marshallarts

Ah didn't see that - don't use social media. If that's what it is then they seem to have almost created their own market for joyflights. They seem always to be up there in groups - maybe they do mock dogfights or something like that. 4 have just taken off this morning and headed to the training area (depending on wind, the circuit can go almost right over my house). Anyway, they seem to be generating a good level of utilisation. Why WA I am wondering? They could do this almost anywhere.

Six of these were in the air again today - a very nice flying day on the west coast. I saw a couple of them land at Jandakot, and interestingly, the crews were all wearing full helmets, in all of them. That was slightly surprising. And yes I've looked at the register and these ones are all still shown as owned AND operated by Pacific Flight Services in Parkes NSW. Maybe they are being leased by a training organisation here, but if so then you'd think (well I'd think) that the lessee might be shown as the operator. Whatever the situation is, they all seem to be very busy.

Hmmm interesting. Maybe the auctions didn't work and they are making other arrangements. There were 4 of them in the air this afternoon, some doing circuits. Definitely those regos.

Many here will have seen that 6 or 7 Pacific Aerospace CT-4s were auctioned on the east coast not long ago. It looks to me as if they have all (or nearly all) ended up over here in WA. I live quite near Jandakot, and often see several of them buzzing around. They all have registrations like VH-YCx and I'm sure as I can be that they haven't always been here. Anyone know the full story?

I don't fly now, but when I did I had no problem with landing fees as such, but I certainly might have adjusted my plans based on the LEVEL of the fees. And I'd feel the same about it if I was flying now. Rottnest Island over here in WA slapped very high landing fees on their (very basic) strip some years ago, which has (apparently) reduced leisure aircraft visits to almost nothing - it would be nice to think that someone on the management board might see that and make some constructive conclusions about it. If it was $10 or $15 it wouldn't bother me, but it's $56. There have been many complaints over the last many years that most of Rotto's services are now heavily overpriced - so much for the "people's island". I remember going over there to do circuits in a 152 once when Jandakot was very busy, way back in the 1980s. It was (is) a testing strip, because it nearly always has a fairly stiff crosswind.

I've thought this for a long time. And CEOs of local governments are obscenely overpaid as well. But it isn't only the public sector. We sometimes see CEOs of companies in the private sector get forced out of their job because something went badly wrong. This is them supposedly "taking responsibility" for it. BUT - often they walk away with a huge payout - how is that "taking responsibility"? And quite often they move almost seamlessly into some other highly-paid position. It's all a very cosy club up in that rarefied atmosphere.

Very glad you qualified that by mentioning its rarity! We haven't had common sense almost ANYWHERE for decades, as far as I can see. And that applies to both governments and private organisations. Seems to me as soon as ANY organisation gets beyond a certain size, common sense evaporates. I don't know what that threshold size is, but anything that has a department called "human resources" makes me very suspicious.

Happy to believe that. I would hope they'd be pretty good for the price I saw!

I haven't as a pilot of a light aircraft, but used ANC headphones as a passenger on a 787, just once. Mixed feelings about it in that scenario. It was a Bose QC25, so reasonable quality (I think) but maybe not up to aviation standard. It did a reasonable job but I didn't like the odd feeling of a sort of acoustic "pressure" in my ears - it was not as unobtrusive as I expected/hoped it would be.

Yes interesting point, that. ANC is nice is many situations but it has often occurred to me that it might not actually be a good idea for pilots of small aircraft. Engine sounds are important feedback, and I'd be fairly confident that an over-ear headset without ANC would do a good enough job of reducing the possibility of hearing damage. If I was flying I don't think I'd want an ANC headset. For the same reason, it always worries me to see people riding bikes around on the roads, with earbuds stuck in their ears from their phones. That's far worse than ANC, because they are not just suppressing ambient sound, they are actively replacing it with their own, often at about force 10 on the Richter scale. They really need to be able to hear what's going on around them.

Thanks all for the inputs. Some quite interesting info there. Keep it coming!

I asked this in passing in another thread and it got lost in the chatter there, but I'd be interested to know... Is it possible, physically and/or in terms of regulations, to hang a non-Jabiru engine off the front of a Jabiru? Like a Rotax 915, perhaps? UL Power? I'm assuming the aircraft would need to be amateur-built, and registered as VH experimental. But if that was done, does it mean there are workable choices in the engine department? If yes, has it ever been done, and if so how did it work out? Just wondering...

I note the ads above from the Jabiru website. Seems pointless to me to build a J400 then register it RAA, which (I presume) limits it to 600kg MTOW.

Way back in a past life when I was doing my night VMC I flew when I was not mentally fit to do so - definitely a sin. The NVMC training gave me some of the most intense and enjoyable experiences I've ever had, but I came badly unstuck on my first attempt at the flight test. I was tired from a stressful work week, hadn't slept well, and seriously thought about cancelling the test. But it was a beautiful still summer evening at Jandakot, so I thought dammit, let's get this done. I shouldn't have. I didn't do well on the oral test, and the instructor only just agreed to carry on and go flying. I did OK navigating out to Narrogin, turned on the PAL lights and there they were right under the nose, beautiful. Feeling a bit more positive. But when we got down to circuit height and lower, things deteriorated pretty rapidly. There was huge thermal activity happening down near the ground, and there was a ferocious gusting 90-degree crosswind at the surface - the windsock was standing out horizontal. Wrestled the aircraft down onto the runway for the first touch-and-go, but really struggled on the climb-out. Back up at circuit height was a bit smoother, but going down base and final the next time was like riding a bucking horse. Climb-out the second time was even worse - I was way behind the aircraft, chasing the airspeed and overcontrolling. I was even starting to feel a bit disoriented, so had no option but to ask the instructor to take control. As soon as he put his hands on the controls it was like oil on water - I could hardly believe it. Back up at altitude all was smooth and calm so we headed for home in glum silence. And back at Jandakot the windsock was hanging limp and barely moving, nothing like the chaos I'd just been through. I will never forget that awful night. So, salutary lesson for all - for flying, mental fitness is at least as important as physical fitness, probably more. The mental workload can increase significantly and rapidly, for all sorts of reasons. I remain very glad that I had an experienced pilot sitting next to me.

Sounds good. There is no mention of a J400 on the Jabiru website nowadays, I wonder if they would still put a kit together with the shorter wings? And I guess it needs to be pointed out that there is actually one other way to acquire one of these (or any J4xx), apart from building it - find a used one! But not very common I'd guess.

[ refers to the J430 ] Yes! And even in that capacity, it would be so good to be able to get one, factory-built.

Yes I get that. 760kg is a squeeze for 4 people of almost any size plus fuel plus stuff, and 120hp is about the minimum you would want up front, especially if it's driving a fixed pitch propeller. But as an "occasional" 2+1 or 2+2 kids I think it could still have some appeal. Probably should be in a separate thread, but has anyone ever put a bigger non-Jabiru engine in a Jabiru? How about a Jabiru 430 with a Rotax 915iS and in-flight adjustable prop? Might go quite nicely. But probably fraught with all sorts of regulatory problems.

Is that an earlier iteration of the J430?

My understanding is that there is not, because the factory-built J230Ds are only certified as LSA, and are therefore stuck with a MTOW of 600kg. The only way to get a Jabiru 4-seater is to build it yourself (the J430 kit) AND register it VH, and you will then get an MTOW of 760kg. Seems to me that a factory J230D is somewhat crippled by the 600kg MTOW - it's clearly structurally capable of much higher, but it's limited by the regulations. I'm guessing it would be very expensive for Jabiru to certify a VH-registered factory-built 4-seat aircraft, and that's why they don't do it - it would necessarily make the aircraft expensive to buy. But it seems a lost opportunity to me, I think it might be attractive to quite a lot of people. If I was in the market for an aircraft, I'd very much like to be able to look at an Australian light 4-seater that I didn't have to build myself. I'd love to be corrected, but I don't think such a thing exists.

I like your line of thinking. I owned an aircraft (built in 1967) back in the 1990s and was quite taken aback by the instrumentation - it looked more like plumbing! If it ever happened that I owned an aircraft again (extremely unlikely), I'd want electronic instrumentation in it for sure. For a start I assume it is lighter than all those big mechanical things, but I'm happy to be corrected if that's a wrong perception. And I'd rather have the engine concentrating on driving the propeller, not a vacuum pump for some of the instruments - one more spinning/wearing thing to go wrong. As far as aviation engines themselves are concerned, it seems to me that they have stayed as they are mainly because they WORK, and perform the required task quite well. But adding a layer of instrumentation to monitor an engine in all sorts of ways doesn't change that (or shouldn't), so could be quite interesting. I will watch progress with interest.

Old news I know, but we had a visit here in Perth by the mind-boggling AN-225 back in March 2016 (is there only one of them?). It was carrying some heavy component which was part of a power station or something like that. The load was actually quite small in terms of size, must have been very dense and heavy. I grabbed this pic as it was trucked away. It caused quite a bit of interest here at the time.

Thanks Onetrack. I didn't try Hesperian, don't think I came across them when I was looking. I did try Fremantle Press, because they also do a lot of WA history - it took them about 8 months to get around to saying no! Anyway, I didn't even try publishers with the new edition - I have now self-published this one, so it does exist! I hope I'm not contravening any rules of this forum by saying that if anyone would like to purchase a copy they can of of course contact me. The book is also on sale at the small heritage centre/museum next to the cathedral in Geraldton. I should also have mentioned that the Geraldton Cathedral has recently undergone a huge restoration, which took about 4 years and over $9 million. It has repaired the inevitable wear and tear of just over a century of use, and brought some aspects of it more into line with Hawes' original specification. Its construction was fraught with all sorts of financial and political issues and took a very long time, and when it was first opened many things had been skimped on or omitted because of cost and to just get the thing finished. It has always been a wonderful building, in a quaint sort of way. But since the restoration it is a wonderful building in a quite magnificent way. It is a reason to visit Geraldton, if it wasn't before. So if anyone is going through Geraldton, I urge you to go and have a look over the cathedral - even do a guided tour, which will help them a bit with the upkeep. The last major component of the restoration was a new carillon of bells, one of the biggest and most sophisticated in the southern hemisphere. The technicalities of this will probably appeal to some on here: there are 27 bells, so about two and a half octaves, tuned to modern concert pitch. The bells can be played from the organ consoles inside the cathedral, or via a wireless keyboard more or less anywhere in the vicinity. They can also be played via the internet - I hope they have good passwords on that! And the ring patterns can be pre-programmed for anything up to a year ahead of time. There are no bell-ropes, they are all sounded by electro-mechanical clappers. Several of the larger bells came from a deconsecrated church in England, and some of those bells were originally cast in the 12th century. The rest were newly cast especially for Geraldton, and we actually saw them in the bell foundry in Loughborough in England during the 2018 tour - one of the highlights of the trip, for me anyway. The bells were financed by the community of Geraldton - people were invited to "buy a bell", then they could specify a name to be engraved on it. And in a really nice touch, the biggest bell in the set was paid for out of the restoration fund and dedicated to John Hawes himself, as if he had donated it. It has "Monsignor J C Hawes" engraved on it. The installation and commissioning of the system was delayed many times, and ended up being completed in November last year, about a year later than originally planned/hoped. You can't hurry bell-makers! Cheers, Steve.

And another thing, way out of left field for this forum: way back in 2004 I stumbled by chance across the story of a bloke named John Cyril Hawes, an English Catholic priest who lived and worked in the midwest region of WA from 1915 to 1939. Before entering the church he had qualified as an architect, and the bishop of the time tempted him here with a promise that he could design a cathedral for the town of Geraldton. This he did, along with many other buildings thoughout the region - mostly churches but also a farm homestead at Melangata (75km north of Yalgoo), and a cottage in Geraldton. There are about 25 buildings or bits of buildings left in WA, ranging geographically from Carnarvon in the north to Bindoon in the south. I'm not a Catholic, not even a church-goer, but the more I learned about this guy, the more captivated I was by the remarkable life he led. He was brought up an Anglican, and was initially ordained into the Anglican church in 1903, very soon after being accepted into the architectural profession. He had already built his first design, a quirky little house in Bognor Regis, for himself and his two brothers to use as a holiday house. His first church commission was in the village of Gunnerton, way up in Northumberland. In 1909-10 he was sent to The Bahamas, to help with recovery from a massive hurricane they had in 1908. So there are many buildings, renovations and extensions designed by him in those distant islands. He left The Bahamas after struggling for many years with his beliefs, and deciding that he had to convert to Catholicism. He did this at a place called Graymoor just outside New York City, and several years of personal and spiritual upheaval followed. Finally he entered Beda College in Rome to study for the priesthood again, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1915. It was there and then that he was recruited by the Bishop Of Geraldton, who was there to try and find priests to help him run his huge diocese in Western Australia. There are several books about John Hawes - two biographies, and an in-depth study of his architecture by Perth heritage architect John Taylor. Soon after becoming aware of all this, I decided to start building a portfolio of photographs of the WA buildings, with a view to producing a pictorial book, something that seemed to me to be conspicuously missing. I did that in 2012, and sumbitted it to several publishers. All of them said thanks but no thanks. I couldn't afford to finance a print run myself, so I laid out the book myself and made it available through one of the online photobook services. Although that was OK, it made the book way too expensive, so it didn't really go anywhere much. And I thought that was that. Since the beginning the idea was always in the back of my mind that it would be great to go the UK and The Bahamas to photograph the buildings Hawes left in those countries, and then produce a more complete book. But as my age increased and my income did the opposite, I had pretty much given up on the idea. Then in late 2017, I heard (again by chance) that a group of Geraldton people were putting together a tour that would do exactly that - it was even called In the Footsteps of John Hawes. We signed up and headed off in May-June 2018, and what an amazing experience it was! The group of 17 "pilgrims" were treated almost like celebrities nearly everywhere we went, especially The Bahamas. We still didn't visit absolutely every building John Hawes left, but I had no control over the itinerary so we had to take it as it was. There are 3 or 4 in The Bahamas that we didn't get to. The tour allowed me to build a new edition of the book, and this time I have bitten the bullet and done a print run, and the new book is only about 25% of the price of the first one. Sorry to be a bit long-winded, but you did ask.... This has kept me fascinated for over 15 years now, and the main purpose of my book is to raise awareness of this remarkable man, the life he led and the architectural legacy he has left us. In my view this is a significant and colourful strand in the history and heritage of WA.

Well I like working with wood. I love making things out of wood, all sorts of things. A particular interest for quite a while was musical instruments, especially ancient ones. So I've built a harpsichord and a clavichord (antique keyboard instruments, both from kits believe it or not), a replica baroque lute, a couple of more modern-design classical guitars, and a violin (also from a kit). I tend to be much more of a builder than a player, so all of these instruments have been sold except for the first classical guitar and the lute. Other non-musical things include a cedar-strip sea kayak (sold only a few months ago because I wasn't using it enough), a pair of jarrah glass doors in my house between the entry and the lounge (plus the frame), some custom modular furniture to fit into a corner in the lounge, and a window seat in a bay window. In line with this same theme, when I was able to consider aircraft ownership way back around 1990, I was quite keen to build my own. And the one that really appealed was - some of you will have guessed it - the Falco, because it's made largely of wood. And it's a very pretty and fast design too. As it happened I didn't build my own, because I decided I'd rather be out flying than building for the next X years, where X is unknown but probably greater than 3! I think it was the right decision, borne out by things I've read since about the Falco being a very complex aircraft to build. Nowadays I salivate over the Falcomposite Furio from NZ, a sort of 21st-century composite take on the Falco. But alas, my financial position now does not even allow flying, let alone ownership.

I agree. I've spent over 50 years working with computers, but still reckon that for things like speed etc a needle on a dial is better. As you say, it's a PICTURE, and that seems to be what most human brains like to work with. The brain can perceive a few degrees of difference in the angle of a needle (and the significance thereof) without even thinking, but to work that out from a number is quite a different exercise, requiring a bit more processing time. Changing the colour of the number would definitely improve that - it sort of turns the number into a picture too, to some degree. But having said that, if I were ever to own an aircraft again and I had the choice, I'd probably go for a digital EFIS, maybe one that could represent things as dials. Just simpler (and lighter?) without all the plumbing that goes with mechanical gauges, I think. But I'd probably also have backup airspeed and altimeter.