Flying during Lockdown

[kgwilson]

Which is why you have no more to give.

 

 

[Garfly]

Maybe so, but his Thruster is still good.

 

[aro]

51 minutes ago, Flightrite said:

Jacks there's quite a few that have flown during lockdown (me included) and like they say it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission

Do you think there might be a link between people with this attitude, and the thousands of pilots not flying because interstate travel between Melbourne/Sydney/other states is shut down? Or the pilots employed in the tourist industry that is shut down? Did pilots have it better earlier this year when things were open, or now?

 

Maybe you need to think about who you are talking to when you say you don't give a f* about other people.

[jackc]

I am one of the nicest guys around, when treated like a normal human being.

Spent a lot of my life helping others at my financial expense, and still do…..

BUT, treat me like a dog and kick me in the guts for no good reason?

I will do my utmost to rain down B52 loads of steaming turds, like you have never seen……in 10 lifetimes 🙂

 

[BirdDog]

1 hour ago, skippydiesel said:

 

I don t get it - how do you/your CHO and others not understand - in a quarantine situation, your personal risk, situation, wants & desires is not the issue.

You are either in lockdown or not, there is no grey area.

Every time the authorities make an exception or an individual decides the rules do not apply to them, the quarantine is compromised eg Sydney and its fake lockdown, now in its 12th (?) week or something, costing a squillion of dollars to the economy and almost completely ineffective, has (wilfully) exported the virus to other States and the NSW hinterland.

The act of getting into your aircraft alone has zero risk of CV 19 spread/infection HOWEVER, presumably you had to travel to/from the airfield, your vehicle/aircraft required fuel, you picked up a takeaway going to/coming from, you had a conversation with the security guard/fellow pilot/LAIM, may be your aircraft didn't start and a "jump" battery was required, your car broke down, was involved in an accident - the list of potential human contact goes on and on. In short you have increased your risk of contraction/spreading of CV19.

Even if your risk of contracting/spreading CV19 was nil - the example you set, both in your trip to/from the airfield, as you buzz around overhead, is sending the worst signal possible to the thousands/millions in lockdown, who are not so privileged. Shame on you! 

 

Hmm but by your example, then we should be at home in the dark, because in your "true lockdown" example, nobody could leave home to run the power station.  Deliver food to woolies.  Run the TV station.  

 

So you see, there are plenty of examples where people MUST leave their home.

 

 

[turboplanner]

1 minute ago, BirdDog said:

 

Hmm but by your example, then we should be at home in the dark, because in your "true lockdown" example, nobody could leave home to run the power station.  Deliver food to woolies.  Run the TV station.  

 

So you see, there are plenty of examples where people MUST leave their home.

 

 

All of the positions you mention are risks necessary for the operation of the community and a lot of skilled thinking takes place before they are freed up. Sometimes the conditions they operate under to minimise any spread are very stressful.

 

Even some of the lockdown conditions are based on a degree of risk - schools open with skeleton staff to allow essential workers like nurses to do their jobs as an example.

 

Each lockdown is different, with a different set of limitations. Each State applies them to suit the circumstances, case-loads, hospital capacities etc.

 

This thread referred to the Current Melbourne Lockdown where the OP didn't bother to check with DHHS, so wasted all our time and allowed some of these irresponsibe comments to flourish. 

[skippydiesel]

Curtesy of Octave from CV19 conversation/thread:

 

As an analogy it is like we are on a boat that is taking on water. 

 

 The captain wants us to urgently bail water out of the boat.    Most of the passengers can see the sense in this and are putting in a joint effort to save the boat.    A few of the passengers are objecting.  "You cant tell me what to do"   or "you are exaggerating the danger of the boat taking on water" or "we just have to live with a certain amount of water in the boat"  or "you people are just afraid and hysterical, it is just water after all"    or " we are all going to die one day anyway"   or  "I don't mind bailing water out but this bucket this isn't the best bucket, I will just wait for a better bucket"  or  "I will wait to see how successful the people bailing out water are and if it seems to work then I will join in"

 

Not only this but some the "anti bailers"  want to convince people not to bail even though they are likely to benefit from the majority.   I respect your right not to help bail out the water but just get out of the way and let the rest of us do it.  Don't be surprised if the other passengers judge you.

[BirdDog]

On 05/09/2021 at 1:47 PM, skippydiesel said:

 

 

My position is simple ; You (we) either do quarantine as it should be done or forget it. Where there is the threat of highly infectious disease, there is no such thing as success partial quarantine.

 

I don't want to be "that guy" but I am just identifying that it can't be as stated above.  There are many reasons why people leave their home.

Work

Education

Essential Utilities

Medical

Care Givers

Zoo Keepers that need to feed animals

 

The list goes on and on and on.

To single out one person (ME) and state that I have contributed because I drove from my house to my hangar in a community that has never had a single case, is a bit insulting.

 

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

4 minutes ago, BirdDog said:

 

I don't want to be "that guy" but I am just identifying that it can't be as stated above.  There are many reasons why people leave their home.

Work

Education

Essential Utilities

Medical

Care Givers

Zoo Keepers that need to feed animals

 

The list goes on and on and on.

To single out one person (ME) and state that I have contributed because I drove from my house to my hangar in a community that has never had a single case, is a bit insulting.

Pretty much all the people who breach quarantine use that sort of logic.

 

The bottom line is the number of essential workers (the Risk) is very small.

That leaves the very large group parked in one spot, where any infected people quickly form clusters which are quickly identified and isolate, so within a couple of weeks the numbers decline and then peter out.

Several cities have successfully demonstrated this concept which is why we don't have 20,000 deaths in Australia to date.

 

What's wrecking things in Sydney and Melbourne are the quite large groups moving around creating community spread of the virus.

 

The "We have never had a single case" cry has been busted again and again around Australia. Sure an isoltade place can't generate its own virus, but they all have suppliers and they all have relatives and its just a question of whether any of those numbers are carriers.  What they all universally have is no ability to deal with a community spread, so are much more dangerous than the cities.

 

As far as going from home to hangar, well that would be without taking a mate, without stopping to get a coffee, without stopping to fuel the car or jerry can for the aircraft, without meeting anyone at the hangar or taking a visitor up with you, or helping someone shift aircraft to get yours out, or having someone come up to you at the airport without a mask because pilots don't need them, and pretty much the same on the way home, plus as someone else mentioned endangering first responders if you have a mishap. There were quite a few exemptions last year, but the abuses were legendary and this year with Delta is a different ball game.

[waraton]

I love to fly, on a normal week would get up at least twice a week and like others I am really missing it. I have the scope (arguably) to go for a fly but I choose not to because in the unlikely/unfortunate/random event that things go poorly I do not want to put emergency services under additional pressure. Even local police are flat out, hospitals, GPs, ambos, are going above and beyond anything they could have foreseen when they signed up. 

 

Not much else I can do to help except to stay out of the way and wait patiently for opportunities for us all to come back online. Its shit sandwich for everyone.

[skippydiesel]

1 hour ago, BirdDog said:

 

I don't want to be "that guy" but I am just identifying that it can't be as stated above.  There are many reasons why people leave their home.

Work

Education

Essential Utilities

Medical

Care Givers

Zoo Keepers that need to feed animals

 

The list goes on and on and on.

To single out one person (ME) and state that I have contributed because I drove from my house to my hangar in a community that has never had a single case, is a bit insulting.

 

 

 

 

The two previous posters pretty much said it all.

 

Yes, unfortunately for quarantine security, there must be exceptions, your list gives some of them.

 

"Work" , play, etc etc in most instances is not essential for the few days - 3 weeks, a proper quarantine/Lockdown would be for - it becomes essential when quarantine in unsuccessful, due to inadequate controls/restrictions/people breaking quarantine, thereby extending the length of Lockdown.

 

You singled yourself out, by telling us all about your flying activities.

 

I beggars belief, that such a simple concept as quarantine, that has been around almost as long as man stood up on two feet, can be so misunderstood/flouted in this so called modern age.

Sure, our complex interdependencies make implementation difficult but as long as individuals somehow believe their right to independent determination on this point, trumps the pandemic, quarantine will at best be prolonged/ partially successful and worst fail altogether (Sydney).

 

 

[jackc]

He told the truth about what he has done?  Skip, have you ever wagged school, b/s’d you way out of dong something so you could escape the task and do what you wanted?

[skippydiesel]

2 hours ago, jackc said:

He told the truth about what he has done?  Skip, have you ever wagged school, b/s’d you way out of dong something so you could escape the task and do what you wanted?

May be - aint telling (that's the difference)

[derekliston]

Only telling you what she said!!!  Irrelevant because here in Qld we are not currently in lockdown! Who knows for how long though???

Edited September 9, 2021 by derekliston
Grammatical error

[facthunter]

Enjoy it while it lasts.  I was in Warwick on a Veteran motorcycle rally about 20 years ago. Nev

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, derekliston said:

Only telling you what she said!!!  Irrelevant because here in Qld we are not currently in lockdown! Who knows for how long though???

Why bring out of date ridiculous stuff up then; some of us have been locked up for nearly three months and in no mood for irresponsible claptrap.

[KRviator]

So today, I went out to the hangar (read, I walked out my laundry door and past my clothes line to get there....🙃) to do a bit of troubleshooting to see if I could work out what happened yesterday.

 

I drained 55L of fuel from the right tank, had a look at the vent line (clear) and also a look at the CAV-110 fuel drain that showed it had a few small bits of accumulated debris in its' ports which led me to break out the borescope to try to verify the fuel pickup was unobstructed. 

I couldn't get a good view of the pickup, simply due to the angle and the borescope not being able to bend sufficiently - though I did get it stuck on the fuel sender for several minutes while I contemplated both how long it would take me to remove the tank + borescope from the wing to unjam it and how long Vans would take to get a new tank access plate gasket to me in the post....

After getting it sorted, I added 5L of the removed fuel and pulled her out to do some ground runs, and she started and idled smoothly on the right tank as she has for the last few years, ran up to full power and held it beautifully, but lo and behold, after getting everything up to temperature, she's stumbling and pig-rootin just like she did yesterday, however, using the diaphragm override on the Rotec, I could recover the RPM each time it faltered. Not well enough to hold a specific RPM, but enough to keep me airborne if needed. On shutdown to add some more fuel, I left the Dynon's powered and fuel pressure climbed from the normal 5PSI to well over 20PSI in around 4 minutes - the highest I can ever recall seeing it and well above the capacity of the electric boost pump, suggesting the fuel is indeed boiling in the lines.

 

She wouldn't restart and idle, yet alone run smoothly, after adding the extra fuel so I had to tow her to the Avgas bowser, but I refueled the right side with Avgas, added a few litres to the left to top it off and will repeat the ground runs tomorrow to see if she is more stable with Avgas instead of 98, but for now, I think @BirdDog wins the choccy frog. I use the same pump at the same servo every time, so all I can put it down to, is having different blends (summer v winter?!?) of 98RON in the left & right tanks though I thought that was more a diesel thing, a bit of Googling suggests it happens with unleaded as well.

Edited September 9, 2021 by KRviator

[Old Koreelah]

8 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

Curtesy of Octave from CV19 conversation/thread:

 

As an analogy it is like we are on a boat that is taking on water. 

 

 The captain wants us to urgently bail water out of the boat.    Most of the passengers can see the sense in this and are putting in a joint effort to save the boat.    A few of the passengers are objecting.  "You cant tell me what to do"   or "you are exaggerating the danger of the boat taking on water" or "we just have to live with a certain amount of water in the boat"  or "you people are just afraid and hysterical, it is just water after all"    or " we are all going to die one day anyway"   or  "I don't mind bailing water out but this bucket this isn't the best bucket, I will just wait for a better bucket"  or  "I will wait to see how successful the people bailing out water are and if it seems to work then I will join in"

 

Not only this but some the "anti bailers"  want to convince people not to bail even though they are likely to benefit from the majority.   I respect your right not to help bail out the water but just get out of the way and let the rest of us do it.  Don't be surprised if the other passengers judge you.

Octave’s analogy is the best I’ve seen; so good I shared it with friends.

Perhaps Flighty could explain why he finds it funny.

[Garfly]

 

1 hour ago, Old Koreelah said:

Octave’s analogy is the best I’ve seen; so good I shared it with friends.

Perhaps Flighty could explain why he finds it funny.

 

      Different folks 🖤 different jokes.  What can we say?    ;- )

 

[Old Koreelah]

I flew a few circuits yesterday, then like, Kevin, did the mowing.

We will be charged landing fees after this month, so I’m getting in all the STOL circuits I can! 

 

As with Sth Grafton, our club maintains the airport terminal grounds.. We have two ancient mowers, a Husky and a RAM zero turn which get the job done in a couple if hours. Best season we’ve seen, so need to mow weekly. I alternate between mower and wizzer, which keeps the edges neat.

 

Biggest problem is hammering given to my bad back by the deep ruts left when huge harvesting machinery uses our grounds.

 

[jackc]

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/grim-satellite-images-show-australias-covid-restrictions-from-the-sky/news-story/78e7c5a5508eec07c029a2cdfa2da9e6?utm_campaign=EditorialSB&utm_source=news.com.au&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=SocialBakers

[aro]

Only 1 reason for that: not enough people vaccinated in Australia.

 

And 2 things are holding back vaccination:

1) People avoiding or delaying vaccination

2) The federal government delayed ordering Pfizer vaccines and didn't order enough. We are probably 6-8 months behind other countries as a result.

[BirdDog]

Well, All I can say, from someone who experienced this last year when we were locked down....

 

Never again will I allow myself to go for months without getting in the cockpit to remain recent and proficient.  Last year when that happened, it could have ended very differently.  I won't go into details, only to say, CASA have recent and proficient policies for a reason.

I will probably get flogged by some of you for this, but myself and my organisation are continuing to work (we deliver training to government and other essential services) and I can tell you, me driving to the AD to go for a fly, is the least of your concerns! LOL! 

You do you... I will do me.  🙂  Enjoy!

[BirdDog]

16 hours ago, KRviator said:

So today, I went out to the hangar (read, I walked out my laundry door and past my clothes line to get there....🙃) to do a bit of troubleshooting to see if I could work out what happened yesterday.

 

I drained 55L of fuel from the right tank, had a look at the vent line (clear) and also a look at the CAV-110 fuel drain that showed it had a few small bits of accumulated debris in its' ports which led me to break out the borescope to try to verify the fuel pickup was unobstructed. 

I couldn't get a good view of the pickup, simply due to the angle and the borescope not being able to bend sufficiently - though I did get it stuck on the fuel sender for several minutes while I contemplated both how long it would take me to remove the tank + borescope from the wing to unjam it and how long Vans would take to get a new tank access plate gasket to me in the post....

After getting it sorted, I added 5L of the removed fuel and pulled her out to do some ground runs, and she started and idled smoothly on the right tank as she has for the last few years, ran up to full power and held it beautifully, but lo and behold, after getting everything up to temperature, she's stumbling and pig-rootin just like she did yesterday, however, using the diaphragm override on the Rotec, I could recover the RPM each time it faltered. Not well enough to hold a specific RPM, but enough to keep me airborne if needed. On shutdown to add some more fuel, I left the Dynon's powered and fuel pressure climbed from the normal 5PSI to well over 20PSI in around 4 minutes - the highest I can ever recall seeing it and well above the capacity of the electric boost pump, suggesting the fuel is indeed boiling in the lines.

 

She wouldn't restart and idle, yet alone run smoothly, after adding the extra fuel so I had to tow her to the Avgas bowser, but I refueled the right side with Avgas, added a few litres to the left to top it off and will repeat the ground runs tomorrow to see if she is more stable with Avgas instead of 98, but for now, I think @BirdDog wins the choccy frog. I use the same pump at the same servo every time, so all I can put it down to, is having different blends (summer v winter?!?) of 98RON in the left & right tanks though I thought that was more a diesel thing, a bit of Googling suggests it happens with unleaded as well.

 

Why do I win the Chocy Frog?

 

 

[skippydiesel]

18 minutes ago, jackc said:

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/grim-satellite-images-show-australias-covid-restrictions-from-the-sky/news-story/78e7c5a5508eec07c029a2cdfa2da9e6?utm_campaign=EditorialSB&utm_source=news.com.au&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=SocialBakers

 

2 minutes ago, aro said:

Only 1 reason for that: not enough people vaccinated in Australia.

 

And 2 things are holding back vaccination:

1) People avoiding or delaying vaccination

2) The federal government delayed ordering Pfizer vaccines and didn't order enough. We are probably 6-8 months behind other countries as a result.

I see it differently (surprise !).

 

Despite the incompetence of some of our Governments, we have been luckier than most other nations, in our very low CV19 pandemic.

They (most of the rest of the World) are in the unfortunate situation where they must live & die with C19, so no point in quarantine/Lockdown - hardly a desirable situation.

You can bet they envy us - way lower infection/death rate/damage to our society/econamy.

Sure we are not as open as they are or we would want to be - thank whichever deity to subscribe to. Our time will come soon enough and it may not be pleasant.

 

Aro 2) - personally (& surprisingly) I am behind the Gov on this. I hope they made the best decision at the time. Turned out to be wrong but that's just "how the cookie crumbles" - we need to move on and take what happened as a lesson learned. I dont see us as being "6-8 months behind" - we are way behind their hospitalisation & death rate - to me that puts as in the lead.