can be gleaned. Then their browsing and click habits etc give both a general and a person specific picture of their likes, habits, pastimes and political leanings. In an open democratic society their general data gets used for demographic stuff - census like stuff, political leanings, likelihood of their voting patterns. In a closed totalitarian world there’s nothing to stop them being used more sinisterly. Like being put on a list of potential enemies based purely on derived likely political leanings. Even if they are not overtly rampantly political. Apparently they have worked out stuff like how many likes and agrees in particular directions tells whether you are conservative or left wing. And a few more tells how far and how likely you are to vote that way, how likely to take to the streets or cause social disruption in pursuit of your cause. In the commercial world. Everyone’s data is useful. As evidenced by discussions on this forum in the past. Click on something commercial and you are bombarded by ads for similar stuff for weeks after. There are now, as we sit here, companies who use your individual data to direct advertising to your webpages based on what the webpage companies know about you as an individual. Is that a problem? Could be if your life insurance company decides your internet clicks reflect your life risks and refuse cover. Your health insurers may do the same. Could be if you try to search for something to buy you never get the full story because the company who sells the object that really suits your need don’t pay the browser company enough and only the big spenders product gets pushed toward you. When I read the reports of what Cambridge analytica were doing and how they and similar companies tie innocuous sounding information together and generate complex pictures of individuals it is quite scary.

And as the current Facebook and Cambridge analytica saga shows it’s not just governments but private companies who get and use your data. Sure some they sell to governments but some will use the data for their own ends.

Yeah. I have to admit that’s what I have relied on. The advantage is that on almost every occasion I’ve been offered a lift /picked up by a passing driver. One time our planned lift didn’t arrive so we started walking and barely made it out of the airfield when we were offered a lift. Mates of mine did a trip to Western Australia over the last three weeks. They were in Coober pedy and got a lift from a pilot and wife who also arrived. Turned out to be local MP who took them into town, showed them around and dropped them back at the airport. (I’ve had several similar events elsewhere) I doubt would have got same if I’d had a unicycle ( maybe if also juggled as well might have got some interest and could put out a tin for donations)

Yep. Exactly right.As far as costs go some of the ones in development that I have seen are in the range of $300K AUS. That’s the cost of a normal aircraft (of similar capabilities) plus a car bought paid for and left at every airport you are likely to use on any trip.