marshallarts

My last flight at the controls was in 1994 - when (and why) did we change from callsign first to callsign last when responding to ATC? I've always thought callsign first makes much more sense. But what would I know?

Mind-boggling. At no stage is she tied on anywhere! That is one gutsy lady.

Wow that's very impressive. Makes me wonder why all aircraft don't have VGs.

TurbAero thanks for the very comprehensive update. I really hope you can get this done - this is the sort of thing Australia SHOULD be doing. Just imagine a light turboprop twin, with two of these bolted to the wings - fantastic!

Aaah, nearly always a dangerous thing to do - especially for a pilot!

Are you sure about that? I have just looked at a page on Wikipedia about the PT6 and right up front is a big gearbox with planetary gears. The power turbine apparently turns at 30,000rpm, so not much hope of driving a propeller off that without a gearbox. What is quite amazing is that the PT6 design process started in 1958. The first ones entered service in about 1964 and they (Pratt & Whitney Canada) have been building and developing them ever since - almost 60 years! Their reliability is just about off the scale - one in-flight shutdown per 651,000 hours. Phenomenal.

Just heard a while ago that the pilot (one of the deceased) was Troy Thomas, the guy who started up the fantastic Horizontal Falls tourist operation quite a few years ago now. It was sold to Journey Beyond a year or so ago but he was still working for them. He was obviously a guy who made things happen, so will be a big loss to Broome and the Kimberley.

It raises the eyebrows slightly that the last post from flyvulcan is dated December 2017, that's quite a long time ago. And also that the website is still saying that the full new website is "coming soon". Yes I know a website doesn't build engines, but it IS the public face of the enterprise. I too hope they can produce something that meets their expectations, and they sell a heap of them, but I suspect it's a hard road they have chosen.

I tend to agree. For a start, the mission of car engines is so different from that of aircraft engines. Most cars spend most of their life loafing around at (I'm guessing) less than 50% power. Aircraft engines spend a lot of theirs at 75% or greater. I don't even really like the look of Rotaxes - don't like reduction drives much. Yes I know there are tens of thousands of them out there, but it seems to me that the main reason "mainstream" aircraft engines still look the same as they did about 50 years ago is because they WORK.

Of course. Those are Peter's ideas, not mine. And although I respect his persistence with this project, I think the chance of him ever getting it into production is probably about 5% or thereabouts. But I'd be quite happy if he proves me wrong on that.

Agree completely. Anyone can build a snazzy-looking website in about 10 minutes.

If you are interested in this topic, you might like to check out Raptor Aircraft on Youtube if you haven't already. Raptor Aircraft is a guy named Peter Muller, an Aussie living in the USA. He has designed a high-performance and very spacious 4/5 place canard pusher aircraft pretty much from scratch (although it looks a lot like the Velocity), and its power is provided by the Audi 3 litre twin-turbo diesel V6. With a reduction drive of course - pretty much essential for any car engine to drive a propeller. He has been working on this for 4 years or so and is on the brink of first flight - I think the test pilots are booked for the end of July. It's an interesting story. Peter had no background in aircraft design (he's a computer nerd like me), but when he did his training for his pilot licence some years ago he was taken aback by how cramped and uncomfortable small aircraft were (are), and how expensive. He reckoned that if he could buy a high-end car like an Audi for (say) $60K or so, why was a decent aircraft 4 times that price, or more? After looking around he decided the Velocity was the closest to what he was looking for, but it still didn't tick all the boxes. So he decided he would design and build his own. He has made a lot of mistakes, but has been completely open about all the failures as well as the successes, with 2 videos per week almost every week since the project started. He does intend the Raptor to go into production, and has hinted at some negotiations which have taken place, but I'm guessing nothing will be revealed until it has flown. I stumbled across the channel about 18 months ago and have been following the ups and downs ever since - I find it quite compelling, and I certainly admire Peter's persistence and tenacity.

The incompetence is quite breathtaking. I wouldn't let those guys ride my bike!

Yes, we see uncountable videos of hairy crosswind landings on Youtube. I'm sure all pilots here will have been taught the "classical" crosswind landing technique - ailerons into wind, opposite rudder. I get that the big jets with engines slung under the wings can't do that because the engines would hit the ground, but I would have thought the aircraft in this video could have done that quite safely with no risk of prop strike. There didn't seem to be any attempt to do so, wonder why not?

Sounds fabulous. What are you flying? I haven't been in this forum long, or I'd probably know that.

Certainly not, not sure what you have drawn from that. Perhaps I should have said "whether as pilot or paying passenger".

I am SO envious. The Kimberley is our fave region in this great country of ours. Our first really big flight was way back in 1992 when we visited Broome for the first time, and flew ourselves up there from Perth. Fell in love with it and have been going back to the area almost every year since (sadly not in our own aircraft again though). Thanks for the pics. I'd recommend a flight to the Horizontal Falls to anyone, regardless of who is at the controls.

Quite possible, but from what I've read Gary Ticehurst was a man with a big personality - hard to imagine him doing anything because of what someone else said. But yes, that's pure speculation, I never met the guy.

Yes, remember the crash that killed the hugely experienced (and repected) Gary Ticehurst and 2 ABC journos back in 2011. The ATSB determined that disorientation was the principal cause there too.

The aircraft or the Rotax engine??

There is an Aquila A210 on planesales.com.au which is/was one of theirs - VH-OIU. Sad to hear they have shut up shop, but we might be seeing more of that.

That's pretty serious flying in PNG - high terrain, low cloud, uncooperative weather. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Scenery? Oh, you mean OUTSIDE the cockpit! Didn't notice much of that.

We use the Telstra data-only prepaid thing on a tablet, for our road trips. It's $150 per year for 40GB (was 25GB when we first started). According to the website, any unused data does NOT roll over, which annoys me no end - if I've paid for it, it should be mine regardless of when I use it. In fact it annoys me that there is an expiry date at all - I don't see why it should matter how long I take to use the data. As far as I know that is their lowest-cost prepaid data plan that has 365-day expiry on the data. As a general rule Telstra does have the best coverage in our experience.

Thanks for that, the Wedgetail website is much better than the old (still there) Morgan one.