turboplanner

Take the case of person A fuelling the club aircraft enroute, but not testing the fuel, then on arrival just parking the aircraft.

Person B comes along a few days later, takes out the fuel sampler to check for water in the fuel, puts it back, take out his baby bottle and puts water in it, then finds the fuel contains ethanol.

By then it's too late; if the carb is of aluminium construction there will be some white corrosion contamination.

So then he gets out the spanners, pulls the carb off, scrapes out the powder puts the carb back on, pockets the three washers left over, and goes on his way?......

Couldn't find a colour for this fuel - seems it is the colour of the base pettrol.

Some people say they can smell it, but given the potential to block the fuel jets fairly soon after engine startup this subject needs some more research.

The days of single "Controlling Bodies" are over because the Government Department and the Group become the defendents in Public Liability actions.

The trend is to specialist representation where the people reaping the rewards pay for the public liability, and because they usually know their own business better, they usually manage it better.

BigPete, so was I in GA - both hands against the hub AFTER checking mags.

However I know of a few Jab props showing small cracking near the trailing edge towards the tips where the most obvious cause would be bending to a lesser pitch by size 10 hands.

Wonder if it has a colour code?

Have sent an email to Mark Dreyfus, federal member for Isaacs to make sure the Federal Gov is aware of the consequences of this State action.

I raced on Methanol for several years, and drained the carbies immediately after every race meeting unless I forgot.

When I forgot (don't laugh) the engine usually shut down during the warm up or during the first race as a result of fuel flow being starved by the white corrosive powder in the carb float bowl etc which had built up in the previous two weeks.

(a) I'll bet aircraft carbies aren't as easy to drain

(b) You could pick up a load of ethanol laden fuel in one country town unawares, fly several hours home, park the plane for three weeks, then suffer an engine failure on take off from the fuel blockage.

This matter needs some smart footwork!

You've probably scared thewm all off, but pleased to see a reference to a stack of safety magazines on one of your posts.

OOOh am I in trouble!, will take a very close look at it Ian.

Found this site handy at times.

Victorian weather - state forecast

Good point BigPete, the Pilot in Comand makes the decision.

There was a case a few years ago where a guy from Gippsland was caught by weather, tried several airports and in desperation finished up approaching Moorabbin.

The ATIS indicated Moorabbin Airport was closed, so he called the tower, advised them he had run out of alternatives and was now low on fuel and needed to land.

The Tower Controller, officious as they sometimes are, told him the Airport was closed and to go away.

What followed was a heated exchange with colorful language and frank opinions of each other.

This didn't move the Tower Controller, and I forget what happened next, but think the pilot flew away and luckily found another airstrip.

CASA publicly blasted both people for their behavior which could have led to a fatality, and finished with something like:

"If the Pilot had called a Mayday, the situation would have been clear and the Tower Controller would have been obligated to expedite an emergency landing"

Thought the ABC Four Corners discussion with Dr Colin Campbell was very appropriate to this discussion since we are either at or past Peak Oil (See M. King Hubbert prediction, 1956)

Peak Oil has been overshadowed by other major events like Global Warming and the economic crisis, but is relentless - we will face ever increasing fuel prices from now on, albeit in a series of advances and retreats.

4 Corners Broadband: Peak Oil?

Dr Campbell outlines the downhill run from the last major oil discovery in 1964.

Doesn't look good for the long term future of the internal combustion engine, but fuel cells are developing fast - Honda now lease a fuel cell Civic in California. They generate electric power, which can be augmented by solar panels.

Solar is leaping ahead too. This year's Darwin-Adelaide race saw cars speed limited to 130 km/hr and required to have upright seating to reduce the available solar panel area. Area is something an aircraft is not short of.

It's a great time for lateral thinking entrepreneurs.

Good experience, good outcome Adrian.

Know how you feel, I'll bet you had a nervous time working out who was going to get to the strip first - you or the cloud.

I started a thread on 25/11 - "VMC" in the Weather section, but so far haven't had any takers, which is interesting because we lose 5 to 10 pilots a year due to flying into cloud, so it should be the No 1 safety topic.

What I'm interested in is how to develop techniques to get an earlier warning of circumstances similar to what you experienced.

The accident reports always usually run something like "the pilot was know to have pushed on in marginal conditions previously...the cause of the accident was continuing into non VMC conditions, terminating in a vertical dive into the ground."

So they state the obvious, which we would agree with, but don't give us unambiguous and easy to understand weather forecasts, or automatic forecast updates by radio enroute.

So step 1 is that we flight plan on a day or a weekend where the weather is likely to close in on us, or there is an unexpected deterioration after we have left our starting point.

Step 2 is that it is not easy to decide whether what we now face is the full extent of it, or whether its going to get even worse.

For example in your case, it just kept on getting worse, which caused several changes to plan, vs a situation I experienced where there was a constant cloud base, but misty rain which made naviation difficult. It stayed that way for the entire trip across Victoria, but in the days of full reporting CASA were tracking three of us in various parts of the state very carefully.

In my case it would have been less stressful to know that conditions would remain stable so I didn't have to look for every flat paddock over several hours.

I noticed on one thread recently a freshly Certificated pilot believing it was easy to reach each checkpoint exactly and to the minute, and of course we can all do that until the wind, turbulence and cloud conditions suddenly present us with a new experience.

I'd really like to hear from some experienced cross country pilots about the tips and criteria they use to decided when to park the plane, when its going to be safe to continue, at what point to do a 180 and get out of there!

Brent, I was comparing it with the day I was No 5 on final, and the last couple of months. I know tie downs were being offered at very affordable rates and if that has caused a pick up its great news.

Yes Brent but it's the straw and the camel's back argument for an airecraft hirer - a lot of people drop out of flying because their budget just will not allow touring flights; that drops the aircraft utilisation which pays off the standing and consumables costs and that in turn accelerates the hire rate in a spiral.

I happily used to cruise around in a Warrior when it was $25.00/hour, but would need to go to the bank manager for the same trips today, and a visit to Moorabbin with it's peeling paint, empty flight lines and ghost town atmosphere shows what the end result can be if the spiral isn't arrested.

No, I've got to the stage of dipping the tank to check, and still get huge discrepancies.

Good points Tony, although most of this is in place, just hard to find. RAA could improve things with a better webside, master index of subjects, reference material availabilty.

For example "the Human Factors compulsory element without a plain language manual that pilots can read and retain is stupidity in the extreme"

I've referred to the manual a couple of times, I think Motzartmerv has said it's only 1/2" thick, its in plain language, it has test questions so you can study the subject anywhere in Australia, yet there continues to be an anti HF theme.

This could easily be avoided by making information easier to find and buy......Ian?

There may be parts of this thread not covered by exsting RAA subject categories and they should be addressed.

Looking ahead, it's quite possible that the RAA of the future would include all non Commercial aircraft operations (personal opinion)

Already we have extremes from powered Chutes to aircraft with constant speed props and rectractable undercarriage and we are increasingly seeing speeds of 150 kts, where the workload is high, the instrument quality is critical and the pilot qualification needs to be much higher for safe operations. The Thruster pilot should not have to pay for these qualifications, so maybe we should now be starting to look at more distinct aircraft licensing steps and Pilot Certificate endorsements so the low and slow guys who stay in the one location aren't loaded down with unnecessary costs and administration (See I do listen to you HPD).

So what happens if you have to go down because you of heat exhaustion?

Check-in, I didn't experience carb icing in 10 years of flying all conditions, then a couple of weeks ago it was there in a Jab, needs a few circumstances to combine so its a bit like a lottery ticket.

Think you're right Ian, I wonder if this is going to be an Ad for a milk product???

You mean single seaters should be banned????

Can this training/learning theme be incorporated into the Human Performance and Limitations programme?

Ah, Thanks Markendee! See the raging debate thread on Human Factors.

Even if the Pilot didn't notice the hand bag, he should have picked it up in the emergency checks "Fuel On, Mixture Rich, Switches to Both"!

Classic Human Factors case from all angles

Good luck with your flying Ryan, it's a wonderful experience.

Yes, important - there's an old safety report where a light ac went down and it was found the passenger had pulled the mixture control knob out to hang her handbag on it! (true).

Maybe we all owe you a bit of both for the entertainment!