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Markdun

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Everything posted by Markdun

  1. Fantastic flying gliders in NZ. But beware of their clouds many have rocks inside…,, and rotor..,. once into Wellington in a Fokker (this is last century) I saw classic rotor cloud on base and sure enough on final we flew straight into it…huge negative G, everything on the floor hit the ceiling and everyone’s hands were raised in surrender…. Followed immediately by strong positive G and screams. Fuck I had fun flying in that country: it didn’t matter if you were the pilot or a px in a sardine tube. A couple of years ago my teenage son and I hitched a ride in a Cessna that dropped off half a dozen Jap tourists in a remote mountain valley (Siberia) at the end of a 7 day tramp in their hills. The ‘airstrip’ was a 4 wheel drive track next to a creek.
  2. The Amateur radio organisation opposed abolishing the tests (inc Morse) so my recommendation that you just have to comply with the ‘rules’ was rejected. Two reasons: they like having an exclusive club; & some make money from training ppl for the test…. a bit like why BFRs aren’t every 5 years for RAA. Marine VHF operators licence was abolished for VHF, but several years ago volunteer marine rescue orgs were pushing to re-establish licensing…again so they could make money by training ppl to pass the exam, not that there was a problem with radio use (yeh, yeh we’ve all heard the ‘mayday, mayday, mayday, the boat’s full of water and we’re sinking’ and the response, ‘mayday boat , can you advise location and number of ppl oboard’ ). These are the same ppl who are unable to use the digital select calling on marine VHF (nearly all of them have this now, & it’s great because you can call a ship, including have their radio make an alarm on their bridge…you always get a response!) through lack of skill, who don’t turn their HF sets on to monitor emergency freqs despite publishing that they do, & get in a real tiz if you don’t report in within 15 minutes of your ETA on a 100nm plus sailing leg (and refuse to have an equiv of sartime) so I now dont ‘log’ my sailing with them. I’ve never heard of an operators test for aircraft vhf except as part of a PPL or RAA certificate. The Radcoms licence reqt for aircraft vhf was abolished. There is one weird thing though, when I installed a VHF AIS transponder on my boat (marine equiv of ADSB) the Radcoms ppl required me to have an HF radio operators licence (I have one but they lost their records!), but this is not required for ADSB. To install the AIS you connect power and a standard VHF antenna. The hexadecimal code is pre-programmed, like a PLB/EPIRB. Go figure.
  3. I think you will find the Chinese invented bureaucracy centuries before Britain existed. Spacey, I don’t understand your question. If you use a radio that meets the standards (C ticked??) on the correct frequency bands you are not charged for each frequency. As far as I know you still pay zero to use an aircraft VHF. You are meant to pay a fee for aircraft or marine HF but I don’t know why other than there is potentially a bigger risk of causing intference. However if you want exclusive use of a particular frequency you need to pay a rental fee for the use of the public asset (radio frequency)….a bit like mining companies are meant to pay for the publicly owned minerals they remove from the ground. And just like mining some big corporates pay effectively zero despite their exclusive use of valuable frequencies (broadcasters) as do Defence. Mark
  4. Cars & trucks too. No need for a RSIC ie. Road. Also keep in mind that requiring a licence like the ASIC is a fancy way to allow gov authorities to impose a penalty on you without a court order…something required by the Cth Constitution.
  5. Ian, your suggestions are based on there being a security problem that the ASIC card addresses; there isn’t. As you say it pointless ‘theatre’. If the problem is that it is just theatre and the burden ($ & valuable time) placed on those required to have them, then the solution is much easier; abolish them. Some decades ago I headed a team that reviewed the Radiocommunications Act. One of the things we looked at was licensing compliance for VHF & HF radios in aircraft and boats which at the time required each aircraft to have an apparatus licence & the radio operators to have an appropriate operators licence. An annual fee was charged for the apparatus licence. Compliance for aircraft was less than 2%; and for boaties it was around 60%; so of-course the fees didn’t cover the cost of the clerks employed by the regulator. We could have recommended massive hikes in fees & employed a team of compliance ppl and prosecutors to address the non-compliance (as is standard practice nowadays). Instead we introduced a scheme (agreed by the gov & parl) that meant no licence was required as long as the radio equipment met the regulator’s standard and that operators complied with the regulator’s rules for use, ie. no swearing etc….. a bit like the USA’s FAA part 103. My message is don’t be afraid to push for abolishing useless laws and rules. On the topic of security I note in recent weeks it has been outed in the federal parliament that the AFP has seen a massive increase in police numbers but are only managing to bring a very few charges against alleged wrong doers (despite daily reports of public servants and Ministers breaking federal laws). And it seems that violent terrorist crimes are so scarce that the AFP have to generate bad guys to justify their existence by grooming and encouraging autistic children to become terrorists.
  6. Bob, my Bert Sisler Cygnet SF2A comes close with a wing span of 9.1m and wing areas of 11.6m2; stall speed 34KCAS & cruise speed of 92KCAS, empty weight 250kg. Very similar to your D18. Also Jim Maupin tried hard to design a variable geometry wing when he was working on his Carbon Dragon foot launchable sailplane; in the end he concluded that trying to increase wing area (like a roll out sail on the trailing edge) just added too much weight, and he went for a fairly traditional 44’ tapered wing span with full span flaperons that reflexed for cruise. Stall speed was around 15 knots and Vne around 70. Max aero-tow speed was 40kts so towing was only possible with trikes or Bill Moyes/Bob Bailey’ ‘Dragonfly’. Design empty weight was off the Dragon is 75kg…the one I built was a bit more than that, so about 150kg TOW. It flew to the Jim’s specs. The Monett Moni motor glider also demonstrates the difficulties (or large compromises) of design getting low speed, low sink rate with good L/D at high speeds without variable geometry wing. The Moni has a Vso of 33kias, Vy 56, cruise at 90 & Vne of 130. TOW around 220kg. Yet L/D is only 20. The aircraft has a history of stall/spin fatalities ( I think attributed to some extent by pilots without gliding experience, an underpowered 25hp motor and the V tail) and Id expect any improvement in L/D by increasing wing span would not only make it slower but also increase its susceptibility to spins. I’m not sure why you’d want a 250kt RAA Aircraft…. Perhaps a better option instead of a T83 Thruster is a T38.
  7. I’ve tried to ‘fly on trim’ in my Cygnet to see if I could fly it that way if there was a failed elevator (broken cable) event. This is a mech trim to a small servo tab on the elevator controlled by a Bowden cable. It’s possible; but every trim adjustment input results in 3 or 4 slow sigmoidal pitch oscillations. The Cygnet is pitch, roll & yaw stable (if you let the controls go it will level off and fly straight…. maybe a little left yaw). My conclusion is that it would be possible to achieve a landing but you would need a long final leg to become stabilised and 1000m of non-undulating runway. Danny, my experience is in a Bravo and that plane’s trim still has maybe 20% more up at 65kias & 16 degrees of flaps, (which is what I use….full flaps scares me a bit), zero stick force, engine at idle, 2 ppl. I did spin training in a Blanik and that plane’s spin has a very nose down attitude and with increasing speed…. a challenge to do the 5 turns before Vne and then recover. And you would never recover by ‘level the wings’ with aileron (which would condemn you further, perhaps to an inverted spin). Recover by full opposite rudder (to level wings via secondary effect of rudder) & zero elevator, check down elevator only if necessary (which never was the case as youre pretty close to Vne). And for an incipient spin (one side wing drop near stall) recovery you just pick up that wing with the rudder & increase speed a tad (this is something we practiced a lot fiddling around at cloud base in a good thermal). With an engine I have no experience, but in the absence of advice in a flight manual I think the recommendation is to close the throttle.
  8. I don't see runway elevator trim driving a tecnam or any LSA into the ground. Much bigger aircraft yes it has happened. The Tecnam with a full flying elevator and small servo trim does not require huge effort to over-ride the trim that’s for sure. Pure speculation is the possibility that on turning final (and assuming you are at an excessive low speed like 50-55kias as if you were doing a crazy short field landing, with 2 ppl aboard), with your eyes out of the cockpit checking the runway and for other aircraft, then a runaway or inadvertant trim up will still produce an up elevator force on the control stick. If you’ve already stabilised your speed on downwind and base legs I would postulate that it’s possible a pilot would allow (maybe without being even aware of it) the stick to move back to maintain the previous pressure on the stick when the speed was previously stabilised; & in the few seconds to work out what’s going on with a check on the ASI & horizon the aircraft has begun a stall/ dropped a wing in an incipient spin. Pure speculation on my part.
  9. Turbo, the NSW legislation is the Civil Liability Act. Some law firms published summaries on the reforms u…the reforms were not liked much by law firms because it restricts rights to sue. All the States & the NT implemented the reforms but like the Road Code, each State has its own legislation and there will be some differences. The ACT under Labor Premier Stanhope sided with the lawyers and did not implement the reforms. The major changes were in relation to medical negligence and dangerous recreational activities. For medical negligence the big change was the displacement of Rogers v Whitaker and return to the ‘Bolam’ principle. The Bolam principle in effect allows a doctor to avoid being found negligent if he can find one other doctor to say he would have done the same. This enables doctors to refuse or misleadingly fail to advise patients of material risks of procedures if the profession thinks patients don’t need to know, even when the patient specially requests for it. In NSW there is also a weird threshold that a patient must suffer a certain percentage of disability as a result of the medical misadventure to qualify for damages. In regards to recreational activities the main change was for recreational activities that are obviously dangerous; things like rock climbing, parachuting, horse riding, motorbike racing, flying small aeroplanes and I suppose lawn bowls (which is the most dangerous sport to participate in as measured by deaths while engaged). But what is ‘obviously dangerous’ is not easy to define, so the legislation provides a ‘belt plus braces’ solution that says a warning sign or a document signed by the plaintiff is determinative if there is any doubt about whether the activity is obviously dangerous. I’m no expert on this, and I’d want to look very carefully at the legislation regarding commercial activities, but for non-commercial RAA flying, the pilot is very unlikely to be liable for injuries/death to a passenger. Third parties outside the aeroplane (personal & property) is totally different. The intention of the reforms was to make it clear that if you participate in dangerous recreational activities you assume the risks (& better profits for insurance companies of-course). And that is why RAA should stop the bullshit that flying is safe…it muddies the waters whether it’s obviously dangerous. It’s not only just wrong, I also think we’d get a boost in membership if we told people it’s dangerous. I’ll finish with a legal case about placards/signs. A valet parking business has s large sign at its entrance that said words to the effect that it was not liable for any loss or damage to vehicles from negligence of its employees. The wording of sign was worked out by the company’s lawyers. A customer sued the company after his car was lost at the carpark. The facts showed that one of the employees gave the keys of the car to a member of a criminal gang involved in car theft. The company lost the case and had to pay damages to the car owner because the loss was not from negligence but an intentional act.
  10. Turbo, I’d suggest you go read some texts on negligence. ‘Duty of care’ is just one element out of four (duty, breach of standard, damage but for breach, proximity) to prove the tort of negligence, and it’s probably the easiest to prove. It’sa side issue as is the insurance payout and pilot’s liability. As Bill and Nev said it’s learning and safety that we should focus on, acknowledging that flying in light planes is inherently dangerous and risky and every flight when we successfully land we should celebrate the fact we have cheated death. The question I see is who reads the RAA incident reports and do they give you insights into how to deal with the inherent risks of flying? I read them, but they give almost zero useful information. Who reads corners reports, and what useful information do they give? I don’t, & from experience Coroner reports only respond to evidence presented to them (they aren’t investigative) and more frequently tailor their reports to give comfort to surviving family (as you would expect as coroners are generally compassionate ppl). I also read ATSB reports,,, but they are very limited. I spend far more time watching Utube reports from channels such as Blancorilio on accident analysis, who occasionally includes Australian accidents. In my view that is a sad state of affairs: we really need better accident analysis and reporting.
  11. What I was saying related to whether the pilot or aircraft owner would be liable to pay financial compensation in respect of injuries, death of a passenger under the tort of negligence in the absence or presence of the RAA insurance. I say they would not. What the insurance contract says regarding payouts would depend on the contract terms between the RAA and insurance company. It may well provide for a payout, and that payout may require proof of negligence. This may be important to some people. For example Bucket’s wife may be happy for Bucket to go fly with Brendan in his RAA listed aircraft, but says, ‘Don’t you go fly with Jimbo in his unregistered aircraft because if you get killed or injured I’d get nothing’. It would be a very different thing if the injury/death was caused by an intentional act, for example, doing unapproved modifications to dual parachutes causing the death of two instructors and one student (as was alleged in NSW). No negligence, as it was deliberate. But in such a case many insurance policies would be voided because the act is also likely to be criminal. In short, the RAA policy does not provide the pilot with any significant protection against being sued by a passenger or their estate for injury or death due to negligence. It does in relation to other third parties. It may provide some additional benefit for passengers, but this is unrelated to any liability of the pilot.
  12. Bill, while I’m not aware of the details of the RAA insurance policy and you may be correct in that, it is worthwhile to point out though that a passenger’s estate has no legal jurisdiction to sue for the tort of negligence, or even a deliberate action for that matter. A person can only sue for civil damages if they have suffered damage, and according to law the death of of a wife or child is not damage unless it causes you nervous shock. More importantly in most jurisdictions in Australia (we are a federation), except the A.C.T., tort law reform about a decade ago means that families of a passenger killed in an RAA aircraft even if they did suffer damage/injury (like nervous shock, loss of income, loss of ‘consortium’) would not be eligible as flying light aircraft is an inherently dangerous recreational activity that is obvious. Further the little yellow cockpit warning signs makes it additionally apparent that the passenger knew of the risks and assumes the consequences of them materialising. So in this respect I agree with you; the RAA insurance is pretty much useless for a passenger, and I think that is way it should be (though for children I’m not so sure). The thing is we should tell passengers truthfully about the risks; I do. But it is not useless to a spectator injured on the ground or property damaged on the ground, or ppl in injured in say a GA aircraft you collide with etc. Bt the way those same tort law reforms also severely restrict patient’s rights to sue doctors for negligence. The objective of the reforms was to reduce insurance premiums and was championed by active lobbying of our governments by big insurance companies who have a voice, unlike us citizens. Of-course no one has gone back and assessed whether insurance companies did reduce their premiums or whether they just increased executives’ salaries and returns to shareholders.
  13. A runaway trim on the Tecnam is a known thing. There should be an AD on it. The microswitches wiring in the control stick has tight bends and the wiring fails and shorts. Failures tend to be intermittent and can’t be replicated on the ground with no engine vibration (ie. LAME’s report no problem, or problem fixed, when it’s not). We have found if you have trim failures in the air, DONT keep fiddling with the trim: fly the aircraft and switch the trim control to the other side which in most cases will still work. I flew a Bravo from Kalgoorlie to Goulburn with the trim set to our cruise because it was a nightmare every time we tried to adjust it. We initially thought it was just bulldust in the ‘audio’ connectors used to drive the trim servo in the tail cone but no. It took the owner a gazillion tear downs of the control stick and wearing magnifying binoculars to find the fault in the wiring.
  14. Markdun

    Corby Starlet

    In my hanger at 35 11.5S 149 38.8E; NSW Southern Tablelands ~7nm south of Tarago. My airstrip is pretty obvious on satellite photos and is marked on Google maps. Mark
  15. And Don, if I recall correctly, in your 900 hours you survived a broken/collapsed wing spar in flight & at least 2 ‘outlandings’ into paddocks following engine failures; one into a crop of lupins over a metre high. The last 2, both the aircraft and you could fly again. I also recall you doing a precautionary landing into a paddock near Braidwood to avoid hail. So you must be doing something right. Mark
  16. The ATSB report is silent on whether the pilot has done the training on the use of the parachute. Recalling the history of US death rates in this type of aircraft were nearly double because pilots didn’t deploy the chute and this was substantially reduced by training. So rather than pilot incapacitation, it may have been a reluctance to deploy the chute and the belief (like most of us) that our training on spin recovery will enable us to recover from a spin ie. centre controls, full opposite rudder, pull throttle, check fwd on elevator.
  17. In cloud from 5000’ to 8000’ and freezing level 5000’. Aircraft climbing but slowing down (AP on vertical climb??); and descent started at 70kts ground speed. Stall speed (clean) 69kts. The optional de-icing modifications to the aircraft were not done. So who suggested icing? https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2023/report/ao-2023-045
  18. KR, the one thing (& maybe the only thing) we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history. Sorry I don’t have a source other than my in house university professor who did an undergraduate degree in history many years ago and who gets very cranky at naive economists (which is nearly all of them) who ignore economic history.
  19. The school my son went to had a fantastic security system; there was pretty much zero chance for any ‘stranger’ hanging around on school ground. It was a kindy to year 12 school, so big spread of ages. The older kids were taught that when they saw someone on the ground they didn’t know or thought shouldn’t be there, they should approach them and say words like, ‘Hi, I’m John Smith and you look like you might be lost. Can I help you? I can show you to school reception, principals e office if you like’. And the kids did this. Whenever I turned up I always had some bright eyed confident 14-17 year old as an escort (usually to the principal’s office where my son was waiting to be picked up).
  20. Turbo, I think you are dreaming; at best it will be just to check with ASIO, probably not directly, whether the person with that ID is on a watch list. And that’s a Mungaweka mile from ‘not likely to be a threat’. But if as you say it’s your opinion they are not likely to be a threat and you believe it, then the ASIC has delivered its objective of making people perceive feel safer.
  21. I find the ID thing intriguing. Clearly knowing someone’s ID can have absolutely zero to do with ‘keeping things safe’. Knowing someone’s ID enables the Gov to issue an infringement notice to them etc, but it doesn’t issue stop the person committing a crime. I would admit however, that knowing someone’s name can result in unfounded discrimination and IDdetention, for example if your mother named you, Hamid. And I can’t see th at even if a police check showed a person had previous convictions that that would disqualify them from being issued with an ASIC, particularly if they have fulfilled the sentence imposed by a court. On the other hand an airport operator would have right to require you to identify yourself as a condition of remaining on the property and so they can invoice you in respect of contractual obligations you’ve agreed to such as landing fees. The same as you have the right to know the ID of the person selling you groceries, or the person who comes into your home. Where it gets really murky is the assertion that the registered operator of the aircraft (or for an aircraft operated under the auspices of RA-Aus, the person listed as operating that aircraft (note RA-Aus aircraft are not Australian registered aircraft as defined by the regulations despite what RA-Aus says)) can be billed by AVDATA for a contract entered into by the PIC when the PIC decided to land at an airfield. This would be a black and white breach of the privity of contract rule. Of-course, there would be no issue when the PIC and the registered operator are the same person. This is why toll-road operators have had their mendicant State government pass laws giving them oppressive rights to pursue ‘registered operators’ of cars rather than drivers…. No such laws apply to AVDATA (perhaps I shouldn’t have said that).
  22. I may be wrong but I think ALAs are an anachronism from last century when a GA pilot committed an offence if he/she operated a GA aircraft from an airfield/paddock that was not an ALA. Before the turn of the century the rule was changed and became that it was up to the pilot to determine whether the field was suitable. That said ALAs remain in databases and insurance companies refer to them…along the lines that their coverage doesn’t apply to operations from fields that aren’t. Where my airstrip is located there are at least 4 others within 5nm; all used and none are ALAs. There are also a couple of ALAs which have not seen an aircraft in 23 years.
  23. A flying trip up to Longreach a few years ago had a few doozies. I then had an ASIC and an anti-terrorist Aircraft lock comprising of a soft thin walled aluminium tube with a ‘crusader’ brand padlock purchased fromClints for $1.49. This went over the throttle and met the standard. I think it was Bourke where the sign on the code locked gate stated ‘Lift flap for code’. I felt like adding the Arabic translation as it gave unfair advantage to English speaking terrorists. At another ‘security controlled aerodrome after refueling I telephoned the fuel agent/aerodrome operator to find out how to exit. I was told the locked powered gate had the chain removed from the sprocket and so one just had to give it a hard push and it would slide open. I asked whether the security fence was effective in keeping malfeasants out and was told, ‘Nah, but it’s bloody great as we no longer have to do a run down the runway in the ute to get the kangaroos and emus a few minutes before any RPT lands, and the guys from town had a few great nights shooting the roos and emus inside the fence when it was just built’. I don’t think many people actually believe the ASIC or airport security in general is effective in reducing the risk or incidence of security related incidents. The whole lot is just theatre, providing a facade or fig leaf …. Not to hide the falsity that flying in RPTs is dangerous,,, because the facts show the opposite, but to convince the public to return to buying tickets because of the perception that there was a high risk following 9/11, that is to maintain the revenue for commercial airlines (& perhaps the psychic benefit of the travelling public feeling safer), and give the appearance that our governments/politicians are doing ‘something’. My whinge is that the ASIC is totally disproportionate to its costs, particularly the burden imposed on us. I also maintain that the ASIC reduces ppl’s vigilance on security….. the guys in the hanger don’t need to worry about security because ASIC and the security guys handle that. Nev, the crime of ‘incite’ like I said is difficult to prove, and secondly has to be more than just some guys yacking. There has to be some actual physical steps taken to encourage the other person to commit the crime; signing an agreement to pay them, giving them the tools to do the deed etc. If that wasn’t the case I reckon nearly 100% of boys aged 14-20 (and ‘boys’ older than 65) would be guilty.
  24. Let’s put this in perspective. I personally know of a serial paedophile, Aaron James Holliday, who while in remand in gaol in the A.C.T., conspired with another inmate to pay $10k to have a 12 year old boy kidnapped, forced to give a video statement that his brother was lying (about the sexual assault) and then to be ‘knocked’. The evidence presented to court was notes written by Holliday, and the testimony of the prisoner Holliday asked to organise the kidnapping and murder. A jury found him guilty of kidnapping but not of conspiracy for contract killing because the prosecution did not provide evidence that in ‘crim talk’ having someone ‘knocked’ meant having them murdered. The High Court overturned the guilty conviction on appeal. Convictions for encouraging other ppl to commit crimes (so called ‘inchoate’ offences), like telling them how to avoid prosecution, are notoriously difficult to prosecute…even proven paedophiles get away with it. So it’s not just ‘get a life’, but also ‘get real’. That said everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I have no ill feelings to those that like the ASIC arrangements.
  25. I can beat that Spacey. I wore my climbing rope, iceaxe, ice hammer, climbing hardware (karabiners, ice screws, crampons), also to NZ because hand baggage wasn’t weighed. No problem with security, though Flight attendant did warn me that she didn’t think the rope would be long enough if I wanted to abseil from the aircraft. My mountaineering partner’s girl friend gave him a large Xmas cake (+3kg) wrapped in foil…. Could have been mostly hashish knowing what those two got up to (but it was just cake)…. Again no one cared less. On arriving in NZ the customs guys kindly cleaned our boots. And recently in Australia I had about a metre of stainless steel ‘safety wire’ that was in the bottom of a daypack confiscated…go figure.
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