Litespeed

It was me who said..... Some should not be in charge of anything more than shopping trolley. And some I would not even allow that. Last week, I saw some young idiot move into the next lane from a stop, jumping into the gap. Problem was young dicky smashed the throttle in his commode v8 and launched into the corner of the car in his original lane. Took flight and landed on the boot of the rear car in the next lane. I have always wondered how some one manages to get a car on top of a sedan, now I know. It just stopped short of landing in the path of oncoming traffic at 60kmh. Three wrecks. What a farking idiot. He, I would need to see retrained before allowing anywhere near even a shopping trolley. Was funny as hell to watch though. I expect a Darwin award is going to be needed for that one.

Not sure about aircraft , unless we know all the crash reports etc. But a heap of us kept riding and still enjoy it. Lots of 50 plus riders doing fine on 200hp BMW and Ducati bikes. But sure it requires skill and good reflexes, a bit of fitness and most of all a large dose of wisdom when using the throttle. Any rider who has spent eons away from bikes needs to take it slow HP wise and move up once you master the docile bike. Older returned rider deaths are unfortunately common. They often may not have been great riders 30 years ago etc. Power in new bikes is insanely fast for the sports models. Better than full grandprix bikes of 30 years ago. They make foolish riders feel great but the rider not the bike is always getting beyond their limits. Some have skill levels that should be confined to shopping trolleys. Lots of younger blokes with far bigger egos than their skill and brains can support also keep launching like a missile at the horizon, and meet dog as well. With planes I expect the correlation might also show a similar trend if only related to large gaps in flying of decades and low hrs and low proficiency when returning to flying. A bit like any high skill pursuit where death stalks mistakes. I have no idea if this relates to any particular accident for RAA.

Now that might have some merit for a proper federal corruption commission. We could include penalties for failure to answer or fail to recall repeatedly. Would liars have their tongue cut out? Environmental vandals could be tied onto a fire ant nest. Illegal fishing poachers and ocean polluters could be handed over to the sharks. Start a big bushfire, and a reenactment of the wickerman awaits. Failure to cleanup mining sites or gross pollution would find a hole in the ground awaits. Could have a lot of impact but I am sure they would have objections. We need a better system but making poor sharks eat vile human scum is not cool.

Lovely atmosphere, ready to deploy as soon as the fog starts to lift. Or bugger fog and get the f..k above it and find the hun. Must be able to fly by basic instruments naturally. I do love the sweet alloy polished airless car. Could really see myself making something fun like that. Could be a lot lighter than a normal car, make a light space frame etc. But I might also need a different country to drive it in. Would be good for the hay plains , but turbulence from a road train is a bitch. I thought lemons was a racing class for $1000 cars that race? I have always loved the idea of making a cyclecar with lovely alloy body. I can do the shaping and have a spare 660 cc twin bike motor. Not aero but more practical. Which is still a toy.

Unfortunately reality is relative. Some refuse to see what does not suit their worldview. Esp When money or belief is concerned. Nothing matters except their power and position.

A good reason to have many 737 fire bombers as assets in each state. Own them not lease Then if needed they are there. If not great its called insurance.

We spend 10's billions yearly on the war on drugs in looking, finding imports. Then locking up people, mostly for small things related to addiction. The actions from illegality are the big push factors. We goal thousands for petty crime and have a huge divide of white collar vs everything else. The industrial criminal industry is very big business and increasingly privatised for profit motive. We have privatised the ultimate government sanction- prison for profit. On society scale that says everything. 95% to nature And make sensible legal access with proper health support. Then fill all the spare spaces with white collar crimes.

This is one of the areas where OME has done a great explanation of what actually is needed from the basic maths. We need to always have this in our minds, a bit of knowledge of how the physics will work out. That leads to a simple basic rule of thumb to apply a solution to. We don't need to have the equation running, when we encounter the problem- just a understanding that the distance will be surprisingly long unless we do differently. Naturally real world experience shows he is right. A basic physics understanding is golden when it just becomes intuitive, it leads to sound decision making.

All good advice . Every time you get in have a plan in case it all goes bad. From the second the motor starts to when you stop rolling on landing. A failure to plan and practice where relevant is a plan for failure. Always fly with a eye to engine failure at any time and a appropriate spot to land within a shortened gliding distance. Never stretch it to find a nicer spot for the airframe. It is easy to misjudge the distance to your selected spot. A by the book glide is great but get the distance wrong and you are short. The airframe is now just your crash barrier/protection. You choose the spot it gets used and how much is used of that safety. If the aircraft survives- bonus. You must keep flying the aircraft actively. Fate is a very poor pilot. No man or women is a superhero or has special powers. Gravity always wins, we are only smart meat bags. Once the power stops, you are running a race with time, height/speed and a suitable landing spot. Make sure you can think and pilot ahead of the situation at all times and the gravity curve. You must be thinking about where you are going- not where you are. Unless you are in full tiger country, you rarely have real killers around you that a well piloted aircraft in our class can not survive. Assuming a lack of behind cloud covered granite. Most machines can take a rough landing, short landing into a bush, or even a bloody Ferris wheel, as long as speeds are low ie REC landing speeds or near but not below stall. But even the famously hard to kill Jabiru objects to a tip stall and nose splat. There is no possible situation where a tip stall is more survivable than flying into whats in front of you (cliff faces exempted). No matter what happens, Do not Stall the Aircraft unless your touching down. This is the number one killer - stalling. IF you do one thing right to survive that is number one. Know your aircraft, like a lover, not a one night stand. Know exactly what she/he feels like when hot and sweaty or turbulent, how she feels control wise without power and a million other get to know and love things. A bit too much speed is a easy fix, too little is much harder to deal with. The lighter the machine the more important gust loads and penetration become. High climb rates at takeoff and EFATO are problematic esp in rag machines- better to have more speed and penetration to allow for shear/gusts etc from tree lines. Lots have been too eager too grab the sky and any hiccup can lead to a tip stall, some machines are more prone to it. Often seen in videos called "hold my beer and watch this". You turn low and too slow and you Burn/splat. Turns are lift killers, how much lift do you want to risk? If you snooze- you loose. No second chances for inattention. Keep calm and carry on- sage advice, panic leads to very poor decisions, abrupt control movements and PIO is common. Never fixate on a problem, fly fly fly. Radio calls are last, fly fly fly. Engine restarts are only when you have time to spare. Do not fixate on a tree or post when landing or you will subconsciously aim for it. Aim your eyes where you need to go, if that is between trees - so be it. That alone has killed quite a few and does daily on the roads as well. All standard good airmanship. All in the preparation of the mind for flight and doing the plan. No plan- , you did anyway, you plan to see your maker. For practice and any poss actual emergency- carry a helmet and put it on. A good helmet could have saved quite a few pilots from head injury. It can happen to the best at anytime. It has and we sorely miss them. Most of all........my instructor ( ex raaf F111 and Blackhawk instructor) rammed home.............. Keep Flying the F..king aircraft till it stops.

Just a little wobble on the gear, that will bend out..... Bit of spit and polish and all be sweet. Might need a iron for the wing though. Tough little bugger that model. And it will bugger those who do not treat it with respect.

Not only will the shares rise but the 20 million saved in theory finds its way into the executive pay on a actual basis. The CEO now goes from 50 times average wages to 100 times and complains they are worth much more. Any complaints are class warfare by the leftwing bludgers apparently. Want more for the poor- socialism Want to subsidise a rich business- damn good economic management. Want to reduce inequality? Damn communist class warfare. What? you want to protest- go straight to goal- you leftist scum.

Yesterday on ABC radio.... Greg Mullins former head fire chief stated- there is considerable ability for armed services to contribute fire fighting gear, trucks, tankers, base camps, fuel, food , transport and aerial services of Intel, search and even firebombing. He said we are the only country who do not actively seek to use our forces in such mass events. The roll on firegear is suited to c130 etc and easily available. Used all over world and RAAF could be quickly trained. Even in non direct fire roles, he felt a great deal more could be done to assist. He also said the claim we have enough aircraft is total bullshit. It is about the right plane for the job and we have way too few big boys available for the country. Also claims we can just lease more easily are also bullshit. They will be needed in the USA etc as fire seasons are overlapping. They have been screaming for a whole year the funding for leases was too little. Now Scomo agrees to double it with a extra $ 11 million. That is for whole season and all the country. Not enough for a bad week. He was clearly of view that claims the military were not suitable were like saying a gun can't shoot bullets. They are by nature the fast responders as they have all the gear for instant dispersal, all the aircraft for lifting gear etc. A nation that can't or won't use its military in a national emergency and have planned for such things, will have not teal ability to defend even a small enemy attacking. Do you think we will get months of notice of invasion? Argue about how to respond ? No you ring the clanger and react. Also claims of private does better for services contracts is complete right wing rippoff talk. A friend was a top gun electrical systems specialist for the fighters. Replaced by a very expensive contract.. So the real guys sat on around and only allowed to check batteries whilst waiting for a contractor to turn up and rarely do the work. All at million s in extra costs. So naturally they got made redundant, paid out and return now working on contract at 5 times the previous cost and now doing 1/2 the work. Brilliant spend ten times as much for the same work. Defence and government are full of this crap. Would not buy a ten dollar socket when you can lease it for a hundred dollars. Such a stupid country

All I could think about was some back country flying- chasing beaver. A electric beaver is cool as a toy but I like a real one better.

Tell that to a ancient rainforest that had never seen fire before. Or the koalas that are getting to endangered species. How much is a whole ecosystem worth? Or entire water catchments... It is not just about simple money equations, that thinking has got us into this trouble. Can we just compensate for all the extra deaths of the pollution? Once the true costs are accounted for doing the right thing Is very cheap. Naturally blind Freddy pilot knows it costs to actual use a aircraft. But if your using it to fight fires its money saving huge losses. Would you bitch if jet fighters cost money to run in war? What about bullets? Its the cost of stopping a emergency from escalating. Bloody cheap really.

That does not help when whole areas of the country are burning. Sensible clearing around homes and firebreaks are obvious. They are the smaller order issues of a much bigger problem.

The bill should be almost irrelevant as it is when government decides it needs to something. This is quickly becoming a national disaster that will keep on rolling on. We need a war footing mentality to do what's needed. Not just today but for the long term battles of climate change. The effects of what is happening are just as great as open warfare for those affected. We have a unlimited budget on national security, spend billions on empty detention camps........ But whilst Rome burns, Nero has a party with Murdoch jnr. We should have all the resources of government available and modified/trained as needed to respond to any environmental problem and be proactive by nature. If we can get a fire kit for every C130 and train crews for next year- do it. If they wear out, fine. No resource is useful unless its used. For the damn cost of a pissup contest summit we could have 50 737 firebombers. Owned by the military etc, ready to fight firs or move troops/ firefighters, etc. If we never need to use them, fantastic , that means billions in land and homes and nature did not burn. Question, how many in the armed services, police, security services , Home affairs etc are trained to use a gun? 200,000 Australia wide? All to reduce a small risk of crime, refugees, us been invaded etc. So why do we not have similar levels paid and trained in making sure we can still live here, have water, not burn and a environment that's livable? If we don't spend similar effort and treasure as we would a invasion by enemy- we are all stuffed. No one likes to hear it or think it, but lives are lost in war , we must do our absolute best to protect firefighters and support staff. But no fight can be had without risk. We need to also realise any malcontent has a extremely effective weapon in fire. That alone should get the hawks in defence worried.

Do not forget the most Important one to a hot day. Sublimation phase change. This is easiest to demonstrate on a very cold beer, often left in freezer a few minutes to long. Your beer comes out perfectly chilled but on the point of almost changing phase to solid. Now if you tap the bottle the extra energy introduced is sufficient to instantly sublimate and change phase. A tiny amount of energy, just from the friction of molecules on movement, the gas pressure changes in concert enough to cascade to a solid. Also happens when the pressure drops by opening the bottle or can. This all happens in a few seconds and will form ice which then turns to aerated ice to foamy ice and then just foam and beer as it loses to ambient temp its high speed magic. Its a science lesson in a perfect cold package. I have a passion for cold cold beer and always love this trick , as long as I have a currently liquid one on hand. The science of vitamin beer.....priceless. Lucky I am dedicated to scientific method. Off to the laboratory to do more beer........

I never reuse beer I have consumed. Oh........you meant oil? Nah , if the Alfa decides she does not like that oil mist, who am I to argue. Never give her anything but fresh pure coarse plus. Her belly at 6.6 litres allows for lustful healthy thirst. I don't pee in a cup and then redrink it either.

Brilliant engineering always has its place. But a German beer gives better quality. The Italian beers provide flair. A English beer should never be drunk when doing electrics. Damn you Lord Lucas....

Bex, Good to see you have not aged.

Love it. Years ago....I had a very forty Alfa Romeo. Could be heard for miles at night. Alas a non deaf police patrol waited in anticipation and sprung on the Alfa. The actually wanted to have a purve mainly. They did however laugh at the catch can, since I ran four pods on alloy ram tubes. A bespoke stainless bracket, tube and a Orchy juice bottle. It worked fine.......... Fine was coming if I did not change it. Some just don't appreciate quality engineering.

Sure the VW crew got caught. But the EU cracked down. People got jailed, billions on fines, consumers were compensated in Europe. Management took a bit hit. Not perfect but a far cry from the USA. In Europe if found out you generally get punished and systems change. I the USA unless politicians want your head, you get a raise.

Sage advice. I will never unless a absolute emergency get on a 737 Max. Just not trustworthy to me. Even with a top airline, they can't trust the aircraft. Why would I? Jet flights are a rarity for me, I am selective. I vote on ethics,safety and integrity. None apparent at Boeing.

They are only doing some flights to move fire fighters. They are not doing anything a commercial lift can't do. So more a branding exercise for gov than a big effort. But if you watched Parliament last week, you would not know they cared.

Government need to get off the fence and realise the new regime of fire. We need the military to be available and respond like it is war. Other countries have no issue doing this. We can't just let fires start and not do everything possible as early as possible to stop the fire before it get way out of control. The Tassie fires were let go when early work could have made a big difference. Not just the military either. The gov needs to invest billions a year in machines and personnel. This is a national emergency that will only get worse. We are watching billions of land, farms, homes and millions of animals die. We need to treat fire like a enemy in war, it his no mercy and will not stop without rain and or massive human effort. If the use of military assets means they wear, good. At least they are been used, as are the personnel. RFS should be much better resourced and paid for their time, trained free and fully supported. We don't do pay free police or military volunteers, so why should fire fighters be used and abused because they want to help. All society needs the RFS so should pay.