Mike Borgelt

dutchroll, there are certain medical conditions , which if detected by your GP, require him or her to advise you and the relevant authority that you are medically disqualified from driving a car. If this hasn't occurred you can drive. The "driver's licence medical" means you haven't got one of those conditions and can legally drive a private motor vehicle. Queensland doesn't even have an eye test for driving a car anymore. My optometrist is horrified as he has had people in who are legally blind and when asked, say they drove, but they had the "seeing eye missus" to help. I'd support a PPL medical standard that required a statement from your optometrist as to your vision standard. Even if you are instrument rated most of your time you will be in a "see and be seen" environment.

davebutler, what did the NZCAA do? I was there about 16 months ago and their PPL medical system was more expensive and difficult than ours then. I'm looking to flee this dreadful penal colony.

CASA has released a discussion paper on medical standards. Review of medical certification standards | Civil Aviation Safety Authority Looks to me like deliberate effort to obfuscate and delay any change by including the Class 1 medical in this. The only current problem with the Class 1 medical is CASA's colour vision standards which is pretty much a stand alone issue and easily fixable by aligning it with that of the FAA. The medical standards discussion is otherwise about the Class 2 requirement for PRIVATE pilots. The Uk has already brought in a car driver's licence medical and the FAA is in the process of doing something similar. If the FAA guys are smart they won't delay or obfuscate in view of President Elect Trump's known antipathy to useless and irrelevant regulation. We should of course align ourselves with similar western nations, particularly the USA as they do far more aviation than anybody at the private level. I suggest you all write polite but pointed submissions to this DP and copy to the Minister and your local Federal MP. If you fly RAAus or GFA don't think you will be OK. You could be affected as one of the options seems to be to extend the RAMPC to recreational aviators. For once don't think "I'm alright, Jack" and spend a little time to benefit all private aviators in Australia. You may like to point out that there is ZERO evidence that a formal medical does anything beneficial to the accident rate. In fact, in 2002, CASA in a discussion paper on a Recreational pilot licence did acknowledge this point specifically. Unfortunately that proposal did not see the light of day as Messrs Middleton of RAAus and Hall and Meertens of the GFA went to the Minister and demanded it not apply to RAAus and GFA. The rather clueless Minister, John Anderson agreed to do that. One of the more stupid actions inflicted on Australian sport aviation ever. No, they didn't ask the members if they wanted it.

This is just one of the many anomalies in Australian aviation regulation caused by the CASA policy of separating aviation into nice little watertight compartments. Instead of a set of laws and regulations that EVERYONE can obey regardless of membership of some ghastly private organisation, CASA get the organisations to write "standards" and "manuals" that are in many ways more prescriptive than what is required in GA. The reason this is done is simply that CASA gets some free "dobbers" aka "stoolpigeons" to report if somebody, somewhere is breaking one of these standards. If the PPL medical was dropped to a State car drivers licence and owner maintenance of private light aircraft and gliders introduced, as in Canada, there would be no need for the RAAus, GFA etc. to do anything except educate willing participants and promote their aviation activities. This would improve the atmosphere inside these bodies immensely as the power and control freaks who infest them would have no power or control and would leave.

I'll listen to aircraft noise complaints right after barking dogs are banned. . At least someone is getting some utility/pleasure out of an aircraft. Barking dogs are utterly useless and do nobody any good, including the dog.

We are all familiar with the concept of take off safety speed aren't we? Do you know what it so for your aircraft at various weights?

Australia could do far worse (and always has done) than simply abolish CASA, fire all the employees and outsource the regulation of civil aviation in Australia to the FAA.

This site has a nice user interface www.ventusky.com and gives you lots of information. All these things use the global circulation models and are updated every few hours with real data. There are 3 major models in existence. Ventusky let you choose and compare. I used to do weather soothsaying for a living about 40 years ago.

I know John, he was also a customer of mine. A true gentleman. My wife has siblings who live in that area, the area has had heaps of rain and the ground is very soft which is probably why the aircraft appears to have collapsed the gear when it ran off the runway. Look at the long grass. Don't stand in one spot too long, it will grow up around you! I'm hoping he landed and got the switches turned off before running off the runway. One prop blade at least appears undamaged.

Some years ago we had as a dinner guest one Bill Charney who was leisurely flying around world in his Beech 17 Staggerwing. Bill is also know as "Captain Biff Windsock" to United airlines passengers (he figured they pay more attention to his safety announcements that way) before he retired. After he had flown around SE Queensland for a while he said that "you sure have a lot of controlled airspace in Australia". After 5 years on SA RAPAC I wouldn't hold out any hope of getting that through, Bruce. Australian officialdom just loves control and the only people worse than Australian civil controllers are the Australian military ones. Yes, I've had one or two helpful ones but it isn't common.

billwoodmason, nice summary. Of course RAAus and GFA etc are simply divisions of CASA. CASA bought them for peanuts. Self administration is simply an illusion fostered by CASA to avoid taking responsibility if questions are asked in Parliament. If the political heat gets too great (say a glider or RAAus aircraft collides with a regional airliner on approach or departure from a country airport with tens of dead), CASA will simply shut down the organisation concerned and possibly all the others just to demonstrate that action has been taken. That of course means collective punishment for the members, something we shouldn't be doing in Australia to Australian citizens. The answer is pretty simple and cuts through the shambles that is any kind of recreational aviation administration in Australia. 1. Register all RAAus aircraft as Australian aircraft. Gliders already are VH registered Australian aircraft. 2. Add to the CARs/CASRs, CAOs/CASOs words to the effect that aircraft under 600Kg (or whatever arbitrary weight limit above that you like) and gliders may be flown by pilots holding a RPL and the medical for that RPL is the medical standard for an ordinary Australian State Driver's Licence. In the transition just keep flying until your next AFR when the RPL will be issued. Alternatively just have the RPL issued if you have the certificate or a requisite numbers of hours and logbook endorsements. 3. Do the same for maintenance by allowing owner maintenance of aircraft and gliders under the weight limit. Gliders can be up to 850 Kg so that at least would be consistent although I don't think there is any reason not to set the limit higher. 4. All these aircraft are then operated day VFR under same rules that any VH registered aircraft operates under. We all DO fly in the same airspace after all. As these would be CASA regs there would be no need to force membership on anyone (avoids infringing their right to free association which includes not associating with people whose business methods, ethics and honesty you find abhorrent and whose reputation you don't want yours tainted by. Unfortunately you are judged to some extent by the company you keep) and also avoids the compulsory unionism aspect where people working in the industry MUST join the organisation. The organisations then can be honest brokers acting for the members (those who may freely choose to join) and acting as a political lobby on the members' behalf as well as promoting the activity and educating as to how to do it better and more safely. See Experimental Aircraft Association in the USA (EAA). Most successful organisation in sport and recreational aviation in the world and they have ZERO actual power. The organisations, to retain members, will have to perform like any other private bodies with something to sell and demonstrate value to customers in order to stay in business. Under current arrangements RAAus and GFA aren't private bodies anymore. Coles, Woolies, Mobil etc do not have the right to force you to buy their products and neither should RAAus and GFA.

"Because CASA make a career of it (Empire building). Nev" Bingo ! We have a winner. Avplan and Oz Runways both have a facility to report your position and latitude to a website. I did suggest to someone close to the Avplan people that it would be nice if all this information was available on both websites but have not heard anymore about it. This would be a very low cost traffic awareness aid independent of transponders, radar and ADSB.

Oh goody, the old Australian "we're all right Jack, F--- you." Brilliant. It is easy to see how CASA has divided and conquered. Do you REALLY think the leadership, to use the term loosely, of RAAus is going to arc up if CASA insists on raising the medical standards? I highly doubt it. They'll come out with platitudes and meekly roll over. As for public attention, most of the public think that people who fly gliders or RAAus aircraft are suicidal loonies who get everything that was coming to them. They don't care.

Turbo, how is this going to have bad effects? If someone is eliminated by a Driver's Licence medical requirement being slightly tightened, they sure aren't going to pass the RPL or PPL medical so won't be able to fly anyway. In any case a DL medical STANDARD is all that's required, not an actual licence. In coming years there may be quite a few people who don't or never learned to drive due to self driving cars appearing and things like Uber and Lyft. Already young people in the US are delaying getting driver's licences.

I don't have the URL's but I researched this issue a few years ago and since the early 1970s there have been at least 3 studies on this in the US. All concluded there was NO safety benefit to formal aviation medicals. In fact there seemed to be a small benefit to NOT having them, possibly due to people without them not flying when feeling off while someone with a medical may say "I must be OK, I have a medical". We've run this experiment as glider, motorglider and private hot air balloon pilots in the US have no formal medicals. Same in Australia for glider pilots and RAAus. If we are going to have regulation it should be EVIDENCE based, not based on vague feelings or "we've always done it that way". IF Skidmore won't get on board the Minister needs to be pressured to remove him. Ben Morgan, I'll get Australian EAA to support your move in a letter to CASA. May take a couple of weeks. Private and sports aviation regulation in Australia is an unholy shambles of conflicting and differing regulatory requirements with organisations like GFA and RAAus bought by CASA for a pittance each year when they should in fact be acting for their members. CASA is charged by Parliament with regulating. So do it. The various organisation should be consulted and should lobby politically to make sure the regulations are the minimum necessary and are evidence based. The regs must be CASA regs, not rules or quasi regs promulgated by private organisations like GFA and RAAus which can force people to join them. Whatever happened to freedom of association?

What everyone is missing is that it doesn't matter much who administers the rules. It matters what they are. IMO CASA should do the administration of the register (and use the existing delegation system) and put all the aircraft on it. Different aircraft types (gliders, under 600Kg aircraft and Experimental Amateur built) can have appropriate CASA regulations, airworthiness certificates, pilot licencing and maintenance regulations. The RPL with a more relaxed medical standard such as a Sate Driver's Licence would do although I'd add a statement from your optometrist is required as Queensland no longer has, nor tests, drivers for vision. (yes, really). This actually so right now but CASA pretends it isn't. CASA, however, approves ops and maintenance standards and manuals for the various recreational aviation bodies which clearly make these actual CASA regulations. What we have now in administration of sport aviation in Australia is a complete shambles with various private organisations being given the powers of the state (along with attendant corruption and private vendettas) and their personnel being basically unaccountable for their actions. Costs are large and especially so for people who fly more than one type of recreational aircraft, e.g. gliders and RAAus and GA. From a safety viewpoint this bad as the divisions hinder the dissemination of information that may help other branches and politically, CASA has divided and conquered by giving each organisation "special" consideration in the form of a few exemptions (which may be withdrawn at any time), which each organisation then jealously defends. I've often thought that when they have a few drinks on Friday evening after attending their place of employment (note the wording) and the topic of recreational aviation comes up, that they fall about laughing at what they have done with in some cases the organisations imposing rules on their members which CASA couldn't get away with as they are more onerous than apply to GA (see GFA, for example). As for the SAAA and its recent problems - excellent. May that bunch of bed wetting, nanny state loving incompetents, disappear. They have utterly failed to defend CAR21 (the Regulations about the various Experimental categories) and its original intent and seem hell bent on returning us to 101.28 or worse. Notice that "home of Australian Experimental" has disappeared from their website.

FT, is that right? AFAIK if you build a VH Experimental and can find an instructor who will fly in it, you can learn to fly in it and do BFRs in it yourself.

Yes, if gliders were still made of wood or metal there might be more of it. However used gliders are so cheap and of comparable performance to anything you might build that buying a flying older glider and re-furbishing it makes far more sense.

Go to the CASA website and read CAR21. You can design and build a home built aircraft but doing it properly is a big deal unless you get a kit. A Xenos isn't a bad suggestion. Just register it RAAus. Nobody will know you turned the engine off if you are a long way from an airfield. Just start it for landing. The GFA isn't interested in homebuilding. There is at least one Xenos on the RAAus register. If you want to put up with gliding clubs and the GFA I'd visit one and see if you can stomach it. Many can't. As far as I'm concerned the locations and internal politics of most gliding clubs give them the ambience of a Soviet era collective farm crossed with a decaying hippie colony. The above is why gliding is in decline world wide and the world is awash in quite nice composite gliders going for not a lot of money. I wouldn't pay more than $10000 to $12000 for an airworthy Standard Cirrus or Libelle with trailer , instruments and radio. It depends on what kind of gliding you want to do. Self launch is a great idea. After 49 years in gliding I've come to the conclusion the sport will never amount to much until all gliders are self launching.

You DO know that a GPS gives ground TRACK and a compass shows HEADING? They aren't the same? If there is wind there will be two times where the track and heading are identical - when you are flying directly up or down wind. The rest of the time track and heading will be different - yes it is a sine curve error. I DO hope your cross country endorsement includes some basic navigation theory.

The prop on my Ventus TOP when it had the TOP fitted was 3 blades and meant to be quite efficient. Funnily enough the blades looked like the ones in this article: http://rexresearch.com/lippsprop/lipps.htm Scroll down to "the single blade myth" but do read the rest of the article. Full of good stuff. I'd like one of those on our BD-4. I think the single blade prop on a motorised Blanik may have more to do with the self feathering bit.

I was referring to the 50kph limit everywhere inside Adelaide including on main feeder roads. I was also in Port Pirie recently on the way back from another transcontinental to Perth and back in the BD-4 and everywhere in town the limit is 50 kph. The town is large, uncrowded and has wide streets. It is called taxation by stealth. You also said " In any case, it's obvious that it's unsustainable to keep building massive freeways for ever-increasing population, just won't work. We need to be investing in light rail, dedicated bus lanes, bike paths, park & ride facilities etc." Only if you swallowed the green kool aid. It isn't obvious to me. For an increasing population you'll need to build more and more " light rail, dedicated bus lanes, bike paths, park & ride facilities etc.". I'd rather more freeways. Public transport is like having 20 random hitchhikers in your car. It is for poor countries and societies which cannot afford widespread private transport. Hint: that is why cars are so popular. With high speed communications via fiber and the coming self driving cars I can see other solutions to this transport problem in the near to middle future. It makes no sense to travel into an office to spend your day in front of a keyboard and screen.

I don't think the second blade operating in the wake of the second is at all relevant unless not moving forwards. At 2500rpm the prop goes around 41.67 times a second. a two blade prop means a blade passes 83.34 times a second. At 100knots (close to 50 meters/sec) this means the second blade passes 0.6 meters behind where the first one passed. The single blade prop advantage appears to be in some automatic pitch control with a simple offset hinge

I'm with Bruce on this. Thinking about living in high density housing gives me the same feeling as sticking two fingers down my throat. The immigration rate doesn't matter. Total population and its increase does. A while ago I looked up the population figures for Australia in 1983 and 2013. About 51% increase. That's why, amongst other things, the roads seem more crowded. They are. Also helped by idiot speed limits (South Australia a prime example) which cause the same number of cars to be on the road longer when going anywhere.