RE: Bankstown Ultralight Crash

[sseeker]

Bankstown Ultralight Crash

 

Note: This crash happened quite a while ago and I'm just after some info.

 

I found a recording on the Basair website about an ultralight crash in the Parramatta area quite some time ago. When listening to the clip I heard it was a Lightwing registration 25-0692. Has anyone got any info regarding this accident? Basair claims the aircraft was flying at night, any reports or news sites?

 

Here's the link to the recording: Live ATC Radio

 

browse down the page to find the "ultralight crash"

 

I'm about 15 minutes into the 1 hour clip. I have a question, when the tower was contacting him, he was addressing the lightwing as "Papa six niner two" Why was there something about P in his registration?

 

Appreciate any info.

 

Thanks,

 

Andrew

 

Disregard 1 hour clip, for some reason my player was glitching up, clip goes for about 20 minutes. Turns out he got on the ground safely and called the Police, now about his callsign?

 

 

[pylon500]

In the beginning of registering ultralights (it was the AUF then), there were only two classes, 95:10 (single seat homebuilt)and 95:25 (single and two seat production ultralights).

 

Their rego's started with '10' and '25' and each had it's own 'sequence' of numbers starting from 0001.

 

It was therefore possible to have two aircraft on a field with the same sequence number but a different class number, ie; I had a single seater rego'ed 10-0159 and one of our instructors had a Sapphire rego'ed 25-0159.

 

To ease radio callsigns, an alphabetic was assigned to the various classes, and you only needed to call the last three digits of your number.

 

The 95-10's used callsign 'Alpha' (I was 'Alpha 159') and the 95-25's started at 'Papa' (the Sapphire was 'Papa 159').

 

Once the numbers got beyond 1000, each class moved to the next alphabetic, ie; 'Bravo' and 'Quebec'.

 

This system was eventually abandoned and subsequent registrations all came from a single list regardless of the class.

 

With the changes to our radio procedures, that Lightwing would now be called 'Lightwing zero six niner two'

 

 

 

As for the recording, I vaguely remember this as a combined GA/AUF instructor (?) flying South past Warnervale without refueling hoping to make it to The Oaks before it got 'too' dark, but then running low on fuel and landing on a golf course somewhere.

 

Fingers were smacked !

 

No, it wasn't me..

 

Arthur.

 

 

[sseeker]

Hi Pylon,

 

Thanks for the info, so basically this clip is really old yet Basair is still making a thing about it? I quote their website,

 

"Emergency at Bankstown

 

Listen in as an Ultralight aircraft has an engine failure right overhead Parramatta in the middle of the Sydney suburbs - at night! Ultralights aren't supposed to fly at night - why was he up there?"

 

-Andrew

 

 

[pylon500]

Wish I could find an mp3 version of it as I wont allow 'Real player' near my computer!

 

As for Basair having/using the audio, it could be for radio training purposes, or maybe they no longer like anything that could be perceived as an ultralight after their fleet of Technams fell to bits...

 

Arthur.

 

 

[sseeker]

I just installed Real Player and it worked fine. If you like I can convert the audio clip to a .mp3 for you.

 

-Andrew

 

 

[pylon500]

That would be great.

 

I've installed RealPlayer on a previous Mac, and when it came time to update it, I then found out how big it is and how it spreads though your computer taking up space and trying to dial out all the time.

 

I know, I can switch off some of this in the preferences file, but I'm happy with just QuickTime and iTunes.

 

Hey, I see your at Bindoon(link), flew there about 20 years back, I hear it's getting bigger now.

 

Arthur.

 

 

[sseeker]

Hi Pylon,

 

Encoded the file into MP3 but it jumped from 14MB in .wma format to 18MB in MP3! I kept it in .wma and uploaded it to my server and is available for download at: http://worldofaviation.net.au/recflying/ultralightcrash.wma - now I regret that decision because I just remembered you're on a mac. Hopefully your audio playing software is able to read from .wma files :big_grin:

 

RE: Bindoon

 

Amazing how much the airfield has changed in 19 years, I have some photos of the aerodrome recently taken here: Flickr: andrewaeroplane's Photostream I plan on uploading some more in depth ones later tonight, I'll PM you when that's done. Also that aeroplane looks rather interesting to flying :P I've never seen it at Bindoon though.

 

-Andrew

 

 

[pylon500]

Thanks for the audio upload/download, had a listen on media player.

 

The controller sounded more annoyed than concerned.

 

Found a picture of said Lightwing here

 

(Going off topic here...)

 

Looked at photo's of Bindoon growth, doesn't really show that what used to be about three sheds in amongst the trees is now about fifteen or so?

 

The photo link earlier is of a thing called a Eurowing, basically a copy of a Catto Goldwing.

 

I think it was owned by a guy named Ian Beatle or Beadle.

 

Very easy to fly, had a real good glide.

 

Arthur.

 

 

[sseeker]

Hi Arthur,

 

There's about 31 hangars at Bindoon currently and more are in development stages. The name rings a bell but there are a few members on this forum that have been around at Bindoon a lot longer than me. I've been flying there since ~August 2009. Thanks for the information on the crash & registrations. Much appreciated.

 

-Andrew