Dick Gower

11/29 was cinder covered (not sealed) but only on a short portion of the western end; the rest was grass. The remnants can just be seen in the photo. The use of the letter identifiers for taxiways is a relatively recent thing. Under the GAAP (General Aviation Aerodrome Procedures) before Class D, there was no need for taxiway letter identifiers because there was no requirement for a taxi clearance to the active runway.

09/27 was quite wet most of the year and barely used.

Interestingly, 04/22 was originally much longer. The new airport owners promised to re-align it when they built warehouses on the 22 approach but, of course, that never happened.

I think the answer to your question may lie in your swinging the compass with the tail up in the flying attitude. That would change the relationship between the compass and the stray fields in the aeroplane and there are many of these.

As well as electrical instruments that contain permanent magnets (EGT gauges in particular) any wire carrying a current also generates a magnetic field (which is why the wires to a compass light are always twisted together). All of these fields must be present when the compass is swung.

A surpriusingly common source of stray magnetic fields is steel engine mounts, particularly when the engine grounding cable is dodgy and the mount becomes magnetized by starter motor current.

Finally, after several half-hearted efforts to correct my compass over the years, it's fixed!

 

Yesterday I flew a big dodecagon over Goran Lake (which I couldn't find- no water, just crops) and tested my panel magnetic compass against the M compass on OzRunways.

North and south are spot on, all other compass points were within 3 degrees, except easterly headings which deviated by about 5.

After years of pretty much ignoring my magnetic compass because it was often out by 25 degrees, I can now rely on it.

 

What had I been doing wrong? Removing it and taking it to a specialist will cost lots of money and won't totally fix it.

The various online "how to swing your compass" tutorials are useful. This time I actually simulated in-flight conditions as closely as possible. In-flight attitude by propping the tail up in a trestle ladder, wheels chocked, engine running, aimed exactly at MN (which I had previously painted in the Tarmac) and followed the instructions.

It gets easier if you remember that

(a) the altimeter indicates the height in feet from whatever pressure level is set on the sub-scale on the basis of 30 FT per hPa (roughly).

(b) a pressure of 1013.2 is only the pressure at seal level in the standard atmosphere and in real atmospheres this pressure will be something else.

I have often wondered whether you could recover if you lost control in a cloud and emerged in a vertical dive at cruise speed in a non-aerobatic plane, say a PA28 or C172. Could you pull back to straight and level without destroying the airframe by excessive G or by overspeed?

The answer is no. Firstly it would be highly unlikely that you would emerge just at cruise speed, more likely Vne or more. Secondly, the rapid acceleration would continue until you got the nose attitude back above horizontal. By that time it would have broken up in flight ("the wreckage was found scattered over a large area") or completed the manoeuvere underground.

Having only One runway at Berwick ( 12 / 30 ) gravel,. . .crosswinds were a daily occurrence which had to be mastered or no flying was possible.  My old friend David Squirrell, Instructor and Cropduster flyer extraordinaire.

 

Lots of nostalgia there thanks Phil. Dave Squirrell still has a Facebook page and I get reminded of his birthday every year.  A very skilled instructor was Dave I watched him one day teaching crosswinds on 30 with about an 18 knot component.  He believed in chucking them in at the deep end! Dave started overhauling magnetos and generators in Bankstown in his later years.  TIGgy Tiger is in my logbook somewhere also.

I went to Keith Hatfield's closing down auction and bought two of his C150s for RVAC; they weren't too flash!

Thanks for the reminder of simpler days.

Can anybody provide an example where safety wiring has prevented an accident?

 

I am not really doubting that safety wiring is good etc. It is just that I don't know if it has ever worked as intended.

 

The origin of safety wire was to prevent the loosening of turnbuckles on control cables in earlier aircraft. 

With a left hand thread at on end and a RH thread at the other, combined with the direction of wrapping the cable strands during manufacture and the varying and reversing cable loads in flight, there are constant torque loads applied to the turnbuckle and lock-nuts at each end.  Many lives were lost as a result  of the turnbuckle unscrewing. 

Soft iron wire was used at first then brass became the convention before the Americans introduced stainless steel.

The lives saved would probably be in the 100,000's not including the Australian example where the

cable end fittings failed and the only elevator control was via the safety wire alone.

• All taildraggers want to go down the runway backwards.  Fancy footwork is therefore required.
   
   
  
• Any drag that you can add at the back reduces a taildragger's natural directional instability. Having the stick back during the ground roll helps a lot.  The raised elevator provides aerodynamic drag and downwards lift which increases tail-wheel friction with the ground (particularly if it is a tail-skid instead).
   
   
  
• During the takeoff roll ground loops are less likely because the thrust force is adding stability, the rudder effectiveness is increasing with speed  and the influence of any crosswind component is diminishing.  One exception to this is when the tail is raised too early: the drag at the back is lost and the P effect from the propeller does the rest.  (So you can do it if you try hard enough!)
   
   
  
• Ground loops are most common late in the landing roll in light winds where the rudder effectiveness is diminished by the lack of headwind. An earlier transition to the brakes is therefore needed.
   
   
  
• A "wheel barrow" in a trike is actually the beginning of a ground loop but the nose wheel usually breaks off before any big change in direction.
   
  

The change that is causing all of the confusion was made by CASA in May 2013 via AIP amendment #75. The change required broadcasts at aerodromes not on charts to be made on the Area VHF instead of the MULTICOM (126.7) as previously.

There was no stakeholder consultation and therefore no opportunity for users to point out to CASA the unintended consequences of the change.

There was no education process either so very few knew about it and we had the ridiculous situation where ATS were telling pilots to vacate the area frequency when making broadcasts. So not even ATS knew what was going on.

The idea of using the area VHF is flawed and dangerous in the view of many. This is because, over large areas of the country, ATS has no VHF coverage at the lower levels of G airspace so pilots making these broadcasts do not realise they are jamming ATS transmissions and ATS do know they are being jammed. Traffic at flight levels however hear the entire cacophony.

The RAPACs (a user consulting group in each region) have been battling this for three years.

There is a presentation available to explain the situation. It is too large to upload to this site but if you would like a copy, email me at: [email protected]

Since symptoms are the same with two radios, it all points to the aircraft side.

The most likely problem is RF feedback from the antenna into the mic. input during transmit. This is usually results from radiation from the outside of the coaxial cable during transmit The ferrite filters mentioned earlier are a good precautionary measure but do not address the cause which is usually the antenna and ground plane and particularly the quality of the electrical bonding between the two. An SWR check would rule out the antenna/ground plane (but probably rule it in) but it is easier to routinely remove the antenna and clean the connection to the ground plane.

Remember that the antenna mast is only half of the antenna. The ground plane is the other half and the connection between the two is extremely vulnerable to any added resistance due to even mild corrosion.

The other common problem area of vulnerability to RF feedback is the MIC input circuit and, in particular, the outer shield running from the headset to the inside of the radio via the MIC ground input (which is not the same as the other grounds such as power and should not be connected to any other grounds). In extreme cases it is therefore necessary to insulate the MIC jack mounting to achieve this and stepped plastic washers are available for the purpose.

Plastic and rag aeroplanes are particularly vulnerable to RF feedback.

Good luck!

Of course, if you can get your hands on old copies of Planetalk (RVAC), there were many a gem of articles to Carruthers!G'Day Dick - how goes it? Long time no speak, but hopefully will be renting a plane out of YCEM mid 2017.

 

Rgds,

 

Lance

Looking forward to catching up next year then.

Thanks for the response.

Cheers,

Dick.

Hey Dick,Do you have anymore advice to Carruthers?

 

Always love a bit of wit with learning.

 

Phil

I have since located a real Carruthers flying around in an A380 so the need for caution. Try the attached for starters.

Prop- IT'S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK 1992-08.pdf

Prop- IT'S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK 1992-08.pdf

Prop- IT'S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK 1992-08.pdf

The only comment I'd make about Dick's excellent hand starting article is in regards to #6. Pulling a prop backwards to clear oil from cylinders is not recommended, as it potentially moves the oil into the intake manifold. When the engine starts, this oil may be pulled back into the engine resulting in conrod damage.

Now days there is an additional reason: many dry vacuum pumps have trailing vanes and these easily break when rotated backwards.

Frankly, I have always rotated it forward but the Tiger drivers I notice seem to almost always rotate backwards.

Thanks for the comment.

Cheers,

Thanks Kaz.

Please do not trust your life and limb to the structural integrity of a zip-tie Dave.

There is some serious and knowledgeable advice in the above responses.

Good luck,

Dick.

In that case the RAeS event will be a sell-out Dave!

Very worrying to see Skidmore go. To understand how much progress he made it is necessary to understand just how totally dysfunctional the organisation really is.

Dick

Once it was clearly and unambiguously 600 metres. That was before CASA decided to fix something that was not broken. Now we have CAR 163 which really give no distance guidance at all.

Engine restarts were in the PPL syllabus years ago. They were a hangover from the days where aircraft had no starters and have long since been discontinued. One of the problems was getting the prop to stop in the first place.

If the mags are off and the prop windmilling there is a risk of plug fouling from all of the fuel that is still passing through the engine without being ignited. Then there is carburetor icing to consider: it can still ice up while the mags are off but now there is no exhaust heat to melt it. This is why, if you must fail the engine, it is better done with the idle cut-off (if there is one!)

If, on the other hand, the prop has been stopped, icing or plug fouling won't happen but you are then at the mercy of the starter to get going again unless there is enough altitude to dive-start it.

Either way, the engine has also been rapidly cooled so restarting and going to full power is not a great idea either.

So these are the reasons I gave up teaching engine re-starts forty-something years ago.

Your question is really whether starting on one or both creates the situation described: it doesn't. Starting on one magneto (the impulse one) is only done to prevent kick-back from the (advanced) non-impulse magneto during start.

I hate to suggest finger trouble Anjum but it sounds awful likely.

CASA have announced today that they are going to issue a discussion paper about radio frequencies to use in uncontrolled airspace. At present we are supposed to use area frequency at airstrips which are not on the charts, but a lot of people refuse to comply and use 126.7.This leaves us either legally compliant and not getting radio advice, or getting the advice and being illegal.

Have a think about what would be the safest way to go and when the discussion paper comes out, have your say.

The change was made without consulting anybody and was an unfortunate stuff-up.

As well as the potential to overload and jam broadcasts on the area frequency, some aerodromes have 2 or 3 applicable area frequencies depending on the direction. Fortunately for ATC and those in C airspace, most people ignore the requirement.

The discussion paper is a necessary first step in restoring sanity.

sorry, comes from sitting too much in the front seat playing student with an instructor trainee in the back directing - by the time we have that brief discussion the trainee has discovered one of the principles of flight: flying with an instructor one's IQ drops whereas the IQ of the instructor increases by the same amount.

My brother had his initial training, to x-country, with the legendary Beth Garrett at Morrabbin, on Chippies. Even then. Morrabbin was too busy for use of runways to practice taxying, but I seem to recall him mentioning that Beth had him taxying up and down the line of tied down aircraft with the comment that if he hit any, he was up for the repair costs. Apparently, focussed the mind to the task in hand (or feet).That training must have been useful; he owned a J5G for some years, in which he did a lot of tug pilot work (and that involves landing short in any conditions to make even the costs..). I don't ever recall him ever ground-looping it. I still have both hands left after many starts of it

Yes, expensive to maintain and generally troublesome but great to fly. Trained on them in the 60's. Heads are getting rare but such a long period of service in the RAF has helped the spares situation a lot. And the brake: fastest moving three-handed sport in the world!

If you have any sort of a tailwind it makes things interesting as you slow down. I see your avatar. second post, welcome... Do you have one? Chippee. Nev

Yes, I have had a Chippy for 28 years or so Nev; very impractical aeroplane but I do love flying them.

G'day All.

Mostly happens near the end of the roll-out in light winds just as you were relaxing and congratulating yourself on "getting away with it again".