Jaba-who

Don't get your hopes up. This leaves more questions unanswered then answered. Remember the RAMPC was a drivers licence with provisos. It was the provisos which made it unattainable for most people. If they could pass the provisos many people could pass the class 2 medical. So now if this has similar provisos - then it will be just the same. It depends what the rationale behind this is. If it's to allow people who would not pass the class 2 to keep flying -that's one thing. If it's just to make it easier for only those people who could pass the class 2 anyway - is a completely different thing. There's a good chance it is a Trojan horse and is there to make CASA look like they are doing something and stop the complaints while actually doing nothing.

The problem is the public perception. Can't do anything about or being aware of something you don't do. In this case there have been evidence that noise is not and never was a problem. It was the belief of people it would be a problem and now they still want to limit activity after it's been shown the problem didn't exist. Often (usually) these complaints are completely based on unrealistic expectation. We have had people stopped from setting up airstrips here where complainants have basically won on noise which proved essentially non-existent, the risk that sparks from aircraft engines might set cane fields on fire as they come in or take off over them and if an aircraft has an engine failure the pilot would lose control of the aircraft and crash into farm houses. The biggest problem is humans tend to be for or against something on a non-evidential gut feeling and then move heaven and earth to find or manufacture evidence to support this entirely emotional feeling.

Already are. Have been for several years but that's for privately owned aircraft being used for recreational purposes. $385 between 10 an and 2 pm. Otherwise $15 for business, commercial or private outside those hours. If his company owns the aircraft it's OK and if he flies in early it's OK The point is that the road in question is a mountain range road, single lane, blocked by landslides, traffic accidents or similar about 4 or 5 times a week. Enough blockages that it has an SMS service which you can subscribe to which tells you when it's blocked and when the traffic is limited and when it clears. I subscribe to it as I have to take that road to my home airport. The other ridiculousness about his case was that after the initial court case where the complainants said his noise would cause problems ( before he had even built it or landed there once. But after the outcome was formalised they then asked for him to be made to submit a log each month of take offs and landings. And when asked why they admitted they couldn't hear it well enough to know when he was taking off and they needed to be able to tell if he was following the rules.

The devil will be in the detail. No gain if the only change is you have to go to a GP the same number of times who fills out the same form which is then assessed by CASA. Even now the standard class 2 is not actually "assessed" by a DAME. The DAME is merely a technician who does an examination and compares their findings to a proscribed list of acceptable findings. You pass when you fit the list from CASA. If the new basic Class 2 is just you go to the GP who does the same examination and compares you to the same list from CASA then there's no gain at all. I only read the article in the link above so have no more detail but based on CASAs history - I remain skeptical. Says will be "based" on commercial drivers licence. The RAMPC is " based " on the commercial drivers licence but with so many exclusions that some people can pass the class 2 but not the RAMPC.

After Mareeba heading north the options are also mixed: Most direct is: Mareeba - Port Douglas - Cape Tribulation - Cooktown But same applies about weather. The coast there can have south easterly stream rain at that time of year but often with low cloud. Between mouth of the Daintree and Archers Point you have longer sections with mountains dropping straight into the sea - absolutely no where to land ( no beach in a lot of the distance) and you can not cross landward in much of it. So have a low threshold for taking a western route. When weather is good probably some of the most beautiful coastal flying scenery in Oz. But no good when cloud and rain close it off. Bad weather alternate is to track - Mareeba - Lake Mitchell - Mt. Carbine - follow highway west to Maitland Downs - Lakeland - Cooktown

Yep that's a good path. But I would have a plan for a western approach as well because of potential for weather issues. For what it's worth in order of ease and picturesqueness etc 1. Innisfail - East Palmerston - Millaa Millaa - Atherton (overnighter) - Mareeba 2. Innisfail - Gordonvale - Atherton 3. From West of the ranges - Petford -Dimbulah - Mareeba - Atherton.

Would be great to have a safari drop in. That’s for sure. With regard the route to atherton. Bad news is that it is very Weather dependant in which way you can go. Best case scenario - turn as you suggested at Innisfail not Babinda. The mountains behind Babinda are way too high Bartle Frere is highest mountain in Qld (5200 odd feet) and 2nd highest Belenden Ker ( just under at about 5000 ft) big areas of rain forest and tiger country. No one ever goes over that except in a Qantas or virgin. Just to south of these there’s a nice escarpment and only a short strip of rough stuff before you get onto the tableland and farm country ( still hills but at least open paddocks and roads). Get up high enough to see where the shortest leap over evil stuff is and take that. That route is easily clouded in though. Next best is to keep heading north till you get to gordonvale just south of cairns. Stay under the CTA steps and you are fine. Turn west and follow the Mulgrave River Valley climb to below 4500ft and cross the escarpment and you are right level with Atherton. Just cross the dam and farm lands etc and you’re there. If the weather is really crappy though you will need to go west. The weather here can be socked in anywhere but typical places are around Ingham, at Innisfail, the valley south of cairns and atherton itself. The weather here does not move through fast unlike down south. it can stay in for days or even weeks. So if you wanted to just wait and let the weather go through check the forecast. Sometimes you’ll be waiting weeks. Going west - you may need to go west anywhere south of here. Or if you are going via Thangool consider staying west the whole time. Thangool -emerald-Clermont -charters towers - then a long stretch to abeam Mareeba. Fuel may be an issue there. Come in via Petford and Dimbulah (YDIM) the valley there is in a rain shadow - it’s our failsafe entry route to all our trips. Can usually ( never say always) get in from the west that way. Get to Mareeba then turn back south to atherton. Alternate is Mareeba -as they say in the ads “300 sunny days a year “ there. Just a bit more stuff to digest.

Sounds great. When you get up north - level with Cairns you may have to go west - due to CTA covering all of coastal route around cairns. If you are wanting a stop for a pee break or an overnight and fuel then consider atherton. Lovely little grass strip airport, no landing fees, a gas credit card self serve bowser and lots of hotels and accom. There is some limited accommodations at the airport itself and a caravan park with some cabins ( I think I can check) in walking distance at the road into the airport. Very active and welcoming aeroclub there with no pretentiousness about GA or RAA rivalry etc. if you are planning on a weekend day there the troops would probably put out the welcome mat and fire up the Bbq. Only downside is that the weather can be a bit more dodgy than the other option - Mareeba which is just down the road about 13 nm. All same points as outlined above except they have landing fees. I’m happy to give info on all options. A thought - a long way ahead - Cooktown airport is a long way out of town so you’ll have to add transport into your planning. But the accom proprietors are pretty good. We can usually can get the place to come pick us up so no problem just add it to your list of planning bits.

I have done lots of big group flying trips ( usually for a week or so) and was the main organiser for our aero club touring trips yearly from 2000 to about 2014. From my experience I agree wholeheartedly with HITC. Get your flying done early. Turbulence can be a pain in the afternoons ( that time of year is usually OK but even in winter you can get turbulent if it warms up. There's often plenty to see at your destination so give yourself time to look around. Nothing worse then arriving somewhere with lots of things to see but have no time to do it. "Been there but not actually been there" If you know what I mean. If you must fly in the afternoons OK but get it over with as early as you are happpy with. You have to allow sometimes significant amounts of time for refuelling and tieing down etc. not all places have self serve bowsers or if they do they can be broken and have to use refuellers. In the bush refuellers are not always there when you arrive. I've had guys promise to be there but were off in town, fishing or uncontactable when we arrived. Also refuellers go home - sometimes early if it's a quiet day and some will charge a call out fee to come back if you are a minute after they have clocked off for the day. Etc. You can get hotels etc happily come and pick you up during working hours but after hours they are trying to run restaurants and get their own meals and close the books for the day and book in late car travellers who arrive. They can be reluctant to come pick you up then. And lots of small places don't have taxi services or they also can be difficult to get late in the day. Booking ahead is a two edged sword. You know you have a bed - if you get there. But it puts pressure of push-on-Itis to get there when the better thing to do is divert. But not booking ahead also has risks. Depending on the size of the group you can find you get to a place unannounced and not have enough beds. Murphy law says There will always be the rodeo or the camel races or B & S Ball ( if they still exist) on that day that you turn up and the town will be booked out. And some small towns don't have much accomodation anyway. It's worthwhile limiting your numbers severely. Our big groups ( used to have anywhere up to 15 aircraft and 30 or so people) purposely folded about 5 years ago and we now do small groups doing their own thing. We found the biggest easy-to-deal-with number is three aircraft and six people. Few enough that getting an unannounced hotel room isn't usually a problem. Enough people that if someone starts getting on your nerves there's others to dilute it, but enough to be doing stuff together. More than that starts to become problematic with beds, fuelling times, varying speeds of aircraft means some people are waiting at airports for ages or delaying everyone else etc. If you decide to prebook - make all participants do their own booking. From bitter experience I learned that for a group booking while you get a bit of a discount you usually have to pay upfront or at least they have a hefty cancellation fee and long period beforehand with a significant cancellation fee. So you cancel because of weather - you will never know about the weather until the day - so you'll lose the fee ( on your own card) and then some of your group will resist requests to split the cost of the fee and won't repay you. Sadly I have lost hundreds of dollars to beligerent a..holes who I thought were mates until it came to parting with $. So yep - find the hotels and check they have rooms and then get everyone to book their own rooms directly. I could go on for ages about the details of big group flying safaris. Glad to impart more experience to you later if needed. Specifically to your planned route that's right through my home turf so can also advise quite a bit about best routes or ideas.

Reading the ebay text it seems to infer that $2300 was bid but that is below the reserve price. So I suspect unless it's a lot of cartons and of the most expensive amber stuff they would be expecting a lot more. I doubt it's worth $230 let alone $2300.

Must depend on where you are. I looked at several local private optometrists and yep about $1000 for one pair of graduated glasses. Got two pair from optical superstore for $650 I think it was. Had to get several updates as my eyes aged. Total cost from the cheapie place about 1/3 that of the "real" optometrist and they lasted the full length of time I could have expected.

You could use it as a garden ornament or a chook house. But I don't think you could use it as a flying machine.

After I wrote my post I thought I'd hunt for it. Found this one too. Very interesting as well. But there are more of them. Didn't look familiar. No mention about the landing in both directions at same time.

There was a video program floating around about these amazing women. Don't recall the name but I recall a few snippets. One was that these pilots got no instruction or time on the aircraft before they were expected to ferry them. Sometimes they got the flight manual but sometimes they'd arrive at the airfield to find the aircraft with just got a few hand written notes on the seat with the various speeds for take off, landing, flaps and undercarriage deployment. That was it. Another story was that they were trained to always land on one side of the centre line not down the centre. One of the women recounted how she ferried a fighter in atrocious weather with almost no visibility and finally found the airstrip in the fog. Landed - and as she was about mid-runway another fighter rolled past her in the fog in the opposite direction. Fortunately also landing off centre. The video would be well worth watching if you can find it.

The problem is that almost every airport interprets the rules differently and applies them according to their own interpretation. Each one makes their own decisions about how they enforce the ASICs but there's not often any debate about what is the secure area. But I have to say I have never been to any where any place airside was not considered to be the secure area. Once you passed through the gate/fence that separated the public from the planes you were in the secure area. The fuel bowsers etc were all part of the secure area. But most airports only get any hint of security consciousness when pilots want to go through the gates ( usually in but paradoxically sometimes out as well). If you are a pilot with a plane and you land, taxi to the bowser refuel and fly away most places seem to not care less. But occasionally you get a little el supremo who wants to show off his power. But how strictly or sensibly they enforce the ASIC and security are all over the shop. I've been to airports where they would not even let you in the GA apron of airport even when we had ASICs. They came and escorted us from a side gate to our aircraft. . ( At Ayers Rock/Uluru) what was even more annoying was we were held up for over a half hour waiting for them and our daylight needed for our next destination was going. And to rub salt into the wound - we all had red ASICs ( higher security clearance and cleared for ALL airports in Oz and the ground lackey who came to escort us had a grey card - local airport only low level security. At Leonora they wouldn't even let my mates OUT of the airport without a security guard coming and opening the gate. Wouldn't give them the code over the phone even though he said he had a card and could give them the card number over the phone. Until the idiot didn't turn up and they called him again and he realised that he was at Kalgoorlie airport and they were at Leonora ( covered by the same council. ) He reluctantly gave them the codes over the phone. At Darwin we had to line up ( 16 of us) and hold up our cards one at a time to the camera and have them photographed and the gates opened singly for each of us. Took about an hour to get through the gate. Lots of places where the code is scratched on the nearest post to the gate, where they couldn't care less whether you actually had an ASIC etc. but plenty where you can phone someone and they'll give you the code. They may or may not ask if you have an ASIC. I've never had or heard of an escort require payment.

I had a similar event with my first wooden prop. I think it originated from a stone strike if I recall. Anyway I spoke with Stiffy and he advised just using the epoxy that came with the kit. I just injected it in with a needle and syringe then clamped it down. As best I recall it worked fine.

Ask the users of Mareeba airport. Government ( sorry I don't recall whether it was state or federal) gave them $18 million for major works on the airport to upgrade it to regional hub status and take all the aforementioned companies who have been pushed out of cairns. They canvased the users and were advised that it could not operate as a hub while it had no parallel taxiway ( current configuration now requires locking up the strip while aircraft backtrack full length on RWY 10 which is the active runway about 95% of the time. ) and a lengthened runway to accomodate dash 8 s and other mid sized commuter types. So the council then spent the entire amount on roads in the vicinity - none required for the airport except one which crosses around the far end of the runway to some distant hangars BUT which will have to be bulldozed and moved when they lengthen the runway as advised they must. But did get votes from farmers around the area I suppose. And all work on the airport has ceased. And now to replace and raise the funds to actually do the work -the scuttlebutt is the rates and charges on airport users is being raised. And no one is held accountable for it.

If only that were true. I don't know where you get your information from. But I have been involved in meetings with one such owner of an airport as a board member of an aero club and at another time pursuing plans for a set of T Hangars. . And what you are saying there is complete misinformation. In Australia they are not protected at all. In the USA there was a both federal and some state legislations that protected some airfields - but with bizarre unexpected outcomes. Like people were fined for using their own hangars as storage for their own property or even more weirdly there were cases of people leaving their cars in the hangar when they went flying and being fined because car storage is not an aviation activity. But back to the Australian situation. Sorry about the length of what follows. But it's an epic subject. The sale contracts essentially commonly had clauses that says platitudes like that where possible and prefentially the owners should endeavour to retain aviation activities as the prime function of the airport. But they always have had avenues for the owners to recoup their investments. The clauses generally were written in such a way that they could not directly close down an aviation business but there was nothing to stop them increasing costs such that the businesses were no longer viable. If the business themselves close down or move off field then the owner gets clear freedom to take in whatever commercial activity they can to get a return. The use of many airports is moving at a fast pace toward non-aviation precincts and activities. And there are copious examples of nonaviation activities encroaching into airports. The only slow down has recently been a less than loud question about shopping precincts etc close to runways after the Essendon crash last year but the sounds of dissent are limited. This form of extortion is not just happening in capital cities although Bankstown is a prime example. But places like Cairns for instance. Where it once cost $321 to park a plane on the grass in the open for a year now costs $6000 for a Private owned aircraft and $16,000 for a commercial aircraft. and costs $385 landing fees between 10 am and 2 pm for private aircraft. So what has happened ? The airport owners were sold the airport with government assurance they could do what they liked. Right from the start they made noises of being supportive of general aviation but screwed everyone exponentially. The aero Club who had been on the field for 60 years was pushed out by taking away their main income stream and racking up rent. Same with small GA businesses. Rents pushed up beyond actual income of the business ( not just above profit but above total gross income) Everyone except the bigger players ( eg Hawker Pacific) and the government backed training facilities and flying doctor etc. is gradually being forced off field to Mareeba, Atherton and Innisfail or close down. And in Cairns eg. to prevent or satisfy the complaints of specifically targeting aviation - the owners claimed they would build up the other side of the runway for the aviation businesses. But of course it would cost $70 million to build up that infrastructure and the costs would be passed on to the aviation businesses on top of the existing extortionate rents. But surprise surprise - the leases are up on the GA side but the replacement infrastructure on the eastern side is still maybe a decade away - if it ever happens because it also requires filling in mangroves and which is Possibly never going to happen because of the environmental implications. And what will happen to the empty hangars etc on the GA side - Half the GA side is now being closed down, leases ended and the area is planned for a non aviation commercial precinct. On top of that they claim ownership of people's hangars, and take the actual hangar when the owners are pushed off field. But that's another side to the saga. Sorry but what you say is factually incorrect.

These agreements always have an out that allows the operator to move toward non aviation use if there is no demand for the facilities at an airport. It's easy to create a lack of demand. Simply crank up the rents, remove services and make life untenable for the avaiation tenants. That's what is happening everywhere.

It's scary how Facebook ( and by extension - anyone they share your info with) follows what you do and across devices and platforms. ) I had a number of times where I have looked up a business website or on maps on my phone and called them. Not even spoken to the owner just a receptionist. Then suddenly I am being asked to friend the principle of the business. Never had any contact with the person before and never been asked to friend them before. And never directly on Facebook and they have no mutual friends etc. Facebook has spied on my phone calls and linked me to people I have had a phone business contact with. Scary.

Lots of murmurings about a jack stall. The loop could have been the pitch up, right roll then severe nose down that's been described as sometimes happening in squirrels when they get hydraulic failure.

Doesn't look like it crashed to me. Looks like it make a floats landing.

I think Dick Smith said the same about looking the part in his round the world helicopter flight. When I was flying international retrievals ( as medical crew not the front office crew) we covered a lot of South Pacific 3rd world countries and we medical people went in civvies and several times had some problems relating to the fact we didn't look like we should be there. Learned fairly quickly to always hang stethoscopes round necks even when not likely to use them and carry some medical equipment even when not needed. The air crew always were dressed in white shirts with as many bars as would fit on the epaulettes.

Sure thing. Glad to offer any knowledge.

The ABC had a segment a few weeks back talking to an ex-high court judge or constitutional lawyer ( I forget which) but essentially he said two things. Firstly that almost every parliament since federation probably had large numbers of members who were actually ineligible. Secondly that if a malign country wanted to completely cripple Australia they could make every Australian citizen an automatic citizen of their country and we would be rendered government less and if that country simply refused to accept any denouncement of that citizenship there is absolutely nothing we could do because we need a government to change the constitution. The way it is worded means that you don't even have to want it or accept it. As soon as you are eligible you have to step down from parliament. I'm expecting North Korean citizenship any day now!