dutchroll

And he's absolutely correct for a normal into wind landing (which is all you should be doing in the early days).

It's very possible that it will de-stabilise your approach in many jets regardless of how many engines are working. Things with big wings just don't like it. Start peddling the rudder on final approach during a sim check with an airline and you won't like the checker's response. Even with an engine out, you set or trim the rudder position for balanced flight and leave it there. Peddle it to the point of being unbalanced in a B767 with an engine out and the autopilot engaged, and you'll roll it upside down. Try to pick up a wing with a coarse rudder input during a STOL landing with 40 flap in a Caribou and you'll become a statistic. These things are why we were taught as fresh faced 18 year olds to only ever use the rudder in flight to balance/coordinate a turn, and to do that properly. Specific exceptions generally involved prevention of yaw in various cases such as stalling or engine failure, and crosswind landing if you're using the sideslip technique.

It's weird. I can't fathom that teaching method. And I can't think of a scenario in my entire career from a light single engine trainer to a big plane where if I'd used a "rudder only for heading control on final approach" technique, I wouldn't have got my ar$e kicked.

Use (and usefulness) of rudder is very aircraft type-dependant. As I've said previously, I have two flying cassettes: the "use that bloody rudder!" cassette, and the "don't touch that bloody rudder!" cassette. It's been that way most of my career. I have failed to change them over once or twice, with uncomfortable results either way.

Haven't seen many airport security guards, have you?

Ah ok.......well within her rights to ask for the ASIC then! And to detain/restrain if you don't have one. Still, I wouldn't be surprised to hear airport staff not in those groups ask to see it. Some of them can be a bit bolshie!

Have to admit that "steering with rudder" on final approach is an anathema to me. Doing that during basic military flying training would've earned you an uncomfortable debrief. Adjustments on final approach were by way of "heading change", done the classic way. Steering with rudder on final approach in a big jet would probably earn you a "what the $@#* are you doing??" (and it really does screw your approach up quite a bit). So either way on those aviation career paths, it's beaten out of you very early. Note that this doesn't preclude sideslipping, if the circumstances warrant it. Just that gross sideslipping was very frowned upon as a "normal" procedure. Emergency, yes. Normal, no (with the exception of setting up the sideslip at some point if doing it for a crosswind landing of course). For crosswind landings, either the "crab" approach technique or the "sideslip" approach technique are perfectly valid. Some planes prefer one over the other, e.g., for those which are geometry-limited and you don't want any significant bank angle at touchdown, the crab approach is preferred and taught. For others, especially smaller GA aircraft, the sideslip approach is normally taught. Both can bring you unstuck if you're not taught well and/or don't do it properly, and various types of mishandling on final approach can cause you to depart controlled flight, hence the importance of good solid instruction and competency in stall recoveries, etc. As for stalling and spinning it into the ground, the guy who test flew mine put it nicely (and being a graduate of the US Navy Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, he would know): "it won't spin if you don't let it yaw, no matter what else you do".

Well anyone can ask, but a large proportion of those can be told to "sod off". If they're not empowered to detain you there's nothing stopping you from just keeping on walking. All inter-related questions and generally anyone authorised to stop you can also by default physically restrain you. Remember in all cases they're only allowed to use "necessary force". In other words, if you happily comply they can't suddenly decide to kick you in the shins and wrestle you to the ground (or they'll be in very big trouble). The Act specifically authorises these people to stop and/or physically detain you when they're on duty at an airport: Police, including AFP, State/Territory police, and Australian Protective Service Officers or Special Protective Service Officers. Customs officers (ie, "Border Force" officers these days). Airport security guards. Security screening officers. No it doesn't. With the fuel lady I guess you have a choice depending what mood you're in, and whether it's worth upsetting her while she's helping you refuel your plane. But ultimately she's a fuel truck driver, not a security guard. I suspect she was having delusions of grandeur. Basically it's common sense. If that person's job is airport security then yes they can ask, stop, detain, and even restrain. If their job is not airport security then they should just get on with their job, and if they have any problem or suspicion, find someone who is employed in airport security.

On Friday morning before I left Cessnock I checked the YTEM metar & it was 310/30G40 and 37 deg. I thought "hey I'm in a Pitts, it's significant crosswind on all runways, it's 37, and it's not even morning tea time - what could possibly go wrong?" Full fuel gave me Temora + 45 mins reserve + 1 hour holding or diversion, and Orange & Cowra were much better crosswind-wise and would've been suitable, so I figured what the heck. It was 40+ degrees by the time I arrived and descending through 4000' I got assaulted by the heat and turbulence. The last 300' on final was "interesting", though at least the wind had swung around to 270 and I could land on the dirt. Friday was a write-off & doing the tie-downs & covers nearly gave me heat exhaustion! Saturday was a ripper though.

Jeepers I was planning tomorrow morning too but every bloke and his dog will be in the circuit!

The secret is knowing when you've made poor judgement. This is all part of the human phenomenon known as "personal insight", and the most reliable and long-lived pilots have a reasonable degree of it. It's an essential quality of just your ordinary decent person on the street too. That nagging voice in your head which says "ok, it's too late because you've done it now, but that was a bad idea, so let's modify our ways so that it doesn't happen like that again, eh?" I've kicked myself (actually I get quite vocal and call myself lots of nasty names!) on a number of occasions! The people who need to be told they've made a bad choice because they have no idea are the big worry.

I've never once felt the need to find out who anyone actually is, despite having on many occasions wondered about the psychological state of various internet personalities over the years.

To me it shows how a perception of "risk-taking" can become quite warped, in the form of substantially underestimating it over time. Self confidence is a fine thing to have for a pilot, but it needs to be kept on a leash.

It's fairly universally considered bad practice to use Teflon tape on threaded fuel fittings in aircraft (or even cars) and there are documented cases of tape shreds getting into fuel lines and carburettors. The Kitfox has an interesting service letter on fuel system fabrication which talks about the 25 fuel tanks sent out with Teflon tape incorrectly used on threaded fittings by the vendor. I agree it's very surprising to see it come out of a factory like that and wonder how intentional it is.

This is correct. Class C airspace simply means there is an air traffic control service and everyone needs a clearance to be there. How that control is achieved - radar/procedural/ADSB - depends. It's generally desirable for class C airspace to have radar (SSR) coverage but it's not always possible.

Lol....I do that a lot (backspace key and "edit" button)! Despite login pseudonyms, I've never expected to maintain anonymity here. One forum member whom I'm certain I've never met and wouldn't know from a bar of soap private-messaged me a while back using my real name. The "greeting" was borderline abusive and certainly aggressive, regarding a thread in this section - he subsequently copped a ban. I speculate he looked me up on the rego database and/or googled my plane on the web (heck there's a photo of it right here). Not hard.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The internet is notorious for allowing people to pretend they're something which they're not.

Well that's all well & good but at the very least, upon receiving notification of an incorrect or dubious examination question/answer, they should immediately review both the exam questions, and the marking of any exam failures where the "wrong" answer was given to ensure it has made no difference to the end result. I wonder how often examinations which are susceptible to change (like air legislation or other rule/procedure knowledge based exams) are reviewed at RAAus?

Good pilots and smart pilots are totally different beasts. As a senior pilot and checker in the RAAF many years ago, I saw both. I felt a lot more comfortable bestowing initial multi-engine commands upon those who may not have been the "ace from space" for their flying ability, but had a lot of common sense and were well aware of their own personal limitations, as compared to those who had superior flying ability, but left me with nagging doubts as to their personal judgement. You saw this difference reflected in incident reports too. Over-confident guys with ability proceeding to bend aeroplanes or create totally avoidable incidents. There's a happy zone between over-confidence and under-confidence which, if you sit yourself in the middle of it, will probably allow you to fly comfortably and reach retirement age.

This accident has a particular cause stamped all over it. The last 2 accidents involving what I fly have particular causes stamped all over them too (related in a sense, but somewhat technically different to this one). And I'm just tiring of being polite, respectful, and discrete in my opinions of those causes, especially in two out of three cases where one or more bystanders has gone with them. So I'll just bite my tongue.......a-friggin-gain......I guess.

All students have the right to expect the examination questions and answers to accurately reflect current rules and legislation. Failure due to out of date questions/answers would be grounds for serious grievance in my opinion.

Yeah don't worry. Those of us who have been deciphering it our whole lives still manage to stuff it up occasionally! Fortunately when you're in a fully IFR auto-land capable jet and use sensible fuel ordering principles, the occasional weather decode stuff-up is generally well mitigated with little consequence!

Doesn't work for me either (that's in Safari). But then, I never contemplated a "plain english" decode before as I'm so used to decoding it in my head at a glance! What are you having trouble with as far as the briefing info goes?

Airframe structural integrity is pretty interesting. The bolts holding the lower wings onto my fuselage, though proper AN structural bolts, are rated fairly low compared to what "could" theoretically be used. But most of the stresses on those wings are taken by the multiple flying wires and the I-struts, and distributed across the whole structure to give you an airframe with an ultimate loading of around +/- 10g. So it ain't gonna fall apart any time soon, not even in bad turbulence......unless I do something really dumb.

As Marty said, ISIS are in and about the struggling-to-just-survive civilian population all the time (regrettably). If you're happy to have your TV screen saturated with 4 year old kids from the local village dying from mustard gas exposure then sure, go for it.