Pearo

Yup, nil injuries from flying.. On the weekend I decided to put my boat up for sale.... To finance a faster more crazy one Maybe I should consider buying a plane instead. Could probably pick up a half decent one for the same price as a fast racing catamaran.

I started my training, then broke my tibia and ACL (trail bike). Restarted my training then hit a kangaroo on my road bike and broke an ankle. Finally managed to get my RPL. Done about 30 hours private hire since. About to do my last instructed nav, then racing my boat (sailing catamaran) I somehow managed to mangle my finger 2 days before the flight.. The latest injury should only take a few weeks to heal I hope. All these injuries seem to come about 2-3 weeks out from a flight test. Very annoying.

I should not have said that!! As an amateur photographer I have hundreds of thousands of photos, both film and digital!! I was just luck that I knew where a copy of that last pic was. I will see what I can find! Last week I was observing some awesome cloud conditions showing how local wind conditions are affected by moutains, I really wish I had taken photos. Also spotted some lenticular cloud just west of YRED yesterday, was out racing yachts so could not take a photo, but I have never seen that here before.. Sorry, weather nerd also.

May I add, that you will find me on pprune also, and I have developed a good relationship with a couple of people there. There is some good info there, but a lot of old cronies stuck in their ways, people who think taking risk is what makes you a good pilot. Here you will find more Aus specific stuff, and less of the basic infighting (although that still exists here to some degree). pprune is a great forum, but you need a better bullshit detector there IMO.

I have been sailing since I was old enough to walk, so I am familiar with the local wind patterns on the surface. What you quickly realise when you start flying, is the wind patterns on the surface are very different to that in the air. In fact, since learning that, I have made a lot of observations on surface wind from the air which I have successfully taken to yacht racing!! The one thing I did know however, is that the surface winds generally start from the west in the early morning, and will follow the sun to the east. So early mornings at YRED will start out 25 and shift to 07. The time of year will effect this of course, depending on the length of day and the subsequent amount of latent land heat. Here is a cool pic I took of different wind directions at surface v altitude. East wind on the surface (windsock), west wind at about 1000' (smoke). Its days like where you go to land on 25 only to be greeted with a tail wind on the surface. From the air you can often see this by looking at the point of a fire. I have also taken photo's at sea of rain that shows wind shear and coriloas effect.

Not sure, but I bought a set of PFX and not happy with them.. I just bought a set of PFX, and I am thinking I might sell them. Make me an serious offer and they are yours. BUT, let me say this, when I first started flying, I researched headsets and ended up with buying a set of telex stratus 50d's. The Stratus 50d annoy me because the ear cups dont last, but they are by far the best headset I have used. I have flown with bose, DC, telex and lightspeed now, and I will put the telex at the top of the list if it was not for the earcups. Anyway, I hate the PFX, and I only continue to use them because I wasted so much money on them. I think my last flight sold me, time to go back to the telex.

I took my wife up for a fly one morning, as I was coming back into redcliffe the radio was silent.. I had the wind from the Southeast in the air, and when I overflew the wind was marginal on the ground so I opted to follow procedure and land on 07. I was on downwind 07 when another aircraft decided he wanted to use 25, but joined 07. I land, roll down to the last taxiway only to be greeted with skydiving caravan holding short of 25. I had to backtrack to the middle taxiway and subsequently forced number 2 in the circuit to go around. Number 2 in the circuit then turned back to land on 25. Technically I was not wrong, there was no one in the circuit and local regs prefer 07 for noise abatement rules. It was southeast wind in the air, but on the ground it was a very mild westerly. I called it on 07, i was the first in the circuit and broadcast my joining, base and final.

I did a few Touch and Goes at YBAF the week before last. Unlike the Gold Coast, where ATC encourage you to make best speed, they dont do that at YBAF. So I was turning base and staring at another aircraft turning base on the other runway and freaking out, and the natural tendancy is to slow down and turn final early. Me freaking out and flying slow resulted in 2 other aircraft having to go around. I was the pain in the butt that day. I have overflown YBAF several times now, but never landed there, so it was all new to me. To top it off, I was already flying an extended downwind due to a proceeding aircraft. YBAF is busy!! Anyway, the result is that I am going to make a point of doing a touch and go every time I fly through Archerfield now, only to gain experience and confidence. I will stop when I am personally confident.

Dont get me wrong, not accusing you (or your instructor) of being the local pain in the arse!!! The joy of rental and training aircraft is they are used by many an instructor and student. I have been guilty of being the pain in the arse once or twice also (ask me about landing on 07 one morning when the surface wind was favouring 25).

Cool cool. I thought 7600 was it. It definnately a tecnam with RA rego. I'll make a mental note of the call sign next time I up there.

Another one here with a fear of heights, and actually started out with a fear of flying. Now an RPL holder with abut 150hours under the belt! Given I was sedated for my first ever commercial flight, its just goes to show that anyone can conquer that fear! Good luck with it all, and hopefully you end up like me with a nice new expensive hobby!

I know that aircraft, its the one that can always been seen flying the 747 sized circuits, often turning base 07 somewhere near the bruce highway (or further out). I hope you are keeping tight circuits!!

I reckon more like an hour an a half for a SEP. It should involve Stalls, forced land, steep turns, precatiounary search and land, then in the circuit there should be glide approach, flapless approach, shortfield and probably a normal circuit as well. You may be able to squeeze all that in in one hour, but I reckon you would be getting closer to 1.5. Where I am, 20 minutes is burned up just getting to and from the training area.

The AIP procedures say to insert DUAL/SOLO when training. I cant find the exact calls, but ENR 1.1 4.3.3 says it. I took some notes about it the other day, and somewhere in the AIP there is example calls, but now I cant find it. I will find it again!!

I have seen busy ATC, and as a result I get their frustration. As opposed to slowing down, I discovered at YBAF last time that you need to get in as fast as you can to prevent others behind you going around (apologies to anyone following in a slow C172 last Monday!! I could have flown a much faster downwind and base leg). YBCG is similar, expect its not GA twins chasing you down but RPT jet aircraft! WRT to slowing down for slower aircraft, I get that too. There is one particular aircraft that always flys 747 circuits at YRED, and its a slower aircraft than 172. It pisses me off no end, but all you can do is deploy some flaps and slow down as much as you can. I am getting good at doing this, and its one huge advantage of flying in Class G.

You have just confirmed the awesomeness of my instructors!! I have it hammered into me at each briefing to plan a route OCTA in case I cant get clearance. Funny thing is, now I am more paranoid about not getting clearance into CTA that the actual flying in CTA!! Some of those routes are tight, especially Archerfield around Amberly to the north/west I have only been denied entry into CTA once, and that was into Gold Coast. I had to orbit at Q1. I now plan holding fuel when landing in Class C or D.

Not sure if you are like me, but one of the things that scared me was not following the right procedure. My callbacks are rubbish, and I am sure it pisses of ATC sometimes (especially when busy), but I will get better. If you miss something, they will ask you to confirm it again. I have already decided that I will call the tower on the phone before I head off on my first solo into CTA, just to give them a heads up. Not sure if it means anything at all, but it makes me feel better!! I also know a couple of ATC's, and they are always encouraging me, although they may change their opinion when they talk to me in the air!!!

You have to take what is taught by instructors with a grain of salt also. The simple fact is, your instructors is a pilot who has been spoon fed the same bullshite as he is onfeeding to the student. I am a late learner to flying, but I have the advantage of an engineering backround, and I can assure you that a lot of stuff taught to student pilots is absolute rubbish. Its a hard line to walk, because a pilot is not an engineer, but you need to come up with a model that a non-engineering type can understand. The model only often tells part of the picture. When I was doing the theory part of the PPL, this bothered me a lot more than it should. A pilot needs to understand some basic fluid mechanics so they can understand why a wing stalls for example, but how do you go on to teach that in simple method that does not require a 4 year engineering degree plus 10 years of practical experience. In my opinion, I think they need to do away with a lot of stuff, like the coanda effect, bernoullie, newton etc and go back to practical modelling. What they teach now is not what happens in reality, its much, MUCH, more complicated and in fact, a lot of theory that is taught is factually incorrect, confusing and very misleading. If I can say one thing (which I dont think will pass a practical exam), is go read the book 'stick and rudder'. I forget the name of the author, but its sufficiently dumbs down the physics in a way that a non engineering type can understand. Its not perfect, but its a lot better than a lot of the modern texts that you read. Disclaimer: I am not saying an instructor is wrong. The great thing about teaching is it helps you better understand the subject, so often an instructor is a good person to bounce questions off. Just make sure you can distinguish between the practical and engineering side of aviation, as they are very different.

I have often read that students who learn to fly in CTA are nervous about flying OCTA, and those who learn in uncontrolled airspace are nervous about CTA. I am the latter. Did my RPL in Class G airspace, and heading into controlled airspace made me nervous mainly due to the workload from learning all the new procedures. However now, I have learned that ATC are not the angry, procedure nazi control freaks that I had somehow painted in my head (well they are control freaks, but I am pretty sure thats what we ant in CTA!!) I think the turning point for me was heading into Amberly airspace last week for the first time. I now have a basic grasp of CTA procedure, so I was less distracted by it. But also, when enroute to Warwick via Gatton, they had to direct me around other traffic in an area I had never flown in before. I was asked if I was familiar with the area, and when I responded with a firm negative, they gave me headings to separate me from other traffic, and headings to get me back on course again. It made the navigation of unfamiliar airspace really easy, and actually less stressful because I was not constantly worried about trying to locate traffic around me (even though I still made sure I had visual contact with the other aircraft). The weather was shitty that day, and there was a lot of turbulence (instructor rated it moderate), so en-route to Warwick they cleared me to a higher altitude on request which kept me in CTA a lot longer than I had planned for. Its actually nice to have someone maintain separation for you. On the way home, knowing the situation with the turbulence, I again requested clearance to a higher altitude than planned, and they controller at Amberly actually managed to negotiate a clearance into Brisbane CTA for me. So I had a lovely trip home to YRED at 5500 all the way from Warwick, and only started my descent overhead Lake Samsonvale. Had I known how easy it was I probably would have requested an altitude closer 10000'!!! Now I am finding that I am trying to plan my nav exercises to stay in CTA as much as possible!! For me, I now see it as another way to increase my level of safety whilst flying, and reduce the workload of maintaining separation and broadcasting my location all the time. Most of my flying is going to be OCTA, but its nice to have that extra safety barrier when you can get it. I was supposed to do my last Nav excercise today, but the weather put a a stop to that. Area 40 forecast suggested severe turbulence, so I was having no part of that. In fact when I rang up to cancel, the instructor had already made the decision not to fly. This is the last instructor led nav, then I am out on my own for one last cross country solo (which this time includes CTA!) before my PPL flight test! As a bonus, my instructors have shown me how good ATC and controlled airspace is, and I now know as a PPL I will certainly utilise the services of ATC and will certainly plan to include as much controlled airspace as possible. Long thread, but hopefully this might prompt a few others into getting CTA endorsements. Its overwhelming at first (and still is for me to some degree) but the more you do it the easier it gets and the more you appreciate it. One last thing, if you have any doubts, call the tower and have a chat to them first. Like the BOM guys, they always seem super keen to explain stuff and help you out. I am sure its easier to clarify details on the phone before you head CTA!! EDIT: Just thought I would add that I am 40 years old, so not a young brave fearless 16 year old just starting to learn! Not old by any means, but not a spring chicken either.

Not correct as I read it. The stall angle or critical AoA is fixed. The wing will always stall at that angle. Its the speed that wing stalls at that changes. The best way to understand this is to draw vector diagrams.

Damn, I am in trouble then. Ex smoker, rides motorcycles, occasionally goes rock fishing, am overweight and currently inactive (you can thank motorcycles, or perhaps kangaroos for that) and I insult islam on a regular basis.

I would just like to say, re the question of Mayday v Pan Pan, smoke in the cockpit is a Mayday. Any unknown aircraft malfunction is a mayday. Pan Pan is probably more suited to something like ATC putting you in a hold when you are on fixed reserve fuel. History has taught us that disregarding a failure as a pan pan can often lead to fatal consequences. If in doubt, mayday is the correct call, dont be afraid to use it (I say this as a person involved in marine rescue).

I had the Bob Tait books, and eventually did the Bob Tait Course. I reckon 90% of the questions I got in the actual PPL exam were what is found in the back of the Bob Tait PPL book. About the only thing I struggled with is the Threat and Error Management shite, but I think there were 2 questions on the PPL and I failed both from memory. I got 88% in the end, I was happy with that. I think you can download a TEM supplement on Bob Taits website which should help you along. I still reckon TEM is a load of bollocks.

I always make the taxi calls, mainly because there is several taxiways converging on the main taxiway to the runway, and often other traffic can be hidden behind hangars. We are also on the verge of charlie airpsace with a 1500' ceiling, so inbound and outbound traffic only has 500' separation. I personally rely heavily on inbound and outbound calls. I cant spot traffic 10 mile out, but with a radio call I can paint a mental picture of where aircraft are and then make sure I dont climb or descent until I visual contact. Also, coming in and out of the east or north, we only change to the CTAF frequency about 2 mile out, so calls again are important.

When you are tracking south into the Gold Coast charlie airspace, and even tracking north you are basically listening to the best part of South East Queensland.. So as per CAAP 166-1(3) 7.3.4, you have taxi, entering, circuit joins, inbound calls, approach calls plus basic position calls which are often very useful in busy airpsace. I always make a circuit join call, plus a call when turning base and final. I make an inbound call, I make a taxi call, and I make a call when entering and backtracking. I also make a departure call. I guess I am one of those guys... Sorry.