walrus

The core of Qantas strategic weakness is that it isn't a national airline at all. It is a Sydney - Centric organisation with very deep connections to the NSW political establishment. The reason for this connection, and it's importance, is that direct international flights are a major determinant of the destination for international business investment and tourism. Qantas deliberately biases its offerings to intending travellers from London and Los Angeles towards Sydney and have been doing it since at least 1975.\\ The way this works is that flight schedules are arranged so that Brisbane and Melbourne are effectively at least three hours further from LHR and LAX than SYD ona round trip basis. There is a cost penalty too. That means that investors get off the plane in Sydney and choose it as their headquarters. This is how Sydney became headquarters for arriving foreign banks and IT companies in the 1970's. A recent check using a VPN to masquerade as a British or American traveller shows they are still doing it. 'Every business decision Qantas makes has to take account of this secret bias and it seriously distorts their business. For example Qantas hogs the available Sydney slots but still opposes foreign competition because they will run direct flights out of Melbourne and Brisbane.

Moorabbin is going to close the instant the Minister thinks she can get away with it. To believe otherwise is naive.

Spaceman, wash your mouth out! You are talking facts and logic. That doesn't apply to the Greens.

Anyone think that the Minister for Qantas has the slightest interest in GA and recreational aviation? I do not. ''I wouldn't be surprised if the aviation white paper sacrifices piston engined aviation to the Green zealots. Forget changes to medical certification, weights and regulations. If anything, they may become more severe in my opinion.

A TV repairman committed suicide many years ago after a TV station did one of those phony repair exposed shows. ‘’Trouble was that the TV repairman diligently went through an expensive fault finding process before discovering. the “ten cent blown fuse” - and charged according to his time as he should, only to get abused by 60 minutes or whoever. Translation: Stop confusing the apparent minimal nature of the change with the cost of the process to determine its safety and pay up. If you don’t think that’s right, then go buy your aircraft fasteners at Bunnings, after all, according. to you, a 1/4 inch bolt is a 1/4 inch bolt isn’t it?

rotax 912 iS ECU requires two rotations at more than 200 rpm with twelve volts on ECU, so don’t bother trying to hand start it.

Anyone who thinks electric cars are the answer doesn’t understand physics or logistics or failing those, is a potential genocidal dictator. A short drive through any third world city will demonstrate. Consideration of the marginal productivity of one litre of oil to a peasant farmer will indicate that the economic imperative is against you.

A standard sized cooler, Rotax or setrab should be fine provided you are not doing anything unusual. Your Airmaster comes set at about 5700 for takeoff and 5500 for climb.

I suspect part of the problem might be Covid. The other part may be that the engines may be used in drones and there is a war going on……..

See my PM and don’t worry.

Onetrack, it has mechanical injection. No electronics.

Section 10 refers, but section 11 is wanting. There is one manouvre that should be absolutely prohibited: that is a “touch and go” on a short strip intended for STOL training. ‘It is axiomatic that if it’s a real short strip with obstacles at each end then when you “practice” STOL landing techniques then there is no room for error once you are committed. Think about it; to be successful you cannot do a touch and go because technically that requires at least the full length of the strip and then some. A failed touch and go almost involved me in a crash but for the extreme actions of the demonstrating instructor.. ‘’In my opinion, either practice STOL techniques with a touch and go on a looong strip with no obstacles. If you are practicing for real on a short strip, make a commit height decision and once committed, land, do a full stop , backtrack and takeoff. I assume the instructor wrote our incident up but no action was taken by anyone. ‘’The technique of using touch and go for teaching STOL or precautionary landings on “real” short strips is akin to testing your cars brakes by charging at speed at a concrete wall to see if your judgement and brakes are sufficiently capable. If they are lacking and you are not killed, you get to buy a new car. ‘’Precautionary or STOL touch and go is in the same class as practicing engine failure on multi engine aircraft.

Boycott BP?

The basic medical is a deliberate sham. ‘’Why? Because it requires a GP to certify that you have no “conditions” - that is what “unconditionally “ means. A “condition” is one of millions of possible dimensions of a human that is outside the established range of values for a particular branch of humanity. For example “alopecia” Hair loss, is a condition that technically can be used by CASA to exclude you. There are very, very few people in the world who do not have a “condition” of one sort or another. ..And I’m including one year old babies in that classification “people”. No one can pass the standard if CASA puts its mind to it since everyone has at least one condition. ‘’Regarding sleep apnea, I saw the question on BMI slither onto the class 2 medical questionnaire about 2012 and correctly predicted that sleep apnea was going to become a trendy addition to CASAs aresenal. Of course CASAs wet dream would be to require you to provide your DNA for genetic screening - just imagine! Millions of conditions ! They could then build impossible medical regulatory structures. Please don’t think I’m joking.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2020/aair/ao-2020-065 Have a look at the carbs 😞 You don't have to drain them every time but don't leave the plane for months and let them dry out with unleaded fuel in the bowls.

Do NOT let fuel sit and evaporate in carburettor float bowls, run the engine bone dry with the fuel off. Anyone who has had to clean out a small motor carb will know this. See images at https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2020/aair/ao-2020-065 Apart from that, full tanks to minimise opportunities for condensation. Then this: https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/country-sites/en_au/australia/home/products-services/fuels/opal-factsheet-storagehandling.pdf

OME, I think the lawyer mentioned S58 of the Act which has to do with confidential information being membership data or suchlike. ‘’I don’t want to get involved in law fair or organisational fights, been there and will not do it again. ‘’As for the Board, their hands may have been tied by the Act and they may not have had any good options and this was the least worse. ‘’Our ski club board had something happen once and our Boards legal advice was that they HAD to take action, else members could pursue them in court. I wonder if the SAAA Board were in the same position?

reading between the lines of the latest email, it appears that the issue may have been to do with alleged contravention of the Act. in relation to use of confidential information in some dispute this apparently leaves little room for the Directors to move.....but I don't know.

Could you please post details of the event ASAP? That would include accommodation, food ,and fuel plus time.

Well, this years proposed Outback destination, Lawn Hill Gorge National Park, is out of action till at least July due to flooding, where else would you recommend for a ten day outback loop in April/May? Arkaroola, Tibooburra, Innamincka and the Dig tree are always on the list. Underwing camping is possible but a bed is better. Controlled airspace is off limits, in addition, Alice Springs has been likened to a war zone. Are William Creek and Birdsville worth a visit? Charleville/longreach, etc have no great appeal except to sleep. Is the East Coast one long streak of bad weather and controlled airspace? WA is too far from Victoria. Last years ramble took me 3000+ nm and as far North as Cloncurry before I chickened out in the face of bad weather and unreliable information.

Jackc : "Give it 12 months and there will be a drop in prices, MY opinion only…….. " The Aviation white paper will see to that.

Mate had no trouble the other day selling his C 182 (garmin G1000) for well North of $500,000. Another mate sold his - as new - Bushcat recently and he didnt have to wait long either.

I suggest that I'm not much interested in actual distance - its irrelevant. What I want to know is how many seconds I have between detection and a Skyview Audible traffic warning and between that warning and closest approach. It also doesn't matter much about you not painting the other guy - just as long one of you can see the other and communicate both ways.

I’m wondering now if CASA Avmed is just full of racists. They don’t seem to like anyone who is not airforce cadet material.

Some of the richest, most successful people on the planet are on the autism spectrum. CASA has no idea.