.Evan.

I've never really been bothered by airsickness, even during a Yak52 aerobatic flight (where I instructed the pilot to "go bananas"!). However, the other week, I'd just come back from a hour of my own local flight with extensive airwork when my instructor invited me to go with him straight away on his recency flight. It was the longest I'd been in a light aircraft at two hours - with lots of steep turns, stalls, circuits, etc - and started to feel a little queasy on the inbound run. :rolleyes:

 

I put it down to never going past the 1.3 hour mark before - plus, it wasn't two hours of straight and level! Haven't had a problem since, though.

 

 

Finally! A solution for all of those travelling pilot/trombone players worried about getting to that next gig without going over MTOW...

 

The plastic trombone!!!

 

 

 

Glad to hear, Red!

 

I want to do it safely and confidently.

I think that's how we should all be approaching our flying!

 

Keep up the good work.

 

 

Great stuff Win!

 

Looks like you had much better weather up there than we did down here today!

 

 

Wow. Glad to hear that all is ok!

 

 

in regard to the trimming, put the plane where you want it, ( attitude wise) and hold it there. THEN remove the load on the stick with trim. Don't fly the plane on trim.

I meant to say that Nev, but forgot. Thanks for reminding us! :thumb_up:

 

My instructor is very big on using the correct work-cycles. "Attitude, Power, Feel the force, Trim out the force" he'd say. I always would silently giggle to myself about the "feel the force" bit, and imagined Yoda sitting in the right seat.

 

 

find the trim setting that applies for flaps out turning final at the correct speed... and then you need to apply it when turning base accurately and without fuss.

That's a great idea, Win. I must have started doing that without knowing it, because after a little while my approach speed would settle much quicker and require very little power changes until short final. Not every day, though!

 

 

As has been mentioned above by much more experienced people than me - your feelings are completely normal!

 

One thing that I found helpful for myself when learning to fly normal circuits was to make myself trim the aircraft properly and fly downwind almost 'hands off'. It took a little bit of time at first, but after a while it is automatic. Previously, I'd kind of trim the aircraft - y'know, near enough is good enough when you have bigger fish to fry as a student - but what it meant was that the aircraft wasn't settled and I was chasing it all the way down the downwind leg.

 

That extra couple of seconds to yourself can be put to better use - get your pre-landing checks done early, take a mental break for a couple of seconds while you carefully watch your spacing with the runway and plan your turn to base. Circuits are full on - there's action the whole time! Those couple of seconds mental rest helped me a lot.

 

Circuits are now my one of my favourite parts of flying. My instructor can fly them almost perfectly with the instrument panel covered up. I hope to be at that level one day!

 

Keep at it, Red!

 

 

Anyone here tried an Nflightcam? Claimed to eliminate the weird prop warping effect amongst other things, not super cheap but then it's all relative I guess.

Looks interesting, Gnu! I'd seen the Contour, but not this variant. Looks very promising!

If I only had more play money!

 

 

Hey Maynard,

 

Tomo has some awesome stuff there. One thing to look at if you want to dabble with external cameras are these little rippers from China:

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Micro-4GB-Spy-Key-chain-web-Camera-1280x960-video-SW013-/280683914672?pt=AU_Gadgets&hash=item415a10a5b0

 

Not expensive, and because of their low profile, easy to stick to the outside of the aircraft with some gaffer's tape. They do have some disadvantages, but for the price they're great fun!

 

I used one similar to the one above for all of the external shots for this video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZHCV5BLpks

 

The internal shots were my little Casio compact camera. I like this one because it has a CCD sensor, which renders the propeller in a more natural way. The CMOS sensors generally have a 'rolling shutter' and can cause strange stroboscopic effects like this:

 

 

I mostly just use Windows Movie Maker for editing. It's pretty simple to learn. I also have Sony Vegas which has many different features, but has trouble with .AVIs for some reason. Am a bit disappointed in that.

 

Have fun!

 

 

It certainly has sent the conspiracy theorists into a tizz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

 

 

My instructor told me the other day that he had never had to use the cabin heat in the Foxbat... I think in that instance in Norway it would be necessary!

I quite often have to give thanks to the Aviation Gods for bringing us cabin heat. It's cold here in Ballarat sometimes!

 

 

Apparently it was the pilots as well. 500 feet below assigned IFR approach height. Twice!

 

 

Fly unspectacularly but well.

That's exactly how I approach my flying and driving, but never thought about it like that. Thanks Nev for putting it so eloquently. :thumb_up:

 

Congrats Evan, make them enjoy it as much as you do!! :chat:

Thanks Kylie! That's what I'm hoping to do!

 

 

I'm also a musician. Currently with the Victoria Police Band, and several years before that with Army Band Melbourne.

 

I'm glad to read I'm not the only muso around here! :super:

 

 

Thanks Andrew. Will do!

 

 

Cheers, David!

 

 

Yep, it's finally happened! I can now take a passenger.

 

I've given the first option of first PAX to my Wife, then after that... First come, first served!

 

I've been looking forward to sharing this flying caper with people since I began. I look forward even more to flying in the future!

 

If you wanna read about today's flight, I've written all about it in my blog...

 

Cheers,

 

Evan

 

 

Thanks for all your help, guys... Because today I qualified for my passenger endorsement!

 

My instructor was impressed by my preparation and pre-reading of the legal requirements, weights and balances, etc.

 

Thanks again Recreational Flying team!

 

 

Quoted price for 1xwinglet--- $1 000 000!

Ouch!!!

 

 

It's a sad state of affairs, Frank!

 

 

Haha!! Love it, Don!

 

 

Thanks Maz and CFI. Makes sense now.

 

I guess smoking in the toilets of the Jabiru is a big problem!!

 

 

I found a very poor Jab model, the power settings are way out (Engine goes up to ~5000rpm) and it leaps off the runway at what seems to be close to 200kts...

Whoa! If Jabiru was able to make one of those for real it would be pretty exciting!!

 

 

Hi all,

 

I'm on the verge of completing the required hours before I can go for my passenger endorsement and I'm very much looking forward to it!

 

I have been doing some reading in preparation for the test and noticed the RA-Aus Ops Manual Syllabus Section 3.04, Item 1.6 states:

 

"Pilot briefs passenger on legal requirements for flight"

I'm having trouble finding what these legal requirements exactly are. Are they in the Ops Manual somewhere? I've looked and not found them as yet. I've also looked through John Brandon's tutorials - no luck there it seems.

 

Am I missing something? Is it staring me in the face?

 

Any help would be great, thanks in advance!

 

Evan