KRviator

We already get that with our railway Cat I medical exams. The whole 'do you feel suicidal?' etc etc...Yet we've had one successful and several attempts at it in the last couple of years in one depot...So no matter how good the psych profiles are, no amount of security cards or medical histories will prevent every possibility, every time.IIRC, we had a serving Qantas line pilot do something similar in a bug-smasher off Ballina a year or two ago, an Air Botswana pilot do it, the Germanwings Effo 2 years ago. This is only such big news because of the novelty of it - "Non-pilot baggage handler steals commercial airliner....". Were he to have done the same thing in a Pitts Special, we would be lucky to have heard of it in Australia. I don't mean to trivialise the event or its' repercussions - far from it - as an employees mental health is arguably more important than their physical health in both the flying, and railway, environments given the safety-critical nature of both. But I don't really see how this can have been prevented.

Some bloke knocked off a Q400 from Seattle, Barrel-rolled the thing before crashing it. Sad as it is, kudos for A) Getting it airborne. B) Not injuring anyone else and; C) Putting every other Dash-8 pilot to shame!

They've just followed in Warnervale's footsteps. It's now PPR, CTAF® and council charges like a wounded bull. No daily rate like, oh I dunno, Bankstown or Archerfield. Noooooo, the muppets at Warnervale (Central Coast Council) now charge per landing. $27.50/t MTOW for an itinerant aircraft. So, based on 1 circuit every 6 minutes (easily doable in the RV), that's nearly $300 in landing fees per hour!

That's what no one can understand - How did they announce V1/Rotate?!?... My usual patter on brakes release in the RV is Power set, (oil) Pressure checked, Speed reads.

No different to the iLevil BOM.

But a spot tracker doesn't meet the requirements for a PLB/ELT for XC flying

I noticed it in the latest ERSA - Warnervale on the NSW Central Coast is now PPR only. No doubt in an attempt to catch out those pesky ultralight pilots that Council can't charge their exorbitant landing fees too. Coming back to Somersby today, I heard someone calling themselves "Warnervale Base" request the contact details of a Gyro pilot who didn't contact them for permission beforehand on the CTAF, so if you aren't based there, get ready for a $27.50 landing fee for each movement - and there's no daily rate like you get elsewhere; even Bankstown has a daily charge, FFS! It'd be cheaper for me to fly to Brisbane Archerfield, do an hour of circuits there, refuel and then fly back to Somersby than it would be to fly the <5 minutes to Warnervale for an hour of circuits there and buy fuel from the aero club - By the way, that's another $110 just for the 'privilege' of refuelling on council land. FML... Another nail in the coffin for local GA, notwithstanding the flashy new website of the local aero club, unfortunately.

If he's anything like me, he's done it inadvertently using an ipad and trying to scroll down. The 'Caution' is bloody easy to tap by accident.

I wouldn't say "all" manufacturers pad out their performance claims... Vans is well-known for being accurate with their claims. For example, in my -9, I cruise at 2400RPM which works out to around 55% TAS'ing 143-145 KTAS. Vans does use SMPH for their performance figures, but after converting to knots, I am exactly where they say I should be for a lightweight RV-9 at 55%.166SMPH / 144.2KTAS. IF, however, you are looking at a brand-new/new-ish manufacturer, then yes, I would be somewhat sceptical. The internet is a wonderful tool for calling out BS claims, and when you get interested in a particular plane, a night or two with Google will usually produce enough meaningful performance data to show whether or not the manufacturers claims can be trusted. Ignore the 38LPH indicated fuel flow. This was during a fuel-flow sensor validation flight after installing the new Rotec TBI. After 2 hours flying laps around the Hunter, it was 24.5LPH, measured.

You could always try booking under "B. O'neal" and if it's delayed, trot out the Don't you know who I am?!?!? line?

Bugger...Well, it was worth a try. Thanks anyway John,until I hear back from the G3xpert's over on the VAF forums, looks like all an owner can add is an identifier, altitude and description. Better than nothing I suppose. Here's the plotted location of the waypoints in the test file, for posterity!

AIUI, this is only if acting beyond the scope of any training received, or not otherwise acting in good faith. Ie: I only have a Senior First Aid certificate, so I'd be comfortable doing CPR. If, while doing so, I broke old mates ribs, I would still be held harmless. On the other hand, if I attempted to do a tracheostomy on some bloke choking in a restaurant and nicked his artery, I am a goner. You covered so long as you don't go above and beyond what a reasonable person, with your training and experience, would be expected to do in the circumstances. By the same token, if you fail to act even though you have some training/experience in first aid or rescue, you can't be held accountable for someone subsequently dying, with the exception of in the NT - the only state to have such legislation, IIRC.

Why is a go-around seen as a bad thing among pilots? I average one go around for every 4 landings I do at Somersby because it has very little margin for error and I'm not prepared to push the boundaries. The aim is to get down in one piece, not get down off the first approach - that is a bonus.

Just in the interim, could a kindly passing G3X owner try this file out to see what icons it displays? I am not sure if the Apt/NDB/VOR's are permanently saved to the G3X as User Waypoints are. As before, rename it from *.TXT to *.FPL and load the flightplan in your system as normal. There is no route data associated with the plan. IT contains 3 x fictitious way-points, all located offshore of Sydney/Wollongong area, way-point G3XT1 should display as an Airport icon, G3XT2 should display as a VOR, and G3XT3 should display as an NDB. The idea behind this is if these three waypoints do in fact display the respective icons, then I can include a G3X Navaid file for Garmin owners in the same manner as for Dynon owners, and also update the ALA/Certified airport files to show as airports instead of User Waypoints. g3x_icontest.txt g3x_icontest.txt g3x_icontest.txt

Thanks John, I don't know anyone with a G3X so had to wait until one of the VAF guys tested them for me. I have an email in to G3Xpert at the Vans Forums to see if there is anything else I can include in the XML file, for example hollow icons for uncertified airports or VOR/Tower icons for the aids, as Dynon allows. Unfortunately, the G3X manual is lacking somewhat in the ability to manually create user-waypoint databases.

Canada seems to have it right, with their owner-maintenance scheme for GA, though sadly the M20C and on and Beech Bonanza's aren't included...

The only caveat I would offer, is if you make a glide approach your regular approach, and don't announce it as such, you may not be where someone is actually looking for you, prompting them to think they have more time to get away than is really the case, ie, thinking you're still on base when you're rolling out on a 1/4 mile final.

Then you get the "fly-neighbourly" areas that frown upon you turning crosswind at 500AGL before the departure end of the airstrip and downwind just outside the boundary fence so you have to fly upwind a mile or so before turning crosswind... party-poopers.

You need XC hours for the PPL, so you can either do it as part of your RPC, then port it over to the RPL (with 2 hours IF) in a cheaper aircraft, or you can do your XC hours in a VH- aircraft, but either way they need to be done. From your description, you do not currently meet the requirements for a PPL.

If you're genuinely interested in purchasing it, the registration certificate should be easily available, but RAAus themselves caution that this does not prove ownership.

By all reports, there are some gaps in what is available in the Garmin Australia VFR databases. Truthfully, it doesn't worry me as I have a SkyView system, but in saying that, I wondered if I could narrow those gaps somewhat, given I have made a series of files available that list every Australian ALA and Certified airport for those of us running the Dynon SkyView system. After a little r search and playing around with Excel today, I think I have manag d to produce similar files for the Garmin crowd, which I've somewhat cheekily uploaded over at the Dynon forums. Hopefully they won't mind too much. So if you have a Garmin G3X system,p and you would like a listing of the airports in Australia as sourced from the May 2018 DAH, nip over to my post at the Dynon forums, and follow the directions. Hopefully the files will work for you. No promises made either way, good luck!

The new DAH goes live tomorrow, so as ASA haven't tried to pineapple me yet, I've updated the files to reflect the data in the MAy 24 reivison of the DAH and uploaded the new files over at the Dynon Forum for those that want to update their systems.

2012 completion and only 45 hours? Something must be (or was...) seriously amiss with that aircraft...

Ask ASA... they're the ones who turned off most of the ground-based navaids...

Not in Australia anyway. Traditional radio navigation systems are no longer a requirement for an IFR aircraft. If you have a TSO-146 GNSS, that's all you need to file and fly IFR. Which is what surprised me about the drone guns at the comm. games, that jammed the GPS signal.