NT5224

What an amazing flight! Gorgeous castles and material culture. Thanks for the write up and pictures. I enjoyed reading about this flight through Europe... Alan

Hi Alex. Im confused. If you're standing for election on a 'neutral' platform and essentially supportive of current board direction, why not just put your support behind the current board team and candidates? Seeking election implies you feel you have a contribution to make that will somehow strengthen the board. What changes would you want to see to make the board better than it is now? Best of luck Alan

Is this consultation open yet? Cant find it yet on the CASA site.. They (somebody, RAAus?) said end of the month. Two days left

Im finding this topic very interesting because Im in a similar situation, just establishing my own private strip and I'd like to think a few fellow aviators might benefit from it. My strip is very similar to that described by the OP, 750m X 60m and surrounded by low timber. In recently renewing my home insurance I was asked if I had a strip -as it would effect my home premium. Personally, Im not too worried about insuring against loss from the strip, its more about personal liability in case of material damage to aircraft or personal injury of anybody using it. It seems a real shame that with airfields and strips being closed down across the country, those of us who would be prepared to offer access to others have to worry so much about liability. Its enough to make you want to wind up the drawbridge!!!! Alan

I've never ground looped yet, but have come close. The Rebel is surprisingly merciful as a tail dragger, compared to lighter aircraft such as the Lightwing. But its a challenge to respond to cross wind gusts (or bumpy uneven surfaces) with corrective rudder inputs without over-correcting and establishing a pattern of increasing oscillations. Here's my personal tip (which some will disagree with!). On take off with a tail dragger I never just shove the throttle full open, because a sudden rudder input to correct the centrifugal yaw could establish that oscillation. Instead I apply power steadily , and introduce the appropriate level of rudder accordingly as we get going. I can still get off really short doing it this way.

Thanks for posting Sue Really informative to see all those resources at the CASA shop. I didn’t even know that it existed. Some useful material there! Alan

Hi UK aviators! my wife and I have just home returned home after a couple weeks visit to the UK. It was basically a family visit, but we drove around a bit and took in a few sites. En route to Durham we called in at the delightful little flying club at Fishburn, which has a coffee shop overlooking the field. There we got talking to Dave, who's the farmer who owns the land the airfield is situated on. Dave was a really good bloke. He took us on a tour of the hangars, introduced us to a couple of the club members who were around, and told us about his practical arrangements for operating the airfield. My wife and I both fly and are just establishing our own airstrip at home, so we were very interested to chat with flyers, check out their aircraft and hear all Dave had to say.... Stupidly we drove off before I got Dave's contact details. He lives right there in the house beside the airfield. Does anybody here have an email or physical address for Dave? I'd really like to write and thank him for his time and kindness shown to two random Australians. We really liked Fishburn and it was a real highlight of our trip to UK. Cheers Alan

Does anybody know when the current chair (who seems to have had a directive hand in the organisation's current direction), is due for a spell? Alan

Excellent, really enjoyed (and was inspired by) this excellent combination of words and images.

"Have other nominated candidates been asked to edit or change their election statements? I find it odd that an election statement has to be acceptable to the board to be printed in the magazine and I would appreciate hearing from any other nominating candidate as to what if anything they have been asked to change". G'Day Kasper Just found this thread and it makes for illuminating reading. If your election statement has been required to align with the views of the board even before you are elected to membership, that is most interesting. You're doing the right thing by honouring the confidentiality of any correspondence you have with the board for now, but I hope that after the election, regardless of outcome, we get to hear a little more about this, and the nature of their objections. There are always two sides to every story, but at face value this all seems very strange. Good luck Alan

Hi Maxy Welcome aboard. There's lots to learn from this forum and associated website, and some awesome experience to tap into. Congrats on your certificate Alan

Well pointed out @Yenn! My wife and I are about to go overseas for two weeks leaving the as-yet-unfinished strip unserviceable. You'd have to be a complete idiot to attempt to land, because there are huge piles of earth and deep holes easily visible to even a cursory fly-over. But for additional peace of mind, I went out yesterday arvo and pegged down two big white crosses at touch down points at each end of the strip. Now you'd have to be a complete idiot and bloody-minded to attempt to land.... Alan

Thanks for compliments on our district onetrack. Although are post code 'Robin Falls' (no post though obviously!) , our house is about 30km from the place you camped at , -up on top of the escarpment. Flyng is the obvious way to get in. Would have loved to have brought a WW2 strip back to to life. Trouble is, we don't have one on our property. They didnt build them up in the high country. Alan

So I threw up a drone yesterday to have a poke around and see how the strip's looking. I'll try attach a pic here. The cleared area is 60m width by 750m length so probably sufficient for many RAA and some GA aircraft. It seems huge when I walk it at ground level. Its gonna be a great bush strip with basic faciliaties situated in a wonderful part of the country.

Hi folks! Some might recall that for a few years now I’ve been hoping to establish my own airstrip. It seemed a bit of a pipe dream for a while, then I went through about a year of approvals process then got sign off for necessary land clearing. It’s kinda a long process and one day I should write it all down to guide others. Then trying to line up somebody to do the actually work also turned into a drama. Just before he was due to start work, my friendly local contractor blew the motor on his dozer and so couldn’t do the job. But luckily he put me onto another local fella, who has turned out to be a really nice bloke. Contracting is a cutthroat game at the best of times, but with the mines all slowed down there are some unscrupulous characters around. Anyway, for the last last couple of days our new friend has been doing magnificent work at the site about a kilometre away along the escarpment from our house. Each morning, my wife the dog and I have strolled over to take a look at progress ( and the dog has been slinking back and forth intermittently through the day to keep an eye on things. He’s the boss of this country). And it’s taking shape. It’s gonna be a great strip. But it really breaks my heart to clear so much beautiful old growth tropical forest. You can clear a couple of hectares in a day, but it takes a thousand years to properly re-establish. We are keeping all the timber pushed aside and piled as ‘habitat’. Our contractor is like us, a nature lover, and so is being as careful and as sensitive in the clearing as he can be. He told us yesterday about once stopping his 65 tonne dozer to climb down and remove a King Brown snake from a log pile -by hand!- in order to avoid crushing it. So we’re hoping the initial clearing will be completed by the end of today. Thereafter we have been told it needs spraying, rolling and grading. We will seek further advice on this, because basically it’s just a bush strip ane getting a roller up here could be a challenge. The grading should make it useable. Next I need to get in a windsock, strip markers and a hangar and a a little shade structure for fuel drums. We are calling it Robin Falls International. Sounds grand, eh? Alan

-I believe the country airstrip guide can be purchased as part of a subscription to a well-known Electronic Flight Bag- Yes it can! But to be honest I didn't find much in it that cannot be found from other sources online. Even though it is renewed every year, (and so you have to re-subscribe annually) I felt that some of the information was very old and bears little relationship to the situation on the ground, at least at the airstrips I visited (predominantly in the Territory). That said I will resubscribe... Its fun to look through and plan adventures. But the airstrip guides on here are actually very useful tools especially for trip planning...

Yeah I read that article recently. After that flurry of recent accidents on Everest I began wondering about how the system of emergency evacuations operated at that altitude. Never realised that a Bell could even fly to 20,000 ft, let alone take off under load! Then factor in the weather and potential mechanical turbulence among the peaks... That's some flying! And her a young woman making her way in a male dominated society. Most impressive. Alan

How awful! Condolences to the bereaved families. But it will be interesting to learn of the circumstances of the collision, if it occurred in the circuit... Maybe there will be lessons to be learned for us all Alan

Hiya Tracey! Welcome aboard. Its great to see more women engaged and enthusiastic about flying and helping to create a more gender-balanced recreational aviation community. My wife achieved her pilot certificate a few months ago and found it really satisfying. She has turned out to be a fine pilot and certainly had better intuition and coordination than I had during my own flight training. Good luck! Alan

Not doubting it’s cheaper than a chopper, but choppers are used for mustering because they can operate at low speed and hover so they can turn very tight at low altitude. Can a gyro do that safely? It’s lift depends on forward momentum... surely it’s performance would be similar to a STOL fix wing

I read somewhere that the Gyro was being utilised for mustering operations. What are the benefits of a gyro for difficult low level operations like that? Never heard of Gyros used for mustering before. To the uniformed they might look like a chopper, but surely don’t confer the same advantages of a rotary wing aircraft...

Gyrocopter down with a reported fatality in region of Timber Creek. Reports dont yet have details on the nature of the problem that led to accident. Tragic to lose a fellow aviator - my thoughts are with his family... A Katherine man.

I was recently on the phone renewing home insurance. While running through assets and things with the insurance agent to update insurable value (we are always adding new things!), they asked if our home had an airstrip. I truthfully responded that it did not. But we plan to clear for a strip later this month. Can any body tell me from experience how declaring having a private airstrip impacts your home insurance? What would be covered under a reguar home insurance policy? Im assuming insurers would consider an operating airstrip increases risks to insured property (e.g. an aircraft ploughing into your house or avgas spillage explosion!). Being essentially a cleared area, I have no need to 'insure' my airstrip, and would happily exlude anything airstrip related from our existing policy. Would having an airstrip on our property but not declaring it invalidate our existing home insurance against non aviation risks events such fire or theft? The strip will be situated a couple of kilometres away from our house so the likelyhood of an aircraft operations directly effecting our home would be negligible. Im assuming my aircraft is insured under its own insurance on the ground, and the hangar would just be on the household insurance as any property shed or outbuilding. Ladies and gents, any insights to offer? Cheers Alan

My wife and I have been discussing how best to apply nose art to our aircraft. Originally she was going to hand paint, then there was discussion of having vinyl transfers/ stickers printed. What have others done? Any examples of nose art of outstanding artistic merit, or just plain funny that you’d care to share? Can’t show our design yet - because still awaiting return of the our aircraft after Lycoming transplant. It can only be seen on the aircraft, but it’s gonna be great! cheers Alan

Mate, you've just dashed the hopes of the Gunbalanya community with this revelation.