kgwilson

R22s & R44s seem to appear in a lot of rotorwing crashes. Maybe that is because there are a lot of them in service (AFAIK they are the largest selling choppers in the world) or some other cause. I have not done any research at all. A friend of mine flew R44s for some years in the NT & QLD doing survey work for mines & had an auto rotate incident in the middle of nowhere on a ridge when he had both magnetos fail.

I guess things must have changed. I built my aircraft & test flew it plus flew off the first 25 hours. I had bugger all recent hours because I'd spent most of the previous 4 1/2 years building the plane. I bent the nosewheel at 12 hours when I'd adjusted the idle too high & finally put it on the ground , ran off the seal on to wet & muddy grass. Reported that to RAA. Finally got a new nose leg & made it an inch too long. Broke that one plus the wooden prop. Reported that to RAA as well & had to remove the engine & replace the flywheel bolts. Reported the repairs & videoed flange runout which was perfect. No issues & now over 400 hours. RAA never even commented.

It looks like the so called "Jesus Nut" failed dramatically in this mechanical failure. Helicopters are very reliable these days and also due to the requirements of very high strength components and rigorous maintenance regimes luckily don't have too many main rotor separations.

Just a comment on Electric trucks. There are plenty of these especially massive dump trucks in the mining industry, many of which are autonomous. The main reasons are reduced emissions (none out the non existent tail pipe), lower operating cost, improved safety and most of all improved performance especially on steep grades due to electric motors producing full torque from 0 rpm. https://reneweconomy.com.au/fortescue-strikes-4-billion-deal-for-electric-trucks-and-dozers-to-eliminate-fossil-fuels-at-giant-mines/ Also Janus Electric are converting diesel B-Double tractor units from diesel to electric and have a replaceable battery that can be swapped in 3 minutes and has 600km of range. The cost of conversion is apparently cheaper than a full diesel engine overhaul. They will operate on the main highway between Melbourne & Brisbane. https://www.januselectric.com.au/

Brendan posted a video on this last September. This is one of many under development using drone technology so they are able to fly under full automation or with pilot input. Drones are already pretty big & a few weeks ago when floods threatened in the Northern rivers, NSW a drone was practicing the delivery of hay bales to stranded cattle. That one had a lift capacity of I think 45 kg.

Avalon is an Aviation Industry event more akin to Farnborough or Paris where all the latest civilian and military aircraft are on display & sales teams abound. Oshkosh is the US Experimental Aircraft Associations annual fly-in & everyone is welcome. About 10,000 aircraft fly in for the event. It is aimed at a completely different demographic.

The last Avalon I attended was 2005. Then they had a mock up of a F35 with it's V or STOL capabilities, a B52 made a flypast, the Connie flew, there were lots of other flypasts & aero displays & even hang gliders towed up behind Utes. There were several new plastic fantastics & a Foxcon Terrier Camper. Did they become a thing? The indoor stuff was all commercial & of not much interest. I was never inspired enough to attend another Avalon.

This is an issue that is there due to the rules around RA where RA pilots do not have access to CTR. If they did then Camden CTR could include the Oaks & everyone would be on the same frequency. A similar situation is at Blenheim in NZ where the main RPT (& also a minor military presence) Airport (Woodbourne) & the recreational, gliding & sport pilot aerodrome (Omaka) are only 5km apart & at the same altitude. On arrival you contact the tower & they clear you to enter the circuit & report back when on the ground. You must get a clearance for takeoff & departure from ATC. I've flown in there a number of times & it works well & there is a lot of activity as well. I think it is still the same. The difference is that all RA aircraft are on the same register & RA pilots must have a CTR endorsement & I assume a transponder. If RA finally gets access to CTR (30 years later than the rest of the world) then this problem would go away.

I have no problem with the sites being combined. They almost are anyway. You can just choose the subjects you wish to be involved with and ignore those that you have no interest in. Simples.

I finally got round to reading the article. Every pilot should know what all the airspeed terms are and what they mean as well as their relationship with one another. It is part of the training and qualification process. I think the authors presentation and sequencing could have been a lot better & he failed to mention calibrated airspeed at all which is the AS corrected for position installation errors but maybe that would just serve to confuse some even more.

I assume so. It is spectacular part of the world to fly around. I've flown there in my old Archer 2 & in a club 172 N model but more than 20 years ago. Not so many houses then. Attended Warbirds over Wanaka in 2000. We based ourselves in Queenstown & flew to Wanaka for the show. 600 light aircraft flew in on the Saturday morning even a few twins from Australia. They had temporary ATC set up & when I got to the reporting point was given number 10 or 12 & told to come straight in. No GPS or ADSB in those days. 4 in the 172 & all looking & we saw no-one till we got close & then there was a string of black dots in front. I think we were landing at about 30 second intervals. It was fantastic.

And the opposite runway on a good day.

There is an excellent video of an RPT ILS approach in to Queenstown through low cloud on youtube. See below.

I don't understand your 4th symptom. The US has very poor healthcare, in fact virtually none with a totally inadequate safety net for the poor. It is user pays or have health insurance at exhorbitant cost that only the wealthy can afford.

Incorrect, he got 77.3 million votes which was just over 49% of the vote but just under 64% of people eligible to vote actually voted so in fact 67% of eligible voters in the US did not vote for Trump. Trump called this a landslide but he failed to gain 50% though the electoral college system saw him with 312 votes to Harris' 226. Trump won by 230,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania & Wisconsin rust belt states where there was intense campaigning. If just over 115,000 voters in that group had instead picked Harris, she would have won those Rust Belt swing states, giving her enough votes in the electoral college to win the presidency. That is how screwed the US system is.