UltraFlash

Hi All, I'm heading over as well this weekend, I'll be there Monday - Saturday. Finally going after three missed opportunities in a row. Another mate I know is heading over, as well as a few members of the RV crew. Happy to meet up with any aussies over there, send me a pm if you want to catch up, I'm staying at the uni. Shane

I was at the airshow and witnessed the accident first hand - the point of impact was 400m from where I was sitting. This was the worst 5 seconds I've ever experienced, as I saw the turn tighten with what appeared to be the application of left rudder, then the airspeed dropped off and then over it went. I knew from the start of that turn, as soon as the wing went over there was nothing that could be done. In response to some of the questions, as I was sitting at a different angle to the 3 videos doing the rounds I can say the caravan and the Mallard weren't close on the first touch and go - would have been 100-200m apart. The steep climbing turn from the caravan did get my attention though. The incident happened on the third attempted touch and go, and the previous two were both too high, so it did seem that the third attempt was done lower and slower, presumably to come out on final with less height and energy to perform the touch and go in the limited space between the landing area and the narrows bridge. Also there were crowd lines on both sides of the shore as well as hundreds of boats to the east, restricting the space to make the turn to base and final. The incident happened when the aircraft was flying East and was turning through north when it banked over, so the sun wouldn't have been an issue. The other part I hadn't had any explanation of was the fact that both aircraft appeared to finish their sequence and left the display area via the standard departure over the narrows, then south towards Canning bridge. Then, I saw the mallard make a left turn, flying over South Perth and onto this turn where the incident occurred. Until the start of the turn, I was wondering why he had flown back.

I'd recommend flying at Bindoon (SLAC / Topfun Aviation), after 10 years flying at Bunbury/Jandakot I've thoroughly enjoyed flying at Bindoon. I'd recommend Topfun as well, the instructors aren't so commercially focussed and are more focussed on the fun of flying. I'm in the same boat as you, combining young family and flying, but I also share my time with some serious RC flying as well.

I'm currently deciding between the Tomahawk Hawk 100 or Skymaster 1:3.65 scale version, both are a similar size and significant investment. Bigger Hawks are actually relatively easy to fly, compared to say a hornet or large mig 29 (which I'm currently flying).

Issue with this aircraft is you need to go through the experimental registration process again as it was originally a kit built J430. I had considered this same aircraft but looking into the requirements to get it back onto the CASA register, it's not so simple. Once going through the kit built requirements, you must do all the test flying process again.

Recommendation number 6 calls to 'harmonise medical certification between recreational and GA pilots. Notice it's certification, implying someone else certificating your medical status... I read that as "I can't get away without an expensive and time consuming medical, why can he?". "He should have to do it as well".

I have a friend who was born a Muslim and came to Australia around 20 years ago. Having read through the Koran since moving to Australia, he's since left the religion, as he stated it wasn't compatible with the new way of life he had moved to here. He confirmed to me the translations such as "strike off the unbelievers heads" and "kill the Infidel wherever they stand" are statements which are echoed throughout the Koran. If you look back at Muslim history, Mohamed raged a war across the Middle East where many peaceful cities and all their people were destroyed or enslaved. Mohamed also married a nine year old girl. Japan is an interesting one to note, so far they are the only country who have not been affected by Islamism, as they do not allow the practice of Islam anywhere within their country. According to reports many years ago their research determined Muslim culture wasn't compatible with modern culture. The answer here is very simple. Ask all Muslims to confirm they place their allegiance to their country ahead of that to their religion. If they cannot do this, they cannot comply with one of the most basic

Agree completely. Unfortunately, tomorrow we'll all be told "it's your fault, should make Muslims feel more welcome, most of them are fine, if we take more refugees it will be OK". It'll come to a point (sooner rather than later) there will be either a massive shift in our political system (voting power) or a civil war. As it is we are loosing the civilised world to 6th century savages.

I'll be down at Wagin next weekend so will find out...

I've been using this site for over a year, overall it seems more accurate than the BOM forecasts.

Hi Troy, welcome. I started flying in Bunbury 14 years ago. Wasn't the big fancy flying school there then, just the aero club. After flying GA on and off for many years I've recently discovered RA-Aus flying, and I've done more flying this year already than the last four years. I'm currently flying out of Bindoon but will be flying down that way before long, I have family down there. May see you in the sky sometime.

I agree with all of the above regarding RAA involvement with the event. I actually had a look through the Airshow program and on the Map and info it showed a RAA information booth (where the cirrus was parked next to you Andrew) which obviously wasn't there. I actually asked the aero club members where the RAA was and they said they were also looking for them - apparently they arrived late. It was certainly a well run event - reminded me of the Busselton Airshow of 2003 and 2004, in fact I think there may have been more visiting aircraft and more spectators than 03 and 04.

From my experiences I'd agree. A business associate of mine who exports chinese tyres around the world used to sell tyres into many African nations. He said that the vast majority of locals relied purely on foreign aid money, and there were entire communities of people who did absolutely no work, grew no food and did nothing to help their families, relying entirely on humanitarian deliveries and foreign aid money which came in constantly. My own experience was from travelling on a cruise ship in which we stopped at several islands at each island the locals had gift stalls and food for sale from small huts. All the travellers spent money, and many made donations to the villagers. When you walked only 20m up from the huts, all the 'villagers' had brand new prado's and hiluxes, with surfboards, jet skis and the like. Turns out they were putting on a show of being the poor little villagers to over 100 cruise ships a year, and making a killing from people's generosity. Many of the PC brigade would disagree with me, but when you give someone an inch, they try to take a mile.

Just had a look and there is more to this story than meets the eye... http://jalopnik.com/all-the-surprisingly-true-stuff-in-the-lost-in-space-ni-1759402815 The truths behind the Nigerian Astronaut email.

Sounds legit... For only $3m I'd go for a ride to the space station too with the left over money...

I've read the designs are stored in Moscow, so that wouldn't be a factor. There's also the second AN-225 which is stored near Kiev, half finished, and there was talk of finishing that aircraft, but I believe it's been sitting outside for nearly 10 years.

I was at the new viewing area when the first Emirates A380 landed in Perth, the whole area, the carpark and both sides of the access road were full of cars and people, there were even police on site directing traffic. I think the Airport would need to put aside additional viewing areas for this arrival, the entire area along the new Airport Drive would be perfect...

Welcome, onetrack. I'm from Perth (originally from the South West) and have recently migrated from GA to RA. I've been flying from the Superlight Aircraft Club in Bindoon, you should come out and check it out if you haven't already.

The 'disallow membership for any reason' is an issue I've recently dealt with as a board member for another association. The basis of it is a new legislative requirement which gives committees the ability to exclude membership to those who could harm or otherwise bring the entity into disrepute. There should be checks and balances above this clause which ensure this power isn't abused. For example, a motion to disallow membership would have to have a greater than 75% vote of the entire committee. If this power was abused and a person or persons were excluded, other members would be able to take the committee to task to determine why the action was taken, no committee member in their right mind would get to that.

The form for the RPL asks for the 2 hours Instrument Flight when you apply for the transfer, if you don't do this at the time you'll have to do the RPL Nav Endo with a GA school, including the IF time.

Done, and I've also pointed the Senator to some info which may kick CASA while they're down.

Wondering if you guys had considered if there was a known fault with the engines, which the RAA and CASA were aware of, and the manufacturer denies although it had been proven. One single thing which has been done wrong on the engines, and now the cost of the rectification and re-certification would put Jabiru out of business if they admitted to it. Perhaps look to South Africa, they operate a lot of Jabiru's there and have nowhere near the failure rate. Do they make any modifications to the engines there? Although I don't agree with turbs' sentiments regarding CASA's intentions, I do agree that there's a piece of the puzzle missing on here, which it seems CASA holds.

A mate of mine did it in a powered hang glider a few years ago. He's got photos of it on his page live2fly.blogspot.com It's one of the things I've got on my bucket list as well

I'd had thoughts about it too, in fact discussed going in a group with a few flying mates. However, there was a Qantas special to the USA on at the time which finished up Monday, and I hadn't got permission from a the minister for finance in time...

Amp hours is the energy storage capacity, current capacity is what current the battery can deliver. So for example, an 8.4Ah battery can (theoretically) deliver 8.4A for one hour, 16.8A for half an hour or 84A for 6 minutes (0.1hr). The current ratings is what current the battery can deliver to a load (such as a starter motor). C discharge ratings show the current rating as a factor of the battery capacity (I.e. How many multiples of the batteries capacity it can deliver in current) for example 30C as above would mean the battery can deliver 30 x 8.4A = 252A. Finally is the C charge rating, this is typically either 1, 2 or 5 C. This means the battery can only be charged at (depending on the battery) 8.4A, 16.8A or 42A. At these figures, the uncontrolled output from an alternator could be damaging to a battery with a low C charge rating. I won't get into peak C ratings or duty cycles as this may confuse the matter. One last point, LiFePO4 batteries (or any lithium) need to be charged using a specially programmed charger, they need to charge on a constant voltage charge, not a constant current charge like all other batteries. You couldn't hook up one of these direct to the output of an alternator and expect it to provide full capacity and be fully charged without a regulation circuit to manage the charge process.