Phil Perry

Glad the chap was OK Sue. . . usual press comment, 'Downwinds' responsible. . . . . Quick Question Sue, what Rans do you fly I wonder ?. . we had a Rans fly in at Otherton last year, they are a very popular brand. Models and Engines were varied,. . from Rotax 447 'S7' model with single seat, to 503 two strokes to Rotax 912s, . .and yesterday,. . Mate Tony breezed in flying a Jabiru powered Rans S6 Coyote. . . fantastic climb performance,. . . but then Tony can be a bit of a showoff. . ( Every airfield has a 'Tony' who is indestructible. . .everyone else was using Rwy 16R,. . . but on departure, he used 07R. . . gotta stay away from the sheeple innit. . . I've asked for a ticket to his wake. . . We used to have Two Rans S-tens on the site,. . but they ARE a little challenging, especially for pilots who are more than 150 centimetres in personal vertical displacement. . . I ferried one from Blackpool to our airfield once, ( 532 Rotax 2 stroke internal pull rope starter,( which came compete with a claw hammer to reach the handle from the pilot's seat. . ) and every time I looked left and right, the canopy snagged my headset and I was staring to the ear cup. . .they are OK for limited aeros too, but NOT in the UK. . . Good range of airframes, though the S6 model can turn very nasty if mishandled on the base to final turn.

Thnks DJP, but the Page is unavailable ( to me ) regrettably. . .

David was indeed a crop duster,. . he was actively doing that in between instructing at Casey Airfield. . . the last I heard form sources on this site was that he owned a taxi business somewhere, but that report must be at least six years old. . .That is very sad. I knew David And Wendy quite well, and he taught me All manner of naughty things, that pilots really shouldn't do. . ., finally allowing me to fly his Pawnee. . .with a 'Verbal' checkride ! It was thanks to him that I won a job as a Glider Tug pilot in the UK, as no one else at the gliding club had any Pawnee experience. . . A truly NICE 'Character' of Australian aviation. R.I.P. David.

I'll be at Otherton over the weekend mate,. . .I've already had a PPR phone call from a gaggle who are flying up from near London and headed for Scotland, seven of them,. . better make sure there's plenty of tea. . . I haven't been for a sarnie to the Green for a while,. . have to blag a ride soon. My kite is still in bits in a shed. . . Forecast tomorrow is good, light S/W and possibly 15c ! ! ! Heatwave mate . .

Sadly Yes. . . No excuses offered, . . I learned to fly in a Tigger, unofficially, whilst being far too young to solo, But I had at least 50 hours stick time on the type. Followed by a further 3 hours with David Squirrel, after I got licenced on C-150 and PA 28s. This was caused by me being too impatient to wait for a wingman to taxy back from the runway. I lost directional control of the machine ( at a very low speed ) and it swung right and headed for the ditch. Pilot error X 100. Bloody stupid overconfident youth. Keith said that if I ever did something like that again,. . .he would leave me out of his will. . . Lovely chap.

Oh Turbo,. . .I have looked at it Longingly on Goggly Earth. . so sad. . .that place contains some wonderful memories for me. I doubt of CASA would allow me a licence, since DCA said at the time, that my vision was so bad ?) that I should not be allowed to engage in international navigation, as I had no useful sight in my left eye. . .odd that they allowed me a GA PPL,. with which I flew to PNG and Indonesia. . . and that I got a commercial in the UK later, and flew cargo, ferry and Air taxi for money for quite long time. .. but that aside, I'm getting on a bit now mate, 68.5. . .so If I ever get the chance to visit again, I'd need some young buck in a Stol to do that for me. . . a Dornier 17 would be nice. . . ( ! ) They used to use one of those from Berwick for towing banners, with such messages as. . 'BUY A FROZEN MARS BAR' etc. . .lovely machine ( 235 HP I think ) but they wouldn't let me near the thing after I bent Keith Hatfields DH82A ( VH-TIG )! Although it wasn't really damaged, I just nosed it into a very shalllow ditch in a crosswind whilst taxying . . .! Hit the switches and stopped the prop first though. . .

I have to disagree with that a little with regard to using the term 'YES'. . , being a very short word, it is easily missed when ( as many pilots seem to do in my experience ) press the PTT at exactly the same time that they begin speaking resulting in the first fragment of the message being lost. ( VOX Effect ) waiting for just a second gives the radio / intercom combination time to lock into transmit. . . Being a pedantic barstard, I always teach this in my radio courses,. . . using the Norman Collier 'Broken Mic lead' example. . . For this reason I still believe that Ayfirm is better than Yes. Although I would not advise using it in response to a question from a wine waiter, unless you were dining in the Royal Aero Club restaurant. . .and the Wine waiter was also a Wineviator. . . . This doesn't mean to infer that you are wrong BTW. . . I also prefer UNABLE with regard to an instruction to which you would find it difficult or indeed impossible with which to comply.

Imagine the Airfield scene if you will, . . 13.5 C , and 1013 QFE on the barometer. . . Clear blue sky, just a coupla jet contrails scything across the Blue dome. . . Light breeze ie 5Kt S/Westerley. . . Had the day off work and sat there monitoring the new 8.33 Khz base radio setup. . .just Three insurgents in seven hours. Most relaxing. . . The Noisiest was a Chinook,. . .which didn't announce it's impending arrival,. . .came in very low and did a Run On landing not far from the Clubhouse, which is fortunately well bolted down ( ! ) It was carrying a bunch of 'Tooled Up' squaddies on an exercise apparently. . . and they apologised for landing with no prior. . . .I had to let them off, as I was unarmed. Two of them stepped off the ramp and had a quick look around, dressed in black, masked and hooded.. . . .It was a good job they didn't require tea, as the clubhouse was locked up and I have no key. . . Apart from that little bit of excitement, I spoke to One Foxbat, one of ours,. . .and some guy in a Jodel, who was obviously using a WW2 valve radio set by the sound of it. . . Our Club flyers are always whingeing about not being able to fly in the winter months,, and yet the weather has been very mild since the New Year began. . . .Today was exemplary,. . .albeit not much to do on the radio. . . The guy in the Foxbt asked me how his audio sounded,. . I said @Fine'. . .He said "I should Bloody well hope so after spending twelve hundred bloody quid on this new wireless . .( he wan't happy about some mong in the EU deciding that this 8.33 business was a good idea,. . It wasn't, he was right. There was absolutely no need whatsoever to do it, but that's the EU..)

Without prejudice we shall judiciously interpret that statement as given under your hand in the prime instance first hereinbefore written Sir.

I wonder why it is,. . .that all these Really Useful things are only learned through terror and much experience Nev ? Funny that. . . 'IF I knew then,. . .what I know now ' . . .etc. . . For instance, I didn't know initially that VHF radio comms were fairly useless in that wild and huge country; over more than about 50 NM,. . and once had to revert to HF. . .with NO training on the system, but having some amateur radio experience worked it out and got through to Darwin flight Service to pass a position report to Melbourne on the AFTN. . . I got to LOVE flying around Australia. . .there's nothing like it . . .

And to think I always believed that Navel Gazing was something to do with Military Sailors. . . .

UPDATE. . .Matey mentioned in the above post has just passed his Air Law exam and only dropped one question. Well done that man. On the following day ( Sunday 3rd ) he also whistled through HPL ( Human Performance and Limitations) with 85%. . .and also 'Aircraft Technical' with just one question incorrect. He wants to buy a Flexwing Trike, 912 powered. He says it's a compliment to his Motorcycling experience so he thought that a 'SKYBIKE' was a very good idea. . . and His Wifey agrees. I suffer too much from the bloody cold nowadays, but wished him the best.. . Young lad at our site has modified his Rans S6 582 2 stroke for both cabin and SEAT HEATING. . ( I have no idea how he is powering that lot ! ) Such is life in our Northern planetary aspect. .

I had an interesting conversation with a new student last week mate. . . He's up to seven hours now and loves the flying, but is terrified that he'll have to remember all of the codes ( acronyms ) in the training manual. . . Being a late starter, he's in his mid fifties, this is a really worry and he doubts if he'll be able to remember them all . . I said not to worry, you won't Have to. Obviously there are a few Acronyms that he'll need to be fully familiar with ie VNE and some other 'Vee' speed and 'Q' codes, but no one has to be able to quote the meanings of ALL of them. ( Well maybe a few of them in exams. . .) There are far too many in my view, in the technical age, there is no need at all to break down EVERY subject into code form,. . that was for back in the days of Morse code for a lot of them where it was much easier to send three letters to ask or report something. We still ask for the QNH or the QFE in some cases, rather than a long blather on the radio asking 'what's the current local pressure altimeter setting for your airfield Sir ?' I'm sure you can add to this list. . . I guess that asking your first officer for the QRH when three large geese have just inconveniently taken out both the engines of your A320 at 2,800 feet above New York is OK too,. . saves valuable time ( ! ) and in that instance, 'APU' ( item 15 on the list ) would be handy as well. . . [ Although, as it happened, not actually neccessary] ?

All of the Urban UK Power distribution is underground. . . . They only put lines on poles out in the countryside to effectively Deny distressed aviators all of the best, longest and flattest forced landing fields. . .

Thanks Nev. . . .

[No message]

No need mate,. . .all the POLES are working in England now. . .

Helicopters can be a Bugger. . . most ESPECIALLY if you learned to fly in a 'Conventional' three axis aircraft. . . there are so many 'Ingrained' things you need to UN-LEARN, or 'SUSPEND' whilst training in a rotary wing appliance. . . I had the benefit of several hours of flying with a friend between Port Moresby and Lae in an old Bell 47 in the 1970s,. . which taught me that these things were not really intended to fly on Hot days. . .and that the carby heat control wore out in a short time. . . Thanks to Larry, who was ex Canadian Air Force pilot, plus some hours in the UK, I got the hang of it. . ( Sort of ) and finally got a ticket to ride. . in very light machines, (Robinson R-22.) . But the cost of flying them in the UK was bloody prohibitive, unless you had unlimited funds. . .which I didn't. The most difficult part of helicopter flying is the hover.. . .Many hours of training are devoted to this.. . I didn't have too many problems here, due to previous crimes in the B-47. . .If an instructor has ever said to you. . 'Now. . Gentle changes of pressure on the controls' . .. that's what hovering is all about. and the same for flying on Instruments in training too. . .

It can be a bit of a pain when the variation changes more than 6 degrees though,. . .think of all that runway number paint. .! ! ! When I started Microlight flying in the 1980s, I noticed that the large wartime runway we were using was displaying a number which was eleven degrees out of kilter with the published and indicated magnetic readings. Living proof of the shifting magnetic North pole. . .

I still vividly recall my first 'Wheels up' . . I was taxying a Tiger Moth from one hangar to another,. . as instructed, after having worked at the Airfield for over a year learning to be a mechanic. . .I had to taxy along the runway area to get form point A to point B,. . and taxied too fast.. and NO,. . it wasn't DELIBERATE.. . I was too young for that malarkey to have kicked in yet. .. The Tiger lifted off the ground and I fair near shat myself. . pulling the throttle back to idle and dropping back onto the grass runway with a 'Thump'. .. solo time ,. . from memory, about seven to eight seconds. Ma height approx 20 feet. . Place, Pendeford Airfield ( Wolverhampton ) Date about July 1958. I realise that his doesn't count . . . First 'Proper' Solo thanks to Allan Baskett, at Casey Airfield, Berwick Vic., in 1971. . Groupair Flying School. aircraft was C-150, VH KQM. Did 2 solo circuits on Rwy 12 RH, I saw Alan Waving at me after the first one, and mistook his signal for 'Go and do another one'. . .. that was NOT what he meant ( No radio at the time ) Felt great . . .decided I was going to be an ACE flyer. . . . . The feeling I had was something between Wonderment and absolute terror. . . Hmmm. . .

I believe that Bernaud Ziegler, the original brain behind the creation of the AIRBUS, used slide rules in the early days, to design his Much maligned aircraft and the control system laws which denied the Pilot / Commanders the final say about the flight envelope. . . Very intersting story that,. . but I'm digressing here . . .Sorry.

According to my good Friend Mike Whitaker,. .. ( Ask Kasper ) the slide rule was the premier calculator of ALL of the maths used to design and build Concorde. . . .Slow YES. . . but very effective in the right hands. . ..

I heard that we lost yet Another Dambuster today, I missed the news report, but I'll try and dig it out. Vic Barnett was, apparently a mate of Barnes Wallis, and their friendship extended after the war, this info came out during the funeral eulogy which we had to monitor standing outside in the freezing cold wind,. . the Crematorium is almost at the top of Redhill, the highest ground in Telford ( Discounting the Wrekin )