dutchroll

Not actually sure that it's legal for Airservices to release ATC tapes except for investigative or direct safety related purposes. Sites like LiveATC get their recordings from a network of people who operate scanners. They're not original source recordings.

Panorama taken at sunset over the North-West Cape heading to Singapore. Clear skies to the west. Lurking in the darkness just right of track are intense storms at 80-100 nm topping out above 40,000ft, visible in the photo on the nav display.

Our 2nd visit to KSC in Florida. The (real) Space Shuttle Atlantis on display. If you're passing through Florida and you don't go to KSC, you're mad in my opinion. The weekend sportster before going flying the other day:

I suppose that's true, in the sense that screwing up a manoeuvre that you've done successfully before is bad luck.

Not good. You could see the desperate hard pull back at the last second. Another airshow loop stat. :(

Been a while, but are you still able to get a good deal on the Avmap Ultra?

Extract from the "Normal Procedures" section of the POH (which I wrote myself) from my radial taildragger: "WARNING - Forward visibility from the cockpit is poor. Exercise caution during taxi." Guessing she missed that bit in hers!

Extract from the "Normal Procedures" section of the POH (which I wrote myself) from my radial taildragger: "WARNING - Forward visibility from the cockpit is poor. Exercise caution during taxi." Guessing she missed that bit in hers!

That's just bloody ludicrous. But then again, I'm unaware of any property developers who actually have morals, ethics, or any sense of fairness, so it doesn't particularly surprise me.

Airborne weather radar is not good for detecting hail. It sees "wet" precipitation rather than "dry" precipitation. Plus ice on the radome is another factor which can obscure the picture. They may well have assumed based on the radar picture that they were just flying into rain.

Same the other way too. Overshoot shear has caused many problems late in the landing. A sudden increase in headwind and now you find yourself floating down the runway with the power at idle, being unable to put it down, the far end rapidly looming. Either way is cause for a go-around.

The day I get "really comfortable" landing in strong (ie, at or near aircraft limits) crosswinds I will retire from flying. Sure, I can do them. 40 knots crosswind in a big plane, yep. 20 knots in my small plane, yep. But they're never "comfortable", they are always hard work, and always require an intense amount of concentration. If I were to do it without any increase in heart rate, I would suggest that I have become over-confident and will likely suffer a concentration lapse one day which could prove costly. Your highest level of performance is always when you are under a moderate degree of stress. Moderate, being the operative word. Not excessive, or performance levels drop dramatically. Conversely, if you're not stressed at all, your performance level is actually low. So while you should be trained to the point of being confident that you are capable of that crosswind landing, you should never get to the stage where you think "this is just a breeze". As far as exceeding the crosswind limitations in the POH, well the limitations are there for a reason. They're not decorative garnish. They are actually real numbers which, although factored by a certain margin, depict the controllability limitations of the aircraft which have usually been determined under flight test conditions. In the certified world at least, that is done by full time professional test pilots.

Yeah it's not necessarily logical. Just accident investigation protocol. Their territory, their train set. ;) The frogs would certainly heavily involve Boeing in their enquiries....there are well established protocols for that. But their investigation including salvaged wreckage would be centrally located in the motherland.

They sent it to France because the territory they found it on is French. Therefore the French accident investigators (BEA) are in charge of this phase and I imagine they send all their plane bits to the same place for identification. Also wouldn't be surprised to see a Boeing rep over there in Toulouse for obvious reasons.

The only thing I've ever flown where I was comfortably < 45 knots at touchdown was an Iroquois.

My 12m x 18m x 4m machinery shed was $47,000 for the materials, $22,000 for the concrete (120mm heavy duty 25 MPa slab), and $13,000 to put it all up. Then add epoxy floor coating, electrical (saved heaps there because my friend is a sparky), etc. It was a heavy duty design though, and a wind rating above the minimum required because I don't want it blowing down when the 1 in 100 year wind storm hits a month after it's finished. Of course you can cut costs by having it built to the absolute minimum requirements, use chinese steel (as opposed to Aus made BHP steel components from a reputable company like Lysaght or Strammit), pour a lower spec concrete slab, leave the floor unsealed, etc. Though I'd argue cutting corners is a false economy for a structure like a hangar - or where you're storing lots of expensive farm machinery and workshop gear. Also your hangar or shed door sizes may place a lower limit on the physical size of the building required to accommodate them.

I was referring to inverted spin accidents. Not deliberate ones. Accidental inverted spins in the military have been around for decades - I'd guess mostly as a result of the type of flying done versus what is (or was) common in the civil world.

Primarily it is a "wear and tear" issue, but all of what you say above is correct. I guess as far as wheel brakes working harder it's probably more correct if I said "using wheel brakes harder in lieu of reverse thrust is supported because it reduces wear and tear, and the brakes don't mind it either." That's the official company (and manufacturer) line.

We normally use all braking systems available to us. In fact, I know of one of our pilots who had one thrust reverser inop (a permissible unserviceability), one wheel brake inop (also a permissible unservicability), and automatic spoilers inop (permissible as long as they work manually) and refused to accept the aircraft in that state until one of the 3 "stopping" systems was fully serviceable. The flight with 250 passengers was delayed and the plane towed to the hangar while they found another one. Every other pilot I know would also have refused to accept it. Where braking systems are applied automatically and are fully serviceable, we always use them in that mode. This concerns the ground spoilers and the wheel brakes. Upon touchdown: 1) The ground spoilers extend automatically to dump lift when "on ground" (i.e., weight on wheels) logic gets applied. 2) Simultaneously the pilot activates reverse thrust (can only be done manually). 3) The wheel brakes operate automatically: In a Boeing: there are 6 autobrake selections (1,2,3,4, Max, and RTO - rejected takeoff, which is equivalent to "this is going to be spectacularly violent" and only selected for takeoff). The autobrakes operate when the thrust levers are at idle and the wheels have spun up. In an Airbus: there are 3 autobrake selections (low, medium, max - the "max" position is used on takeoff and will activate for a rejected takeoff much like the Boeing "RTO" setting). The autobrakes on an Airbus operate when the ground spoilers are commanded to extend, or in the case of the "max" selection which I've never seen used for landing, the nose gear is also required to be compressed. The wheel brakes in both Boeings and Airbus operate to a "constant deceleration rate". So the application of reverse thrust, and the deselection of reverse thrust, affects how much brake pressure is applied to the wheels. As a general rule, because the aircraft have carbon brakes and carbon brakes work better and last longer when they're applied harder, the Company prefers to use only idle reverse thrust where runway length and performance permits, and let the wheel brakes do all the work. However if there is any doubt, or particular taxiway exits need to be taken, we'll use full reverse thrust.

If any pilot (including me) tells you he's never done something in a plane where he's thought "now that was pretty bloody silly of me - I won't do that again", he's lying. There is a very long list of people in front of you who have come unstuck by being too harsh on the brakes too early in the landing. An important thing to try to wrap your mind around during the landing roll is that if you do something and the plane starts veering off somewhere, immediately undo what you just did, and you'll likely regain control of it.

There are of course quite a few aeroplanes which will inverted spin under the right circumstances out of a botched stall turn. No need for a symmetrical aerofoil. There was a guy not long before I did my RAAF pilot training who botched a stall turn in the Macchi jet. He believed he was in an inverted spin so he ejected (rules were if you lost control < 10,000 ft you jettisoned the aircraft).

"Pulling the stick back" as a prerequisite for stalling is a valid concept most of the time for small planes under most circumstances. But not always (yes I'm being picky here). For example, in an inverted spin, if you push the stick forward to attempt to unstall the wing (unstalling it being a necessary part of recovery), the wing will remain stalled and you're going to die.

What about when you're upside down? What if you get leading edge ice accumulation?

As an absolute or literal statement that comment certainly isn't true....and that's why I don't like using the word "impossible".

Any flying <500ft, aerobatics, formation, spinning. These things have always required specific training and endorsement. There are another 4 rec pilot endorsements - that's 8 total. I would not call that overwhelming. I need to remember more things than that to start my tractor!