Rastus

I owned a 1967 Cherokee 180 for about 10 years in the 90’s and have operated a 1977 Archer II for about the last 10 years. Neither aeroplane gave me an ounce of trouble in all that time. I also flew a Commander 114 for about 5 years before the Archer. The 180 was based in the bush on my farm strip and the Commander and Archer are based on the coast. Plenty of older aeroplanes will give good service if they have been looked after. None of the three were ever used for training and all had/have around 4000 Hrs TTIS. Look for a good airframe first and look at the engine second. You can always replace or overhaul an engine but, if the airframe is a dog, it will eat up money at a huge rate and never be any good. The right aeroplane may be able to run on Mogas with an STC. My Gliding club has run two Pawnee 235’s on Premium 98 for more than 10 years (thousands of hours) with a significant saving in costs. My Cherokee 180 did over 300 hours on mogas. She ran cooler, smoother, and didn’t even look like fouling a spark plug. Something she did a lot of when running on avgas. I wouldn’t go for an Arrow or similar, maintenance costs rise to ridiculous levels when you add retractable undercarriage and constant speed props to the equation. The Archer costs less than half to maintain than the Commander 114 that she replaced doing about the same number of hours each year. I think it is worth owning your own aeroplane if you are going to be doing a fair bit of flying. If you don’t do at least 70 odd hours or more a year, it will probably be cheaper to rent. Piper or Cessna? You say potayto, I say patarto! You can sit under the wing of a 172 in the shade. You can see out of a Cherokee when you are turning. A little of column A, a little of column B. Robert

A couple of very useful document are available as a free download from the FAA website. AC43 is the generic title. Specifically: AC43. 13-1B & AC43. 13-2B They describe acceptable practices for various maintenance and repair tasks. I have used them for more than 30 years as a reference document when training others in the care and feeding of gliders. Robert

Throw yourself at the ground and miss.

What Kasper means is that the Q400 is a stretched version of the De Havilland Canada DHC-8 series aeroplane. Therefore Dash 8 [/url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_Dash_8 My favourite is the Beech 17 Staggerwing. Two wings, a round engine and the nosewheel on the back. Lovely. Robert

Once had an instructor freak out because I slipped off some excess height during a forced landing exercise. Now I do my BFR’s with an aerobatic instructor. Much more laid back about such things. Like Mark Kyle, I learned in gliders first. Love to slip a Kookaburra from the base turn down to the flare. Pawnee slips pretty well too. Robert

Spent the day towing gliders at Darling Downs Soaring Club in a Pawnee 235. Very sporting crosswind. Great fun ‘though! Sorry, no pretty pictures. Only its mother would call a Pawnee pretty anyway. Robert

Looks like a tri-gear version of a Scheibe SF-25c Falke, possibly Rotax powered. Robert

Sneaky bugger Was it one of the group built for Tora Tora Tora ? One of the ‘Zero’ replicas built for that movie was at Caboolture for a while some years ago. It was registered as VH-ZRO at the time. Robert

Aichi D3A Type 99 ‘Val’

With the wings folded for ease of taxing and hangering.

AMT-200 Super Ximango

Looks an awful lot like a Hatz biplane, but that would be too obvious. Robert

Project Loon balloon operating at 50+ thousand feet over western Qld this morning. Seen on FlightRadar24 as callsign HBAL221. Apparently, it carries technology to allow people in remote areas with the right equipment to access high speed internet where it is otherwise unavailable. Robert

Savage Classic

Preceptor N3 Pup ?

Caudron C630 Simoun

or Beechjet 400 or Hawker 400 depends on its age

Mitsubishi Diamond

Tis a Porterfield Collegiate

Started in 1972 at 13, solo at 15 in gliders. 25 for GA Robert

Thanks Aldo, That was me. It was very distressing. Investigations continue. Robert

G'day Mark, Nope. The green and white one that lives in the end hanger just across from you near the new clubhouse. She doesn't come out as often as she should. That must change. We just had to overhaul the engine because of internal corrosion caused by lack of regular use. Lumps of metal half as big as grains of rice in the oil filter. A lesson well learned, and &$/@/; expensive. Luckily, we dodged the Lycoming AD re. sub-standard con-rod bushings when it was rebuilt. Robert

G,day Keith, I think you would be best served with a second antenna, well separated from the existing one. Most, if not all, GA aeroplanes have one for each radio. The opportunity for transmit energy to fry the receiver of the second radio is too great a risk. The Piper Archer I was flying today certainly has two Comms antennas widely spaced on top of the fuselage. I speak as an Amateur radio operator licenced for more than 30 years. Mark Kyle will be well qualified to give an opinion as well. He has more years experience in the communications industry as a supplier and repairer of various commercial and amateur transceivers than he would care to count. Robert

Geez, I flew RGE 30 odd years ago in western Qld when she was owned by the local Doctor. She didn't have a belly pod then. I remember the planning numbers - 130 Ktas and 60 lph. Happy days. Robert