DonRamsay

Nuzza, that NG4, is that 24-7357? If so, one of the most comfortable aircraft I ever sat in.

Clearly, it pays to ask! Some good replies on the question and the right answer in the end. "Check for yourself with the proper authorities including ERSA. There's even a phone number and email in ERSA FAC for YWLM.

Is the 0800 - 2200 Eastern Daylight Time in Summer Daylight Saving months?

Correct. Best to keep to the right hand side of the lane as it is fairly narrow and you won't want to meet anyone coming the other way!

My understanding is that unless you have a ppl you can't fly coastal from Newcastle. From Nobbys Lighthouse past Williamtown is CTA 24 x 7, 365 days. The Ultralight Route on the western side of Williamtown is the usual route for Pilot Cert pilots. Have a look at the VNC or VTC it is clearly marked. Entry is not far from Maitland. Can be bumpy so best attempted early in the morning.

This just gets better and better. I'll see you at Quirindi! What time will the bacon be ready?

Talk to Old Koreelah - few would know more about a D9 then him. There's an excellent thread about his at Jodel D918 (http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/jodel-d918.129994/)

OldK, I'm also planning to go to Trevor's for the Clifton Fly-in. I'm planning on leaving from YCNK early on Saturday morning with my route taking me via Scone/Quirindi/Gunnedah/Narrabri/Moree. Probably fly back Monday morning. I was going last year but the weather beat me on the day and it just wasn't worth the risk. Hope we do better with the weather this time. Look forward to catching up again - its been a while.

Yes DJP, I put this badly and thanks for the correction. I have written to all of the Board of RA-Aus asking them to pay close attention to what is being achieved in the USA with realistic medical requirements and for them to put pressure on CASA to achieve the same here. The FAA has been satisfied over 10 years of LSA experience that the drivers licence medical is not a safety risk. The statistics show it to be so. We need a rocket up CASA AvMed over their patently stupid "Aviation" version of the Drivers Licence Medical. What we all need to do is stay alert to the reform of medical restrictions in the USA and bombard CASA and RA-Aus when the exemptions are law in the USA. This is one of the odd things that may be good for RA-Aus members but not necessarily for RA-Aus. It would see the drift from GA to RA virtually cease and in fact perhaps drift back the other way. But it would be good for RA-Aus to have the choice available to fly GA or RA. Or to fly RA with a PPL or RPL in the back pocket.

BAz, I've had some experience recently with a CSU, a ground adjustable and a fixed pitch prop pulling a Rotax 912 ULS. The Airmaster CSU can be approved for LSA aircraft by the manufacturer. It adds a heft $10,000 to the price and a further heft of 9kg to the "empty" weight of the aircraft. The latter being quite important in a 600 kg MTOW recreational aircraft. With the Airmaster you can get the full 100hp wherever you want it but, it will never pay for itself with fuel savings - it is just very nice to have. It is a very easy system to use once set up (properly). Just select take-off, switch to climb then to cruise and reverse on the way down. Not a lot of load on the pilot once you get used to it. The fixed pitch prop worked OK but there was no chance for optimisation between mostly cruise or mostly climb. The ground adjustable optimised for cruise is OK but you do lose a bit on take-off and climb out. When you have an engine with 100hp it is a pity to only get 70hp on take-off and climb out even if you get a better cruise speed. On the medical side, the FAA have approved a Class 3 medical in the USA and are just waiting for the Dept of Transport to give it the final approval. When that goes through there will be pressure on CASA to extend it to Australia instead of the stupid "Drivers Licence" medical that they have now for the RPL/PPL. With that you could still fly GA but may be restricted in pax numbers and VFR/Day.

A tidal wave of drift. Still, while CASA is grounding Jabiru engined aircraft nobody in Canberra is sweating on where, when or if the office should be somewhere else.

When we were battling the Board we used to worry that they might just throw away proxies that didn't go their way. To their credit they didn't. Proxy votes are tabulated by the Office and they seem to do a fair job of it. If you make the Chair your Proxy you can't have a non attender situation. On the current form there is the opportunity to nominate a fallback in case your first nominee is a no show. That option exists now. Agree 100% as did our "founding fathers" who allowed this in our Rules. This is a salient point and a reminder to our Board Members that they are subject to Company Law which can get very ugly for wrong-doing directors.

Yes, and if you nominate the chair of the meeting and direct him/her to vote as you direct you effectively have a postal vote. There will always be a meeting chair so your proxy will always be valid regardless of who turns up as long as it is submitted on tine - no later than 24 hours before the meeting - but best to get itin as early as possible.

If you have a look at Rule 29 in the RA-Aus Constitution you will see that it reads: "29. Deleted". This was a conscious decision by those who wrote our Constitution to NOT follow the model rules which, at Rule 29 does restrict the number of proxies that can be held by one member to 5. You have to remember that the Associations Incorporation Act 1991 seems to have envisaged a club with about 100 members - something like a typical social or sporting club located in one town . So, limiting proxies to 5 and requiring 5% of the membership to call a general meeting make some amount of sense. But, in an organisation with around 10,000 members that is spread across a country the size of Australia, these rules make no sense at all. The Act in the Aust Cap Territory is very clear and specific about no postal votes. Firstly, changes to the Constitution can only happen via a Special Resolution. For a Special Resolution to succeed, " it is passed by at least ¾ of the votes of those members of the association who, being entitled to vote, vote in person or, if the rules of the association permit voting by proxy, vote by proxy at the meeting." Clearly, no allowance for Postal Voting. We have postal voting for elections and that is allowable but for a Special Resolution to be passed it can only be voted on by those present at the meeting in person or by proxy. End of story unless you want to move the registered office to NSW which does allow postal voting in its equivalent Act. I did have a look some time ago about how many rules need to be changed to achieve a reduction in Board Members and it was quite a few. If you reduce the Board numbers to 7 or even 5, trying to maintain some form of Regional representation basis for elections becomes quite silly with a total inequity for the more populous states and a gerrymander for the less populous regions. So, if you are going to change - lets get it right once off. I strongly agree with Col Jones that the re-write can't just be done and mailed to members 3 weeks before the General Meeting that will get to vote on it. A small group under principles dictated by the Board should draft the new Constitution. The Board should then review it with input from the lawyers and achieve as close to consensus as is possible before it is put to the members for review and comment using the Notice of Proposed Rule Making process. There would need to be information sessions presented in a number of regions like SE Qld, Central NSW, Victoria (near Melb), South Aus near Adelaide and in the West near Perth and in Tasmania. Also, an information session should be held at NATFLY to give as many others a chance to understand and ask questions. Somehow I doubt Tasmania and WA would ever be ready to give up regional representation regardless of how pointless that is. In the end it just has to get 75% of the votes that are cast in person or by proxy at a General Meeting. This is not an impossible hurdle but it is high enough to make limbo look easier than clearing it.

There's another program in the series on SBS next Wednesday.

G'day Keith, I am assured that the Board and CEO have Constitutional reform in their sights for 2015. Going by the stream of letters to the Editor of SportPilot, there seems to be a groundswell of support for a smaller Board and soon. What is not clear is that many parochial members are prepared to forsake the illogical notion that geographic representation is somehow to their advantage or, closer to the point, a loss of geography based representation would somehow be a disadvantage. I believe there is majority support to reduce Board numbers and base election of Board Members on their qualifications and experience rather than their postcode, however, when push comes to shove, I suspect that a number of Board Members will not give up their seat willingly to achieve this much needed efficiency and effectiveness improvement in the management of our RA-Aus. Also, don't underestimate the size of the drafting task to recode our Constitution. It will involve a considerable re-write and, hopefully, translation to plain English. The last 25 or so amendments took considerable effort to get written and adopted. In the end while they were fixing urgent issues, they sum to "fiddling at the edges". Then there is the even bigger task of getting the 75% majority vote required for it to be adopted as "law". Don

The ironic thing is that CASA would almost certainly be joined in any action against an RAA Instructor as happened with the Smith / Sting case.

I think that MM's assessment of liability risks are balanced and accurate and excellent advice. I'd be interested to explore the logos that says otherwise. The only counter I can think of is that the Courts have stated that recreational aviation is an inherently dangerous activity and dismissed a suit for negligence on that basis ( between a student and his instructor).

Oscar, please don't wish CASA looking at Rotax on us. The issue here is CASA's out of proportion reaction to the "jabiru problem". One of the reasons we all kicked back against their illogical response is because following this example there is no limit to the harm that they could do to light aviation.

Might just add to the above, the botched implementation of the RPL and "drivers licence" medical. Perhaps more evidence of anti RAA attitudes and intent?

I have heard but don't know if it is true or not that the acting Director of Aviation Safety is as anti RA-Aus as the outgoing Director McCormick demonstrated during his term by stopping virtually all advancement of RAA safety ( e.g. heavier therefore stronger aircraft and transit of CTA). Combine that with the illogical, unrelenting attacks by the branch of CASA that was established, so it seems to me, to destroy RAA and you have a very ugly picture of the future for light aviation.

Would you include VW and Subaru conversions in that "rare" category? With very little more effort CASA will have achieved their ultimate goal of having every light aircraft in Australia safely tucked up in their hangars - permanently - and therefore achieve the world's best aviation Safety record.

Just to clarify a few things. Firstly, our aircraft was based at that airport and tied down just outside the LAMEs workshop. Secondly, it was my fault for not asking for even an estimate for the work. However, a tradesman with a desire to treat his customers well would not repair something if the repair was more expensive than a new replacement. A new tyre and tube less than $150? Thirdly, I have never been back and never will go back to that LAME. Ever.

Geoff, Including the Dual XGPS160, make that three points of possible failure. I agree that the iPad with the cellular connection is the preferred option to WiFi/Bluetooth and Hotspot. Just wanting to let people know that the other setup can work. I believe I've overcome the overheating/switch-off problem by having the iPad powered from the mother ship and protected from too much direct sunlight. A couple of Amps max is not going to sap the the plane's battery. And I always have the luxury of two iPads (and the iPhone) on Board. A bit OTP I know but I hate fooling with maps (or ERSA) in the cockpit while I'm trying to fly the plane and look out the window.

Speaking of which I just "bought my wife" an iPad Mini 32GB Retina Display (WiFi only) and checked with OzRunways that all would work OK with the iPad getting GPS from my Dual XGPS160 and 3G from my iPhone (as personal hotspot).