Jerry_Atrick

I bought my whizz wheel back in '95 at La Trobe Airport (LVAC). It was expensive - about $60 or $70 from memory, but it is a solodly made metal one; not one of the current day plastic stuff. Part of the reason why I sill manually PLOG is just to get to use it...

Hmmm.. so am I absolved of my obligations to maintain a safe workplace with respect to COVID-19 if I can't force my employees to download and use the app? I see a lot of workcover claims coming... and it is I, the employer that has to pay the increased premium as a result... (I am not an employer in Aus, but you get my drift).

In what way dangerous and on what basis?

It depdends on how the privacy laws are worded. In Europle, GDPR (general data protection regulation) is currently considered the gold standard of data protection. However, it clearly states that where it conflicts with other regulations, those regulations prevail. So, if you, as an employer or manager are responsible for providing a safe workplace and subject to regulation in doing so, and in accordance with H&S regulations deem the app necessary to provide a safe workplace, GDPR, if it would normally not allow an employer to force an employee to use the app, may not apply. It is a very grey area though, because one will be forcing the employee to download it on their private device or any device they take with them. Also, unless you take your device with you at all times, it is going to be a bit useless.. .There are all sorts of practicalities to be overcome. This goes back to my comment, we are all in it together and we should do what we need to as a community to overcome it.

Although VFR is not technically banned in the UK, the guidance is only for essential flight (i.e. emergency services) or maintenance flights of not more than 30 minutes and 10nm from the airfield an only when there is no pulished POH or engine manufacturer procedures on how to inhibit the engine - if there is, then it should be inhibited (as well as other inhibiting normally required for winter layovers). And, although only guidance, all airfield operators are adhereing to it; ours only opens to non-essential GA one day per month and you have to book a slot.. Thankfully the days are long at the moment, but may owners, including ourselves have gone down the inhibiting route, so slots were avaialble. As it is, although zero-timed about 12 months ago, we have had the engine stripped and inspected by our shareholder LAME, as it was sitting for 6 months without inhibiting over winter due to a 1 month paint job taking 6. The engine is inhibited now and we don't plan taking it out - hopefully restrictions will be eased towards the end of this month. Regardless, the airfield received numerous complaints from the first maintenance flying day from locals about why aircraft were allowed to fly, despite a PR job beforehand letting people know. It took a hell of a PR job afterwards to educate them as to why and that only a handful of the aircraft there were taking it up as they have no option -whereas most have inhibited. The UK, especially the SE is far more densly populated and people cannot see how a jolly is considered essential and they do complain. For the record, most farm strippers are flying only when they need to (e.g. I know a farmer who has a farm near Newbury, about 60 miles, I would guess, west of London, and anouther holding in Devon, about 130 miles from his Newbury farm. He has a strip on both and does fly in between them when he needs to be there and back on the same day - otherwise he drives). As I said, we're all in this together. In our case, the lockdown is actually in law just guidance, but many people are adhereing to it; some aren't. When its optional, we assess the risks and the benefits, hopefully rationally (which is subjective anyway) and then take a decision. If you're allowed to fly and in your risk etimation you decide to. If I think you are making the wrong decision, I will explain why - if I can't then I am acting on gut and not thinking. If I can and you choose to reject whatever I have to say, that is your perfectly valid decision. In Aus, even from Moorabbin, you can take off from RWY 13 or 17, head SE and you are over open, fairly sparesly populated country in a short period of time (though I am guessing the Dandenon --> Carrum belt is starting to be built out on - and just checking google maps - wow! Hasn't the Cranbourne area had the carp built out of it).. In the SE of England, it is a whole different ball game... Even those rural areas that look sparesly populated have houses dotted all over them - and they do complain - and complain hard. So for us, when we're all in it together, there's not much hiding.. so our decisions are partly based on that. I know that when I'm in the car, the airfield and the air, I am easily able to socially distance... but sometimes there's sympathy suffering, I suppose. Hmm... The market for what I do has completely capitulated (it was coming to an end anyway, which is one reason why I am looking to go back to nuclear). And investment banking is on a downard spiral anyway. However, thank's to the Aussie financial services industry catching up with the rest of the world and playing bad boy, the Aussie market for what I do is quite bouyant. I may pop over, take a 2 week hotel holiday and see what I can get there, and enjoy a sneaky flight in the mean time... ;-)

Hmmm.. Just went onto Skydemon to check the NOTAMs, and noticed Fairoaks, my previous airfield has just permanently withdrawn their NDB... Guess they now have a published GPS approach (they have been wanting one for about 5 years from memory).

I will go flying.. It's not a them and us.. it's a "we're all in this together." We all have choices - we make them.. I am certainly not judging (not that anyone would care if I did).. Ahhh... I was missing Flite Bhindi.....

The UK has been slow to adopt GPS apporaches, therefore, it has been slower to decommission radio navaids, though is doing it. However, I like doing things sometimes the "old way". I will manually mark the maps, do the PLOG, dial in the VOR/ADF/DME. Of course, I will use the GPS - we have an Avidyne 540 and I use Skydemon (OzRunways equivalent) to flight plan. I cross check my PLOG to Skydemon's. Occasionally there have been differences and I am happy to say, even less occasionally, the my differences weren't my ones to be corrected.. I learned through a minor mishap that I fly VFR using my PLOG and map; One time, in the PA28 Shareoplane I had, which did have Skymap III, that I would go to a work meeting in West Wales by plane as the client's office was a short taxi ride from the airport. As it was last minute, I did the plan throgh Skydemon and relied on it's moving map to navigate me there. From juest west of Cardiff, both the device and the Skymap were unable to get a GPS signal. Thankfully, I printed out the PLOG, picked a feature in the distance on my heading and flew to it.. Was probably the most accurate track I have ever flown...

If the CC cards were wearing those losses, they would be out of business.. Your interes rates are calculated on four main factors: Credit Risk, Market Risk, Operatonal Risk and profit margin. Ever wondered why credit card interest rates are so high.. It's the first three factors that are the risk charge and the fourth represents the free from risk profit. The second would be relatviely small - mainly interest rate swaps to hedge variations in interest rates they pay to fund you and FX/current rate risk. Now, since they have to offer an interest free period, the free from profit rate has to be higher to cover those of us who use free money. So those that are a good payers, but allow a balance to build up are subsidising the free funders and the poor performers.. Anyway, banks have to hold tier 1 capital reserves (cash, cash like instruments and intruments easily converted to cash - such as blue chip shares that are not their own) to cover losses for credit, operational and market risk. Credit card fraud comes under the operational risk category.. so they have to estimate each year what their actual credit card fraud loss will be, amongst other things, and hold capital - and that is part of what is embedded into your interest rate is for.. So, of you do allow your credit card to build a balance, you do pay for it. Getting back to track... The UK is about to launch an app as well.. testing it on the Isle of Wight.. I personally think the benefits outweigh the risk... People will think opposite - that's OK... it is still nominally a free society we live in...

Still do...

I did much the same thing - except I bought a transceiver as it makes a back up if the radios in the plane go kaput.. Of course, they don't have the same range as the fitted radsios with a decent VHF aerial, but it was a good excuse. The CAA here provide a free PDF download of radio phraseology requirements - CAP413 (not applicable to Aus). Does CASA do the same? If so, print out the relevant bits, which for VFR should be pretty minimal compared to say IFR, get yourself a receiver, listen to the calls and compare to what the requirements are- that will help drill things home.. Either Trevor Thom or Bob Tait should have a FRTO book and in these, there would normally have mnemonics for the calls. Commit these to memory.. Occasionally I have had to fall back on them.. there has been a second or two break in my speech, but I got the message out.. In our FRTO books, they say 1) determine what you want to say ahead of time; 2) make sure so no-one is already transmitting; 3) press the PTT button and wait a second as some older sets in particular can take a second from being pressed to transmitting - therefore if you start straight away, the beginning of your message may be chopped; 4) say what you have to say with the mic about an inch from your mouth - speak slower than normal (not too slow) and at normal voice volume; 4) wait until you have said everything before releasing the PPT button... As an example in the UK, when making an enroute VFR freecall (contacting an ATC unit without being handed off to them by a previous ATC unit), after initial contact, the mnemonic is TRPACER (which is easy as it could be a tri-pacer).. It stands for Type, Route, Position, Altitude, Condition, Expected time at next turning point, Requested service... So, when climbing out of Blackbushe, if I am not penetrating the Farnborough CTR, Blackbushe Information will tell me to freecall Farnborough.. The initial contact is: Me: "Farnborough West, November two-zero tang bravo, request <service type>" Farnborough Radar (West): November two-zero tango bravo, pass your message Me: "November two-zero tango bravo is a TB20" (T) "From Blackbushe to Le Touquet via Popham" ® "3 nautical miles west of Blackbushe" (P) "one-tousand, fife hundred climbing tree-tousand on one-zero-one-niner" (A) "VFR" © "Expect Popham two-fower" (estimate time at next turning point) "Request Basic Service" ® They will return with an area QNH, squawk code and type of service offered; and you just read them back., and at this stage I will ask them to open the flight plan as it is an international flight... It is a lot of faff specific to the UK and most, including myself will omit the condition (VFR or IFR) and the expected time at next turning point. But, from the longwinded message it is.. I have occasionally had to stop and say the mnemonic in my head to get it all out correctly... And it doesn't matter if you do because it is better to take a second or two longer in that message then omit something vital or say something wrong... You have to say the same think on requesting a join to the airfield.. It is a right royal pain in the proverbial - but it does allow you to show off your wankering skills in front of ignorant pax ;-)

I agree.. But in the case of the App, what is the risk.. someone could get who you are and where you have been and maybe if you have the virus (though I doubt the latter).. Unless it gets access to your account payment details (whcih I don't think it can), what is the worst that could happen and what is the probability it could happen? This has to be weghed up against the good it can do. I would imagine your energy company, ATO, state vehigle registration, all necessary institutions we have our details with - and probably far more sensitive (unless you have something to hide), and there is every change that your details get leaked from there, too.. Same with yur mobile phone operator. You don't have a choice with these - you have to have to have an energy supplier (unless you are totally off grid) and they could also have a bad apple in them. I am not trying to say one outweighs the other.. All I am saying is that this is not the only place where you have to give info that could be leaked as we saw today. You make a risk assessment and make a decision.

Unf, in every organisation you get people who flout the rules or worse. The question is what that organisation does on learning about it.. Seems the right thing was done this time.

I understand that ATC have a responsible job where a stuff-up could cost them their career and in bad stuff-ups, their freedom (at least in some countries), so that when things are busy and a pilot does something non-standard or downwright stupid, their levels of frustration will rise quicker than a helium balloon escaping the clutches of a kid's hand. But they should be trained (and I am sure they are) not to berate a pilot on air no matter how bad the stuff up. As @Geoff_H, experience showed, it causes the pilot to doubt and second guess themselves and withdraw from communication presumably when no one wants that and also becomes a safety issue. That same FISO at Elstree that berated me for saying ready to take-off versus ready to depart, gave a student returning from a solo a diatribe of what I would call abuse for not getting something right. Screaming over the radio while calling the student everything under the sun - and that was what he was doing - when the situation was urgent but not imminently a safety issue is a sure-fire way to take teh student's focus away from the task at hand rather than on it. Someone complained the the CAA and he was instructed to take a remedial course of some sort is what I was later told. Pilots don't know what ATC is going through at the time; but similarly, ATC don't know what's going on in the cockpit at the time, either. Although we are told to communicate issues, there is a natural tendency not to do so unless it is really urgent to save face or not be seen to not have control or whatever. Certainly, in the PPL syllabus, there was not much about maintaining calmness and the avoidance of letting frustration get the better of oneself when communicating over the air (have heard pilots bicker amongst themsleves).. For ATC, there should be, if there is not already, a system where a review of such events (or the useless shotgun/rapid-fire talking) take place and a discussion with the controller of the importance of correcting their ways. Over here, ATC and FISOs are obliged to fill out a mandatory obeservation report when a pilot is alleged to have breached a rule and materially impacted safety. The CAA then contacts the pilot and notifies them of the report and asks them to to give their sid of the story. Often, no action was taken, but if action was taken, it was usually in the form of remedial online training. Although politics have diminished what was a very good system, the outcome of learning from mistakes has to be better than causing people to potentially hang up their headsets - or worse.

Personally, I blame it on what I call the Harvard School of Management.. Not pointing fingers at Harvard per se, but a lot of people who do MBAs and such, spout a lot of carp about how this authoris says this or that author says that... the authors are usually academics rather than experienced in their field, and the MBAs just take what they say at face value because it sounds intuitive and then implement it. I can't even recall a HR department in the old days - there was a payroll office and that was about it. Now, the carp we have to deal with, with HR, who add zippo real value, is insane. Look at ISO requirements - if you want to be ISO9001 qualified and you're a small business, forget it as you can't employ enough people to look after your quality systems and do the work and pay them all. And I worked for an AS3563 (equivalent to ISO9001) certified organisation. They had an impressive array of quality manuals, almost as long as the building itself. On our induction, we had to sit through a day of quality training given in hushed monotone. Their were manuals for everything - even how to use the kitchen facilities - I kid you not. No-one read them; people did the work they way they were trained and there were no probs. We completed the documentation required when we needed to.. Even teh CEO said it was a waste, but clients required it, so we did it. Nowadays there is a "Professional certification" for virtually any occupation. I have seen people employ many still wet behind the ears but have sat a 3 day course at c. £3k and achieved a professional certification and get a job over someone also qualified but without this "professional" certification such as Prince2, with oodles of proven experience - and it coss te company much more. I did one of those certifications - without it I wouldn't get a job.. But no-on I know who has one ever uses it any more than they did before they did the certification, which is not much.

I was at Elstree airport (North London) quite few years ago and they had a AFISO (sort of glorified radio operator) that was a real bar steward.. As I approached the hold, I called that I was ready for take-off. The can only issue a hold instruction and technically it is on behalf of the owner denying you permission to enter the runway... i.e. you can be done for tresspass. They can't issue ATC instructions such as line up, etc. They can, though, permit you to enter the runway conditionally, such as "after the PA28 on final has landed, take off at your discretion.." Anyway, this pillock gave be a right old verbal belting about how it is departure and not take-off, and how I vioated CAP413 (FRTO Requirements).. I had hd enough of this pillock, so I resonded, "in accordance with CAP413, if one can't recall the correct phraseology, then one should use plain english to say what they need to." He muttered I could take off at my discretion.

It has been reported that BA are preparing to lay off 12,000 people and they are also saying they are unlikely to recommence operations at Gatwick, London's second biggest airport, after the lockdown is over. I can't remember which European airline it was, maybe Lufthansa said they were not expecting pre-COVID levels of flying to return until late 2023. I work next door to a global product manager for a large chemicals company; He used to travel extensively throughout the world; We were chatting yesterday and he was saying his company, which is about to do some trials in Aus, have adapted well to viceo conferencing and are unlikely to return to air travel in anywhere near the volume they used to. If other businesses are following suit, and considering the economic model here is that business and first virtually subsidise economy, there will be a lot of carriers struggling; they will have to put up the fares for economy, which will result in an even further delay in a rebound of demand..

I started my working life in the public service. Although an important department, it was relatively small. The rank and file were largely as one expects public servants - not going flat out, mainly worried about reading the gazette for new jobs and whether or not they could go up a grade at review. Most work was clerical and public facing and they did serve the public. Of course, no-one would work late unless it was sanctioned overtime (from memory, Tuesday and Thursday nights).. of flexitime. Well, I say that no one would work late without sanctioned overtime except one team - ours. We were the IT team.. We were very small and apart from management (hailed from the private sector) and maybe 6 or 7 others (including me), all were contractors. Of the 6 or 7 permanents, 3 or 4 were from the main gene pool as user aceptance testers. The manager would bring them in on trial and of course, for emergency releases, they would have to wait for the developers to finish before they could test. The manager was reasonable, if it was late, they would be paid, but up to about 7pm, they could come in later or leave earlier the next day - or just add it to their flexi-time. Needless to say, those on trial that kicked up a stink didn't go on to be permanently in the team and a lot wanted to as it was a path to becoming a developer. The manager was instilling a service attititude into his team.. simple.. And for most, it worked. Also, it was a great place to work - small and nimble team, recognised and rewarded on a meritocratic basis - genuinely smart people to learn from and thrive off. Very rare in public and private sectors. Only downside was I met the woman who was to become my finacee... thankfully we didn't quite make it further. To be honest, she is much smarter than me, so she is probably more thankful! Some secretary for the department decides they need some big project to sell information provided by the public back to them (in a different form). They decide the team we have isn't up to the job (which was rubbish - some of those contractors were worth their weight in saffron). So they decide to hire a new manager (the exsting one saw the writing on the wall and took a very nice job in private enterprise) and he brought his troops from the other department. Overnight, the department transformed into a bloated bureaucratic mess. They introduced all of these procedures in the name of quality, that nothing got done, and what did get done was of no better quality. I stayed around for 2 years - the time they were supposed to take to deliver this thing.. Guess what.. it was running late and had 2 years to go. In other words, according to the plan, had not moved an inch, The state auditor general wrote a damning report on it, the response was paltry but no-one took action. One day, as I was wakling past a colleague's (from the old regime) desk, his phone rang. As he wasn't there and he was heading 3rd line support for the day, I picked it up in case there was an issue (something the new guard would never do). It was the old manager. We had a chat and as it turned out, he was looking for a couple of programmers and asked if I was interested.. 4 Weeks later, I left the department. I later did a gig with a statutory authority, which is a phrase that really means government department that charges for their "services". Now, I lean ever so slightly left of centre, but the place was filled with either leftie socialist lesbians or people totally indifferent to life. That is not fair - there were a good number of people who were conscientious, capable and tried hard to to the right thing. The problem is the system constrains them and allows the aforementioned people the same career development and ability to get into decision making roles and of course, it serves both the executive of the public service and the pollies to keep it that way... Anyway, I learned from that last gig that these people are cushioned from a lot of life's realities and as their jobs are safe, can take a very black and white/;azy attitude to things.. they can be wrong in their application of the law and there is no recourse... No great incentives to get things right and do a good job; no great disincentives if you crew up or don't get your job done. What is that going to breed? Note, I am sure lefty-socialist lesbians are generally nice people.. but the three I had to deal with were off their rockers in terms of what the authority was providing and what they thought even the smallest self-employed should pay for their authority's particular service, especially when it as likely never to be invoked by them.

Looks perfectly valid for a short field landing

$1m for Polly Waffles! Pah... WOuld have been better spent on Chokitos...

Hmmm.. When I re-read what I had written: I tend to agree. Must have had my mate, Wolfie Blass over that eve... Or was it James Hardy?

It was the same in the UK.. The problem is, in reality, there are so few votes in it. But there are two things that help here: A charity, Help for Heroes, has done a stirling job promoting the issue and now there are votes in it. Also, the royals are required to serve in the military and the red-head, although a bit of a scattergun himself, saw active service, demanded no special treatment (i.e. not given a cermonial post) and actively supported various charities that supported returned servicemen as well as being a leading figure in setting up the Invictus games.. the press that brought was huge. We are still miles off where we need to be, but it's a start. The cost of supporting our returned servicepeople is tiny compared to the cost of going to war.. I can never understand why we don't do something about it.

This aint the sort of website you should be publishing photos of yourself urinating

It tales that long for her centres of gravity to stabilise?

Hola y bienvenido a los foros. Ese es un muy buen halcón que tienes allí. La mayoría de las personas aquí hablan inglés, así que perdón por mi gramática (a través del traductor de Google). Salud, Jerry