Ed Herring

All the best with your recovery Peter...!

Glad you think its funny turbo, but that might not be s silly as you think. Have a BFR done from the ground by someone who has no idea what you are doing or if you are doing it right, OR send a video to a properly certified CFI showing perhaps your pre-flight, circuit, low pass, engine out, setting up for dual, or whatever is required.Interesting concept. I don't see why it can't at least be worthy of discussion.

 

Andy, whilst PPC's certainly deserve the same care and responsibility, that does not necessarily mean the same rules should apply. They should be appropriate to the aircraft. It is extremely misleading to say "the issues raised all have as their genesis the lack of instructors around the place. If there were no impediments by virtue of instructor amounts then the need for the same pathways to certificate would not really be seen as an issue." When you know very well the current rules will ensure even if you could find a CFI to teach you as an instructor, it would highly unlikely to be able to get through to be able to actually teach anyone to fly. The lengths of time for training as instructor and SI will ensure that. An instructor does not need 75 hours of supervision before being able to become a SI in a PPC. I worked out that even if my CFI was to fly every weekend (which he doesn't) and didn't take holidays it would take nearly 2 years to to get to where i could apply for a SI rating and I would have traveled around 10,000 km for that training.

 

The Australian made PPC company has produced well over 400 PPC's, others have been imported or home built. RAA has 222 PPC's on the register. Ever wondered where all the rest are? I would bet not many are written off or sitting in sheds rusting away. The owners have simply "opted out" as it is a damn site easier than trying to stay legal. RAA must make it attractive for people to change their ways and become legal.

 

It is not up to the PPC community to address this issue, THAT is the issue RAA needs to address. It needs to have a system that pilots CAN become instructors and SI's.

 

You have eluded to the recent death in a PPC so why not tell everyone the the status of that Pilot and aircraft. He was not the holder of a valid pilot certificate and his aircraft was unregistered. Its time RAA worked out why this is so prevalent.

 

RAA needs to get serious or more will opt out. How many Instructors and SI's have been trained in the last 5 years? How many PPC's do you think you will have on the register when all 6 of our aging CFI's stop training in 5/10 years. It will decrease rapidly, but i bet they won't stop flying. If the system does not allow for a pilot to be legal at a reasonable cost and in a reasonable manner there is not much point paying RAA membership and Rego fees.

 

Its time some of the Board actually learnt to fly a PPC so they know how the decisions they make are relevant.

I hope all is good for you over there. How is your Instructor Training going mate, you must nearly be there by now....!

Regards

ED

Fair call Ig - there is an inconsistency there that deserves an explanation. The (my) problem has something to do with the old saying that words were invented to disguise our true meaning.What I should have said is that Ed believed he'd never get his proposal approved by the Board.

 

It is my belief that he actually would have got it up. This is based a bit on 20:20 hindsight - the commentary from Board Members, since the announcement, that they are not opposed to the creation of the STCC position.

 

But by the same method, I have not heard any come out and say that appointing a long serving Board member and current member of the Executive into the role would be a good look. Especially when Myles suggested himself while he was still a member of the Board and the Executive.

 

Surely nobody currently thinks that the jobs-for-the-boys approach is still a good recruitment strategy? That in itself is a damning commentary on the judgement exercised in this instance by Ed and Myles.

This may come as a complete surprise to some but here is my first post in a long time. I simply need to set one thing straight regarding the STCC appointment. Steve Runciman had been trying to create the position for many months because as President he knew it was essential I was one of the few that supported him. The Board would not support us. For the Board to now say that they are now not opposed to the appointment is positive and its a great shame that they needed to be guided into it in the way they have. The constitution clearly states that in an emergency the Executive can act on such matters. The board was very well aware that the only way I would take on the role of President was if they supported me totally on these issues that I spelt out before them. At the time of the vote I got 100% support. Some are now retracting that support to suit their own agendas. There are obviously members who do not consider the issue to be an emergency but we can draw a parallel any time two Lawyers are in a room with the same degrees and opposite views. My decisions are based on the fact that I work in an industry that would not exist without compliance so I understand the importance to our future as without a concentrated effort in safety and compliance we simply will not exist in our current form in the near future. Importantly CASA see the recent action as positive steps forward.

Regards

Ed

In addition, at the "Meet the Board" thingo, Steve R .(President) was clear that a questionairre/feedback slip would be included in a future magazine and was hoping for many people to respond (ie: more than who vote on board elections!)Chris

Firstly it was great to catch up to you again at NATFLY. As you are aware i have been AWOL for quite a while but my workload is intense and since being the SA Board Member Representative any spare time is dedicated to it. You will well understand that....! As the "last minute" NATFLY 2012 Co-ordinator thrown in at the deep end after most things were organised, i have had an interesting time to say the least.

The NATFLY Committee worked very hard and "We" got a lot of things right but also a number of things went astray as you well know....! As i am the NATFLY 2013 Co-ordinator charged with getting it right, I felt compelled to check this forum to gather some of the views. Hang on a minute, please don't all call or email me at once now will you...! I have read this post and agree with some of your comments and some i had strangely enough already thought of.

Steve Runciman will be putting a feedback slip in a magazine soon so that is the oportunity to have a say. The problem generally though is the same as at voting time...most members don't bother. So i ask all members to fill out the form and send it in and we will listen.

I will welcome suggestions for next year and the best way to do that is to email me at [email protected] or phone me on 0408 787 018

I appreciated once again meeting many, a highlight was meeting the 6'10" Maj Millard...Perception is such an interesting thing isn't it....!

Best Regards

ED

Hi AllThe changes that have been made over the last few days is the start of cleaning up this site. I have never wanted politics to be a part of it and over the last 12 months they have been at the forefront of much of the site's content. At one stage I was so displeased with the way politics was used here by the likes of David Isaac and Blackrod and others to their own political gains that I even said to them that I wanted to split the site and have a completely different site just for their politics but they strongly argued against that as it wasn't what they wanted. So this site continued on with the political gains of some.

I even created a poll some time back to see whether others felt like I did but afterwards realised that those that voted for politics were here for the politics and not what I set this site up for.

 

I had enough of it and this site will not be used to feather the political gains of individuals.

 

I was also drawn into this trap and I didn't like what I was seeing so it had to stop which is why I have and am removing all opportunity in users, forums, threads and posts so it won't go down that track again.

 

I am getting the site back to being a helpful resource to all recreational aviators which is why the entire Governing Bodies forum was removed. I ran this by a couple of Moderators and they also agreed with me in the way this site should be used from this point on...a resource for pilots to help each other through their experiences and knowledge with no political or secret agendas.

 

Years ago this was a friendly and helpful resource that helped so many and that was always the intent of the site and from this point on, with the expanded forums and more that is coming up, you will again be able to use this site in the way it was always intended, a valuable resource away from political agendas and just down right friendly help and assistance in your flying endeavours.

 

I have removed several users from the site and deleted many posts to get the site content back to being of value to all recreational aviators.

 

I ask if there is anyone else that still want to play political games then please find somewhere else to do that then here.

 

I hope you understand why I have taken this hard decision as I just want this site to get back to being about flying and helping each other. The further enhancements that are coming up would also be hampered if there were politics here so it is all in line with transforming this site into what I believe you will really enjoy and make great use of as it was always intended...thanks for your time

Well done and i think you have made the correct decision for the right reasons. You have proved beyond doubt that RA-Aus Members and other Aviation enthusiasts want a Recreational Flying Forum and your dedication ( not to mention time and money ) gives us just that. Yes the politics gets out of hand in any forum so it is great to have a resourse without the political inuendos and arguments. Of course i also believe that the moderators should edit or delete any post that is detrimental to any person, cause or incident.

Best Regards

ED

Well, it's taken me a few days to catch up with this thread but I wanted to take some time and fully consider it.My first reaction is to thank John Brandon for starting this thread with his lengthy and deeply thoughtful post that must have taken some time and effort to compose. I also appreciate his asking for some restraint in bagging the Board to give the new chums time to settle in and get the lay of the land.

 

It is true that from 24th September we will have a Board that is short on RA-Aus Board experience. Six of the Thirteen will be "first timers". There is a lot of catching up to do for the new members and that will absorb considerable time. That will impact on the amount if time that we will be able to devote to the Rec Flying Forum for a period. If we were faced with a constant barrage of questions in the first few weeks it could be difficult to respond within a reasonable time frame.

 

However John, we are not without experience in life, business, senior management, Board representation or aviation. There is a good spread of experiences in the incoming Members representatives. And a few of them/us, at our age, could hardly defer to our elders because the current Board "elders" may be younger than us.

 

Nevertheless, John is right that we are going to be busier than a one armed brickie in Libya for the first few months at least. Speaking for myself, I've been elected to do a job and no small part of that was to improve two-way communication between the Membership and the Board. I will not suddenly go very quiet.

 

At the same time as I agree we need some restraint, I fully understand why, in some other threads, there have been some strident attempts to guide the new Board in their voting for the new Executive. I don't have a problem with people expressing their views but of course, in the end, the Board will decide the Executive based on the individual judgements of the Board Members.

 

While we have all formed views on how well or badly the current Board has performed, the new Board has a significantly different composition. As you could reasonably expect, the new Board Members will, in voting for the new Executive, have access to information that was not previously available to them and which may not be legally published on the Forum.

Like Don i thank you John for raising this thread because what you said has certainly been on my mind and i trust that your views are respected. My prime agenda initialy is to attempt to encourage the Board to work together and i have stated previously that we must have agree to disagree strategies and respect each others views while working towards a balanced objective to benifit the continued growth and strengh of the organisation. I must say that of the Board Members i have communicated with to date i am satisfied that we will be a group working together. Yes it will take some time to settle in but we are determined to make it work and work it will. Short post but i am off to the airport to enjoy the privelage of my RA-Aus Pilot Certificate.

Best Regards

ED

Carol,Rather than debate the merits of whether we will or will not have Natfly, which I personally think is an absurd issue to debate; I would like to offer to co-ordinate the attendance, display and demonstration of early 95-10 and 95-25 aircraft. This will of course be subject to Board approval of such attendance, display and demonstration even though this was raised at the post mortem meeting.

I will start by offerring my 1983, 95-10 Javelin for attendance, display and demonstration.

 

David

Best Regards

:plane:ED

[Hi Ed and Don,As you know, Iwas doing quite a lot of jobs for the organisation as a Board Member. It became very difficult and time consuming when I had to contact the office who contacted a member, who then asked the member to contact me, because of the privacy document wording. The Board passed a motion to change the document to say that no information would be given out to anyone except Board members engaging in BOARD business for the BOARD. That would allow those Board Members only who actually work for the organisation to contact those members they needed to contact without going through the office and wasting more time and money. That was passed in 2009. At every Board meeting I asked if the documentation had been updated and it still hasn't. It required the changing of only a few words. I know this is not the mass distribution you are talking about, but you have to know how difficult getting anything done can be - even something simple.

Cazza

Your tireless efforts at Natfly over several years has definately been noted and appreciated by all of the Membership that attended. You are more aware than most that any event relies on the volunteers because it will simply not happen without them. I certainly trust that you will be heavily involved with Natfly 2012. Obviously i am still naive regarding the boards history, but with your experience and skill and of course local contacts at Temora, we should assist you to do this onerous task as much as we can. ( obviously i am praying that you are willing )

On another matter completely i would love to see some of your previously published and excelent educational articles reprinted in our Magazine.... hint hint...!

Best Regards

ED

Best Regards

ED

That's a very, very poor voter turnout!

By now most of you will have received notification that i was successful in my endeavour to become the RA-Aus Board Member Representative for South Australia. This is thanks to the Members that took the time to vote.

I am under no illusion that i will not face challenges with the role but i will be doing my very best to keep the membership informed as best i can. In the next few weeks i will be distributing a form for you all to fill out and return to me with your contact details so that communication is possible. In my Election Statement i promised that i would communicate with SA Members as best i can and if this is your wish this Form is necessary due to the fact that many Members have not ticked the box for the USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION, RESPECTING YOUR PRIVACY Declaration, to allow other RA-Aus Members ( including Board Members for the obvious privacy reasons ), access to contact details for Members.

There are currently about 1183 SA Members and 283 votes were counted so we managed to increase the members interest in voting to about 24% from about 15% last time which is a very good effort on behalf of the SA Members. I also thank Bas and Ian for standing and making it a contest. Meanwhile, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Once again thank you for your support.

Best Regards

ED

Ed Herring

SA RA-Aus Board Rep ( Elect )

# 003605

0408 787 018

or the option of scrapping it all together?

With respect would you mind just keeping with the intent of the Poll and we can debate the rest later.

Best Regards

ED:wink:

There has been a lot of talk about the name "Sport Pilot" of the new RAAus magazine so here's you chance to simply say yes or no what your thoughts are on the name of the magazine

Thanks Ian for the oportunity for us to voice an opinion on your Forum on such an important issue.

On June 30th i emailed all RA-Aus Board Members on the matter and i consider that i have had a very poor response. To date i have had 2 email replies and have spoken with 3 others (including yourself) in person or by phone. I deliberately did not comment on the Forum previously out of respect for the current Board Members but they have had ample oportunity to respond and most have not. I have also had a good conversation with our new Editor, Brian Bigg who asured me that it was "Quote: Entirely a Board decision to name the Magazine, "Sport Pilot".

Fundementally the name is inappropriate for our organisation. We ARE Members of Recreational Aviation Australia Inc.. We ARE Recreational Pilots. We FLY Recreational Aircraft. So WHY doesnt our Magazine reflect who and what we are given that the magazine is the main conduit of information from our organisation...?

Obviously some Members approve of the name and i respect those opinions, but i consider that the reasoning above to be part of the justification for my opinion on the matter. I am looking forward to the judgement of the Poll.

Best Regards

ED

With a couple of week’s holiday due, we took the opportunity to extend our Natfly experience and tour the Murray River – from the air!Hi Louise

 

Fantastic report and pictures. Say G,Day next time you are in Goolwa.

 

Best Regards

 

ED:clap:

Thanks Pow,Now I know a little about E Smith, but Gavin is a mystery to me???

 

You on here Gavin? :big_grin:

 

Pud

In my humble opinion and for what it is worth, Ed Smith is one of the good guys currently on the board and i mean no dispespect at all to the other WA contender, ( Gavin... and all the best to him as well ) because i know nothing about him. I believe that Ed Smith should get at least one more term to consolidate his good work so far. Sometimes our Reps do stuff quietly and constructively behind the scenes and partly due to the lack of access to the RA-Aus Data Base even by a Board Member, it can be difficult to communicate to the Members. My suggestion to all Members is that they email their local Board Member Rep with their contact details if they wish to communicate with the Rep reguarly or at all. Which is exactly what i will be asking the SA Members to do if i happen to be successful at this election.

Best Regards

:contract:ED

Thanks for that EdWell once I get the magazine I guess I'll find out - looks like I'll be voting after all.

 

Who are the candidates for WA?

If i had my Magazine i could tell you. A friend told me there were 2 Candidates for WA

Best Regards

ED

As far as I am aware BlackRod, I don't have a choice of candidates to vote for here in WA.I will be looking with interest on proceedings in other states though:big_grin:

Pud

If you check your Magazine you will find you have a choice of Candidates

Best Regards

ED:plane:

Still waiting in SQ.

Still no magazine!!!!

No mag today but I have seen one at a Newsagent.Col - loved that video on Hurling. And I thought hockey could be pretty dangerous especially played by greatly determined but low-skilled people like myself and on rough surface fields.

 

If anyone buys the magazine they will not of course get the ballot papers with the copy from the newsagent.

 

Please do take the time to read the candidate statements, ask us all the questions you can think of and please do vote. It is very important that we all exercise our democratic rights if we are to end up with the best Association we can have with Board Members responsive to the Members who elect them.

I agree with Don. Think about your Candidates, ask questions of them but above all vote and make it count. Don't forget to put your Member number on the reply paid envelope to make sure your vote is valid.

Best Regards

ED

The unkindest cut of all . . . . being accused of programmed specificity.

I don't mind the online mag that looks like a mag. But I read them on a 23" screen linked to my Notebook and they are easy enough to read without zooming. For all that I do understand that not everybody is using that setup and there advantages to be had with making the magazine (online version) more interactive and therefore informative and interesting.This is what it looked like in a Newsagents in Newcastle, NSW.

 

[ATTACH=full]14135[/ATTACH]

Best Regards

ED

Hi all,Looks like a nice place to hang out. I am from Sunbury and I am building a Skypup. If you would like to know more do a google search as there is good builder support on the web. Try 'Machnone' or skypup yahoo group.

I have the centre wing spar done and I am working on the main wing spars. All hardware and most materials are now bought. I don't think many people like to build in wood these days but I love it, it's just like a model plane only bigger.

 

Anyhow Best wishes.

I checked out the MachNone website and i will follow this with interest. Good on you for choosing the project and i am sure you will have a lot of fun building and flying the aircraft. This is just what the 95.10 category needs is for more people to actually "just do it"....! keep us posted with info and of course photo's if you can.

Best Regards

Ed

It is on our future to do list, but not a very high priority as most of our users are day VFR pilots. It is of course further complicated by the fact that to make it work, we need to geo-reference 1800 approach plates by hand to start with and 300 or so updates every three months! So it's a big job...Android is an interesting beast; get's a lot of media attention, lots of devices on the shelves, the numbers say as many devices out there as iOS, but: all my fellow developers who have ported their software to Andoid report only 5-10% of their income is from Android! So to be honest, we have lowered our priority somewhat. What we'll most likely do is to get version 1 out first, which just has ERSA, DAPS and AIP and see how that goes before we invest a lot of money in making something as complete as OzRunways 2.0. (We need to hire someone as we don't have time to do Android ourselves; porting to Android is a 100% re-write of the software.)

 

In the mean time: just buy an iPad! Flying using OzRunways rocks and it's still two grand cheaper than a big screen Garmin which requires panel space and doesn't give you ERSA, DAPs or BOM radar! :)

 

Look for that before the year is out. Complete with automatic winds to calculate ground speed, times, etc.

 

The price we are setting now is the price it's going to be. All that new stuff will just become part of it. Going from version 1 to version 2 is the only "paid" upgrade. I put paid in quotes because the way we are going to do it is by using your existing subscription as credit. Say you bought all-in-one for $50 6 months ago, that means you have $25 left in your account. If you now want the VFR package at $75 a year, you can simply upgrade your existing subscription to 3 months worth of VFR. That was just the easiest and fairest way to do it for us and the users.

 

And of course all existing users will also get a 1 month trial of all the new features before deciding to upgrade or not! (we suspect you all will...)

 

Bas.

Its a fantastic product as you demonstrated to me last week on your IPad...! I am still trying to get my wife to go buy some expensive clothes so that i can buy an IPad...! Meanwhile will it work on my iphone...?

Best Regards

ED

Hi All.What a great place, I'm glad I signed up.

The Super Petrel is mine, along with my brother and father, we purchased the aircraft from a deceased estate at "The Oaks". I'm a new pilot with only 70 hours but just the most amazing part of my life with exceptions of my little daughter.

 

My father owns a Cessna Cardinal RG but also loves our new machine, its simply brilliant off land but in the water thats where it truly shines.

 

Full fuel, two 85 kg occupants and on the step at half throttle and by the time full throttle is reached you are ready to rotate.

 

We cruise between 85-90 knots and burn 15 lts.

 

When I was doing my training I remember leaving for Coffs Harbour (water endorsement) and many people told me how hard water can be, but I tell you its far easier on water than the tar....... very very easy, and lots of fun.

 

We land on the water at Lake Illawarra, Gosford, North Shore or head up to Wisemans ferry.... although lake hoping down the coast is fantastic.

 

Jay

Fantastic...! We are fortunate enough to have Ross Vining ( Editor of SPAA ) http://www.seaplanes.org.au/ over here with his Sea Ray and Ross is a great exponent of the world on water. We have great waterways South of Adelaide SA, and another mate has a Sea Ray kit on the way. I am looking forward to trying it on water because we have so much potential for Amphibians here in SA. Looking forward to more of your adventures Jay.

Best Regards

ED

Hi there.My name is Jay, I just joined the site and thought an introduction would be a good start.

Best Regards

ED