APenNameAndThatA

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

O.K. - So, you're flying a light aircraft at 600kg maximum weight, with maybe 100kt maximum cruise, and an ability to take quick evasive action - yet you insist an RPT doing 250kts and weighing around 40 tonnes say, has a greater responsibility to spot you, and get out of your way? 

You sound like the car driver who cuts in front of a road train, and then brakes, expecting them to avoid you, "because they're professionals" - or the sail boat operator who insists he has right of way over a bulk tanker on intersecting courses, "because the rules say power gives way to sail".

I would've thought a good RA pilot, when planning and carrying out a flight route relatively close to an airport that is used by RPT, would continually check on the potential flight path conflict involved with any arriving or departing RPT aircraft around that airport.

But I guess the world still contains plenty of people who think they're the only ones using that section of road, water, or airspace, for miles around, and who regularly fail to keep up a proper level of alertness.

I have a policy that has stood me in good stead for decades. "Might is right" - and I greatly respect and give wide berth to those who are in control of large chunks of metal travelling at high speeds, with their resultant inability to make major course corrections rapidly, due to their weight, size, and speed. 

 

False analogies, obviously. The RPT aircraft did not spot the RAAus aircraft even though it had twice as many pilots and etc. 

Genuine questions, would you not have transited 12 miles from the airport at 3500 ft? If not, would you say it was poor airmanship? Should it be made illegal? 

2 hours ago, Garfly said:

When I wrote above that it was the ATSB who backed off their proposal, of course, I meant to say ASA (AirServices Australia.) So my apologies to ATSB who had nothing to do with it.

 

While I'm at it, I may as well re-link to that AusALPA (Australian Airline Pilots Association) submission on ASA's Class E proposal. It's a good read; an example of what a nuanced, well constructed argument on a complex issue really looks like. 

 

Posted April 1, 2021 (edited)

 

https://www.ausalpa.org.au/Portals/5/Documents/Submissions/2021/210215 AusALPA Submission to Airservices re Lowering Class E on the East Coast V2.2.pdf?ver=2021-02-23-134706-453

 

This was my comment on it at the time:

 

"My attention was caught by this bit where they're scathing of the Airservices 'Fact Sheet'

 

"Class E does not restrict access for VFR aircraft”

This Fact Sheet heading is completely misleading ... //  ... The change in airspace classification will also change the VMC requirements (Class E has more restrictive requirements than much of Class G), materially reducing the number of flying opportunities and days available to VFR pilots.

 

At first, I wondered what they were referring to but I guess it must be the less stringent 'clear of cloud'  VMC requirement in Class G, not above 3000' (or 1000' AGL).  That's what they must have meant by  'reducing flying opportunities and days available to VFR pilots'.  ...  It's interesting that it was the airline pilots who spotted this additional anomaly, basically on our behalf.  Good on them."

Until I followed this thread, I had no idea that there would be IFR traffic routinely below 3000 ft and not right next to an airport. So, someone could be at 3000 ft vfr right next to a cloud, and a RPT plane could be right beside it in cloud. And the vfr plane could have no radio and no transponder legally? WTF? 

Like Woody Allen said, I don’t mind dying I just don’t want to be there when it happens. I don’t have a parachute to save my life. I have a parachute so I don’t have to cope with sitting around while I plummet to the ground. One of those pilots worked for Peter at Foxbat Australia and was going to take over the business. 

2 hours ago, kgwilson said:

South Grafton (YSGR) is 7NM from Grafton (YGFN) & there is not a lot of RPT traffic. When I am flying and hear the Rex broadcast their 25NM inbound on CTAF I respond with standard info (callsign, location, altitude & intentions) every time. I don't carry a transponder. I always get a courteous reply & if flightpaths are relatively close I will turn away & advise the new heading. Same thing with the Westpac helicopter that often is transiting to/from Grafton Base Hospital. 

 

Good concise communication is simple & appreciated by all.

 

Ballina is pretty busy but the CA/GRS should be keeping tabs on everything going on. I have not read the full report but the last time I was there it was busy. There was flight training, private RA & GA commercial and RPT. It was hard to get a call in as the CA/GRS kept rabbiting on the whole time & even asking questions which they are not supposed to do. Ballina is busier by far than Coffs but does not have ATC. Building a tower & setting up the system might be expensive but IMO that is the answer. They can easily create a low level Victor lane either seaward or inland for transiting traffic.

You are familiar with the Swiss cheese model?  

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

You appear to be missing the important factor in the Jab airprox incident - ATC is watching you carefully every inch of the way at Gatwick, and the SE of the U.K. - in the Jabs case, there was no ATC watching, separation was dependent on alert pilots and competence on the Jab pilots part, in understanding the level of risk involved in a mid-air with an RPT aircraft along his planned route.

Seriously, the RPT has 170 passengers and two pilots. They had proportionally more responsibility. 

3 hours ago, aro said:

The Airbus picked up the transponder, but didn't know the height. Without the mode C height information they don't know whether the traffic is at e.g. 3000', 9000' or 30000' (but they can probably guess its not 30000' by the speed.) They probably regularly see traffic which is not transmitting height, but usually they can assume it is 20000+ below them.

 

If you're going to land, you have to come down. The Airbus was on the published instrument approach. There are similar approaches around many airports.

 

Class E provides ATC separation between IFR and other IFR aircraft i.e. aircraft that can't see each other. Separation between VFR and VFR and VFR and IFR works the same in Class E as Class G so it wouldn't have made a difference. (Australia has some Class E bastardizations due to various people who prefer Class G and don't want Class E to work, but separating IFR from IFR is what is supposed to happen.)

 

If you want separation for RPT in a high traffic environment, what you probably need is Class D and a tower. They don't want to do that due to cost, so come up with various justifications not to do it.

If the airbus saw they were on a collision course and were at 3000’ then it is on them to decide for themselves that there is no traffic to their left. 

If the airbus is on the published approach then they need to be confident they can see and avoid. They are somewhere that it is legal to be with no radio and no transponder and one pilot and little training.

The thing about Class E is that people have to have a transponder, and it has to transmit height… 

11 hours ago, Garfly said:

That is an utterly different situation from what's being discussed here.  Please read the report. We're talking of a very serious Airprox incident.  Serious lessons need to be learned. Yes, you can fly your ultralight 500' below airliners landing at Sydney, too, on the Victor One coastal route.  But you must remain in Class G while the commercial traffic above must keep to its Class C LL.  That minimum separation is structured into the system.  In this incident both aircraft - airliner and ultralight - were in Class G. They were depending basically on CTAF procedures to self separate and those failed for a variety of reasons.  Their 600' of vertical separation was down to sheer luck. There is absolutely nothing "Normal situation. Nothing to see." about this.  Sheesh!!

 

 

 

 

 

And here I was thinking that social media was supposed to be entertaining. The flip side, and I actually mean this sincerely, is that if you have RPT at 3000 ft 12 miles out from the airport, in Class G, this sort of incident is *INEVITABLE*, which means that hand wringing and pearl clutching is just silly.

11 hours ago, Garfly said:

 

Your glib rhetorical question is scarcely deserving of a serious answer but I'll  say "Yes, for sure".   

 

There was a very long, detailed and often well argued thread on the Class E issue here, last year. In the end ATSB backed off their proposal in the face of overwhelming opposition from all quarters.  This included, by the way, a stinging rebuke from one airline pilot's organisation which argued, inter alia, that it would be unfair restriction to impose on recreational pilots.

 

Mixing RPT and recreational traffic in Class G is a tricky airspace management problem where safety and equity (regarding free and safe access) needs to be delicately balanced.   

 

By the way, I'm not 'down on the Jab pilot' either; our habit here of going straight to pilot error risks missing the points being made by the writers of this report. It's about mixed traffic airspace management in Class G.  Better procedures plus universal affordable ADSB - and yes, additional training for mixed traffic environments should see the system work well.

As recreational users, maybe we should be relieved that the cost of setting up a Class D controlled airspace in such places as Ballina tends to be a brake on it happening.  Otherwise we'd be excluded from heaps more horizontal space to add to the vertical threat to our G space from crazy Class E lowering proposals. 

 

You are not down on the Jab pilot, and you don’t want Class E lowered. Just as I said you should be. 

Here’s my next hot take. The VFR traffic was a x-thousand feet plus 500, and the IFR/big Traffic was at x-thousand feet. 600 ft is actually greater than standard traffic separation. Normal situation. Nothing to see. 

Lowering Class E. You all still against it?

The way I see it, being down on the Jab pilot AND not wanting Class E lowered is illogical. Maybe Class E needs to be down to ground level if RPT pilots are going to transit at circuit height. 

😆

Let me say the same thing differently. The fewer people on the plane, the less safe it is supposed to be. That means that it is illogical to try and have RA-Aus pilots tasked with keeping RPT planes safe in Class G. If there was nearly a crash, then that’s for the RPT people to fix. 

I note that some people are saying the Jab pilot needed to be better trained AND people have said that RAAus people should have access to controlled airspace. See the problem? (In fairness, you could have a very different training and testing requirement for that endorsement… and certified radios and transponders?) 

I’m not convinced that this was the Jab pilots fault. 

1. IIRC, it is legal to fly without a transponder at all. Or a radio. If traffic avoidance systems don’t alert pilots to transponders that are not transmitting height, then then that is a fault with those systems. If RPT planes can’t pick up traffic with a transponder, then that’s the fault of the RPT plane. 

2. The pilot was 12 NM from Ballina and only twice the RPT plane’s circuit height. From my perspective, he was a reasonable distance from the airport. If people made calls every time they went within 15 miles of an airport there would be non stop radio traffic. 

3. 3000 feet is low. IFR traffic is not supposed to be there, hence vertical cloud separation is not needed. 3000 feet for RPT traffic 12 miles from an airport? Too low. If I’m 12 miles from an airport, at 3500 ft, I’m not expecting to fly *over* a Boeing. 

4. IIRC, it would have been legal to be there with no radio at all, in a different plane. 

FWIW, I leave my transponder on ALT at Archerfield. Tower never complains. One less thing to mess up. 

Happy to be corrected.

On 24/3/2022 at 10:14 PM, Marty_d said:

Reading that article, I'd rather attempt that stunt than what one of the pilots has done previously... in 2016, he jumped out of a plane at 25,000 ft (7,620 m) with neither a parachute nor a wingsuit on, free-falling all the way down before being caught in a 100-by-100-ft (30-by-30-m) Dyneema net.

Thank you for posting this. Un b leevable. 

On 25/3/2022 at 7:18 AM, kgwilson said:

I saw the video of that. He either had complete 100% confidence of his ability to ensure directional control or he is a complete 100% adrenaline freak nutter.

Both

On 23/3/2022 at 2:22 PM, Bruce Tuncks said:

On flying in to Caloundra, the left-hand circuit for your base leg was over a new subdivision, so in the spirit of the reg, I did a RH circuit over swamp and trees.

This caused a "please explain", caused by a formal complaint from  junior instructor who was doing crosswind stuff on the cross-strip! He saw me and I saw him, quite some distance clear, but I was doing a "non-standard" circuit.

Nothing more came from the event.

You decided to improve on the ERSA. If someone in an LSA was descending on the dead side you would have had a closing speed of 60 or 70 metres per second. If you were in a high wing and they were in a low wing, you might not have been able to see each other.   Nothing more probably came of it because they thought you knew you were wrong.

Then I’m on downwind I spend zero time looking up to see if someone is about to spiral into me from above. Is that where you were keeping your lookout?   

One engine is usually safer than two, unfortunately for you. 

Now I know what you meant by saying there is a limit to what the rudder can do, and about asking a lot of it. 

2 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Please tell us more djpacro. I have been looking on google for the upgust which determines rough air, alas to no avail. I sure got the 40 knot figure from somewhere, just as I got the 15 knot upgust for " smooth air". In the case of the 15 knot figure, it came from a top glider pilot who worked at WRE in Salisbury sa.

Again, it is a hard figure to check out...  maybe there are different upgusts for different planes?  That would explain why you just get double-talk when you try and look it up. It makes no sense to me if there are indeed different figures to define "rough air".

 

The stronger the updraft, the steeper the angle of attack. That means that if a wing stalls with an updraft of, say 15 kt (1500 fpm) updraft, it will be able to cope with an updraft above that because the wing will be already stalled. You need to organise it so you are slow enough so that the wing stalls before there is an updraft strong enough to damage it. The slower the aircraft the slower the updraft will have to be to stall the aircraft. The intensity of the updraft does not have to specified because you just need to make sure the wing does not break. The intensity of the acceleration is specified, though. Its bout +4 and -2 G's for some things, IIRC, and there are design limits, safety factors and ultimate limits and etc. 

On 14/3/2022 at 6:52 AM, walrus said:

My reading:

 

CAo 95.55:

 

9.1:

i)    a relevant aeroplane must not be flown over a populous area or a public gathering unless:

             (i)   a certificate of airworthiness under regulation 21.176 of CASR is in force for the aeroplane; or

            (ii)   the requirements mentioned in paragraph 9.7 are complied with in relation to the aeroplane;

 

And 9.7 says:

(b)   in the case of any other aeroplane:

             (i)  an experimental certificate under regulation 21.195A of CASR, or an SAB flight permit, must be in force for the aeroplane; and

            (ii)  an approval authorising flight in the aeroplane over a populous area or public gathering must be in force under regulation 91.045 or 91.050 of CASR, which approval imposes no conditions or limitations that would prevent the flight.

 

..And the certificate says, among many other things:

18. Operation over a closely settled area shall be avoided at all times.

and separately,

20. The operation over a built up area of a town or city is subject to:

 -- at a height and speed being able to glide clear of persons or dwellings.

 

None of this makes sense, I'm missing something.

- You CAN operate over a closely settled area if its unavoidable?

- You CAN operate over a built up area?

Isn't a built up area a closely settled area? Who decides what is unavoidable, my wallet? My passenger? My need for a toilet stop?

 

The SAAA has a paper that applies to their aircraft which makes sense.

https://saaa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/IPM-FO-002-002-Flight-over-populous-areas.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is fascinating. I wonder if technically it is therefore illegal to fly the Univat (? spelling) (University of Queensland to Mt Gravatt) VFR corridor. You have to fly at 1000 ft, and it's right beside the CBD. I don't think this matter passes skippy's common sense test, but. I have never read those regs and this is probs why. 

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

I've had misrigged planes drop wings against the rudder application, but there's something very wrong with such planes. YOU can decide which way it will rotate every time. Eg in a flick roll. Yes it's comforting to have an "unbreakable" plane and hanging in the straps with no canopy was always un nerving for me and others I've spoken to over the years. It's only psychological as most canopies aren't that strong. Nev

I was deliberately not choosing. My understanding is that the only way to choose is to use a little pre-spin input, with rudder and/or ailerons!

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

A Cessna 172 can be very tame in a stall till you put more weight in the rear seat. You can go too far  with the full rudder bit. There are limits to it lifting a dropped wing. The stalls that kill are often dynamic  where the speed and "G" force is higher and power is on, (but maybe not enough).  The "Usual" way of presenting stalls is nigh on useless, because it doesn't represent what will happen in real life OR give you a small height loss recovery option.  Nev

Yeah, I won't be doing any skidding or slipping stalls. The one you were talking about, stalling during a balanced, steepish turn, I won't be doing either. Not unless I do it with my instructor first and he signs off.

If you all don't mind me labouring the point, this is what makes stalls scarier than spins. I would not mind doing doing anything in a plane rated for spins because if you spin you just recover. In a RA-Aus plane, I'm asking myself, "Okay, this is just a stall, but I don't want to do something what will cause even an incipient spin because then I'll be spinning." So: stalls: potential disaster. Spins: no probs. Likewise, uneven fuel load: is it safe to do even a very basic stall with one tank full and one empty? I'm not about to find out: the lower wing with be the heavier one. 

Nev, how do you mean that there are limits to lifting a wing with the rudder. You have mentioned this before. Naturally, if I  was correcting an unintended stall, I would use the stick forward (and use rudder but not rely in it). Are you worried that if I try and pick up a wing *as soon as* it drops, that something could go wrong? My own thinking is that if the wing does not come up, you are no worse off that if a wing really dropped in a stall, and you can just push the stick forward with neutral ailerons - and the rudder is already in the anti-spin position. Very curious to know your thoughts. 

I don't want to start half intentionally doing incipient spins in an aircraft not rated for spins. 

Pretty sure that programming the autopilot wrongly would not cause this. Disclaimer: I don't know what I am talking about. 

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

If things happen that you didn't anticipate you are not in control . Nev

That is one of the reasons I don't like stalls. You don't know which wing will drop, for example, 

2 hours ago, Thruster88 said:

That is obviously a very forgiving aircraft, can do same thing in a thruster. Remember that the most forgiving aircraft can still stall and spin to the ground if the pilot is not paying attention. Defined Minimum Maneuvering Speed (1.4 x stall speed) live it.

It certainly acts like a forgiving aircraft. On the other hand, it can buffet and drop a wing when going into a stall. It is not one of those planes that just mushes in the stall (not that I have experienced one), hence the need to keep full rudder to stop it yawing and/or keep a wing up. It usually drops the right wing but it can be the left one, IIRC. Fuel in the tanks was equal. The stall is more stable if it has some flap and/or power.

I think I put in a little bit of left aileron at around 30 s. Before that, the right wing dropped, and I put in left rudder, the left wing dropped a bit, I put in a bit of right rudder, the right wing dropped and I put in full left rudder. Even with full left rudder, there was yaw to the right, so I added a tiny bit of aileron to the left, that was not bigger than the accidental jerking of the control wheel that was happening most of the time. The rudder pedals in the passenger footwell are visible. 

On 21/3/2022 at 7:57 AM, Bruce Tuncks said:

The "rough airspeed" figure is a regulation which, if lowered by 5 knots, would enable a lot more weight to be carried by the same structure.

This was the tactic used to enable top motors to be carried on gliders.

The rough airspeed is where  the wing stalls when hitting an upgust. The stresses caused by this are in proportion to V^2, so a 5 knot reduction will lower the stresses a lot. Or enable more weight to be carried at the same stress levels.

Stall speed is different, as has been said, this always increases with weight, well for the same lift coefficient it does.

As I said earlier, the upgust is 40 knots by regulation.

Now there are limits to how low you can make a rough airspeed. It is possible for an unusual attitude to allow inadvertent overspeeding. So there is a formula the designers need to apply.

If Va increases with increased weight, then so will Vno, I expect. Both are counter intuitive. I suppose that the reason is that the engine mounts are designed to break before the wing spar. If the aircraft is heavier, then it will accelerate slower if it is heavier, hence, the increase in Va with heavier weight. 

I agree that having a 600 kg MTOW when the plane is designed for 700 kg MTOW is an example of bureaucracy affecting MTOW. On the other hand, that does not mean that it was/is wrong. On the other other hand, I can see an argument for 750 kg MTOW with the stall speed and PAX the same, to increase strength of planes while maintaining energy on impact and low number of deceased people.