Spin

Thanks Keith, must say I'm leaning that way, the Festival of Flight is probably my favourite flyin - I only hope that the format at Caboolture will be similar to Watts Bridge, ie allowing easy access to the aircraft. Regards Carl

Yeah, fortunately we haven't gotten quite to the US stage of idiocy in terms of liability to people who might find themselves on your property, but I certainly wouldn't want to be without decent liability cover, otherwise it could cost you a bomb to defend an action against some penniless layabout and then not be able to recover your costs even if you won. That said, ever wondered what happens to all the people that go missing in Aus every year? Incidentally I couldn't agree more re personal responsibility, Frank, it may pay the bills for me but the modern need to find someone else to blame for every misfortune drives me nuts.

The "big noise", would that be the shotgun blast or the would be thieves squealing? Gets right up my nose that stealing often seems to be portrayed as some sort of larrikin act or not really serious crime - I've worked bloody hard for what little I have and don't see it in quite the same light! I rather like the look of those trail cams and have been investigating something similar for home - we are on acreage and the house isn't visible from the neighbours, or the road so a break in would be all too easy - I'd be quite happy to act as my own repo man if I could ID a thief, a few photos plastered around the city and online should do it. I'll echo what other's have said, Neil, hope that your luck turns the corner - and soon.

Yep Caboolture features whenever this conversation occurs - in my experience the vigilance required ratchets up several notches whenever I hear "Glider-ABC" or an ag aircraft calling in the vicinity. Both can and will do things that you may not expect of your average aircraft. I do wish that people would talk to each other a bit more and have some consideration for the other's operating requirements (probably a vain hope I know:loopy:) - just in the last few months I've had a glider call right base (first call I heard out of him) as I was turning left base (having called it) for the same runway - no problem, he has right of way so I reverse the turn and head off on a X country downwind, also advising what I am up to. Come back down an extended final to find glider sitting in middle of runway still, whilst they sort out the ground tug's towrope - ok, they could have done that off to one side, but go around , motor around the circuit and find that they are now dragging the glider slooooowly back up the runway, go around again! It's the them n us mentality unfortunately, fostered in this case by having separate clubs across the runway from each other. Then we had the aggie, working a few miles from a busy, predominately RA field on a Sat morning. Never mind the active that everyone else is using, he set up his loader next to the cross runway and was landing one way, then swinging around and taking off on the reciprocal, with the bare minimum of communication. I know he has a job to do and for the most part everyone was veering all over the sky to accomodate him, but for petes sake just a little courtesy and even airmanship would have gone a long way in this instance.

Tomo started a thread here - http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/wide-bay-australia-international-airshow-2011.27779/ I'm dead keen but have just realised that the QVAG Festival of Flight (at Caboolture this time instead of Watts) is the weekend before - serious dilemma, not sure that I'll manage both timewise - bugger, why aren't these things a bit more spread out - seems to be feast or famine!

"I`ve been hit with 240 volts electricity, several times over the years! ... Naaahhh! Hasn`t done me any harm!!! Frank." Bright Spark!!??

That accident report makes for fascinating if rather frightening reading. I think one would have to conclude that a composite aircraft is likely to suffer catastrophic damage in a similar situation, from what I read not only did the wings "blow apart" but also the aileron control rods suffered serious damage and detached. Interesting question as to what may have happened in an aluminuim aircraft - one would think that you may be better off with the majority of the current travelling over the conductive surface as apparently happens when a car is struck, but I'd prefer not to have to find out. I have enormous respect for lightning, having lost a friend at school to the proverbial "bolt from the blue". He was standing out of the sun, beneath a tree in the middle of an avenue of similar trees ascending a hill, ie. not the tallest tree nor any particular species and although there was some cloud build up in the distance, there were no signs of any storm activity. RIP Dozy

Try running a search ben87r, there have been some good threads on the subject. IIRC rockedriver had a good article that he put up. For what its worth I think you're going about things the right way, the best syndicates in my experience have everything laid out up front - from the basics like cleaning, fueling up to the biggies like what happens when one partner wants to (or has to) sell up. Here's one of them...... http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/syndicate-rules-and-costs.19926/#post-135099

Thanks for the heads up, Frank, looks like some interesting reading.

Nice one Tomo - one question, will CASA not recognise your RA tailwheel endorsement - you learnt on a Drifter didn't you?

cficare - " its interesting.....have a (simulated) engine failure a couple of hundred feet in the air...student pushes negitive 'g's .....there is nothing (energy) to work with when u reach the earth.............................................................. " Bit cryptic for me, or maybe I'm being dense; but do you want to expand on how that relates to an engine failure in a turn, ie. what should they be doing?

Thanks Blueshed, rgmwa and Destiny - excellent video, so much easier to understand by watching an actual aircraft roll over the top etc. I count myself very fortunate to have had an ex military instructor and access to a C150 Aerobat during my initial training, I was positively encouraged to wring it out and to feel what could happen if I overcooked things in a skidding or slipping turn. Likewise to have learnt in a time and place where spinning was part of the syllabus.

I think we need to define what sort of turn we are talking about before prescribing a definite course of action. If we are in a steep turn a la Mazda, then there is a definite need to unload and at least decrease the bank angle, if not roll level. I had a more normal turn, eg 30 degree bank in the circuit in mind (eg turn onto crosswind), in which case I stand by my action of lowering the nose - which is going to unload the wings anyway to some extent. There is no point in prescribing wings level if the continued turn is going to take you away from an obstacle or toward your forced landing option - also your actions are going to be very different at 100' compared to 500'. As the man said; "fly it until the last piece stops moving" which to me recognises that we operate in a dynamic environment which requires ongoing decision making and reacting to changes around you. One size fits all, just doesn't cut it.

I think you may have hit on an important point there, metalman, high thrust line pushers as many amphibians are, are known to have reasonably large trim changes with power changes. They also pitch nose up with power reduction, so an engine cutting on you, with the nose already high, in a bank could quite quickly put you in a bad place! Back to the original question, I believe the bank doesn't change things much, you still need to get the nose down pronto - also unless there was a good reason to continue the turn, I'd roll wings level to improve glide performance. Frank?

A sobering reminder indeed - on several levels, not only the fuel selection issue but also to keep flying the plane no matter what, especially considering that they had the whole lake to splash down in if necessary. The engine may well have stopped at a critical stage of the flight and I don't pretend to know what happened but there are lessons to be learnt even from considering what may have caused this tragic accident. Something else that can contribute to confusion in situations like this is having two pilots flying together and possibly sharing the workload - I can think of two situations in my own experience where having my "help" in the right hand seat may have caused a pilot to relax more than he should have and having things go slightly awry as a result. Having a clear chain of command is important. I'm having difficulty in phrasing this, but I find comfort in the fact that they died on impact, rather than drowned - I had been a little disturbed by the admittedly second hand media version of the story; that the fishermen got to the wreck fairly quickly but didn't attempt to free them from the cockpit, which was underwater. RIP

Well done Pete, whereabouts are you flying? It has been on my to do list for a while, but unfortunately the Cub that I had just got my hands on, disappeared down south after my first flight. I may have to come look you up to further my education.

Glad to hear the story had a good outcome docjell. Brings to mind the old adage "fly the plane", people have come unstuck before now getting distracted by n open hatch and crashing a plane that was otherwise flying fine. I've had a door come open on a C150 as I rotated and as metalman said; the increased noise gives you a hell of a fright, especially in the dark! Fortunately I had a long runway in front of me so closed the throttle and got on the anchors before investigating any further. When it did it a second time, after carefully re-closing the door, I parked and went home. I have also flown a Tecnam Golf with the sliding canopy open and quickly lost any notions of it being an airborne convertible. The turbulence inside the cockpit wasn't pleasant and I noticed a definite change in stick feel, particularly in the flare, not dangerous but it seemed to lose some effectiveness and had some buffeting feedback.

Ok further to the above, I see things got a little heated - as they tend to when alternate engines are being discussed and mods have pulled the pin on it. The earlier text is there to read though.

That's shaping up to be a really interesting project; in this day and age, keeping it light and simple is very attractive. For those that haven't seen it, there is a fair amount of discussion on this Vans thread - http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=73748 including quite a bit of input from Jan Eggenfellner.

Your best bet would be to pick up the phone and call RA-Aus in Canberra, they are helpful in my experience and after all they are the ones who will need to issue the paperwork at the end of the exercise.

http://www.airplanefactory.co.za/news.asp I see the boys from The Airplane Factory are doing another of their round the world proving flights, this time in a four seat version of the original Sling. They are planning to finish the prototype in the next 7 days and then fly it westabout to be in the US in time for Oshkosh. I'm not sure that I'd want to be working under quite that amount of time pressure to fix the inevitable niggles- but I applaud their spirit of adventure and the rather attractive aircraft they are producing. I was a little disappointed to see that they are planning to use a Rotax 914 to power the plane which is expected to gross 850kg with approx 400kg useful load. The designer cites the light weight vs 115hp power delivery, even at the high density altitudes common where it is built (easily 7500' in summer) as the major attractions of the Rotax. I don't pretend to be an aircraft designer, but it seems a hell of an ask especially when the 115hp is only good for 5 mins max. (Am I correct in understanding that the engine reverts to normally aspirated once the 5 mins is up - ie actually less than the nominal 100hp continuous as the altitude increases?) I've only flown behind one once and that is how it was explained to me. I suppose it could be argued that a J430 has only 120hp at sea level and manages to shift 760kg - maybe its me that needs to adapt my thinking but I cannot help looking at an O-320 say and thinking that for virtually the same price as the 914, you could have 160hp and a 2000 hr TBO as opposed to 1200.

FD, fyi Heon's rego was 24-7654

I took an amble across to the prune to see what the supposed professionals had to say about it and it seems it isn't a simple matter of them descending beyond where they should have been at a given distance. In the case of the latest incident at least, they had carried out a missed approach and were doing a visual teardrop onto the reciprocal runway (tail wind was over minima on the ILS) There is no clear consensus that the crew were not in fact entitled to do what they did, which was climbing to 2,500 instead of 3,000 whilst circling back, which may in certain circumstances have been acceptable. That said; it seems from comments made that there has been a pattern of cutting limits to the bone, somehow getting into airports when other crew with equally well equipped aircraft diverted etc, no doubt motivated by punitive management pressures, so it isn't merely a case of 2 (technical) strikes and you're out. Interestingly it is alleged that CASA are investigating similar cases against QF and JQ - pity the crew that end up in the wringer, but I have no issue with them tightening up safety in general terms.

Glad to see the usual cheap shots haven't been forgotten. I must say I also looked on this one in a slightly different light when I saw that the supposed final straw was 2 minimum altitude busts:contract:. Sadly my level of trust in CASA is sufficiently low for me to wonder whether Tiger pilots are that bad/fatigued/inexperienced, or whether they, as the smallest of the mainline operators is the easy target "proving" that CASA are doing their job? I don't pretend to know the answers, but my sympathy to affected employees and the travelling public. Incidently good for Virgin and Jetstar for putting on extra flights AND special deals to accomodate the stranded.

Found another one in the files - thanks to my wife fiddling with the camera whilst boy child and I went aviating. Boonah Oct 2010