68volksy

From my understanding they have the jurisdiction to investigate any and all aircraft accidents however they do not have to investigate all aircraft accidents. They've simply chosen in the past not to investigate. I'd say this one was elevated a bit simply due to the accident involving members of the public. With the level of detail they go to in their investigations and the fact they're the Federal body (not just state coroners courts) it should draw a good picture of the state of the Recreational industry at the moment.

Report from ATSB on this one is due out at any time now. Could make a very interesting read i'd imagine with the number of rocks they turn over in their investigations. Will it be be the first time for the ATSB investigators preparing a full report on an RA-Aus accident?

A good point of contact might be Teraya Miller or Albert Fleming at CASA also? They're the NSW Aviation Safety Advisors and travel the state talking to all the operators up to Qantaslink/Rex. Their contact details are on this website: http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:STANDARD::pc=PC_91317 . You'll see details for the advisors all around the country also. These guys are the "friendly" side of CASA - they have no delegations or anything and are employed purely in an advisory/educational role. They should at least be able to provide some clues as to where to start looking and are very approachable.

Personally i live by the mantra of "never use a large word when an exiguous one will do"...

I don't see any useful purpose to the "Prof Avius" material. The primary outcome of the article to someone in the early stages of learning or thinking about learning is nothing other than confusion and misinformation. The sheer number of fantastical illusions that some people (including myself) come up with in the first few lessons always provides amusement and this has just provided one more to throw into the mix. I very strongly agree that instructors should have a forum for discussions about training techniques and methods however I do not think the RA-Aus magazine is the tool for this discussion to take place. The CFI conference at Safeskies and the consistent growth in attendance numbers is something that RA-Aus should be taking note of very closely. Can't be too hard to organise a couple of day long conference purely for Instructors to get together. I agree with David10's statement about the magazine's implied authority and can see that a student who has read that article will now have the niggling thought in the back of their head that every landing should be a full-stop.

I do love playing Devlis Advocate... Good on Qantas for not pigeon-holing India! Just because they're currently a third-world country doesn't mean the people that live there are without intelligence or common sense. I think that a student that comes out of India through a school setup by Qantas will be considerably better trained than any of the kids of rich parents who come out here and pay top dollar. There's a billion people over there - imagine the quality of talent you'd be able to pull from a pool of that number if it wasn't only the kids of parents rich enough to send them overseas to study that you had to choose from! Add that to the fact that Qantas could probably afford to provide absolutely free training to only the best over there compared to the cost of training over here. Could even find some kids from here might head over there - it'll probably be a considerable amount cheaper than getting your commercial licence over here. They have that new Indian Mahindra aircraft they'll probably be able to access very cost-effectively also. Also 20 years from now will very likely see India and China as far and away the most highly trafficked airways in the world.

Any news on what caused the stoppage as yet?

Argument was money would be spent planting trees and landscaping which would attract more people. There might be some validity in the "we'll provide more services" argument I suppose but in my view it's very short-sighted. Most of the land-holders out there already have access to toilets and drinking water so the question in my mind is what else are they getting for the extra money each year?

Now that I like! Qantas shareholders however...

I read somewhere a little while back that it should be you, the pilot, that you're trying to line up on the centre line and not necessarily the aircraft. Helped very much in the first dozen hours or so. Most of the small aircraft we fly you're only going to be a foot or so off the centre line when you touch down - your right elbow sits pretty much in the middle of the aircraft. The single/tandem seaters this is a no-brainer. If you line up those big white dotted lines and then extend them towards you they should hit you right between the eyes. That said there's been many a time i've come to understand why they make runways considerably wider than an aircrafts undercarriage!

Can you imagine if they broadcast a story for every single car/motorcyle accident in the country where all occupants walked away without any injuries? Getting sick of the "falling out of the sky" statement from the media but what can we do?

Meeting was on today. Quick post for those who care. Landing fees and fees for parking outdoors (for the 1 aircraft that does) have remained largely unchanged. Very big point of stating that the fees for Recreational Aircraft will now be collected which I agree with however the only way of doing this could be quite confrontational i'd imagine. Big change is the imposition of "access charges" for those who own land with airside frontage who want access to the airport. Calculated at $6.64 (plus GST) per square metre of land with frontage plus extra if connected to septic system. I feel very sorry for anyone who owns land out there as its value would have just plummeted. Minimum lot size out there is 400 square metres which means their "rates" just increased by $2,921.60. On an average land value of $40,000 for these small lots its a big increase. Council rates will not change either. Todays speaker made a very strong argument that charging people more would result in more people coming and a better result for everyone. I'm sure there are others like myself who see a slight flaw in that logic? For those with aircraft hangered in other peoples hangers it's now a matter of waiting for the hanger owners to decide whether they'll pay or not. Feel sorry for the owners of aircraft that can't be left outdoors as they'll have no option but to move. The hanger where many of these smaller craft are kept (about 20 or so) looks to be up for over $40,000 per annum and todays statement was 'if anyone doesn't pay there will be a fence erected around their hanger'. Closest airfield is probably going to now be crookwell (Council sounds like they'd be happy to build them a hanger) for these guys or down to Cooma for the guys from Canberra.

In the Warrior I was taught first stage of flap as part of downwind checks. Second stage after the turn to base and after decreasing throttle. Then set for 80 knots (which i've found is pretty much impossible to miss with revs at 1800rpm and almost full forward trim). Third stage after turning final with full forward trim and you're sitting on 70 knots at 1800rpm. This pretty much has me hitting the threshold (still working on smoothing out that flare...) in anything up to about 15 knots headwind with only minor adjustments to pitch/power. Warrior flaps deploy at around 100kts so extending on downwind doesn't affect things too much. Teraya and Mike always seem to throw in some distraction or other to mess all this up though and get me out of the comfort zone which I suppose is a good thing...

Preliminary report now released. Looks like it could be an open/shut case of pilot error... http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2011/aair/ao-2011-100.aspx

Does it look like a DC3 to anyone else?

I'd heard a couple of stories about amateur built GA's over the past couple of years that made me think there might be some similarities come to light between those incidents and RA-Aus incidents and my sentence in brackets should have had a question mark. Has anybody found the official statistic for deaths/serious accidents in RA-Aus aircraft yet?

Hi Bandit, If you're a fan of the statistics you have probably already found the ATSB summary report for the past 10 years: http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2011/ar2011020.aspx A good summary of operations. The Private/Business years 2006-2008 which had fatal accidents in the double digits are a little frightening however it's good to see only 3 fatal accidents occurred during 2010.

The ATSB guy was involved in the training of the Police aviation investigators and is a very reliable source. I always find it funny when they say "RA-Aus will investigate" as from my understanding they have no training or expertise in accident investigation. The NSW Police only have 1 or 2 trained investigators who have found themselves with quite a heavy workload of late by the sound of it.

Hi TP, I'd find it hard to believe that you had access to the full number of RA accidents given the lack of investigations? We can pick some up from news reports and on this forum but there'd be many out there unreported or not caught by the news cameras. Talking to a guy from the ATSB the other day and he said they're getting very concerned about the RA-Aus accidents as they're getting at least one request a week over the past 12 months to assist police with an investigation. To prove/disprove my point I might ask if anyone here can tell me how many fatal accidents or serious injuries have occurred in RA-Aus registered aircraft over the past 12-24 months? I'm after the official number (if there is an official number). Should be a pretty simple one to start with?

I think some legislative changes definitely need to be made. RA-Aus (and to some extent the GA experimental category) has been allowed to run on a very long leash for the past few years. If we were to look at the accidents over the past few years (especially the fatal ones) I think we'd find the balance of aircraft involved tilting very heavily towards the high-performance end of the RA-Aus spectrum. It would be interesting to compare the accident rate of high-end RA-Aus to low-end GA and the causes of those accidents. There's 100 years worth of data on GA aircraft and accidents - if the RA-Aus statistics aren't at least as good as (in theory they should be better) the GA statistics then changes need to be made. It's so damn simple in my view it shows nothing but utter arrogance in the RA-Aus community that comparisons such as this are not being done and cannot be done. End of rant - normal viewing can now commence.

From what I hear Victor 1 is under close scrutiny at the moment from CASA, Airservices and the ATSB. From chats with my instructors you do not fly it without lifejackets and you make damn sure you're up to speed with wind direction and are fully prepared to ditch into the water. Personally i think i'd rather ditch as best as possible into the water a little way off the coast and float around in my lifejacket for a while rather than try to land close to the coast among all the rocks, cliffs and innocent people. The Warrior tends to float for a while if you ditch well enough which helps with this option I suppose.

A couple of guys have already moved aircraft stating they were told access fees would be $7k per annum so it'll be nice to finally get some certainty. I notice 1 hanger's already been fenced off from accessing the airport by the new owner also so it'll be good to hear why that was.

Hi Turbo, I managed to chase up a Coroners report by ringing the coroners office handling the hearing for an accident a couple of years back. They were quite helpful and emailed it to me. I wish they were easier to get or someone reported a summary of the findings as the one i was after was extremely scathing of a certain aircraft retailer. I'll certainly never go near the individual in the future after reading the Coroners findings and summary of the hearing. If it came out as an ATSB report and mentioned Cessna they'd be shut down overnight...

I don't think this sort of thing could be properly achieved by RA-Aus. Properly investigating an accident takes a huge amount of resources and a great deal of time - and even then there are many questions that go unanswered. Plus to do it properly you need a record-keeping system that is well-documented and reliable. I think it's one of those cost-cutting choices you make when stepping from GA to RA-Aus.

For TAF's and the like i'm thoroughly enjoying this website: http://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/knowledge-centre/index.shtml#Weather+Advice+for+Your+Safety/ The CASA guys promoted it heavily at their Avsafety Seminar.