dutchroll

Yeah we started with iPad 3s (3rd generation you'd expect serious bugs to be ironed out) then progressed to iPad Air 2s. 2nd generation, likewise. We're not allowed to update iOS until approved by the company, which is often many weeks or even several months to ensure the vital operational apps function properly. Nothing is 100% reliable. Having my nice new laminated WAC with tracks & distances marked on it sucked out the window proves that.

When I was flying Caribous many moons ago and well before iPads or smartphones came onto the scene, I lost two WAC charts in row through being sucked out the cockpit side window. On both occasions the chart was simply on my lap. We were seriously running short of WACs on that trip. I have to say we have something like 2500 operational iPad based EFBs in our company and I've never heard of a total screen failure. That's not to say it hasn't happened, but those things usually get publicised internally at least. There are always exceptions, but I think they've been proven to be very reliable when they're charged properly, setup and looked after properly, and updated properly.

This statement by Apple is sort of true, and also sort of misleading. Apple's GPS on all their devices is "assisted GPS". It's a GPS receiver, but while it's looking for satellites their positioning software can use mobile towers and known wifi base stations to calculate your position. By doing this it can give you an initial position fix faster, and also in turn then it knows where it needs to look to get the satellite reception. So the answer is this: 1) The GPS is a fully functioning chip which will calculate an accurate position like any other GPS. 2) The GPS can be assisted by the wifi and 3G when it doesn't have a good satellite lock. 3) The GPS will get a good initial position faster with the wifi and 3G switched on, if it is receiving from wifi and 3G base stations. 4) When it has a good GPS lock, the wifi and 3G signals are not important to it.

At my "iconic aussie airline" employer we exclusively use iPads (2 pilots = 2 iPads) for aeronautical charts, airport data, company publications, eg SOPs and so on, aircraft manufacturer Flight Manuals/FCOMs, aircraft performance data, including real-time takeoff and landing performance data entered into flight management computers and all flight planning, weather and notam delivery. There is no requirement for a "paper" backup and we do not carry any, however there must be 2 serviceable, charged iPads with the appropriate data loaded preflight. It is a requirement to have updated all aeronautical data prior to every flight and this is the individual pilot's responsibility. Translating this to the small-plane world, I would say that modern electronic data is very reliable. Know how to "hard reboot" your device, as this usually fixes screen freezes and lockups (they are uncommon, but yeah they can happen). You won't lose already stored data from a hard reboot, though it might be necessary to reactivate flight plans etc. Have your electronic data updated before you go flying. If you have only wifi and not 3G, make it part of your "leaving home to go flying, do I have everything?" checks! Have a backup of some description. Whether this is a paper chart for the area tucked away in a reachable pouch somewhere, or a duplicate copy of the EFB you use on another device like your iPhone. FWIW I have never, ever had a standard iPad shut down due to high temperature, even in my small plane with its greenhouse/sauna bubble canopy. However the iPad Mini is prone to it on hot days in full sun.

I certainly consider myself "bilingual" when it comes to metric vs imperial (the final metrification in Aus was being completed when I was a young kid) and mpg was still the main "fuel economy" unit for years even after car speedos all went metric. However day to day I've always preferred metric as the unit subdivision (kilo, centi, milli, etc) is common across the board. Workshop stuff I'm quite familiar with both though, as would anyone else with a shed/workshop. You pretty much can't function unless you know mm to inches and kg to lb!

I am intimately familiar with the pint as a unit of measurement!

That was a requirement in my basic flying training. However I'm sure it's not often done in the civilian world, and we're talking about an entirely different training standard (no offence to anyone - obviously it's that way through necessity).

It is true that you can develop a problem between checkups. It is equally true that, as I stated, I know of many pilots grounded as a consequence of problems found during a medical checkup. This applies to private pilots too, btw. Which layer of medical assessment do you want to dispense with and to what extent? It's not like car and bus drivers. You can't pull over when something happens, and in accordance with basic risk assessment principles, that makes the consequences of a medical problem potentially severe, irrespective of whether your risk of developing it in the first place is low. As my DAME mentioned to me just the other day, you'd be amazed at what medical conditions you can be allowed to fly with. But by default, a lot of these conditions lead to an "as or with copilot" licence condition to mitigate any safety risk. The private pilot, who is no more or less immune to these conditions, would not have this option. Is it wise, therefore, to reduce the professional medical supervision of private pilots (and it's already a lot lower than commercial ones) further? I just put that question out there...... Due to the average number of hours the typical RAA pilot flies, I concede the risk is already very low. Low too for some private pilots but not so much for others. However what concerns me is not so much the RAAus medical policies, but the typical American style attitude as per the link in the original opening post here, of enshrining ever-increasing "you can't touch me" principles in law based on the concept that pilots know their own health better than someone who has years of professional training to specifically understand what particular health signs really mean. This is generally untrue and gets repeatedly born out in the real world when doctors see patients. If we were truly any good at figuring out how healthy we were and what our employment risks were, relative to signs and symptoms we experience, most doctors would be out of a job! "What? Oh ok, it never occurred to me that those dizzy spells 2 years ago were a result of a brain tumour!"

Ok, so by that logic having onerous medicals for airline pilots is rather pointless, would you agree? Commercial airline pilots should have the same medical requirements as RAAus? You're going to argue that case? Maybe one every 10 years for Airline Transport Pilots and doesn't need to be reported to CASA? When there is little data showing accidents with medical causal factors, how do you know that's not a consequence of the system working as it is designed? What about the enormous difference in flying hours between a commercial pilot flying 900 hours a year and an RAA pilot flying 40 hours a year? How do you factor that into the data to make it meaningful? I know of numerous pilots temporarily losing their medical status and being grounded. Did that prevent an accident? We'll never know, will we? And that's the idea. The fact is that they were deemed to have a condition which increased their risk, and so they were grounded. The medical authorities could've rolled the dice to see what happened, but they don't believe in rolling dice with planes which are carrying innocent people in them. I don't really have a problem with reduced medical requirements for people who fly solo. But I have a big problem with reduced medical requirements for people carrying passengers. My wife's a doctor and was a DAME in the Air Force. She has some interesting things to say on this topic. Yeah there is. They can't pull over to the side of the road and call 000 when they have chest pain.

What stats and medical evidence do you have to suggest that GA medicals add little to safety? Pilots are the single worst people on the whole planet at managing their own fitness to fly.

Zero or negative G with unsecured articles in the back, and continuing manoeuvring when the girl is already obviously feeling sick. There are several levels of stupid there.

People can always turn to Fox News to get their information, as John Cleese explains.......

To a religious radical, "bluff and bravado" and "genuine desire and ultimate goal" are basically the same thing. Works for Christians too. For example, the highly radicalised extreme Christian "right to life" lobby in the USA actually has a proportion of members who sincerely and genuinely feel that anyone who works in an abortion clinic, a family planning centre (where advice, contraception etc is given out) and so on, deserves to die. They don't discriminate between the lady at the front counter, or the nurse, or the doctor, and they verbalise that openly and regularly. This is largely bluff, bravado, and BS, as most of them will never do anything other than rant about it online or to TV cameras, or anywhere else they can get an audience. Occasionally, unfortunately, some idiot does actually go out and try to act on it. Much the same principle for religious radicals of any flavour, including Islamic ones. "Trash talk" (which is essentially what the Imam was doing) is easy. Actually achieving your delusional fantasy is a lot harder.

I hear this argument a lot here in Australia too. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me exactly how they think Sharia Law will be implemented here. A guy was imprisoned here a while back for an illegal underage marriage. Attempting to conduct himself in accordance with Sharia Law in Australia didn't work out too well for him. Funnily enough, because he broke the real law, which is, has always been, and always will be, Australian Law. As it is written into the statute books by Parliament. I'm also waiting for someone to explain to me how the Government is actually going to take away the right to vote. Of course, all the "we're imposing Sharia Law" and "we're turning into a Muslim state" is bluff and bravado. Sheer paranoia-driven nonsense, completely conflicting with political reality here.

Lol. "Center For Security Policy" aka - Tea Party movement, Washington DC Regional Office.

No, I've had people I know (whom I've since unfollowed as a direct consequence) make similar comments, and post links to some quite extremist sites. Like the one which said we should've fixed up the nigger problem a long time ago and that South Africa had it right in the first place, for example. Several links went from Reclaim Australia to the United Patriotic Front/Australia First Party, then went downhill (way, way downhill) from there. You want me to screenshot & paste them, from their private Facebook pages? I can re-follow them and get that stuff if you really want to see it. Ah but of course you don't want to, do you? See no evil, hear no evil, right GG?

From a recent Donald Trump rally: Quote from Trump supporter: "I wish I had my piece on me dude, I wanna shoot someone so bad" in response to an anti-trump heckler being removed and in conjunction with a bunch of anti-Muslim and anti-coloured comments. This does not surprise me at all, and I know several people - born 'n bred aussies - who are grossly misguided in their adulation of Trump (they've quite badly leaped off the deep end of life).

I don't think the Australian and Longreach Foreign Ministers have sorted out their data sharing arrangement yet.

Just like Attorney-General George Brandis when he first proposed metadata access laws, I doubt there is anyone in CASA who actually knows what metadata is.

I was always taught to keep the stick right back on landing. It also dampens out and reduces the tendency to "porpoise" in pitch, as well as aiding in directional control. Particularly in the Pitts! I also remember the consequence of getting bit too excited on the rudder pedals, with my Pitts instructor saying after the landing roll "you know you seem to be determined to make these landing rollouts really hard for yourself - go easy on the pedals!"

This is quite true in the small plane - single pilot world. It seems counter-intuitive at first glance, but the worst times for accidents and incidents are often beyond the "very junior pilot" stage. When you're brand new, you're still too uncertain and desperately clinging to what basic knowledge you have, to do anything too silly. Then you get familiar, the flying becomes easier, and you expand your comfort zone significantly. The risks worry you less as the confidence grows. Often the period where pilots slacken off and cut loose a bit. Danger times. Eventually (and it can be very many years and a lot of hours) there can come a time when you've scared the crap out of yourself enough times and survived that you have a memory bank of "that was really stupid so I won't do it again" incidents built up. The brain slows down and hopefully you accommodate this by slowing yourself and your flying aspirations down along with it. With apologies to Murtaugh from "Lethal Weapon", I call it the "I'm getting too old for this sh*t" stage. There are always exceptions to the above, of course, but being brand new to flying doesn't necessarily make you a giant accident risk.

Binary? You only ever have two numerals to deal with and heck, the fastest calculations in the world are done with it, so it must be good! Yeah ok........just getting silly now.

Common factors in my opinion for ground looping (in no particular order): 1. Speed too fast 2. Rudder inputs not appropriate (usually too much peddling & deflection on the rudder resulting in PIOs then "whoops!") 3. Corrective action left too late.

I've had to make some pretty coarse inputs to stop that situation happening. Same thing - taxying too fast for the conditions after becoming familiar with the plane and getting a bit cocky. In other words I've had full rudder and some brake in to stop it happening! Never on the runway though.

Yes that would be absolutely true in both cases. Presumably (certainly in the Air France case, and most likely in the Air Asia case), when these guys did basic flying training in a small plane before they joined an airline they were reasonably competent. One must ask what happened in the meantime. Yes there is a loss of basic aviation skills in line flying to a degree due to increasing automation, but the training system can mitigate and compensate for that. Ours certainly does.