KRviator

The tampon and sanitary pad are for controlling severe bleeding. Absolute worst case, put tampon into wound, and pad over the top, tape it and hope for quick rescue. They are small, and already sterile. The condoms for carrying water, use as a slingshot elastic, small tourniquet, makeshift gloves, or even waterproof storage if needed - because I know one of you will ask about them next! ?

Nothing in the back usually, except my flight bag occasionally. But I always fly wearing a survival vest. Using the logic "I fly in a plane I built in my back shed!" makes explanations at the bowser much easier. ?

Yeah - but you're in Victoria. The state that introduced legislation to charge pilots for conducting instrument approaches to an ASA-owned Navaid...

So does this logic apply elsewhere, or just aviation? Central Coast Council just spent ~$1.5 million dollars rebuilding my local boat ramp, at ratepayers expense. I don't have a boat and they do not charge those that do to launch their tinny of a weekend but I've still paid a small portion of that $1.5M. What I do have is an RAAus-registered RV-9A, with a 165HP engine so it's massively overpowered. Which in turn means I can fly a complete circuit, to 1000AGL and back to wheels-down, in 3 minutes 20 seconds. And which, since I am not based at Warnervale, means "paying for a service I receive" costs me $150/hr in landing fees to fly circuits at Warnervale - which is less than 5 minutes away from where I keep my -9 and the closest aerodrome at which I can safely do circuits, plus another $110 if I refuel on council land - even if I bring my own fuel! My actual use of the runway, that portion that my wheels are down, at 125m/lap for that hour of circuits amounts to around 2250m total or a $66.60/km toll if we were doing it like they do for the new toll-roads. Reckon that'd stand up anywhere else but aviation? Imagine the outcry if Council introduced a 'pay-for-service' charge at each of their boat ramps. For "maintenance of the facility" of course. Afterall, it costs money to have a tractor tow a slasher over the grass once a month. And then there's the salary for the ARO to catch the rego numbers of those pesky Gyro's and other GA'ers that have the audacity to fly to Warnervale because it's the only aerodrome within cooee for the Central Coast... User-pays as a concept is fine unless there is a monopoly. As soon as you have that, or any other lack of meaningful competition, then the user-pays concept is exploited to the detriment of all users.

Only sometimes. If it is amateur-built, the payload formula specified in CAO 95-55 does not apply.

I don't think anyone "gives" authorization. If you have complied with the requirements of the SB - and those other SB's it references - your TBO becomes what is written in the SB in hours or years.

The problem with switching a 12VDC load with a 240VAC switch is the arc damage. 240VAC passes through 0 Volts 50 times a second, rendering any arc minuscule, whereas using such a switch to control a DC load will have the switch taking the full circuit current (or higher if you're switching a motor) instantly, or breaking the circuit under load. Unless a switch has a DC rating, it's not at all good practice, yet alone a good idea, to use a 240VAC switch for any meaningful DC load.

Just checked your gallery there this morning and it's working fine. So is the homepage, so hopefully it was just an ISP issue or something temporary.

Easily. Well, it was easy enough when I convinced RAAus that there were no grounds to refuse registration as the 'payload formula' listed in the CAO's didn't apply to amateur-built aircraft... CAO 95.55 simply says the MTOW for that category is 600Kg, so with a 445Kg empty weight, I have 155Kg payload. That's enough for me + just-under-full tanks, or me + mini-me + half tanks. Though now the KRviatrix has seen the utility of having our own plane, it's time to port it over to VH- so I can take two adults.

AIUI, you do not need a transponder in US 'E' unless you are within 30 miles of a Class B airport, they call it their "Mode C Veil". Outside that, you can fly VFR-in-E with no transponder.

For your bedtime reading, may I present Section 8.7 of the Part 139 MOS...Which - because not everyone understands CAsA - is simply windsock standards from the aerodrome standards manual. The stuff in red is what you need. OF course, if you are only using it yourself, I'd probably go one of the US red-and-white ones that you can use to gauge wind strength as well,...

I think you're being overly critical of these blokes. It's reported they took 2 years to build the bloody thing, if that's true, then that's a substantial investment in time alone, yet alone materials and sheer perseverance. It's not something they thought "Hold my beer and watch this" and knocked up after a weekend on the pi$$. I built an RV-9 in my back shed. I didn't do it to advance aviation, or try to prove anything to anyone, beyond myself, and that was simply that I could do it, and I could do it safely. To outward appearances, these blokes have done the same thing. No one knows what kind of control laws they have written, nor the quality of the components or software they've used. Given half a chance, I'd build something like that myself and take one of my rugrats flying over a waterhole too. I've no doubt the Cretins Against Sensible Aviation will get upset about it - indeed their public comments thus far, effectively "We're sure he's broken the law, we're just not sure which one it is..." don't really inspire much confidence.

Rotax has published their owners manual that contains the fuel flow tables. All 2,480 lines of it. After much crunching of data in Excel, it would appear that the sea-level 100% fuel flow is a staggering 56.27 LPH. I don't think my OX-340 (165HP, FP) gets that on takeoff, even though the fuel flow meter squawks on the Dynon...

And that's the problem. I have an RV-9A, registered RAAus. I'm swapping it to VH-, but as I built it, I can maintain it. If I sell it to someone else, they will need a LAME to maintain it if they keep it VH-, but if they bring it back to RAAus, they won't. The system is broken. At least I made a comment on this peculiarity, but whether they recognise it and then close it, or simply 'meh' it off, remains to be seen.

I ordered 8 through Bursons a couple weeks ago - they had to overnight them from Melbourne, but that's another option.

Nothing a pair of -230 or -250 wing's won't fix. Simples. ?

I read those comments as "We're sure he's broken some rule, but we just don't know which one of the 15,459,334 that we wrote, it is....but when we do figure it out, it will be a crime of strict liability"

But will that significantly change if we get RAAus upto 760kg? From what I understand - and I'm always happy to be proven wrong and learn something - we will still have 2 seats, no CTA at present, no aeros, no night flying and no IMC. Just more payload for some existing aircraft and a few new ones on the register, I don't think we're going to see the likes of 172's et al, popping up with numbers on the side.

Don;t see why not? Buy an RAAus-registereable aircraft, transfer it from VH->RAAus and you can maintain it yourself right now. Then again, I would like CAsA to follow the Canadian model whereby you can maintain your own GA aircraft, if you use it for PVT ops. Never happen though!

The benefit to numbers will be Farmer Joe can (probably) maintain it himself if it is only going to be used in PVT ops, vs paying a LAME to do so for him, so the RAAus fees of $4-500 might actually be a saving... But they don't really have any other option - the Yanks allow uncertified ADS-B and even the Poms found the stuff from Dynon (GPS-2020) and Garmin (GPS-20A) outpoerformed the TSO'd stuff that was supplying position information for the certified crowd.

500 responses, but operational ATCO's only make up 30% (1067/3534) of their workforce, according to their latest annual report. The remainder are support staff and managers.

Why not? It happens now... Jabiru, RV3/4/9/12, probably a bunch more I can't recall...

Now CAsA have put out the "Consultation will start soon" rhetoric it kicks things off. But as I was once told by a manager..."Consultation is not negotiation", ie, CAsA don't have to take anything anyone says onboard when they draft the rules, or even if they draft new rules for +600kg. I'll wait and see, but am not going to hold my breath.

I dunno about that. My rugrats have taught themselves to fly on the PC-based simulator to the point of being safe. They are 7 & 8 years old and have been able to do it for 18 months. I've had bugger-all input for the most part, but they crash it, reset it, get better, crash again, reset it and learn from their mistakes. You can teach yourself to fly, you can teach yourself to fly aerobatics, IFR. even precision and non-precision approaches if you want to hit the books, you do not necessarily need ol' mate beside you saying "do this here and the plane will do that". I taught myself the buttonology and processes to fly a GNSS approach with my GPS & EFIS, having never flown a minute IMC, because it's an emergency skill I might someday need, no instructor sitting there saying "press this".

I'm the opposite side of the spectrum, sorry.... The Q400 is an abortion, albeit an (unfortunately) successful one. Far out of proportion it kind of reminds me of the Metro, an overly long skinny fuselage. The earlier DHC-8's were fine, but the -400? ? Then again, I'm the kind of person who things the A-10 or AH-64, arguably two of the ugliest airplanes ever created according to many, are simply beautiful works of art. ?