MattP

I've mentioned this before in another thread, but the training implemented to combat the high accident rate actually covers when to / not to use the chute, as deployment out of parameters isn't great. You can look up the stats but I think there's not been a fatality for an in-parameter deployment and the rate for outside parameters is about 1/2. Challenges they were having was indeed the not pulling because "people will think I'm not a real pilot", pulling too late and also thinking the chute is magic and will just save you from really poor decision making. The way Cirrus teach chute deployment is a combination of briefing and treating it like you would doing a forced landing field check. IE brief before takeoff for any failure <500/600ft AGL (model dependent) = land ahead, 600 - ~1500ft AGL = CAPS pull right away, > 1500ft AGL options to use the chute or find a suitable area to land. Note that the concept of a minimum altitude for deployment is also taught, IE if you're cruising at 5000ft AGL you give yourself a minimum altitude for deployment of say 2000ft, this gives you time to troubleshoot but also allows you time to deploy. This was IIRC one of the issues they did have in the past was people waiting too long to deploy and either going below the min CAPS deployment altitude or say losing control in IMC exceeding deploy speed in a spiral etc. Personally I wouldn't want to "glide" a Cirrus into the trees, with a best glide between 95-99KIAS @9:1 , its not exactly a glider. Compare that to about 1800FPM and wind speed on the chute, with specific design for the gear (although that won't help into trees) and seats to take the impact, I'm using the chute. I will admit at night / in IMC I'm glad the chute is there just in case you need it, versus trying for a forced landing you can't see.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found his attitude judgemental and that there was more than a sizeable chip on that shoulder. My experience has been the opposite in that most times people are fascinated by why we fly little planes and what you get up to. I used to travel all over the place for my work talking to all sorts of people in very senior roles and generally found most have some interest that once you get them talking levels the conversation. You’d also be surprised how many of those types also like aviation, and get the same gleam in the eye when you start talking causing all other sane people to leave the table immediately 😉 I also thought the article on doing the vfr coastal in Melbourne was perhaps edited too much or could have had a couple of pages extra as it started well but just ended, I actually checked to see that there wasn’t a couple of pages stuck together. Overall it was ok, but tbh I did skip a lot of the sections, particularly those perpetual topics such as weight increases, although it was interesting to see the old articles about 600kg being approved. It would be fun to see the dates on some of the forum posts about 700kg and if they started the day after.

I’ve only had two experiences where I was genuinely scared or just plain wanted off this ride now. One was in a c172 many years ago starting my ppl and coming out of Essendon. I got caught in a decent wind shear just after takeoff combined with the usual mechanical garbage coming off the buildings taking off on 17. The thing dropped and rolled and by the time I figured out wtf just happened i was rolling left and sinking with full power on, it was terrifying especially with my massive few hours of experience at the time. Never been more thankful for an instructor next to me. Decided to just turn right back and go home. Took a while for me to get any form of confidence back. Second was as a paxing over the pacific during the night, over the itcz and we hit turbulence the likes of which I’ve never experienced and then it was over. We didn’t divert so it can’t have been that bad but it sure felt it. I am not a huge fan of turbulence but will be more confident in bumps in heavier ga than stuff with numbers on the side as the lighter wing loading makes them more prone to upsets in rough air. I do slow down though, which I’m amazed many people don’t, especially when you see the difference in many raa types between manoeuvring speed and the published cruise speeds. I also scrub when it’s just not fun or if I have a non pilot passenger and it’s not going to be great as one of the luxuries we have as recreational pilots is saying nope. No point in subjecting others to a ride in a washing machine and contributing to the little aeroplane phobia many people have. Doing things like flying in the morning or summer evenings / nights can be better than trying to slog into a 30kt northerly on a hot day!

I tend to use both. The ADSB display is good for showing the general direction of traffic, helping you look in the right place and giving an idea of what they’re doing. It also shows direction and you can work out climbing / descending, great if they’re in a spot your scan wouldn’t normally pick up, or just for directing focus.

Or talk of other uses of starchy tubers…

There’s something retro cool about a tri pacer and especially the interior when they’re restored in red or green or white with the two tone seats and panel, those old style yokes etc. This thing is just ugly! I’m sure it’s a fine aircraft but not one I’d want to be seen getting into on the ramp. I do feel sorry for those buying these other than the price 😱. Cub /tail dragger types will claim it’s not a real one, and everyone else will wonder why they bought that monstrosity. im guessing they have a market for them though, and if someone likes it enough to buy, more power to them. I’m sure the same was said of 172 pilots from 170 owners.

I must say I do find the thread drift on some of these topics confusing. We start out in a discussion about flying above freezing level in clear conditions, segway to rain being cloud or not and then onto putting potato on your windscreen. I do worry that given this is a student forum that some might actually read this and consider some of these strategies. To that end, since the conversation is based on an RAA context, why not make it simple? Others have put some well constructed and technically accurate answers to cloud and rain, but I thought simplifying it would also help in case someone actually reads this looking for advice. Rain = rain wet stuff falling from the sky - can vary in how much wet stuff falls and how big the wet stuff is. You can fly through this VFR, although the regs assume you're smart enough to decide whether you should or not (its the pilot part of being a pilot). Cloud = wet stuff suspended in the sky... you don't really need to worry too much about these as a RAA pilot, you need to stay away from them, even the rules tell you to. Don't go in them, don't be tempted to fly VFR "on top" above a BKN layer. If you do, go and read any one of the multitude of reports written about the last intrepid aviator that did so without the proper training. ICE = good in drinks, bad on your aircraft, you can get it in clouds (should not be there anyway). You can also pick it up if the OAT is ~ 0 and its raining / drizzling (cold soaked airframe) [looking at you Tas, Vic and ACT winters]. Likes to accumulate on sharp / pointy things first - pitot probes are a favourite, wing struts / horizontal stabilisers also good (especially worth looking for in a Jab / other high wing where you can't really see it). Your RAA aircraft will likely not be equipped to handle this as it may not have the right equipment, after all the designers didn't expect you to be flying around in icing conditions.... If the ceiling is 750ft raining, BKN/ OVC cloud etc, I'd personally admire the plane in the hangar, or on the ramp, make a cuppa and find someone to talk to about flying as I have nowhere so important to be flying to, that as a private or recreational pilot I need to be. As a bit of context, the circling minima for my local airfield is 720ft and I wouldn't contemplate departing IFR below that even though technically the approach minima straight in are lower. Just a personal minimum, and that's with a suitably equipped aircraft. VFR, nah.. got better things to do and its outside my personal minimums. YMMV.

Agree on the statement but this guy was an ifr rated experienced pilot, so would suggest complacency or just not being mentally ready to conduct the flight. The demonstrated walk around for the sr20 has at least three places where you check the cover, one on the initial outside scan, then again on the pitot heat test when you check that and the stall warning and again when walking around checking the nav lights. it’s also in the checklists. Even if this was the case and he took off with the cover on, because nobody is perfect and stuff happens (also assuming it’s the actual right cover not some home made job), the point about flying known power and attitude should still have gotten him around the circuit safely. This is learned very early on in all our flight training, and also part of the type training when you do the cirrus conversion, or at least was for me.

And I for one are thankful that happened. Really thankful I got a chance to see his routine live. What a legend.

Was having the same conversation this afternoon with someone, not sure on RAA specifics on passenger numbers but CAO 20.16.3 (11) does talk about infants being able to be carried on lap, and the usual rules on dual control and interference etc. How you could sit in a P2008 or any of the Tecnam 2 seaters and have enough room for passenger and child on lap, and not interfere with controls would be something I'd love to see. Assuming said person was very very slight. Either way, I wouldn't like to be that guy if this turns out to be outside the rules, CASA would be the last of his problems once mum finds out.

This is true, but you can offset the main systems based stuff using your home PC with a relatively accurate simulation package. The garmin trainer is good for G1000, as is X-plane (to a fairly decent degree). That way you can practice procedural and systems things, and keep up to speed. There are also various "study" level sims out for many avionics packages. Not suggesting these proxy for real flying in IMC, but they help keep the systems knowledge up. Again, choice wise as a private pilot, I can choose what I fly (renting) and how it's equipped, but you're not going to get that luxury if you're getting paid to do it, nor will you be able to say "yeah, nah" if you just aren't feeling it on the day. There is a large element to the 7 P's to any endeavor and this is no different. I tend to prep if I haven't flown in a while by simming the route out, refreshing the systems and procedures work, so I have a good idea of that aspect. Although, I wouldn't go blasting off into overcast down to minima anyhow, but definitely not without being current. There is also always the option of asking an instructor for some dual, which is something most people don't consider once they get their license, until AFR time, but that can be good preparation and time / money well spent. This isn't just limited to IFR, can be good if you're a bit rusty in general. Also, whilst ATC can get a bit short at times with people, they're professionals and are there to help you, no issue asking for an instruction again or clarifying something. Better than turning the wrong way. Traffic outside CTA is what I personally find leads quickly to task saturation, as its usually at a critical point of the flight (take off / approach) and you're thinking about that, where the traffic is, what they're doing, talking to them and ATC... For some people its holds etc.

It’s in table 61.935 part 6 item 22. Note the difference between the same table for instrument rating and Pifr. The pifr specifically mentions only at night under the ifr. table 61.890 says at night under vfr or ifr for instrument rating (cir) if it’s not specifically in the table you can’t do it. same as the basic pifr only allows you to navigate at day enroute, not do approaches or departures etc without the fpas. either way, don’t take advice in an Internet forum as gospel, go and check for yourself with an instructor when you go and do your research on what works for you.

If you go the PIFR route, note that to fly at night you need to add the Night FPA to the rating, but if you do a CIR you get night as part of it, and you can fly night VFR, whereas PIFR and night FPA means you can only fly at night under the IFR. Don't ask me why, but that's what's written in the rules... On this, they are generally (compared to NDB!) but there's still traps if you get complacent. RNAV/VNAV is nice, especially if you have something with BaroVNAV capability.

Might be a good idea to get your class 1 medical sorted before hand too, as dependent on your ability to hold one may limit your path. My advice would also be to knock off the IREX first then do the flying as there is a lot to the theory and getting it out of the way lets you concentrate on the flying, although opinions vary on this. I've mentioned this before on another thread, but the flying in cloud is the "easy" part. Keeping a mental picture of it all, juggling systems and navigation as well as keeping ahead of the aircraft takes practice and currency. Doing it frequently is key. Once you embark down the Instrument path, assuming you're not flying for a living, you need to be disciplined to keep flying and using those skills, more so than you would flying as a PPL visually. This takes effort to work around all the things going on in life. Another aspect often not appreciated is the idea of just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. Planning not to get yourself into a situation that relies on your awesome piloting skill is critical, so understanding what the weather is doing, where and how you need to get somewhere and how much margin you'll give yourself will occupy a lot more time than just blasting off VFR on a whim. Not that it needs months of planning, more awareness of many factors that you might only casually consider as a VFR pilot, such as NOTAM's (those pesky obstruction and airfield works notices), planning requirements (such as specific routes / altitudes in and out of some areas), weather, weather and weather etc. That being said, I hold the first time I broke through some overcast to brilliant sunshine on top as close as my first solo memory wise, and it definitely makes you feel like a grown up pilot. Very rewarding and a good thing to have to give you options. Its even less stressful a lot of the time to file IFR than scud run visually. Go for it!

Given the direction of the turn and where they were relative to one another he would not have seen him, probably even as he hit him. I haven’t seen anything on the pilot, ie his experience in operating at high da airports or if he was a local or from around there. There was a lot going around about him being solo etc but that was confusion with the Cessna. I don’t know about pinning this on atc though, he was cleared visual and regardless of if you like it or not, that means it’s on him to get himself landed safely. The student soloing in a 172 ahead of him was doing it. if you look at the vas aviation clip, he was told to follow the 172 so should have been slowing from 130ish anyhow knowing he had to slow to about 90 to not overrun him. If he followed the 172 around he would have been lined up, so I don’t know if he just saw the wrong runaway and lined up or took a wide turn for spacing or maybe had the ap on?

Yeah, just saw this was gs so accounting for density he was around the right speed. Why he misjudged the turn is the critical question and I’m guessing until the pilot talks about it to the investigators were all just speculating.

There's a plot of the tracks on prune that someone's put together and he wasn't joining right on final, he'd maneuvered to be on a right base from a mid (wide) downwind, so no different to joining at Ricketts point off the NDB. That all depends, if I need to be then yes I will, often you need to wait for slower aircraft at somewhere like YMMB but lets say I'm doing an ILS and need to keep the speed up, I will but that will depend on my ability to slow and get configured (flaps etc). Generally if you're on an RNAV or ILS you may configure as far back as 10 miles (flaps 1) which gives you about 120kias max in the Cirrus. If he was at 160+ he wasn't even configured, and had no hope of slowing down. Either way whilst I want to be as courteous as possible for someone behind me, ultimately I won't do that at the expense of my ability to safely conduct the flight. If its visual and the tower says hurry it along, then same thing, noted and taken under advisement but they're not saying peg it to VNE, its more go the safest max speed you can if possible.

The runways at Moorabbin are only 200m apart as well, and its class D with separate tower frequencies and contra circuits too, no issue with visual traffic in the circuit generally. As for doing this in the Cirrus, if you're visual, actually looking out the window and have your speed under control, contrary to popular belief you don't need to deploy CAPS to land. It won't snap roll if your speed goes below 150 knots or any other rubbish, its actually pretty sweet to hand fly. It responds just like any other relatively high performance single. One thing you do need to watch out for descending and joining downwind is speed control, especially if you've started an IFR approach and are doing a continuous descent, then go visual. Its easy to build up speed so you need to think ahead. I did see somewhere that he was at about 160+ knots (not sure if that is ground speed and what density alt etc makes the actual TAS), which isn't where you want to be on base (100 IAS is normally good). I'm sure the investigation will figure out what happened, but either way regardless of how he got to where he should not have been, given the turn to final and where the Metro was coming from, I doubt he would have had a chance to see him. One thing I've seen people ask about on other forums is the traffic screen and alerts on the G1000, which is nice but in the circuit doing parallel ops like that it goes off all the time due to proximity. I would not be surprised to see that this one was a classic case of head down when it should have been up and letting the plane get ahead of him. Either way a good one to watch and also a great outcome all things considered, as everyone got to go home that night.

F10, I see the issue now only 800 hours on the Harvard, you could not possibly be ready for the mighty Gazelle and its extensive envelope without 5 hours of circuits and stalls. Any X15 time? Space shuttle might also be suitable? Seriously I think an honest question about whether competency based standards should be applied is a fair one. Even if its not going to happen, at least you've had an outlet for the question. Not like you're demanding the ticket outright, just a fair assessment of your capability to safely execute the privileges of the certificate. The more interesting perspective is what if you had the Gazelle in VH reg, with many hours on type, moved it to RAAus and wanted to convert? From my understanding you'd still need to do the 5 hours as its a requirement of the issue of the certificate not the actual time on type. Happy to be corrected here. Conversely, I'm sure there's people who would need more than 5 hours no matter what they were piloting or driving.

The 5 hour rule from what I recall is a minimum, not something based on competency. I had a similar thought when moving to RAAus from GA (PPL), especially if you're not planning on flying the low inertia types. There's not really a whole lot of difference in the three axis RAA machines and lighter GA types. Some are even the same dependent on how you register. Either way, you could argue the point but those are the rules and you just need to bide your time and look forward to your new toy being able to be enjoyed fully! I wasn't anywhere near current at the time so the 5 hours was well spent getting back into the swing of things, but can understand your frustration in this situation (you're not going mad).

It plugs in, USB charger. As I said it’s about once a week for me on average, so not too bad. Also you can update it wirelessly or via USB for the nav database updates. I think that’s standard for the Garmin smart watches as the plug is the same. My last watch was wireless charge but used a proprietary mag connector so still a hassle as you still could not use a standard wireless charging pad. Either way at home we’re always doing the USB shuffle given none of the myriad of devices can share a freaking charging standard, although it’s somewhat better now apple has come to the party with USB c ports like most other manufacturers!

I have the d2 air, got it for Xmas. it’s been fantastic to date. I replaced an android watch with it and the battery life has been a revelation in comparison. I generally charge it once a week. when you’re not using it for the air part it’s a standard Garmin fitness / smart watch so tracks all the relevant activities you do to your Garmin account / phone and gives your notifications etc. This is the divisive part as some people love the Garmin fitness watches and some hate them. Personally my other half hated hers (standard not d2) and returned it in less than a week so I was apprehensive but thought I’d give it a go. As I was not used to something like fit bit the interface made sense and works well. As per PommyRick, in the air tbh most of the features are a bit gimmicky but I use the utc time mark a lot, and the automatic logging of flight time once you get airborne is nice. I use the Garmin logbook as well for a backup to my paper one and it’s handy to see your flights mapped out, log pics etc. fuel tank reminder Is also nice. I’ll also second the build quality. overall I wouldn’t buy it just for flying but if you’re in the market for a smart watch and want it to be aviation smart as well, this will fit your bill.

This really shows the impact of mindset / preparation on flying in IMC, it’s not hard if you’re trained and prepared, but what he is discussing here is the impact of surprise and not being prepared on his mental state. Off he saunters for a vfr leg, ends up in the soup and all of a sudden has no airspeed and things get hairy fast. He’s more lamenting that he backed himself into the corner in the first place. He’s made the right decisions (kill the automation, declare, get a plan to get down and then troubleshoot) and came out unscathed but it shows how quickly your cognitive ability can be overloaded in abnormal situations. What he was a bit hard on himself here was that he instinctively did much of this and flew power and attitude to get performance and didn’t do anything really dumb. to really appreciate this load, talk to your instructor, tell them to slap a hood on you at some random time in some future flight when it’s bumpy, cover the asi and get you to simultaneously change charts, get the grid lsalt, or ask for it, brief the rnav for the nearest airport with an approach, set course and then work out what’s going on. Even this won’t give you an appreciation for real imc as you can still see the queues out of the hood no matter how hard you try not to cheat. One of the harder things to learn when getting your ifr rating is juggling the flying with 2 to 3 other things going on at the same time and keeping a picture in your head if it all. I found for at least 10 hours I could do one or two things well but not everything I needed to. Again some people will probably be faster or better at this but it’s amazing how with time it clicks. Keeping current and sharp is also key, which is why there’s separate requirements on currency for ifr flying.

Good point Scott, I’d forgotten about the lack of gps on wifi only iPads. For the $200 difference I’d just buy the stratux kit, build it and then you get gps and ADSB in and the traffic on OzRunways from it too. I’ve found using that also helps the battery on the iPad out a lot, although tbh it can be a pain to remember to bring along when renting as at least the iPad gets remembered due to me using it to plan and submit notifications.

No worries. https://ozrunways.tenderapp.com/kb/frequently-asked-questions/which-gps-do-you-recommend