Jaba-who

Sadly at least in Oz what is obvious to the man on the Clapham omnibus has been subverted by sneaky legalese.In my neck of the woods a few years ago a young bloke fell off a cliff at popular tourist spot and was injured. He sued the local council for not protecting him from the dangerous cliff. Although he was found PARTIALLY to blame the council was forced ( through its insurance which we all pay for as rate payers) to then pay for. The reason the council was found predominantly negligent was 1. The fact that a cliff is an obvious danger was not apparently obvious to this idiot. Despite the fact that most people realise that precipitous drops are dangerous. 2. The signs that said to stay back from the edge were not a deterrent and the council should have realised that people don't take notice of signs 3. The fence that bordered the viewing platform was of a construction that the person involved was able to climb over it. It was up to the council to make fences climb proof. In other words the man on the Clapham omnibus is no longer the standard even the courts won't admit it. - it's a drunk idiot who apparently needs protection from himself. And if someone doesn't protect him its society's fault. Same applies to the guy who bought a Piper Cherokee ( I think) and tried to use the pilot manual to teach himself to fly from scratch with the manual in his lap. Crashed and died. His estate sued the company alleging that a normal person would - on reading the manual which gave worded instructions on general flight controls - would think it was reasonable to believe the manual could be used in such a way. This is despite laws stating that you had to do instruction through a flight school of some sort, you had to do training and gain a licence and that the general public knew that there was requirement for these things etc etc. So in this case even laws and public knowledge were not enough to the plaintiff. That case was one of the reasons why piper ceased production of light singles.

The difference with taking only family is that - worst case scenario and the whole family perishes there is no estate left to sue my estate. And if they survive but need care then it comes out of my insurance and my estate to whom I would have been leaving it anyway. Last thing I want is to have a prang and then have a passengers estate sue for psychological loss ( as did the families of the skydiver Cessna 206 a few years ago and I think they won) or passenger sue for future costs of care and then my family loses it all and my family is left destitute while a passenger or their family get my estate. Something else that most people are not aware of is that when they step into an aircraft that is not fixed route advertised rpt then their own life insurance is almost always invalid. So that leaves the injured party or the family left behind reliant on seeing to have any money to cover medical costs, care etc etc. The other thing pilots should be aware is that if a passenger dies or loses their income then the estate can make claims based on loss of future earnings of that person. So if you take a doctor or a lawyer flying then have the prang the likelihood is that the claim for loss of future earnings will be huge. It may well be greater than your insurance payout even if the insurers payout without a quibble. If the payout falls short you or your estate has to make it up. If you don't have it they can garnishee your future income. All very scary but that's the way it's become. Sadly when an accident happens the victim will usually try to blame someone.

The difference with taking only family is that - worst case scenario and the whole family perishes there is no estate left to sue my estate. And if they survive but need care then it comes out of my insurance and my estate to whom I would have been leaving it anyway. Last thing I want is to have a prang and then have a passengers estate sue for psychological loss ( as did the families of the skydiver Cessna 206 a few years ago and I think they won) or passenger sue for future costs of care and then my family loses it all and my family is left destitute while a passenger or their family get my estate. Something else that most people are not aware of is that when they step into an aircraft that is not fixed route advertised rpt then their own life insurance is almost always invalid. So that leaves the injured party or the family left behind reliant on seeing to have any money to cover medical costs, care etc etc. The other thing pilots should be aware is that if a passenger dies or loses their income then the estate can make claims based on loss of future earnings of that person. So if you take a doctor or a lawyer flying then have the prang the likelihood is that the claim for loss of future earnings will be huge. It may well be greater than your insurance payout even if the insurers payout without a quibble. If the payout falls short you or your estate has to make it up. If you don't have it they can garnishee your future income. All very scary but that's the way it's become. Sadly when an accident happens the victim will usually try to blame someone.

That’s interesting. I think I’ll send them an email then. The fact they have an internal 4 place intercom will win it for me if they still are available. I have found in the ten or so years I have been trying to idealise my set up is that every extra connection, every external wire or switch between devices is a potential source of some issue. External wires in such close proximity to everything else seem to act as antennae and suck in noise from everything. I have to admit my research on it all seemed to point to the fact that jabiru engines seem to be particularly noisy ( electrically speaking) and micro air radios particularly susceptible to noise. The perfect wrong combination. So going to another better noise rejecting radio may be all I need but might as well go the whole hog if I can.

It would be interesting to read the actual court transcripts or at least a legal persons summary. I suspect that the courts must have considered some degree of negligence on the part of the Pilot was present. I would have thought they would also take the “inherently dangerous” line too. But if the pilot was negligent then that somewhat negates the inherent danger bit.

It would be interesting to read the actual court transcripts or at least a legal persons summary. I suspect that the courts must have considered some degree of negligence on the part of the Pilot was present. I would have thought they would also take the “inherently dangerous” line too. But if the pilot was negligent then that somewhat negates the inherent danger bit.

It’s a complex question or rather a complex answer. You would hope that it will all go smoothly. The insurer will pay out and everyone will move on with their lives. And it probably will. But not always - Anybody can sue over anything that goes wrong. Being sued is a harrowing experience and plenty of times people just pay up rather than continue a fight even when they are not in the wrong. Some people get target fixation and want their day in court even if there is little chance of winning and the defendant can be found innocent but still end up being punished by the process. There is nothing to stop a plaintiff accepting an insurance payout but claiming the payout limit is not enough and seeking a bigger top up from the defendant. Also nothing to stop the insurance company trying at squirming their way out of paying. Usually they look for negligence on the part of the defendant which may negate the insurance companies liability. Also nothing to stop a claim and then even if found in the pilots favour and costs awarded against the plaintiff. Then the plaintiff claims bankruptcy and the innocent defendant still ends up covering their own costs. All can be very messy. I don’t take anyone flying any more except family after legal advice from a magistrate friend. Not that it bothers me as I don’t Particularly want the responsibility of other people’s lives when I’m not at work.

It’s a complex question or rather a complex answer.You would hope that it will all go smoothly. The insurer will pay out and everyone will move on with their lives. And it probably will. But not always - Anybody can sue over anything that goes wrong. Being sued is a harrowing experience and plenty of times people just pay up rather than continue a fight even when they are not in the wrong. Some people get target fixation and want their day in court even if there is little chance of winning and the defendant can be found innocent but still end up being punished by the process. There is nothing to stop a plaintiff accepting an insurance payout but claiming the payout limit is not enough and seeking a bigger top up from the defendant. Also nothing to stop the insurance company trying at squirming their way out of paying. Usually they look for negligence on the part of the defendant which may negate the insurance companies liability. Also nothing to stop a claim and then even if found in the pilots favour and costs awarded against the plaintiff. Then the plaintiff claims bankruptcy and the innocent defendant still ends up covering their own costs. All can be very messy. I don’t take anyone flying any more except family after legal advice from a magistrate friend. Not that it bothers me as I don’t Particularly want the responsibility of other people’s lives when I’m not at work.

I didn’t say I didn’t follow the rules. I said they were situations which cause problems. And not because people necessarily don’t want to follow rules ( although yep I agree aviation seems to attract anti authoritarian types) But for every easy solution there’s a complex reason why the simple solution doesn’t work. 1. Yep. That’s been fixed now for two of the three airfields I’m thinking of. And I’m thinking that if three problems like this exist in my patch of sky they must exist by the many in the rest of Oz) . - after about 10 years and countless representations. Maps finally fixed ( by individuals and RAPAC ) but not before they caused the problems. 2. There were actually 3 airfields that were not marked. One problem airfield is inside the vtc and two are not. The one inside the vtc was in a unique position. Inside the vtc but west of a mountain range which made it completely outside the practical area of the airport around whom the vtc was centered. Traffic passing around and unrelated to the big airport would often use the vnc or Wac because they were outside then inside then outside the vtc and have no actual need of the vtc because they were not going into the international airport. And to make matters even more complex - the area frequency was in multiple places terrain shielded from the ATC operating at the big airport. 3. You used area because that’s what the rules said you must - even though all around you were CTAF areas that you were likely to have traffic who would impact in you but were on the ctaf while you were on the area. This last scenario is the one which is the most common and the one which RAPAC have multiple comments about in their submissions. I think this is the one which probably occurs most commonly. The rule means that aircraft in close enough proximity are forced to be in different frequencies. Casa attempting yet again to enforce a “one size fits all “ policy.

it’s a new model so maybe they haven’t had time to upgrade their website. There was also no mention about it in the USA distributors website. If you have a look in the MGL parent company’s South African website there is a bit about it.

There is an Australian distributor who I haven’t contacted yet cos it’s all been happening over Xmas. I don’t have the link to the website with me here. I can post it later.

There were/are a number of localities where the situation makes for specific problems. Some that affected me personally. 1. Busy country town strips not on maps but busy enough that lots of people assumed they were. 2. Busy Strips that were on some maps but not on others. One was On the VTC of nearby international airport but not on WAC or VNC . 3. Strips just outside of the CTAFs that were marked. And where specifically - the CTAF was very busy ( including a training establishment) AND the area freq is the frequency of a busy international airport whose ATC has no interest in you calling on their busy frequency.

Yep. In fact doctors do have a legal duty to provide medical help. We got a recent AHPRA bulletin outlining that fact. There is a Good Samaritan law which limits doctors liability for errors or bad outcomes when they do help provided it’s done in an emergency, with no expectation of reward but they are not allowed to not help - for medical issues. There is no requirement for a doctor to say embark on rescuing someone from a burning building or from a raging torrent etc. It’s just to provide medical help where medical help is needed.

Follow up on the above. Have been in contact with Rainier (CEO of MGL) He tells me they have ceased making V6 transceivers. Their current model is V16. Can be connected together as dual comms fairly simply. Downside is they no longer have 4 place intercom in them. They have a two place intercom which can be deactivated and attach to an outside 4 place intercom. Not quite what I had hoped after reading the V6 literature which did have an integrated 4 place. But anyway they seem to be the direction to go in. I’m away on vacation for 3 weeks and I’ll get some MGLs when I get back I think. Probably sell them - if you are interested I can can back to you when I get the new ones and make sure they are working etc.

There's lots of control measures short f that they can do. Some of the experiences I have previously commented on: Local guy with a low level grey asic card refuses to allow to two pilots both with red ASICs to access their aircraft. You are outside the gates and He will not give the gate code to you and insists you remain where you are till he comes and escorts you to your aircraft. A security guy on the end of the phone refuses to give you the gate code ( in this case to get OUT of the airport after landed and already in the secure area despite advising him you have asic card and advising him you just want to get out to catch a taxi to your hotel. He insists on you waiting there till he arrives to let you out. Another security guy insists that a group of 16 pilots ( all with ASIC cards ) each and every pilot show their asic card ( via a camera at the gate and the numbers be recorded. ) This despite us saying to him that the law says only one must have a card and that one person can escort all the others anyway even if not one of them had a card. "No! I have to record a pilots card details and you are all pilots with cards so I am going do every one of you. " Nearly an hour later he opened the gate.

I'm not so sure. I think it's a complete top to bottom pressure phenomenon. Government says you have to have it, and every level below that enters into A_ _ _ covering mode and also insist you have to have it because that's the rules. But yep. We notice it more in the little guy at the bottom of the chain because we are in contact with them. And as correctly said earlier give a little guy a uniform and a badge and he becomes a little Hitler ( because he wants to cover his butt and because the rules say he can). I see similar stuff in the health beaurocracy all the time. People with actually very little power in the grand system see themselves as big fish in their little pond but also aware they can be hooked at anytime by someone from up the chain so enforce the rules to the nth degree.

Yep. The built in 4 place intercom has attracted me. Now I’m waiting on Mgl to get back to me about wiring dual comms.

Thanks. I'd be interested in the xcom diagram. I have endless microair diagrams for every combination of single, dual, single with intercom, dual with intercom. I'd be interested in the xcom in a dual set up with intercom and a comm select switch if you have one.

I’ve emailed MGL about their V6 model but haven’t received a reply. I am most interested in getting something that has better noise rejection than the Microairs. I have had them for the whole time (about 10 years) and while I never got the noise issues completely fixed they were bearable. But early this year did a reno on the upholstery that required the dash be pulled out. Since then I have had huge problems with noise, instability in everything - transmit, receive, sidetone. And all new or different from before so all new fixes needing nutting through. Just figure I can either spend ages retracing and finding new fixes possibly ( and still have 10 year old microairs) or spend some money and fix the problems. The biggest issue I have with choosing the model is being sure I can link 2 comms and have some form of ability to have four places. As soon as I get confirmation I can do that with either xcom or mgl ( and a wiring diagram) then I’ll get them.

Yep. It makes me think it's sped up replay rate. It seems to be rotating at a really fast rate and still descending really rapidly but when it hits the ground there's barely any inertial movement of the pilot or gear in the cockpit etc.

I must admit my preference is to remove everything to do with the radios and intercom and replace the lot. I'm just so sick of the endless problems.

I'm about to give up on my old ( N and P model) Microair 760 radios in by Jab 430 and replace them with something new. Anybody have any recommendations or "stay away from" advice about new brands? I have two radios and a 4 place intercom. I would not be interested in going to anything that had less capability than that. So comments about speciifc experience with a dual comm set up would be welcome. Thanks all.

In GA experimental - It's basically not as grey as you'd think. The default position is You can't have a second person. But if you are to be able to demonstrate to the authorised person that the second person is required The AP then may approve that the second person is able to be present. Technically until you are given approval you can't have a second.

Perhaps someone could follow up the comment made quite early in this thread that the first wheels up was a hung up nose wheel : ie a mechanical failure not a pilot failure - Was that first comment a known event or a speculation. If it was mechanical then this counts as his first

The quoted time is the average. I built mine in 13 months ( but in 1400 hrs of work - essentially full time). But I would believe the report on averages because I know of some who took more than 10 years, some who took 5 or 6. Also one ( an RV) that has not even been taken out the box in about 6 years. So for every quick build we have a slow build. The point is that it’s important to consider time frames and other potential life events in the whole decision making process. I’m not for a minute saying don’t do it, but rather go into it fully aware of how the whole thing may progress.