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Does RAA pay (market rate) for people to do this? Or are they volunteers? Somehow I doubt RAA has the structure or budget to support this type of activity. Hard to criticise someone who doesn't want that job!

Any counter terror strategy that relies on people submitting their details voluntarily is pretty lame. I'm sure there are more stringent checks being done without our knowledge on student pilot applications etc. If a terrorist did apply for an ASIC they may well let it through to avoid tipping them off that they were being monitored. The problem is no-one wants to be the one to explain that the ASIC wouldn't have made any difference, if they scrapped it and someone did bounce a Jabiru off a building - even though it's probably true. So I think we are stuck with it. Authorities are realizing that the major terror threat now is right wing white supremacists etc. anyway. They seem more interested in direct threats with guns than using aircraft.

I have had occasional weird behaviour, on 2 different ipads: terrain warnings while cruising at 6000+ AGL, on multiple occasions the aircraft icon turns 90 degrees to the actual track the aircraft icon turns around and goes in the opposite direction for a short period. Maybe there is something on my aircraft that interferes with the GPS signal. But that is the point - an aircraft GPS should tell you when the GPS signal is unreliable, not just give you their best guess at position. These are no big deal VFR, but would get your attention if you were IFR. I see people claiming they use the ipad for "situational awareness" when IFR, but I think the real question is do they have enough situation awareness to reject what the ipad is telling them if it stats feeding them crap? Aviation will be interesting when/if Apple decide they are not in the aviation GPS business and they don't want to be in the aviation GPS business. Maybe they delay GPS updates above 80mph or the GPS position is above e.g. 1000' AGL. Or maybe they just remove aviation apps from the app store. All it would take is someone running out of fuel and crashing after getting lost when their ipad failed (heat etc), and deciding to sue Apple.

As long as you have enough awareness to recognize when it's telling you lies... mine does surprisingly often. The GPS in an ipad isn't the same as an aviation GPS - and in some circumstances an ipad will even confidently tell you a position without a GPS installed. Also you need to be able to use your own judgement on things like fuel calculations. On one flight from A to B and back to A Avplan optimistically predicted a tailwind in both directions, so actual fuel usage was significantly higher than predicted. It's hard to duplicate because it requires specific weather patterns, so I never figured out if Ozrunways did the same thing. It's easy to get lazy, but you need to verify what it is telling you.

It might have been better to talk to an electrical engineer? Solutions to these problems already exist: 1) Most of the time, vehicles plugged in won't actually be charging because charging from empty is rare. 2) Chargers can distribute available power depending on how many cars are being charged. e.g. if your charger has 20KW available, 1 car can get 20KW, 2 cars 10KW each, 10 cars 2KW each etc.

One big advantage of electric vehicles is energy security. We generate all our electricity in Australia, but most of our fuel is imported. We spend 50B/year on defence, but really, if someone parked a submarine in the shipping channels and threatened to sink any tanker on it's way to Australia, how long would we last? Diesel trucks might be great, but they rely on the supply of fuel.

I think overall it is a good thing that people who fly for money are held to a higher standard than is required for a private pilot. On one hand you need to make sure that people with no knowledge of aviation are protected when they pay for a flight. On the other hand, I don't want to have to demonstrate the ability to e.g. plan a flight from Moorabbin to Bankstown via Broken Hill with commercial pressures just to keep doing my simple private flying, or to do the level or maintenance that is required for e.g. charter operations.

As far as flying charter without an AOC goes, it's probably as simple as asking the passengers if they paid for the flight, and checking CASA records of who has an AOC. Unless the passengers are prepared to lie on his behalf, it's pretty open and shut. A political party (or any business) probably has detailed records, invoices etc. for the payments. The more detailed investigations probably were around the fraud aspects.

Electric vehicles will be so much cheaper than ICE that no-one will be able to afford to run ICE trucks unless you absolutely can't use electric. There are electric motors all around us - they are so reliable we forget they are there. At least 10 in most cars I would guess. If you prefer bigger motors, check out the reliability of trains. Electronic controllers will prevent you from burning them out. $100,000 for a battery reflects the cost to dig the materials out of the ground. But at the end of it's life, the battery still contains all the materials to make a $100,000 battery. By that time there should be large scale recycling, so the replacement cost will be more like the cost to break it down, separate the chemicals and make them into a new battery. That should be much cheaper than mining raw materials.

That's always possible. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that a dipole is the ideal configuration. With a large enough ground plane ("large enough" depends on the frequency) we can make something that acts like a dipole at radio frequencies, without the bulk of the second element. There are complications, e.g. the shape of the ground plane can affect the radiation pattern from the antenna. Again, my understanding is that the SWR check at aviation frequencies is the easiest way to check the performance of the antenna. I see some people are recommending something else - I would be interested in more information about why. That is at least as likely to have made the difference as the antenna. I don't think its as simple as making a bigger ground plane. You would probably need a new antenna designed to work with a ground plane, which I think has a different connector from your current antenna. That means you probably need to install a BNC connector or run a new antenna cable. I wouldn't do anything unless you know you have a problem. If you do have problems and the setup is the same as other Jabirus, I would look for problems in the current setup before replacing it. I don't think Jabirus have a problem in general with radio performance.

I think it's a dipole so a ground plane is not required. That is what the black bit hanging down is.

I hate the word airmanship.... 99% of the time it can be defined as "the piloting skills a person believes they have that make them superior to the average pilot". We fly a circuit to land because that means we know where to look for traffic, and gives everyone a chance to spot other traffic and adjust spacing etc. If you have a lot of traffic, it makes it critical that people fly a proper circuit, setting up and maintaining a sequence. You can't afford to have people doing their own thing. A tug pilot trying to get down fast just doesn't work if you have a lot of traffic. It doesn't matter how experienced they are, they increase the risk for everyone. Sounds like there are 2 possible solutions at Caboolture. 1) Decrease the amount of traffic 2) Require people to fly proper circuits, without cutting in etc. Telling people to be aware and take all factors into consideration is useless.

Revs + MP + fuel flow still don't guarantee full power for a constant speed prop e.g. if the problem is ignition related. Also, if you are taking off at a high altitude airport you have a reduced MP and probably need a reduced fuel flow (i.e. leaned) for maximum power.

What normal feels like isn't always accurate. e.g. if you normally fly solo out of Moorabbin, a takeoff at Mt Hotham with a full load will feel a long way from normal. The performance charts tell you whether you can do it. But I think the video misses the main point. In a single engine aircraft, if the engine isn't producing enough power to fly you are better off rejecting the take off at any point prior to lift off. Earlier is obviously better, but getting off the ground will practically never improve the situation. The distances they described sounded like he did actually have enough distance to stop if he had made that decision. A couple of hundred metres should be plenty from <60 knots when you are already on the ground. 50/70 is more of a double check of the performance calculations than a power check. If the engine produces consistent low power from the beginning of the takeoff, it probably works. It doesn't necessarily work if engine loses power part way through the takeoff.

You'd like to think so. Unfortunately, if the carefully planned route is blocked e.g. by an accident they tend to take less carefully planned routes rather than waiting. I've seen a B-double trying to negotiate a tight corner with a traffic island, railway bridge and roundabout, in a school zone at 8:30 am. I think he was actually stuck. I don't know how easy it is to reverse a B double through a 120 degree corner, or what you do with a B double when you can't go forwards and can't go backwards. I didn't hang around to find out, despite the potential entertainment. I've also seen one cut through the centre of town, with 1 way streets, speed humps, pedestrian crossings and supermarket carpark traffic. That guy probably thought he was a genius for getting his truck through that area.

The billion dollar payment was the result of a side letter signed by the Libs. The Libs signed the side letter when Labor was promising to scrap the EWL after the election and were looking certain to win. The Lend Lease consortium didn't want to sign the contracts until after the election, when the future became clearer. The Libs promised 1B if they signed the contract, specifically to be paid even if the contract was invalid or thrown out by the courts. A billion dollars of taxpayers money committed by the Liberals with no purpose other than to cause problems for a Labor government, punish Victorians for voting Labor and support a future Liberal campaign. How does that add up to Labor corruption?

The wings are stressed by the product of g force and total weight... but there are other parts of the airframe where you assume constant weight so you only need to worry about G. Your battery mount!, seat weight limits, baggage floor limits - all are designed to a particular max G loading, and you don't generally know how much margin they have. I remember reading about a loss of control in a 747 where the aircraft was overstressed in the pull out. The wings stayed on but from memory they broke the landing gear up locks and the APU broke loose. Exceed G limits and the thing that breaks first might not be what you expect.

Very true. G limits are based on a straight pull. If you are rolling at the same time (rolling G) the limits might be much lower. So in a spiral dive etc. level the wings then pull out of the dive - don't do both at once.

This was definitely covered in BAK theory for PPL, maybe not for RAA? Manoeuvring speed is based on stall speed. Rough air cruising speed may not be because it is based on a specified vertical gust. If you can hit that gust without exceeding G limits, no problem (for the aircraft... an instant onset of 3.8G might come as a shock to the occupants!) It decreases with decreasing weight, and I'm pretty sure it is calculated at MTOW. Otherwise you don't have a known weight to start your calculations.

How long does it take to descend 200'? At altitude and without additional lift, how far can you turn in 200'? The equivalent altitude in powered aircraft might be 800-1000' as a guess?

According to the report, "The instructor’s initial and ongoing aerobatics training was conducted in the Pitts Special aircraft. Apart from the instruction flights in VH-CYO during the week prior to the accident, the ATSB was unable to identify any previous aerobatic experience in the Cessna A150 Aerobat or any other similar Cessna variants" "the instructor provided information to the Sunshine Coast Aero Club that they had about 100 hours experience in the Cessna 152. However, there was no mention of experience in the Cessna A150 Aerobat" "The instructor had their own aviation company that predominantly conducted aerobatic joy flights and instructional flights in the company’s 2 Pitts Special aircraft" "logbooks indicated that the instructor had about 100 hours of flight experience in a Cessna 152 (a similar, non-aerobatic variant of the Aerobat), but none of that recorded experience was aerobatic in nature" "the aero club’s chief flying instructor (CFI) conducted a check flight with the instructor in the Aerobat to assess the instructor’s ability. The CFI was not rated in aerobatics, and the check flight was limited to an assessment of the instructor’s general handling and area knowledge" I would have no problem doing aerobatics training in a 150, BUT I would want the instructor to have extensive aerobatics experience in that type. To me, it sounds like the instructor underestimated the skills required for the 150 compared to the Pitts.

The report does prompt a few thoughts - Generally, a Pitts would be considered a more advanced aircraft than a C150. But maybe when it comes to aerobatics that isn't the case. I can see it might take more skill to fly the C150, with the less purpose built design requiring larger control movements, and slower responses requiring you to be further ahead of the aircraft. I don't see any problem teaching in it, but perhaps someone stepping out of a Pitts might underestimate the difficulty. Following from that, what qualifications are required to teach aerobatics? An instructor teaching a student in an aircraft that they themselves had little experience on seems sub-optimal. I wonder about the usefulness of unusual attitude recovery training in aircraft like the Pitts i.e. dedicated aerobatic aircraft. Certainly, it is useful to get experience so you can maintain your composure in unusual attitudes, but advanced aerobatic aircraft are probably much easier to recover than standard aircraft. If an aerobatics instructor couldn't recover a C150 Aerobat from an intentional spin, how useful is the training? There's probably a catch 22 here - you could train in aircraft that reflect the real world, but you would then have more training accidents. Mueller/Beggs recovery - should it be taught as a primary technique? The ATSB report says the method "has proven to be a very effective method of spin recovery in most aircraft types." Is that "most types" that are approved for spinning, within aerobatic CG etc. or is it "most types" in the spin testing conditions required for certification? Perhaps Mueller/Beggs should be an advanced technique, introduced e.g. when you start thinking about inverted spins, and make the initial focus on knowing and implementing POH procedures?

The problem is you run up against Brandolini's law AKA the bullshit asymmetry syndrome. It takes a lot more effort to explain why something is wrong than it did to post the wrong information in the first place.

If the registration is 25- it is a 25 reg, but being a 25- reg or being certified doesn't make it LSA as far as I can see.

I would assume that RAA use the LSA definition in CAO 95.55. I don't think it can be a LSA without having a special certificate of airworthiness specifically issued for a light sport aircraft. Otherwise I think it comes under the definition of ultralight aeroplane means an aeroplane (other than a light sport aircraft or lightweight aeroplane) that: ... (e) is one of the following: ... (iv) an aeroplane to which Air Navigation Order section 95.25 as in force on 25 March 1985 applies (known as an old section 95.25 aeroplane);