Markdun

Spacey, I think there is a reasonable article in the Guardian today that tried to answer this question. I don’t know. Tthere is not a lot of empirical statistically robust research. There is the general argument that vaccinated will have less severe outcomes.....but by how much and what proportion? There are growing comments about children both increasingly contracting the disease and getting long covid/complications with the Delta strain. It’s good of the USA and UK to have experimented (sorry trialled) vaccines on their children for us. I do recall early on in the pandemic that a number of hospitals and obstetricians were demanding newborn infants be separated from their mothers (& forced csaesarians in one country) despite the absence of evidence of any benefit. A similar thing happened with HIV in Africa which resulted in thousands of unnecessary infant deaths. It’s true we have to make decisions with imperfect information (which would have been better if Morrison had not completely bungled the borders and quarantine), but too often the absence of evidence is wrongly confused with evidence of absence.

Alan, I have two aircraft, both powered by a Jab2200 with a mechanical fuel pump and with a facet electric ‘boost’ pump in series for T/O and landing. One has a mid wing and tank (shoulder level) with a simple vented cap, probably with some negative pressure as it slopes to the back. This works fine, and will go ok with just gravity feed. The other aircraft has a low wing and the tank is mounted above ones’ knees. It has a forward facing vent. I tried gravity feed with a boost pump in parallel, but that set up failed the gravity feed ground test, hence the mechanical pump plus facet. Over 200 hrs in each. I can’t tell the difference. Both tanks have finger strainers and fuel filters to eliminate problems of bugs and blown grass in the tank. Cheers, Mark

Ok, I’ll now stick my oar in. First, there is BS everywhere on this issue. Second, for good trustworthy and reliable information listen to the WHO twice weekly press conference. Also look at the data and graphs on the covid pandemic in ‘ourworldindata’. Third, acknowledge that not all outcomes are due to guvmnt or individual action...chance and environment also play their part. Australia has had good outcomes mainly because of our remoteness and isolation....oceans are good. Had the premiers not forced the prime minister to close borders we would have been worse off. Fourth, the vaccines. Some like AZ (& a host of others) have ‘emergency approval’. In some countries (USA) others have full approval (mRNA). Fifth, the vaccines are targeted at reducing deaths and severe illness...they do NOT make people immune, nor are thet tested for reducing transmission. For example, in the UK over 50% of the population are ‘fully vaccinated’ (over 70% just one dose), and as a result now over 90% have some immune response to Covid,,,,either because they have had the disease or have been vaccinated. The good news is that the UK despite having an obscene death rate to date (a total basket case really) deaths are now down to 40 per day (and yes it is both vaccinated and unvaccinated). The bad news is that even with such high percentages of vaccination or ‘natural immunity’ their case numbers have been massively growing and hospitals are at capacity. The evidence there is that being vaccinated reduces getting the disease by about 50% and similarly it only reduces transmission about the same (this is still with over 90% efficacy for death or severe morbidity). This is still extremely good, but it is also why it is completely nonesensical to allow vaccinated people to travel or ignore other public health measured, like mask wearing. Indeed it is possible that vaccinated people may be more likely to spread the disease precisely because they wrongly believe they no longer need to be careful. Sixth, the other lesson learned from the UK is that the ‘let it rip in a fully vaccinated population’ policy, is likely to substantially reduce deaths (compared to an unvaccinated population), but it nevertheless will result in increased deaths. My back of the envelope calculation is about 5,000 to 10,000 per year for Australia. The question is, what is an acceptable number of deaths per annum to open an economy that is doing ok without opening up? Influenza currently kills about 3000 per annum. seven, with the Delta strain that has almost double the transmission of the original one, it is likely that ‘herd immunity’ will not be reached even with 100% vaccinated. I expect some clever footwork by the boffins on this, with a fudged answer that assumes a certain ongoing death rate. Eight, there are several studies on case death rates by age, gender and race in quite divergent cultures and countries. The relationship is pretty uniform and the main findings are that death rates is a log relationship to age: over 80..20%; over 70 ...10%; over 60...5%; under 30...bugger all. The average of 3% is pretty meaningless. This is why the advice on AZ and age has changed. Nine, the problem in Sydney was caused by failed border control; too lax entry, too many exemptions, no federal purpose built effective quarantine facilities (despite having 18 months to do so). Had the federal government fulfilled their Constitutional responsibilities on ‘we determine who comes across our borders’, we wouldn’t need to be in the mad rush to vaccinate. Instead, it could have been more orderly, and more moral (in assisting our neighbours in more need). Instead the hapless feds rushed to purchase vaccines, driving up the price and reducing supply for those in more need, and botched the delivery. Ten, if you want a good comparison use NZ, Taiwan andSouth Korea. If you want to look at failed countries look at the USA, UK, France, Brazil. I used some comparison with the UK....but be careful....they have effectively euthanised a substantial proportion of their over 70 year olds, so their reduced, but still significant, death rate may be due to eugenically thinning out the weak. Eleven, when you get vaccinated, keep doing the other stuff as you still are likely to be contagious!

I think you will find the federal auditor, Grant Hehir, has quite a good track record. This is not a paper clip counting exercise. I expect the auditors people will not only listen to CASA, but also talk to those in the industry. i, too, have had experience in accompanying auditors on random financial compliance audits a federal grants program which I managed (generally spoken of these days ‘rorts programs’) ....I was amazed at the sloppiness of state QANGOs like regional development boards versus the meticulousness of community not-for-profits. My program was also subject to a federal auditor-general performance audit. They reasonably quickly identified a program we continued funding millions of your dollars to, that had absolutely no hope of succeeding, including my note to our ‘board’ that handing out a $5000 cheque to every rate payer would have delivered 4 times the benefit of the proposal they agreed to fund. Luckily for my Dept I also convinced them to advise the Minister to abolish that part of the program...and he declined. The Auditor gave that a tick, because the stupidity was a well documented political decision, not unlawful or bad administration.

Good point. I thought the same about Airservices ‘land grab’ for class C airspace at a time of falling GA traffic. My impression is that tge auditor is particularly interested in how CASA does or doesn’t do enough on compliance/enforcement in RPT and commercial, along the lines, it’s no good having rules if everyone, particularly the shonky ones, are ignoring them.

Here is your opportunity to let our wonderful federal auditor (of fame for exposing all the federal ‘rorts’ in spending our money unlawfully as per the sports rorts etc etc etc etc etc). But remember the AG’s intention is that CASA more effectively and efficiently implement and enforce the legislation and sub-ordinate regulations, not assess whether such regulation is over-burdensome or unecessary. https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/the-civil-aviation-safety-authority-casa-planning-and-conduct-surveillance-activities

Bruce, navigation is not only knowing where you are, it has to have meaning or context. An aviator got lost in a hot air balloon, so he descended over a golf course and asked a couple of guys playing golf where he was. Their answer was, ‘you’re in a hot air balloon 200’ above a golf course’. He then asked if they were accountants, to which they responded, ‘how did you know?’. ‘Because the answer you gave was precisely correct, but absolutely useless’. Jimmy Cook was a superb navigator, but when he cruised the Australian east coast he may have known his lat & long, but his charts didn’t show where the land and water was etc. so despite knowing his lat and long, he had to navigate with the original instrument....the Mark 1 Eyeball and a string with a lead weight on the end. Knowing his lat and long enabled him to make an accurate chart for others....indeed some of the charts I’ve used in 1985 were marked as Lt Cook of the RN being the chart maker.

Spacey, my reliance on the sextant was pre-GPS days. If it broke, you fall back on dead-reckoning, or you do a Jimmy Cook, ie. eyeball navigation. Some yachties still do a James Cook for east coast navigation, ie. keep the land to port. This reliance on instant modern equipment is often just too much. At work, a colleague thought up a policy proposal to have emergency phones every 5 km on all major highways because it might save a few lives despite the massive cost because, ‘how do you call for help, if there’s an accident’? My response was you do what people have always done...knock on the door of the nearest house and ask them to call an ambulance, or stop a car and ask them to do so at the next house’. Evidently this is too ‘embarrassing for young ones.

Like I said, if the screen goes blank, there is the colour based navigation option. But seriously, our primary navigation instrument is the eyeball, hopefully both of them, which should find you a paddock to land in. If not, you shouldn’t be flying. I do carry an orienteering compass and a paper map with me, despite the colouring navigation option. I’ve used this compass to sail single handed across thousands of nautical miles (with charts, a sextant, almanac, watch and calculator/log tables)...if it’s good enough for that. However, this is not life saving stuff to have, just it would be nice to get to where you want to go.

I’ve still got a nifty Z80 based computer that I built a little while ago. When connected to a HF radio’s audio output and a thermal paper printer, prints out the BOMs weather reports including actual and predicted MSL pressure charts. A toggle switch changes the program (I think it’s called an ‘App’ now) to Morse code decoding, assuming you re-tune the HF radio to an appropriate frequency (like RAN ships)...quite interesting if you want to learn which admiral is moving ships for cocktails etc. At least this was all from the 1980s. I suppose it still works. However, I’ve never really worried about what if the GPS system goes down and I’ve never had a need to look at a magnetic mechanical compass in an aircraft. If the GPS system is out, there’s a lot more grief for others than just me....and I can always revert to the colour and temperature method of navigation, ie. green OK; red, too far west; blue too east; hot too far north, cold too far south.

I forgot to mention. Laminations are used because wood shrinks and expands with changes in moisture content, and this doesn’t occur evenly. Laminating makes the plank/propeller dimensionally stable with changes in moisture content. Length wise, along the grain, wood moves little ~1% or so. Radially (imagine a line from the centre of the tree going outwards horizontally) ~5% or so. Tangentially (also horizontal, but parallel to the growth rings ~ 8-10%. This is why many timber boards twist cup and split. Of-course, some timber’s are pretty dimensional stable with moisture content, eg western red cedar, and this is why this wood is often used in windows and boat building despite being soft (it’s also toxic and doesn’t rot). And if you purchase radially sawn timber (the yanks call it ‘quarter sawn’) as you ought to for aircraft, then you minimise twisting, cupping and splitting, but you don’t get rid of it; laminating does. Also laminating overcomes small defects, like knots, gum pockets, grain misdirection etc.

Spacey, that’s an excellent idea. My Jim Maupin designed Carbon Dragon had lots of wood-cf composite construction. The wing main spars (full cantilever wing 44’ wing span) had caps of spruce and carbon fibre. The spruce was in the shape of a ‘U’ that tapered towards the wing tips. The carbon was ‘tows’; a specified number went full length and then there was progressive less full length. You had to make a jig for the carbon to roll off a roll, down through an epoxy bath, up to be squeezed to get rid of excess resin, then along the length of the spar cap. The wing ribs were also made with 1/4x1/4” spruce strips with a 3/32” groove routed down the centre (another jig), and carbon tows were laminated into that groove (similar jigging as for the wing spar caps). These made exceptionally light and very rigid and tough wing ribs. CF has good compression strength, unlike Kevlar, but in most work the compression forces are handled by the resin. But this is why cf laminations are very stiff, again unlike the floppy nature of Kevlar laminations. The problem with cf is that with such a low modulus of elasticity it bends only a very little and then fails completely.....it’s brittle. The combination with wood as a composite in the Carbon Dragon seemed to work well. However, Kevlar was the main tension load bearing material from the wing spar (and anti drag) attachment points to the fuselage. Back to prop building, the question would be what are you trying to achieve by laminating cf between the wood? It would make it much stiffer, which could make the prop more efficient, but it would also make it less resilient and perhaps less forgiving to engine power pulses say. I’d also give a warning from my experience...cf is not easy on tools...if you intend to do any shaping, cutting, sanding etc...good luck.

Skip, in sailing boats there’s a saying you can’t have a boat that is fast, cheap and with lots of room below. You can have any two features but not all three. I think aeroplanes are similar...we can’t have it all. Perhaps it’s time, as we all are getting older, to compromise on speed, but keep comfort etc. As per ‘Flying for fun’, spending more time getting there is, might deliver more fun! I hadn’t heard all that about the Europa....it always looked like a nice aeroplane.

Skip, I’m thinking a Europa...stall speed maybe a tad more than 30 though. And if you get some long wings you can switch the iron thermal off. Negative is low wing, but then I own a Corby which is such a hoot to fly....what’s wrong with 115 kts?

My comments about my experience flying gliders was based on flying in NZ. I agree with Mike’s comments about the GFA...strictly rule based, not safety conscious. I stopped after a check flight with an instructor in strong winds and heavy turbulent sink who was pissed I didn’t landed short instead of putting brakes away to risk a long landing among other gliders and people. He hopped out, pushed the tail through the 25kt wind, the rudder jibing savagely as you would expect, and with the rudder cable exiting the aircraft....an oversized or improperly swaged Nicopress sleeve gave way, and of-course, that glider was unairworthy both before and after this! This was the last straw for me. That club were discouraging of any family attending, particularly children, and expected everyone to attend a full day or not at all. I’m not surprised at all that the GFA has declining membership....they certainly weren’t fun to fly with for me.....a stark contrast to the people of Wellington Gliding Club in NZ based at Paraparaumu aerodrome.....and I’m an Australian and was only in NZ for a job for a few years!

Thanks....I also recall that the guy who landed the Boeing convertible soft-top in Hawaii was also a former glider pilot...but not completely sure on that one. Anyway, I would advise all people interested in flying to do some gliding; it’s not only good for flying skills & knowledge, it’s also good for your hearing and your soul. In gliding I learnt about and experienced incipient spins; we spun and had to recover; we did EFATO releases and flew circuits from 200’agl; we always did co-ordinated turns, including close to the ground; we climbed in weak narrow thermals frequently dropping that inboard wing and picking it up with rudder not aileron; we did outlandings which weren’t emergencies; we scared trampers and sheep ridge soaring in the mountains; we flew super smooth wave to 15,000’; we were towed through extremely rough rotor losing and regaining site of the tug in seconds; my kids often got to ride in the back seat of the Cub tow plane; we coastal ridge soared in westerlies below 800’ for ages; we flew with 10 or more gliders in the same thermal; we did aero tows, winch launches, car tow launches, and rubber band launches off the side of a hill with the hang-glider guys....flying for fun at its very best!

And the guy that dead sticked a heavy who run out of fuel in North America...the one where thought he was buying kilograms of fuel but they sold him ‘pounds’.

Two point landing. Its not three point until the wing tip is resting on the grass. 🙂

I also agree with Nev and Bruce. Gliders are conventional aircraft. As regards landing, I’ve only flown gliders with one wheel and a tail skid, and landing is as per conventional for any tail dragger; fly a conventional circuit, control glide slope with spoiler/brakes or side slip, using the spoiler/brakes/side slip like you would with a throttle, except you can’t do a go around, or like a dead stick landing in a powered aircraft. Cross wind landing is by crabbing not wing down....wing down risks a ground loop from touching a wing tip on the ground. Most gliders will also pull up fast, say if that fence is coming up too fast, by doing a wheeler landing, applying wheel brakes if you have them and pushing the stick forward to rub the forward under fuselage in front of the wheel on the grass. They also pull up faster if you keep the undercarriage retracted. I’ve assumed you understand the difference between nose wheel and tail dragger aircraft in that the centre of mass in a nose wheel aircraft is forward of the main wheels, and so when the mains touch the runway on landing the nose drops and this reduces the AoA on the wings, reducing lift. On a tail dragger the opposite happens, so if you land with airspeed above stall, the tendency is for the nose to pitch up, increasing the AoA, and you will balloon back into the air. There are also considerations about how spoilers/brakes affect stalling. The gliding club I belonged to regularly had landing ‘competitions’. We would put a row of toi toi (pampas grass) across tge runway to simulate a fence. The winner was the person who went clear over the row of pampas grass and pulled up closest to them. One time a young bloke came in with the club Blanik, real slow, brakes in, pulled up over the pampas and then snapped the brakes out. The glider immediately stalled about 1.2m above the ‘runway’ with almost no forward speed, coming to a stop about two plane lengths from the pampas fence.....a hard landing, but easily the shortest. The CFI disqualified him.

Contemplating how I could install a remote transponder in my Corby (definitely no room on the panel for a transponder) with it being controlled by my MGL Xtreme EFIS. Seems there are plenty of cheap Garmin XTR33 around. You would think manufacturers would publish their RS232 protocols but alas, no. The MGL setup is for a Sanden remote transponder, so it has the functionality. Has anyone either worked out the protocols or built a multiplexer/converter?

I’ve said before flying small aeroplanes is inherently dangerous, and it always grates whenever I hear Ra-Aus rabbiting on about how safe it is. (And they’d probably get more growth in membership if they emphasised the danger instead of carping about safety...that is, if you’re one of those fools who want endless growth). Overcoming and dealing with the danger is to me, one of the fundamental joys of flying my own plane. And that is why it erks me substantially when I’m treated like a child by Ra-Australia or CASA when they compel me to use some commercial certified person to check or do the work on my bird, with that being pot luck whether the job is done properly. If it’s me that does it wrong, I’ve got one person to blame. Of-course the most dangerous sport of them all is lawn bowls, but I don’t hear of any moves that they should undertake more training, particularly human factors, nor get a permission note from a doctor when they turn 75 because they might lie about their health, nor a trained and certified maintenance engineer to tend their lawns and equipment. And the most dangerous thing we ever use is a bed; while matron might do a daily inspection, my guess is many users of beds fail to do the simplest, ‘am I safe’ check or lodge a sleep plan before embarking on 8 hours, despite this being the most likely place we will die.

Except for your first sentence, I agree with you Spacey. My ‘but’, is your view of ‘most’ unfair. I agree the policy objective should be the least worst. And from the point of view of an individual injured due to gross negligence, the Kiwi system is unfair, like you say. But how unfair is our system, where billions of dollars each year are wasted on lawyers and insurance companies (which could go to the injured), while many injured go completely uncompensated. I was a secondary school teacher in the early 1980s and one of my year 10 students was run over by some unlicensed youths in an unregistered car. He suffered two seriously broken legs and a smashed hip with life long disabilities ensuing. No third party insurance, and the wrong-doers had no income, no assets, and no future. He got nothing, except a life long disability. How unfair is that? I’d add, if there was ‘gross negligence’, and I’m not up on whether that has a specific legal meaning, it would seem it would also be common law ‘criminal negligence’, which is defined the same as the tort of negligence, except a jury finds the negligence so bad (gross?) it warrants a criminal penalty such as term of imprisonment. The big negative of the NZ system is there is less incentive for hazard makers to be careful. We found it not uncommon to find a big hole in the footpath or road with just a couple of 200l empty drums thrown in and a witches hat...no signs, lights or barriers...but hey, it does make oneself more careful of other idiots. Can’t someone tell me off for being off topic now? I’ve been getting high oil pressure alerts in my Jab powered Cygnet. Does this indicate oil pressure unit is failing or that the PRV is playing up??

Yes. In my view the NZ system is far, far superior. An injured person doesn’t have to prove someone was at fault, or run the risk a defendant was bankrupt, unemployed with no assets....everyone is compensated. No third party compulsory insurance for cars, no wasted money on useless lawyers or for profit insurance companies. The NZ accident compensation system has got some problems for sure, but nothing like we have here. One of the problems here is that judges are human and feel, as they should, for the situation of some poor fool, like the quadriplegic from diving into the sand at Bondi breaking his neck, and then look to where the person can get some money....local government or someone with insurance! Understandable, but crazy.

Turbo, see below. Insurance is different...often it seems insurance companies assume liability and pay when they shouldn’t....and just pass the costs on to customers. And sometimes this gets confused with legal liability. Australia: Civil liability for personal harm - dangerous recreational activity and obvious risk 05 June 2013 by Ross Donaldson Colin Biggers & Paisley In brief - Court decision gives recreational and adventure operators more guidance A student learning to fly a light aircraft is engaging in a "dangerous recreational activity". A crash landing is an "obvious risk" of that activity in the context of civil liability legislative provisions. Legislative reform provides more protection to recreational and adventure businesses A body of law continues to develop to define and exclude from recovery from damages persons who are injured when participating in certain recreational or adventure activities. This has been the consequence of legislative reform seeking to provide more protection to operators of those recreational and adventure businesses. Emergency landing of light aircraft causes harm to student pilot In the District Court of NSW ( Campbell v Hay [2013] NSWDC 11), the plaintiff, Noel Campbell, a student pilot, sued Rodney Hay, a pilot instructor, arising out of injuries he sustained when participating in a flying lesson. During the course of the lesson, the aircraft engine stopped and Hay took over its controls and undertook a forced landing, resulting in Campbell sustaining injury. Briefly the background of this incident is that about 45 minutes into the flight engine vibrations were encountered. On increasing the aircraft's revolutions, the vibrations apparently disappeared. A short time after this it was said vibrations returned but the engine commenced to run well for about a minute. Hay took control of the aircraft, applied full power and took other steps, but the engine subsequently failed. Hay put the aircraft into a gliding mode, allegedly attempting to restart the engine and undertook an emergency landing into a bush gully. Hay was an experienced pilot who had had been involved in a number of emergency landings over his career. Student pilot claims that instructor's management of aircraft was negligent Hay's negligent conduct alleged by Campbell focused on his management of the aircraft, leading up to and including the engine failure, and his decision in regard to managing and landing the aircraft in this period. The aircraft engine experienced roughness shortly before it failed. Expert evidence was led in favour of Campbell to suggest that on encountering engine difficulties, a decision should have been made to seek the nearest available landing area, rather than proceed with his original course and then having to deal with the consequences of the engine ultimately failing. Pilot instructor found negligent but argues that risk of injury was obvious The trial judge found that Hay had not exercised reasonable care by not ensuring that the aircraft was flown towards an appropriate landing strip immediately after the second set of vibrations started and by his decision to continue to fly towards Katoomba. Hay was found negligent as the pilot instructor, but he argued that the activity was a dangerous recreational activity, the risk of injury was an obvious risk and Campbell was precluded from recovering. Civil liability provisions provide some protection In NSW, pursuant to the Civil Liability Act (NSW) 2002 (the Act), a person injured whilst participating in a dangerous recreational activity and as a result of the injury arising from a risk that is an obvious risk is barred from recovering damages from another person, notwithstanding that other person may have been negligent. Those provisions offer powerful protection to operators of businesses which offer such activities. (For more information please see our earlier article A user's guide to the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW).) The public policy behind this legislation is to prevent placing the burden of civil claims on operators of such activities, when society perceives that these activities are inherently dangerous and bring with them an obvious risk of injury or death. Risk that would have been obvious to a reasonable person Section 5L of the Act requires a number of steps to be determined before a bar operates to exclude recovery. Those steps must be that the court finds that the activity is a dangerous recreational activity, which under Section 5K means a recreational activity that involves a significant risk of physical harm and that the harm suffered is an obvious risk as defined by Section 5F, being "a risk that, in the circumstances, would have been obvious to a reasonable person in the position of that person". Section 5F provides that an obvious risk includes a risk that is patent or a matter of common knowledge and can be a risk even if it has a low probability of occurring. Obvious risk as defined under Victorian law In Victoria, there is no equivalent of Section 5L of the Act. That is, there is no statutory bar to a claim in negligence if it is established that the activity involves an obvious risk, but the statutory provisions in Part X of the Wrongs Act (1958) seek to codify some of the common law as it relates to claims in negligence, including the awareness of the risk. For example, sections 53 -55 require a court to assume the claimant had knowledge of an obvious risk, if a defence of voluntary assumption of risk is pleaded (reversing the onus of proof on this issue). Obvious risk is similarly defined as in the NSW legislation. A claimant cannot recover if the injury arises from the materialisation of an inherent risk of an activity. An inherent risk is defined to be something that cannot be avoided by the exercise of reasonable care. Sporting clubs and adventure activity businesses need liability insurance These provisions are the product of the tort reform following the so-called insurance crisis after the collapse of HIH Insurance. It was perceived that there was an inability of sporting clubs and operators of more risky activities to obtain liability insurance. The definition of a "recreational" activity or services in the context of claims for damages for personal harm has also gained importance by virtue of the Australian Consumer Law and state fair trading legislation which permits operators to exclude certain terms, implied by legislation into a contract for the supply of recreational services, if certain express warnings are given to a participant. What is a dangerous recreational activity? In Campbell v Hay the Court had no difficulty finding that flying lessons in a light aircraft is a recreational activity. The question was whether this was a dangerous recreational activity within the meaning of the legislation. It must involve a significant risk of physical harm ( Section 5K). The trial judge took guidance from enunciation of relevant principles by the NSW Court of Appeal decision of Jaber v Rockdale City Council [2008] NSWCA 98 to answer this question. Jaber involved a person injured from diving into shallow water. The standard to be applied lies somewhere between identifying a trivial risk and one that is likely to occur, with reference to both the risk and the physical harm likely. An activity involving a significant risk of sustaining insignificant physical harm (described as a sprained ankle or a minor scratch to the leg) could not necessarily be regarded as a dangerous recreational activity. The risk of physical harm must be significant, while the risk of it occurring may be low or unlikely, but not trivial. A significant risk must be somewhere between the likelihood being trivial and one that is likely to occur. Risk of accident when flying a light aircraft not trivial or remote The court held flying lessons were a dangerous recreational activity. The risk of something going wrong in an aircraft, off the ground with a single engine was obvious. An aircraft in difficulty needed to be landed. The aircraft could get into difficulty for a number of reasons: pilot incapacity, pilot error, engine failure, and other mechanical problems. The likelihood of risk of injury was not trivial. In assessing whether this was a dangerous recreational activity, the court was inclined to inform itself and make its own assessment based on its own knowledge and experience. However, Hay did lead evidence, including statistical evidence of the number of accidents involving light aircraft, including injuries and fatalities. It is obvious, as common experience would suggest, that the risk of accident when flying a light aircraft was not trivial or remote. Crash landing is an obvious risk of flying In regard to whether the injury had an obvious risk, the court considered that as a matter of knowledge and common sense there is a risk of injury if Hay was negligent. A failure to manage or operate the aircraft in a reasonable manner could eventuate in a forced landing or a crash. This was sufficient to satisfy the definition of "obvious risk" in Section 5F of the Act, notwithstanding the low probability of the risk of harm occurring. Despite a finding of the instructor's negligence, Hay was barred from recovering damages. An obvious risk is not always obvious, despite the activity being dangerous Showing that a dangerous recreational activity has an obvious risk is not as easy as it might seem. A decision of the District Court of NSW in Harris v Perisher Blue Pty Limited [2011] NSWDC 172 illustrates the point. The trial judge had no difficulty concluding that snow skiing at the Perisher ski resort in the Snowy Mountains was a "dangerous recreational activity", but the circumstances giving rise to the injury were not caused by an "obvious" risk. In that case Harris sued the operator of the resort as a result of injuries he sustained when participating in a beginners' lesson. He failed to negotiate a ditch located towards the bottom of the beginners' slope. The ditch was not considered simply a product of the normal undulation and unevenness of a ski slope, but constituted something more significant and unexpected. The court found that the risk of harm, i.e. skiing into this ditch was not "a result of a materialisation of an obvious risk of a dangerous recreational activity". Harris was not barred from recovering pursuant to Section 5L(1) of the Act. That finding was not interfered with on appeal, although the appeal focused on more fundamental, breach of duty and causation issues (see Perisher Blue Pty Limited v Harris [2013] NSWCA 38). Of course, having overcome that threshold, Harris was still required to prove that the resort operator acted negligently to recover damages. (For more information about this case please see our earlier article District Court finds non-delegable duty of school during skiing excursion.) Recreational and adventure activity operators are getting the protection they need The decision in Campbell v Hay adds to the body of law regarding the civil liability of operators of recreational and adventure activities to customers who suffer injury or death. Operators and their insurers can take some comfort (and perhaps protection) with the court adopting a broad interpretation of the legislation. Injuries to be expected of such activities should not be compensable. At first glance one might think that embarking upon a course of flying lessons, an activity involving sophisticated and well maintained machines operated by highly trained people, would not constitute a dangerous recreational activity, but the court's reasoning is sound. Yet there will continue to be argument in future as to whether these statutory provisions will apply to many novel activities. Participants in adventure activities cannot expect to be protected from all harm In the field of recreational and adventure activities and the liability of operators, and prior to these more modern legislative reforms, the courts have grappled with the need to recognise that there must be a trade-off between the experience a recreational or adventure activity offers, (excitement, exertion, exhilaration, fear, challenge), as against the risk that an injury may be sustained. Participants cannot expect to have these experiences (which are as much emotional as they are physical) yet be "wrapped in cotton wool" and protected from all injury. A balance must be struck, ensuring that operators provide a relatively safe experience, but not necessarily risk or injury free. (Most people participate in organised sport on that understanding.) Alternatively, operators can provide a very risky activity but with full disclosure and acknowledgment of those risks with accompanying waivers and exclusions - for example, perhaps, in the case of parachuting and motor racing. Even a low risk of significant harm makes a recreational activity dangerous Where the recreational or adventure activity may cause an injury that is not trivial, even if there is a low probability of it occurring, it can be considered a dangerous recreational activity. Similar findings have been made about diverse activities including snow skiing and shooting kangaroos by spotlight, although participating in touch rugby was found not to be and an organised gym class, or whale watching from a boat were held not to involve the supply of recreational services. Providers of dangerous recreational activities failing to exercise reasonable care Injured persons remain permitted to recover loss and damage involving dangerous recreational activities where the eventuality of the risk of harm is not obvious, and the operator has failed to exercise reasonable care. Examples of the application of these principles for recreational operators could include a horse trail ride operator providing a defective saddle strap which breaks and a patron falls, or a scuba dive operator placing divers in a powerful current, having failed to interpret the tide charts properly. In these examples, a reasonable person may not have expected the eventuality of the harm, and but for the operator's negligence, the injury would not have occurred. Content and scope of risk warnings considered in Action Paintball case On the 13 May 2013 the NSW Court of Appeal delivered a judgment in Action Paintball Games Pty Ltd (in liquidation) v Barker [2013] NSWCA 128 which included a consideration of the content and scope of risk warnings to be given to participants of recreational activities. Under section 5M of the Act no duty of care is owed if a risk warning was given regarding a recreational activity. The plaintiff was 10 years old at the time when she participated in a laser tag game in open bushland occupied by Action Paintball. The plaintiff tripped on a tree root and suffered injury. She was awarded damages in the District Court. The Court of Appeal found that a general warning given by Action Paintball that there were a lot of sticks and obstacles in the way and to not run at full speed was a sufficient warning of the risk to engage section 5M, and the plaintiff could not recover damages. Operators of recreational activities can take some comfort in the court adopting a pragmatic, rather than restrictive approach to the requirements of section 5M. Ross Donaldson [email protected] General liability Colin Biggers & Paisley

Turbo, what you say sounds more like USA law. You may not realise, but Australia is actually a different country, with different laws. The ability of a surviving family to sue a deceased person’s estate is quite complicated here. A mother who saw her 5 yo son run over and squashed to death by a concrete truck is entitled to nothing, unless she can prove she suffered psychological damage ‘nervous shock’. But the point I have made before is just as relevant, the amendments to Australian States’ and territories’ tort law statutes, specifically excludes liability when a person voluntarily engages in an activity that is an inherently dangerous recreational activity such as pony club, rugby league or flying light recreational aircraft. A family of a person killed, who was voluntarily engaged in flying recreational aircraft...which is inherently dangerous, would have no case. NZ is even better....there, negligence tort liability is mostly abolished through their universal no-fault Accident Compensation Scheme, that insures everyone injured is compensated....just the lawyers don’t get their fees. Go read the current version of the NSW Civil Liability Act; I think you will be surprised.