Bandit12

When I was first learning to fly, I watched one of my instructors turn back for a forced landing after takeoff. He was doing a joyflight in a Boeing Stearman, which had been recently restored. Very professional and highly experienced pilot, with a lot of aerobatics competition time behind him. He managed to put it down, saving himself and the passenger from major injuries, and the Stearman was damaged to about half it's value. The impact on landing due to the high sink rate caused a deceleration of about 17G apparently. In his words, it was either make the turn or hit the buildings as there was nowhere else to go in that particular case. He made it to the grass beside the runway. Would I do it? I don't know but I have been conditioned not to. If I had enough time to weigh options, I possibly would.

If you will consider travelling down to Moorabbin, drop in to see Steve Galjar (CFI) at Melbourne Flight Training. I approached many of the schools here recently, wanting to get back into it after 6 years out of the cockpit. Most weren't particularly helpful, but Steve took half an hour out to show me everything I would need to study up on, gave me some paperwork about procedures that have changed, and all for nothing. Again, they had the approach "Let's go for a fly and see where you are at". Not the cheapest, not the dearest but they had the best attitude so that was enough for me.... As for the BAK course, I wouldn't bother. Buy the study books and just work your way through it. I think the theory courses are the biggest rort, the stuff is pretty straightforward and texts like the Thom series are very easy to understand. Cheers Shane

Thanks for the welcome all - I went out for an hour to have a play in a Cirrus today, a mate in command as I am still not current. It was a bit of a culture shock, I felt like I was in the cockpit of an Airbus! Seems like a lot of technology became common over the last few years.... Bikes and planes - the one thing that Top Gun had right :-)

A silly question from a GA pilot who is getting back into it, and knows little about RAA.....what is a HP (high performance) licence? Does RAA distinguish from something like a Jabiru to a Drifter in licencing? Cheers Shane

Hi All I'm Shane, from sunny Melbourne and I thought it was about time I joined a flying forum. I've been hanging around motorcycle forums for years, under the name Bandit12, so thought I would continue the pattern I work in disability and mental health, ride bikes and restore vintage Suzuki 2 strokes when time permits. I got my PPL, NVFR, CSURET, aerobatics a few years ago, had a break for a while and now getting back into it. Looking forward to catching up with everything around the aviation world. Cheers Shane