Lack of Airmanship

[Guest Cirrus]

Ahh! There you go! http://tinyurl.com/25hsxy

 

Bugger it beating you .. just hope one day it saves your ****! Can I say **** in here? ;)

 

Do they operate in Australia? If so, why do not more people have/use them?

 

 

[Guest browng]

Do they operate in Australia? If so, why do not more people have/use them?

They operate anywhere that Mode C operates, but bear in mind that it will not detect threats unless they are fitted with a transponder and it is transmitting, i.e. turned on. I like this kit and will buy one when I can afford to, it will even work in my non-electric antique, but I won't kid myself that it is much help where ultralights, gyros, antique non-electric types, balloons, hang gliders, etc etc, are concerned, just transponder equipped traffic and only transponder equipped traffic. A nice addition to the safety toolkit, but it won't alter one iota the overwhelming priority of the bifocal radar on either side of my nose.

 

 

[Mazda]

The best defence is still a really good look out. I fly a bright yellow aircraft. I make calls in the circuit. I turn on my landing light on approach, even during the day.

 

Yet I've still had someone call "entering and lining up" on my runway while I was on short final. Yep. Radio calls, bright yellow aircraft and a landing light, but some wally couldn't hear or see me when I was only seconds from landing.

 

It makes you wonder about the standard of training and look out doesn't it? It was a high wing - maybe he couldn't see me through the wing and didn't re-position to have a look?

 

 

[Yenn]

I am told that my yellow aircraft is hard to see from below, even against a blue sky.

 

Strobe loghts fitted to an ultralight at Rodds Bay are seen ages after the plane has been spotted, but landing lights are great.

 

Strobes are good at night or even dusk.

 

Dayglow paint is a pure pain. I have repainted my wing and tail tips twice in 5 years and all the dayglow has eroded away. I am now trying a dark green to contrast with the yellow, but have no feedback.

 

To stop the problems of being overtaken in the circuit, maybe a rearward facing strobe would help. The overtaking aircraft would hopefully see you against the background of terra firma more easily than against a bright sky.

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

.

 

If TCAS etc is so good, why are there regional airliners in Australia with out any collision warning devices fitted to their aircraft ?

 

These TCAS type units have been out a number of years now.

 

HPD

 

 

[youngmic]

HPD,

 

There is no IF TCAS is so good, it is so good.

 

And the reason it is not installed is simple, I'm surprised you didn't pick it.

 

Cost.

 

The very same reason they are hemorrhaging pilots because they refuse to pay.

 

Regards

 

Mick

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

Qoute - And the reason it is not installed is simple, I'm surprised you didn't pick it.

 

 

 

Cost.

 

 

Dont worry Mick, I picked up the reason straight away.:)

 

HPD

 

 

[Mazda]

It's one of the differences in Australia compared with other countries. Many countries mandate TCAS & TAWS for their regionals (10 to 30 pax).

 

 

[facthunter]

Relevence to us.

 

Of course TCAS is good in the right environment. I think you are expecting too much of it in our situation. The question is with cost, training required, deflection of attention inside rather than outside, consideration of information overload in congested situations, over-reliance on it. These devices only work with a transponder working and TURNED ON. How many of you fly transponder equiped aircraft?. They have to be checked (aneroid) every 2 years to be valid. ADSB has ongoing maintenance needs too.( plus the negatives of every flight you make being recorded. Turn off the ADSB! so they don't know? That will be 10 years Jail at least).

 

There seems to be an attitude developing that technology is the answer for everything and that the skeptics (like me) are stuck in the past. Let me say ,that my skepticism being the product of being around for a while, is generally well-founded. Unfortunately, in having to insist on reality constantly here, myself (& others), APPEAR to be more against "progress", so called, than we are. I can assure anyone interested that I will be one of the first to embrace any REAL advances that these devices provide, when due & thorough evaluation has been undertaken... Nev

 

 

[Guest browng]

......my skepticism being the product of being around for a while, is generally well-founded.

So true, it makes us older types with a couple of decades or more experience under the belt seem like luddites. I am all for progress, but across the total of all Australian PPL holders, the average currency is just 12 hours per year, and while I don't have RAAus figures, we are all aware of pilots who spend more time flying the barbecue behind their hanger than their aircraft, who spend more time tinkering than flying. There is NO substitute for training and currency, technology is only a solution if it solves your problem, and no amount of technology will solve the problem of skill erosion due to lack of currency. Spend less on gadgets and more on flying, do a recovery from unusual attitudes course, go do some instrument training, you don't need a PPL for dual. These will make you a better AVIATOR, not a flight systems operator. Try flying with less technology, not more, cover your ASI, ALT and Slip Ball and fly rectangles just above the stall, learn how to describe a circle and a box about a point with the nose, start thinking about how slow you can fly instead of how fast.

 

A while back I had to convert a 30,000 hour retired ATPL onto a vintage taildragger, it took 9 hours of training, even though he had started on DC3's and had forgotten more about flying tailwheel than I will ever know, but he had been flying heavies for the last 20,000 hours and had totally lost his skills as a 'raw' aviator. What impressed me about that bloke was that he told me at the very start he estimated it would take 10 hours, he was almost spot on, because he had the depth of experience to know what he didn't know, and in considerable detail.

 

 

[vk3auu]

There already is a system out there which is being used by around 9000 aircraft, mainly gliders. It is called FLARM.

 

It requires 12 volts at 50 milliamps.

 

See http://www.flarm.com/ and my post at

 

http://www.recreationalflying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6135

 

David

 

 

[vk3auu]

Cirrrus et al, the wheel has already been invented.

 

Further to the above also see

 

http://www.lxavionics.co.uk/flarm.htm

 

for a most detailed explanation.

 

The Queensland Gliding Federation are also a source of info.

 

David

 

 

[Dieselten]

Poor Airmanship isn't just confined to one particular airport, it's everywhere,and occasionally its practitioners insist on demonstrating their lack of skill to a wider audience.

 

A few weeks ago at YWOL I was on short final in the microlight, with a C182 on final, behind and higher than I was. In short, I was the low aircraft and conventional wisdom says I have right of way; he should give way to me. I was therefore somewhat taken aback when the pilot of the C182 radioed to me to go around immediately.

 

Not wishing to be cleaned up by an aicraft weighing perhaps four times my weight and doing at least twice my speed, I abandoned my short final, initiated a climb and proceeded to the dead side to give him a clear runway. As he landed I observed to my student that sometimes it is wisest to allow the bigger, heavier aircraft to have first crack at the runway, especially when they are flown by pilots with little understanding of the performance characteristics of lighter machines. I also pointed out that the pilot concerned had just demonstrated his lack of airmanship to several other aircraft in the circuit at the time, at least one of which had a GA instructor in it. Perhaps that instructor took the C182 pilot aside for a few carefully-chosen words afterwards, perhaps not. I haven't followed it up because I am not a GA instructor and furthermore I have no desire to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man!

 

The main thing is I did all I could to avoid becoming a statistic. In theory I could have insisted on my right of way, but I'd rather be alive and getting a bollicking from someone because I refused to stand up for my rights than insist on my right of way and end up being stone-cold, motherless, dead.

 

 

[Guest Cirrus]

As someone said .. "Always be a first rate version of your self instead of a second rate version of someone else."

 

Well done Dieselten

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

With over 9'000 Flarm units sold over the years (appears mostly in Europe), there should be an identifieable reduction in glider mid air colision statistics - is this the case ? It would be interesting to see the numbers.

 

HPD

 

 

[facthunter]

Reality.

 

Good assessment Dieselten. But Might is not right .At the time you go along with it, because it is not worth making an issue of then, but why do these people feel that they have the right to push you around? You are entitled to your piece of the sky . Nev..

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

Research of the Flarm site gave me this - Quote; Intelligent motion prediction to minimise false alarms

 

How often do these false alarms happen ?

 

HPD

 

 

[Mazda]

Well said Browng!!

 

Spending gadget money on additional training and more flying hours sounds far more productive. ;)