KRviator

Some very interesting commentary there from the State Coroner - particularly about the withholding of documents. I'd be very interested to see what documents weren't provided as part of the brief of evidence and in what light they paint the actions of RAAus. It's not like it'd be the first time they've refused to act in accordance with the legislation that governs our flying...

7 hours ago, red750 said:

On the TV this morning, they reported that the flight was to spread the ashes of a deceased relative of the female passenger.

Wonder how they planned to do that in an aircraft with gullwing doors?

I've done the same thing from the RV with the tip-up canopy, but not from within the cabin, rather, from a pod bolted under the wing.

13 hours ago, Kyle Communications said:

For ADSB out to comply it must have a proper certified GPS source. I bought the Uavionix TailbeaconX. They used to sell a "experimental" version of it but now only sell the TSO'd version. To comply you do need the GNSS certified GPS source. You can use another brand but I also bought the AV-30 from Uavionix which has that certified source inbuilt and fully complys.

 

No, it doesn't need to be 'certified' or TSO'd for RAAus or Experimental - it just has to meet the performance standards of the TSO and have a certificate saying as such.

Neither the Garmin GPS20A or the Dynon SV-GPS-2020 are certified, TSO'd or otherwise, yet both are completely acceptable GNSS position sources for ADS-B in Australia for LSA & Experimental, and have been for many years.

That being said, you cannot use that (non-TSO'd) GNSS position source for navigation but for ADS-B, it is perfectly acceptable per CAO20.18 and Part 91 MOS 26.66
 

Quote

26.66 Exceptions to (E)TSO or NAA requirements
(1) In this section:
relevant aircraft means any of the following:
(a) a light sport aircraft for which a special certificate of airworthiness has been issued and is in force under regulation 21.186 of CASR;
(b) a light sport aircraft for which an experimental certificate has been issued and is in force under paragraph 21.191 (j) or (k) of CASR;
(c) any other aircraft for which an experimental certificate has been issued and is in force under paragraph 21.191 (g) or (h) of CASR.
(2) A requirement in this Division that an item of equipment, or element of an item of equipment, be authorised in accordance with a particular TSO or ETSO, does not apply to a relevant aircraft in respect of any surveillance equipment if:
(a) the configuration of the surveillance equipment that is fitted or carried provides the pilot, other aircraft and ATS with the same surveillance capability as would be provided if the equipment complied with the particular TSO or ETSO; and
(b) the pilot or the operator has a statement of conformance (however described) from the equipment manufacturer stating the particular standard or standards of the TSO or ETSO with which the equipment conforms.

4 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

 

Hi KR - As mentioned earlier - Did my own physical install, applied for unique code BUT had to have certified person do the actual initialising (commissioned).

Initialisation involved electronic gizmos, that also checked out the accuracy of my altitude, air speed, direction measuring equipment.

Gotcha, but that's more the RAD43 certification though, innit? "certification of successful functional testing of the ADS-B (Out) installation" from the grant form? We can (well, most of us can) install it and configure it per the manual & Hex code, but have to get the final install tested by an AvTech for the purposes of the biennial transponder checks before we can officially turn it on.

1 hour ago, BirdDog said:

Yep!  I had the same issues.

 

I run a couple of Garmin G3X Touch glass panels.  It actually has ADSB out - so I thought, great - I will upgrade to full ADSB in/out and claim a rebate.  Was told though, that because its classed as experimental, and does not have a certified GPS source, 2 things might be an issue - getting installed and signed off by a LAME, and the fact that ATC will not see it anyway!

So I paid for the upgrade myself, and at least I have ADSB in/out.  I have done some research and although all the aircraft around me can see my ADSB data, ATC at say Canberra will only see my Mode C transponder - which is fine - as that is the minimum Canberra want to enter the airspace. 

Same with SkyEcho.  Other airspace users can see it, ATC don't - so my data tells me.

Still a bit silly in my books, but that's apparently the way it is.

Something doesn't sound right there - My SkyView is visible to both BN & ML CTR and I routinely get Flight Following using ADS-B with the GNSS source being the Dynon SV-GPS-2020. What's your actual position source? For Experimental, you do not need a TSO'd or "Certified" GNSS Position Source - your ADS-B position source only needs to meet the requirements of the TSO, and have a certificate attesting as such. The Dynon GPS-2020 has this - but not the GPS-250. I believe - but am not sure - the Garmin GPS-20A is the same as the SV-GPS-2020, suitable for ADS-B position but I don't how where their certificate of conformance is to be found. Sounds like whoever gave you that advice isn't up to speed with the latest permissions for RAAus/Experimental. Of course, you could install a Dynon GPS-2020 in your G3X system if you're really keen. 😛

EDIT: For those who choose Garmin, the relevant Certificate of Conformance is found in the installation manual, Chapter 15.2. So install a GPS-20A, configure your G3X right, and off ye shall go.
 

Quote

15.2Statement of Compliance (per AC 90-114A CHG1)
The Garmin GPS 20A, while not TSO approved, meets the ADS-B Out position source performance requirements for FAR 91.227 compliance when used in combination with a Mode S ADS-B Out
transponder meeting the requirements of TSO-C166b and installed in accordance with the instructions in this document. Example transponders which may be used in combination with the GPS 20A for FAR 91.227 compliance are the Garmin GTX™ 330ES, GTX 23ES, GTX 35R, GTX 45R, GTX 345/345R, and GTX 335/335R.

If you're the builder of the aircraft (or can maintain it either through RAAus L1 or Instrument 18/22), then you can install the ADS-B equipment and sign off on it for the purposes of the rebate as you're an approved installer. At least, that's how I read it.

And from CAO20.18
 

Quote

9B.12A requirement under Appendix XI, XII, or XIII that an approved equipment configuration for ADS-B transmitting equipment be authorised in accordance with a specific TSO or ETSO does not apply to the ADS-B transmitting equipment carried on certain light sport, experimental and other aircraft provided that:

(a) the equipment configuration that is carried provides the pilot, other aircraft and ATC with the same transponder and surveillance capability as would be provided if the equipment were expressly authorised in accordance with the specific TSO or ETSO; and

(b) the pilot or the operator has a statement of conformance (however described) from the equipment manufacturer stating the particular standard or standards of the TSO or ETSO with which the equipment conforms.

11 hours ago, 10.5 said:

His departure will be universally welcomed as his greatest contribution to Australian aviation.

 

Only if the new owner is willing to invest in the airport to make it work as a viable GA airport... Things could always get worse...

So what's he actually asking, anyone know?

3 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

Out of idle interest - what jurisdiction (State) does your statement refer to??

Think he could be referring to AS1940:

Quote

7.6.3 Filling of containers at dispensers

 

Flammable liquids shall not be filled from a service station’s fuel dispenser into a container unless-

• The capacity of the container is not greater than 25L; and
• The container complies with AS/NZS 2906 or equivalent Standard, or is reasonably leakproof, metal, and has a tight-fitting closure; or
• The container is an approved fuel tank for a boat.

 

Any container shall be on the ground whilst being filled, and not in a car boot or the back of a utility vehicle.

 

NOTE: Approved portable fuel tanks for boats may be filled in situ.

It's probably not the worst option out there, TBH. If it's one of those "You must get there" and you know there's no fuel, then it makes sense to save your back. That being said...

Last year I flew from Gladstone-Townsville and tankered fuel in a steel jerrycan so I didn't have to try to source fuel on arrival - though Christian (from Donnington Airpark) did say he's happy to facilitate that if needed from the local servo, but it was just one less thing I wanted to fluff about with. If you have the payload, I'd consider that over a trolley and collapsible bladders depending on your W+B.

But I have to ask, what went amiss in planning this hypothetical trip? Surely you're not just going to this unattended airstrip just for the sake of it, you'd be meeting someone, or picking someone up, so there's the option for a lift there?

The other thing I'd mention is consider is putting the call out on FB, you may well find someone sympathetic to your plight who'll give you a hand. For example: a few months back, a BK-based pilot asked about public transport from our local airport to an adjacent town, and while it is there, it's extremely limited. I said "If you're coming up around this day or time, let me know and I'll take you in, I need to nip over there anyways". He flew up, parked the Arrow in my backyard, I drove him across to drop off his parcel while I picked up a bike for Mini-Me, he brought me a pie in return and he flew home.

Another example would be a mate got stuck with the weather coming home from Qld a little while back and lobbed in to our local airport. Called me up and after a bit of Tetris, we squeezed his Maule into our hangar and I dropped him in town where he had arranged a ride back to the coast. Picked him up couple days later and he flew home under blue skies.

These aren't isolated examples, so don't be too afraid of asking for help. If @Bosi72's on the right track, you won't be the first to need help at that particular strip, so FB or even here can provide an answer as to what other pilots have done in the past.

Re the transport of fuel (or other DG), anything that is a "Placard load" requires marking and specific training, and what defines a placard load varies depending on the material. Which is how you can get away with carrying a couple of gas bottles in your car - it's under the limit. From memory, it's any DG in bulk (a container of more than 250L) or more than 1000L or Kg all up, or any quantity of Class 1.1, or 6.1 or 7 (though it's been 20 years since I did my DG course, so cut me a little slack if I'm getting forgetful!). There's nothing particularly special about carrying a jerry or two of fuel - in NSW or elsewhere so don't get too wrapped up about "following the roolz", or any cow cockie who goes to get fuel for his gennie would be a criminal.

4 hours ago, danny_galaga said:

Can't blame studios for using CGI etc. It's often cheaper, and obviously MUCH safer. But I agree, there's something special about seeing it done for real, whether it's the car chase scenes in films like The French Connection, or Christian Bale actually losing nearly 30kg for his role in The Machinist or of course this movie.

I love CGI, especially airplane CGI... It's getting better, but still...

Updated their lead times I saw, still well in excess of a year-and-a-half wait for all the QB kits. And a near 50% increase in their cost. The -9A's now $74.5K for the QB - nearly $115,000AUD, then there's shipping and GST on top of that. You'd be exceptionally lucky just to get the kit here for under $135K. Bloody hell.

The 2-seat QB RV's are now a quarter-million-dollar build if you want a new engine ($41KUSD) & an EFIS. Just for my own interest, I keep a spreadsheet of my rough build cost and update it with price changes every 6 months or so. To do a one-for-one replacement of my -9 today,  you're looking at around $260,000.

I replied to this a while back didn't I? Where's my post gone? Did someone report it?!?

I'm not so old that I am that technologically illiterate yet...

57 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Maritime and aeronautical radio communications courses use those as mnemonics to convey the important difference between mayday and pan-pan.

Then there's 'securite' used to denote an all-stations call to other vessels about a marine hazard or navigational warning but you yourself aren't in harms way.

1 hour ago, spacesailor said:

I , have always been told A , " pan Pan " landing , takes priority over Any normal

Activity.  Clear the runway .

spacesailor

PAN = Possible Assistance Needed. Not "I need to get my asre on the ground right now!" 

In this case, there's no urgency to land, and it's prudent to reduce fuel and landing weight so much as possible while also giving the fitters as much time to come up with alternate means to get the wheels down. And anyway - you might as well log as much twin-time as you can before you bend the aeroplane...

I've no doubt if they became an emergency, rather than just a non-normal, arrival, that Tower would've told everyone else to bugger off.

11 hours ago, BirdDog said:

YDC is getting dizzy around the Gold Coast.  😞 

 

 

Indeed it is strange. No human could fly a holding pattern so accurately!

And more to the point, I want to know what STC is installed that gives this particular Baron the ability to dump fuel...

Quote

The pilots kept the plane in the air roughly an hour, circling the airport and dumping fuel, before eventually touching down without a landing gear.

Bet the people of Currumbin Water's don't know they had an Avgas shower last night.😆

I have an Icom IC-A16 and the powerpack for that takes 240VAC and outputs 12VDC for the plug to the charging dock.

Easiest solution I see is go buy another dock - in my case an Icom BC-213 - and cut the cable from the transformer to the plug and install a 12VDC male plug on it to suit your panel socket. If you're really paranoid about feeding your "12V radio" from a 13.8V system, you can get a LM7812 regulator that'll give you a pure & regulated 12VDC and install that in the circuit for less than a schooner during happy hour.

For your Uniden, have a look at what the powerpack outputs before doing the same. It may be 5V, 12V or something else. But the beauty of that is the LM78xx series of regulators come in a half-dozen different varieties so you can install one of them in the Uniden charging circuit too. 

Click on the person's name in the thread you want to PM, then click the Message button. It'll open up a Compose window and Bobs ya ma's brother.

10 hours ago, jackc said:

Drop it down on the highway…….and take off 🤩

Gotta fill the tanks first....

There was a Rotax-powered Jab out of Warnervale a few years back. James Stewart is the CFT there for Cloud-9 and might be able to help if you give him a call. Andrew Smith is the CFI of the CCAC and may be able to let you know if it was one of his members' planes if James can't help you out.

EDIT:
So just to confirm, this is a swap from a Jab 2200 to a Rotax in a 24- reg, not a Rotax installed in a new-from-the-factory Jab kit (hich would qualify for 19- reg)?

If it was 19- originally, why does MARAP apply if it was Experimental originally anyway?

I dun geddit...

Quote

According to the Australian Ministry of Defence, the aircraft have failed to meet scheduled annual flight hours due to maintenance and associated readiness issues.

So they're going to replace it with a slightly newer version of the same shitbox. Polish a turd it's still a turd... They have the KC30 for long range overseas junkets and the Falcon's for regional pork-barreling. Why do we need the BBJ as well? How often do they take the full 30 pax?

3 hours ago, turboplanner said:

I went checking for some meaningful facts, and was able to get 62 years of history of Moorabbin movements by calendar year.

 

The dotted line is the auto-generated trend line.

The green line shows that for 60 years Moorabbin has had 200,000 movements or more

 

Companies would kill for stability like that.

 

SO why the drop from 10 straight years of 300,000 movements in the early 90's?

Look at '89 - did they get to 400K that year? Seems like the last time Morabbin made it over 300K was 15 years ago - and I'd actually question how many of these movements recently had numbers on the side when back in the day, AUF was verboten from CTA/CTR, so everything you'd see 'back then' had to be VH-.

And I think your trend line is broken. There's no trend, it looks to be static at around 290,000 movements.

4 hours ago, turboplanner said:

We established that:

 

Bankstown had 243,126 annual movements in 2011 and 248,000 in 2017

Moorabbin 295,000 (800/day in 2023)

Van Nuys, California had 300,000 in 2023

So our metropolitan airports are roughly  on a par with California

And when you look at the [latest figures, it's dropped yet again. For the first 6 months of FY23/24, Archerfield had 110,000, of which half were fling-wing. Bankstown had 109,000, though 15% were helicopters here. Morabbin is the most popular at 134,000 for 6 months, with similar helo percentages to Bankstown. Extrapolate those figures for the full FY and you're looking at 220,000 movements for Bankstown, still 10% lower than a decade ago.

And that's the key takeaway from these latest figures - they continue to show the decline in GA movements at our largest airports, and by extension, airports across the country.

9 hours ago, jackc said:

My previous Flying School would not hand over my log books, complained to RAA, care factor zero.  

Not that new students are aware of this, but if enough of us keep saying it, maybe the word'll go out. 

DO NOT keep your logbooks at your school. They are your personal property. 

If the school collapses, you'll have to deal with an Administrator to try to get them back and good luck with that. Keep them in your flight bag and nowhere else - if your instructor says "You need to store it here!", politely decline and say "While I'm sure it won't happen here, I've heard enough horror stories of school's going under and student's losing access to their logbooks, and that would severely disrupt my training. So I'd prefer to keep it at home in in my flight bag, and bring it to each lesson same as my headset".

In the RV with the push/pull tubes, I ran a bit of string through the tube and tied a small sponge to it. Poured etch primer in at the sponge end, then pulled it through, "painting" the inside with the sponge. Repeat as often as needed till you're comfortable 'enough' has been painted to coat the interior.

On 31/01/2024 at 7:23 PM, LoonyBob said:

If I were to debate, on an open forum, the pros and cons of homemade IEDs, then that information would be widely available for a long time.

 

None of us should use this forum to present practicable mechanisms for terrorism, because most all of us are likely to come up with better ideas than your average agro gronk.

I've long held the opposite view. Granted those of us in flying, or other industries that make us a target could make things easier for your average psycho, but there's enough information out there for any dedicated nutjob to do significant damage without assistance from those of us on the inside of whatever industry. And a lot of it is available from the likes of the NTSB/ATSB or scientific articles & datasheets.

If you're a truly dedicated terrorist group, you're going to have people doing significant research on the pros and cons of each method of martyrdom to get the best bang for your body and there's enough information out there for almost any industry to let you do so - it'll just take a little more time to collate than if we were to discuss it here.