Jaba-who

I suspect this argument is a furphy though I may be wrong as I don’t have the stats. The kind of justification that we hear every time for not advancing with all new technologies.” Doesn’t cure EVERY problem” or “has some rare risk” therefore should not add it to our equipment list. Anyone have any actual stats on “crash landings” under canopy that have a really actually landed in a place where some badness happened because there was no control of direction or landed in a place that caused a problem? the way I look at it the overall true risks and benefits Have to be bundled together. We shouldn’t exclude something based on a perceived problem if the facts don’t support it. All technologies will have pros and cons. Got to balance them behind making a decision to not include it as an option

Don’t know if anyone else has this problem with the new site but now I have to log in every time I go to this site. Well if I want to comment on anything. Previously my iPhone and the site recognised each other but now I’m essentially a visitor every time I open the site. Have ticked “the stay logged in” box - no difference. many hints on how to fix that? Jaba-who

Nope - the economies of these countries you speak of doesn’t allow that to happen. There are about 180 countries in the world but more than half the CO2 is made by three countries ( USA, China and India). ~177 countries make less than 50% most don’t make even 1% each. Some make near on Zero Some make single digits. only a few make upper single digits and yes some of those might be able to decrease their production a bit but not as much as you might think. With the levels that many of these countries make CO2, the laws of ”economy of scale” reversed apply. That is the cost to effect even a small change is huge per capita because there are very few people to share the cost. ( This applies in Australia) this cost is even beyond the finances of many small countries and because the amounts of CO 2 are negligible are in effect costs:benefit ratios approaching infinity. when it costs billions to lower a CO2 output by .45% of world production and has a net zero effect then that money could be spent better elsewhere, if we could figure out to make it actually work. The argument is, we and all countries who make any CO2 have to find ways that ACTUALLY work - it may well be thinking out of the box - to get the countries who make the most CO2 to lower their production. so far attempts to do it by maintaining the high moral ground have failed ( and appear to be getting worse since the US is pulling out of all Paris Accord. ) Doing anything here is just a ”warm and fuzzy” So we can do what we are doing, feel good about it while the world burns and we kid ourselves. Or we can look at other ways of dealing with recalcitrant nations. all the time we ( recreational fliers) can’t beat ourselves up about how ”what we are doing is causing the problems” - it clearly isn’t.

Can’t see how there’s any straw man argument here. It’s just a collection of straight facts. 1. pretty much every reputable climate scientist says we need to drop WORLD production of CO2 by 45% to hold the temperature rise. 2. Australia makes 1% of world CO2 so even complete cessation of CO2 production in Australia can make no possible difference. 3. arguments for Australia cutting emissions have hinged on 2 positions - A. The argument that Australians have the highest per capita ( some debate as to highest or second highest depending on method of calculation- but immaterial) per person. But this is just plain pointless scientifically because we still make a negligible insignificant total amount as far as climate change goes. And pretty much all our CO2 gets dragged south-east then north to the equator and rolls south again becoming admixed with the CO2 made by The rest of the Southern Hemisphere and the CO2 we make doesn’t contribute specifically or individually to our weather/climate. B. The high moral ground - so we can pressure other countries who do make more to lower it. Well the reality is that these countries don’t care what we say or claim. despite our bleating they have gone up not down in their production. if we are going to do anything it should be something that works not something that doesn’t. ( especially if the thing that doesn’t work is going to cost us lots or lower our standard of living. ) I could suggest we all wear purple underwear with pink spots - it would have the same effect as spending a fortune on efforts to move 1% to 0.65% of the worlds CO2 production. Humans are really good at getting a warm fuzzy glow by doing “something” even if it doesn’t work. They feel bad if they do nothing even if they know doing something is just as useless as doing nothing.

It’s all hypothetical and pointless. The big thing is that Australia’s total CO2 production is about 1 % of the earths anthropogenic total (which needs to be dropped by 45% to make any difference. ) This includes the minuscule amount made by the negligible number of recreational aircraft. ( And no one should be allowed to bring up that STUPID statement that Aussie have the highest per capital production. That’s a scientifically idiotic statement because the climate is changed by the total mass of greenhouse gases not by how many people made it. It doesn’t care whether one person, or twenty million make the amount only the total amount present. ) So even if we ceased ALL production of CO2 instantly it would make zero difference because it would only drop the rest world CO2 lowered production requirement from 45 to 44% of total. And make exactly no difference at all. Throw into the mix that the three biggest emitters ( USA, China and India) make more CO2 in a week than we make in a year and all their emissions are rising - and the elephant in the room that no one in Australia wants to mention is that there is nothing we can do to change anything - beyond hold the high moral ground ( and remember that apart from us here in Australia here, (we think we a big players in the world ) in fact most of the rest of the world has no clue who we are, where we are, and much more couldn't give a stuff what we say or do) Sure we can hold some moral position based on the glowing halos we have over our heads but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up, nor allow ourselves to be beaten up by others, because we have toys that emit probably less gases than the collective lawn mowers of the rest of the population.

We could elect to. We could also have elected to just have public liability insurance. As far as I am aware from our lease we have no requirement to. Some airports require insurance and that it include public liability etc - more to cover their bums if the hangar damaged someone else though. But on balance we decided to go with getting it. The building is worth about $120k I would guess. While the metalwork is fairly invincible normally we do get cyclones here ( though none since the world started saying climate change is going to give us more and have them more destructive) It houses some flammable stuff. We have timber living quarters etc with electricity etc at the back and the aircraft have fuel in the tanks etc. the other thing is that if I was in it on my own I might consider not. Because then if I do something stupid and caused damage I’d be the only one affected but since I’m in with a partner I wouldn’t want to leave his half lost from something I did. so on balance we thought better to get it.

I suspect the concern with older pilots making up seemingly increasing numbers of statistics is a complex situation. Not least of which I suspect is that recreational and “minor” GA pilot average ages are going up and up. There are very few younger pilots coming into the scene so the percentage of older pilots is getting higher. More old pilots than young pilots flying means more crashes will involve old pilots. Which is not to say that old age doesn’t contribute to increased risk of crashing. It does. Motor vehicle stats show that despite making up less of the driver percentages, older drivers are over-represented in total bingles. No reason to believe it would be different for flying. but it does mean the whole interpretation of crash stats associated with age is complex.

Yep. Same with the insurance. We got a quote for hangar insurance ( our hangar is, I’d estimate about a 250 m from the actual strip of a pretty quiet country grass strip - two rows of hangars back with a road included and basically furthest from any flying aircraft and it seemed very high. My share partner contacted them and asked about insurance for same shed if it were not located at an airfield - I forget exactly but was significantly less. Asked why and was told it was because a plane might crash into the hangar. No effort made to check that likelihood ( which I reckon is actually about zero chance given its actual distance and being well in behind other hangars etc ) certainly no more chance than the many located on the farm properties on land around the airport. The fact it is on airport precinct is claimed to increase its chance. Doubt there’s any supporting evidence for it. But..... They can get away with so they do.

I have a half share in 16m x16m steel hangar at Atherton Airport. We rented it out for a few years because we had purchased prior to needing it - knowing we were going to be forced out of Cairns at sometime in future. In the end it was not worth it as an investment for rental. We housed several aircraft for extended periods. Could really only fit two aircraft or three at a squeeze. When we did move our own two aircraft in there was room to fit another and we could have but it was just not worth it. The extra insurance needed just made it not viable. The costs are usually as much or more than you can rely on getting for rent. By the time you factor all the costs in you don’t get much if anything back in rental. You have to hope you make a capital gain in selling. But that ( see below) can be risky. On the other hand a mate across the road has a huge hangar and can fit a dozen or so aircraft ( a lot of trikes which can be very close packed) and I think with bigger numbers it’s got more income for proportionately less cost. So I think maybe it could be viable if you’ve got economy of scale. something else you need to be really careful of. A lot of airports have leases where at some point the hangar Itself reverts to ownership by the airport. You pay $100k for the steel shed and 10 or 20 years later they can kick you out and take the hangar off you. Happened in Cairns 2 years ago. One owner was convinced his lease said differently so when he got kicked out he moved in with a spanner and started taking the hangar apart. Federal police called and they threatened to arrest him and he had to return the metal he’d taken away. If you do go ahead - right from the start insist on automatic bank transfers for rent payment. We had a guy who always had an excuse to put off paying. He wanted to pay in cash - we thought that would be good to get cash - for not having to account for income etc- forget it. That never turned out to be a problem he just never paid or did so very intermittently ( just enough percent of what was owed to take the pressure off) and when we booted him out he left owing thousands which we never got.

SAAA didn’t “not get” Part 149. SAAA actively chose not to pursue it. I was one of the many who actively didn’t want it. And the SAAA wisely took notice of the membership and chose to stay right away from it. You have to understand that Part 149 takes a system that was “Pilots+their Representative body - In battle together against - the regulator. “ and turns it into “pilots - in battle against - their Representative and the Regulator together” Part 149 effectively turns RAAUS into a branch of the regulator with penalties if they are deemed to not be acting as such. On top of this Part 149 is in large part about training and aircraft Registration, airworthiness and maintenance stuff. SAAA does not and has no intention of becoming involved in these. These are all directly CASA related things to the SAAA member. So Part 149 was, apart from the initial looking at it to see if it suited, never a serious benefit to SAAA or its members. if you remove your mistaken idea of the sour grapes about Part 149 you are left only with. ...... all the valid points about double standards with GA /SAAA pilots being discriminated against so a private company can maintain their monopoly.

While I agree it might be interesting there’s No point even bringing up USA standards etc here. It just muddies the water. Sorry It’s a real peeve I have. I get so many bright eyed potentials coming to talk to me about getting into experimental Category aviation and they’ve been googling stuff and quote all sorts of US situations and regs and they have often made plans based upon rules that don’t apply here. and when I tell them that it’s actually nothing like it here and much more restrictive they get deflated.

More or less but not quite. They do have a category of extremely ultra light weight - part 103? I forget the weight but it’s something like only a couple of hundred pounds empty weight. That category requires no pilots licence, no registration I think but is pretty heavily restricted - if my memory is correct (and may not be) it’s limited to only a few hundred feet altitude, single seat only in environs of departure point etc etc. basically the really old ultralight rag and stick type stuff.

Because Dave has more than double the hours, ( if he does it in minimum time and most Dave equivalents on average three times the hours) plus under hood time, way more complex exams so he’s done way more study so a good chance he knows more, built into his training is more navigation and law and more human factors to a much larger order of magnitude than Dads. then there’s the much debated things he probably doesn’t need but is forced to pay for - forced whether he really requires it or not to have had a much complex medical. Had a complex security clearance that Dad probably doesn’t have. but then you are choosing to exemplify a very specific pilot. The scenario you outline is not the scenario that most RAAUS pilots use. They mostly use country or regional training schools outside and away from CTA and don’t get similar training by virtue of their being at same flying schools that teach both. And of course there is no requirement to and hard to believe they would ( on economic grounds) teach both to the same standard. Whereas all GA licences have to include all of the above stuff. your example is almost an argument for taking away the RAAus version - better stay quiet in that.

Trouble is there is no scientific evidence on this topic that is black and white. it all depends on how much weight you put on the shades of grey. we have irrefutable evidence that prohibition doesn’t work completely - always some people will try it regardless, some might be attracted to it because it is illegal ( and might not have bothered if it was legal). but we also have irrefutable evidence that prohibition does stop many people from trying something that is illegal. How many people in a population will fit each of the above categories varies and what percentages are needed to convince people that the effort is justified or not are also completely variable. to some people, if just one kid is kept from trying drugs it is worth it, for someone else unless something is 100% effective then they would rather not try. there is nothing scientific about it because it’s all about perception and acceptance. might as well try claim a scientifically valid answer to “What is your favourite colour?”

Absolutely true. It is a psychological truism ( with its own name ( Eg somebodies phenomenon - which I have forgotten ) where humans grab a position on something usually at the initial outset without consideration of the evidence based entirely on their own feelings about it ( based on upbringing more than anything) and then look for, grasp and where appropriate ignore evidence to the contrary and even fabricate evidence or magnify the relevance of minimal data to support their position.

Not where I live either. It’s a very water orientated place here with the Great Barrier Reef within small boat distance and and lots of rivers, inlets lakes etc. Every second person owns a tinny or a reef boat. If the council even dared to think about charging for boat ramp usage there would be an outcry so loud they would never get back in at the next election.

Well I haven’t really noticed it from places I went before they became avdata controlled. I remember that Mareeba used to be directly billed by the shire council and for my R22 it was as best I recall about $5 to do take off and landing. Then avdata took over about the time I sold the helicopter and built the Jabiru. And the fee was still in the same ball park. I just got one a few weeks back ( as previously stated in error) but its for $7. so not a big climb in about 15 years. but of course that’s just here.

Yep. Quite unfair. the whole of the tax paying/rate paying community pays for public services for pretty much everything else but for some reason aviation gets singled out. I suspect it’s that “if you have an aircraft you must be rich - so you can pay. “ Good thing sidewalks and roads get used by poor people too! But the flip side is that the meagre Fees we pay, even if everyone pays, don’t come near to covering the costs. Often the cost of collecting the fees is more than the money recouped. So I don’t know why they bother. Again I think it’s the tall poppy syndrome stuff.

Don’t know when your GA days were but nowadays if you fly anywhere ( since about 2000 - prior to that it was paid for by that previously mentioned fuel excise) where you have to have a radio conversation with an “Area Centre” or an airport approach, tower or ground you get a bill about 6 weeks later. I got one not long back for my travel past Townsville and back to Cairns. I agree that I’ve never heard of anyone being billed for causing a jet to be diverted etc but they sure as hell got hauled over the coals by CASA etc. got letters and please explain and come into to the office with all your logbooks and your maintenance logs and the latest signing off of your AD Rad 43/47 to show your transponder and altimeters were all calibrated recently. Probably would have been more pleasant to just get a fine in the mail.

You are completely correct. CTA entry doesn’t just mean landing and taking off at a major airport. It may be applicable - if the airport has entry lanes not over built up areas etc. but in some places there will be no approaches that don’t take you over built up areas - and there are a whole bunch of other rules relating to who/what can do that. But there are a number of places where entry into CTA just as an alternative route while transiting near the airport is dramatically safer than flying around and avoiding the CTA. Eg Townsville is all CTA except for a thin arc to the west right up against the ranges. Trouble us that’s where the clouds and rain often bank up and wind gets pretty turbulent in there. Tracking north or south can be pretty dangerous while trying to stay out of CTA but cutting through closer to the city is often much smoother and safer. There is plenty of room to track there and still be a long way from the airport. Similar situation applies to Cairns (though the CTA goes right into the mountains and despite a safe clear VFR corridor on the western edge of town non-CTA traffic have to go way west of the ranges. )

I think that’s all gone now. I think we now just pay Standard GST and a small amount of extra tax per litre but the excise that we were taxed and which was passed on to air services and airport operators was removed (maybe ) in the early 2000s or late 1990s. I remember when it was removed and the cost of fuel stayed the same (pretty much) and there was quite a lot of complaint because the fuel companies were supposed to pass on the drop but didn’t. The removal of the fuel excise came about because of the complaints about the unfairness of paying a tax but many users never used a lot of the services that the taxes were meant to fund. A lot of airports still charged landing fees anyway. I’m not sure how much actually went to airports as most of it I think was for enroute services. in the spirit of “user pays” they removed the excise and laid on all the extra charges ( Air services fees, airways charges)

Not really sure that diverting a jet would cause that to happen. It’s already happened with GA private pilots and they never got a bill. But there are airways costs. But there is now a scheme to remove billing in certain circumstances - if you have less than $500 worth of costs in a calendar year you can have the costs for the following year removed. ( but as I learned - if you don’t have any entries in the year, and then you go into CTA you get billed for the new year of the newer entries and only then, having established ( and paid for) that you generate less than $500 worth of fees do you get another chance to have no fees. As long as you keep generating entries and the value ( even though you don’t actually get billed) is less then $500 per year you can keep getting zero actual charges. of course if there is a requirement for increased medical you’ll add the cost of that and also for an AD Rad 43/47 on the altimeter and transponder every two years. Plus whatever else they throw in for maintenance requirements.

Not exactly. The GA pilots is THE reason CASA even initially entered into the argument. The GA pilots already have their licences and there is no requirement to drop down to an RPL if you already have a PPL or CPL it’s just the medical that is the issue for them. RPL still requires as a minimum a basic Class 2 medical and even that is way above the medical level of a self certification private drivers licence. The general drift of pretty much most GA pilots with medical issues is to go to a basic class 2 if they can and then pretty soon they progress out of that range and still end up looking at RAAus. They might gain a year or so but the inexorable path is to failed class 2 of whatever type. Often it’s not just the inability but the cost involved that causes the move to RAAus. The highly valid argument was that GA pilots with a “near-but-not-quite” weighted aircraft currently have to transition to another aircraft if they move to RAAus due to medical issues. Over the last few years CASA have had a number of high profile pushes involving travelling seminars and tens of thousands of $ in costs relating to transition training and the risks of transitioning especially in GA / private flying. On the back of this they got pushed into the corner of publicly accepting that forcing a transition to new aircraft by older / less medically fit pilots was actually worse for safety then allowing them to keep their old Cessna or piper. It was on this basis that the requests from RAAus were given any attention. The push from RAAus would probably have had no effect without it. Not sure which 4 seat aircraft you’ve got in mind. But given our very small part in the world markets I don’t really think we carry much potential for making profits for them. so if they are watching I don’t think it will be with much interest. Particularly since most of the new European aircraft are way expensive.

I don’t know the answer to that but would assume not, since they aren’t an airport. But I guess it’s irrelevant because they are merely acting as an agent of the airport. When you get a bill from avdata you are in effect getting a bill from the airport. Avdata are just supplying the infrastructure for the provision of the billing. There is no legal capacity to not pay them based on a belief they are an entity other than the airport. They are acting as their agent and so in law are assumed to “be the airport.”

Tried which?