M61A1

Must've rather large fines. Of the few times I've considered it the fees were about three time the fine. Agreed, as much as I despise the principal of speed cameras, I've not had much trouble with them.

Most of us can't afford that luxury. You have to weigh up cost for benefit, and usually unless the penalties are massive, the cost always exceeds the benefit by a long shot. Even with undisputable evidence and a positive outcome, generally you will be out of pocket for more than the fine.

I don't see why they should be different either. I my opinion any private flying is recreational flying, make them equal and remove fees for both. Leave the fees for those with the AOC. I've not been to a fly in yet where there are more than a couple of young rec pilots, most (over 95%) are ex-GA old farts. Fuel exhaustion and weather incidents have been occurring since the dawn of aviation. So I'm not sure what your point is besides vindictive sniping, ie: trolling.

There is a big difference between having difficulty with the law and thinking that it is used as a destructive instrument to make money for law firms. Believing that there is some sort of fairness, common sense or justice in it would be a grave misjudgment. Sometimes it gets it right, and sometimes wrong. If aircraft manufacturers and pilots got it wrong as often as the judiciary there'd much carrying on.

After some of the cases you’ve posted, it’s quite plausible that a case got traction because it wasn’t his fault and the ADF is seen to have deep pockets. An out of court settlement could be on the cards though.

Unfortunately, due to drought there were no crops or livestock, but I’m sure they will look for trace levels of contaminants that might impact future agriculture.

The training area out there is roughly a 20nm radius to the north of Oakey. A lot of it is rugged terrain. I don't think the exact location of every wire would be etched into a trainee's mind. There are heaps of landing pads scattered around. It's not like knowing where the clothesline is in you 700sq m back yard.

I suspect it might be related to the fact that they use trees and such for cover and camouflage to train in a realistic fashion. It's obvious that he was too high. If he was low enough, he wouldn't have hit the wire.

I'm not so sure... I've rarely met a dog I didn't get along with, but I've met an awful lot of people I'd rather not be around. Take my neighbours for example. There appears to be about 5 or 6 (it changes) Feral adults living there with a few kids that don't have a hope of growing up to be decent people, but their dog is lovely.

And in other news.....a popular law firm followed the emergency vehicles and has assisted Farmer Dave of Maclagan in launching legal proceedings against the ADF for the mental anguish suffered because his beer was no longer ice cold after the power was interupted.

I have no problem with proving your competence to maintain what you have, but forcing people to undertake mandatory training regardless of whether or not they can meet the competence standard would be a step too far. How you prove that competence creates another problem. I consider the current L1 test inadequate for assessing much at all and consistent with other CASA maintenance exams which appear to be written by a full time instructor or writer that has never actually maintained anything in the real world. Meaning that while the exam content may be correct, it is almost never relevant to the actual maintenance of aircraft.

I disagree, but I accept that we're never going to see eye to eye on most anything regulation related. One of several... [/url]http://theconversation.com/why-kids-need-risk-fear-and-excitement-in-play-81450

You just tried to tell us we weren't a "cotton wool society".

If the sort of people that feel a fund raising BBQ is "high risk" are making rules for the rest of us then we have a problem. The other problem here is who decides what "doing the right thing " is? As long as your activity has no negative impact on anyone innocent party, I would say you are doing the right thing, but other people have decided for me using 5 x 5 matrices. As I've said before, the training, quality, and safety industries are just parasites sucking the life out of every host organisation they can find. We did fine without them before and would still do fine without them now. And you're right we're not morphing into a "cotton wool society", we've already been there for well over a decade. Fat lot of good it's done us. Turned a lot of people into precious, fragile little beings with no sense of humour. No wonder suicide rates are high.

That’s pretty much all I have been trying to get across. It’s about covering your arxe, and very little to do with actual safety. Exactly, you lose if the box wasn’t ticked. How many times do I have say it? I get it, I know how it works. Except now we have a system is more focused on arxe covering in court that it is producing decent qualified people or safety. It’s far from ideal.

Finally... there's something we can agree on. AUF incident pages used to often feature "engine failure, uneventful forced landing carried out", or words to that effect. It was noted at the time (there was even an article about it) , GA incidents reports featuring and engine failure often had fatalities or injuries. Now it appears that many of the engine failures in rec aircraft result in serious damage at the very least. This is not a maintenance problem. Is it poor training or is it because we now have lots of ex-GA pilots flying rec aircraft? Yes it's a favourite subject of mine. I see it daily. What you need to get your head a round it is that any process that involves filling a form and ticking boxes, is "box ticking". I consider the value of such things to be legal only. Ticking the box only ensures that you have followed the laid down process, nothing more. Basically it will cover your arxe in court, but has little value in actually providing anything more. All it does is cover your arxe and by default, your employer. This is pretty much how I see a mandatory L1 training process and even more so for your CertIV. I have enough CertIVs and I consider them generally worthless, and I can tell you from experience that they do not produce better tradespeople, only people with a form full of ticked boxes. When you get a CertIV, in ten minutes time it will be useless, because the the training body will change the the names of the modules then demand money for RPL or more training from someone who has never done the work in their life. It's a rort.

What would be wrong with self education? Sure, have courses available for those who want them. Even have an exam if you must, ensuring that the "self educated" are adequately educated. Having mandatory training for all is not on.

Actually , the question it raises is, "Why do we need LAME maintenance on such aircraft?" That's exactly what "box ticking" is. They endeavour to absolve themselves of responsibility by ticking a box that says we gave them competency training. All they've done is made themselves a target for litigation when some dill decides his mistake is due to their lack of training. The more they interfere the more responsibility they carry. There is zero evidence that poor maintenance practice is the cause of the majority of crashes/incidents.

That's where I see the problem. One may argue that $10.00 isn't much, but it I consider excessive for what you get and I it a deterrent if you are just stopping for a look and a slash. It wouldn't be hard to work up a hefty monthly bill when you hop around 4 or 5 local airfields for a visit and a chat on a Saturday and/or Sunday. Tara is another good example..... a small airport miles out of town, nothing to see, no hangars, nothing to do except relieve yourself on the grass/dirt and tenner for the privilege. Won't make that mistake again. Won't be stopping at any of them unless I actually have business there and even then will be making every effort to avoid business there.

Any time you fly an aircraft after maintenance, you become a "maintenance test pilot". I can tell you of two incidents close to me. one where a thorough understanding of the control system saved his life after someone kindly left some cockpit FOD under the control stick boot (in a glider), and another that was nearly killed because (in a Bell 206) when one of his hydraulic servos was motoring by itself, he turned the hyds off then pulled the breaker. He was unaware that the system is powered off and will remain on if power is cut. A radio call from someone who did know saved his life. Fully understanding your fuel system may help you with a fuel starvation issue. Sometimes the knowledge of you systems may help you realise when something isn't right, but before it gets really bad. All machines talk to you, whether or not you listen is up to you. Skippy, I think Yenn's point was that modern machinery is more tolerant to neglect before it bites you, whereas your aircraft generally won't tolerate much, and generally are less forgiving when they do bite. I think we all (a generalization, I know) understand that they operate on the same principles.

In other words, heaps of people are dead because they pilots did not fully understand their systems. Whether that is their fault or not is irrelevant. If they understood, lots of people would still be alive. Most of the well known test pilots like Yeager, Hoover and Eric Brown are quite adamant that they are alive because they made sure they thoroughly understood they systems of every aircraft they flew. As I previously said, I really don't care if pilots don't want to know, and I'm not interested in forcing them, but in the long run it could very well cost you your life.

While I strongly dislike anything being "mandatory", I have to also disagree very strongly with the above statement. A thorough understanding of your aircraft and it's systems can only benefit you. It can stop a minor problem becoming a major problem. (think 737 Max for a recent example) But, as we're only recreational aviation, I don't have a problem with those that choose not to. Natural selection will sort them out.

I’ve made an aluminium knee board with a hinged cover. The design allows it to work as a heat sink and the cover keeps the sun off it when I’m not viewing it. I have left it plain aluminium finish to reflect heat. When I used the old black leather type I had it shut down due to heat several times even in a Drifter. I tend to use it like a map, get a heading and fly it, checking my position against the map every so often , so it’s not on all the time

Absolutely positive....Call signs like Sportstar xxxx and Jabiru xxxx , even x-air xxxx and savannah xxxx give it away.

At times I see RA aircraft fly such large circuits, anything observed on the runway on downwind would be out of date by the time they are on short final. Realistically, it would be more appropriate to call "established on a 3 mile final" rather than "turning base". Some of them I could turn base, final , land and be clear of the runway in between the time they call turning base and when they are on "short final".