kgwilson

If everything is checked and found to be OK with ethanol I still wouldn't use it in an aircraft unless it is run virtually every day. Ethanol is hygroscopic and will absorb the moisture from the humidity in the air. Depending on the time of year and the level of humidity it will not be very long before there is water in the tank as while it is absorbed by the ethanol it will eventually separate out and being heavier than ethanol and petrol will end up at the bottom of the tank.

There is no interference from mine which is stuck on the side of my bubble canopy approximately in line with the panel.

There is nothing wrong with the MRH-90 per se. The problem was with our politicians and military experts who made the purchase without ensuring all of the local modifications and requirements would work and what the cost of these were and we would build them here. Australia had no track record building helicopters especially high end, very complex large military designs requiring lots of local design features. Simple things like not ensuring the door was big enough to despatch troops effectively was a pretty basic oversight. The tail rotor failure problem was something else that should never have happened. If the components had been replaced when they found an issue with the German version in 2014 & 2017 leading to a modification that all user nations were advised of in October 2018 then the problem during Operation Talisman in July 2019 in an unmodified Taipan wouldn't have happened. This led to the grounding of the entire fleet of 47.

I started my RA conversion at Caloundra in 2009 at the Skyfox Flying School and it was really busy then. I only flew on Weekends. I can't imagine anyone not making a entering /lining up call though many do not make a rolling call especially when there is little or no other traffic. With a busy frequency overtransmits are common and it is possible that both these aircraft made their entering/lining up and/or rolling calls at the same time so they would have not heard anything. There are plenty of frequencies available even with the 25kHz spacing to give all 3 aerodromes their own. Most radios other than those in older GA aircraft and old hand helds, even the poorly rated Microair M760 can monitor 2 frequencies.

Very sad. Condolences to the deceaseds familys. A failure in effective communication seems pretty likely. With one on 24 and the other 29 it is unlikely they would be able to see one another if they were both taking off due to the bush between the 2 runways.

If those are Rotax 912 ULS engines they'd be worth twice as much as the rest of the aircraft I reckon.

I'm pretty sure the 80HP 912 is by some margin the most reliable of all the variants. The 916 has only just been released but doubling the HP from 80 to 160 from the original 1352cc engine with injection and turbocharging must have some effect on its reliability. I do note that the 160HP is only available for takeoff & there is 137HP available for continuous operation. They do manage to crank out 200 to 250 or more HP from Hot hatches with 1.6 to 2.5 litre engines and they are ridiculously expensive. No idea about reliability though.

I bought my in line fuel shutoff valves from Aircraft Spruce. I have one on/off valve and one for right/off/left tank valve. They come with 1/4 inch barbs with a red selector lever & cost about $12-$15 US plus freight. Good quality, simple & never had a problem.

Wow that hack was pretty awful. Thanks for sorting it out so quickly Ian.

They get up to 10,000 aircraft in at Oshkosh over a weekend (this weekend 2023) and the runways have a series of coloured dots on them. You are told which runway and which dot to land on and then get off at the next exit. It is by far the busiest airport in the world for 1 week a year. The rapid fire instructions from the controllers is amazing. Check it out below.

You can also quote multiple posts by clicking the + sign. If you only want to quote part of a post you just delete the bits you don't want in the normal way (back button, select & delete button or delete & hold for forward delete). Easiest on a PC.

There are thousands of takeoffs and landings and circuits at uncontrolled aerodromes every day without comment. That is because everything works as it should. When an issue does occur it is right to bring that to the attention of as many pilots as possible. Discussion on the incident with others adding their thoughts, experience or opinions increases knowledge and awareness for everyone. In my 47 years flying and thousands of takeoffs, landings and circuits I have encountered a handful of issues. My intention is to make as many pilots as possible aware of these so we can all learn and get better. At South Grafton we have Trikes, Powered Parachutes, slow Ultralights, Gliders, model jets, Helicopters, RA & GA singles of all types including turbines like PC12s and twins like Kingairs and everything works almost all of the time.

If you want to see what busy is check out some of the adsb data from Oskosh on youtube live feed next week. They will be arriving from this Saturday. There is one way ATC so they do not want a radio response from you. They identify you at numerous reporting points and ask you to rock your wings. I saw a couple of years back about 30-40 aircraft all in a single holding pattern going around a lake. Most had ADSB out. I have no idea how many or if any haad ADSB in but when you are that close the only thing to keep an eye on is the aircraft in front. I imagine they would be able to see a few. Of course this is all with a measure of control. The same thing happened 23 years ago when i flew in to Warbirds over Wanaka from Queenstown. There was temporary ATC and you called them at the reporting point & from then on got told what to do without acknowledgement back. I was No 15 & couldn't see any other aircraft till we got close & then they started appearing as we bunched up. The twin in front of me on final fogot his gear & was told to go around which he didn't. Put it down at the last minute & landed. 600 light aircraft flew in that day. Anything is manageable if it is controlled.

I probably didn't frame my comment very well. There are very few aircraft that fly NORDO. Most are vintage or older very slow microlights. I have a personal rule. I give a 10 mile call and an overhead call EVERY time, then a joining call & nothing else if I hear or see nothing. Then I land. If I stay within the 10 mile radius I give my intentions at 3 miles and then a joining call and land. If there is a NORDO aircraft I will never know unless I see it. If there are other aircraft in the vicinity and these are heard then the situation is completley different. My experience at the beginning of this thread is something I have gone over and over and I still wonder how I got into this situation & why I didn't act differently. The local Mooney pilot (& close friend) who had a wheels up after an EFATO recently cannot explain why after owning the aircraft for 25 years and many hundreds of hours he didn't activate the electric fuel pump or put the wheels down when these are the standard normal things he does every landing. Outlawing NORDO aircraft is unlikely to make much difference when probably 98% of aircraft have a radio. All aircraft should have ADSB out as a minimum but there is nothing compelling you to have this & so far encouragement by subsidy is the only carrot. My SE2 sees everything ADSB out equiped for about 40NM but it is generally only GA trainers & a few other SE2 owners. Most aircraft still have nothing. Yes it is a combination of see and avoid/radio/ADSB but there will always be situations where the holes in the swiss cheese begin to align. Mistakes will always happen and some will not follow the rules. Going back about 30 years I was visiting a friend at Pauanui & gave my 10 mile, O/H & joining calls when another aircraft called down wind on the same runway when he was on the reciprocal. I had a visual & advised he was planning a downwind landing & was in conflict as he had the runway wrong. What happened. Nothing. I made several other calls keeping him in sight the whole time but still nothing, then he flew away. These people exist and they will always be around. I was lucky. Situational awareness is the key but you cannot plan for the failure of others.

I spent my first 30 flying years in NZ and the procedures have not changed. The same applies In Australia and there has been no push from any authority to make any change and I cannot see any compelling reason why there should be. Aerodrome operators can require the carriage and use of radios when using their facilities. This is specified in ERSA for South Grafton. I am not sure of the legalities surrounding this though. The aerodrome operator only has authority over the use of runways, taxiways and other facilities on the ground. Once the wheels leave the tarmac CASA rules apply.

Another thing is that when the inital down wind call was made, if it was stated "Just turned down wind" I'd have joined crosswind on a normal crosswind location about a few hundred metres past the 08 threshold & even with my considerably faster airspeed and closer circuit I would not have caught them up, and more importantly would probably have seen them.

I have LED strobes on each wing. I don't know whether the 170 has any beacon LEDs. I know the 230 has one on the top of the vertical stabiliser. The trouble with strobes is they are hard to see in the sky anyway but easy on the ground.. If the 170 had ADSB out I'd have seen it easily on the tablet and made an adjustment probably by doing an orbit.

Yes that's it. I don't remember any transmission saying I'd flown past & I'd crossed their path as I continued several miles past that spot on an extended downwind still looking for them until I decided they must be on final by then and turned base. They made no turning final call but in hindsight I should have again asked for their position. Of course I saw them a few seconds later so nothing more needed to be said. I was completly unaware of the incident until I got the phone call & had the discussion an hor or so later.

I have just read through RFGuys near miss incident in the "Tell me about your last Flight" thread and decided to start this thread rather than clog up the other one which as I see it should be about good things. A couple of weeks ago I went out for a morning flight. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, almost no wind and it was hands off flying. I headed West from South Grafton, over the first range and then North up the Mann River towards Tabulam and then to the South East and made a call over flying Baryulgil heading back. I made a 10 mile call and got a response from the local instructor that he was performing a power failure on takeoff on 26 followed by what at the time I thought was a landing on 08. This turned out to be a backtrack on 26 for another takoff. 4 1/2 minutes later I called overhead the airfield at 1500 & requested the position of the other aircraft. They advised "downwind for 26" so I turned flew to the dead side and announced "joining midfield crosswind for 26" and was at 1000 feet crossing the runway. I then announced " turning downwind for 26" . The other aircraft asked if I had them in sight and I responded "No" and continued looking. I had my SE2 which showed an aircraft close to Grafton Airport but nothing local. The other aircraft asked again if I had them in sight and advised "overhead Acmena, turning base". Acmena is a local youth detention centre and I knew vaguely where it was but had never identified it before from the air. I said at some point I still did not have the other aircraft in sight but can't remember exactly when that was so decided to continue on and extended downwind. I eventually announced turning base, saw and heard nothing more until I was on final when I saw the other aircraft on short final in front of me. They did a T&G & me a full stop. Later I got a phone call from the instructor and then had a discussion with him & student. It turned out that they were on base and saw me on downwind a little above them not far away. I did not spot them at all most likely due to my (low) wing providing a blind spot. So what went wrong here. Fistly visual contact was not established until a near miss and then only by one aircraft. Secondly the circuit diameters of the 2 aircraft were quite different. This was why the near miss actually occurred. My aircraft is considerably faster than the training aircraft (Jabiru J170) so I was catching them up all the time and also my performance envelope is far greater. The J170 would not be far off MTOW with an instructor well over 100kgs and a passenger I would guess at about 80-85kgs. My circuit is somewhat smaller and this is for reasons of performance capability of the aircraft and safety of easily getting back for a forced landing in the event of an engine failure. The resolution is that whenever there are Flying School aircraft in the circuit I will fly wide circuits and use the schools turn points which have now been pointed out to me. I flew one the other day and its seems enormous to me as normally I will make the first turn crosswind at 500 feet which can be almost across the threshold of 08 if there is a 10 knot SW blowing & the downwind leg is another hill ridge further away from my normal downwind leg. Any comments and/or suggestions?

There are 23 privately owned separate hangars and each subleases the land it sits on from the Hangar Owners Association which leases the whole aerodrome from Crown Lands.

The Holden Cruze was made by GM in the US & Daewoo in Korea and assembled in Elizabeth here. It was a fairly forgettable car just like the Captiva. Who the service dealers are now is probably no-one in particular.

I just paid my annual membership & it is $285.00. Part of this is the $20,000,000.00 public liability insurance you get along with $250,000.00 for your passenger. Try taking this out as an individual and the cost is likely to be $1,000,00 to $1,300.00. We have to take out 20 mil PL insurance for our aerodrome & 10 mil for each hangar and the annual cost is $515.00 per hangar owner.

Contrary to the view of some here, the average age of the car fleet in Australia is 10.6 years based on the 2021 vehicle census & there were 20.6 million vehicles on the road then. The average age has actually increased since the last census.

You still have to keep the steam pressure up so even stopped it would be using fuel to maintain steam pressure. An electric vehicle stopped uses virtually no energy.

I've never understood the logic of this stop start process either. A friens has a Subaru XV with the same feature & he hated it so has it permanantly disabled. In heavy city reaffic this happens all the time. On a hot day this means the air conditioning compressor is shutting down and restarting all the time too. This situation is where an electric vehicle shines.