Thx1137

G'day Jodie, I have been using the Pilot PA18-50 ANR headset for the last 14 hours or so. It was pretty much the cheapest ANR headset I could find that didn't have a suspect reputation. On the whole it is not bad. It has good passive attenuation so if the ANR dies or the battery goes flat it is still alright. I paid around $400 for it. If you are interested, let me know when you are flying next and I will see if I can leave it at the field so you can check/try it out. As far as how much to spend. I know of some pilots who have the > $1,500 headsets and only think they are 'ok' but way overpriced but I have read on forums that some guys love em. I dunno myself as I haven't used them. That said. I think it is important to get something decent to start off with, once gone the hearing doesn't come back! Steven.

G'day Jodie, You need FSX and over 1GB of disk space free wherever you have FSX installed. Head on over to FTX. The first item is Called AU Blue. This is a free download that updates all the textures, roads, scenery for Tasmania. I imaging it includes their normal install guide i the package, it contains lots of info about FSX settings to get the best out of your machine. the second item on the page is a set of freeware airports. They are all small airfields and bush strips. Aldinga is in there. You must download version 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 and install them in that order. The third item on the page gives you a better representation of hills and mountains. None of these installs make the FSX performance worse and in many cases the installation of the ORBX scenery actually improves performance. Steven.

I am one of those guys that wants to love X-Plane. I started using it regularly but then ORBX came out with their Australian scenery and real-air and others came out with some fine aircraft for FSX. I really can't see X-Plane beating them. If was up to a default install of both products I would lean towards X-Plane (or FS9, X-Plane wins hands down) but using the latest and greatest of both sims FSX is the winner for me. Now that I have an I7 processor and 700GB free I might install it again. I do like to try it out every now and again. It has probably been 6 to 8 months since I have run it.

G'day Wendy, Another Aldingerite I see :-) Don't worry about the landings too much. I remember just over a year ago Steve asking me if I have landed yet. I said "hell no!", I did the next landing and it wasn't nearly as scary as I had anticipated. Steven.

That is a very common problem with email and message boards, jokes and sarcasm just do not come across. that is why we have emoticons, they help, a little! :-)

going by the way that reads that is just bizarre in my opinion. You cannot spend time looking around for other aircraft to see if they _might_ want to make a call or worrying that you _might_ distract them. How can you know and surely handling distractions (if you can call making the required calls a distraction) is their problem? (for me) Airmanship says that you help they guy out if you can but you do not break any rules or sacrifice the situational awareness of yourself or aircraft that may have an interest in you position for it. It is his problem, not yours. Here I am assuming you are simply making the required calls and not having a chat about the price of rice in russia or something :-)

Wow! I didn't know they had the gauges. Little 5 inch LCD screens is is pretty cool though at 130 euro each is a pretty severe dent in the wallet!

Last I heard there was a lot of disappointment because it can only be used with mainly default aircraft as the buttons aren't programmable. That is a huge downer for me :-( (unless that has changed?)

A couple of weeks ago I started feeling a bit queasy after practicing full slip stalls and incipient spin recovery for 30 minutes so I recon this would really get me going! Damn my weak stomach!

Ryan at this point. There might be more to sign-off, if so I expect we will be doing that otherwise I know Steve wanted me to do a nav with "3 or 4 diversions" in it. (cringe!) Not much sight-seeing time I expect!

Sim?!

I did my KI trip a few weeks ago. Just before the weather got bad. The weather forecast looked marginal but doable but when I got half way there and saw it for real it looked like I could get there but may not have been able to maintain VMC getting back so aborted it. The following week was better. I am on at 1pm so I may see you there :-) I am/was? just getting some things signed off so I don't know if there is more to sign-off on, whether I am doing another nav or what. I am getting more nervous now that there isn't much more to go :-) Steven.

I liked limiting the instructors until I started the navs so I was mainly with Steve and Ryan thought there was a smattering of Leo and Wayne. I did my PSLs with Karl but that is it. Are you back at Aldinga now Jodie? Been flying?

G'day, I am pretty sure it was 100 hours. that is certainly a standard minimum for syndicates that I have seen. I have only ever flown the SportStar but have read many times that it is a very easy aircraft to fly compared to most similar aircraft.

I have just over 29 hours dual and 10.3 hours PIC and am just in the process of getting a few items signed-off so hopefully I will be doing the test soon. I did some upper air work last Saturday and while that went well it made me a little air sick. It definitely affected my performance, especially when heading back to the barn :-( At my school we do the pilot certificate, PAX and XC all in one hit.

Personally, While I will use a computer for just about anything and everything, for any of my navigation data I will have a hard copy with me. I might use a computer to plan and download relevant info but I recon it has to be printed. A bit of paper is a lot easier and reliable to deal with while flying a plane! I get the loose leaf ERSA so I unclip the pages I am likely to use and keep the rest of the book behind the seat.

My school gave me a life jacket and a PLB for the trip. I didn't have much luck in finding info about water crossings from the RA Aus site thought it looks like we are supposed to be becoming inline with GA. From there I read that we need to wear a life jacket during flight over water if we are not going to be within gliding distance of land. The rules are a different for multi-engine and charter operations but that isn't much to do with us RA flyers. :-) The GA rules for survival equipment are in CAO 20.11 if ya want them.

My last solo nav was to KI. I have always wanted to go there but didn't want to go by boat! According to my AOPA national airfield directory for kingscote airfield you will need an ASIC card if you want to get back to your plane, there is no fuel there so you may need to get that at goolwa or aldinga and there is accomodation and taxis available. There area couple of other airfields there but don't know anything about them.

LOL! I suck at math but after my 3rd nav or so and some practice in FSX I really don't have to think about it too much about using it for the common things anymore. I love the whizz wheel. It is kind of hard to grasp to start off with but when you have used it a bit is is soooo much faster than using the electronic methods I have tried.

There was only one call I had problems with in the program but I sometimes have problems around my way with some pilots treating comms as some sort of race.

hehe. being a person that like to follow the rules I can never understand why some people try so hard to reinterpret them, I guess it is to justify a behaviour. Sometimes interpreting them is hard, 99.9% of the time it isn't. Anyway, while we have the rules and they clearly dictate what were are supposed to do 99.9 percent of the time it is clear that some feel that the rules only apply to those who aren't so 'skilled'. We see it on the roads so why not in the air? hehe, I once had a cab driver talk me how mush everyone on the road sucked but seeing he was a 'professional' driver he was ok with running red lights (I guess he needed to practice the skill in case it might save his life one day eh). You should have seen the dings in the car. He confused 'doing a lot' with 'skilled' and one does not necessarily follow the other. The thread has been useful on a number of levels.

I was ok until the BV and IT. Those codes don't appear in my SPECI decoding manual. I can't seem to find definitions.

Great post turboplanner. While your post was basically how I thought of it I was unsure how, um, definite the word 'practicable' was. The problem with being new to something is that we will often defer to the more experienced. Sometimes that is wise, sometimes it isn't, it is hard for newbies to know which until it is maybe too late. That makes this thread and your post invaluable in my eyes. :-)

Why is the word 'ask' censored? :-)

That's easy fixed. Swap it around so that the husband in the chair. Sudden influx maybe? :-)