Mike Borgelt

You need to differentiate between "engine stopped" i.e prop isn't turning and "engine stopped" with fuel and/or ignition turned off and prop windmilling. Try it in the Sinus next time Might also help if you the idle RPM set correctly on your engine first. Also the effect of the engine idling at low speeds on landing roll will be different from the much higher speed in the glide. Clearly it produces nett thrust in the low speed case.

BTW, the ATSB is about as much use as mammaries on a male cow.

OK people what does the elevator do?

You might be lucky to get a timely ATSB report and in any case speculation does no harm and explores possible scenarios. I don't think anyone is being judgmental. Further to the drag issue, when the CAFE foundation measures aircraft L/D they don't turn off engines etc. They have a sensor for the prop position fore and aft and set the engine up at zero thrust by finding where the sensor makes and breaks. With idling engine the prop is pushed back by the airflow implying greater drag.

Here are details of type: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyn'Aéro_MCR01 The fuselage is on top of the wing in the accident images because it is a low wing aircraft.

I think you'll find that you have this the wrong way round. Stopping the prop will reduce drag. A windmilling engine is absorbing energy. Next time you fly do an aborted takeoff with plenty of room to stop easily on the runway. Note the deceleration when you close the throttle. Motorgliders like the Xenos in glide mode will stop the prop for this reason. Also if in an aircraft with constant speed prop, go to full coarse pitch if you can do so if the engine stops. In traveling type motorgliders with variable pitch props feather mode is an extreme example which completely stops the prop easily.

No, the different groups do not have different needs and requirements. Back asswards as usual, Turbs. The different rules exist BECAUSE there are different organisations all seeking to justify their own existence. Let's go back to what we are trying to achieve: 1. Protect innocent third parties on the ground from having flying machines or ones that used to be until recently, fall on them. 2. Protect other legitimate airspace users including passengers. 3. You could add protect people from themselves but that is a slippery slope and isn't the intent of current regulation. Don't go there. Currently we have a complete dog's breakfast of rules. GA aircraft require maintenance by Licenced Workshops and LAME's, pilots require a Class 2 or Basic Med (same medical standard). RAAus and Gliding require self declaration/Private motor vehicle licence medical standards. RAAus can have owner maintenance unless for training. Gliding requires maintenance qualifications with ridiculous hours of training required. RAAus has 600Kg weight limit, gliders 850Kg. Gliders can fly in controlled airspace without a Class 2 medical or equivalent for the pilot. There are more. If anyone can find a QUANTITATIVE risk analysis of all this, please let us all know. What a shambles.

Bloke I know applied for the job of DAS when it was open last time or the time before. Got an interview and was asked" What is the first thing you would do as DAS?" "Fire all you baskets". Needless to say he didn't get the job.

The AOPA/SAAA stance is to be commended. The elimination of the ghastly ASAO's like RAAus and GFA is good thing. At best they are run by well meaning, enthusiastic amateurs and have accident/incident rates well above GA. In the case of the GFA for sure, "well meaning" is on thin ice. CASA needs to properly shoulder its Parliamentary given responsibilities and administer all of civil aviation, not just bits of it. we all fly in the same airspace The disunity at present is caused by CASA's scheme of dividing private and recreational aviators into silos. It is bad for safety as it prevents much cross flow of safety information and divides political lobbying efforts to achieve more reasonable regulation like owner maintenance (the results of that are in in Canada and acknowledged by the FAA) and simplified, less onerous medicals like the self declaration/private motor vehicle licence. Back in 2003 CASA floated a discussion paper on the Recreational Pilot Licence. It was to have no medical beyond the driver's licence and acknowledged that, while some people would be disquieted by that, there was no evidence that the Class 2 medical had any beneficial effect on safety. The proposal was that you could get endorsements for various classes of aircraft - gliders, ultralights, GA types etc. All very sensible. If people were happy with their existing exemptions/organisations these would be unaffected. So what happened? The GFA's Bob Hall and Henk Meertens along with RAAus's Paul Middleton set up a meeting with the Minister, John Anderson and told him they didn't want a bar of it and to kill it, which he did. This can only have been to maintain their organisations' funding, power and influence, not anything to do with the the interests of people who just wished to fly. Probably the single greatest act of wanton destruction in the history of Australian sport aviation. Hence we now have an RPL with a medical standard the same as a Class 2 but with silly arbitrary restrictions. No, Basic Med does not relax these requirements in any way. "Medical reform" was a blatant lie. Anyone who thinks by joining GFA or RAAus is "getting out from under CASA" is sadly mistaken. Both organisations owe their continued funding, powers, influence and very existence to CASA. CASA approves their rules manuals. These organisations don't need operating manuals or even existence to fly gliders and ultralights. The day VFR bits of Part 91 will do just fine. Launching gliders can be taken care of with a small addition. The CASA Licencing Medical standards can be taken care of with a small change to Part 61: The holder of an RPL who intends to fly aircraft of gross weight less than X (currently 600 Kg) or gliders/motorgliders of less than Y (currently they are limited to 850Kg and there is no strong reason at all to increase this) needs only a declaration in writing that they hold a State Private Motor Vehicle Driver's Licence. CASA is to be notified in writing if this no longer applies. Likewise the maintenance regs can have the same provisions with Owner Maintenance. THEN we can talk of raising weight limits.

300 kg payload. Put in a canopy and a couple of seats. The future of small aircraft.

There are two kinds of countries. Those that use the metric system and those that have landed men on the Moon. :-) Really, who cares? Get used to both systems. US aerospace was using inches and thousandths of an inch long ago.

Isn't Michael Monk the Australian representative for an overseas sourced RAAus aircraft as reported in Australian Flying? How do you spell conflict of interest if this is so?

The compass in an iPad is GPS based? Really? It is actually a 3D magnetometer chip. There are automatic calibration algorithms but if the aircraft structure/electrics etc induce stray fields the magnetometer will see them the same as the aircraft compass. The fields may also be different from on your lap to the top of the windscreen where the compass lives. Swinging a compass properly is a pain and can take a while. GPS will give you a TRACK while you are moving along that track but not a heading unless you are in a ground vehicle. Heading can be done by GPS but you need a fancier and rather special GPS setup known as a GPS compass which has two antennas.

I should add: they aren't just building rockets, they are building an actual production line. Pretty much everything else, done by any state or private company will be made hopelessly obsolete.

Here you go: SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype(s) Thread 3 : Photos and Updates this is thread 3, they are up to 11 in all plus other threads dealing with design, operation etc More detail than you could want to know. If you go the forums you'll find the SpaceX forum on Starship: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=72.0 Lots of actual or retired rocket engineers comment on the site. Some of the local residents at Boca Chica have live cams on the goings on there at the "rocket shipyard" as Mary (Boca Chica Gal) has called it. It's wonderful.

Old tech, non landable boosters although they are hoping to retrieve the first stage engines by catching the parachute with a helicopter. Tax eaters. SpaceX is eating their lunch. For a glimpse of the real space age and real spaceships check out what is happening at SpaceX, Boca Chica, Texas. https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/ It is like watching Chris Columbus's fleet being built. There is a nearby and large online fan club. See www.nasaspaceflight.com (nothing to do with NASA actually)

Been done numerous times from gliders with structural or control systems failures sometimes mid airs. Helps to be high to begin with and have thought about things beforehand. You'd be surprised at the number of top level contest pilots who had not, plus idiots who were wearing the chute so that a bailout would result in their heads being removed by the CHEST (not NECK) strap. As the National Parachute Company (we used to sell them) says, "Your one last chance". Most times over the Gulf if going to Pirie I'd be high and delay descent until in easy glide range. Tangalooma to Bribie when going to/from Caloundra isn't all that far but the shortest distance has a 3500' airspace step. Go just outside and you can go to 4500'. Going to/from Camden to points north is terrible, not help by Sydney Approach being the most uncooperative controllers in Australia and the cretins at RAAF Richmond. They even lose properly filed flight plans and don't know the VFR reporting points. That's Australian aviation.

Why do you think the OZ Runways mag compass was correct?

I take it you folks aren't going to fly Port Pirie going west over the gulf or vice versa, or Tangalooma - Bribie anytime soon? Much of aviation is calculated risk. You can minimise it to some extent but it becomes a utility vs risk thing. Parachutes? You bet. Strapped to our backs. Doors top hinged. Open door, headset off, seatbelt undone, roll off seat behind landing gear leg. Pull ripcord with both hands. I figure there are whole classes of accidents we won't be there for. Doesn't help in all circumstances, of course. Personal chutes are also steerable, unlike the BRS. Bruce Tuncks is right about the airspace limits causing unnecessary hazard but that is typical of this benighted, bureaucrat ridden country. One day somebody will manage to explain to me in rational terms why CASA wants to run several different GA systems when we all fly in the same Australian airspace.

Knew a guy who killed himself in a Motorfalke (long time W.A. gliding guy - if you go to the Bull Creek RAAF museum in Perth you used to see a Schneider Kingfisher hanging up. He restored it. Beautiful job - I completed my Silver C in it before the restoration). Engine ran fine for taxi due to slightly leaky fuel tap which was in OFF position. Took off and float chamber emptied, engine stopped. Impacted nose down. Supposedly tried to turn fuel on instead of landing ahead. 4500 foot runway (the one I did my first solo from) with level wheat paddock over the small fence at end.

Looks like the pilot of the Corvus, stalled while inverted. You can see the sudden pitch, increasing angle of attack followed by a power on spin to the right. Was he really going to try a half roll followed by pull through a half loop? This might cause him to pull the stick back far enough to stall. A simple push while inverted and keep the roll going and he's have been OK. My AFR instructor reckons you'd be surprise by the number of people who get inverted and simply pull the stick into their laps instead of push or pull to horizon and roll upright. Aircraft stall when the pilot pulls the stick back too far. Airspeed and attitude have nothing to do with it. The stick is connected to the elevator which controls the angle of attack. I've long thought a direct readout of elevator position, say a rod that sticks up above the glareshield coaming when you pull the stick back to near the position that commands the stall angle would be a good idea. Yes, I've heard that there is a lot of "unregistered" or Guerilla aviation in Russia. Same in Alaska I'm told and in Australia it begins west of Dalby I'm told also. This is the problem with official regulation. Unless you have a fair bit of experience it is hard to know which regulations are the ones that prevent crashes and which are bureaucratic rubbish. Army aviator friend says the Army knows then as "red" and "brown" regulations.

The Rotax literature says 135HP max continuous at 5500rpm. 33-34 liters/hour at 135HP is actually pretty good. My O-320 runs 29-30 lph at 110HP. Rotax 915 would be interesting in a BD-4.

Try Edmund Scientific. They have an optics division and do all sorts of films including polarising.

No problem with governments offloading liability as long as they don't make any rules or let others make rules for you. If you make the rule it is YOUR rule and you are liable if someone follows the rule and has a problem as a result. So victims sue governments? The governments have lawyers on tap, infinitely deep pockets and forever to stall you while you pay lawyers out of your own pocket. Dumb idea.

There was a CASA advisory publication in May 2019 on radio use in Class G. Seemed to me the only MANDATORY transmission stuff was if an IFR guy called and there was a conflict. CASA has no interest in VFR aviation, particularly recreational, or its safety and wishes it would all go away. They are doing their best to ensure this. Most mid-airs occur in the vicinity of aerodromes, in particular in the circuit. We've been using radio in Australia for a long time and it doesn't seem to have helped all that much. Looking out and training yourself to actually *see* might be better. The frequency fills up orders of magnitude quicker than the airspace. There was once an article in the old Aviation Safety Digest about how your visual perceptions are severely constricted by listening or talking on a radio. Aviation was operating for a long time before voice radios in aircraft came along. I learned to fly in gliders at Cunderdin W.A. in the late 1960's, never had a radio in a glider until late 1973. Cunderdin was a popular nav point for RACWA aircraft at the time. Never had an issue. Funny how in the USA you can fly VFR in Class G and E, enroute and you don't even have to maintain a listening watch on any frequency. It is common to monitor 121.5 on a second radio.