Flyingfish

Thanks a lot for all your comments 440032 and onetrack. Lethbridge may be a good option, hadn't considered it yet.

Will be visiting Geelong, then travelling by road. Thanks.

I am planning a flight to the Geelong area, and would appreciate your recommendations for best airfield to land and leave the plane overnight (RV7-A).

Ideally...

- close to Geelong

- sealed runway or smooth grass or gravel

- safe to leave plane tied down

- avgas available

- car hire nearby

Does Avalon have parking for GA?

Considering Barwon Heads or Torquay and will appreciate any local knowledge and suggestions!

Thanks!

Anyone know if stamp duty is payable on an aircraft purchase in NSW?

As Kasper points out, training environment is significant. My initial training was at Bankstown, with three parallel runways. Both instructors and ATC drummed into us the importance of not overshooting the turn to final because of the real risk of a mid-air collision with an aircraft using the adjacent runway.  

I had developed a habit of flying too slowly through the base and final turns, such that when I first flew with a different instructor to normal, he shouted, ''Do you want to die?'' as I did what I thought was a normal approach. The emotion of the moment seared his comments in my memory, even though I was sure he was overreacting. After reading many turn/spin accident reports in subsequent years, I am thankful for that short sharp lesson which has probably kept me alive.

In situations where overshooting final is dangerous, helps to start the turn onto final early, especially with a tailwind on base. But it is all about ensuring a balanced turn, and keeping the speed up by lowering the nose as necessary.

To be clear, I was hiring planes from flying schools through to end of RPL training and then realised if I wanted to use the qualifications to fly more than about 50 hours per year it would make better financial sense to purchase a plane. It's definitely a financial stretch. But the upside is future training will be less costly. The cost of hiring aircraft has gone up a lot in the last 10 years. Looking back, If I had been more confident that I would succeed with the flying I may have bought into an aircraft syndicate or leased a plane to use for a year while doing flying training. I know someone who leased a helicopter for a year at the very beginning of his training and used it through to CPL and initial 500 hours required for job seeking. Although I'm sure that would have cost a lot and it was a major commitment up front, it would have been significantly cheaper than paying for all those hours via hourly rental. Not saying that will necessarily suit you, just other ideas to reduce cost depending on your goals. Some flying schools also offer block training paid in advance at cheaper rates per hour. You just wouldn't want to get too far ahead, depending on the financial health of the flying school...

Interesting discussion above.

I'd support your plan. I started with RPC with passenger and navigation, then went to RPL (with class 2 medical) when it became available to gain access to controlled airspace. Happy at the moment with RPL, and enjoying flying my own two-seat plane. Considering PPL training soon to allow night VFR. Using own plane for training saves on training costs.

https://www.raa.asn.au/storage/safety-notice-bristell-lsa-20-feb-2020-00000002.pdf

SAFETY NOTICE

If you have any urgent questions, please contact: [email protected]

iPad shutting down when too hot seems to be the most likely to affect us - much more likely than satellites being unavailable. Happened to me a couple of years ago when flying through the Sydney basin (was glad to have paper maps and radio frequency notes handy), and recently even before take-off from home airfield on a 35° day.

Other similar equipment such as backup iPads would be equally affected at the same time. Perhaps panel mounted aviation GPS instruments will handle heat better?

You seem like a serious student. I would highly recommend a book called 'Mike Busch on Engines' by Mike Busch (available on Kindle). Or you could also learn a lot from his recorded webinars available on YouTube - search for 'Leaning basics' then 'Leaning: the advanced class'. I found all these resources fascinating when going from flying Jabiru and Rotax with fixed pitch prop, to a Lycoming IO-360 with constant speed prop.

Here is an article that discusses leaning, power changes and detonation.

https://www.savvyanalysis.com/articles/controlling-the-combustion-event

How does a person recover their personal identity after a breach like this? Imagine if Biometrics such as fingerprints and iris scans are included in the stolen data?

Airport security card company reveals data hack as AFP investigates - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Saw a curious call sign in RWY app this morning... WH-OPPER... wonder if this was deliberate or a practical joke? Aircraft flying west near Mittagong (see screenshot).

I use the iPad mini which is just the right size to strap on the leg using a knee board. Using the knee board strapped on allows you to keep the iPad in the same place during the whole flight, including take off and landing. If the iPad is not fixed to the dash or knee, you must stow it for take off and landing. The only issue I have had occasionally is overheating if the sun has been shining directly onto it for a long time. Overheating causes the iPad to shut down.

A strong steady crosswind can be a much more manageable situation than when the crosswind is very turbulent. I am normally comfortable in crosswinds up to about 16 kts (with aircraft max 18 kts), but gave myself a scare landing at Coffs with crosswind 10 - 15 kts and turbulent - felt like I was in a washing machine - and used much more of the runway than normal before I could land under control. At Coffs a southeasterly wind comes off the sea and tumbles over a row of trees, like waves breaking on the runway... at least that's how it felt!

Thanks for the interesting comments.

The Microair receiver selectivity is quoted as -70 dB in their M760 rev Q data sheet.

http://www.microair.com.au/pages/233/Manuals

I've searched the xcom site but could not find a specification for receiver selectivity. Do you know this figure Kyle or anyone? Am considering radio choice for a new aircraft.

Thanks, will look into it.

I have had it at Coffs, in two different aircraft types, both with Microair radio. Are there any better radios for this issue?

Nice, clear summary. Thanks for posting it.

Lets be clear here , the RAA did not 'ask CASA' to act. CASA requested certain incident reports from the RAA which we copoerated in supplying......then CASA acted. It was just as much a surprise to the RAA as anyone...

Have had the chance read this through in detail now, and just had a couple of observations:

At Bankstown airport the run up bays are near the departure holding points. For departing flights (not circuits), I was taught to:

• start the engine and then contact Bankstown Ground for taxi clearance
   
   
  
• proceed to the run up bays on the way to the designated holding point
   
   
  
• do the engine run up checks in the run up bays
   
   
  
• then proceed to the holding point and contact Bankstown tower.
   
   
  

I guess it depends on the layout of the particular airport which sequence would make sense. In Canberra I observed aircraft doing run up tests in the GA apron area, then contacting Canberra Ground and advising "run ups complete" in their taxi clearance call.

Secondly, the altitude at which to enter CTR when inbound can be different depending on the runways in use. When inbound to Bankstown, if RWY 29 is in use, you are instructed to maintain 1,500' until you report downwind, then it's a quick descent to 1000' before turning base. If RWY 11 is in use, you enter the CTR at 1,000' and you are cleared for a straight-in approach.

I liked your suggested shorthand for writing down the taxi instructions, and will be using those.

Will you be producing a similar description of operations in class C airspace? (Hope so...)

Good bit of fun...

Great learning resource thanks Mutley.

I just completed the airspace and aerodrome endorsements and like you, found scant info on 'why', just a lot of examples of what to do. wish I had been able to read this a few weeks ago! Good on you...

Curse the software; I could not finish my post. Here goes again:All right, out of all this shouting & tumult, what do we have? Let me see if I can summarise it:

 

1. We have a statistic - not necessarily a very good-quality statistic, but still, it's about all we currently have - of one engine failure in around 3300 landings - i.e. 0.03% of movements. Roughly a probability of one in a thousand per flying hour.

 

2. As a result of this statistic, plus a lot of noise from certain persons, RAA demanded action from CASA. In so doing, it is arguable that RAA did not consider the statistic in the proper context of the other statistical risks that apply to any recreational aircraft to a greater or lesser degree; they merely saw that the Jabiru statistic was not as good as that for the Rotax 912, realised their impotence to do anything constructive about that, and lodged a rather unthinking complaint.

 

3. CASA over-reacted, causing panic amongst Jabiru owners and operators, and degrading the resale value of their assets; the total financial loss is likely to run into tens of millions of dollars. To a monkey with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

 

4. Many owners have de-registered their aircraft, and many have resigned from RAA, which in all probability threatens to cause RAA to collapse.

 

5. There are persons who may have a valid grievance, who have either launched or threatened legal action against Jabiru, and who are still making a lot of noise, which may or may not result in a class action against Jabiru. These people are, it would seem, out for blood, and do not care what the collateral damage may be.

 

6. The threat of any such action can only have the result that Jabiru will resist all claims that their product is defective; to do otherwise would be to admit liability, which would be suicidal.

 

7. The collateral damage will be that the Jabiru owners who would simply like the probability of an engine failure reduced from 0.03% per movement, to perhaps 0.015%, are most unlikely to have that available from Jabiru.

 

8. CAMit (CAE) can provide that sort of improvement, but they are hamstrung by their dependence on the ongoing income from manufacturing about ten Jabiru engines a month for Jabiru, to Jabiru's design. If Jabiru folds, CAMit folds. So the collateral damage will also prevent any "fix" from CAMit.

 

9. Aircraft having either E24 or 19 registration, or VH experimental, are free to fit a CAE engine. In any case, the inclusion of experimental aircraft in the CASA draft Instrument is invalid, and can be expected to be removed. (RAA could do something useful by trying to hasten this).

 

10. The CASA personalities involved very likely have their back so the wall, with Ministerial "please explains" to answer - so they are likely to do everything possible to justify their actions.

 

So, in summary, we have a completely stupid situation on all sides. It is not constructive to point fingers at this stage, it's far too late for that. This is a lose-lose situation. Either the rock or the hard place has to back off.

 

To quote Mark Twain:

 

"I wish I loved the human race;

 

I wish I loved its silly face;

 

And when I'm introduced to one,

 

I wish I thought "What jolly fun."

Thanks for your summary Dafydd.

I would like to know exactly what RAA communicated to CASA to provoke the over-reaction. Can anyone find out where the idea came from that there is a recent increase in engine failures? (Help us out, you board members!) The only stats publically available from RAA are a single point in time, no evidence of increasing rate of failures. Was there an RAA board meeting with minutes agreeing on a resolution to request CASA to intervene? Surely there has to be some documentation of the request - how do members of RAA get access to this to evaluate it? I checked the 19 October board meeting minutes on the RAA website and there is no hint of this Jabiru issue. Ironically there is a motion requesting the CEO to pursue greater privileges for RAA members including controlled airspace endorsements. Can't see us getting that step up any time soon in this climate...

I did find the incident reports page which shows 38 Jabiru incidents occurred so far in 2014, which I have broken down as follows:

Engine failure = 18 (includes 5 x through bolt failures, 2 x case failure, 1 x valve failure, 10 x not identified yet)

Pilot error in technique/judgement = 14

Landing gear failure = 3

Wiring/instrumentation = 2

Propellor delamination = 1

The 54 incidents in 2013 have much less information about the nature and cause of the incidents, but here is the break-down:

No information = 37

Engine failure = 7

Pilot error in technique/judgement = 7

Wiring/instrumentation = 1

Landing gear = 0

Propellor = 1

Other aircraft = 1

There are fewer incident reports in 2014 so far (38) than in 2013 (54), and the "No information" category in 2013 reports swamps the other categories which means based on this information, we do not know if there has been any increase in engine failures from 2013 to 2014. I hope someone in RAA or CASA has much better evidence than this for the proposed restrictions on Jabiru aircraft!

See attached spreadsheet if you want to re-categorise or re-anyalyse these. Appreciate any comments.

Jabiru incidents in 2013-2014.xlsx

Jabiru incidents in 2013-2014.xlsx

Jabiru incidents in 2013-2014.xlsx