Thx1137

Now there is the thing. Most times I hear a "clear prop!" call the engine is started immediately after. I always thought that that made it useless as a verbal warning. I always yell it but I place no confidence on its effectiveness. I place more confidence in my scan of the area first. I wont catch someone who has snuck under and in front of the aircraft but without a camera there isn't much I can do and besides, people on the tarmac also have a duty of care! I suspect it is possible less of a problem for RA aircraft because being smaller the person would have to be a small child to be missed in the visual scan. I don't think "clear prop!" would help them. So, I try to stay aware of who is near or heading towards my aircraft but do yell "clear prop!" anyway. Steven.

No worries. Thanks guys. I expect we don't really want to do much to it so I will probably just have to live with and plan for it. I am already losing 10 kilos so I can add a bit more fuel (gives me a reason to diet). No way I am losing more for climb performance! Steven.

I have heard that converting a Jabs hydraulic lifters to mechanical lifters can improve climb performance. Can anyone support this and give me idea of the improvement experienced? We often have a bit of sink on upwind on a couple of our runways and climbing out at 150 to 200 fpm (near MTOW) with the treetops just below the wheels is a little too exciting for me! Steven.

G'day John, I started when I was 44. I figure better late than never! It took a little over 12 months but now I have my certificate and I am in a syndicate I fly almost every weekend. Sometimes twice :-) I wouldn't want to work in it as a pilot though. It wouldn't be so much fun I think. Steven.

The student flying book I have says that if you are landing towards a low sun then during flare you can lose 100% vision for a few seconds. Non-polarised glasses are a CASA recommendation, not a requirement though. I do know of quite a few who use them though I purchased aviation sunglasses which have the recommended specifications. they weren't any dearer than a decent set of sunnies and I don't care for fashion statements :-)

Jeeze Nev, don't give em ideas!

The simulator is interesting. To me, my Pilot PA 18-50 ANRs sound just a little louder than the "Quiet Technologies Passive in-the-ear - triple flange rubber ear inserts " sound, I think. I have used a non-ANR headset a couple of times in the last few months, shocking levels of noise! The attenuation with the "highest attenuation" headset sounded pretty good. Steven.

I saw it coming but it is a good one anyway :-)

Sorry to hear about that Brett. Would the online practice exams be useful? Anyone tried em?

Yeah, this thread had me scratching my head a bit to start off with because in our checklist and on the panel the white flashing light is refered to as a "beacon". I hate inconsistancy, especially when there is no reason for it! (that I know of) Steven.

My planes have only had a beacon which I turn on after turning the master on. I use it to indicate that the aircraft will soon be or is active and figure I should give people more than 1 second to see it. It doesn't cost anything to turn it on early. Not that it is terribly visible... Steven.

Thanks ahlocks. I had wondered for some time if they original Australian SportStars were different. They look so similar.

It is an interesting read. It is a bit of a worry that the investigators are saying there is an up to 29% difference in the actual versus calculated strengths but the other guys are saying that there isn't!

G'day and welcome! hehehe. I think world war three has just been declared! :-) I fly tricycles myself and am happy enough with them so I only get into the taildragger versus tricycle debate to stir. :-)

I read a bit more into the question than was asked in that I was thinking there might be aircraft damage and possibly injury. If the aircraft landed without damage at the closed airfield then I wouldn't think there would be much of a problem but if there were injury, especially to a passenger I think it might be a bit different... These days someone has got to pay. How many times do we here of some incident or accident where no one was at fault, it was just bad luck, not often!

Interesting question, though, are you tring to scare us out of the air or what! If it were to go to court the first thing that jumped in my head was a prosicutor saying. "Pilots are expected to plan for emergencies, did you familiarise yourself with the airfields along your flight path? If not, why not?" We all know that there has got to be someone that is clearly to blame and whether it is justified or not I think the pilot is the easiest target. I reckon the pilot would get done with possibly some penalty mitigation based on "contributing factors" as NTSB/ATSB like to say.

hehehe. As subtle as a brick :-) But sometimes it does seem we need to go that far eh!

hahaha. That reminds me of the Rolf Harris Peg Leg Jack sketch!

There ya go Rob, I didn't need to send that email out yesterday after all :-) The 50ml per hour gels with the 200ml I needed to top up yesterday after the 4.3 hour flight. Even after the 200ml it was still reporting low but decided to not put more in. I checked it again today and it is almost full so I guess it takes awhile before it settles! Steven.

How do the pilots reach the peddles! :-)

G'day Fosie, It is great that you have something to aim for. I had no idea when I was 14! There are lots of female pilots and students these days so you are in good company. There is some training material at Welcome to Recreational Aviation Australia (w3c 11/09) half way down the page on the left so you can do some study without having to spend anything right now. It also gives you an idea of the things you will be studying although you can probably skip the "Builders guide to safe aircraft materials" section! At some point you might want to do a Trial Instruction Flight (TIF). This can be booked at a flight school and you get to do a lot of the flying yourself, with an instructor of course :-). Hopefully someone here can recommend a school to visit! Steven.

G'day Adam, welcome to the site. It sounds like you got it bad :-) I am sure there are a few people here that can offer opinions on building. Me, I would never fly something I assembled! Steven.

I am with Tomo. No runup but do the rest. The POH from the Jabiru site actually splits the runup and pretakoff checks into two seperate sets of checks. The J160 POH has: Pre Take-Off Master Switch ..........................................ON Ignition switches.......................................BOTH ON Fuel Shutoff Valve....................................ON Fuel Quantity............................................CHECK sufficient for task Fuel Pump ...............................................ON Flaps........................................................TAKE OFF (first stage) Instruments ..............................................SET AND CHECK ALL Switches ..................................................SELECTED as required Circuit Breakers .......................................CHECK Controls ...................................................FULL & FREE TRAVEL, CORRECT SENSE Hatches ................................................... CLOSED & LOCKED Harnesses ............................................... SECURE all seat belts correctly fastened and adjusted Oil temperature........................................ ABOVE 50C In the situation you describe I would do: Pre Take-Off Fuel Quantity Fuel Pump Flaps Instruments (I do a quick scan, especially alt) Hatches Harnesses Ts and Ps Trim I think in the situation you describe it depends on what the your comfortable with. I added Ts and Ps and Trim to the list, it is in the run-up checklist in the POH. I actually do trim after "Controls" because moving the controls full travel can upset any trim setting (the hire plane I used the trim would move a lot during control deflection testing). Steven.

Why is "ice cream" offensive? :-)

G'day, Following from flying dog's great utilities I have decided to announce a utility for the Blackberry phones (iPods have enough pilot utilities!) that has conversions for many units we use, a density alt calculator, crosswind calculator and a weight balance calculator (it also plots). If you are interested in giving it a go PM me. I do not want to make it public until one or two more people give it some tests. The numbers I have been getting so far are good but a developer should never test their own software! :-) It isn't particularly pretty but it is very easy and quick to use (well, it suits my purpose!) adding llittle touches like, one handed operation, if you have a conversion EG: feet to meter then change the "feet" entry to "meter" it automatically changes the "meter" entry to "feet" (reversing the conversion) and it shows you a list of conversions you have made (newest first). I am lazy and have a terrible memeory :-) I have only tested it on a Blackberry Storm though others_should_ work as long as the OS is 4.6 or later. Steven.