KRviator

The empty weight on my 2-seat RAAus-registered RV-9A is 445Kg, so 155kg payload. That's me + not-quite-full thanks or me + mini-me + fuel for a 3 hr junket. Until I swap it to VH, that meets my mission requirements.

Why does this sound suspiciously like the case of Patrick Crumpton who was fart-arsing about at low level over the Clarence river and hit a powerline killing his young passenger? Any time you are flying below 500AGL and not in the process of taking off or landing, you're breaking the rules, with a few notable exceptions, none of which apply to your typical junket around the patch on a weekend. If you are below 500AGL to your mates strip and you hit a powerline, you're covered as the rules permit it. If you're under 500AGL and you hit a powerline being a stuntc*ck, you deserve everything you get.

They're high bypass engines aren't they? He'll probably come out the other side shaken, but not stirred.

The hard part with having an accountant for a missus is she's always banging on about "Everything being an Asset or a Liability". Technically, employees are assets - though they are viewed by the vast majority of large companies as liabilities. The worst part is when you have worked for a company that was - and I'm being honest here - a truly fantastic place to work, and one of the best in the industry in which to work, then seeing the damage a change in management and managerial culture can do to employees morale and the businesses bottom line. ?

It is a part of the 2018 Privacy Policy. It is not part of any privacy policy prior to that. The 2018 policy was added to their website after I called out the CEO last year for not complying with their own policy after they apparently left their old one up. And their was ZERO notification to the membership that the existing privacy policy had been changed to include the disclosure to airfield operators.

So I have a question... WHEN will RAAus provide my details to an airfield operator? Whenever they (the airfield operator) request it, irrespective of whether or not I've actually landed there and then - like the AvData clowns - will I end up arguing with them about my plane being in a hangar interstate at the time....Or will RAAus expect some kind of proof that I was there before releasing my details? Going by their actions this far, I'd expect it to be the former.

It wasn't IDH, but VH-INH, and the problem wasn't that it dropped its' nosewheel, but that it didn't...? The BASI report for a bit of light reading...

I think that's what it comes down to. I usually plan the flight on SkyVector and print out the NavLog page(s), then email the plan to the iPad, open it in OzRunways, and then WiFi the plan to the Dynon for the autopilot to track. While the engine is warming up, I'll plug it into the KLN-90. I have and can, but refuse to, use a whiz-wheel. It has no place in a modern cockpit. If I really want to do any E6B calculations, I use an app on the phone. I have no qualms about using any of the 4 GPS' I have on board for sole-means area navigation, though it is the KLN that keeps me legal for that, nor even about going VFR-on-top using the KLN for position fixing. Battery going flat? Plug it into the 12V socket. Ipad overheats? Pull out the phone and spin up RWY. Drop the phone on the floor? Pull up the VTC overlay on the Dynon. Dynon fails? Use the KLN to find the nearest suitable airport. There are a multitude of single-place failures in light aircraft, but consumer-grade electronics utilised for GA navigation aren't one of them anymore. I can't even remember the last time I bought a paper chart...?

Could you edit your post to remove his mobile number? Might well be his personal one and there's bots that crawl websites looking for thing like that and email addresses.

Where's it been stopped? It was the ADS-B paint, to disable that, all you need to do is select Standby when you need to. One of the VAF guys makes a habit of it, hell even Boeing does it: Images from Wired.com

Personally, I like this one more:

ATSB RepCon might be a good option too?

But how is that different to Christian Scholl, the arsewipe who drove his B-Double into the side of a passenger train at Kerang and killed 11 people. The only substantial difference, is Scholl drove that route weekly, for 5 years and knew the level crossing was there but still drove at a speed that meant he couldn't hold short of the stop line when he observed the crossing lights were activated and his actions resulted in the worst rail accident since Granville. Sometimes I wonder just how 'justice' is served...

I dunno about that... I overstayed a parking meter in Brisbane once. $52 fine. But to do an hour of circuits at Warnervale will cost $82.50 - plus another $110 if I want to refuel there (not counting the cost of the actual fuel, either...) I don't begrudge paying my way at all. What I have an issue with is a private organisation performing an extraordinarily quiet backflip on a well-known public policy - that was reaffirmed in writing as recently as 18 months ago, in an attempt to feather their own nest at my expense. And then being told I am the one who mis-read their privacy policy, when I called them out on it. Given they've gone to the trouble of actually removing and replacing it, it smacks of a cover up. Exactly the same as when I called them on the Privacy Policy and their URL's...Not even a mention of it in the December one, not even an 'errata' or correction advising the membership "a draft release went out last month, sorry about that". One can only wonder just what is going on down in Canberra....

Dunno about anyone else, but I sent the CEO an email about it: The reply was less than inspiring, basically saying "We amended the Privacy Policy in August and uploaded it to our website, you must be looking at an old version" and "There are a number of drivers for this change, access to CTA and higher MTOW are also a driver, as is Part 149..." I replied Deafening silence has been my only reply. Not that I am surprised, but I am drafting a complaint to the Office of the Information Commissioner about it, as I provided my details to manage my RPC and aircraft registration - NOT for RAAus to use as an olive branch to the rest of the industry in an attempt to feather their own nest at my expense (both literally and figuratively). Afterall, if they're happy to change this policy willy-nilly, and disclose our details to whoever they want, what else will they change, and to whom might they give our data to next time?

I would say the vast majority don't even know about it, Keith. I didn't until I read a post on PPRune, and then went looking (And found the old privacy policy they had never bothered updating...) Apart from a short spiel in the latest Sport Pilot magazine - that no one gets in the mail anymore - there has been absolutely no communication from RAAus about this change. No email, no letter, no SMS - NOTHING at all.

The school might reasonably be expected to foot the bill to train their individual instructrors, but RAAus - and as a consequence, everyone - has to foot the bill for the legal advice, development of a training and standardisation package, dialogue with CAsA, etc etc. And for those of us who will likely never use CTA, then yes, we are footing the bill, indirectly.

No.....They don't. Not for VFR anyway. They provide segregation, not separation - there is a very big difference. Separation has minimum standards, segregation doesn't. Note there is no mention of VFR/VFR separation! An oft-overlooked gotcha in CTA... There was a very close near miss at Bankstown not long ago when a Warrior was doing T&G's, went around and a Helo was cleared across the runway at 500'. This is the comment from one of the ATC'ers in the tower:

At a guess, they response you (we) will get is "Well, the new privacy policy allows it, suck it up, princess!" The thing is though, I didn't provide my details when that privacy policy was in effect, and there is no alternative but to use RAAus, for many things they are effectively a monopoly. I am still waiting on a further reply from the CEO, but am seriously lodging a complaint with the OAIC, given the sneaky way in which RAAus brought this in, and has not notified the membership.

Buggered if I know, I refuel at Cessnock or elsewhere -though I'm hanging out for Rylstone Airpark's bowser to come online! They're spelled out in Council's Financial year fees and charges document. Rotate it clockwise once, then search for "Airport".

IMHO, there's a pretty bloody big difference. Let's look at Warnervale as my oft-used example. As I'm based at Somersby (About 4 minutes away, really), I am classed as an 'itinerant aircraft', so I don't benefit from their new 20-minute blocks available to aircraft based there. So it's $8.25 for each and every landing. Even though I am based - and own a house in - the Central Coast Council LGA, the same Council that operates Warnervale. If I want to refuel there after my hour of circuits, that's another $110 just for the "Privilege" of refuelling on council land - on top of any fuel purchased! The motoring equivalent of that would be to charge me $1.375 for every kilometre I drive on Council roads, with Council being able to get my name and address from the RTA -simply for travelling on a Council-owned and funded asset. And don't forget that if you want to refuel at the local BP (if they've 'just happened' to lease their land from Council) it's another $110 on top of the E10 you just put into your Hyundai... It's a loooong bow to draw when comparing an illegal act (speeding ticket & photo-fine, to use your example) to a legitimate and lawful recreational activity and the provision of data thereof. As it happens, I emailed the RAAus CEO about it today - and he claims the new privacy policy permits it, and was uploaded to the RAAus website in August. UUhhh, no. Nice try. If you look at my PPRune post, date and time-stamped, complete with the relevant section cut-and-pasted, you can see they have only just now put up the new policy after being caught out...

IMHO, Council run airfields are not entitled to cost-recovery in any way, unless they apply such cost-recovery methods equally across the rest of council-owned infrastructure. Most Council's I've come across seem to be quite selective in who they charge, to minimise the chance of blowback come re-election time. Case in point: Warnervale charges me $8.25 per landing, so an hour of circuits costs $82.50. Plus another $110 just to refuel on council land. But the Central Coast Council have, IIRC, 58 boat ramps across the LGA, for which they don't charge boaties a fee to use - including a brand-new $1.5 million-dollar facility at Koolewong. How is it one recreational activity that costs more to maintain their facilities than the airfield gets a free pass, yet Council feels recreational pilots shouldn't? I can understand charging a landing fee to aero clubs and FTF's as they're running a business, but private owners? Nope. That being said, private airfields should be entitled to recover some of their costs, as they don't have the ratepayer base to fund ongoing maintenance. How big would the outcry be if the RTA said they're going to disclose Driver's names & addresses to Council's so they can charge a fee to drive down the main street?

Yep. Different symbols on their displays. Check out ASA's spiel about it HERE. ?

Well, it seems the RAAus leadership team has sunk to a new low. Not content with trying to trademark the "Freedom to Fly" catchphrase - and what a horses arse that turned out to be, they have now entered into a commercial arrangement with the Australian Airport Association to disclose the private details of their membership to members of the AAA to allow them to be invoiced for landing fees. They didn't even have the courtesy to sent the membership an email or letter saying "Hey, we're going to give out your private data now". Nope. Just a 5-paragraph spiel from the CEO in the latest Sport Pilot magazine. This is despite written assurance to the membership in the March 2017 Sport Pilot magazine where they clearly stated they would not share member data - but encouraged the membership to register with Avdata to allow them to be invoiced independently of RAAus. Given this new stance is a 180* backflip, and also violates the RAAus privacy policy, one can only wonder what game RAAus is playing, when they attempt to use the members private data as a bargaining chip to feather their own nest at a time when they are chasing CTA access and higher MTOW's - and who else is going to be able to enter into a commercial arrangement with RAAus to get access to the member database? Insurance brokers? Sales agents? Maybe even generic advertising brokers can have a go too? It's a disgusting breach of trust of the membership, IMHO.

The worst part about this whole sorry saga: They're probably not alone in their antics...