Missing plane from Gympie yesterday

[jakej]

We need to be mindful that the 'regs' are the MINIMUM requirements, you have a higher dof equipment if you wish or can afford. FV - there are many of the 406 ELT units that are impact activated, they just cost more. Maybe a solution could be to charge some of the SAR costs to those involved that don't carry at least a PLB ?

 

More regulation is not wanted or needed, education & some inner thinking is. This is a general comment not directed at anyone in particular - How often do some posters here have to remind those (who decide that they don't have to or comply with the regs) that their actions CAN or WILL result in more rules & therefore more costs too ? Those people are ruining it for all of us - end of this rant !!

 

Jake J

 

 

[Birdseye]

I would like to see us carrying an impact activated device. Some of the expensive searches could have been avoided if one had been carried. Besides the tax payer's funds, there is also the stress on family and friends as the days drag on and a less favourable outcome if injuries are involved.

I said that back in post #58 and was told egg spurts had said otherwise. An accident could involve loss of conciousness/incapacitaion and still be survivable, but if you can't operate the PLB how do they find you?

 

 

[bexrbetter]

I would like to see us carrying an impact activated device.

Yeah, but let's concentrate on avoiding the impact.

 

education & some inner thinking is.

Serious question, you have an engine out over tiger country - exactly how is training going to make a difference?

 

Plenty of experienced Pilots in highly maintained GA aircraft have been lost to this situation.

 

 

[Doug Evans]

Me personally I don't fly country that you can't land and I do all my flight by IFR"I follow roads " or I fly high enoth to make a road or paddock Plus my wife allways follow my path by the Ipad or Iphone Tracker so if the s.... dose hit the fan some one always know where I am .

 

I do have PLB which i keep close at hand aswell and allways tell her by phone on take off & landing s

 

It seem too work for me

 

Doug

 

 

[turboplanner]

Serious question, you have an engine out over tiger country - exactly how is training going to make a difference?Plenty of experienced Pilots in highly maintained GA aircraft have been lost to this situation.

You are/should be/should have been trained not to flight plan over so-called tiger country unless you are able to maintain a height which allows you to glide clear.

 

So that training will make all the difference in the world.

 

Before someone says "If you can't do that you can't fly", as an example, none of the operations leasing the aircraft I flew would allow aircraft to track directly from Melbourne over the top of the Great Dividing Range to the north. During training, one solo Navex was from Melbourne to Albury and part of the training was to flight plan to meet this requirement.

 

This means that a lot of people would not be making the flights they boast about today in aircraft with a much lower engine reliability.

 

Looking at it from another point of view, if your touch down speed is 65 kts, you are rolling at 121 km/hr, 60 kts - 111 km/hr, 50 kts - 81 km/hr, and you are rolling in something much less steerable, with much less braking, and which is much more fragile than a car, so you don't have to be Einstein to know than unless you have relatively smooth ground, with relatively few trees, you are going to be torn to pieces along with your passenger. And that's what has happened on many occasions in crashes we've all seen in recent years. Around Melbourne two have occurred following an EFATO where there simply was nowhere to land without being killed.

 

Can't do it? Don't do it.

 

 

[Aldo]

Aldo, This pilot was a very experienced and current cross- country pilot ( are you ?)...he recently completed a trip halfway around the country flying mostly over remote areas, in all sorts of Weather. Recently he stayed firmly planted on the ground awaiting out weather for two days in the North, he was not in the habit of going until the WX was ok. I trust his judgement in deciding to go when he did. I can tell you now, you need to reserve your judgement as this may well turn out not to be a WX related accident at all.

Maj

 

It is a sad day when the aviation community looses an experienced member (or any member for that matter) but it doesn't matter how experienced you are, if you are not able to make the decision not to fly or to turn around before it's too late you shouldn't be flying (I know we have all been in that situation but we shouldn't be is what I'm saying). There have been enough weather, go no go related deaths in this industry for all of us to take more than a second look when it is marginal VFR and scud running is fraught with danger particularly in mountainous terrain.

 

I don't know what the weather was at the crash site but enough people have posted here that it wasn't particularly good. I'm west of the range and the weather wasn't particularly suitable for flying here (but there are no mountains around and lots of open cultivation paddocks if things turn bad) as a general rule if the weather west of the range is not good it will not be better over the range or east of it.

 

I don't know what the cause was (may have been a heart attack) but I'm sure weather will not be off the table anytime soon.

 

Aldo

 

 

[microman]

You are/should be/should have been trained not to flight plan over so-called tiger country unless you are able to maintain a height which allows you to glide clear.So that training will make all the difference in the world.

Before someone says "If you can't do that you can't fly", as an example, none of the operations leasing the aircraft I flew would allow aircraft to track directly from Melbourne over the top of the Great Dividing Range to the north. During training, one solo Navex was from Melbourne to Albury and part of the training was to flight plan to meet this requirement.

 

This means that a lot of people would not be making the flights they boast about today in aircraft with a much lower engine reliability.

 

Looking at it from another point of view, if your touch down speed is 65 kts, you are rolling at 121 km/hr, 60 kts - 111 km/hr, 50 kts - 81 km/hr, and you are rolling in something much less steerable, with much less braking, and which is much more fragile than a car, so you don't have to be Einstein to know than unless you have relatively smooth ground, with relatively few trees, you are going to be torn to pieces along with your passenger. And that's what has happened on many occasions in crashes we've all seen in recent years. Around Melbourne two have occurred following an EFATO where there simply was nowhere to land without being killed.

 

Can't do it? Don't do it.

Whoops - too late - I guess my flight over the Southern Alps last week would be regarded by turboplanner and Doug as totally irresponsible - since I would have needed to get to 12,000 ft in order to glide to a safe landing if the engine had stopped and I only managed 7500 - I suppose I had better stick to flying around the Canterbury Plains in future. In fact, if I dont fly at all then I really will be completely safe. Rather boring though!

 

 

[KRviator]

One thing I've not seen mentioned is APRS.

 

For those who don't know what it is, Automatic Packet Reporting System is basically a home-brewed ADS-B for anyone and everything. Your boat, plane, or even your wifes car! Here's an example of what's out and about in Sydney.

 

You get your amateur radio licence (Standard licence), buy the hardware (around $250AUD) install it in your plane, and go fly, and anyone in the world can track your flight in near real time, so long as you're in range of either a digipeater or an Igate, and lets face it, in a plane you're pretty much guaranteed to be where most of us fly.

 

It's quite popular with the RV crowd in the US and I'll be installing it in my RV soon as I get the licence out of the way.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Whoops - too late - I guess my flight over the Southern Alps last week would be regarded by turboplanner and Doug as totally irresponsible - since I would have needed to get to 12,000 ft in order to glide to a safe landing if the engine had stopped and I only managed 7500 - I suppose I had better stick to flying around the Canterbury Plains in future. In fact, if I dont fly at all then I really will be completely safe. Rather boring though!

I've been flown around the Southern Alps by fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, and none of the pilots left themselves without an escape route smart men.

 

We don't have anything in Australia that compares with the magnitude of the southern alps.

 

In your case, you even knew the performance requirement, 12,000 feet for your suggested safe flight yet still persisted, so you are asking for it.

 

There's no way a properly trained and competent airman even in an Ultralight would be restricted to the Canterbury Plains, and the rest of the sentence is just whistling past the graveyard. You need to have a heart to heart talk to a good pilot.

 

 

[Birdseye]

One thing I've not seen mentioned is APRS.For those who don't know what it is, Automatic Packet Reporting System is basically a home-brewed ADS-B for anyone and everything.

It's absolutely nothing like ADS-B. The only thing it does that ADS-B does is transmit a position, but that is to a amateur or amateur repeater station *if* it is in range. Outside of major centres the coverage rapidly disappears. You would be better to run a SPOT tracker than APRS. You could try it on HF, but if you could fit in even my little FT-817 HF, a wire antenna and antenna tuner the aircraft would be crowded and overweight.

 

 

[AVOCET]

Whoops - too late - I guess my flight over the Southern Alps last week would be regarded by turboplanner and Doug as totally irresponsible - since I would have needed to get to 12,000 ft in order to glide to a safe landing if the engine had stopped and I only managed 7500 - I suppose I had better stick to flying around the Canterbury Plains in future. In fact, if I dont fly at all then I really will be completely safe. Rather boring though!

You never think it 'll happen to you ,

 

Until it does .!

 

Ye're , tell me about it .

 

Mike .

 

 

[KRviator]

I beg to differ.

 

APRS is almost exactly like ADS-B, both in operation and function,the major differences being frequency allocation and ADS-B's inclusion of the Ident function. Both transmit similar data, including GPS position and altitude, specific ID (Flight #/Callsign), ground track and speed, and both do not care if there is anyone - or no one - to recieve the data.

 

From 5000' your radio range is around 70NM, extending to 100NM around 10,000'. If you can't hit a digipeater within 100km on the J-curve, I would be very spurprised!

 

I would never trust my life to APRS, but it is another tool that is available, cheap (FREE once you've bought the hardware!), easy to use, generally reliable and one that you can set-and-forget in your pane.

 

To me, that makes it worthwhile.

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

To me.......3G/4G has significant advantages over the APRS approach.....and most people have the smartphone/tablet hardware already and are actively using it already for EFB purposes.......SPoT for if you really must fly in areas where no cell coverage at altitude is possible

 

Still as you suggest its not a case of mandated use, its yet another approach...the really prudent guy might well have more than 2 approaches knowing that if one fails at a point of time for whatever reason the others may well be doing their job still

 

 

[jakej]

Yeah, but let's concentrate on avoiding the impact.

 

 

 

Serious question, you have an engine out over tiger country - exactly how is training going to make a difference?

 

Plenty of experienced Pilots in highly maintained GA aircraft have been lost to this situation.

Bex

 

It's not about the cause of a SAR exercise it's about easy & quickly it is to rescue you especially if injured or in a very remote location. So many have risked their lives searches over a much larger area, & hostile country, when a Gps enabled PLB could pinpoint the location.

 

Jake J

 

 

[rankamateur]

So many have risked their lives searches over a much larger area, & hostile country, when a Gps enabled PLB could pinpoint the location.

So that is not about to change until Electrophone and others get their act together and bring out an impact activated, shock tolerant beacon.

 

 

[aj_richo]

an impact activated, shock tolerant beacon

Just don't drop it!

 

 

[jakej]

So that is not about to change until Electrophone and others get their act together and bring out an impact activated, shock tolerant beacon.

Ok, you got me - I'll play the game . what level of shock do you suggest should activate a beacon ?

 

Jake J

 

 

[jakej]

Just don't drop it!

AJ

 

Check your PM

 

 

[rankamateur]

Ok, you got me - I'll play the game . what level of shock do you suggest should activate a beacon ?Jake J

Would be good to be more than a 1m fall onto a concrete hangar floor. Maybe more like airbag activation levels of shock, or something in between. Amounts of deceleration likely to incapacitate the user.

 

 

[jakej]

I can see it now... people accidently falling off their aircraft & setting off the beacon or just by dropping it. PLB with a 'shock' switch ?? surely you're joking ???

 

That's why the aircraft types are secured to airframe, they have a 'G' switch which works in the fore/aft direction to activate on impact.

 

Maybe I've just read the context of your post incorrectly

 

 

[Happyflyer]

I suggest a new type that goes off with pressure. Put it between your cheeks and when things go bad....off it goes!

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

can't believe people debate this. if you can afford a fancy panel for your fancy parrot then you can afford a self activating epirb

 

Mandatory epirbs like yesterday end of story. Buy one ya cheapskate save maybe a rescuers life and a heap of fuel.

 

 

[jakej]

My sentiments exactly !!!

 

Many years ago we flew our home built to NZ with 3 x beacons (1 each + fixed unit) & a life raft plus 3 x life jackets. Why, because I could & I wanted to be rescued quickly IF I ditched (it's the hypothermia I worry about) not saying we all should have this level of equipment, it was just our preferred level.

 

 

[rankamateur]

Would be good to be more than a 1m fall onto a concrete hangar floor. Maybe more like airbag activation levels of shock, or something in between. Amounts of deceleration likely to incapacitate the user.

It would be just as applicable to a Solo man landing badly on rocks when his kayak went astray or a rock climber or hiker coming to grief off a cliff, just not able to get it together enough to put the aerial up.

 

Edit: Of course Solo man would be on Red Bull these days.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

It would be just as applicable to a Solo man landing badly on rocks when his kayak went astray or a rock climber or hiker coming to grief off a cliff, just not able to get it together enough to put the aerial up.Edit: Of course Solo man would be on Red Bull these days.

The GPS equipped beacon that I have ($285) has a length of cable that just flicks up when the beacon is activated with removal of a seal. It looks like the manufacturers have made it as simple as they possibly could, and as easy to activate quickly.

Additionally, and especially if solo man is on Redbull the beacon could be activated prior to the contact with the rocks if that contact is imminent, just like we can also activate in the air prior to making an emergency landing. AMSA don't have a problem with us doing that, and additionally the current batch of beacons can be switched off again, unlike previous models. No argument as I see it.