Zibi

At the moment I don't have a tablet and use a Windows phone, so no OzRunways for me. I also wasn't aware that they offer such option. Right now I'm trying to find a best and most cost effective option, so I'll take OzRunways into consideration.

Since I'm about to get a cross country endorsement I'm looking at options of letting people know where I am and where I was. What I would like is something that reports my position every 5-30 min and uploads it somewhere accessible for other people. So far I'm looking at getting either a cheap phone and using one of the tracking apps (I haven't looked at specifics yet, but there's plenty of them) or getting a dedicated device that does it. One thing that would be important for me is that it uploads my position as I go rather than based on a trigger (like sms or something) or upload at the end of activity (like most activity tacking apps do). There seems to be a lot of dedicated tracking devices on ebay, but most require you to trigger it before it reports back or there are dedicated fleet tracking services, which are a bit over the top for what I would need. Does anyone have any experience with anything like that?

Well, it does matter to me as right now I can't do my rego renewal online. The old link for renewals doesn't work any more and I still haven't received my login, which is required to get it done on the new system. I know RAA have my correct email address as I have been receiving emails from them including the news item about the new portal...

You have two more variables, in that situation, that you are not including: initial speed and initial pitch angle. Climbing and Vx you might be at 700' as in your example, but you are also pitching up higher and going slower so you have drop your nose through a higher angle and you have less energy to carry you on as you are dropping your nose. So even though you might have started higher, by the time you get to your glide speed you might lose more height than what you gained by climbing quicker. I don't have any practical experience with either of those situations (apart from simulated engine failures during training) but the way I was taught was that unless you have a very good reason to climb out at Vx (i.e. a hill ahead) it is generally not worth it.

Exemption from getting electrocuted? Those exams are not to keep people out, but rather to keep them safe.

Well, lets go through the whole scenario: 1. Are you aware you will have tail wind on early final (you should be able to judge it, as you've been flying in it before landing): a) yes - you extend the downwind leg to compensate for the tail wind, and in that case you're going to undershoot it because of the headwind lower b) yes, but you also notice the windsock on the ground pointing in the opposite direction, so you do a normal base turn and anticipate the wind shift so land spot on c) no, so you make an early base turn to compensate for the headwind - you end up overshooting it 2. Let's assume you made the base turn as if there was no wind, and now you're on final with tail wind: a) you continue an approach with your usual descent rate, you find yourself too high, and then when you hit the headwind, you have much higher airspeed, you you'd start climbing - overshoot (I'd guess this would be strange and unusual behaviour) b) you compensate for the tail wind with a steeper descent rate, once you hit the headwind you'd end up undershooting

No it's not, she's a German comedian Martina Hill. Some of her other works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfAp2QL25Y

I know it can be done to a point now. The question is should and would we. One of the more plausible scenarios I have seen was a manned fighter (or other plane) accompanied by a couple of drone wingmen. In a situation like that the main pilot has the situation awareness (which is often lacking in a remote control operations) and command ability plus you have the bonus of shorter and more robust links between the controller and the drones so harder to jam or take over.

There is still a big problem with drones - you either make them autonomous, but then you're letting a machine decide who lives and who dies (most of the drones operate on loitering basis, not in and do the job like say a cruise missile). The alternative is remote control, but that involves a communications link which can be jammed or overtaken. In that situation you still need a pilot who has to be trained and who has to maintain currency. Plus the current generation of drones only works once you establish air superiority , otherwise they're just target practise for normal fighters.

Since we're sharing old photos and stories, I wonder how long until we end up with a story like this from one of those planes with ejector seats: http://www.vfp62.com/f14_rio.html

Don't think it's Perth, but here's the video:

Death is just one of the criteria (and not the necessary requirement) for a Darwin award, just removing yourself from the gene pool is enough. Like for example this guy, which has a highest proability of getting this year's award: More can be found here: http://www.darwinawards.com/

I just stumbled onto this site: http://earth.nullschool.net/ Which has some pretty cool visualisations of the wind and ocean currents at different altitude levels around the world. I wouldn't use it for flight planning, but it's really nice to look at :) You can change the view by clicking on the earth word at the bottom left. From the authors about page

Riley, you are aware that Czechoslovakia doesn't exists for some 20 years now, are you? Anyway that's Hajdúszoboszló in Hungary as someone posted in the youtube comments section:

They're already working on it: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/lockheed-martins-new-fusion-reactor-might-change-humani-1646578094 On the topic of this accident - it looks like it might have been a pilot error: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-virgin-galactic-executive-20141102-story.html

"But that's not even a plane, it's like a scooter with a wing on top of it... It just doesn't look safe, I mean, you know a blast of wind and I'm gone... It's like Lego, my son put stuff like this together"

Plus I think you got something wrong...you're supposed to land on the piano keys at the beggining of the runway, not the end of it

I know this topic comes all the time whenever there's some news article and to be honest I don't understand why you people get so worked up about this ultralight term misuse or even naming most small aircraft as Cessnas. When I talk to non-flying friends about ultralights (say a Jabiru or Savannah) I also describe them as something like a Cessna just a bit smaller. It just makes the conversation that much easier, as for most people there is no difference between one small plane and another and if you want to explain what the differences are most of the time you'll still end up with the other person ending up with something along the lines of "So it's like a Cessna, right?" I guess most journalists will use the same logic, but I do I agree that news articles should use the correct name (at least once in the article and especially under a picture) or start using term Cessna-like rather then straigh up Cessna for everything. On the other hand it always makes me smile when people talk about a plane like sat Dash8 as a small plane (not ultralight just small compared to other airliners), for me it's huge :)

This topic reminds me of the old fighter pilot vs transport pilot joke: A couple of F-15's are escorting a C-130 Hercules, and their pilots are chatting with the pilot of the transport to pass the time. Talk comes ‘round to the relative merits of their respective aircraft. Of course the fighter pilots contend that their airplanes were better because of their superior speed, maneuverability, weaponry, and so forth, while the putting down the Herc’s deficiencies in these areas. After taking this for a while, the C-130 pilot says, "Oh yeah? Well, I can do a few things in this old girl that you'd only dream about." Naturally, the fighter jocks challenge him to demonstrate. "Just watch," comes the quick retort. And so they watch. But all they see is that C-130 continuing to fly straight and level.. After several minutes the Herc pilot comes back on the air, saying "There! How was that?" Not having seen anything, the fighter pilots reply, "What are you talking about? What did you do?" And the Herc pilot replies, "Well, I got up, stretched my legs, got a cup of coffee, then went back an took a leak."

If you want to talk about silly transportation endeavors check this out: And this is the route it took: More of the story in here http://sites.psu.edu/amh5892edsgn100/2012/09/25/the-karlsruhe-tritium-neutrino-experiment-main-spectrometer/

You would probably say the same about driverless train...yet there are several places in the world where such trains run, and work quite ok (yes, yes I know, trains run on predefined tracks and all that). It's just a matter of perception...once people are shown that it's safe (or at least as safe as one with a pilot on board) they will use it.

Yes, but you still need a $500 phone to put inside them.

You could always get something like Virtual Reality goggles like Rift (http://www.oculusvr.com/) as a backup to the big screen. Plus if you start spilling coffee on instruments in normal airliner, you're not going to get very far anyway.

I've had a similar experience in my trike yesterday. Luckily for me it didn't end up in a fire, just a static spark jumping between my finger and the funnel. I wasn't using any nozzle, it was Mr Funnel straight into the tank, and jerry can touching the edge of the funnel (there was physical contact between the jerry can an the funnel at all times). As I was finishing refueling a spark jumped between my finger and the opposite edge of the funnel to where the jerry can was touching it. As mentioned earlier there was no fire, it just got my heart pumping faster. According to the weather forecast there was 33% humidity yesterday and quite windy.