Light plane crash The Oaks, 30 March 2023 (edited)

[facthunter]

Merlin was never certified commercial in most countries due to a magneto drive skew gear and the highest TBO was 650 Hours. in any case.  Nev

[kgwilson]

The only good thing about Avgas is its supposed better quality control. Jabiru documentation still recommends Avgas I think for legal reasons. My Gen 3 engine while relatively low in total hours at just under 450 has always been run on automtive petrol, originally 95 but now exclsively 98 due to 95 becoming harder to get, except when away & then an avgas shandy till my next 98 fillup.

 

Leakdowns still 78-80/80, oil stays fairly clean right up to change. No topups required between changes. Plugs never foul but are always black when removed, possibly due to the long taxi after landing and the borescope shows very clean heads, valve seats and piston tops. Engine runs as sweet as a nut and never needs adjustment. I maintain it myself to the Jabiru maintenance specification. I am not a fiddler. I don't think I have had to touch or adjust anything between maintenance schedules. I've got 48 old spark plugs that still look almost new. Only the colour of the insulator at the tip gives away that they are used.

[RFguy]

I want to investigate buying drum or drums  of ULP98.  Anyone here much experience with buying drums? I bet there are.

 

IE not necessarily premium unleaded with all the fancy additives, just ULP98, which is listed in a few of the available products.

 

Is a single drum on a trailer and approved screw into drum pump/ filter reasonable or is it better to have a bigger - say 600-100 ltrs  fuel trailer and fill that up from a truck ?  I dont really want to encounter / infringe on needing large volume storage permits etc.  And a drum a week would be plenty.

-glen

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by RFguy

[coljones]

25 minutes ago, RFguy said:

I want to investigate buying drum or drums  of ULP98.  Anyone here much experience with buying drums? I bet there are.

 

IE not necessarily premium unleaded with all the fancy additives, just ULP98, which is listed in a few of the available products.

 

Is a single drum on a trailer and approved screw into drum pump/ filter reasonable or is it better to have a bigger - say 600-100 ltrs  fuel trailer and fill that up from a truck ?  I dont really want to encounter / infringe on needing large volume storage permits etc.  And a drum a week would be plenty.

-glen

 

talk to the people at Sydney Recreational Flying Club (SRFC) at The Oaks.  They have a fuel trailer and have used drums in the past.

[spacesailor]

Most ' outlaying stations have lots or drummed fuel carted in .

I once asked to acquire one or two empty drums, but was told '' every one has a use on a station '' .

I managed to pick one up & has a third of diesel in it, from whenever it drops to a very low price, ( a $ 1 ) a litre .

spacesailor

 

[onetrack]

Glen, check your States petroleum storage laws, they are quite strict on the levels of fuel storage allowed - especially petrol, as it's a combustible liquid, as compared to diesel which is simply a flammable liquid. Residential areas are usually limited to 20L-25L of petrol, but you can store a little more in separate garages.

 

Ensure you're compliant with regulations in case of a fire - because even a fire that starts from a totally unrelated source to the petrol may end up meaning your insurance company refuses to pay out if they find your petrol storage exceeded the allowable limit.

 

Be aware that petrol in storage degrades fairly rapidly, and even more so in elevated temperatures. Storing large quantities of fuel that take a few months to use up, can be false economy.

 

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, RFguy said:

I want to investigate buying drum or drums  of ULP98.  Anyone here much experience with buying drums? I bet there are.

 

IE not necessarily premium unleaded with all the fancy additives, just ULP98, which is listed in a few of the available products.

 

Is a single drum on a trailer and approved screw into drum pump/ filter reasonable or is it better to have a bigger - say 600-100 ltrs  fuel trailer and fill that up from a truck ?  I dont really want to encounter / infringe on needing large volume storage permits etc.  And a drum a week would be plenty.

-glen

 

You'll need to do some research; it goes in layers.

You can't carry petrol in a 4WD Wagon or the boot of a car, I think, starting at 20 litres, so it's a ute or trailer or external 20 litre jerry can rack.

The next step up is the 200 litre drum and 20 years ago in Victoria you could carry that in a trailer, ute or tray, suitably strapped down.

Then about that level, there's a requirement to have a fuel haul kit.

So you need to check those levels.

However, Canberra area is likely to have a fuel distributor with a farm delivery tanker complete with fuel haul kit which will dispense bulk fuel into your tanks or drums, or will deliver 200 litre drums and change them for the empties on the driver's regular rounds. This is how property owners get their fuel.

Most medium size town airstrips get it by the drum which would suit your thoughts.

 

Re your ULP98 and the fancy additives, I would talk that over with a fuel company engineer. Your fuel isn't going to go off in a week, and if you have to measure the volume of aromatics per amount you pump into the arcraft, you're open to mistakes or forgetting, so the engine won't start.

 

 

 

 

[skippydiesel]

2 hours ago, coljones said:

talk to the people at Sydney Recreational Flying Club (SRFC) at The Oaks.  They have a fuel trailer and have used drums in the past.

Schools fuel is brought in 20L containers as & when required - bulk fuel tank trailer no longer used.

[skippydiesel]

How myths persist - we have known for many many years now, that ULP stored in an airtight container, with a minimum  75% full, will stay "fresh" for 6 or more months (this includes 98 RON) despite this being common knowledge, there are those who continue to say that the fuel will go "off" in a week or two.

[phantomphixer]

On 2/4/2023 at 10:17 AM, skippydiesel said:

Sure there are factual/documentary type journalists but those that serve the daily news system are all about drama (entertainment). In this context, drama is all about worse case/blood & guts/murder and mayhem - pilot/instructor & passenger/student walking away from a plane crash is simply not "newsworthy"

 

I  am sure the journo's would defend their "creative" art, by correctly stating it is we "the great unwashed" who demand/ are entertained by such reporting - only when we have a vested interest (pilots in this instance) do we get all hot a bothered about the inaccuracies of the reporting. 

News media used to report the news but that is no longer their primary purpose. The core business of news media is to sell advertising and make shed loads of money. The more click worthy the article, the less the need for accurate reporting. If there’s a video of anything it can get top billing despite being trivial in the extreme.

[turboplanner]

39 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

How myths persist - we have known for many many years now, that ULP stored in an airtight container, with a minimum  75% full, will stay "fresh" for 6 or more months (this includes 98 RON) despite this being common knowledge, there are those who continue to say that the fuel will go "off" in a week or two.

I'd suggest you bring yourself up to date. I wouldn't say two weeks  but it's not a lot more. It varies by engine.

[coljones]

1 hour ago, skippydiesel said:

Schools fuel is brought in 20L containers as & when required - bulk fuel tank trailer no longer used.

Does that include the "newish" bulk trailer that is less than 5(ish) years old?

[RFguy]

Thanks OneTrack et. al for the info. 

Oh combustable  and flammable are different things?. Well there ya go I learned something. 

OK doing my research, there are quite alot of limits imposed. fair enough. 

The Jab takes 140 litres . The Archer is 182 ish.  The Archer has a MOGAS STC which I might take advantage of , at least in winter. Might ask users and see if anyone has had issues of any sort that can be put down to fuel.  But it wont be local pump gas, IE will be drum or better. Or some means of verifying the integrity of the pump ULP before it goes in the certified aircraft, per the STC guidelines/ Lycoming.  Not a money saver, just trying to keep the lead deposits out of the engine if I can. Although, before too long, might we have AVGAS-ULP ?

AS1940 has a bit to say, now need spill response kit for all storage......and then there are state rules...golly.  talk about varied ! .... locally : Interesting, on rural properties, the bunds around it to hold spills etc must have the capacity of 20 minutes of fire fighting water. At home , between 100 and 250 litres depending on where you are, and danger signs may be required to be displayed. Hard to find much info at the 'single drum storage' size. Might talk to fuel trailer providers and see what they say. and the Sydney Recreational flying club at The Oaks.
The club has expressed interest in a ULP fuel trailer at Cowra- sharing in the running / use of that  that would most likely be the best overall economy of scale.
 

 

[old man emu]

Not to be a nark, but this thread has gone way, way off the original topic. That's not to say that what is currently being discussed is not worthwhile of itself. So what if we return this thread to the original topic, but carry on the fuel storage topic elsewhere?

[coljones]

53 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Not to be a nark, but this thread has gone way, way off the original topic. That's not to say that what is currently being discussed is not worthwhile of itself. So what if we return this thread to the original topic, but carry on the fuel storage topic elsewhere?

OME has provided a new thread/topic at

https://www.recreationalflying.com/topic/38977-on-fuel-bulk-storage-getting-clean-fuel-and-so-on/

 

please use it.

[skippydiesel]

2 hours ago, phantomphixer said:

News media used to report the news but that is no longer their primary purpose. The core business of news media is to sell advertising and make shed loads of money. The more click worthy the article, the less the need for accurate reporting. If there’s a video of anything it can get top billing despite being trivial in the extreme.

I don't think that the main stream "media" has ever set out or claimed, to report anything other than sensational events (check out The Donald).

 

The "news" is just a collection of sensational stories & propaganda - that's what we the proletariat want. ("bread & circuses"?) If we didn't, the journalists would be out of a job and the "media" they work for would not be getting the attention the advertisers and other vested interests are willing to pay for, so they would go broke (the market rules - or so say economic rationalists) .

 

Even historians are prone to "slanting" facts to suit a particular mindset - if they tell of unpalatable truths or challenge the accepted /officially promoted version, they don't get funding/grants - they are out of a job.

 

You want factual, unbiased, accurate, reporting of important/relevant events - are there sufficient like minded persons, willing to fund such a revolutionary idea?🤣

Edited April 5, 2023 by skippydiesel

[turboplanner]

6 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

I don't think that the main stream "media" has ever set out or claimed, to report anything other than sensational events (check out The Donald).

 

The "news" is just a collection of sensational stories & propaganda - that's what we the proletariat want. ("bread & circuses"?) If we didn't, the journalists would be out of a job and the "media" they work for would not be getting the attention the advertisers and other vested interests are willing to pay for, so they would go broke (the market rules - or so say economic rationalists) .

 

Even historians are prone to "slanting" facts to suit a particular mindset - if they tell of unpalatable truths or challenge the accepted /officially promoted version, they don't get funding/grants - they are out of a job.

 

You want factual, unbiased, accurate, reporting of important/relevant events - are there sufficient like minded persons, willing to fund such a revolutionary idea?🤣

A novel thought. You're saying the press should not report the first ex President of the United States showing up to be indicted on criminal charges because that isn't news?

[Thruster88]

Was the media coverage of this accident,  including the factual video of the passengers experience, a help or a hindrance in RAAus campaign for a pilot in every home? 

[turboplanner]

22 minutes ago, Thruster88 said:

Was the media coverage of this accident,  including the factual video of the passengers experience, a help or a hindrance in RAAus campaign for a pilot in every home? 

The first report on this site was the ABC report, and I would say it helped because it showed an engine failure followed by much the same level on injury you'd get in a car that didn't quite hit a tree dead centre.

 

 

If you then asked the question of all the serious RA accidents over the past 15 years, the process is usually:

 

1. First on the scene are civilian witnesses, property owner.

2. Someone phones emergency services  and Fire, Police, Ambulance are on the scene.

3. The local newspaper gets a call and sends a reporter out.

 

At this point in most cases none of the people on site are aircraft/flying professionals; this sequence of arrivals occurs at every incident in town from a fuel spill to a car accident, an escape of stock onto a road, a fall on the footpath by one of the town treasures, an outbreak of a virus at the hospital, and so on.

 

The reporter these days goes through 5 years of Uni studying processes, sourcing, editing, etc., so starts asking questions, getting the vital details, time, location, how the incident started.

 

Not surprisingly the available interviewees providing the answers are not going to have industry knowledge e.g. they know a truck has crashed, but they don't know it's one of the new K220s, however the story is sourced, the source stacks up and the Editor approves the story for release. The next stop is the hospital to see how the people are doing and a new set of non-aviation people are now talking.

 

It's the same process when someone breaks their back falling off a horse; who among the first responders and the newspaper reporter would know it was a Palomino cross and that particular cross is known for getting rid of riders?

 

And in the course of a year in most towns there are probably  a couple of hundred similar incidents requiring a couple of hundred streams of personal knowledge stretching back decades. Neither the First Responders nor the journalist are expected to have those decades of knowledge on 200 different subjects.

 

But that doesn't stop the people that do have the detailed knowledge airing their expert views on the quality of the story, whether more than three readers would actually read a flying story or not so life goes on.

 

So let's look back over the reports of serious accidents which made the news over the past 15 years and featured on this site. In how many cases did you see a correct (for the unfolding situation) assessment from the RAA as part of the story, injecting that missing industry knowledge?

 

In Planning, I've had plenty of journalists phone me with what they've managed to get, and ask for a comment, and when I've asked what the deadline was so I could research it, the deadline was 40 minutes away, but I've still made the effort to get a few words in, and they've never been left out of the report, and that covers a lot of years.  For the 6 pm TV news that's usually no more than 7 words, but it balances the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[coljones]

1 hour ago, turboplanner said:

The first report on this site was the ABC report, and I would say it helped because it showed an engine failure followed by much the same level on injury you'd get in a car that didn't quite hit a tree dead centre.

 

 

If you then asked the question of all the serious RA accidents over the past 15 years, the process is usually:

 

1. First on the scene are civilian witnesses, property owner.

2. Someone phones emergency services  and Fire, Police, Ambulance are on the scene.

3. The local newspaper gets a call and sends a reporter out.

 

At this point in most cases none of the people on site are aircraft/flying professionals; this sequence of arrivals occurs at every incident in town from a fuel spill to a car accident, an escape of stock onto a road, a fall on the footpath by one of the town treasures, an outbreak of a virus at the hospital, and so on.

 

The reporter these days goes through 5 years of Uni studying processes, sourcing, editing, etc., so starts asking questions, getting the vital details, time, location, how the incident started.

 

Not surprisingly the available interviewees providing the answers are not going to have industry knowledge e.g. they know a truck has crashed, but they don't know it's one of the new K220s, however the story is sourced, the source stacks up and the Editor approves the story for release. The next stop is the hospital to see how the people are doing and a new set of non-aviation people are now talking.

 

It's the same process when someone breaks their back falling off a horse; who among the first responders and the newspaper reporter would know it was a Palomino cross and that particular cross is known for getting rid of riders?

 

And in the course of a year in most towns there are probably  a couple of hundred similar incidents requiring a couple of hundred streams of personal knowledge stretching back decades. Neither the First Responders nor the journalist are expected to have those decades of knowledge on 200 different subjects.

 

But that doesn't stop the people that do have the detailed knowledge airing their expert views on the quality of the story, whether more than three readers would actually read a flying story or not so life goes on.

 

So let's look back over the reports of serious accidents which made the news over the past 15 years and featured on this site. In how many cases did you see a correct (for the unfolding situation) assessment from the RAA as part of the story, injecting that missing industry knowledge?

 

In Planning, I've had plenty of journalists phone me with what they've managed to get, and ask for a comment, and when I've asked what the deadline was so I could research it, the deadline was 40 minutes away, but I've still made the effort to get a few words in, and they've never been left out of the report, and that covers a lot of years.  For the 6 pm TV news that's usually no more than 7 words, but it balances the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be nice if more journos had a better education at uni in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

[kgwilson]

More and more younger people are turning to social media for their news even though it may be inaccurate, sensationalist or completely false. I think this has been a major contributor to the rise in conspiracy theorists (Cookers).

 

Almost everyone carries a smartphone and a large portion of the younger demographic are busting to get their 15 minutres of fame.

 

In this case the student realises he's is OK and starts videoing everything, especially his injuries and the crash site while making sensationalist statements and uninformed opinions. Uploaded directly to social media and then he decides to help the instructor. No-one had seen the accident and they first found out when Instructor & student were walking back towards the flying school.

 

I then assume the student rings 7 News & they get the video. The instructor is taken to hospital but the student still high on the adrenaline of his 15 minutes of fame drives himself to hospital.

 

This is gold for 7 News and accuracy is not a consideration, the more sensationalist the better, hence the statements of "pools of blood" and "aircraft plumetted from 2000 feet" which we know is complete BS.

 

The level of journalism has descended in to the abyss in the last few years because sensationalism sells.

[turboplanner]

31 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

More and more younger people are turning to social media for their news even though it may be inaccurate, sensationalist or completely false. I think this has been a major contributor to the rise in conspiracy theorists (Cookers).

 

Almost everyone carries a smartphone and a large portion of the younger demographic are busting to get their 15 minutres of fame.

 

In this case the student realises he's is OK and starts videoing everything, especially his injuries and the crash site while making sensationalist statements and uninformed opinions. Uploaded directly to social media and then he decides to help the instructor. No-one had seen the accident and they first found out when Instructor & student were walking back towards the flying school.

 

I then assume the student rings 7 News & they get the video. The instructor is taken to hospital but the student still high on the adrenaline of his 15 minutes of fame drives himself to hospital.

 

This is gold for 7 News and accuracy is not a consideration, the more sensationalist the better, hence the statements of "pools of blood" and "aircraft plumetted from 2000 feet" which we know is complete BS.

 

The level of journalism has descended in to the abyss in the last few years because sensationalism sells.

I'd say this post is a good example of unsourced social media rubbish.

[turboplanner]

53 minutes ago, coljones said:

It would be nice if more journos had a better education at uni in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

For this case, yes, but 30 minutes later the newspaper may get onto a story about the defacing of a statue in the town park, and a history buff will he cursing him her for not getting the spelling correct in the name or giving the wrong birthplace  of the person represented in the statue, as informed by the Mayor or the following day at a flower show reporting the colourful blooms of Mayberries based on the interview with the President of the Gardening Society only to be lambasted by exhibitors who all knew they were Cape Southwick pansies.

The point is that you can't expect the Journalist to be the expert; you have to get the expert talking to the Journalist, and that's when you get traction and advance your Industry/Association/Club.

[skippydiesel]

4 hours ago, turboplanner said:

A novel thought. You're saying the press should not report the first ex President of the United States showing up to be indicted on criminal charges because that isn't news?

Not at all - The Donald is journalists mana from heaven - unfortunately he and his antics are aided and abetted by the media - the media are not at fault, it is we, the consuming masses,  who clearly have an unquenchable hunger for his sort of drivel.

[onetrack]

It would be much better if journalists actually learnt to spell, and understand the correct word to be used in each context, and even proof read their articles so that paragraphs made sense, and words omitted were picked up.

 

Then again, all I see in the written media is articles copied directly from other sources (usually overseas sources) - and on the TV news, breathless young females, picked for their sexual allure, mouthing 300 words when 50 succint and accurate words would cover the description nicely - and all this babble added to stock video clips of totally unrelated imagery - just as long as the footage has something remotely related to the headlines.

 

The news media today is merely a major extension of the entertainment industry.