Mike Borgelt

I have a mixture. Co-pilot has steam gauges, I have the Dynon plus some home brew digital engine stuff, an MGL fuel flow/totaliser and steam gauge tacho and manifold pressure. Lowrance 2000C colour GPS. I can easily see the steam gauges on the right. 2 ipads plus Avplan on my phone. What you want/need depends what sort of flying you will do. Around the field or short flights a few simple steam gauges is fine. Use ipad with Avplan or oz Runways for nav/required charts and flight data. If you plan on long cross countries you may want some more redundancy. Nothing wrong with a steam gauge ASI for that as the servicing requirements aren't high. I'd be happy with one of the newer small glass instruments for the copilot/backup, larger one for the pilot position and a glass engine instrument. Nowadays I'd fit two batteries from the start to give complete redundancy. I like direct battery selector switches but your battery location may be for C of G purposes.

Yup.

spacesailor, The Dynon D10A is working well after nearly 11 years. No problem. Panel is not shock mounted. The gyros are a silicon vibrating ring type which reject vibration. Some of the other MEMS types may not. One point - the Dynon used to go monochrome due getting hot quite easily. I replaced the access hatch on top of the panel with some perforated black aluminium I had from an old project and put in some cooling fans under the panel. No problem since, even on the hottest of days. Your radios and transponder will thank you also. Every 10 deg C decreases MTBF by half.

No reason for audio warnings for things like oil pressure and temperature etc not to be voice nowadays. Something saying ALERT! ALERT! OIL PRESSURE! is kind of hard to get used to and it should not happen all that often. Probably arrange so it triggers on startup to test.

Feed the vario audio into your headset. You may need an impedance matching transformer.

Digital numbers are good when the value is not changing rapidly. Fine for the 20 second averager in a glider variometer. Analog is better when it is i.e the variometer display. Having said that I once got half an hour in the F/A 18 simulator at Williamtown. Got it off the ground and back on in one piece. The HUD was wonderful. Digital display of ASI and altimeter and no trouble reading either. MacAir did a great job on the filtering so that the numbers changing was smooth and easy to read. Absolutely the best thing was the velocity vector. That is where the aircraft is going and the so called watermark is where it is pointing. If they split you have an angle of attack. If the vector is disappearing off the bottom you will likely stall soon. Want to fly level - just put the vector on the horizon. To land put it on the spot on the runway you want to flare at (not done in F/A18, just fly it on to the ground like on a carrier). I'd be happy with a good HUD. The backup in the F/A18 was the 3 small analog gauges above the pilots' left knee. There have been attempts at a HUD for GA but nothing so far seems to have become popular. You need an pseudo infinity focus for the HUD (6 to 10 meters or so), not just a display at panel distance.

My 2c worth. Glass. If you really want, a small 57mm steam gauge ASI in addition (or 80mm). In most military and airline aircraft nowadays the backup for glass is another small glass instrument. Either have two batteries in the aircraft or a backup for the backup glass instrument. Lightest and easiest setup. A small separate glass instrument for the engine. As ever before deciding, settle on the mission. What are you trying to do? If you need attitude information or are uncomfortable without it you'll want attitude indicator. The old mechanical AH and DG, either electrically or mechanically driven are pretty horrible to contemplate nowadays. The new glass stuff in the small end of aviation is much better with lower maintenance and is lighter and cheaper. I have a mixture in the BD-4 from the big mid life re-furbish 11 years ago. Dynon D10A my side with mixture old and new engine instruments and a Lowrance 2000C GPS, plus power for iPad mini. On co-pilot side the old gauges with one of our varios for VSI and a turn co-ordinator (electrical with spinning gyro). That will probably be replaced by one of the new glass attitude instruments eventually. Mount for co-pilot iPad mini + power. Digital RPM and MP above radio stack in center. Variometers are pretty different from powered aircraft instruments. You need second by second awareness and you do not want to be head down for any great length of time because of the mid air collision risk. A circling glider is a magnet for other gliders. Hence development of audio. The vario display with round pointer is still the best visual display with a white pointer on black background. Instantly visible out of the corner of your eye. Considerable effort has been put in to making it fast and smooth by careful filtering and shaping of the response and I frequently get comments that our varios seem to make more sense than most others. I've flown with the others too and agree. Audio has had considerable development also. From a simple variable pitch above a settable threshold in the beginning we have now got beeps above zero (very stable zero with modern tech), solid tone below and the tone varies from clicks at 10 knots sink to a low tone near zero increasing as it chops above zero with the chop rate increasing. Increased audio sensitivity in the low range to 3 knots up and optional logarithmic visual scale, expanded in the low range. When climbing faster than the 20 second average rate of climb the on to off ratio goes from 70 on 30 off to 50:50. Green light on panel comes on also. Also on latest instruments the total thermal rate of climb in that thermal up to the present is calculated and displayed on a small digital display in the instrument face. During inter thermal cruise the audio has different sounds to tell you to fly faster or slower to remain at about the optimum inter thermal cruise speed along with blue and amber LEDs for visual display. There is more to it. See www.borgeltinstruments.com The website is still in progress after a major change earlier this year. We've been busy with a totally new sensor concept for variometers which fixes the major problem with all variometers up to now and the pilot will have complete real time knowledge of the 3D motion of the air both vertically and horizontally and any changes.

Gustave Whitehead - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG Seems to be a bunch of unlikely to be true claims and "recollections" years or decades after the alleged events. The article seems to be fairly balanced.

Have a careful think about leaving the ground in a flying machine over which you have no control.

So lets see.... it wasn't a military secret or classified by the government, various experimenters around the world were working on the problem and a bloke in the USA succeeds and NOTHING more comes of it even though he didn't kill himself. No Whitehead Aircraft Company, no passing on of how he did it, no plans sold, etc etc. Yeah, right. As for " The Wright Brothers' method was empirical. They theorised; tested their theories by experimentation and utilised the best results of those experiments" is a good description of the scientific method. Not only that the Wrights tested the older theories from other people and concluded that they were wrong, hence their own experimentation and theorising. Engineering education is interesting. It helps to know enough to figure out what you need to learn to do the job at hand. Some of the better engineers didn't have a formal engineering education. Irv Culver of Lockheed was one (he gave the Skunk Works its name). It was reckoned he simply figured out what he needed to learn and did so to solve the problem. I met him once. One thing is for sure and that is that our aeronautical pioneers were very fortunate indeed that they didn't have CASA, RAAus, GFA etc "helping" them. Imagine the Internet if CASA had been in charge of its oversight.

I love the magical thinking that pieces of paper ensure safety. What next, pieces of paper to cure cancer, eliminate poverty and ensure world peace? If you submitted an SMS and didn't get acknowledgement of its acceptability to the authorities demanding it, I'd, as a matter of urgency, enquire as to why and demand a response in writing. Otherwise if you encounter a problem down the track you may find they deny all knowledge of it and you are the bunny. Got to protect the relationship with the insurance company. As for responsibility, if an authority demands you have one and are required to submit for approval it and you get it, the responsibility falls back on the authority. Funny how EASA has stated that an SMS is not required for operation of small aircraft. They apply to commercial/airline operations. All that an SMS does is, by specifying in detail how you operate, is make your operation inflexible and gives the authorities ammunition to use against you. CASA isn't interested in aviation safety - they are interested in making so many rules that inevitably one or more are broken in your everyday operation so that if things go wrong they can point to a broken rule, fine or jail you and publicly look like they are doing their jobs. As facthunter points out, safety is a mindset a safety culture not a rules culture.

Re the Senate hearing: I think Carmody may have been set up by guess who? Wonder how long before he resigns? He said that it was open to AOPA to be a Part 149 self administering organisation. This would be news to ELAAA I guess who have been trying for how long? Ben Morgan needs this information to pass to the Senators before the next CASA appearance if any ELAAA people are reading this. There was a 2011 or 2012 position paper by Dr Jonathan Aleck of CASA where he states that there need be no more than one organisation for each branch of aviation. Of course once an organisation takes on the job it completely ceases to be an effective political lobby group for its members. Just take a look at RAAus and GFA. CASA lapdogs. It also begs the question of why private individuals or their organisations should actually be doing the jobs of public servants. There is a Civil Aviation Act passed by Parliament and CASA was set up to do the job of administering civil aviation safety in Australia. If they aren't doing it they need have their employment terminated and replaced by those who will. We don't have the motoring organisations in charge of driver licences, roadworthiness and law enforcement. Once again, self administration isn't the answer. The problem is the rules. Better to have dis-interested public servants administer them than fanatics on a Mission from God.

Another point that Jim didn't mention: the glider does not have to be maintained in a professional licensed workshop to fly in CTA. There is plenty of owner maintenance going on although the owner needs the GFA rating to do this. It is another example of Australian overkill with usually 2 full 8 day courses of 10 to 12 hour days required to gain the rating. Completely ridiculous of course when a USA maintenance rating for LSA is 16 hours of instruction. Just shows how self administration doesn't help reduce stupid bureaucratic requirements. Both GFA and RAAus have become what they were originally set up to avoid being.

One very minor point Jim, you probably won't get a clearance into controlled airspace without a transponder in your glider nowadays. Class D which is meant to be non radar tower airspace may be OK but I know that the tower guy at Albury has radar information. Albury is a great example of Australian airspace overkill. In the US it would be most likely 5 nm radius and 2500 feet AGL for the Class D and Class E outside that.

You actually cannot use a private GA aircraft for "hire or reward" either if you have a PPL. Are there two definitions of this at CASA?

Instead of surveilling how flying schools operate we could adopt the US system. They have flying instructors (called CFIs - Certified Flight Instructors) who aren't necessarily operating in a school. Find one and he or she can agree to teach you to fly. When ready for the licence checkride(s) the CFI organises a designated examiner who tests the student on the ground and in flight and then can issue the certificate if the student is up to standard. Put up three students in a row who fail and your CFI ticket is suspended. The only people required to be supervised are the examiners. Beautiful simple system with built in quality control. Too easy for Australia I guess. Not enough opportunities for grift like building unnecessary empires paid for by honest men and women.

At least under RAAus, once trained (just like GA) you can buy your aircraft and fly near where you live. The GFA insists you belong to a gliding club which requires a gliding CFI to be in charge (they are allowing non training clubs now - allegedly - but I'm sure they will make that as difficult as possible) in order for you to fly at all. All in the name of "safety", meanwhile running the most dangerous form of aeronautical hooliganism in the country - with lots of paperwork making it "safe". There used to be lots of small bush gliding clubs and the ones that haven't gone extinct yet are struggling. Meanwhile the GFA leadership, if you can call it that, bemoans the lack of people wanting to glide.

Heaps of drag in cruising flight I think.

Good idea before broadcasting on a given frequency. I know of one gliding club that used to teach put your left index finger above and to the left of the ASI after a winch/autotow launch failure to make sure you have enough smash (1/2 * rho* V^2) before trying to do anything else.

The announcement that the new GA rules will be based on those of the US should be welcome. Now watch CASA stuff up the implementation.

Because then, according to CASA, the aircraft must be registered with RAAus. This is another anomaly. What does the aircraft REGISTRATION have to do with pilot capability? That was a remarkably dumb post. RAAus and its members is rapidly sinking in my estimation.

If Ben Morgan had done his homework he would mention that GFA glider pilots can fly motor gliders of up to 850 Kg gross weight, with a self declaration/private driver's licence medical INSIDE controlled airspace. This is also regarded as "safe". Ben really ought to talk to people who are trying to help him.

Pity there won't be any business as the owners decide to sell their aircraft O/S or scrap them. Then there may be questions about whether the regulators can justify their staffing. The industry is beset by fools.

pluessy, exactly why I said the 2003/4 airspace system was good. It achieved what you are talking about. It is also essentially what is in use in the USA. There, there is no compulsion to be on any frequency when flying VFR en route. Listening to Qantas etc at high altitude is a useless distraction when enroute VFR below 10,000 feet.

Yes, I thought we were mainly taking about small recreational aircraft, mostly flown by the owner. M61A1, you are correct about most people not liking flying and do like not only following complicated sets of rules but dreaming up ever more complicated rules. See RAAus and GFA for examples.