Stearman

I know of some that have not been reported, but it is a good place to look and learn what is happening. the sad thing is that some pilots don't want to be seen to be doing silly things, so they keep quiet.

I know of an incident where an aircraft caught & ripped off it's tailwheel on the top wire of a fence as it came in to land. I can't find a report of that on the RAAus site. I wonder if it was recorded in the aircraft maintenance log too?

Just wondering what people are using ( if anything ) to protect composite props from stone chips & general wear?

I came across this on the Aircraft Spruce website -

3M ALUMINUM PROP TAPE - 2 WIDTH from Aircraft Spruce

Has anyone used this? Is it any more durable than the polyurethane tapes like the one linked below which I have been using, it works OK but I would like something even more durable -

3M POLYURETHANE 8561 / 8562 PROP TAPE from Aircraft Spruce

From RAAus via e-mail today -

Reactivation and Joining Fees

From 1 March, membership renewals that have been overdue for more than 30 days will be subject to a reactivation fee of $22.

RAAus incurs costs when a member joins or reactivates their membership, so rather than putting fees up, we have introduced a fee to cover the membership record setup or reactivation for new or expired members. Staying on top of your membership renewal will help you avoid this fee, if in doubt about the expiry date of your membership, simply log in to your member portal to access your membership summary and renew your membership instantly.

Did you know that if you let your membership lapse for a month, you are no longer covered by our broad-based members third-party property policy? It's important that you ensure you stay current and by renewing your membership on time you won’t be exposed to any additional charges.

I am rather surprised there has not been more reaction to the fact not all our flying schools are being inspected.

Sort of gotten lost in discussion of hours to train & what instruction cost. Just to chime in on that I know of schools regularly taking 60 hours to get a pilot certificate done. On the other hand an interstate friend had a school tell him they would have him solo in 5-6 hours.

A positive function of the Rec Flying Forum are the down to earth views that are given.Sometime the advice is on the harsh side, the anonymous nature of posts can be a problem, however most contributors are fair and frank. The RAAus Board is continuously looking at its various business functions

 

Rod Birrell

In recent times RAAus have employed a person specialising in safety. This new position has come up with such gems as sending out Hi-Viz vests & key rings that remind us pilots to engage our minds before flight. Does it really take someone specialised in safety to come up with such an un-original idea as Hi-Viz vests? How many RAAus members have been killed or injured in the history of RAAus because they were not wearing a Hi-Viz vest? Obviously there is plenty of money to be spent on safety initiatives.

Meanwhile our operations team either does not have the funding or time to get around to all our flying schools and conduct school inspections. How many of our members are aware that some of our schools are not being inspected, but instead are being requested to carry out a self assessment as per a mostly "tick & flick" questionnaire sent to them by RAAus?

Meanwhile when Operations get word of a pilot who is getting it wrong, they send these pilots to a school ( not the one they trained with ) for "remedial" training. Surely it would be more effective to try to fix the problem at it's source, which disappointingly in many cases is the school they learnt with? It is extremely difficult to re-train a pilot. Sure while the problem pilot is with another instructor they will try to do the right thing, but either over time or under pressure, all too often they will return to "first taught". Sadly this can result in things going completely wrong resulting in serious injuries or even death.

If RAAus really want to get serious about pilot safety we must start at the very beginning. Get our operations team the budget and staffing needed to conduct proper school inspections and checking of all instructors. RAAus needs to stop being a toothless tiger and allowing underperforming schools and instructors to continue to operate and turn out pilots not trained to the level they should be.

Now before all the instructors out there jump on me, hear me out. I acknowledge that there are plenty of good instructors out there, however we need to address the fact there are some who are not up to the task. For example I know of a student that recently "completed" his training without ever completing a real stall. They simply raised the nose until the aircraft slowed to the point of the controls going sloppy then lowering the nose to regain speed and recover. As a second example, a few years ago I was has having a discussion with another instructor ( from a different school from the first example ) about engine failures after take off. This instructor made the comment "If I think the student can handle it I give them a few, but if I think it will scare them I don't do EFATO's at all". This means that the students who needed it most were not getting this vital training. These are only two examples of substandard training that I continue to hear of. Sadly there are no doubt many more taking place than what I hear about, I am only one person in one location.

So how about it RAAus? Stop focusing our safety efforts on unoriginal, "warm & fuzzy" safety initiatives and get real about improving areas that will truly generate safer recreational pilots?

Leave out the words "RAAus" - that's purely an admin thing. Take same J230 and register it as VH and its 700 kg MTOW. Take same J230 and register it in Sth Africa and its 760 kg.The selection of legal weight limit is not a function of the aircrafts capability in this case.

I fly a Airborne Edge X Classic with an original Streak wing ....................

The Black Duk in standard set up, flies at around 50KIAS, for a bit more speed I mount the wing in the fwd mount hole which increases my airspeed to 55KIAS.

 

I guess the main reason I would like a quicker trike is that going anywhere outside my local area is a time consuming flight, for example I fly from a private airfield in Northern Vic, to fly to the likes of Bendigo (family) is 42 nm, Yarrawonga (instructor's field) is 50nm, yeh, only roughly a 1 hour flight for both but include transport to field and set up etc prior to flight and a flight becomes a day really easily and is the main reason I have yet to complete my X-Country endorsement, a faster trike would perhaps make it bit more worth while for me. I look at these newer trikes and how they are capable of reasonable X-Country flights that in some cases can match some fixed wing aircraft and think it would be great to do that, don't get me wrong, I love the Duk and every time I point her nose to the sky I'm happy and grateful I can, its just that even an extra 10 - 15 KIAS would make a big difference in where I fly too.

Not sure if you operate under RAAus or HGFA? I know in RAAus without a X-Country endorsement you can only fly 25nm, does HGFA allow you to do the 50nm flights without the endorsement?

In the strictly LSA class, the Jab. 230 has NO competition for overall utility. No, it isn't STOL, nor does it cruise at 125 kts (in smooth air.. flying off and onto bitumen strips). But you CAN chuck the camping gear contents of the back of your Prado into it and head off around Australia..

At an empty weight of 370kg ( without options ) you are only left with 230kg usable load.

Full fuel is 135 litres which weighs about 95kg.

If you & your passenger combined weigh any more than 135kg ( which would be a very common scenario ), you can't even fill up the tanks & that is with no baggage.

And just for good measure, I just received in the mail the rego card and in a seperate envelope an "Overdue Notice" dated the same day as the rego was processed.

What a waste of time & resources!!!

And my new rego runs out 51 weeks after it was issued. 51 weeks rego for the price of 52, now that's a good deal!?!?

Guess what ??? I received this years rego renewal, and all the stuff that was missing last year from it is still missing this year.

However I consider the following of much greater concern.

On the cover letter that comes with the renewal papers for our rego the 5th paragraph reads......( bold & itallics added by me )

"Due to the nature of aviation and in order to enhance your safety, AUSAR ( Australian Search and Rescue ) have 'read only' access to our database to assist in their duties if one of our aircraft is reported overdue. Ensuring your aircraft details are up to date is of great importance. Of particular note is the colour of the aircraft and if the aircraft is fitted with an ELT ( Emergancy Locator Transmitter ) or BRS ( Ballistic Recovery System ) which is of concern to accident investigators and other emergency personnel first on the scene of an accident."

Despite telling us how important this info is, even though a description and photos were provided with the initial registration, the colour description part of our "Databse Details for Aircraft" was left blank. If this aircraft had become the subject of a search outside of RAAus office hours, AUSAR could potentially not know the colour the aircraft they were searching for.

OK MajI am gobbed smacked-to get this straight -- some were asked to get the information last rego renewal, they did not supply the information now they are asked to do it again or are they the ones complaining about their plane that it can not be regestered?

Regards

 

Keith Page

Although not requested, photos of all rego markings and correct placarding were also supplied with the renewal in an attempt to prevent delays in case the photos supplied last year had been misplaced.

some members still have not responded to letters of request for info sent out twelve months ago. .......Maj....

Stearman, Our very capable tech manager has got the average turnaround down to less than a month, and is planning to get it down to less than 14 days ultimately. He recently processed a NEW aircraft design rego in 11 days over the Easter period !...which is very impressive. 11 days...unheard of in the past !.We have no control over when CASA decide to come in and perform an audit on rego files. They can only give 24 hrs notice. This no doubt is why yours has taken five weeks instead of less than four. Additionally Darren and his team are well advanced on putting all aircraft files onto electronic media...a move well overdue to maintain efficiency for the members........Maj....

I know of one case where a single aircraft school is now unable to operate due to rego delays. This particular aircraft was only first registered 1 year ago ( ie after the problems came to light and the auditing began ) so delays due auditing were not expected. The office was made aware a week before expiry of the circumstances of the school but it made no difference, rego expired and now a dozen students will miss flying this weekend. It is not a good thing to have to explain to these new members of our organisation why they are suffering this disruption to their training.

yes stearmanwhat you are saying is pure guess work were are your stats to prove that lack off maintenance is not the problem

neil

I know you have copped a raw deal with what has happened with your aircraft, but work that shoddy is very much the exception not the rule.

I think RAAus should be sorting bigger problems that affect many members before creating more paperwork for those of us who work to keep aircraft flying.

This new process is purely paperwork and will not reveal any substandard work. Sounds like the guy who did such a bad job on your aircraft will still have plenty of work to record in a diary to prove he is current under this new system, thus proving the worthlessness of this system.

With no statistical proof of maintenance being a factor in accidents, maybe our tech staff should be focusing on reducing the outrageous delays still going on with registrations.

The debacle continues!

Calling the office this week to enquire about the status of an aircraft rego renewal I am told they are running with a turnaround time of 5 weeks. This apparently is due to the auditing of all files.

How can we still be suffering such delays more than 18 months since all the problems came to light? They say they are re-doing the audit, so did the CASA appointed person not get our files right?

Getting this news in the same week we hear of another resignation from the management team it is hard to be optimistic about the future of RAAus.

For sure, Nev. We have completed our Skyranger Swift build, sent the documentation off on 26/4/13 and didn't even get an acknowlegement that it had been received... we hear and read lots about renewals, but little about new aircraft applications! I just hope they are not getting shoved aside to enable the backlog of renewals to be addressed. That would be quite unfair from my slightly biased perspective!

Raaus received paperwork 23/4/13 for new registration of an aircraft that has been bought to cross hire to a flying school which is currently not operating due to aircraft registration issues with their own aircraft.

Raaus are aware this school is non-operational.

Raaus has been made aware of where this aircraft is to be used.

Have had confirmation 7/5/13 that all the paperwork is complete but still no registration.

At this rate the school will go broke before anything happens with this rego. Just because the school is not training does not mean the bills stop coming in.

Raaus received paperwork early last week for new registration of an aircraft that has been bought to cross hire to a flying school that is currently not operating due to aircraft registration issues. Raaus are aware this school is non-operational.

Raaus has been made aware of where this aircraft is to be used.

 

Still have not heard anything from them.

At this rate school will go broke before RAAus does anything.

Raaus received paperwork early last week for new registration of an aircraft that has been bought to cross hire to a flying school that is currently not operating due to aircraft registration issues.

Raaus are aware this school is non-operational.

Raaus has been made aware of where this aircraft is to be used.

Still have not heard anything from them.

Check their website. Mine was 24 rego until recently also. The prop has to be certified or ground adjustable to comply with 24 rego.

The Focke Wolf replica is advertised for sale in the latest aviation trader mag.

So if an instructor does not charge GA rates he cant be as good as a GA instructor?

Plenty of us would know of some great instructors that train to really high standards but they only charge RAAus rates because that is what they train students to achieve, no matter what quality they train to, all they can issue is a RAAus certificate. That is also all this guy can provide but he wants to charge GA rates.

MM2,

This guy is obviously charging premium rates, as high or higher than some GA schools when you take off the lower aircraft operating costs.I have heard he is a GA instructor who can't do GA because he has no AOC.

If an accountant can't get work as an accountant so takes a job packing shelves at woolies should he be paid accountant rates?

This guy is only training RAAus, students will only get an RAAus certificate so why should they pay GA rates?

Yep LSAs should be thrown out, way too much trouble and not what the movement is supposed to be about.