David Isaac

I am very sorry to inform you that Steve Robards, the Ozzie we knew on this site passed away following a long debilitating illness. He had a long history in Ultralights working on the very early Thrusters including the 'Glass House'. He was also well known in the Hunter in the parachuting community.

(Thread Drift Alert!!)Aah, David, some of the old lags here haven't forgotten you, and some have even forgiven you! No, more honestly, you mentioned it in a thread maybe a couple of years ago and I filed it away in my usually unreliable memory.

 

When we built that hangar, was I think 1967; YMIG hadn't been used for years and we negotiated with the bloke who owned it for access. His condition was, that no movements were ok when he was running his trotters on the small oval track at the South end..

 

We trundled the MF35 with the post-hole digger down from near Hill Top where we lived (and I still do) and dug the holes for the uprights in one of the old Mustang ( P51 variety) bays, then cut the timber for the hangar from our place and hauled it there on top of the Chevvy '52 ute! All el-primo Stringybark, dropped and stripped for the job.

 

I flew out of / into YMIG quite a few times in 1968-69 in the Auster (as a passenger). Learned to swing a Gypsy Major into life.. Have flown up the channels from Bargo looking up at the edges when the cloud base was sod-all.. or slightly less than that.

 

In winter, the runway lights for an after-dark arrival at YMIG were the twin Cibie Super Oscar spotlights on the Peugeot driven by my sister-in-law behind the Auster as it landed. Not that any of us would ever admit to that.

Yep,

We had the same restriction, no flying when he was trotting. I suppose the old bloke has long passed. Is that trotting track still there or did the runway get extended into it? I remember he had a really old vintage car abandoned in one of his sheds on the farm. Sigh ... I digress ...

I'll have to get my J1B in the air and come on down to Mittagong one of these days, but then again, I have been saying that for a while too.

David - my brother used to fly his J1 (G??) as a daily commuter from Mittagong strip to Bankstown (before your time at YMIG, but you may have seen his old hangar there..).. One time, oiled plugs forced him down on the top of Razorback. He arrived at Bankstown with branches from his departure still lodged in the U/C. How many croppie strips are there East of Mallacoota???

Yeah ... well I have always wanted to fly the Auster to NZ, im sure it could easily do it ... BUT, Shirley said ...not while you are married to me ...

Should I mention that someone else flew across the Pond some years ago with a double banger R&T?Kaz

Lots of people fly across that ditch in double banger two strokes. Drifters for example. So this kid made a couple of mistakes, was beaten up by the media, then beaten up by RAA then just for sport was beaten up by CASA. He was 23 FFS. He paid big time for his own mistakes. But that is not good enough, lets hang him out to dry and throw away the key. FFS lets get this in proportion and go after the real criminals shall we.

I'm on the other team, should have locked this guy up & thrown away the key! I spent too many years in the RFDS to know that morons like this are oxygen thieves! Wasting resources!

I am with you all the way Alf

I am a semi/retired aero engineer with my own business and project (originally with a modified (Exprimental) civil registered gyroplane) involved in a taxi test accident in 2010. 18 months after the accident I was charged with reckless operation of an aircraft "endangering myself"..! I beat that charge in the magistrates court but it was only at the third court cases that a judge finally agreed the pilot of an experimental aircraft cannot be charged with reckless operation endangering himself.? The case is still not over with final hearing in Federal Court 18 May fighting the notice of cancellation of my PPL. As far as I can see once these things get into the hands of lawyers.. truth, justice, logic and even language all take a distant back seat.

Hit with a feather

The requirement for indemnity insurance in this instance where you fly at your own risk and cannot get access to the calculations is not right. How can you make a judgement?

You fly at your own risk, relying on the certification of the aircraft. If its a home built you would need to figure out how you would establish confidence in the design.

product liability law is not the issue that we are discussing wrt an engineer's professional indemnity insurance

The bigger problem as both Geoff and DJP have alluded is that if a claimant or claimant's lawyer gets wind the designer may be at fault and the designer has assets, they will go the designer or the one with money before any liability is even established. It is not the 'at fault' liability that is the immediate problem. The immediate problem is the cost to run a defense. You need a lot of cash to run a defense if you are NOT insured.

If you are insured, your costs may be covered, but you have no control over the outcome. Your insurer steps in and will make whatever deal they see fit on financial grounds to settle, sometimes even if the complaint is defensible, so your reputation is at risk and you have no say in the settlement. Once they insure you, they own the whole process; so even if your design is OK, once litigation is commenced it is a potential nightmare.

PI insurance covers you on a 'claims made' basis. What that means is the year of the alleged design flaw is not so relevant (obviously you need to have been insured at that time), but you are not covered if your insurance is not current in the year the claim is made. You get in a situation where you have to maintain permanent PI insurance and usually with the same insurer. When approaching retirement you usually do a deal on a diminishing premium basis, but it must be continued past your retirement.

Here is someone learning.

 

You can hang many aircraft on the prop with big wings and flaps (and slats particularly), but if you are on the edge of the envelope and the wind drops just a couple of knots ... bingo.

yes,

Give him our regards Kaz.

Do you know this is the case or is it just something you heard?Just pay on time, also not that hard.

I wonder if this fee is in response to growing trend of members are letting their memberships lapse?I know low interest rates and now pension cuts are hitting a lot of retired folks budgets pretty hard.

This could be the new normal for the RAA though, if it is, it's cheaper to fix the portal to allow lapsed members renew online.

Members should voice their concern.

If anything it will have the effect of members likely 'not bothering with renewing'; arguably not in the best interests of either the member of RAAus.

Most people don't realise that if you are an ordinary PPL, RPL, RPC or what ever without a low level endorsement and you fly a low pass over a runway without the 'intent' to land, it breaches the regs. The exceptions are a baulked approach, a precautionary and a go around.

IF that video was taken on one flight, then the rh front pax and the lh rear pax exchanged places in flight (or so it appears to me.). Possibly, they landed and exchanged places, and I missed it? ......

Beach landings like all 'off field' landings have associated risks that we should all be aware of. Carrying passengers in such endeavours increases the associated risks.

Yes Nev, One vicious circle and the ones in the middle of the circle have no foresight. So we might be in this mess for a long time.The only way out for some of these airport operators is sell the land to a developer. (Regulators should step with a "No".)

The biggest interests for our governments is bring in foreign owners and that pushes the prices up.

 

If the governments stood firm and said, this is to stay in Australian control that would stop the rot of these massive capital value increases.

 

Only to be sold to Australian in Australia.

 

Look at the fiasco with the home units in Sydney foreign money pushing those values up and Australians can not afford them.

 

KP.

i don't know the Canberra area very well but reading posts about the need for an airport to service RAA and light GA aircraft seems a good move.Raaus could be a shareholder with private money for development.

Perhaps service facilities company's would inject?

 

Hanger sites.

 

Air park

 

Etc.

That's all and dandy facty, but why should someone who flys from a dirt strip in the middle of nowhere ,and is very happy doing so ,have to pay via increased membership fees etc for the rich boys club to have a nice clubhouse and airstrip so our illustrious leaders of raa can puff out their chest and strut around and tell us all how good they are and all the wonderful things they have done for raa???????????

If we wont airstrips and club houses then form local clubs and buy one, that way only those that use it pay for it. I certainly don't want to be paying for something I cannot ultimately benefit from.

Ya just got to get rid of that pesky lil wheel up the front and put descent rudder on her ... LOL

We were at Middlebrook Station - on the ground. 7 aircraft damaged - mine was probably worst - 22 holes in the wings. Hopefully will be ready for Echuca !

Still haven't got my old girl flying, been swamped with a few other distracting issues.

So????

Not in any way implying that was the case here, but a not too uncommon phenomena where pilots are NOT used to the slower acceleration on grass. It has caught out a few GA pilots in the past and these slippery little suckers are not much different.

I don't think RAAus has the ability to say what caused a fatal accident until after the coroners reported his findings. It would be good for us to see the coroners reports and they could be published by RAAus I would think. Otherwise it is hard to get hold of them as they will be interstate for most of us, although the mentione ones here are all in Qld. Is Qld really bad for fatal accidents?

Coroners reports are public information, you just have to know when they are published.