Relfy

What an important topic and isn't it great to see so much info sharing and ideas from experienced pilots. That's the beauty of this site and to everyone who has contribued so far with the numerous detailed accounts and observations, awesome work. :thumb_up:

Over the past two years there have been 4 serious crashes out here in SW QLD involving aircraft flying low and slow. The first was an x-air cattle spotting, stall and spin, crashed throuh trees, pilot suffered a serious broken leg. The 2nd on the 15 May 2010 a C172 where the pilot was also cattle spotting, and struck a tree before nosing in, suffering a serious broken leg. The third on 22nd of Sep 2010 was a Tecnam with 2pob also spotting cattle, crashed into trees and the passenger suffered a seriously broken leg and the pilot other internals. The latest was a C172 looking for horses which crashed resulting in the loss of both the pilot and passenger. This is currently under investigation by the ATSB. I attended all these incidents and I can tell you I have a new appreciation for low flying and full awareness of the environment. If you are going to practice slow flying, as mentioned do it at a safe height, but do it. Get used to your a/c and how it handles at slow speeds and turning. I have and have learnt a lot. Also stress to your friends who fly on properties, these recent incidents and the need for discipline when looking for/mustering stock.

Good work Mal, as the others have said, keep us posted of your adventures. I too learnt in the 170 and I'm glad I did. It gets the feet and hands going and if you can fly it well, you can handle most types.

Haha Geoff, I thought I'd get a rise from a 160 owner out there somewhere! :big_grin: To be honest when I'm flying any jab, I'm havin a ball regardless!!!

I love mine! 46hrs on it already and can't get enough! It flies so well, climbs like a rocket and is actually quite comfortable with both the wife and I onboard. We're average size people too. I really like the control authority compared to the 170 and 230. It has so much authority right down to the stall warning device on flare/touchdown. It handles turbulence really well, which surprised me given it's size. They've really got the 120 right. I think if they stretched the 160 a bit they would have a perfect aircraft after all the 120 is a stretched SP6.

As Ian has stated BigPete, we are all a big family in here joined by the love of aviation and I know that even though we have never met personally, I was saddened to hear this news and my thoughts are with you at this time. You are always a positive and friendly presence in here and would of course be married to a positive and wonderful person. Stay safe and talk soon mate.

There's a good tribute to him on the red bull site. In memory of Alejandro Maclean :: Red Bull Air Race Videos

who knows...

Excellent vid flighty, very dramatic!! (music that is). I love the timing at the end with the music stopping as the wheels touch down. Nice work!

Good work mate, thats a fair trip in a day! If ida known I would have met you at St George for a chat.

Ian, I can wear the increase in member fee by $10 but would like to see something negotiated ie. increased insurance cover, preserving airfield funds etc for the extra $20 annual aircraft rego fee. My two cents. Regards, Relfy

First solo, first area solo, first nav, first solo nav, cert attainment, nav endo, first non pilot pax, first non pilot pax x country nav, first big multi stop nav trip away to far away places... I don't think it stops. There are just so many things to do. Heck, that's why we love it so much!

Awesome trip and that time lapse video was amazing! Keep them coming! :thumb_up::thumb_up::thumb_up:

I'm going to head over to Springsure soon Thomo and I was looking at tracking Roma/Injune and then up through the Arcadia Valley via Rolleston then Springsure. Nice country with a few options. As Jacmiles suggested, it gets a bit rough in there and that is the best way through.

When i picked up my Jab, Neil at Jabiru told me to do exactly as Tomo suggested. A bit of throttle on turning the choke off helps it come off the choke jet. Works every time! :thumb_up:

He probably couldn't think, there aint much oxy-jeans up dat way! :yuk: He kept persisting though, wanted to argue his case with the controller and even requested a 'special permission' in the end, which was denied. At Charleville the other day also, I was no. 2 behind an aero commander and we were taxiing to 30. He made an entering-backtracking call and proceeded into the runway when suddenly we hear a short final call from a cessna from elsewhere, no previous calls at all, who promptly ignored all requests to clarify his position and late call and continued on in silence whilst the aero commander did a tight u-turn to vacate while the cessna rolled past both of us. We both came to the conclusion that he must have had comms probs. i_dunno

Good work mate, sounds like fun. :thumb_up:

I heard an interesting exchange on the bris centre frequency a few weeks ago on my return from Kingaroy. It was blowing like hell and just before I left a powered glider took off towards the Bunya Mountains. I was about 15nm from Kingaroy and I heard him on the bris ctr frequency requesting clearance from level 12 to 18 as he was surfing the bunya 'wave'. The controller sounded upset and said, you're not cleared for FL12 and to descend to 8500 asap as he was in controlled airspace and only IFR traffic could be at that level. He replied that he was exempt as he was a glider before the controller requested his transponder status to which he stated nil and the controller said that's another reason to go down to 8500 and that 'noone else can see you'. The pilot replied that he didn't need one and was exempt and it went on for about 5 mins. Resisting the temptation to join in on the 'wave' and to really stir up the controller, i pushed on at 1000ft agl at 70 knots g/s to St George...

Last Friday I decided due to the weather being pretty damn good and due to work committments and not being able to make the Dalby Wings and Wheels Spectacular..., I needed to go for a fly somewhere. It was getting towards lunchtime so what better place to fix that craving than with a famous steak sandwich from the Royal Mail Hotel in Hungerford, down on the QLD/NSW border. With the flight planning out of the way, weather check completed, it was off to the airport to prep and check the mighty J120 and top the tank off. The weather gods suggested a head wind on the way down but a nice tail wind to return. With my SAR watch person notified I was off tracking towards the city of Hungerford, with all 10 or so of it's residents! Truthfully though, the lure of the steak sandwich was only part of the attraction as I thought what better way to go and see the lakes in the Currawinya National Park than by air and on such a great day. This part of Aus is quite remote so the trusty 406mhz beacon (thanks Ian and Clearprop) was a great passenger to take along for the ride. I tracked along a road I'd ridden on my motorcycle a few months ago through an area known as Pitharty as there are a number of properties with strips along the path. It's a long way between towns out this way! On the way down I came across a lot of water around the various lakes, creeks and rivers with a lot of other water still sitting in the low lying areas. The enormous amount of water that came through here a few months ago was incredible. If only I had the Jab then, it would have been an amazing sight! With the Jab running flawlessly and the temps looking great, Hungerford was soon on the horizon and the lakes were sparkling out to my right. I'd planned to pick them up on the return trip and take advantage of the tail wind. An inbound call and noting the traffic in the area to the south on survey patrols, I overflew Hungerford township to signal to a mate that I was there. A precautionary search before landing to check the condition of the strip as there's no full NOTAM service available and there has been the odd skippy make it inside the relatively new fence. All clear. A short time later I was tied down and on my way into town to the pub for lunch! Apparently Dick Smith is a regular visitor out here and loves camping in the Currawinya National Park just to the north of town. He lands the big blue chopper in the yard behind the pub to have a shower and refresh before heading back out to his 'secret spot' in the park (permit required). The locals love it but the chooks aren't too fussed on the big blue chook blowing dust and small buildings out of the way on it's arrival. My mate Dean caught up with Dick on his last trip and didn't know who he was due to his Something-About-Mary camping adventure hair style and general normal looking attire. Out came the steak sandwich. It stands about a foot tall and you have to be on top of your game to tackle it. I had thoughts of having to dump fuel for the return trip. The Royal Mail is one of those great little Hotels in the true outback fashion. There's an assortment of stuff stuck to the walls, floor, bar and roof and everwhere you look there is something interesting that has a story behind it. There's a steel boat outside at the moment sitting on the fence and a black and white photo inside of the locals loading a model T Ford onto it to cross the floodway at the entrance to town! The boat is probably a bit smaller than a surf boat...hmm, that would have been interesting to see! You know what they say, necessity.... The strip at Hungerford is sealed and over a km long and really rivals a lot of strips located in the more civilised areas. There's a great clay cross strip and generally you overfly town and a do a few orbits to signal the managers of the pub, who will come out and pick you up from the strip. A quick update on the park conditions revealed that most of the tracks within the park were still closed and cut off by the volume of water present. This being the case, I figured I'd jump up to a higher altitude to increase my safety margin as the chances of getting help in there if needed, would be pretty limited. There will always be another time to get down low and see the detail! Back out at the strip, a quick check of the Jab and back into the air tracking north to the park. The sheer water volume is incredible. The photos I took don't do it justice. I climbed to an altitude to allow me to make it back to the Currawinya Airstrip, which is just off the main road north. There is also a large disused but preserved shearing shed on the eastern side of the road near the park entrance. I called in there on my motorbike trip and it is amazing. The shearing equipment is there and the smells and feeling of how hard it would have been to work in there in the hotter months really make you appreciate our modern a/c environments. After a few snaps I set course for home and seeing 120kts g/s on the GPS brought a smile, all the way home. It's a big country out this way and there's lots and lots of nothing with the occasional something thrown in to break it up. If you get a chance, drop in to Hungerford and even stay for a night. The hospitality is wonderful and you're made to feel welcome.

I'm keen to know also Tomo if any 'goo' type compound works as well. Is anyon using a product like this and can they share their experiences?

Labor with the Greens holding the balance of power in the senate = carbon tax and the price of everything going through the roof, including all fuels. Just on the waste of the BER scool hall ripoff, that 8 billion dolars could have bought 80,000 Jabiru J230's. Eight for every RAA member...

I love my Lightspeed Zulu. 3 hours today and I could hardly feel them there. Blue tooth function works exceptionally well and when I'm on the phone, the caller can't even tell I'm using it. (good in some regards when the wife rings...i'm doing the housework...) A very quiet headset with so many features and all the cables you need to connect everything up. Ian was trying to get them through clearprop but he can't get a supplier to make it worthwhile which is a shame.

It has put an extra couple of knots on the cruise Terry but at the moment I'm giving the engine a bit of a flogging to break it in as per factory recommendations ie. keeping the revs up in the climb at 100% power and backing off every now and then and not sticking to the ideal cruise rpm of 28-2900 for too long. It pays with the jab motor to bed everything in nicely at the start. When I start to fly normally I'll be able to do some comparisons but at the moment, it seems to run smoother than the standard jab prop on a 170 I flew a lot, and has a few extra (yet to be determined) knots in the cruise. Stay tuned! :thumb_up:

I've got one of the new white glass coated sensenich props on my J120 and it climbs just as well as a 230. I seem to be getting 80 knots climb at around 800-1200fpm one up and around 7-800 fpm at max weight again at 80 knots. All this with a cruise of 105 at 2900rpm. The engine is still breaking in though so the engine may loosen up a bit and perform better still. I'm really happy with it as it seems to be a bit more resilient to cracking at the tips and also along the leading edge. Seems to run as smooth as the standard jab prop.

Sounds like an awesome trip, can't wait to see some photos!