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Mike Borgelt

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Everything posted by Mike Borgelt

  1. Interesting. No good for RAAus as not a recip. Also Basic Med does not allow turbines in Australia.
  2. ICAO is a wish list. There is no need to comply only to notify ICAO of any differences. For example the Australian RPL is non ICAO and still allows access to CTA.
  3. New2flying: Most modern sailplanes are taildraggers. Main wheel and tailwheel (fixed, non steerable and non castoring). Need a tail dolly which is castoring to move around relatively easily on the ground which has to be taken to the glider. The solution was the three wheel configuration which make ground handling easier when nobody is in the cockpits. Try to land on the main and tail, it is what you'll be doing if you stay gliding.
  4. You wrote:" I think at the present time a court process is dealing with this matter so I'd tend to discourage any careless or uninformed comment.. Nev" Show me the law that says anyone can't comment - careless, uninformed or otherwise. The official accident report has been published. You are free to disagree with it. You then wrote: "i agree with all of that except my being careless or uninformed about modern flight control systems" I wasn't commenting on your knowledge of modern flight control systems just the idea that some vague mention of a possible legal action should silence people. There's ongoing legal action about MH370 in London, I'm told. Doesn't seem to have stopped any speculation, some for pay.
  5. Didn't say it did and if you bother to look up the accident report you'll see his qualifications. (edited...mod) I'm no fan of Airbus cockpit philosophy nor the modern trend to teach just enough to operate the aircraft under normal circumstances with a some defined emergencies. Little to no in depth understanding of control systems and other systems in the aircraft which may get you out of trouble in other cases. BTW much the same accident happened again with an A320 off Indonesia some years later. (edited...mod) Learning to fly involves knowing effects of controls and practice to get better at it. Time in the air. Orientation in the air. Time in the air. Landing. Takes repetitive practice. Difficult and time consuming in a pure glider. Much easier in a powered aircraft (or motor glider). Takeoff - easier in a powered aircraft. A glider on takeoff/tow is formation flying. Student should not actually handle controls below 1000 feet on tow until satisfactory aircraft control is shown. There have been nasty accidents here. Learn to fly in a motor glider/ultralight or normal powered aircraft, then it is just a conversion to fly gliders. You'll also know enough to counter some of the bs put about by gliding instructors and other ignorant people in the gliding movement. The inefficiency of glider training is shown by the GFA's own statistics on membership. Current membership is about half what it was in 1983-84 while the population of the country has increased by more than 50%. Each year about 600 new members join the GFA and about 600+ leave, resulting in a slow decline in numbers. Most who leave do so during or at the end of one year's membership. Sure, some may have got what they want but the vast majority are unhappy about their flying progress and the many unsavoury aspects of the way the GFA and clubs work. If learning to fly gliders in Australia be aware that the GFA has a very rigid (worse than CASA in many cases) rules based operational structure. There is little to no safety culture. I see GA pilots, commercial pilots, military pilots who discard their professional caution and practices when they get on a gliding airfield. The record of "instructors" (most aren't an instructor's bootlace) killing and injuring students is not good. This is obscured by deliberately exaggerating annual flying hours. Tell me, how does an organisation which has been losing membership (it is compulsory) since 1984 get to fly more and more hours each year? In the early 2000's, one year they claimed 268,000 hours. There are maybe 700 gliders out of 1100+, which return an annual inspection report which comes to close to 400 hours per year for every operational glider. Doesn't happen. My mates who do annual inspections report 40-60 hours per annum is about average for a private glider. There are exceptions but there are also plenty of gliders which come back with ZERO hours for the next annual. There used to be several full time operational gliding sites. These are now weekend/by arrangement with occasional full time for a month or so a year. I've got 2700 hours in gliders and self launchers (the retracting engine variety) and 1300 hours GA (most of both flying cross country)and have worked in the gliding industry for 43 years full time designing and manufacturing variometers. I sure wouldn't let anyone I cared about do ab initio training in gliders in Australia (or NZ - it runs about like Australia).
  6. The Air France 447 first officer (pilot flying) was a glider pilot also. Didn't work out at all well.
  7. That's the one, Jim. As I said before Dick's idea was to move to USA rules for airspace management, expanding Class E to protect the IFR guys and leaving the Class E totally transparent to the VFR's who wouldn't have an "Area frequency" nor a transponder requirement below 10,000 feet or within 3000 feet of terrain. We had the start of this in 2003 - 2004 but it was sabotaged by the ATC trade union and Australian pilots who deemed it "unsafe" (mostly from positions of ignorance) and couldn't get their heads around not being required to be on a specific frequency. If you want to know what is wrong with Australian aviation, look no further than Australian pilots and associated personnel. Personally, I did a fair bit of cross country flying in that year and found that by listening to nearby CTAFs enroute instead of Centre Frequency I had a much better awareness of relevant traffic. It was great.
  8. onetrack, dig around and you'll find Dick Smith's comments on that accident with the Cheyenne. The Qantas near mountain collision was a 737 from Perth. IIRC both were likely caused by incorrect entry into the nav system by the crews. In Class E ATC is required to warn you of impending collision with terrain because you are off track. they'll yell at you anyway if off track as an IFR flight has to comply with the clearance given. Don't always believe anything and everything you read in ATSB reports. They aren't omniscient and their investigators aren't necessarily all that knowledgeable, though conscientious. I have provided information to them at my instigation and also their request in the past on several occasions. See the investigation on VH-TWQ. Check out the reconstructed horizontal and vertical situation. Does a minor heading change over two minutes while large and increasing vertical excursions were occurring sound like pilot disorientation? They say there was no sign of control system issues but looking at the picture of the wreckage I'd doubt you could definitively say that. The amount of instrument time under the hood is probably misleading as you can't log it unless with an appropriate instructor (another safety counterproductive regulation). I knew the pilot and know pilots who did long cross countries with him doing hours at a time under the hood, no autopilot.
  9. Remember the old joke: What's the difference between pilots and ATC? When pilots make a mistake pilots die. When ATC makes a mistake pilots die. Much better to put collision avoidance in the cockpits of those who will die. The last instance was the poor guys in the Mooney inland of Coffs. Got messed around by ATC for no good reason. Class E over the D at Coffs would have had the guy simply continue to fly overhead Coffs at 6500 without a clearance required. Australian ATC, with a couple of exceptions in my experience, is the pits. This country has an unfortunate tendency to take a good idea from O/S, then add one or two layers of extra requirements making the good idea far less useful. Class E is for IFR to be separated from IFR (clearance required) and receive traffic information on VFR WHEN AND IF AVAILABLE. If the VFR doesn't have a transponder then it ISN'T AVAILABLE unless within Primary range and I bet those primary returns are turned off most of the time nowadays.
  10. "Would be interesting to see how many IFR aircraft actually use the 8500 to 10,000 foot band. I am betting almost no one." "Quite a lot actually; 9000 & 10000. AC50 D228 C208 etc" At 9000 and 10000 they are already in the above 8500 Class E.
  11. "Why is it safer for AsA to monitor ads-b via a ground based system and relay on the information via VHF radio to an IFR pilot rather than the pilot having ads-b IN and seeing the traffic directly? Jobs and $ ?" You got it! As always, follow the money! ADSB is a system conceived in the late 80's early 90's using the tech of the day which is already obsolete. The REALLY bad decision was to use the transponder frequency for the rf link. This causes the system to be unable to handle more than about 100 aircraft in a given area and complicates the rf design as to comply the transmitter needs very high pulse power. Already a problem in the LA basin but at least the USA put light aircraft on 978 MHz for ADSB although you can fit the transponder type units. A sensible system needs about 1 watt of power for ADSB out , ADSB in is simple and then everyone can do their own separation and no need for ATC "services". The IFR/VFR thing can then be thrown away as well, replaced by "able to fly in cloud and reduced visibility" or not. Seriously put in your replies to the consultation and tell them to shove it. The push for more Class E was a favourite project of Dick Smith but the driver was get ATC to tell IFR guys if they were going to run into terrain.(See Pier Cheyenne near Benalla, Qantas near Canberra one early morning where they went into holding so the controller could get to work and give them a landing clearance - they screwed up the holding and didn't have a moving map and damn near hit a mountain). I think this is now obsolete as if you fly IFR and don't have a moving map with terrain displays you are pretty silly. Who needs ATC?
  12. Our RPL is not internationally recognised. If we simply reduced the medical to the current RAAus standard it would be a CASA decision and wouldn't have any international impact. Then we could simply go back to the original proposal for the RPL and have aircraft class ratings and cross country, controlled airspace etc. Those who think a medical is required for controlled airspace need to be aware that glider pilots can fly in controlled airspace with only the RAAus level medical requirement. A CASA medical is not a requirement. I agree that 600Kg is too restrictive. I'm sure a large percentage of these aircraft take off overweight a good part of the time when 2 people are on board. A nonsense regulation that is counter productive to safety because the aircraft simply cannot be as robust as they should be or the law is flouted. Not a good law. However an increase to 760 or 762 Kg which comes with LAME maintenance for private ops and other arbitrary restrictions doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. The regulatory structure of recreational aviation of all types is a complete pig's breakfast. Where are the hard, quantifiable risk and safety analyses? Let's have the RPL as originally proposed, make the RAAus and GFA work to keep and please their memberships and put an end to the obscene collusion between the people running these organisations and CASA which enables them and enthusiastically takes part in it. It is nothing but legalised extortion. I suspect both might be rather smaller. Maintenance/Registration should never be tied to pilot competence documentation/issuance. This is simply nonsense. We have a registration system for Australian aircraft which puts VH on them. ALL Australian aircraft should be found on that register. Exactly who should maintain these under what circumstances is a matter for debate and swift resolution. It isn't rocket surgery but I bet Elon Musk isn't sad that "talented" CASA people aren't working for him at SpaceX.
  13. It is quite OK to push your own barrow BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF EVERYONE ELSE. The CASA Rec Licence would let RAAus and GFA members continue as they were if they wished. It was none of of the two organisations business if people wanted to operate outside them and in fact I know from the discussion on aus-soaring that it was about 5 to 1 in favour of the CASA proposal. One reason was that wives, friends etc feel better about someone flying or flying with someone if they have a government sanctioned licence, not some gimcrack "certificate" issued by a bunch of what can only be described as well meaning amateurs (and in the case of GFA not all that well meaning a lot of the time). The other point is that if the proposal had gone through it would all have been a done deal by the time McCormick arrived.
  14. I once threw out some correspondence where Paul Middleton was in CAA licencing branch. McCormick was a disaster in just about every way. Unfortunately he graduated from 2FTS. I knew his instructor there quite well and he tried his best to fail him. I never did get a reply to this "Some months later, the RAAus Paul Middleton, GFA's Henk Meertens and Bob Hall arranged a meeting with the Minister, John Anderson and had the proposal killed" after posting it at least 3 times on the old aus-soaring list server. I actually heard about the meeting before it took place but didn't know what was going to be asked. Thactions of those 3 has to rate right up there as one of the greatest acts of sheer b.......ry in the history of Australian aviation. Done just keep power, control and money for organisations that long ago lost sight of what they exist for.
  15. I'm sure anything CASA comes up with re 760Kg will be complex and full of essentially arbitrary requirements with no safety case made out for them. Regarding RPL etc: How many are aware that in early 2003 CASA floated a discussion paper where most recreational pilots would be on a level regulatory playing field regardless of aircraft type with few restrictions. The proposed RPL would have a rating for aircraft class (GA, ultralight, glider, gyro etc) NO requirement to join any private body although those who wished to could operate in RAAus and GFA as they already did and NO medical requirement beyond the current RAAus one. It was explicitly stated that some may be uncomfortable with that but it also stated there was NO evidence that any more restrictive medical requirement would improve safety. Ratings for cross country, controlled airspace etc. What happened? Some months later, the RAAus Paul Middleton, GFA's Henk Meertens and Bob Hall arranged a meeting with the Minister , John Anderson and had the proposal killed. I don't often sympathise with CASA people but the poor guys who wrote this RPL proposal must have been bashing their heads against the wall when this happened. The only reason those 3 could have had was to protect their own revenue base while selfishly denying the freedoms to those who would like them. Nice huh?
  16. With few exceptions the continental USA is Class E above 700 or 1200 feet and in some places down to the ground. It simply isn't a problem for VFR as there is no radio requirement nor a transponder requirement for VFR under 10,000 AMSL or below 3000 feet above ground. No listening to useless blather on the "area frequency" either for VFR. This was essentially what we had in 2004 but the ATC trade union managed to kill it politically. We did have a transponder and radio listening on area frequency in Class E but that was intended to be temporary and we would move to the US non requirement. Here's the Wikipedia article on airspace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_E_airspace In Class E traffic information is "Provided for all IFR and VFR flights where possible" . Note the "where possible". All the problems with the Airservices Class E proposal go away if we simply follow the US non requirement. I suspect the Airservices proposal has more to do with extra revenue from the high performance single and twin folks who fly IFR below 10,000 feet. I doubt it will be much. Their problem is cultural - if they can see it they want to provide a "service". Some of us would rather not be "serviced". What the Airservices people don't realise is that nobody wants or needs Air Traffic Control. What we want is not to hit other aircraft. This can be done by putting collision avoidance back in the cockpit. Easy to do nowadays. FLARM as used in gliders was a good technology demonstration but it needs a more robust, longer ranging rf link. Best would have been to modify the VHF radio to have two collision avoidance channels. Hook up a GNSS (GPS alone is old hat) and with the right design you would not notice the collision avoidance stuff working. Imagine being able to fly around anywhere outside say 10nm of the major capital city aerodromes with NO controlled airspace and the vast majority of ATC personnel being made redundant..
  17. skippydiesel, as I said previously, if YOU think you'll benefit from flying with an instructor, go to it. Just don't force it on everyone else. Facthunter, I'm not disputing that the licence status or otherwise of pilots has anything to do with their competence. I'm talking about media shaped public "perception" and the political hay that can be made out of it. I'm amused by the exalted status that people seem to hold instructors in. They are just pilots like anyone else. Really good instructors are rare beasts indeed and should spend their time teaching their students to fly properly. If that is done right done right you'll be your own most severe critic on every flight. In the Australian gliding movement far too many of what purport to be "instructors" have killed or injured their students, let alone the many students who have been turned off and left gliding by their incompetence. You never know when one of them will turn a simulated emergency into a real one and I know that has happened in RAAus too.
  18. A light aircraft can bring a jetliner down. I can't recall a car or motorbike doing it. Planes still have a special "FASCINATION for the news people.. One of the sillier analogies when you think about it. A car driver can cause a school, bus full of kids to run off a cliff or into the path of an oncoming semi. Think the media won't be interested? - for a week or so anyway. Most aircraft crashes seem to make the news and disappear within 24 or 48 hours. The AFR is expensive theatre. If you know of any definite, statistically proven effect on accident rates for pilots over 400 to 500 hours please do let us know. Imagine what is going to happen when an RAAus aircraft hits a classroom full of kids or a school bus and the media discover there are more than 10,000 unlicenced pilots flying around in Australian airspace.
  19. Anyone got any PROOF, statistical or otherwise, that the AFR has any beneficial effect on accident rates for pilots with more than 400 hours? It is meant to be about accident rates isn't it? If not what the heck is it about? I'll support RATIONAL regulation that can be shown to be EFFECTIVE. Otherwise it is bureaucratic bs that just makes aviation more expensive and inconvenient. As for the 2 year driving review: Assuming about 3 million people in Queensland with a licence, that's 1.5 million reviews a year. Assuming the reviewers work 200 days a year and do 7 - 8 reviews a day that's around 1500 reviews per reviewer per year. That's another 1000 Queensland public servants you need to recruit that you me and everyone will pay for. There are far too many already. Now, your chances of killing or injuring someone or damaging third party property are far higher in a car than in a small aeroplane, partly because there is far more driving done than aviation but it shows that the holy grail of "aviation safety" is in fact trivial in societal terms
  20. Faintly amusing. Firstly, it isn't a flight TEST, it is a flight REVIEW. Anyone who wants to fly with an instructor is free to do so at any time. Nobody who is licensed (Private or Recreational) should be forced to do so. Safety and competence is YOUR problem and the problem of anyone silly enough to fly with you. Better would be expanded recency/currency requirements as long as they are reasonable. Do you think the Flight Review is for your benefit or the benefit of those who fly with you? If so, I have a nice bridge to sell you. The aim is to benefit the authorities who are seen to be doing something. The instructor group also stand to benefit by the extra customers but they forget that putting barriers in just ultimately drives people away. The FAA brought in the requirement back in 175 IIRC. What happened was the Cessna company did a large campaign to get more people to fly. "Just like driving a car". Bad idea, as a whole bunch of people who had never given aviation a thought got into it and started killing themselves and their passengers at a great rate which of course made the media. The FAA brought in the BFR to be seen to be doing something about this. As Australia is never slow to copy a silly idea, we brought it in a year or so later. IIRC Dr Arthur Pape was unable to find any evidence that a BFR had any effect on the accident rates for pilots with more than 400 hours or so.
  21. FlyBoy 1960 "My comments were about a stall spin occurrence and it is much more likely to happen with the engine stopped completely than it is with the engine at idle and possibly producing around 15 hp." The effect of a little residual thrust (if indeed there is any) is to slightly increase the effective L/D of the aircraft. This has no effect of stall speed or likelihood of stall. That is controlled by the stick position. I don't know about you but I like to reference the ASI frequently to check the speed is OK particularly on takeoff, circuit and landing.
  22. Unfortunately in Australia it is difficult to "just do a couple of hours of gliding. CASA has caused sport aviation to be divided into watertight silos and to actually touch the controls of a glider you need to be a member of the GFA which is expensive. All nonsense of course and is the result of collusion between CASA and GFA to keep the latter in business. A pity because you can also do legal spin training in gliders although I'd favour renting an hours in a Pitts S2B or Citabria etc. I'd caution about much of a relationship between becoming a better pilot and doing some gliding. Gliders are MUCH easier to land on the spot than are powered aircraft. High glide angle clean (may be over 40:1) and with full divebrake may be 4:1. Lots of room for error and actually pretty easy after a little practice. cooperplace, did you switch off the engine or switch off and stop the prop?
  23. There is a discussion here on windmilling propellers: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/64394/does-a-windmilling-propeller-create-more-drag-than-a-stopped-propeller-in-an-eng some of which appears to be sensible. For other references search Google for "drag windmilling propeller" There some different engine failure cases to consider. Engine seizes and prop stops Engine not producing power due ignition or fuel failure Engine not producing power due gearbox or clutch failure on a Rotax 912 but prop windmills Engine not producing power due prop departing aircraft
  24. I tried the engine failure after takeoff in the BD-4 case at a safe altitude not so long ago. There is a very bad tendency to pull the stick back to limit the rate at which the nose drops. When I deliberately closed the throttle AND DID NOT MOVE THE STICK the aircraft was in no danger of stalling and established a safe glide speed. Which leads me to "what does the elevator do?" The answer is - it controls the angle of attack of the wing. As the elevator is directly connected to the stick the POSITION (NOT FORCE which depends on trim setting) of the stick controls the angle of attack of the wing Assumes statically stable aircraft with mechanical or hydraulic control connection, not FBW or relaxed stability types like F-16 or when you load the aircraft so the C of G is back well past the aft limit) . All else follows from this. If you don't want to stall DON'T PULL THE STICK BACK SO FAR. Unfortunately teaching of stalling generally ignores this and so far nobody has produced a simple device to indicate elevator position to the pilot although it is on my "to do" list. It is a good thing if the control system in your aircraft is geared so that the top of the stick moves a long way fore and aft. According to aero engineer Stan Hall (designer of the Cherokee 2 sailplane amongst other things) designing a control system this way will cause most pilots to rate the aircraft as "easy to fly" even when there are other shortcomings. There is a discussion hereon windmilling propellers: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/64394/does-a-windmilling-propeller-create-more-drag-than-a-stopped-propeller-in-an-eng
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