68volksy

It's becoming a bug-bear of mine to see people use the phrase "Recreational Pilot Licence" when referring to the "Recreational Pilot Certificate". Might not mean much on the surface but it blurs the line between the two options unnecessarily in my view. Anyway to answer the question ... This question comes up so often! If you can find a VH registered Jab or own one then go straight through with PPL. There's no point doing RA at all if that is the case - just head off along the PPL/RPL route. If the only Jab you can find is RA registered then sure go ahead with the RA certificate. If you can find a school with an RA registered Jab that does GA also then that would suit perfectly also. Main point for me is that you should spend as much time in the formative hours getting to know the aircraft you actually intend to fly. I think it's a waste flying several different aircraft along the path to your end result. I'm 60 hours in on one aircraft and still learning how the different systems and mechanics work - all little things that might save my life one day! The fine print with the RA to GA/RPL conversion is the GA Flight review that will be needed. The schools are getting more of an update on this but it won't necessarily be straight-forward. Remember the RPL automatically means you can fly anything up to 1500kg which is a substantial increase over the RA maximums. As such i'd be thinking most schools will be looking for a few hours in heavier aircraft before signing off on an RPL.

You said the son's hour building is not a major consideration however i'd just like to say that if your son is looking to build hours towards a CPL then the J170 will be really of no use to him. Even more so if he's looking to get a job once he gets the CPL. Best option to help your son would be something with a constant speed prop at least. A retractable undercarriage would be handy also. Something like a Piper Arrow would be ideal. If he shows up to an employer with a few hundred hours in an arrow or even a 182 or Piper 180 (or C210, C206, Piper Charger) then he'll stand a good chance at getting that first job. If he's just showing J170 hours then his chances will be very slim. You'll find an Arrow for $80-120k. Goes without saying that it would be a more comfortable round australia trip also! Piper Cherokee for $30k would be worth more to your son also and carry a couple of big bags... All that is probably useless to you though if you've already done the research!

And the best thing of all? Soon the iPad's will have an App that has a full auto-pilot function. Then you'll be able to mount another iPad right in front of you so you can watch movies while you fly and get rid of all that pesky turning, climbing, descending nonsense also and just sit back in a comfy chair and "really" enjoy the experience of flying! Won't that be great!

Been trying for years to get an approval for the 3-blade prop. The issue is nothing to do with CASA - simply the manufacturer won't stump up the funds to get the prop approved. It's the same story with all things aviation - if you want it certified then you stump up the funds. We found an engineer who could do it but we were looking at thousands to get the report done. Bolly seems to be happy selling enough of the 3-blades to not concern themselves with getting them certified. Business case just doesn't stack up i'd say. Maj - unless you have the engineer's report stating in black and white that the props are "better, more efficient, fuel saving and SAFER" then you're wasting your breath methinks...

I think it's generally best to leave the theory until you've done at least some flying. Most of what you need to learn is covered as you progress through the flying lessons. The theory exams also make the most sense when you've experienced the practical side first-hand. Instead of saving up though I think it's better to look at the lessons as a weekly expense. Nothing wrong with saving a bit of a buffer to start with but 1 lesson per week is a good aiming point. Then after you have your licence you're all set budget-wise for an hour or two's flying each week. The best schools will try to stretch your training over at least a 6-12 month period to expose you to different weather conditions and to (with most students) mold the enthusiasm for getting into the air into an enthusiasm for doing things right and making the right decisions. Keep in mind that you will not actually fly every week due to weather, instructor or aircraft limitations. Budget to fly one hour per week though and not only will you get your licence within a year but you'll have some of the best fun ever. For me flying is flying whether there's a person in the right-seat or not.

Just for information the base award wage for GA Grade 3 is currently around $50 per flying hour. The award is silent on RA ratings as the definition of pilot under the award is a "person who is the holder of a commercial pilot’s licence". A pilot also has to be employed under the provisions of the award so it won't apply unless you're employed as a Grade 3/2/1 instructor. I assume this would leave RA instructors with the national minimum wage as a base line.

It all depends on where you are, the school who provides your rating and the school you find work at really. Your earning potential will also be largely dependent on your experience and maturity levels. If you're young with 200 hours under your belt then expect to be sitting around scratching the dust with 6 other young inexperienced instructors 6 days a week for $15 per flying hour where you'll be lucky to notch up 20 hours per month. If you've got 600-1000 hours under your belt (just flying hours) and a good deal of maturity then you'll be earning $40 per flying hour and flying 1000 hours per year with no fuss. Throw in a GA instructors rating and you'll be earning $50/hour as a Grade 3 up to $90 per hour as a top Grade 1. Life experience helps if your flying experience is low but the major factor is a good deal of humility when approaching potential employers. Seek out a good school and make contact with them. Tell them you've looked around and have heard they have a good reputation. Do not slap a whole bunch of ego on the table in your first meeting. A good school will be looking for a long-term relationship and will screen candidates very closely. There is no shortage of young kids out there with shiny new epaulets queuing up for jobs. If you're committed to instructing, have a great safety record and the proper attitude then with a bit of research you should find yourself a place in one of the most rewarding and satisfying careers out there. It's a big choice to go down that path though which is why most RA instructors have other more stable jobs and only do it for love. If the RA community wakes up one morning and agrees to pay a reasonable price for flying and instructing then the instructing option will become more attractive. For a flying school who is paying someone to maintain their fleet the costs of running a Gazelle compared to a Cessna 150 are pretty much exactly the same. The instructors also need to eat and put a roof over their heads whether they're GA or RA...

Welcome Puren, no doubt we'll see you leaping around the Goulburn skies in the little Gazelle at some stage!

The GA hut is really quite a comfortable place to leave the tribe. There are toilets in the building and the flying school provides free tea, coffee and bikkies for everyone. Problem is they'd need to hold an ASIC or be under the supervision of someone with one or Airport Security might have taken them away by the time you get back! If they exit the airport with you then Gate 3 does also have a little room with some chairs on the non-secure side they could wait in. There's also a little public toilet at the end of Nomad drive (about 100 metres away). No tea or biscuits but they'll be out of the weather. It's probably only a 5-10 minute walk to the terminal but a longer drive back due to the construction work and traffic lights.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there Yenn. It was a pretty simple equation prior to RA-Aus putting almost 100% of it efforts over the past 10 years into getting access to controlled airspace.

This might have been done before and it may be more appropriate to have a poll but I thought i'd throw the question out there: What are people's opinions on the easiest (powered) aircraft to learn to fly? GA or RA (or weight-shift or powered parachute etc.). I've only flown a few but to start things off my vote would be the Skyfox Gazelle. As i've heard on occasion "If you can't fly a Gazelle then you can't fly". What do others think?

Yay yay yay! Congratulations Ivan. Make sure to honk the horn when you fly past Goulburn on your navs!

I'd love nothing more than to get over it all Alf. It's been slowly eating away at a big group of us out there over the past few years. At least a dozen guys so far have quit flying all together purely because of the politics. The lady that's run the local school for the past 20 years has moved some of her training to Canberra after the new operator increased her landing fees from $700 per year to a "per landing" basis that would have worked out at over $16,000 per year. Canberra charges $2000 per annum all up for all landing and parking fees so that was a no-brainer. I love this sport as much as anyone i've met and it just kills me to see the aviation activity in Goulburn so utterly abysmal compared to when i first ventured out there 6-7 years ago... No arguing there's a lot of parachutists now but the pilots and aircraft owners have fallen like flies. I still fondly remember the weekends only a few years back when almost every hanger at the airport was abuzz with aircraft, pilots, friends and family. Walking down the taxiway would have brought a smile to any aviators face. There are 3 beautiful tiger moths under covers out there that haven't seen the light of day in well over 3 years. It's a mere shadow now of what it was. Perhaps some see it as casting poorly disguised aspersions on a public forum but the urge to vent just gets too strong. The old guard at Goulburn (of which i'm sadly counted a member with only 6 years behind me) now have an unspoken agreement that it's better not to discuss these things at the airport as it just gives everyone the *****. We simply try to enjoy our flying whilst we still can.

I do love the British attitude to it all though. The lady standing proudly smiling next to the plane that almost crashed through their house. I'd love to see an American take on the same accident... :)

All i have to say is give it time...

More a question of where the fuel might have come from and what kind of fuel it was. If it wasn't the container next to the lawnmowers then you should be pretty safe :) . The other school out there's been training in a Gazelle for several thousand hours over the past 15 years without any significant carb icing (certainly none that couldn't be handled with carb heat) they tell me so i'm pretty dubious about the young kids claiming they had engines shut down because of carb heat!

I heard they were having carb icing issues. Mind you that's why i thought they invented the little carb heat knob in the Gazelle's... I assume the unleaded you bought came in a 20 litre drum - be very careful if that was the case.

At least we're starting to look at some different angles now! There are so many variables between different aircraft types in the same category let alone comparing two different categories! We had 12 years of Cherokee/Warrior data and 2 years of Jab data to work with in our comparisons. Cherokee was VFR only which saved a massive amount in maintenance and also allowed for a more accurate comparison.

Be handy if the RA-Aus numbers could be relied upon. There's been 5 forced landings at Goulburn airport in the past 12 months alone in RA-Aus aircraft and I'm yet to see even 1 of them turn up in an RA-Aus report!

I personally think that airframe integrity is a very good start to the deciding factors between GA and RA. The only deciding factor i have ever heard so far has been cost so it's about time some of the reasons behind it being cheaper were brought into the discussion! Depreciation is a factor in RA that many are only just starting to realise. From all the sums i've done if you pay someone (L2/LAME) to maintain a J170 and factor in depreciation the costs work out very similar to maintaining a GA aircraft. We did the sums on a J170 and a $30k Piper Cherokee and it was about dead even on a dollars per hour basis and 200 hours use per year. Major difference was that the $80k J170 was not worth $80k after 10 years where the Piper won't have lost a cent.

Just be aware that there's a lot more to that question than cost. Whilst RA-Aus have done some brilliant marketing over the years there is a lot more to the decision than simply dollars. The maintenance standards of RA-Aus aircraft are probably the most relaxed area. Word is that a flying school recently had its entire fleet of RA-Aus aircraft grounded on inspection by CASA for being unairworthy. They'd been merrily training students in one aircraft with an engine 1,000 hours overdue i'm told. Whilst this could happen in GA it's almost impossible with the checks and strict liability provisions on LAME's. That's just an example of one possible difference. There are a lot of good, honest RA-Aus schools and hire aircraft but the maintenance and training standards between them all is unbelievable once you start looking into things. There's a lot of variation in the GA schools and hire aircraft also of course. It starts at the philosophical level really for me. A GA aircraft was designed to a standard of "how strong does this need to be" whilst modern RA-Aus aircraft are designed to a weight "how heavy can this part be". That's the first starting point when comparing a Jabiru/Tecnam to a 150 for me.

Go with Rex. A couple of guys from the Goulburn Aviation flying school went onto Rex and seem to be loving it. Newly qualified CPL's are a dime a dozen nowadays thanks to the VET/FEE flying schools and Uni courses. The school advertises for new instructors every now and then and are always flooded with newly qualified Grade 3's with very low hours. Standing out in that crowd is near impossible. If you go the CPL/MECIR route then be prepared for possibly a very long and hard slog into a regular well-paying job. Unless you can find a charter company that loves you for some reason. Also a consideration is that Rex/Sharp/Qantaslink will simply not look at employing you in the future when they've got their own batch of candidates who've been brought up on their way of doing things from the beginning and are well entrenched in the organisation. Definitely learn as much as you can about the cadetship and the culture of the organisation to get a feel for whether you'll 'fit'.

Low wing are well known to be more influenced by "ground effect" in the landing. Basically provides a little more cushioning in the flare so this should be the biggest difference you'll really notice that's directly attributable to the different wing (and not just different aircraft). The high wings are generally more effected by crosswinds also as the wind can get caught up under the wing against the body of the aircraft. That's some of what i've picked up over the years anyway.

From reading it would appear that converting from RA to RPL may not be a simple paperwork thing. The little "Note" at the bottom of the section talks about having to have completed a flight review for the aircraft class prior to getting issued the licence. From talks with CASA people it's something they are going to supply more detail on. Sounds like it will be a normal conversion process of getting up to speed on a GA registered aircraft and then sitting an AFR on that class. On the medical requirement I wouldn't be at all surprised to see RA-Aus adopting very similar requirements to CASA in the near future or CASA reducing their requirements. Allowing two different definitions of "Fit to drive a motor vehicle" I see as a little odd... My thoughts were that the impetus behind it all was keeping the GA guys who couldn't pass their medical flying the aircraft they're used to flying rather than bulking up the membership of RA-Aus. I'm also hoping it'll lead to a bit more investment in Australia in GA 2-seaters like the Diamond DA20. Will certainly see a greater emphasis on the "fully certified" tagline when people are deciding between GA and RA.

I'm always getting clipped over the ear by instructors for talking too fast. And i'm always first to complain when some amateur numpty blurts out the call so fast i can't understand it! Sitting back and listening though it's a very easy way to sort the "men from the boys". All the young kids (i'll include myself in that bunch :) ) tend towards blurting out their calls in a rushed panic. The more panicked they are the faster the calls! Then you'll hear the 10,000-hour plus instructors and the pilots who've been around for a while talking at such a perfect pace you never miss a single thing they're saying and they seem so calm and relaxed! Personally don't care how people announce their call sign so long as it's done at a pace that's easily understood and in a calm and relaxed manner.