Mazda

The ERC shows IFR LSALTs! Remember that an IFR LSALT can go out 15 degrees right out to 55 miles from your track, with 1000 or 1360ft terrain clearance. Of course this is very safe, but if you are flying in VMC on a good visibility day, there is no reason at all why you can't safely fly well below published IFR LSALTs. The LSALT between Bankstown and Canberra is something like 6,700 ft. If there is solid cloud at 5,000 feet, could you fly there safely VFR?

You don't need clearance to enter a danger area, so if you remain under 10,000 feet you won't need any clearance or plan even if the danger area is active. Just look out for traffic. Remember too that it is highly unlikely for it to be active on a weekend anyway!

Be a bit careful with that spin recovery technique Disperse. It is true that some types may require full forward stick, but if you fly other types and apply full foward stick they'll spin inverted, and forward stick will hold them there. And how do you know which rudder to push? If ever you are not sure - throttle to idle, centralise aileron and elevator, push on the rudder that is closest to you (or harder to push). When the rotation has stopped centralise everything and ease out of the dive. Put on power when the nose climbs up through the horizon. (Hopefully you'll have one). The other good one to know is if you somehow end up part inverted (say from wake turbulence). Do not pull!! Roll to the nearest horizon, then with wings level ease out of the dive. There are some people doing really good EMT training along these lines (like Phil Unicomb who uses the Pitts for this).

By the way, that's from the 30 August to 22 November ERSA because my current one is in the hangar!

R422 is associated with the Nowra airspace. 10,000 ft to FL300 activated by NOTAM. Danger area D423 (same area) is SFC to 10,000 H24 for flying training.

Airsick I trained in GA, and there is no requirement at all for day VFR lowest safe. If you can see the hills/obstacles, you won't fly into them. Flying VFR you can quite legally fly well below the calculated IFR or NVFR lowest safe due to the large distance tolerances involved. For example, Centrepoint Tower in Sydney dictates the lowest safe in the Sydney area, but obviously it is not relevant terrain for someone flying day VFR up the lane of entry. Night VFR obviously has a lowest safe requirement because you can't see the terrain.

Lots of comments above are good. Remember that most pilots don't want to end up unintentionally in cloud! If they do end up in cloud they probably haven't worked out lowest safe altitude and don't know how low they can descend. The cloud may go too high for small aircraft to out climb. It can be bumpy in there too. No one wants to unintentionally spin or spiral dive but experienced pilots have been killed from this. It might only take a bit of panic, physiological factors when you can't tell what is level any more, turbulence (even wake turbulence), and fixation on one instrument even for what feels like a few seconds to end up out of control. There could be ice in there too. Ice builds very fast and airspeed decays at a frightening rate. VFR aircraft don't have a heated pitot either so airspeed indications would not be accurate. I can easily see how VFR pilots in VFR aircraft could end up spinning when in IMC.

Maybe I should have "Box Office - the best seat in the house" for my signature? By the way, the terms "grey haired old fart" and "glamourpuss" were both given to me by the "grey haired old fart" in question! You know what they say - behind every great woman ... (keep it nice now! ;))

It's your money, so you have every right to choose your instructor. If you have concerns talk to the CFI of the school. Maybe your instructor is a young inexperienced one heading for the airlines and with little concern about students. Maybe he does care but can't get the point through to you. Either way, that is a problem he has and you shouldn't suffer from it. Perhaps the school will give you a different instructor or you could try elsewhere. If you have concerns about an instructor the CFI may even want to fly with you to see what you've been taught so far. Preparation is important and you could ask your instructor for some homework. The old Trevor Thom Flying Training Manual is good. Ask what you'll be doing in your next lesson and which chapters from the book you should read before your lesson. Ask lots of questions and make sure you get satisfactory answers!

Bl**dy women! My OH and I had promised a couple of 20-something girls a flight. They rang today as the weather was better than forecast so we said we'd be delighted to take them up. Neither of them had been in a light aircraft and they were a little bit concerned. Two of them, two of us. It seemed logical that we would each take one of them up for a flight. Both of us are aeros qualified so we could both turn them upside down if they so wished (it's a VH-registered aerobatic aircraft), or we could just take them sight-seeing if they preferred to stay relatively level. You'd think they would be happy with this arrangement. You'd think they'd even be all for "the sisterhood" and want to fly with a woman. Not a chance. They chose to fly with the grey haired old fart rather than the young glamourpuss. (Well, maybe that's stretching the point a bit). The worst thing was the insulting way it was said. "No offence, but we don't want to fly with you, we feel safer flying with him." OK. Now it's time for the confession. I'm a girl. ;) I was really, really offended. One of them then asked how long I'd been flying. I said "Fifteen years" but it is actually closer to 18 years. They still didn't budge, they wanted to fly with "The Man." They obviously felt unsafe flying with "The girl." So I took the car and left them to it for a few hours while I did other things. The glass ceiling is alive and well, even within the female gender. As I said ... bl**dy women!

It is fixed! I met with the avionics guy this morning as I'd arranged to take him for a fly. No need, the noise was obvious on the ground. He tried with the generator off, the noise was still there. Definitely not the generator. Tried magnetos, tried different power settings. Then he borrowed another Icom radio and tried that. The noise was still there. A few things were done to resolve the problem. Yes, the squelch wasn't set correctly. From the factory it had no squelch setting at all and I don't think this was correctly set on installation. An adjustment was made after fitting but this was not sufficient, so it was re-adjusted today. The antenna was also removed, cleaned and re-earthed. The radio itself was also re-earthed to the starter relay on the firewall. I took it for a fly today and it is great. Not perfect, probably 9 out of 10. Considering the age of the wiring and the fact that there is no panel mounted aircraft intercom, that is a great result. It was well worth the effort. Thanks everyone for all your advice. I thought you'd like to know what happened.

I've only got just over 40 hours instruments but this might help. Flying in cloud isn't hard but learning to scan correctly takes some time and is tiring. Without training people tend to fixate on one instrument without realising they are neglecting the others. They think they are only looking for a second but it isn't the case. Without constant scanning everything can go haywire very quickly. Spiral dives happen fast. Then with no horizon and in a panic, just about everyong pulls to recover from anything. In a spiral dive that could be disastrous. There are real physiological and psychological issues too. You really can feel like you are climbing vertically and about to stall when you are level. You really can feel like you are banked when you are not. If someone stumbles into cloud VFR maybe their aircraft doesn't have IFR instruments, and instruments do fail too. I remember flying IFR with the AH level and the turn coordinator started to show a turn. The DG showed a heading change. When the turn coordinator was level and heading constant, the AH showed a bank. It does your head in. I tried to ignore the AH bank information but my brain was having problem dealing with it and I kept subconsciously levelling the AH. That's why a scan is so important. Then there are procedural issues. IFR flights are fully separated from other aircraft by ATC, so if you fly VFR in cloud you are not getting this service. In cloud you can't look out for traffic, you can only rely on traffic information from ATC. If you are VFR there's a chance you could run into an IFR aircraft (or another VFR that shouldn't be there). So if anyone that is VFR does end up in cloud, tell ATC so they know you are there and they'll keep other traffic away from you as well as helping you out of the cloud! Maybe ask an IFR pilot or instructor if they can take you into IMC and you can see for yourself?

Now you've got me dreaming ... I'd like blocks & houses of a variety of shapes and sizes, not "Edward Scissorhands" sameness. Acreage would be nice so I could keep my horses there. Otherwise just a small block but with other shared facilities onsite - things like stables :), sporting fields, tennis courts, swimming pool, maybe a shop or bar. A friendly atmosphere and like minded people. Aircraft noise wouldn't worry me. A sealed runway with grass on the sides would be good, cross strip if possible, then the interesting tailwheel aircraft would go there. Lights would be good. Nice outlook. I'd like a view. Maybe some water and some nice green fields. It would need some facilities in the town. A place to find employment - and if not, the airport would need to be all weather, have an instrument approach, and I'd have to get an IFR aircraft so I could get to work. (As long as I could find somewhere to work near another field, and have a vehicle parked at that field). Somewhere like Jumbolair in the US would be nice (see here: http://www.jumbolair.com/) Yes, that is where John Travlota lives. I wonder if we'll have something like this in Australia?

Thanks David. This one is panel mounted with an external antenna. I might have to pull it out and re-adjust the squelch again this weekend. The weather looks pretty dismal so I might not be able to test it in flight.

That lane down the river is actually for helicopters. In a VH registered aircraft you can ask for clearance that way but don't count on getting it!

Obviously "alerted" see and avoid is better than "unalerted" see and avoid. Alerted see and avoid is when you have a radio can hear calls. The problem is that you can never rely only on radio because someone in the circuit might not have a radio, or they might be on the wrong frequency etc. There is a danger that when people fly into airports with mandatory radio they assume the only aircraft are ones transmitting on frequency. Without a UNICOM or AFRU, there isn't even any confirmation that your radio is working and you are on the correct frequency. Having a radio is better than not having one, but relying only on radio and not see and avoid is problematic. Even military pilots use see and avoid and they fly much faster than us. In the USA they don't even have published enroute VFR frequencies and they don't have transponder requirements in Class E, but for the density of traffic their mid-air statistics are better than ours. I think the issue is that they have so much traffic it wouldn't be possible for everyone to talk to each other. I guess it would be like trying to communicate by radio to cars on the road when there is lots of traffic.

I'm not being critical of you! :) I'm just wondering why people are still being taught this! It was still happening today - well after your incident.

Yep, here it is. http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/recommendations/2004/R20040015.aspx They removed the "never" associated with unalerted see and avoid.

The document was actually amended by ATSB/CASA some years ago to state that see and avoid could be used satisfactorily for separation.

That's true BigPete, a radio goes give situational awareness. The important thing is not to rely too much on it though as there may still be aircraft in the circuit with no radio, or on the wrong frequency etc. A radio is a good idea but everyone still needs to look out!

I understand why instructors would teach CTAF procedures at a CTAF, but there seems to be some confusion. If you were joining the circuit at any CTAF where the circuit direction was established (perhaps from another aircraft in the circuit) there is no need to overfly the strip to establish the wind/circuit direction from the windsock. If you are at a CTAF and you know a certain runway is in use, you can descend to circuit altitude and join on downwind if on that side, or fly over and join midfield crosswind at circuit height if you are flying in from the dead side. You could also do a straight in approach. So if there is already traffic flying in the circuit at Camden there is absolutely no need to overfly at height and descend on the dead side, because you would not do that at any CTAF when the circuit direction was known. The big problem at Camden is that it isn't a normal CTAF either. If you read ERSA it clearly states that you must call inbound at one of the normal GAAP approach points and at least three legs of the circuit must be flown. It also says that there is no dead side. Remember people operate from 06/24 and 10/28 at the same time. Descending on the "dead side" of 06 puts you right in the 10 circuit. Plus of course there are the gliders on that side, and they do operate during the week. I flew at CN today and couldn't believe the number of people calling from x miles north or west for overflying the field at 2,000 feet, descending on the "dead side" and joining the circuit. There were gliders airborne! I wonder why instrutors are teaching procedures which contradict the published procedures for the aerodrome?

Well, I flew today and the radio noise was terrible. My pax kept taking her headset off to see if it was quieter! That gives you an idea of the level of noise. At one point I turned the volume right down but it was still noisy. On the return trip once I was clear of any airports/airspace I couldn't stand it any more and turned the radio off completely. I turned it on again as I got close to my destination. Perhaps I do need a filter. Is anyone flying anything with a generator? I might need to find some sort of condensor/filter to go across the generator. Perry do you have any information on the Airmagic one?

Thanks all. I haven't tried the radio after shutting down the engine but it is quite clear before the engine starts. It even seemed OK on my first taxi after adjusting the squelch but it seemed noisier after run ups. Why would that happen? I'm flying tomorrow so I'll see how it goes then.

Thanks Perry, but the aircraft does not have a GPS. It only has an ADF which has just been serviced and the radio noise is no different with the ADF on or off. The ADF doesn't even have a proper external antenna as it is just a bit of wire in the back of the canopy. The noise is still there. The radio is nice and clear during transmissions but the background noise when monitoring is unbearable. Maybe I shouldn't have spent the $2,000+ to replace the radio and just stuck with the old out of tune Narco.

When I did my GA PPL training I flew with a current IFR charter pilot. He was very clear about the rules. If the forecast was legally VFR, we flew. If it was not legally VFR, we didn't. This meant that we departed on days with storms around while others stayed on the ground. But we were always in legal VMC. Yes, we flew in rain, and yes, we diverted around real weather. He would not allow VFR flight if the weather deteriorated below legal VMC. It meant looking well ahead for weather and planning an early diversion. I thought that was great training as I did fly in some weather but it was always legal so I did see what that looked like. If an instructor pushed on in anything less than VMC I don't think it would teach the student good airmanship. I think though that perhaps some instructors only like flying in good weather (and who would blame them?) Maybe some lack the experience themselves and don't want to get the student into a difficult situation.