KRviator

I dun geddit...

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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.

$315 for an unserviced block in an airpark? Flamin' eck...

Two blocks available with through-the-fence access to Scone Airport went for a little under $350 last year - and they're, fully serviced. And with no body corporate fees either. A third was sold for $900 with private taxiway access, a nice house & big hangar already on it a couple years prior while a 4th fully serviced block with private taxiway access to Scone went for under $300 about the same time.

14 minutes ago, Roundsounds said:

You do realise the ADSB returns are based on pressure height? The QNH at 3pm was 1007, therefore you need to take approx 180’ off the ADSB pressure height return to get an altitude.

I did, and I'd forgotten! Appreciate the correction. 

I simply compared it to the two earlier laps from a few hours previously, I didn't think to get the QNH's and cross-check the baro-corrected altitudes.

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and the wind at the time 3:10pm local  was ... dunno cant see back that far, suspect (S) easterly component.  Instructor would not send him  up if it was appreciably windy. 

The 1500 Camden AWIS a few minutes prior to the accident was out of the northwest at 9 gusting 13, so almost direct crosswind (Though the BoM records now show it as 8 knots, not a meaningful change really, but I note it on the grounds of accuracy). That being the case, GS would be almost identical to IAS on the downwind leg, if not slightly lower than indicated. Given there's no reduction of GS to anything resembling stall speed for a lightweight 172, I'm going to go out on a limb and say he didn't stall it or spin in. Compare the ADS-B data here with that from the Gundaroo prang, they're markedly different.

It's a weird one, it almost looks like the beginning of a spiral dive, but I can't begin to fathom what would cause that at the base turn. 

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Seems to me that that is an extraordinarily wide/long circuit - the pilot may have been having problems quite early on in the flight

 

ADS-B Exchange shows it to be within 150m or so of two previous circuits conducted by the same plane earlier that morning. Not sure if it was the same student or not, but I'm wondering if they turn Crosswind early due to a noise abatement restriction on overflying Wivenhoe Village, so rather than 500' upwind, turn, climb to 1,000, turn, they turn early causing a longer-than-normal crosswind leg, pushing the downwind leg further away from the runway than would normally be the case. Any Camden-based folks able to comment?

One thing I did note was he was 200' high throughout his downwind leg. ERSA says 1,300' but he flew downwind at 1,500.

Something's not adding up for me... The reported wind at the time (1500L)was out of the northwest at 9G13, so almost direct crosswind for the runway (and downwind leg...) meaning GS is almost equal to KIAS. The last ADS-B return on the downwind had him doing 80Kts GS, before it increased to a reported 90 and beyond in a 3000FPM descent and entering a slight left turn.

80KIAS is way above the S&L stall speed of a light 172 - even cranking a load of bank you're going to need near 60* and about 2G to get close to stalling it at 80KIAS - and that kind of turn isn't reflective of the ADS-B track - especially when you compare that to the track of that Cirrus at Gundaroo you'll find they don't marry up insofar as a stall/spin accident. It looks more like that 172S prang out of Melbourne where the student lost the fight with the autopilot ALT HOLD mode - though why you'd be using the AP on a downwind leg on your first solo in a 172 I cannot fathom...

PPrune reports he had his RPC - or at least, 40  hours RAAus...) and this was his first solo in a VH registered aircraft.

23 minutes ago, Lightwing Bill said:

The process for the passenger's estate to make a claim involves issuing a letter of demand to the pilot or pilot's estate.   That letter of demand has to include evidence that the pilot was negligent.   Evidence would be from an ATSB report if it existed.  The pilot then makes a claim against the MLIP to cover the letter of demand, up to the passenger limit of $250,000.  There is no evidence that that amount has never been paid by the insurer.  If that is the situation, it would appear that;

 

No ATSB report = no evidence = no payout from the MLIP.   

No, it can't.

Under S.27 of the Transport Safety Investigation Act, you cannot use an ATSB report as evidence in any criminal or civil proceedings. While it'll certainly help direct other investigators, I've always been under the impression they, along with things like NTSB reports, cannot be used in legal proceedings, simply for the fact that if they could be, people wouldn't be as open to what happened, to the detriment of overall safety.

Coroners courts, yes, but that's it. Civil claims or if CAsA want to try to hang you from the yardarm for a violation? Nope.

6 minutes ago, Area-51 said:

We may never find out what really happened unfortunately. Having flown with Dave, based upon his aptitude, level of patience and situational engagement, i would not expect him to allow a stall spin situation to develop through uncoordinated controls.

I won't speculate on possible causes, but I will wholeheartedly agree with your comment above about Dave's patience and - I want to use the term ability, but that just suggests skill at a thing and doesn't quite cover it so I'm gonna invent the term instructorness to combine friendliness, ability, patience, knowledge and being a nice bloke to boot, made him an asset to learn from when I flew with him 15 years back. The first flight the KRviatrix made in a light plane was in Dave's Tecnam around the scenic rim too.

With a little luck, there'll be a G3X or SkyView fitted from which some data may be extracted. Whether or not the police or RAAus will release that data to improve flight safety for the rest of us is the million dollar question.

12 minutes ago, danny_galaga said:

This accident hits close to home for me. One of the deceased is Dave Briffa, an instructor. 

That name rings a bell. I've a feeling I did a flight review with him several years back out of Boonah.

Best I can tell he is. And to top it off, he's revised his audio panel design as recently as 2022.

Here's his 2022 article.
Here's the link to his 2002 DIY audio panel one. And you'll need THIS PDF of the schematic too. Reading the article, it looks to be a multi-part series, but I cannot find the other sections. I think I still have some hardcopy KP magazines that far back, so if anyone wants to delve a little deeper into actually doing it, I can go have a look-see to find out if I have P2 / P3.

1 hour ago, RFguy said:

there seems to be a market for a  "matrix box", due to the lack of electronics people

 

I forsee a PCB with screw cage connectors for 'anything' that can be configured to hook up 'anything'.  IE connect all the items , just get the grounds in the right place, and that is all.  

 

The labour is the problem. If you can set up the product such that the owner provides the labour in terms of merely connecting wires to the board (and in no particular order), then a high level person remotely can program the board (and if required, have the installed/ owner plug some jumpers in like a checkerboard. said board needs to be able to sample and feed back to the high level person that configures (sets gains, polarities etc of signals) 

 

discuss.

Jim Weir of Kitplanes fame did an article maaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyy moons ago about DIY'ing your own audio panel, with any number of inputs you wanted. Damned if I can find it, but it was online as a PDF for eons, and it wouldn't take too much to import that into one of the PCB manufaturers online websites and have them spit out your very own PCB audio panel.

I use JLC PCB for my prototypes and they've been reasonably priced and have a quick turnaround.

I'll keep digging for the Kitplanes PDF in the meantime.

Except PS will block you from viewing their FB profile (and their for-sale posts they do) if you dare to ask too many curly questions about their listings...It may well be the vendor's who are supplying such info, but PS don't appear to be too proactive in vetting such info, or like being questioned.

That being said, they do have a good and easy to use website!

2 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

Have sold three, and can recommend using an agent like Light Aircraft Sales. Not expensive for the hassles avoided.

No - NO - and #&$(% NO! 

While my search for the right 4-seater continues, I've had no end of problems communicating with brokers (though in the spirit of transparency, NC at LAS was by far, the best one...), but I've found brokers are typically useless at knowing the full details buyers want from the outset, and all that does is piss me off and shoo me away when they have to play ping-pong with the owner to get those details and then get back to me. I'm still waiting (after 2 months) for OH details of the prop fitted to a C205 that's still listed for sale, though with only 9HTR on the prop. If it can be overhauled, then fine, if it's been OH'd several times previously, it may be end-of-life so there's another $30K I need to factor in to the price. Does the broker care? Apparently not...Seller doesn't seem to be too concerned either, or they'd be pushing the broker to follow me up.

Granted they insulate you from tyre-kickers, but I'd simply put an email down as your first point of contact, so you can reply in your own time. If, after several emails, you feel they're genuine, you can progress to voice calls. If not, add them to the spam folder.

As part of the sale, I'd recommend you also do up a runout sheet showing the time remaining for various components and a detailed equipment list. This isn't such a huge thing if you're selling a Drifter, but if it's an RV-8 with G3X and autopilot, then it's something I'd want to see. Include that in your ad to save me as a buyer asking for it - and if you do decide to go with a broker, it can make their life easier as your spec sheet is already uploaded to the ad or ad text so there's not as much to-and-fro to get answers to buyers questions.

If I'm spending north of $100K on anything I expect my questions to be answered promptly. If a broker can't - or won't - do that, there's always another opportunity, it just might take a bit longer, and that's the problem you face as a seller if you go through a broker. DIY'ing it leaves the ball in your hands, you're not reliant on anyone else.

3 minutes ago, Blueadventures said:

Its a idea I have had for a few years.  Rather than new battery that fits in the unit just have wires that can hook up to the relevant voltage.  (Don't know the voltage)  Need to turn off when found or asked by RCC.  This would be an additional item to the required compliant unit.

Some (very) quick number crunching based on the MT410G 2 x CR123s that gives 6V at 1.4Ah - but remembering it's gotta keep on keeping on for at least 24h, so 1.4/24 gives 0.06A at 6V. Multiplied by two as there seems to be 2 x 2, so call it .12A at 6V. A bog-stock LM7806 voltage regulator from Jaycar will put out upto 1A - more than enough power for our needs. Add in a couple of capacitors on the +12V and +6V rails and you're in business.

If that's all you've got running from your aircraft battery after you spear in, and assuming some generous losses in our little adapter circuit, you'll still have something like 160+ hours of transmit time from a standard PC680 battery. I would hope they'll have found you by then, especially with a GPS position given...

57 minutes ago, Blueadventures said:

What may be a good idea would be to have and expired one hooked up to the required voltage through a voltage reduction off the aircraft battery; just saying food for thought as may be a life saving backup???

That's not a bad idea...It wouldn't take much to do I'd imagine, there's a swag of low-cost voltage regulators to step down 12V to the required voltage.

I ended up finding the other post that mentions the batteries used, but I think @walrus has made a typo as the CR125 resolves to a 12V 5AH SLA, not a small lithium. Could be he meant CR123, but I'll take my MT410G apart maybe tomorrow and have a look-see and report back.

EDIT: According to this datasheet  there are 2 x 2 CR123A batteries in the MT410 series PLB's. When I pull mine apart, I'll grab some photos of the process in case anyone wants to follow suit and keep theirs as a backup with new batteries.

I have an out-of-date GME MT410G and recently replaced it with an ACR ResQLink 400, for no other reason than that's what I could get at BCF in a hurry.

ISTR someone discovered the GME MT410G beacons take a standard size lithium battery but I can't find that post anymore. When I do find it, I'll simply replace the battery in the GME and keep it as my spare. Even though the battery is officially out-of-date it still tests good, so it still comes with us as a backup, and the ACR lives in my flying vest as the "must be carried" beacon.

50 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

If you go back through the last 30 years ATSB reports, quite a few were similar.  IFR rating and Currency flights are required to fly in IMC. 

...........and that's a full stop.

You can go further back over cases reported in the Aviation Safety Digests There's this type of accident, the type of accident where a raw student gets into IMC and tries to fly his way out, the person who is keeping the wings level and smashed into the side of a mountain because he didn't know he had to do a LSALT survey before he started the flight, and so on.

That's a good point too, @turboplanner - LSALT...

I'd never really bothered thinking about it till I did my XC endo, and the instructor wanted it on the NavLog - and it makes sense for my situation. I'm equipped to survive unintentional flight into IMC, so I still have it there in my paperwork. LSALT is useless if you don't have an attitude reference though, but if you do have an AH or EFIS, then it doesn't take much to skim along your track line and pick out the highest point for each leg, and add 500 to it to keep you safe if it goes to poo.

Those Max accidents had nowt to do with the autopilot though.

Fighting the trim, yes, but not a mistrimmed (due to the AP) aircraft. The trim movements in the Max was a part of the flight control software to provide an increasing stick force gradient at increasing AOA - which is a certification requirement. In the Max, due to the positioning and size of the donk's, they couldn't achieve that aerodynamically, so decided to use the trim to bias the stick force, based on the single AoA sensor, with the result of it providing erroneous info, generated the "shit, we're approaching a stall" signal to the FCC, which trimmed down to increase the force to hold the nose up, thus simulating the certification requirement. 

Which is great if you're actually approaching a stall. Not so much if everything's normal bar the AoA data...

From an RPT point of view, the closest that comes to mind is that Aeroflot A310 crash where the Captain's son managed to apply enough force to change from LNAV to CWS in roll eventually losing control of the aircraft while they tried to work out what the plane was doing.

Seems remarkably similar to the 172 out of Melbourne a few years back that flew into a hill.

From the ATSB: 

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 It is likely that the pilot manually manipulated the controls while the autopilot was on and engaged in a vertical mode. As a consequence, the autopilot re-trimmed the aircraft against pilot inputs, inducing a nose-down mistrim situation, which led to a rapid descent.

51 minutes ago, JEM said:

Looking at the photo of the scene, I cant see any aerial cable markers attached to the cable crossing the river. I know that Ergon Energy for one have a marker program in progress but were there markers here?

I would say no, for the simple reason there's no reason for them to have been marked previously. It's not really a navigable waterway, there's no runway nearby, and they're not higher than, or close to, that magic 500AGL such as crossing a valley or gap in the hills.

From what @kgwilson indicates though, they're marked now, but that seems to be a common theme when a powerline is struck, simply to avoid any liability should they be struck a second time.