Matt

It was on free to air last year so assume it will be again this year.

My mate Ben's first experience at aerobatics English LINK

Some more aerobatics, starting to string sequences together now. English LINK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkuSkyXnUNo" If you're wondering what the thing attached to my headset is, it's a small video camera...unfortunately it moved out of alignment and didn't get the footage I was hoping for.

On ebay for about $150.

If you're after a pair of "headset friendly" sunnies, the Oakley Crosshairs have indented arms which are perfect for headsets and come in either polarised or non-polarised. I've been using them for a while with no complaints.

mmmmmmm CT4F, I'd like me one of them

G'day Craig, I'm not sure there is a single "dress code" as such for "recreational aviators". There are many thoughts and opinions on what is appropriate, some would suggest full head-to-toe-to-hands non-flammable clothing, others would suggest wearing what's comfortable and applicable to the conditions. If you're not comfortable, this will distract from your concentration. A lot will depend on the weather, aircraft being flown etc. i.e. based on my experience on the weekend - t-shirt, shorts and a vest are NOT suitable for flying a Tiger Moth...despite how warm it might be on the ground! Regardless of what you wear (pants, shorts, long sleeves, t-shirt), I'd suggest something that is natural fibre / flame resistant and most importantly - comfortable. Cheers, Matt.

We went around that one, clearance between cloud base and earth was a little tight...it was pretty clear to the right of that formation...better to be safe.

Of course the story doesn't expand on why or how she believed she was misled but I'm sure there are legal eagles involved and will identify any breach in regulation and hone in on it as a means to hold the operator accountable - I'd do the same thing. For education, all operators of LIMITED category aircraft are required to inform passengers, fare paying or not, of the risk associated with operating an ex-Military aircraft which was designed to different standards and regulations to civil aircraft. The passenger would have signed a liability release which would have stated the following, the aircraft would have also had this placarded in the cockpit. “WARNING THIS AIRCRAFT IS NOT REQUIRED TO COMPLY WITH THE SAFETY REGULATIONS FOR STANDARD AIRCRAFT. YOU FLY IN THIS AIRCRAFT AT YOUR OWN RISK” It's unlikely that Hempels had passenger liability insurance as this is difficult and expensive to get for these types of aircraft - hence the liability release required to be signed. For me, the question is solely about the pilot in command's licence status. Had this been a "joyflight" and the PIC only had a PPL and it was not a fare paying situation then that's a completely different situation to a fare paying passenger / commercial arrangement. The risks though are the same.

I fully understand Mike, after about 500 hours in the right hand seat, Kaz is pretty critical of my landings...sometimes with a full critique about what I did wrong...other times just a look...I prefer the verbal critique, for some reason "the look" is worse

We've had many a near miss with various type, most frequently though are Eagles which I've found tend to hang about between 4000 and 8000 feet and, like Mike mentioned, aren't too concerned with aircraft bearing down on them...despite how colourful and noisy (particularly in our case!) you happen to be. Also had close encounters with Ibis regularly, in fact the last instance was last Wednesday flying from Kyneton to Moorabbin where we were both converging at 2500'...as usual, I was the one who moved to avoid a collision. As discussed above - avoid them at all cost. There are (from memory) some handy hints covered in BAK and similar regarding what actions to take - generally climb and turn (and turn to put the airframe between you and the bird) will do it as most birds will tend to descend / dive in these situations.

No so much a trip report as a collection of pictures of cloud formations we encountered on a recent trip along the Great Ocean Road. Do you go under, over or around... Cloud surfing anyone...this was a very bizarre cloud formation, seriously looked just like a "tube" wave of cloud...which of course we had to "hang 10" on Why flying around coastal areas can get "interesting" really quickly You wouldn't be anywhere else for quids!

As you've probably noticed, we (well mainly me) have been a bit slack with the trip reports of late...so tonight I plan to resolve that with some of our most recent adventures. Last weekend we attended the Airtourer Association Presidents Fly-In which was held at Yarrawonga. This annual event is held wherever the current President chooses and this year it was Yarrawonga...a good thing for us as we could only make it for the Saturday and Sunday (of a 4 day event) and the short 45 minute flight from Kyneton meant we could make the most of the weekend without spending too much time in transit. As luck would have it, we woke on the Saturday morning to typical Melbourne weather and arrived at Kyneton airfield looking at low cloud and drizzle...thankfully the forecast and radar would soon see this off with a solid cloud base rising to about 3500'...enough to get airborne and "down" to Yarrawonga. Again, typical of Victorian weather, by the time we reached Yarrawonga there wasn't a cloud in sight. On arrival we headed into Hangar 19 where all the members had gathered for lunch and we were warmly welcomed with a round of applause following an introduction by John Treble, the President of the Airtourer Association. Over the weekend we managed to meet just about all those that attended - about 50 in all. These included John O'Halloran who is the association Secretary and ex-RAAF Mirage pilot, John was also a RAAF Test Pilot and, as irony would have it, had flown our CT4 while he was posted to ARDU in the mid 80s, he's now a test pilot with Cathay Pacific. We also met Stan Tilley from Hobart who I would think has more hours in an Airtourer than anyone on the planet. Stan has just completed writing a book on Aerobatics for Airtourers...and thankfully included the Airtrainer (CT4) in the content. Stan and his wife are an amazing couple, I'd guess their age to be in the early 70's and having flown up from Hobart for the fly-in, the were then heading up to Cairns for a holiday...apparently an annual trip for them. There were so many interesting people we spoke to, trying to capture it all here would take a while and not do them any justice...suffice to say we enjoyed talking with everyone that attended over the two days and look forward to the next gathering of Airtourer folk at Shepparton in December. Of course we managed to get some flying in while we were there, as usual I was offering up the right hand seat to anyone keen to experience a "grown up" Airtourer. Those who took up the offer included Peter Bons, an ex-Army pilot who after a 30 year flying career had a very unfortunate accident with a remote controlled aircraft that happened to strike him in the temple having gone out of control - lucky to be alive, but unfortunately Peter is no longer able to fly and savours every opportunity he gets to get airborne...as we all do. Another keen passenger was Bruce Ross, Bruce isn't a pilot but the husband of a former Airtourer owner and, like Kaz, loves going flying but just doesn't have any interest in becoming a pilot. The last passenger for the day was Jan O'Halloran...the wife of John mentioned above...taking Jan for a flight was a little daunting I must admit, given her husband's background and experience...thankfully the feedback was positive :thumb_up: Anyhow, enough of the chat, here's some pics. Cheers, Matt & Kaz.

For those in Victoria today and not interested in football, the weather was perfect for flying. Kaz and I decided to head up to Echuca and got in touch with BigPete to see if he'd be around with Little Pete. As luck would have it, both of them would be at the field today as Little Pete was visiting on school holidays and we thought it'd be a bit of a thrill for Little Pete to go for a fly in our CT4. So we headed of on the long trip to Echuca...all 40 minutes of it...of course we had a headwind. Approaching and touching down at Echuca there was no traffic around...apparently someone was interested in football after all. We met up with the Pete's at the aero club, sat around and had a catchup over a cold drink then it was time to get the little fella into the air. Strapped in and the obligatory photos taken, we take off and climb to about 4000' for some airwork. I demonstrate some wingovers and steep turns to Little Pete and ask him if there's anything else he'd like..."I'd like to have a go" he says, so handing over, Little Pete spent the next 15 minutes "hands on" climbing, descending and turning in the skies over Echuca. Hope you had a great day Little Pete, was great flying with you :thumb_up: Cheers, Matt.

In my opinion, if you're combining your theory and flying, I'd suggest only learning what is relevant for your next flying phase and focus on ensuring that what you are learning becomes fundamental knowledge i.e. you can easily recall and apply it. Once you have achieved that with each phase, move on to the next. Do not get ahead of yourself or your training plan by trying to learn everything early on...you will always be learning.

We'll be there and will try to get as many from Kyneton as well as the Airtourer Association as possible.

Hi Ben, We had no dramas getting finance for the Sportstar when we bought it despite it being one of the first in the country. There are a number of aviation friendly brokers and lenders - most advertise in the Aviation Trader and similar. You'll probably find the lending criteria to be a bit tighter than for classic GA types i.e. 5 year term instead of 7 or 10, 20% deposit compared to 5% etc. We used our finance broker Finlease who have put us on to Capital Finance for both the Sportstar and the CT4. I'm sure there are others who are also "ultralight" or "light sport" friendly. Cheers, Matt.

Yep, it exists...hard to spot though. Flew over it many times whilst flying between Bathurst & Canberra.

So many questions...and fair enough too, it's not an easy decision to make...particularly given the $ involved. Firstly, the $15K quoted for PPL is probably at the upper end of the spectrum though, more likely to be in THE $10K range...still not talking small numbers though. If you then want to go instructing, in the GA world you'll need a commercial licence (so double and then a little bit your PPL quote) and then an instructor rating...some more time and cash required to get that. As with everything in life, you need to determine whether your passion / enthusiasm and the rewards of flying are worth the investment - time and money. Everyone on this site would say the same as me - HELL YES IT'S WORTH IT! It's a disease that has no cure...not that I'd be looking for one. Regarding aircraft hiring, generally you only pay for the hours the aircraft is either in the air or the engine is turning. If you take it for a weekend and fly it for 3 hours, you pay for 3 hours. Depending on the school / club, you may not get the option to take it for that long i.e. your 3 hours over 2 days would mean that they cant get 6 or 7 hours per day training out of it. Are fixed wing instructors in demand - you betcha! A quick read of any aviation magazine, news site over the past 12 months will quickly show you that the vast majority of instructors are being snapped up by the airlines - big and small - thus leaving the ranks of instructors left to train the next generation of pilots a bit thin. CASA actually have a bit of a taskforce together with some of the larger schools to attempt to address this. Hope that's of some use...plenty of others here will be able to provide some insight as well...lots of diverse experience on this forum...which is what makes it such a lovely spot to spend some time. Cheers, Matt

Your last sentence is pretty much bang on. And the fluff about flying over built up areas, be within gliding distance of a suitable landing area etc. is a historic thing that needs to be reviewed in my opinion. You'll be hard pressed to get to any controlled airfield without flying at 1000' AGL over built up areas...in fact there are some non-controlled airfields in the same situation...but then again the regulation does also mention "unless in the act of taking off or landing" ...or something along those lines.

The annual Airtourer Association President's Fly-In is on this weekend Friday 19 - Sunday 21 September 2008. Look forward to seeing and meeting other members, Airtourer or CT4 owners there...and anyone else looking for a destination to head to this weekend.

Perhaps this user group should be called Airtourers & Airtrainers...the aircraft name didn't change...just the many manufacturer names associated with building them. While not technically a "Victa", as you all know the CT4 was developed from the Airtourer (actually the 4 seat Aircruiser) by AESL following the demise of the Victa aviation group and subsequent sale of designs / certifications etc. to this New Zealand company...which then went through a few of its own changes and ended up today as Pacific Aerospace Corporation (PAC) and still manufacturing the CT4. The Airtourer lives on through the Airtour Cooperative, full details, history etc. can be found on the Airtourer Association website at http://www.airtourer.asn.au Without a place to call home like a CT4 Owners Group or simliar, the CT4 owners of Australia are invited to join the Airtourer Association as we have recently done and join about 15 other CT4 owners. The Airtourer Cooperative Inc has been partly or fully responsible for support of the Airtourer series aircraft since 1988. The directors are confident that support of the Airtourer series aircraft has been effective and is being further enhanced by several recent initiatives. The Coop has recently (2005) resumed control of the Australian Type Certificates (link) for Victa Airtourer 100 and 115 (TC 34-1 and TC 34-3). Type Acceptance Certificates for New Zealand built Airtourers registered in Australia are underway, with the T6 certificate in already in place. Transfer of New Zealand Type Certificates (link) A4, A7 and A8 for AESL and Victa Airtourer 100, 115, T3, T4, T5, T6 and T6/24 aircraft is underway but awaiting T3 documents.

Actually you can't fly into a GAAP on an RAA ticket. Your school at Parafield has a special dispensation specific to that school and the aircraft operated by it - it only allows that school and those aircraft at that airfield. This dispensation does not apply to you the pilot i.e. you cannot fly any RAA registered aircraft into any other GAAP, to achieve this you would need to meet the standards for operating an ultralight in controlled airspace i.e. minimum PPL, certified engine etc etc. The only other school I'm aware of with (current) dispensation is at Cambridge (Hobart although I know of schools at Moorabbin, Camden etc. that have requested similar.

Firstly, as with all others, condolences to the family and friends of the poor young fella that didn't make it - from all reports he was just like all of us, a passionate aviator wanting to do nothing more than fly. Full credit to the crew of the Warrior - from the photos in the press and that posted above, they were very fortunate to be able to recover and return to base with the tailplane in that condition. Also fortunate that the Warrior has an all moving elevator / tailplane, I'd suspect that had it had a trailing edge elevator only (like a 172) they would most likely lost all elevator control authority...it could have been a much worse accident.