Ross

Hi All The old AUF forum got pretty verbose, repetitive and pretty nasty after a while. There was was no way to know if what was being published was influenced by vested interests, was true or the complete truth or was presenting both sides of the argument. When I joined that forum not long before its demise I took the trouble to go back and read all the available old posts. What I noticed in particular was that I often felt that not all the background or agenda was available or being presented on the topics under discussion as many of them seemed to run for longer than the historical record was available. I think that the organisation would have had to spend an unrealistic amount of time on the remarks coming from a very small proportion of the membership via that forum at that time. It is an interesting idea but it seems to me as a result of what we have been through that face to face meetings are potentially a better way of dealing with our problems. After all we have representatives to collate and present our woes to the organisation. I am not sure that all the business of the organisation should be discussed in the public forum. However the scene is vastly different now with a more mature organisation and much larger membership with a new different regime to operate under. The membership of this forum would probably represent about 10% of the membership of the current RAAus not much different from the percentage of the membership that were members of the old AUF forum before its closure. Regards

Hi All For those wanting to try an open cockpit simulator try riding a motorbike for about 10 or 20 km at 100 km/hr in the winter in southern NSW then add the summer bugs like bees and grasshoppers. Then add possible small birds and the odd wedge tailed eagle known to attack gliders with about eight times the wing span of the eagle. Check out the mashed insects on the wings and canopies of low flying aircraft. I'm with David. But open cockpit flying would be a great thrill at relatively low speeds. Regards

Hi Arthur One way is to post after a paragraph or so. Then go back to the post and "Edit" it by adding more to it periodically saving each edit session and then editing the new post until you are satisfied. Regards

Question on Engine Compliance to ASTM LSA Standard Hi J430 Jabiru has a Service Bulletin JSB 010-1 dated 19th April 2005 listing engine numbers that comply with ASTM Standard F2339-04. There is also a paragraph of conditions that need to be read in conjunction with the statement above on the RAA website. The engine numbers listed that comply are: Jabiru 2200A model. Serial number 22A1845 and above. Jabiru 3300A model. Serial numbers 33A722 and above. Does this have implications for Jabiru powered aircraft in controlled airspace in Australia?? Regards

Hi Darren I think the idea of flying to various sites for food & wine or whatever is great. As you point out it would have more interest for the other half as well. I do not see that it would be limited to once a year. As you are intimating, we should be visiting these sites regularly and they will eventually provide the services we want if we support them. I am only sorry that I cannot participate much until I get my J160 airborne if ever. A friend of mine from Davis in California whom I visited a few years ago regularly flies to other sites to have as he calls it a "$100 hamburger and a cup of coffee for breakfast". He is also involved in the Davis (near Sacramento) push bike club and flies his plane around their course when they are racing (100 miles +) to relay their GPS positions back to the organisers in Davis. He has the Nappa valley, literally full of wineries, on his door step which I was conducted around by his better half in their Volvo. It is a narrow valley with 10,000 ft + hills bordering it with some spectacular sites. You have mentioned the towns along the Great Dividing Range which would be great with some spectacular scenery but there are also a number of towns along the NSW Victorian border with lots of wineries plus the attraction of a number of golf courses and River Murray cruises in houseboats. A couple of years ago, we did one of these cruises in a houseboat from Echuca downstream for about 70 river miles or kilometres I think. It was to the next weir on the Murray. I set up my GPS on 12 volt from the boat power but it ran out of memory with about 5 miles to go plotting the track before we got back to Echuca (too many bends). The round trip took us (with three couples) about a week with a break in the middle with an evening out at a Golf Club for a meal plus entertainment. We tied the boat up to the shore and the club bus came down and picked up up and took us the three or four kilometres to the club and returned us later in the evening. We were able to be in constant radio contact with the riverboat owners with whom we checked in with each day. They had about twenty or thirty boats on the river. Another boat who lost their propeller on a snag called up the owners who came down in a boat and replaced the prop. Those boats have 240 & 12 volt lighting system so they can operate stoves and hot water systems etc with the 240 volt system and go to the 12 volt system after cooking etc is finished when you want some quiet. A very relaxing week. They give you about a fifteen minute lesson in boat handling before you leave their pier at Echuca which turned out to be enough even for us land lubbers after a bit of practice. We stocked up with groceries and essentials like whiskey and chocolate in Echuca before leaving but were able to buy additional fresh bread and other items about half way through the trip. We could have got the boat owners to bring additional supplies or help if required. I think the offers of drop in aerodromes like Ballarrat, Yarrawonga, Sheparton and Temora are a great idea. So Aerodromes and clubs that encourage visitors should be a bit more up front with their information. For example Narrandera and Leeton have barbecues with all welcome on one Sunday per month (the trouble is I don't know what days they are). I know I have to be out at Brobenah aerodrome for a barbecue tomorrow at lunch time and at St Vincents Hospital in Sydney at 10 am Tuesday morning. Regards Ross Arnold

Hi Peterf I see that your map does not show "Brobenah" airfield 5 km from Leeton township which is RAA friendly, 600 acres, no landing charges and has no channels on the field. For details see the AOPA airfield book. Regards "Dallas" is not close to a town.

I tried a Google search for gfa. The top find was www.gfa.org.au

Hi Mike In regard to trip to Narromine - Be careful of landing in irrigation country as there are a number of different types of surface irrigation that may be bad for the health of your aeroplane. Row Crop and bed irrigation where there are parallel furrows or "hills" from 75 cm apart upwards - probably a prop strike if landed along the rows or undercarriage removal or worse if landed across. Some crops are grown on "beds" which are very big furrows and hills. Some orchards have trees on beds and furrows in between and that sort of system can be used for some broadacre crops depending on the soil type. Border check bays are generally level with a slight slope top to bottom are fine if aligned with the wind and long enough and growing pasture. They can be bounded by banks and channels with the banks between bays up to 45 cms high. Watch for sheep and cattle and bales of hay. Light brown rocks (sheep & cattle) have a habit of standing up and running past the front of cars and aeroplanes. Contour bays could be square or rectangular or irregularly shaped depending on if they have been landformed but are enclosed by earth banks up to 50 cms high with a furrow on each side of the bank. All types could have row crop hills and furrows which I would definitely not land in. Near Peak Hill South of Narromine there is some Gilgai country (a natural phenomenon) which you can generally see from the air say 5,000 feet as circular nests if you like. They are a series of continuous sunken holes in the soil with slightly raised areas around them. The holes can be up to about 20 metres across and a metre deep below the surrounding surface. They are also notorious for holding water for quite some time after rain - quite disconcerting if you are driving fast around a paddock at night or in daylight when the grass is long and you drive straight into one. You could go from say 80 km/hour to stopped in about six or seven metres. You would probably need a tractor to pull you out even if you were driving a four wheel drive. There is plenty of this kind of soil around western NSW Deniliquin, South of Balranald and the Narromine, Trangie, Moree, Narrabri and Goondiwindi areas and they may not be as visible from the air as the examples somewhere near Peak Hill. They are generally on the grey or black self mulching soils. There are some other obstructions near Peak Hill as it was a prolific area for gold mining in the early days and there are lots of old mining holes and their associated heaps of rock and soil all around that area. There is also a new open cut gold mine there as well. For an explanation look up Gilgai with Google. From Ardlethan north (keeping west of the West Wyalong to Narromine road) you will generally be flying over mostly lightly timbered grazing land or dryland cropping country. The safest thing to land on is generally cropping land that is in a pasture phase (but watch for stock). Avoid cattle & horse paddocks as they will chew bits out of the aeroplane. Sheep are not quite as bad for chewing. Cropping land growing grass (pasture) is noticeable as you can generally see where it has been cultivated as the previous crop sown round and round the paddock shows up in the grass for a year or two. Also a pasture crop paddock generally but not always has most of the dead timber and stumps removed or stacked up. Paddocks with crop in them often have unconsolidated soil where as pasture paddocks are generally fairly solid.

Thanks Darren

Hi Mike Narrandera has ASIC Cameras and CTAF coded gate locks and fuel available from the MAC (Murrumbidgee Aero Cub) no landing fees and no permanent staff. It has maybe 2 RPT REX flights per day and possibly ambulance and a locally owned jet plane plus Wally Rudin in his Tecnam P92. It has toilet facilities on the end of the passenger terminal. Leeton or Brobenah as the field is called is in the AOPA National Airfield Directory 2004 edition that I own. The following info comes from that publication. Anything in italics are my comments. No ASIC Card required. Location 34 30'S 146 27'E it is 480ft AMSL at the hanger near the SEast corner, about 460 on the SWest corner. The field is generally flat with a slight slope that you would notice landing a glider but not in an ultralight. no landing fees no AV gas no radio permission NOT required var 11 E WAC 3457 Runways 4/22 Natural (sandy loam) 1500 m (roughly parallel to bitumen road). It is actually an all over field roughly a mile square with a car club in the NE corner, a now covered up and no longer used rubbish tip on the western side and the roughest strip is the one in the middle of the field between the crop duster's hanger and the gliding club hanger and club house. I would be prepared to land a glider anywhere in the paddock but preferably not on or across the main central dirt strip between the hangers! The council repaired it some years ago using the standard coarse gravel that they use on bitumen roads in some of the pot holes. But the crop duster pilots still use it sometimes but I think even they have moved over a few metres to smoother ground. It would be unlikely to have any glider winch operations in action as the gliding club part is virtually extinct. But they are in the process of ferrying in a Motor Falke from Townsville ( a powered glider) if it ever stops raing in the North. (It may be here already. I have not checked) All aerial vehicles are welcome as the club has been rejuvenated very recently with a swag of new members mostly consisting of RAA and GA pilots and ex Gliding Club members. Even Wally Rudin has joined from Narrandera plus many well known local pilots from all types of flying ranging from Narrandera, Leeton and Griffith with even some from Wagga and Holbrook too I think. There is not much to show for this increased membership yet - it is a work in progress! CTAF Toilets near hanger and gliding club house. Leeton Gliding club has changed it's name to something implying like meaning "all comers aero club welcome" at last! There is not always any activity there but the conveniencies are always available-toilets and water. It is about 6 km and NNE of Leeton township on the eastern side of the main canal. For any local knowledge call me on 0269533466

One of the things that happen with thermal activity is the difference during the day. In the morning a shallow water area or a dark area of soil or rock or trees may be quite cool relative to other areas and therefore act as a sink area as it soaks up energy from the sun(both for aircraft and air). Other lighter coloured areas may start giving off weak thermals earlier and therefore may not get as hot as the darker areas that are soaking up more energy instead of giving it up to rising or passing air. Later in the day as this area is now hotter than the surrounding area it may trigger more thermals (rising air and aircraft) as the surrounding ground has already given up a lot of its heat. Some of these areas like the very shallow small lake near the Brobenah airfield at Leeton may have still have weak thermals for some time after sunset. Sometimes a car or a tractor working a paddock may be enough to trigger a thermal. If you have a recording temperature trace on an airfield where there is good show of cumulus clouds you will see a noticeable dip in temperature of maybe one degree or so at approximate five minute intervals as thermal activity passes the recorder. If you know the local dewpoint temperature you can calculate the height of the cloudbase. At Leeton usually during the summer you would expect the cloud base AMSL to increase during the day by a least 1,000 feet as the water content of the air is gradually reduced by evaporation from the ground and plants and transported elsewhere by the prevailing air mass which is usually moving by at least 5 km per hour. Though the velocity in that mass can change dramatically depending on where you are in relation to the thermal activity or other local influences. On the ground it feels as though the air mass has stopped moving and then speeds up again perhaps to double prevailing air mass velocity as each thermal passes the observer. Of course all these rising air columns are also associated with just as much sinking air so if you want to use them like a sail plane pilot you have to learn how to stay centred in that rising column of air which may have a lean on it and also have different rates of lift. Inversion layers in the atmosphere may cap the height a thermal can go thus preventing it reaching a height where the dewpoint temperature would make the moisture condense in the air thus showing it up as the base of a cloud, usually cumulus. Watch a cumulus cloud continuously and you will usually see them form and collapse in as little as five or ten minutes. One of the dangers of flying into cumulus clouds aside from the lack of IFR capability and a very short life expectancy is the fact that as water vapour condenses into visible droplets making a cloud visible it gives up a lot of energy. This extra energy can cause aircraft flying near the base of a cloud to be sucked up into the cloud despite deploying dive brakes or cutting the throttle to idle or pushing the stick forward up to VNE and attempting to dive out the bottom. A possible escape from this situation is to spin the aircraft providing it can be safely done and recovered from. A spin that develops into a spiral dive will probably remove the wings or destroy the aircraft as flutter speed is reached. I vaguely remember from the pilot handling notes of the Blanik that its actual vertical airspeed down when in a stable spin was something like about 80 knots - or about 8,000 feet per minute! I once spun one from about 5,000 feet in clear air down to about 2,000 feet on purpose - it didn't take long and I think my instructor on the ground nearly had a heart attack. Safe flying Regards

In our Western areas of NSW, powerlines to farm houses probably more often than not do not follow fence lines. They generally take the most economical line to the next delivery point which often is across the middle of a paddock with the power poles spaced further apart than what you are used to in the cities. Then there are the SWER lines, single wire earth return. They are 20,000 volts and obviously the hardest to see and are very common in the Western grazing areas of the Riverina At least one glider pilot flying out of Leeton years ago has found one of these and wondered why all the lights went out in the nearby farm house as he landed in a paddock at last light.:confused:

Is it possible to hook up the elevator back to front? Regards

Hi Knighty See attached jpg file. More readable as is now four files.

Hi Geoff My brother has made up some kind of lever type jack that works by starting with the jack frame top under the UC, the foot of the jack frame on the ground and I presume lifting a lever one stroke thus lifting his Kit Fox. Once it is lifted far enough the lifting frame goes over centre against it's built in stop with the wheel off the ground.. I am guessing that it folds in the centre (so folded it is short) and goes over centre just past the vertical (so over centre it is long or extended) and can not go any further. (The jacked up position). The lever and jack section are made of folded sheet metal that is lightened by holes cut in it. It would have to be made to suit the lift height. Obviously it is meant for reasonably light AC - the heavier the AC the longer the lever required. The major advantage is that it can be operated by one person and is light. I have not seen it and am working from a vague description that is at least two years old. If you are interested contact me for his phone number. Regards

Grass contrails Hi AusDarren I had not noticed your "grass contrails" in the original photo before so I thought that I had better have a look and see what the explanation was in the EAST Photo. I could not work it out from the photo. It must have been taken in the late afternoon looking East so it is the sun shining and highlighting some long dead white grass which is just through the fence from a small irrigated green paddock. The whole length of the fence has a tall stand of white grass or crop behind it. We have at least one neighbour between our few acres and that white edged paddock about 400 m from where the photo was taken. If you look carefully, you can see the wooden posts along the side of the grass or crop! Regards

Hi Roger As soon as I got home I tuned in the J160 radio in the garage and was just in time to hear the Rex SAAB reporting 21,000 ft on course for Sydney from Griffith. Actually going by the look of the sky here at the time I think he would have had a clear sky at Griffith as I drove home from Narrandera in front of the dust at the same time as the SAAB was taking off from Narrandera. Leeton seemed to be about almost the limit of that dust's movement to the North East. If he actually flew through any of that dust I would be interested in the effect on his engines after watching that show a week or so ago re-enacting the BEA 747 flight through the volcano ash near Indonesia. Apparently the chamber temp was so hot it melted the ash which then solidified on the turbine blades. The thing that saved them was that it cooled enough for the solidified material to shrink and fall out of the turbine blades enabling them to work again and thus be able to start the engines eventually. Regards

Leeton on a good day Wednesday afternoon was better after returning from Wagga.

Leeton on a bad day Went to Narrandera for the monthly barbecue and get-together on 11-02-2007. The only time so far that I did not take a camera! I missed the aeroplane incident and the dust but got the dust when I drove home. The Rex RPT sat at the terminal for ten or fifteen minutes to get a window in between dust squals to enable it to take off for Griffith. Took some photos when I got home and again after I got home from Wagga on Wednesday afternoon-quite a contrast.

See ya Refards

Hi Andy I would think that the only people that would or could put it up would be the manufacturer because each one is virtually or could be specific to a particular aircraft. My "Jabiru J160 Owner's Manual" as a 2 ring bound hard cover which was delivered with the aircraft kit has got a Revision number of 0 Dated May 04 (2004 presumably) at the bottom of every page with chapter and page number. The manual is probably changed by Jabiru if there are any major changes. Mine has an equipment list that says it has a 3300 motor which I am yet to locate. Perhaps the other two cylinders fell off on the way from Bundaberg. When I first flew the older Jab as an AUF student I photocopied the owners manual and discovered that the posted stall speeds for the flap settings were probably in the wrong order. Regards

Hi Knighty You quoted a "red" ASIC. Is there any significance in the colour? I did a Google search for "CASA firearms" and came up with the following site;- http://www.casa.gov.au/dg/luggage/dgtable.htm The following is extracted from the top of that site "Provisions for dangerous goods carried by passengers and crew The items in this table are the dangerous goods that passengers may take with them when they fly. Airlines and security screening agencies still have the right to refuse the carriage of certain items. Refer to the columns to see if the items can be carried in your check-in baggage, in your carry on baggage or on your person (in your pockets). This table is valid from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2007 For the full text of the dangerous goods that passengers and crew may carry, refer to Note 1.1 in Civil Aviation Safety Regulation 92.030 " which is located at the following site:- http://www.casa.gov.au/dg/luggage/techinstr.htm I have not read it My ASIC took 3 months from the time the material was posted to the RAA office until it arrived. How do we get on while waiting for the new card as we have to return the old card before a new one can be issued???? Regards

Hi All Here is another question which might have a bearing on the previous one by Mike. I am yet to finish my J160 so I will go by the owner's manual. What is the effect on stall speed for a maximum X-cross wind landing with the wind at right angles to the strip assuming MTOW and a X-wind of 14 Knots the max for the J160. The stall speeds for zero flaps, first stage and second are quoted as 52 Knots, 47 Knots and 43 knots. Jabiru for the J160 owners manual that I have say 14 knots X-wind has been demontrated at FULL Flap and to use full Flap for landing but they also say in strong X-wind conditions use the minimum flap consistent with the strip length available. They also say use airspeed of 65 knots & full flaps for normal landing. Also 60 knots for short field landing with full flaps. Jabiru also recommend landing in X-wind using the into wind wing low for the whole approach & landing and land on main wheels first. We could range here from a max cross wind to the strip when the wind is at right angles to a max cross wind when we have a wind say 22.5 degrees off strip. The latter case would be a wind a tad over 36 knots. What are your thoughts on these situations. Regards

Hi Ian Have they raised the MTOW of the Gazelle? Regards

The point about the X-wind is that you do not need to remember the sine of a few angles. The values have been shown to make the point that by the time the wind gets to 45 degrees off the track more than 70% of it becomes X-Wind! Mostly remember how to read the wind sock especially for RAA AC with relatively low allowable X-Wind. Wind socks were probably designed for AC with performaces like that of typical RAA aicraft! Put it another way; you are getting; almost half the wind velocity is X-Wind at a 1/4 of a right angle or 22.5 degrees almost three quarters of the wind velocity is X-Wind at a 1/2 of a right angle or 45 degrees. Sine of the following angles which is the multiplier to convert the wind value to X-wind value. 0 is 0.0 22.5 is 0.38 say 0.4 45 is 0.707 say 0.7 67.5 is 0.92 say 0.9 90 is 1.00 For the Cosine values, the multiplier for head wind, reverse the order of the values So the message here is that above 45 degrees you have more than 70% of the wind as cross wind - read the wind sock for cross wind below 22.5 degrees X-Wind is less than 40% of wind velocity and therefore head wind is closer to wind velocity- read the wind sock