Head in the clouds

Bill Whitney has given me a full set of the plans for his latest aircraft called the Angel which hasn't yet been built. It's designed for FAR23 compliance for limited aerobatics and looks like a 7/8 Decathlon in some regards. With a Rotax 912 it fits comfortably in the 600kg MTOW limit for LSA, or could be VH registered of course. Those who know Bill's work know that he doesn't underbuild things, hence his rather unkind nickname of RSJ ... The Lightwing is a good example of his earlier work. I think most owners of Lightwings would describe them as rugged aircraft, I know a few folks who call them Leadwings, not as a criticism of their flying characteristics but simply that they're heavily and strongly built. I have a number of hours in them and they perform well, I've used a couple for station work briefly and they get the job done quite as well or better than the Super Cub I spent a lot of time in. I have a friend whose flying school Lightwing just turned 20yrs old and it's had a harder life from students than any station aircraft is likely to get and my friend is extremely mechanically savvy and keeps a very watchful eye for any fatigue issues that might develop, he's not come across anything yet. In fact as far as I know in all those years of training flights it's never had anything break at all except a fuel fitting on one wing tank which caused a minor leak. So, whilst I'd agree that the majority of the 'sports car' LSAs "wouldn't get within a bull's roar", I think that the examples above show that a rugged FAR23 certificatable aircraft within the 600kg limit isn't at all impossible. As far as SDQDI's mention of speed and your "limits the proportion of useful load to gross weight", I'd say you're still thinking there needs to be some significant useful load. There doesn't for present day operations, as I've pointed out, these days just a few tools and a couple of people is all that needs to be carried to 'fix things around the farm', it's not the amount of gear they carry but the transport aspect. Flying, even at only 65kts, to the boundary fence might take only 30 mins each way but on a couple of trailbikes it could take half the day. And the other main use for the aircraft is checking fences and the waters - making sure the troughs are full and the cattle aren't perishing - you don't need a fast aircraft for that, you need a slow one.

I don't think so. If someone wants to take people on sightseeing tours, say from town to town, they will need a commercial driving licence and a vehicle that is registered and inspected according to the various State or Federal regulations for vehicles that are used for hire and reward. However, if someone wants to take people around their own property, never going on public roads, they can use a private vehicle, unregistered if they wish, and don't even require a driving licence. They might be taking a risk by doing so in event that something went wrong, but they wouldn't be breaking any laws. I realise that example is not identical to the 'private aerial work' scenario but as far as regulatory authorities are concerned it's near enough. Granted the private aircraft conducting work on/over private land is accessing airspace used by other aircraft but the authorities have made it clear that their interest lies in where the operation originates from and terminates to, and whether the operation is 'commercial' in the sense of selling services for profit. Under commercial law a whole lot of different circumstances exist in regard of the regulator's responsibilities when hire and reward and/or paid services are in effect. This matter has been determined on numerous occasions with consistent outcome. If the operation is conducted by the owner or controller of the land, whether or not he/she does the actual flying, and no-one is being paid to do the flying, though they may be being paid as a stockman or boreman or fencer, for example, then it is not deemed to be a commercial operation although the pilot must be suitably licenced and endorsed for the type of operation they are performing. Otherwise mustering endorsements, for example, would only be available to commercial pilots and not private pilots wouldn't they?

Erm - Dafydd, I'd know more than many people about the R22 'losing wings' thing because unknown to me at the time my first R22 was the one that had nearly lost a blade and the previous pilot spent time in gaol, and later I took over the heli base in Broome of the one that did lose a blade, and they aren't a fair comparison at all, both had been flown nearly 50% over the life of the blades. Whilst I agree with you that some monitoring of critical structure on older or high-time 95.55s needs to be undertaken/introduced, we also need to keep in mind that those that are being used heavily are the most rugged of the genre and aren't being stressed to anywhere near their design loading. Cockies and similar folk who are using aircraft as tools-of-trade aren't naiive types at all. They're far more mechanically minded than the average Joe and they ask and listen to advice. In general they don't service their own aircraft and there are virtually no L2s out there so it's done by LAMEs or the distributor/manufacturer. If their Lame recommends a borescope inspection or a dye test or even a fabric strip and inspect they'll agree to it. Like I said before, they're a conservative lot and I think you'll find that's why we haven't had instances of wings falling off and you'd be as aware as anyone that cracks will develop and spend a long while propagating before anything catastrophic happens. On helicopter blade root laminations, for example, we don't ground a machine just because cracks may appear, we mark their extent and date with a paint pen every so often and can soon determine the rate of propagation and hence the time when it will become u/s and need to go for repair. Similarly I'm sure we'll eventually start to get reports of cracks in spars of planes used on the land and that will signal the time for inspections of all of that type, just as happened with the Blanik ...

Yes, with 180hp it would be quite a beast, better still if it had flaps ... they were the main difference between the 120 and 140 IIRC. I guess they'd have had to beef up the wing a fair bit to allow an increase in MTOW and Vne? It's perhaps arguable that there's never enough in the limitations but as Rank said 600 is better than 544 and as I see it, with a bit of innovation 600kg is not too bad where you're dealing with the average stockman who hasn't spent his life at McDonalds. We quickly forget how times have changed, consider the original J3 Cub - Continental A65 engine of 64hp, empty weight 290kg, MTOW 499kg, i.e.209kg available for fuel, crew and baggage! And a Vne of just 92mph/80kt, and it served on the land for many years until the first Super Cubs came along. I spent many happy hours as station pilot flying a Super Cub, doing everything from boreman to fencer to mechanic to mustering, It was an exceptionally capable aircraft once you got to know it intimately and it gave lots of warning when you were pushing the edges of the envelope. I had it stacked high with heavy gear on many an occasion during the hectic times of BTEC and it never faltered. The empty weight was 450kg with the o-320 150hp and MTOW was 780kg IIRC, with max fuel it had a payload of just on 250kg and the best loaded climb rate I recall was about 8-900ft/min but more usually about 700ft/min. Vne was 110kts from memory and cruise was about 90kts. Consider also that the Super Cub is really a bit bigger and a bit more expensive to buy intitially, and to own and operate, than the vast majority of stations today are willing to pay, and that's evidenced by the fact that they're available to buy but there are actually hardly any out there. So, the suggestion that 750kg to 800kg would be better puts the weight limit right on the specs of the most popular aircraft of all time, and they're there to be had but stations aren't buying them. That indicates to me that something cheaper to buy and run is needed these days. Also - look again at those weights, speeds and climb rates. LSAs are beating every one of those, better payload, better performance (please don't compare 100hp with 150hp ..) and better climb rates. At present the penalty is that most of them are more fragile but is that just due to the weight limits or the design, construction materials and customer demand for creature comforts as well? We have to be careful to not be comparing apples with oranges. Compare a 912S 100hp Lightwing with the Super Cub and even giving the Super Cub a 50hp advantage the Lightwing still beats it. And is the Lightwing fragile? Having just read Dafydd's post while I'm composing this I'll continue the 'Lightwing thinking' in a following post. The Rotax 912 is a very interesting engine, depending on who you're speaking with it's either far too expensive or fabulously affordable. The flying school or private LSA owner, and the 95.55 amateur builder will tell you they're ridiculously expensive but the cow cocky, used to paying double or triple for engine changes is dumbfounded at how cheap they are. The difference in peoples' viewpoints being caused by the intial cost compared to the number of years until it has to be rebuilt or replaced. An amateur builder will pay his $20k and at average private usage that engine will still be only at half life fifteen years later. The average busy flying school will also have that engine for a long while, at least five years I would estimate. Whereas on a station the cocky would be limiting the use of the plane as hard as he can go and still re-build the engine every other year. When I delivered Lightwings to a station or two they laughed at the price of the engine and let the plane 'go for its life' because it's saving man-hours, and chuck another engine in each season. Not all stations are anywhere near that busy of course but I guess folks see the point?

Yes, I think you'd be onto a winner there. It probably wouldn't be the main station workhorse but on wealthier stations would be the scaled-down Cockies transport of yesteryear perhaps. The high cruise speed would be the big drawcard that would make yours more desirable than the rest. You'd need enough baggage space for a swag and bag for when he goes to the outstations, or two bags for when he's takin' tha missus ta town ta cut tha rug. You'd be getting pretty close to a Tailwind I'd guess. Whether you'd need it to be certificated for aerial work, or at all, is moot because virtually no cockies would ever have a commercial licence (or a licence at all in some cases) and all operations would be unpaid on their own land so deemed to be private ops whatever they're doing. However certification can't hurt and would pick up extra sales of course because, among their wild nature in many respects, the average cocky is pretty conservative where technology is concerned and where they can't assess the safety of something themselves they'll opt for, and pay extra for, the 'certified' one every time.

Everything you've said here was quite correct Dafydd, but with respect, we have to remember that times are constantly a-changing. Although I'm not the definitive authority on the subject I have spent quite a lot years flying on the stations and even more years around the stations in remote areas so let me just chuck in a bit of background about aviation on the land and it may clear up some misunderstanding about the current state-of-play. Unless this post were to run to several pages you'll appreciate that I have to limit it to generalisations and examples, so they aren't typical of every part of the country but they'll give the general idea. The first parts of bush aviation to become firmly established was the provision of quicker mail and medical services and of course they have become the best known. For the most part the mail service was contracted out to private sector commercial operators who expanded their businesses into general aircargo and passenger carrying. The Flying Doctor Service quickly formed to provide the essential medical services of course. Vets frequently operated their own private aircraft in the heyday of the BTEC program (I'll come to that later) and some mechanics and salesmen flew to provide their services on essential machinery and selling their wares to the nouveau riche cattle cockies. A reasonable percentage of those cattle cockies bought planes themselves for trips to town, the salesyards and the seasonal rodeos. Even the 'movies' and some rental books were brought by the flying 'bioscope man' once a month or so, and projected onto a limewashed wall in the open air. BUT, for the majority of today's cattlemen those days are but a distant fond memory from their childhood. And as Dafydd said above the C180 and 185 was the mainstay of those days, later the C182 and C206 becoming more prevalent. In those days of real and foreseeably ongoing wealth people made increasingly expansive use of aviation and in general, the remoter the location, the bigger the operation. A good example is the Glenroy meatworks. Established right in the heart of the Kimberley region, in its least accessible location, and all the way back in 1949! The Blythe brothers owned several pastoral leases in the Kimberley and wanted to expand their market so they built an abattoir, a long airstrip and installed chillers at Glenroy Station. The 'Air Beef Scheme' was underway and for the next fifteen years cattle were slaughtered and quartered then chilled overnight and flown in DC3s and Bristol freighters to Wyndham port where they were deep frozen and shipped to UK. BUT - as with all things times change and the roads were eventually built, so by 1965 the scheme was closed down and cattle were being trucked live to meatworks at Broome and Wydham. Hence the development of better roads ended the first big era of aviation in the interior, and that wasn't just in the remotest parts, the same happened on a smaller scale all over WA, the NT, Western and Far North Qld. Stations that had the best grazing continued to be profitable and that allowed the owners to buy other stations with conditions specifically suited to breeding and then transfer the issue to fattening stations usually on the edges of deserts. The long distance travel involved with managing stock so far apart provided a new but much smaller purpose for aircraft and this is where the C180/C206 thrived. Then came aviation's biggest heyday on the land and is the one where most city folk became aware of bush aviation and believe is typical of the way of the land, and they imagine is still the way of things. But, gladly for the cattle, that too is now fading into distant history. It began with live cattle export and then with under-the-table agreements between certain slightly 'loose' but powerful politicians and wealthy Oriental gentlemen ... and Australia came to supply increasing amounts of the best quality beef to a certain Asian land. Handshake contracts took place and vast fortunes were made by some, including many beef farmers, but you can imagine who made the most of all. As it happened all was very well for quite some time and all of Australia benefitted from this new source of wealth, beef had never been sold for the kind of money that these exports were producing. Feedlots sprang up everywhere for grain feeding cattle for a period before slaughter, and 'marbled' beef was the byword of the day. Then - disaster - a meat inspector yelled "Tuberculosis". Well the fact is that TB had always been in the Australian stock and there's no problem with that as far as human health is concerned provided that the butchering is properly managed and no glands end up in the meat going for sale. But, of course, the very presence of TB was too much for our Asian friends and they promptly refused to buy any more Australian beef until Australian stock was declared clear of TB - "and Brucellosis while you're about it!" And so began the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign - BTEC. Brucellosis affects sheep and TB affects cattle. The campaign began in 1970 and ran for the next 27 years, until 1997, at which time OIE declared that Australia was clear. I don't have the figures to hand of the numbers of cattle that were shot from helicopters where they stood and left strewn over miles and miles of paddocks, month after month and year after year, but it ran into many millions and often only because one or two head had reacted to the veterinary test in the yards. But it was this tragedy that really brought the money for aviation to the land, from two fronts. Firstly, thousands of helicopters were needed for the twice-per-year musters of every station within TB declared areas and initially that was most of Australia. So literally fleets of helicopters sprang up and they were used for the musters and then used again to sweep the paddocks with shooters on board to cull any beast that hadn't been brought in to the yards. Then they were used again to move the cattle back out into the paddocks after the muster, the times were so busy there simply wasn't time for the gentler handling provided by horsemen. It was the dead cattle that really brought the money to the farmers though. A price of compensation from the government was agreed for every beast that had to be culled. And it was a good price too, the government paid the average price being paid for a beast at the meatworks, and the government paid for the helicopters for the mustering, and paid for the vets, and for the culling, so the farmer saved on paying for the mustering, the vets, and the transport to the meatyards, these were good times indeed! And then some of the less scrupulous farmers found yet another well of money. There are always areas of Australia that are in drought and the cattle on those stations are virtually worthless until they fatten up again, but then you could always sell them to someone in a TB area for half price and the new owner would get full price when they were culled. It took many years before some Stock Inspectors twigged that they were preventing the spread of TB by prohibiting the movement of stock out of TB areas but no-one was preventing them being moved in ... And of course those stations selling their poor stock had to muster them which meant more helicopters and more planes, it was all good for aviation. And then BTEC was over - no more government money, hardly any stock left on the land, constant drought to follow, believe me the day of the C180 and C206 on the stations is old history. And helicopters are few and far between but there's a greater need than ever before for one or two people, which is many stations' sum total of workers these days, to be able to get to the distant corners of the property quickly and fix a trough, a fence, a mill or a pump. The vast majority can't afford a small helicopter and have absolutely no use for a C180 or similar, regardless that it can carry a useful load - there aren't any loads needed to be carried, loads are carried in trucks on the roads - in the absence of a helicopter a trail-bike does the job mostly. So anyone that doesn't see the magnificence of the SuperSTOL concept hasn't got their eye on the present state-of-play on the land.

Unfortunately the tie - rods on the Auster are in tension not compression, like the Cub, which makes it difficult - though not impossible - to use an oleo. However there is a better method for that kind of suspension, it's like the one on the Skyfox and consists of 20mm Sq rubber vulcanised onto the sides of interlocked steel tie rods. Bill Whitney gave me a set of drawings of the gear a while ago, I think there may be an existing engineering order to fit them to Cubs, Austers, Taylor craft etc. Pm me your email address if you like and I'll send you more info tomorrow.

Yes, but a bush plane taildragger needs highly damped suspension to prevent the bounce on landing, especially on rough ground. I've toyed with damping methods for steel springing as I described earlier this thread but again the weight goes up. For strength/weight and variable damping characteristics I suspect you can't beat long travel oil damped pneumatic struts i.e. oleos, that's the way I'm headed anyway.

I like the Hornet very much and it's one way of addressing the need for a pretty tough utility STOL aircraft for the land but I suspect it's not as light as a bushplane could be for the same toughness, and probably it's more expensive too. At the moment I'm working on an alternate way of approaching the matter using a welded steel structure, and I think it's a less costly and labour-intensive method than the Hornet. After conducting a few tests over the last couple of weeks I've also moved away from the trailing link suspension. I can't get enough motion without the weight building up, and the restricted motion as it is, is a problem as shown by the one that put down in a paddock at Taree last August and sheared one of the gear legs off which then resulted in quite major damage to the rest of the airframe. I found two problems with the trailing link, firstly, when the suspension travel bottoms out, if the ground is soft then the 'knee' will dig in and either break the leg or flip the plane, or both. Secondly the loads on the knee and trailing arm are very high during ground drift in a crosswind and especially in event of a groundloop. Both need to be expected as regular events in the bush and so trailing link gear is either heavier than the gear needs to be or it's a bit fragile ... And a big thing about a bushplane is that it has to be assumed that it will suffer 'incidents' from time to time so repairability (as with any bush vehicle) is a very major consideration, if it can be repaired in the station workshop that's better still. Don't get me wrong - I like the Hornet! I'm not too far off showing some CAD images of my fuselage structure and am dusting off my TIG - watch my avatar ...

I'm really sorry to hear this, in dealing with other matters I've found Darren to be excellent ... ...but this is OUTRAGEOUS. There is a mandate in AUF/RAAus that say things shall not be more onerous than GA. Well I'd like to see what the LAMEs would have to say about it if someone decided to strip them of their qualification even if they hadn't worked for the last decade ...!

Thanks AVOCET and neil, that was the next stage of my thoughts. In conversation I had with the aircraft owners they all felt they were having to pay way too much but I thought the actual figures they told me were a pittance. Admittedly I got used to large numbers when I was operating Jetrangers and Hughes 500s ($15-20,000 average for a 100hrly) and even my C172 tended to run to around $2-3000 per service and it had been recently zero-houred. So - are the aircraft owners unrealistic about what they expect to pay for servicing? After all if people want to, or have to, have their servicing done for them, then the person doing the job not only has to have the knowledge and the qualification but also has to provide a hangar, all the tools, workplace insurance, PL insurance and PI insurance. Some of those I talked to said the people doing their servicing "should be charging around $30/hr". I couldn't get a reason for that mind you. I pointed out that I'm a self employed consultant in the construction industry, which is kinda similar, and my billing rate is triple that. Then I was told I charge too much as well. I don't think I do - providing your own workplace, equipment and insurances, and the insecurities of GFCs and the like, means self-employed people do have to bill an hourly rate that is considerably more than salaried professionals. By comparison, most of my salaried professional peers already own their own properties but I certainly don't. So - how much does a 100hrly on an LSA cost on average? And other maintenance costs? I've had several people tell me recently that Tecnams have been costly to own due to airframe repairs because areas of them have been prone to cracking - any other comments folks? Which aircraft are cheapest to own?

Recent discussions about what an L1 and an L2 can or cannot do prompted me to look further into becoming an L2. I've never thought about it previously because I've not been maintaining other peoples' aircraft and my own have either been Amateur Built by me - so I could do the maintenance myself, or they've been GA and maintained by LAMEs. Over the last 3-4 years I've also rented LSA planes regularly as a matter of convenience to be able to take people flying in different locations. Three times I was surprised to find problems during my pre-flight inspection that were bad enough to need to have them fixed before flying. One was a crack extending from an aileron hinge, a second was a split balance tube between the carbs on a 912 and the most concerning was finding all the spark plugs loose on an engine that had just returned from a test following a 100hrly, and having been handed over to me as "she's right, all ready to go ..." I wasn't stressed about those issues because I am very thorough with my pre-flights, and particularly so with rented aircraft. Additionally, during my commercial years, and regardless that I had the best LAMEs that money could buy and whom I brought thousands of miles to do my servicing, I had so many issues during proving flights following maintenance that I never assume all will be well after an aircraft has been pulled apart and re-assembled. Nonetheless, having spoken about it with the owners of the craft I was renting, I found that some people were finding it difficult to get their servicing done reliably and some had complaints about the costs. With that in mind I have for some time thought that I might set up a maintenance facility and perhaps train up a few L1s to become L2s, should a suitably located workshop become available. Recently I did hear about something suitable so I started to look into the process to become an L2. It would appear very straightforward if you have the relevant experience and knowledge, just a matter of filling in the forms, providing the supporting documentation and having a couple of other L2s or an L2 and a LAME who have known you for a long time provide their recommendation. Yesterday I phoned an L2 that I worked with and have known for thirty years and had a discussion about becoming an L2 and his endorsement of me for same. He was perfectly willing to provide the endorsement but, being a good friend, he then went on to tell me about the down side of doing other peoples' maintenance and why, after more than 25 years of providing a highly regarded maintenance service himself, he's now decided to close up shop and get his maintenance done (signed off at least) by someone else. He has a couple of LSAs in his flying school so his maintenance cannot be done by himself as an L1 if he relinquishes his L2. The matters he raised which make it "all too much to continue with" are - The paperwork has become an overburden with documentation needing to be raised for every action and every part, and that documentation having to be archived for 7yrs. He feels the time spent on the paperwork will probably soon outweigh the time spent on the maintenance itself. Liability issues becoming so prevalent that it appears to him that everyone is looking for someone to blame in event that anything goes wrong. So, whilst he hasn't had it before, he won't do any further maintenance without PI insurance and his initial enquiries indicate he'll be looking at an annual premium of at least $4-5000 and the amount of income he gets from maintenance wouldn't cover that. RAAus are starting to pressure L2s to justify holding the 'ticket' and into relinquishing any part of, or all of their L2 if they're not using it. In other words if you don't regularly do fibreglass repairs you won't be permitted to do any composite repairs. This means other people have to be brought in to work on a wingtip ding while you do the tyre change, for example. Similarly if you don't do regular engine builds/changes/repairs, you won't be able to do anything on engines. Frankly this is getting as bad as GA and that was never the intention. Further, there is a big move to cancel all L1s and introduce 100hrlys (every RAA pilot certificate holder is an L1 unless it's been revoked) and then all maintenance, whether solely private operations or not, will have to be done by L2s or LAMEs. And all this while RAAus are cancelling L2s although many more L2s would be needed under that program ... This may well bring RAA back to its roots where only the owner/builders of Amateur Built 95.55 will be able to afford this class of aviation because they'll be the only ones left who can maintain their own. I've a lot more thoughts about this, and none are good unfortunately, but I'll leave it there for now and see what you all think. For those who have their maintenance done by L2s or LAMEs - How much are you paying for maintenance, is it too much? How good is the maintenance? Is it easy enough to find someone to do it? And for everyone - is there really a need for this clamp-down? Are we seeing incidents or crashes resulting from poor or lacking maintenance?

EFATO actually means Engine Failure After Take Off - meaning soon after take-off/during the initial climb.

I didn't say anything about whether what we are/were already doing was working or not. The point I made in post #215 is that what you've said the psych's are proposing is no different from what we were doing 25 yrs ago and unless schools are presently doing less than we were then, it's no different from what the schools are doing now either. As for "seeing this type of fatality so heavily represented" - well is that actually the case? I'm not saying it isn't, I'm asking a straight question - is the turn-back causing as many fatalities as is being suggested? In my post #144 I asked you where you are getting your stats from but you haven't mentioned your source yet. I quite appreciate that you're in the industry and have your ear turned to the 'happenings' far more than I do, which is why I was/am asking for some real-world numbers. I'll go through the ATSB database when I have more time available but earlier this morning I read through all of the published accident/incident data on the RAAus site. There are 56 entries for 2014 and 177 for 2013. The 2014 descriptions are fairly complete, the majority of 2013 entries are missing details. Based on what information is there, there have been five EFATOs reported in 2014, all with successful outcome, three were turn-backs from well above 500ft one was a return from engine trouble and a restart at 350ft and one landed ahead from 700ft. No apparent problems this year although I think two entries didn't have details due to pending investigation. In 2013 a Storm went into trees after EFATO, the Super Diamond fatality doesn't have details, the Maverick at Texas didn't return to the airfield but may have been an attempted turn-back though there'd be no reason for it as the paddocks are clear for miles around according to the photos. The Lightwing in Tas lacks details but is perhaps mishandling after EFATO. Like everyone else, I'm of the opinion that any fatal at all is too many but it would be unrealistic to expect that we will ever achieve a perfect safety record and so - and given the admittedly sketchy details available from that source alone - it wouldn't seem that we do have too serious an issue here from the few instances recorded there. However, if you have a better set of stats compiled could you please let us have access to them? Something interesting did come out of my quick data-mining this morning though, I was shocked to keep reading the same thing over and over again, virtually every other entry, and that is clearly something the schools should be taking notice of, even more particularly if the same 'dead feet' or 'wrong feet' issue is partly responsible for EFATO and final turn mismanagement. Loss of directional control......loss of directional control.......loss of directional control.......loss of directional control.......loss of directional control.......loss of directional control.......loss of directional control.......loss of directional control.......

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Would you say that more attention needs to be paid to ensuring that trainees have not only embraced the theoretical understanding, but also adopted the physical practice of the quickest way to turn an aeroplane - i.e. in balance, or is stress always going to lead to poor handling practices?

This all sounds terrific, there's no doubt that it's the way to go, but isn't that just exactly what we're doing now? In the first introduction of EFATO with our students we would have a classroom briefing explaining what we proposed to do. All early EFATO exercises involved progressively (slowly) closing the throttle during the climb-out at around 500ft and the student was well briefed about it, and they had been briefed to lower the nose as quickly as necessary to not lose any airspeed, and that it would mean lowering the nose faster than they ever had before in upper air engine failure practice, and they were to plan to land ahead in a clear area selected from about 30* each side of straight ahead. Before doing it themselves it was demonstrated to them, as all training exercises were. Then we'd practice it intermixed with other training exercises. In the early stages the power was reduced after a verbal warning, later it was with a very gradual reduction of power without any verbal warning and later still it might be done at any time and quite abruptly on occasions. Later, as the student became fully proficient and not at all fazed when simulated power failures occurred we would progress to EFATOs at lower level with landing ahead and then later still to EFATOs at a sufficient height where returning to the strip was straightforward. Just prior to that we would conduct downwind landing practice, beginning with one-way strips where you land downwind/uphill and take-off into wind downhill, we're fortunate to have a few to choose from around here. Once that was all instilled we'd move on to the 'difficult decision' phase where power failures might happen at a height or in wind/loading/temperature conditions where it's harder to judge whether you'd make it back safely or not. Trying, but then discovering that they wouldn't make it back and having to re-apply power provided the student with benchmarks to use in judging whether to return or to choose to land ahead even if the ground wasn't the best. There wasn't ever any " calculating, judging heights, assessing etc" because there wasn't a need for it, the student learned to make judgements based on the sight picture i.e. angles, not calculations or actual height assessment. That doesn't mean that Dafydd's altimeter mark method wouldn't be useful as an extra go/no go decision point aide. So I can't see that your psychs are proposing anything new or different, unless instructors these days are just slamming the throttle shut on their students and letting them work it out for themselves without prior briefings and discussions, and/or aren't introducing the whole EFATO thing gently and progressively - mind you I have come across a couple of 'instructors' like that.

I think we're drifting away from the point of the thread here, with all this trailering business. Whilst trailers might be a great thing in some circumstances, and they are, I used to trailer my ultralights everywhere in the 1980s because I never had a hangar, and it was great, it meant that I went to many different places to fly from and camped in the trailer over the weekend. It made the flying far more varied and I met many more people than I do these days. BUT - if we discuss trailering the aircraft out, however wise an option that may be on occasions, then granted we won't have EFATOs in unsuitable terrain/conditions/whatever, but this is supposed to be about EFATO management rather than EFATO avoidance. I, for one, welcome Poteroo's contribution of the mountain airstrip and dozens of strips like that are used many times daily for basic supply and transport in remote areas. I've flown out of some like that and many more cut out of horizon-to-horizon tropical forest and when doing so you need more than blind faith that the engine will keep running AND a plan other than crashing straight ahead if it doesn't. Knowing the height and position at which you can consider turning back is critical to improved safety in those circumstances.

Just to clear up a bit of misunderstanding, Motz responded to one of my posts as follows - But I hadn't said anything about "upper air", what I actually said was - i.e. I wasn't saying that an EFATO was the same as any other engine failure, I was saying that it was the same as any other low level engine failure. My reason for bringing that up at the time was that I think some considerable amount of effort should be put into teaching at least some of the low-level syllabus as a part of basic flight training. Before anybody gets upset I'm not saying that it isn't already, no doubt it already is, and in which case the matter of engine failure at low level must be one of the subjects. Consider the following extract from CAO 95.10 - 5 General conditions The exemptions given by subsection 3, in relation to an aeroplane, are subject to the following general conditions: ................. © the aeroplane must not be used for any purpose other than: (i) the personal carriage of the pilot; or (ii) the aerial inspection, conducted as a private operation, of stock, fencing or farm or pastoral equipment that is located on land owned by, or under the control of, the pilot or a member or members of the pilot’s immediate family; Note Conduct as a private operation means that no remuneration must be received by the pilot of the aircraft or the owner (subregulation 2 (7) of CAR 1988). Note that this means that anyone on the land can buy a 95.10 machine, get a pilot certificate and use the machine quite legally for aerial spotting. Aerial spotting isn't mustering but I'm sure that doesn't stop people who aren't in the public eye. Those same people are probably required to have a low level endorsement which means having the appropriate training but unless the school they train with knows that they plan to use the plane on the land they are unlikely to ever know that they should, or even can, get low level training. For some ridiculous, and to me totally mysterious, reason the RAAus choose to keep valuable low level training in a locked cupboard unless people fight to get it. As I see it that's like refusing people advanced driver training unless they insist that they want to drive hard on the road. Further - although it doesn't specifically say so in 95.55, there is nothing preventing people getting an LSA and using it for private operations on their land, similar to the above. With stock use clearly permitted for 95.10 I think it'd be a hard call on anyone trying to prevent the same for similarly privately owned and operated 95.55. And in fact we know that there are numerous former 95.25 aircraft and 95.55 aircraft out there doing just that, and so they should be. If the schools take into consideration that anyone they train might at some stage use these aircraft for low level operations then it's my view that a part of their training should concentrate on low level operations, the basics at least - ground related flight, wind effects causing illusions, wind gradients, physical hazards (wires etc) and engine failures - because response to engine failure at low level may need to be quite different from the typical response at upper level and must, at least, include lowering the nose as an instantaneous reflex, not something to be considered after a few seconds of surprise-induced pause. AND, when operating low level (as any take-off is, whether 'on the land' or not) the pilot needs to be able to consider which landing options are better than others rather than being taught to blindly crash into what might be the only hazards in the area, the cluster of trees that occupy the 30* each side of straight ahead.

Dark is something I really try and avoid, having given myself a bit of a fright. I got caught out returning from a 100hrly when storms developed quicker than forecast along my path and I had a lengthy delay getting past them. I still got to the destination more than 10mins before official last light but it was really black, the thunderheads were solid and to the west by that stage and blocking any ambient light from the sky. I had quite a job even spotting the airstrip and white hangars. Gladly I recalled a trick an instructor had once yarned about and put my sunglasses back on until short final then whipped them off. The dilated pupils certainly gave me a better view for the landing. That's a thought to keep in mind for people who might be planning to have a tinted canopy on their homebuilt, it would be a real disadvantage if you're ever caught out late in the day.

Everyone's twisting words aren't they? I'm sure those I mentioned would be the last to consider themselves bulletproof but that's how I see them, and how they probably are, they're very competent!

Erm - maybe it's one of those where I misunderstood you but wasn't that exactly what you said 10 posts ago? Sorry, post numbers aren't shown on mobile.

OK Motz, I think we should just agree to disagree. From my point of view I think you're giving too much credence to 'nothing can be done unless we study the psych aspects'. Regardless of that massive list of stuff you now take into account, we just got on with teaching people until they understood what they needed to know to stay alive. Haven't lost one yet and it's over twenty years since I was teaching regularly.

I wasn't suggesting anyone should be practicing EFATOs on their own, Motz said his students were freezing, so I say they haven't yet been practiced enough. Once they have been, they'll be like M61A1 and Dazza (who learnt with us) and Ausadvance, all of whom couldn't give a rats what you want to throw at them forever more. Once you're bulletproof, you're bulletproof. An F1 driver doesn't have to keep going back to recurrent training ... Edit - This was in response to nomad and SD

Then we are in complete agreement Turbo. And the simple and foolproof answer is practice, practice and practice until it's second nature and there is no WTF moment and the reflex action is the correct action.

OK, so you're simply saying that you can't teach people to continue to think after an engine fails soon after takeoff? Turbo almost suggests that we have to dumb down all training to suit the slowest reacting people. What on earth is going on here? Have the people that constitute today's students suddenly become much less capable of basic procedural operations than they used to be? You wouldn't think so judging by their gaming skills. I think the main point is - what do you consider to be so different about an EFATO than any other engine failure? I see no difference whatsoever. They're all the same, an EFATO is just another engine failure at low level, the runway behind is just one of the landing options to be considered or disregarded according to its suitability for the current situation. If people are spending several seconds having a WTF moment after EFATO they simply haven't been trained properly. It means they're taking off without having in mind they're about to conduct the single most dangerous part of the entire flight and need to be ready for EFATO at various heights and have a plan already prepared for those scenarios. It's not rocket science and it's doesn't require anyone to be a Bob Hoover either, it's just proper schooling. Is it the students during training who are losing control or those who should have had refresher training at a BFR a few years down the track and haven't? I'd suspect the latter. Where are your stats coming from Motz? From what I've seen the final turn stall/spin seems to be far more prevalent of late, since engines became more reliable at high power settings. EDIT - this was being composed prior to sighting the above, apologies if there is any crossover EDIT 2 - no Motz, I try and avoid being vexatious. Your posts are sometimes not as clear as you may have intended.