Methusala

Now, I spoke to a bloke once who worked on Mosquitos (by De Havilland of course!) They had an aeroplane that came back from gun trials with damage to the engine nacelles. It seems that when they fired their canons at low level off the Sydney coast the shells hit the waves and ricocheted upwards, losing velocity and the high speed plane caught up with them! No, this guy was not a b**s**t artist. Not much on topic actually but a damn interesting segue. Don

I knew I'd be corrected....just knew it!

Oh, No..... it took us years to get over the plane landing on a moving belt. Now look at what YOU'VE started Pud. Have you heard the one about turns downwind???? Don

We had an arrangement like that at another airfield Guernsey, but it had chains swinging from the diff and it didn't work so well. Glad you had success with yours, Don

Hey Maj, I don't think the spar would handle the extra load! Don

Sorry Ultralights. I don't own this private strip and the owners are not very approachable, Don

A small step for mankind...but a huge one for me, Don

Hope these work!

Faced with the perennial problem of keeping the grass strip mown to a reasonable length we tried a little ingenuity. Armed with 3 Victa mowers of varying ages and some scrap 50mm angle a plan was hatched. Canberra is very fortunate to have a government that will sometimes enable innovative community schemes to bear fruit. In the 80's a plan to utilise unemployed people to recover and sell valuable items from the tip evolved and this is the basis of a successful private/public partnership today. From this resource came our mowers, steel, wheelbarrow wheels and even a quantity of welding electrodes. Over the past 2 weekends, I fashioned a frame with wheels and a towing hitch. Mounted were the 3 mowers which run simultaneously and cut a swathe about 1300mm wide. Towing speed is about fast walking pace and the resulting cut is almost as good as a tractor mounted slasher. Of course the noise is fearsome but satisfyingly all 3 mowers ran for the 2 hour test run. Fuel consumption is about 1l/hr per mower.The total materials cost was about $100 and the hourly rate was absorbed into the aerodrome enhancement reserves. This was a satisfying project and fairly easy to build. I encourage those with a similar problem to benefit from this successful experiment. Cheers, Don

I can't see how it hertz!

I thought the story of 2 Spitties landing in fog and passing each other in opposing directions half way down the strip was brilliant. What a lot of truly spunky women! Don

G'day Andrew, I flew a Pteradactyl in the 80's. Like to send you a personal message but the site has changed and so don't know if I can. Don

Congratulations from one Thruster fan to another, best of luck Don from Don.

I understand, and I could be wrong on this point, that the Victor 1 air route is restricted to 500ft. This gives no chance for a glide to the shore. Some places the cliffs are much higher than this. A friend told me that he was once vectored many miles from the shore line abeam Sydney. The Air Services must surely be gambling with peoples lives if they insist that no more airspace can be spared. I would never choose to fly this route! Don

These are bitter sweet times when we remember the pioneers and our first experiences in true ultralights. My best regards to all who grieve for another mate gone west. Don

One should become truly familiar with whichever a/c you choose to fly. I don't wish to be controversial (you all know me!) but I do wonder, when there are people who swear by Jabiru engines whether some problems could be caused by "turn the key and blast off" types. I flew a VW powered a/c for 11 years and had virtually no problems. I always treat an engine with respect and care. A good instructor (and almost all are) will ensure this. No endorsement for 4 strokes and yet they can involve as much care as 2's. Don

G'day Flyers, To start: Fuel boost on, choke (enrichers) on, Throttle closed, press start (pull rope), throttle smoothly forward while pulling choke off. Thoroughly warm at 2 or 2.500 rpm then taxi to threshhold. Never give full throttle to a cold engine. Descend towards landing with a little power to avoid shock cooling. I'm sure others can add refinement to this but 10 minutes would cover it. Oh, I almost forgot - add correct amount of good 2-stroke oil to fresh petrol just before adding to tanks. I thjink that 4-strokes with their propensity towards icing are at least as demanding. The RAA are directed towards instructor based, fee for service accumulation of proficiency badges. Don

FLY THE AEROPLANE!!!! Don.

Our sport is meant to be an area where responsible adults employ their own standards of risk management towards the sensible aims of safe operation. This should mean that participants will seek information required to fly and operate the aircraft safely. The insertion of a formal endorsement is, in my opinion, unnecessary and possibly dangerous because it can lead to overconfidence when the approach to all engines should be - don't trust them (but know them as well as possible). We have been using 2-strokes for 30 yrs and they have improved over that time. Never-the-less they tend to fail without warning and no endorsement can prepare one for that. Fly the aeroplane! The current regime at RAA ( I still greatly prefer the monicker AUF) is too wedded to the bureaucratic approach of CASA. This leads to less flying at greater cost and as I have said could compromise safety by breeding a less self reliant attitude towards safe operation. Learn by whichever means you feel suits you but never relax. Don

A very small point here. When there are two of us in the cockpit we always say either, "Handing over!" or, "Your aeroplane!" This removes any confusion as to who is the pilot flying. Cheers and my sympathy to those who are grieving, Don

You're correct Yenn. I don't think that magazines take their role seriously these days. I remember when my favorite was "Air Progress", when staff reporters where as passionate as their readers. These days journalism has joined the ranks of bankers and, perhaps, executives of 2 major grocery chains. They believe that they can get comfortable in their old age serving up old tripe wrapped in glossy paper. I suppose we'll be rounded on as a pair of grumpy, disillusioned old buggers! Cheers, Don.

"the one and only flying magazine i will actually spend money on is,,,,,,,,,,,Kitplanes" .........and the Brit magazine "Pilot".

I hear what Ozzie says in his post a few pages ago (sorry, been working and have not kept up with this great thread). That is that those of us who want to use the priveleges won by people like Ron Wheeler 20 years ago don't see the equity in paying a lobby group to obtain further "concessions" from CASA that we neither need nor value. The fact is that the RAA board is over represented by those who make a living running flying schools. How many people realise that the ops manual states(ed?) that a CFI MAY require a flight test when signing off a BFR? How many of us have experenced a BFR where the CFI took as fact that a person was current on the evidence of log book entries and the judgement of his peers? Don

Perhaps the link between the 2 viewpoints is that, if we had a choice to just fly in uncontrolled airspace, below 5000 we would not mind paying something in fees. That is, to an organisation that would support our "freedom" to fly without the need for ASIC and ADSB. Not dissimilar, I suppose to FAR-103 in the US. Turboplanner has it nailed with his analogy to omnibus and coach rules in another thread. Exemption from ANO's worked well as a framework in the early days and could be developed. Don

G'day, The other day, while paying rego for the Thruster, I chanced to meet a high official of the AUF (pardon!) I stated a case for potential safety breech affecting RAA pilots, pax, aircraft and ground dwellers. Simply that if a pilot was averse to possession of an ASIC card, this may tempt him to land in convenient paddocks close to airports rather than on them. Many of us "came from paddocks" and so don't see this as too unusual. With the danger of power lines and more this could be a significant and growing safety threat. He dismissed this idea with no hesitation. He may be entitled to his view but there must be many cogent reasons why ASIC cards are not a good idea at airports infrequently served by large airliners. It is reasonable to expect that airline companies should take responsibility for their aircraft on the ground and that a statuary exclusion zone be declared around them on the ground. This is the sort of issue that I expect AUF or RAA to take up on our behalf. What do others think? Don