lprigan1 Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 STOL practice in a foxbat on the only dry 100m portion of a grass strip with an 8kt crosswind. Fun and just a little bit scary!
Nightmare Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 I am really desperate to piss off on my motorcycle around australia at the moment, but I am so close to my PPL that I wont give it up at the moment. Stories like this motivate me to finish my PPL sooner rather than later. I am getting bored with the 25nm restriction of the RPL now, and like my instructor said today, get you PPL and you can ride the hire aircraft around Aus too. I thought all you need to go beyond the 25 nm restriction is to get a nav endorsement? 1
Pearo Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 I thought all you need to go beyond the 25 nm restriction is to get a nav endorsement? You do. But given I am doing my PPL the endorsement is hardly worth it. I only have 2 more instructed navs to go and a solo, then its flight review and flight test time. Got a nav booked in Sunday, then the last Monday week. Fingers crossed I will have a PPL in 6-8 weeks time. I am giving serious consideration to doing my CPL now....
Nightmare Posted June 27, 2015 Posted June 27, 2015 You do. But given I am doing my PPL the endorsement is hardly worth it. I only have 2 more instructed navs to go and a solo, then its flight review and flight test time. Got a nav booked in Sunday, then the last Monday week. Fingers crossed I will have a PPL in 6-8 weeks time.I am giving serious consideration to doing my CPL now.... Good luck with it all, Pearo, Hey, I see you listed YRED as your location, I'm training at that aerodrome too. Does the wind at YRED ever blow in the direction of the runway? There's always a crosswind blowing when I go up.
microman Posted June 27, 2015 Posted June 27, 2015 Ticked another one off the bucket list last week when I flew with another club member in his Alpi Pioneer 200 - we took off from Rangiora and headed straight for Mount Cook - reached it in about an hour, climbing steadily all the way, and then did a circuit around the top - its 12,300 ft and we were at 13,125 - fantastic views with snow in all directions. Plenty of landing areas if necessary (glaciers etc) but not sure how you would ever get the plane out again! We then landed at Okarito Lagoon on the West Coast (400m grass strip - bent like a banana!) , had a cup of coffee, then flew home through the Whitcombe Pass. 3.5 hours flight in total, 58 litres of fuel used. Fantastic flight and the Alpi handled it with ease. Strangely enough, I don't often see any mention of Alpi's in Oz - did they not take off there?!!!! They are a terrific x-country machine and can handle short grass strips too - not many aircraft have both capabilities. 4
K-man Posted June 28, 2015 Posted June 28, 2015 Ticked another one off the bucket list last week when I flew with another club member in his Alpi Pioneer 200 - we took off from Rangiora and headed straight for Mount Cook - reached it in about an hour, climbing steadily all the way, and then did a circuit around the top - its 12,300 ft and we were at 13,125 - fantastic views with snow in all directions. Plenty of landing areas if necessary (glaciers etc) but not sure how you would ever get the plane out again! We then landed at Okarito Lagoon on the West Coast (400m grass strip - bent like a banana!) , had a cup of coffee, then flew home through the Whitcombe Pass. 3.5 hours flight in total, 58 litres of fuel used. Fantastic flight and the Alpi handled it with ease. Strangely enough, I don't often see any mention of Alpi's in Oz - did they not take off there?!!!! They are a terrific x-country machine and can handle short grass strips too - not many aircraft have both capabilities. Hey! I have a 300 and love it! Plenty of Pioneers in Aus. We used to have Alpi flyways until a few years ago. In fact we flew around the North Island with a group of NZ owners about 8 years back.
Keenaviator Posted June 28, 2015 Posted June 28, 2015 Nice short flight from YLTV and around South Gippsland this afternoon to warm up the oil. Back at the valley dropped the oil and filter in preparation for next weeks departure for FNQ. I'll be taking my Spot Tracker on the trip. This link should show my tracks when it's on. http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0LDFU68oKqqhW1eJX2Xgk81hO5Dfqm9Qr
Pearo Posted June 28, 2015 Posted June 28, 2015 Good luck with it all, Pearo, Hey, I see you listed YRED as your location, I'm training at that aerodrome too. Does the wind at YRED ever blow in the direction of the runway? There's always a crosswind blowing when I go up. The weather has been strange the last couple of years!!! Winds are normally blowing from the North East leading upto Christmas once the land warms up (think Semptermber-ish onwards). Then from late January they tend to go to the South East till it gets cold again. When Cold, its usually blowing from the West in varying unpredictable angles and velocity!! I say this as a sailor, not as an aviator because I am more familiar with the surface winds on Moreton bay. However, nothing is normal in Moreton Bay, and you can expect South Easters at anytime, so YRED is a great place for learning crosswinds! South Easters are normally blowing at about 15knots too. When I was doing my initial training I must have done about a dozen lessons waiting for a crosswind. At that time, I think I must have racked up about 10 hours doing solo circuits because there was no wind at all. That just never happens! at YRED!! Then now, my last two instructed lessons I have done the worst crosswind landings ever, with only about 5 knots from the southeast. Yet I went up for a private hire about 2 weeks ago, and did one of the best crosswind landings I have ever done in my life, in 15G20. Go figure. I did see all the Bob Tait CPL students watching me on the way out, and I have been there eating lunch observing and critiquing. Maybe that had an influence on my landing! 1
Nightmare Posted June 29, 2015 Posted June 29, 2015 The weather has been strange the last couple of years!!! Winds are normally blowing from the North East leading upto Christmas once the land warms up (think Semptermber-ish onwards). Then from late January they tend to go to the South East till it gets cold again. When Cold, its usually blowing from the West in varying unpredictable angles and velocity!! I say this as a sailor, not as an aviator because I am more familiar with the surface winds on Moreton bay. However, nothing is normal in Moreton Bay, and you can expect South Easters at anytime, so YRED is a great place for learning crosswinds! South Easters are normally blowing at about 15knots too.When I was doing my initial training I must have done about a dozen lessons waiting for a crosswind. At that time, I think I must have racked up about 10 hours doing solo circuits because there was no wind at all. That just never happens! at YRED!! Then now, my last two instructed lessons I have done the worst crosswind landings ever, with only about 5 knots from the southeast. Yet I went up for a private hire about 2 weeks ago, and did one of the best crosswind landings I have ever done in my life, in 15G20. Go figure. I did see all the Bob Tait CPL students watching me on the way out, and I have been there eating lunch observing and critiquing. Maybe that had an influence on my landing! I would've thought you might have done your crosswind landings at YCAB, if the winds are not blowing the right direction at YRED, its not a long flight from there.
Pearo Posted June 29, 2015 Posted June 29, 2015 I would've thought you might have done your crosswind landings at YCAB, if the winds are not blowing the right direction at YRED, its not a long flight from there. Only problem was that every booking I had there was no wind!! I had plans to go to YCAB or YCDR if we got any wind above 10 knots. It was a laughing point for a while. Most new students book early mornings to avoid crosswind, and I was booking late afternoon trying to get a typical 15knots South Easter.. Apparently that is common for students who are ready to do their first area solo!!!
lprigan1 Posted June 29, 2015 Posted June 29, 2015 My last flight was a very special one - my first solo!! I still couldn't believe it when the CFI jumped out the plane and sent me off on my own. Just one circuit mind you but I have been riding high all week :) 8 4
SDQDI Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 On Saturday we had organised for a few friends to come over for a bonfire in the evening so first thing I was flat out getting things sorted, but by 10:30 I was finished and had nothing else to fill in time so I decided it was a good time to ring up my cousins down the road and see if they wanted to go for a fly. Well the answer was yes of course (I have taken most people up around here except a few of my cousins, a bit slack on my part but I'm working on it!) So I told them I would fly down and fly from their place, I have been over their place plenty of times so had landing areas sorted. As I went down to do my preflight I got spotted by son (2 and a half) and he made it clear he wanted a fly too, so after a preflight and a warm up I took him for just a 5 minute wide circle flight which had him smiling and satisfied. So down to my cousins place I went, the landing spot I picked was a road which led to their house, it was fairly short and good fun (it did still have the option of a go around if needed) then it was down to who went first. There was four of them, two boys (teenagers) and mum and dad, so youngest boy got first go then oldest then mum and then dad:thumb up:. I took them all on the same track, from their place near Caroona towards breeza then tracked for werris creek, Quirindi then back home, by the time I had finished it was nearly 2:30! Hardly a bump in the sky it was just beautiful. After all that I flew home and got the plane tucked in and then our visitors turned up, so all in all a very good day. 4
Pearo Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 My last flight was a very special one - my first solo!! I still couldn't believe it when the CFI jumped out the plane and sent me off on my own. Just one circuit mind you but I have been riding high all week :) High fives allround!! Once you crack that solo, the rest is a breeze. Your will be out there on your own in no time now. 3
Russ Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 Old chinese proverb........it's better to be down here, and wishing you were up there.....rather than up there, and wishing you was down here. get some hrs up........then re engage instructor to skill you up with side slipping and serious Xwind landing teckneeks ( wrong spelling )
Old Koreelah Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 On Saturday we had organised for a few friends to come over for a bonfire in the evening so first thing I was flat out getting things sorted, but by 10:30 I was finished and had nothing else to fill in time so I decided it was a good time to ring up my cousins down the road and see if they wanted to go for a fly... ...and here I am stuck on the ground, trying to concentrate on my work, while SD keeps flying over my place. Just got back to work and a CT-4 trainer flew over and did a series of aeros. Lucky buggers!
SDQDI Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 Snuck out for an after lunch fly again today, even sent OK a text so he could watch me on ozrunways traffic:whistling: Checked another cousins place out closely to see if a farm road there would be suitable and all looked good:thumb up: I didn't use it today as they were busy so after that I headed back to YQDI for a few slow circuits. It was overcast today with light showers to the south on the range and foothills but was really smooth with not much breeze at all.
Old Koreelah Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 OzRunways traffic opens up a whole new topic of conversation. Couldn't find a tutorial on Traffic so I assume the following: the little blue icons shows direction of travel, altitude, rego and whether the aircraft is climbing or descending. If a flight plan was made and "Go Fly" selected it's shown, along with the aircraft rego. If not, it's "unknown". (Open to corrections) Altitude seems to be shown as FL above ground, rather than AMSL. Wonder why?
Guest Andys@coffs Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 Ozrunway height can only be GPS derived height because obviously there is no barometric input into the ipad/iphone/android beast. (althought iphone 6 does infact now have a bareometric sensor, but I don't believe its QNH adjusted. I suspect the next full-size and mini ipads will probably also have the same sensor. Whether useful to aviators, or not remains to be seen). As I understand it GPS altitude is AMSL not above ground. Why then a difference between what you read on the altimeter and what s reported by Ozrunways? Well QNH is only an approximation for an area of operations so that if 2 aircraft are in the same location and subject to the same local pressure variations from the used QNH they are still accurately relative to each other, despite the displayed altitude and the actual altitude AMSL being quite different (except where area QNH actual is the local QNH...rare considering the sizes of our areas) . Altitude is the least accurate dimension for GPS but long term I can see us probably all ditching barometric sensors because again it doesn't matter the exact altitude, just that all close participants suffer the same inaccuracies and therefore can determine delta's between each other. That is, crossing traffic care more for the 1000ft of separation rather than if each of then has an error of +150ft due to area QNH not being the exact location of the crossing QNH. Hope that makes sense Andy OBTW, MSL for GPS is a mathematical approximation, but compared to the inaccuracies of QNH not a big one....
frank marriott Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 It appears to me that the alt in the blue circle shows +/- feet to your altitude, obviously from a GPS altitude. I have noticed on the last couple of trips that a following aircraft at 1500ft when I was at 2000ft showed up at -500ft. If you are looking whilst on the ground it gives +feet from your elevataion. Seems to work well - quasy TCAS type info. Aircraft landing at YCHT [elevation 950ft] showed +1000ft whilst I was on the ground at YBTL [elev 35ft] 2 1
mnewbery Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 Canberra, Bankstown, Habour Scenic 1, Victor 1, Jibbon Point, Lake Bathurst, Canberra. About 4 hours in two landings 1
SDQDI Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 It appears to me that the alt in the blue circle shows +/- feet to your altitude, obviously from a GPS altitude. I have noticed on the last couple of trips that a following aircraft at 1500ft when I was at 2000ft showed up at -500ft. If you are looking whilst on the ground it gives +feet from your elevataion. Seems to work well - quasy TCAS type info. Aircraft landing at YCHT [elevation 950ft] showed +1000ft whilst I was on the ground at YBTL [elev 35ft] That makes so much more sense frank. Today I was flying around and OK had me around 200feet lower agl than I thought I was but he lives on a little hill which would account for the 200 feet difference. 1
Old Koreelah Posted June 30, 2015 Posted June 30, 2015 Frank your interpretation makes sense of what I have been observing. Having an altitude reading in terms of your own height is more useful than AMSL.
Geoff13 Posted July 15, 2015 Posted July 15, 2015 How good was today. I got to combine work and pleasure (what am I saying, work has been pleasure for me most of my life. That is the bonus of loving your job.). I retired the day before ANZAC Day. But I have retained 2 trucks and control of the business. My children drive the trucks, and my daughter runs the operations for me whilst my son has taken over management of maintenance etc. I have decided to replace the Scania V8 @ 1.4 million ks with something a bit newer. As she is worth nothing as a tradein, I will keep her as a back up and on the really busy days if I get bored I can go give her a run. That is the problem with having a job you actually love it is very hard to walk away. Anyway to the flying. I had 3 trucks to look at today. One in Dalby, One in Rocklea and One in Toowoomba. So up to Caboolture, into the Foxbat flew to Dalby and test drove the first one, then onto Toowoomba to try the second one then home to Caboolture and drive to Rocklea on the way home to try the 3rd one. I had never been into Toowoomba before, and I got asked for my ASIC which in fact I was able to produce. A great days flying and I managed to pick up a very good truck at the right price as well. In and around controlled and Restricted airspace all day which kept me on my toes. And I did it using paper maps but I will admit to keeping a check on myself from time to time with Oz runways. All in all it was a great day. The only way it could have been better in hind sight is if I had ridden my bike to and from the airfield. 8
Guest Maj Millard Posted July 19, 2015 Posted July 19, 2015 A quickie over to Donnington and back today with a bit of fire spotting on arrival back at Montpelier Airpark....
pmccarthy Posted July 19, 2015 Posted July 19, 2015 I have been wary of last light since landing in the dark many years ago. But I had only a twenty minute hop on the weekend with clear skies so I planned close to last light. It was beautiful seeing the shadows grow across the wintry ground and a golden sunset through a bank of clouds far to the west. I will do it again. 1 1
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