zodiac3813

Hi everyone, good news... A condition report plus updated photos were emailed, and a new renewal notice sent out by return email. All sorted within 48 hours

I agree with johnm that the plastic card mail-out was a far better system, no risk of email renewals buried by spam...

Thanks everyone, we'll see what next week brings

Cheers, I've offered to pay the 2 years in my reply email, fingers crossed...

Thanks for the swift responses, it's definitely not pending or lapsed in the portal... I emailed the office and the response was "I’ve had a look at this aircraft record and I can see that unfortunately the registration for this aircraft expired back on 14th of May 2019 due to non-payment, with two renewal notices having gone out on the 14th of April 2019 and the 7th of May 2019".

Unfortunately nothing telling me what to do about it! I've emailed back for some guidance so I'll see what the responce is. Happy to have a condition report done, I just hope they don't want signed photos, weight & balance etc as they already have all that (I built the plane and registered it about 6 years ago)

Hi Everyone!

Somehow the renewal for my homebuilt Skyranger Swift aircraft was missed and a whole year has lapsed, until I started looking for a renewal notice among the myriad of emails...

Anyway, the upshot is that it has now been unregistered for a year, and I'm not sure what process is required to renew the registration. It is hangered, perfectly airworthy, well maintained etc... will I need to start a whole new registration, with a condition report? A renewal?

Anyone had a similar problem/experience?

Hi Mark, love your build! Makes mine look rather shabby ;-) BTW did the seats come with the kit? How comfortable are they? I'm struggling to be comfortable with the standard Swift seats...

Getting back to topic, after some consideration it occurred to me that I probably don't need to wear the ASIC card whilst at Avalon as a display participant: I taxi to the tie-down area, and from then to the end of the show I'm in a "public viewing area"... when I leave, I do the opposite. My feet do not contact an "airside" area at all. My only two planned stops between Tassie and Avalon are Smithton and Torquay, neither of which require an ASIC.

So I'll carry the letter from RAA and if I'm pulled up... I'm happy to make it a test case in the interests of common sense!

The plot thickens. After a phone call to AusCheck, it turns out that they cleared my application on the 11th of January. Another phone call to RAA, and apparently their ASIC cards are issued from Melbourne Airport, and therein lies the holdup. I got an undertaking from RAA to write a letter stating that my application is paid for and fully approved, as is the issue of the card. Of course it may well turn up in the next fortnight, but if not... that's my fallback.

Ah well, it still has 2 weeks to arrive. Hope springs eternal... otherwise I'll be flying in with my RAA receipt and old ASIC card, and if they ever check and want to prosecute (never been checked in 14 years of flying into Avalon), I'll gladly go to court and testify that my $220 was debited immediately and 2 and a half months later I was still waiting for the card. And I'm obviously not a terrorist. Bring it on, I'm totally sick of this!

Yes, I found securityid very fast, easy and efficient.From their site:

How long does it take?

 

Average time to obtain clearance is 7 days. This is the average - some may be quicker but some also take a bit longer.

What did RAA say when you phoned them to check on the delay?I had a similar problem when I did my first renewal as I had not sent in the old card.

When I phoned they advised me to keep the letter that they had sent as it was valid and to send my old card back ASAP.

 

It is my understanding that you no longer need to send the old card with your renewal unless it has expired, you now do that after you receive your new card.

 

If the card has expired it is no good to anyone as it has an expiry date that is not valid and we know how often they get checked

As mentioned on previous threads, avoid going through RAAus or CASA, use a third party, I've used securityid.com.au for my last three renewals plus the initial of course, all done online & you get your ASIC within 10 days from applying. Obviously a bit late for you now but think about it for your next renewal.

Hi Everyone,

Is anyone else in this position? I mailed off my ASIC (re-issue) application mid December, knowing that I'd need it to fly in to Avalon Airshow at the end of February. Sure enough, RA-Aus debited the fee straight away... and nothing. That's been nearly 2 months, and apparently the delay is with the security checking organisation, whoever they are... how ridiculous, it adds insult to injury when the justification for having to fork out for one is marginal to say the least. Now we may not be able to attend Avalon thanks to their bungling. Not impressed!

Jim in Tassie.

Yeh every show for 10 years , won the circa de elegance ( spelling? ) one year .But being the big ww1 celebration I'm pretty disappointed not to be able to have her there

Flying the Skyranger over from Tassie for static display....

Hi Everyone,

just wondering if anyone out in RectreationalFlyingLand has ever connected a Sandia STX165R transponder to the MGL Xtreme EFIS? The latest firmware upgrade allows the Xtreme to send altitude and position information directly to Sandia's modestly priced Mode C transponder without the need for a separate Altitude encoder. However, the MGL wiring information seems to relate more to their larger EFIS units... does anyone have any further info/experience?

Cheers, Jim (Skyranger 19-8278)

Forgot to ask. What kind of prop are you spinning?

It's a Kool prop... similar to a Kiev, but this one has wide chord blades. Couldn't tell you what pitch, but we get about 4850 rpm full power climbing. Cruising at around 70kts at 4500rpm, 80kts at 4900, 90 at 5200.

Cheers, Jim.

Hi Everyone,

I've just updated our flying and sailing website, with lots of Skyranger construction photos, flying videos etc, as well as history of our other interests/exploits. Please feel free to give feedback, or to request further details.

http://www.flysaillivelife.com/index.html

Cheers, Jim.

Hi Gary,

Sounds good! if I can be of any help, please let me know. I have lots of construction photos etc that I'd be happy to post to you on a disk if you want to email me your address.

Cheers, Jim.

Me too, i should have my kit in the 1st week of August

Cheers, Jim.

Hey Jim:Looks spectacular mate.

 

Just curious, how did you get it to stand on its wheels like that without a weight at the front, or support at the back?

Thanks Eighty, here are some photos of the (almost) completed project... still have to fit the centre console, connect the AH and compass senders for the MGL EFIS, as well as sort out some minor bugs...

Hello! This is Angie here, wife of Jim (zodiac3813) and constant passenger/navigatrix. We have just completed a Skyranger Swift and Jim is currently flying off the test hours (he has approx. 5 hours to go). Naturally I am "champing at the bit" to jump into the passenger seat but Jim comes back down and shares many positive reports with me. I can honestly recommend this aircraft kit to anyone on a budget (as so many of us have other things demanding our dollars) and I cannot speak highly enough of Greg Robertson, the agent for Skyranger. He has given us constant support throughout the building stage and continues to do so during the testing period. Had we not been in the throes of house renovation, we would have chosen the Nynja. However, for now we are happy with the Swift and are looking forward to a trip to Murray Bridge in SA in August (weather permitting)!

Hi, my new registration for Skyranger Swift took about a month from application to receipt of rego.

Spot on FT. And it's not at all surprising when you consider the cost of getting into the air these days.When I started recreational flying in the 1970s it was a cheap pastime. I had been racing karts but then got into business and just didn't have the time to prep the karts between weekend races so I turned to my other latent interest, flying. I got into it by learning to hangglide and even during training it was about half the cost of entering and competing in karting events. And then I got into trikes. I chose to build my own, but even so a state-of-the-art one at the time, with wing, cost about the same as a average new club kart and kit. I mention karts because that's a good cost-comparison of where our sport should be.

 

Studies done in the US over many years have provided a good indication of benchmark figures that folks are willing to pay for their recreational vehicles and it shouldn't be any surprise to hear that the average price of a jet-ski/PWC accurately straddles the average recreational vehicle budget - some Companies employ smart marketers ...

 

So if we're going to stand any real hope of expanding our numbers rather than standing by and allowing our organisation to be used for simply catering to the more than averagely wealthy ex-GA failed medical types, then we need a far bigger offering of new aircraft priced within the recreational vehicle budget which is around $20K, and not much over that, perhaps $25K tops. What do we have now in that range? Some X-Airs and Skyrangers just scrape in if you do a lot of scrounging during the build, not many others in the two seaters and precious few in the single seaters as well.