Possum1

To get a good look at the wing corrosion the fuel tanks are removed and that does open a can of worms re corrosion if the wing has not seen light of day for 40 years. $12,000 later - fixed. Plus we found an assembly fault going back 45 years where the steel bush for the bolt hole in the LH forward spar attachment plate was missing and the bolt holding the wing onto the fuselage there had flogged an enlarged hole in the aluminium plate due to wing movement!

The puzzling thing is why the PA28-151 at all, and if this is included, why not the PA28-161 as well. They are identical aircraft except one is a 150hp Warrior and one is a 160hp Warrior.

Fortunately, I don't have decision to make about this app either way. My phone is a Telstra EasyCall 3, which I had to get when Telstra turned off 2G and I had to ditch my indestructible Nokia 3310. Before that it was a Nokia 1610, which I had to buy when analog was switched off and I had to ditch my 018 number. My phone sits in its leather pouch on my belt where it has always been since 1995. The Easycall 3 battery charge lasts a week. I think it is great phone and a definite improvement on the old 3310. I don't use any data at all but it would be nice if it had a camera... So I will get the popcorn out and watch with interest from the sidelines.

As a result of over-zealous policing on the Easter Weekend, which resulted in many(but not all fines) being cancelled, the police have been made to actually read and follow the Health Department Directions instead of arbitrarily deciding themselves what was essential or not. The Health Department Directions do not require your activitiy to be essential; they just require it to fit into one of the items on their list of Permitted Purposes. There has been a considerable lightening up since Easter and the Police Commissioner has become positively conciliatory - see Courier-Mail 18 April, 2020. In Queensland, you are covered by the "Home Confinement, Movement and Gathering Direction" (effective April 2), from Chief Health Officer, Dr Jeanette Young. Your circuits - maintaining currency and keeping ones engine in good operational order - would be covered under Permitted Purpose "(d) to perform work . . . and the work . . . to be performed is of a nature that cannot reasonably be performed from the person’s principal place of residence." The work does not have to be essential. It just has to be work-related i.e. not recreational. If what you want to do will fit into any of the items on the Permitted Purposes list, then go ahead and leave your "Principal Place of Residence" and go and do it. The word " essential" only refers to "essential business" meaning a business, activity or undertaking that is not on the prohibited list in the Non-essential business, activity and undertaking Closure Direction, and this has nothing to do with what you are doing.

The media are reporting or insinuating that he was fined for flying his helicopter to a restricted desginated area, namely Moreton Island. According to the Queensland Health COVID-19 Directions, he is permitted to do this as an "Exempt Person . . . Flight Air Crew." Unfortunately for him the police(or magistrate) will probably just change the offence to leaving one's Place of Residence for other than for a Permitted Purpose. Going for a picnic is not on their list of permitted purposes.

In Queensland, this would be okay but the local police up here want to hand out fines willy-nilly without looking at the legislation - North Stradbroke Island is a good example - which is updated every few days. The Queensland Teacher's Union has recommended that when travelling, their members carry a printout of the legislation with appropriate highlighting to show the police if they are stopped. For Queensland it is here: Home Confinement, Movement and Gathering Direction | Queensland Health . So would I. You would be covered by the following permitted purpose: 6 d: to perform work or volunteering, or carry out or conduct an essential business, activity or undertaking, and the work, business activity or undertaking to be performed is of a nature that cannot reasonably be performed from the person’s principal place of residence; As you can see, the work does not even have to be essential; it just has to be work. It would be a good idea if you could show this Directive to the nice policeman/woman if required.

I wonder how many recreational flyers ordered their peanuts as a result of my earlier post and ensuing discussion? The people at the Peanut Van are very pleased with the huge volume of orders that they processed yesterday(Monday) from their online and phone orders over the weekend. See photos here: of the orders stacked on their front counter waiting for Australia Post pickup

Not quite. There are a few aircraft continually in the circuit at Archerfield here this morning with a handful of aircraft enroute in or out of there. As the supermarkets have refused to restock their shelves for the past 3 weeks with peanuts, let alone pasta or toilet paper, yesterday Mrs Possum and I felt the need to do some essential shopping at the Peanut Van in Kingaroy - their toasting factory is in an industrial area almost adjacent to the airport. At 2.6 km there and back, we got our exercise as well. With an enjoyable flight - 1 hour there and 1 hour back - a legal purpose is all you need to find. Appropriate social distancing is required involving single aircraft only. Obviously no recreational swarming with a group of aircraft or pilots and passengers would be permitted. Things were very quiet at both airports with no-one showing the slightest interest in what we were up to. This lockdown seems to be an urban thing. We noticed nothing but a normal working day in Kingaroy. Returning to Archerfield, there was very little traffic and we were offered a choice of runways by Archer Tower.

Straddie breakfast for 21 March, 2020 is also cancelled.

I backpacked through there up the Norwegian coast to Honningsvag and Nordkapp on the far side of the island in the summer of 1990 to experience the Midnight Sun. These days you just drive across to Honningsvag via an underground tunnel. I was deck cargo on the vehicle ferry trying to avoid the loadmaster charging me for the ride. The train finished at Bodo. It was then the Postbus via Narvik, Tromso and Alta for the rest of the way over continual fiord crossings. My memory of the women of the far north were the Lapland ladies and their shopping bags making to snuggle up to me on the bus(for warmth?) when there were plenty of empty seats and the bus was half empty! I could not begin to afford even the weakest of beer or even much of the food. I lived on tuna and salad rolls, and the almost inedible brod and a strange orange cheese. Otherwise, the bus just snaked its way northwards lurching from side to side in the muddy slush of the gravel-covered tundra to put letters in one post box then another. More than once the driver had the bus almost jackknifed in a slide towards yet another group of reindeer that had wandered onto the road.

As you probably know, the water tank stand collapsed 2 weeks ago(see here: News – Straddie Airfield). It is still sitting on the ground today as per this report. The water will only work with the generator on. There is no pressure to the toilet or the shed taps without it. Pat is reputed to be arriving Thursday p.m. but whether this is an indication that the breakfast is on or not, I don't know. Suggestion: Borrow the airfield vehicle or take the Island Maxi Taxi and drive up to the golf club(10 minutes) for a far better breakfast with table service for only $15(see here: Social Play | N.S.I Golf Club). Believe me, you will struggle to get through their Big Breakfast.

It has been 20 years since I put in 30 hours in a C206. When you apply power, because of the torque and slipstream effect of that big propeller in front of you, if you are not ready with a very strong application of rudder or rudder trim, the aircraft will bank strongly to the left. I clearly remember that for a full power take-off, rudder trim neutral, if you are not ready with right rudder with all the physical strength that you have, the aircraft will depart the runway into the ditch on the left. Similarly will be this effect in the climb but not as bad because after the take-off, you should have wound the engine back from full emergency power to 25"/2500rpm and the slipstream effect forcing a bank to the left will be less pronounced. For an extended climb, rudder trim is essential if you do not want your right leg to develop the "shakes." Whether the above is pertinent to the crash, I don't know but any 206 pilot knows about its predilection to do a left turn. Otherwise, I found the Cessna 206 to be a joyful brute of a plane to fly and thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the enormous amount of power you had at your disposal.

True. She certainly does appreciate the smoother ride. Also, as an ex-Melbourne girl, Mrs Possum knows that we have both got to pack for four seasons on any Melbourne trip. I often think I have the Michelin Man sitting beside me!

Mrs Possum and I have owned a 1974 Piper Cherokee Cruiser(PA28 - 140) since 2007. We have just returned from a five day stay at Stanthorpe where climb performance and altitude capability are a must for a smooth and safe ride over the 4,500' peaks in the intersecting ranges of the MacPherson Range and the Great Dividing Range. This was a smooth flight today of 57 minutes to Archerfield at an average speed of 110 knots with a nice little 10 knot tailwind most of the way. Our little Cherokee has the ability to cope with much worse weather than this by either climbing to an altitude above the mountain waves or maintaining an altitude if we are in them. Having said that, in this part of the world, a combination of low cloud and high winds are a no-go. We also did a nice easy take-off and climb-out out of Stanthorpe's 3000' altitude runway with 2 POB, a ridiculous amount of luggage and 90 litres of fuel. 1. The proposed wingspar AD is by no means law yet and with US AOPA and Piper dead against it, it is unlikely to succeed in its present form or at all. The similar 1987 AD was cancelled after 6 months. 2. Costs. I think $2000 for an Annual is a bit hopeful. You are expecting that there will nothing to fix on a 45 year-old aircraft! Our annual this year was $5,000 which included 7 additional items including surface corrosion removed and a new throttle cable installed and we were happy with that. The best is around $3,500 and the worst was $17,000(wings removed and corrosion removed and both forward spars replaced!) 3. The 160 HP engine is a must. If your Cherokee does not have this conversion, do it properly(and legally) at your next overhaul with a RAM STC. 4. Met-co-aire wingtips or other Hoerner type scallopped wingtips which mimic the Warrior wingtips give very nice balanced aileron response, less drag and a slightly improved stall speed. 5. This is a two seater in reality with a huge amount of room for luggage on the rear seats and in the baggage area. The rear seats otherwise are for short joyflights with primary school-age children only. 6. We plan at 32 L/hour and get it with leaning. BEW for this aircraft is 630kg and MTOW is 975kg. Archerfield to Melbourne(Essendon) is 7.5 hours with one fuel stop at Dubbo. 7. Avoid the cheap 60s and early 70s Cherokees. They do not have a standard instrument panel. You will also have difficulty sourcing parts whereas 1974 onwards Cherokees have a strong parts commonality with Warriors and parts are much easier and cheaper to find. 8. Have some use for this plane other than joyflights with your friends. We have a rental property to maintain at one destination and a caravan by a runway to maintain at another and an annual trip to Melbourne to do because Mrs P is an ex-Melbourne girl. 9. Even though this is a cheap aircraft to run, relatively speaking, we can do this because our house is paid off and we both work and go halves in all the costs. 10. On long trips, I do miss not having a constant speed prop and an auto-pilot even though Mrs Possum is a great smooth weather autopilot! Hope the above helps.

Shameless plug: There is always an aviation movie on the Friday evening before the Burnett Flyers' Breakfast Fly-in(at Murgon YMRG). Coming up August 10th. Movies seen so far: High Road to China Empire of the Sun The Blue Max Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines The Right Stuff The Aviator Fly Away Home American Made Always Sully Coming attractions: The Great Waldo Pepper Flying High(Airplane in the US) The Final Countdown Catch-22 Apollo 13 Top Gun Fly Boys Battle of Britain

Landing gear appears to be still down, like in the Essendon accident.

Do those rude bastards still cut you off by turning inside you on base and finals then hold you up and force a go around due to their ridiculously slow approach speeds?

My experience with decals on the aircraft and the courtesy vehicle that I used for my VFR charter company in the late nineties and the early noughties was the following: Go to a reputable company who will cut 3M decals to your design. They provided me with a 3M branded hand squeegee and the method of applying which was this: Cut a straight edge above your supplied decal and tape this upper edge securely to your aircraft paintwork in the required position with masking tape. Then lift it up and underneath, carefully and gradually pull the plastic sheet covering the glued surface away with one hand while in the other hand you smooth the decal down with the squeegee on the backing paper. Keep pulling away the plastic sheet and smoothing down the backing paper until the whole decal is in place. Smooth out any remaining bubbles, then carefully pull the backing paper off. This method is best if you have a thin and delicate design which will not stand up to the soap water method above. The 3M decals were guaranteed to last 5-7 years. This might have improved in recent years. To get the decals off without lifting the paint, the best method is to borrow your wife's hair dryer, heat the decals and ease them off carefully with a razor blade. If you do it properly, there should be little if any remaining glue to clean up.

I still think that All stations (location) or All traffic (location) are good prefaces to alert you and to remove the possibility of part of the location word being clipped for the reasons stated above.

Hi JG3, Caloundra airport should be added, I think. We fly into there 2-3 times a year for a walk around the beaches and back through the town centre. I think Caloundra would qualify as there is a Hungry Jacks only 500m away. I don't want to debate about the merits of junk food, but last time, the Big Brekky wrap small meal(at $5.95 with the coupon sheet) held us each in good stead for the 10km walk around Caloundra that was in front of us. Also, the Golden Beach Tavern(GBT) is a bit of a stretch at 1.2km, but it does serve a full breakfast menu on Saturdays and Sundays. I know you don't want resorts but Cherrabah airstrip, between Warwick and Stanthorpe is an 800m walk to the resort and they won't charge a landing fee if you buy a breakfast off them($20pp) or lunch or stay at the resort. We have used this once when flying to Stanthorpe, when we found the cloud right down to the ground as we approached the high ground of the Granite Belt(not uncommon), and we diverted to Cherrabah to wait for the cloud to lift. This probably won't happen again any time soon as there is now a well placed and reliable webcam located 14km North of YSPE and pointed directly South to the aerodrome, see here: http://granitebeltweather.com/wx/hireswebcam.htm . Those pilots who regularly fly around SEQ know how different(and worse) the Stanthorpe weather can be compared to the rest of the Darling Downs, so this camera will prove very useful.

Using a couple of introductory words to prefix the main transmission helps, I think, e.g. "All traffic Warwick..." Finish the transmission with "Traffic Warwick" as well. Clear diction is important also. As an ex-singing teacher, I would recommend the tongue forward in the mouth, not lolling back around the tonsils. Also exaggerate the consonants, e.g. Ss, Ts. Ds etc. up to the point of just short of spitting into the mike because these are high frequency sounds that get lost in the background. A transmission is difficult to understand if all you can hear is vowel sounds. Having said that, I often find that the women pilots and Air Traffic Controllers easier to understand than the men.

Quote from Country Airstrip Guide(September 2018) for Kooralbyn at http://www.flightace.com/stop press/002438.pdf , "Beware surrounding high terrain, including on the approaches. Beware high trees near the runway ends, displaced thresholds apply for landing."

My logbook says the displaced thresholds existed on and from 4 November 1996. Take-offs were made from the northern and southern extremities of the runway with no problems. The photo on the wall in the reception of the Ramada Kooralbyn Resort shows they were there a lot earlier than that. The Google Earth photo of 10/9/2009 clearly shows the location of the faded remnants of these.

The Xs at each end were painted out as seen in the photos of June 2016 onwards. Unfortunately it was not a quality job and from about 18 months later the Xs at each end have had the black paint washed/eroded off them and by the August 2018 photo, they are clearly visible again. Obviously, the owners intend that the airport is open as the people on reception at the resort have confirmed this. They certainly would not have replaced the windsock so quickly earlier this month if this was not so. Tel: 07 5544 6688. As long as the visiting pilots do their homework and realise that the originally intended displaced threshold for landing on Runway 12 is well past the parking area at 300m in and the displaced threshold for landing on Runway 30 is between the two lakes at 150m in, they should have no problems. At 1400 metres total runway length there is plenty of room for landing long. Although these limits were set 40 years ago in an era of single and twin engine GA aircraft without consideration of modern day ultralight and sports aviation aircraft capabilities, I think it is a good idea for pilots to aim for these thresholds anyway. They were after all designed and placed in these locations with the express purpose of keeping pilots and their aircraft safely out of trees and associated high terrain.

Nanango Aerodrome Reopens from 21 February, 2019. I thought I would resurrect this old thread as the South Burnett Council has re-opened the Nanango aerodrome after being "officially" closed since November 2016, mainly because one owner of a property adjoining the airfield refused to let the council onto her property to cut/remove some offending trees. All the Council have done is do what I, and probably others, told them to do 2 years ago - just shorten the runway a little if clearing the trees at either end is too hard. Council details are here: http://www.southburnett.qld.gov.au/airports South Burnett Times related articles are here: https://southburnett.com.au/news2/2019/02/20/cutback-cuts-off-flying-doctor/ and here: https://www.southburnetttimes.com.au/news/safer-shorter-airport-runway/3654413/ It seems about a 2km walk to the peanut van and another 1km into town. There used to be toilets at the racetrack stables behind the hangars.