old man emu

I have just received a photograph from the surveillance system. I have identified a certain infamous home builder who made his presence felt, after he defrosted.

Why wait? Come up anytime. The aerodrome is all weather. The pub opens for lunch at midday, and has rooms to let.

Hey! I wasn't advocating committing things to memory. I just wanted to ditch the Americanism.

The day dawned chilly, but the skies were clear and the wind calm. I'm afraid that I didn't see many of the arrivals as I had a lot of last minute organising to do. The biggest problem was that although I had sent out emails to all and sundry about how to get a copy of the information package and the link to submit an entry, very few did so. In order to make something happen I had to accept entries on the day. That meant that I had to wait until the death knell to organise the starting order. So, next time you hear about an event and the organisers have asked for entries to be submitted by a certain date, make sure you get yours in on time. Failure to do so is really an insult to the efforts the organisers put in so that the event can happen. It's easier to an accept a withdrawal than to be swamped on the day. Rant over. So, by the time we were ready to start the formalities of the event, 30 aircraft were parked in full view of the massed public. 12 of those aircraft were involved in the event. There would have been four more, but delays in completing maintenance, suddenly sickening relatives and a whack of bad luck caused those pilots reluctantly to withdraw. Some Spacey bloke tried to enter a Hummelbird, but didn't have the wing loading to throw around, so he acted the Ratite.* The first aircraft was flagged off at 12:01:32. and the 12th at 12:20:29. I reckon that was pretty good. It was annoying that by midday the clear skies were being covered by SCT Cu around 4000 and the wind was SW at 11 kts gusting to 17. We had asked the Local Member to flag off the first aircraft, and expected him to leave. But he was having a good time and we couldn't wrest the flag from him. Despite the change in wind, most aircraft were home to roost by 1415, and we had the presentation at 1430. That allowed people to start home with a good bit of daylight left. I had some hard decisions to make in judging the winner. Apart from doing the usual time/distance/heading flight planning, the entry form required pilots to do their fuel calculations and W&B calculations. I was surprised at the number of entrants who either did not do the W&B, or put in weights but no Moments to see if they were within the envelope. Does this indicate a habit of "kick the tyres. Light the fires and flock off"? A safety issue for sure. Some of the fuel calculations showed either a lackadaisical approach or lack of knowledge. So it came down to only four entries that met the desired standard. Although you it is not like me to be pedantic in any way, shape of form, I did set the scenario to be that the entrant was conducting a commercial flight. Therefore I wanted details. The winner, a mere youth of 18 years, gave me those details. He accounted for time and fuel used for take off; he calculated time and distance to Top of Climb and then all the cruise details. I was going to knock him for not locating Top of Descent to Toora, but then I noticed he'd carried out an en-route descent on an earlier leg. The second-placed entrant came in 33 seconds past his ETI, but hadn't done the TOC. So endeth "Winging it Down the Castlereagh" for 2023. It has done the job of introducing a lot of pilots to Tooraweenah. Many from afar have indicate that they will return to Toora for a $100 hamburger. * Ratite is the Group birds that contains the ostrich, the cassowary and the emu. They share a common flightless ancestor that lived in Gondwana, whose descendants were isolated from each other by continental drift,

Check list or aide memoire - it's just OME playing with words.

And so it came to pass, Developers got onto Councils and closed aerodromes or changed the land use to the extent that they no longer operate as aerodromes. But my God! How the money rolls in. Rolls in. My God, how the money rolls in!

"Checklist": "systematic list intended for reference, verification, etc.," 1849, American English. Let's abandon this obsession with American English. From the early days of aviation the French language has sufficed. Those moveable surfaces on the outer rear of the wings are ailerons - from French aileron, diminutive of aile "wing". Say, "No" to "checklist"! It's an aide memoire , which has the implication that you learned something and have it in your memory.

I've had a looong day, so this is short. The event went off spectacularly. The only hitch came from a mistake I made in describing the course, but that was resolved before the event. I'll give a fuller account tomorrow after I've had a good night's sleep.

To be really honest, is there any reason to spend time trying to get an answer to this question? For an aeronautical engineer the question to be answered is how to obtain maximum lift and minimum drag. One can start with a mathematical model, but that only directs you to a design to test. Therefore, the design of a wing is an empirical process. One doesn't need to know how the desired lift is created, just that the design produces the desired result. Next we have the poor wingnut trying to utilise the aeronautical engineer's design to the best effect. The wingnut doesn't need to know the How of the situation, merely the how to use the tool the aeronautical engineer has provided. That said, it creates a great argument for dispensing with all the guff 'n' stuff we are fed about How Lift is produced, and replacing it with study of how to use the tool. We practice how to use the other tools that have been provided for efficient flight, so why not practice using the wing? I wonder how many people who spend ages arguing the two common theories of Lift generation ever spend time washing and polishing their aircraft's wings to reduce the drag associated with unevenness of the wing's surface? Reduce drag, improve the L/D ratio.

Spacey, Check you messages. I sent you a PM about getting a flight.

Don't laugh. There is one at Wedderburn.

Them M20's are as slick a goose shit. Used to be navigator on one out of Dubbo in my youth.

Not any like you who are driving in from far away. One young fellow is bringing a campervan from Coonabarabran, 40 Ks away to stay in overnight , but is flying in on Saturday.

I sent an email to the AOPA President this morning.

I would say that such a situation is a serious design fault. If I was in America, I'd be suing the carp out of the manufacturer for negligence in design.

Ran off the runway? Bugger! Can't use the "plummeted from the sky" cliche.

At midday today it was calm, although some fair weather Cumulus did develop, but dispersed by sundown. Temperature around 20C. Perfect autumn weather. Forecast air pressure is around 1024 and rising to 1028 and higher on Sunday. So far 12 entrants and more to sign up as well as quite a few lookenpeepers. A good mix of VH- and RAA aircraft . The oldest C-172 in Australia will be on display.

I'll email him tomorrow.

But what if the starboard main has fallen off?

There are two groups of people with a retract endorsement - Those who have done a wheels up, and those who are going to. And there was his comment - I was trying to work out why the speed was up on approach (paraphrased)

Who do I contact?

The boring part of the trip to and from Europe is the time spent in some Asian or African airport boarding lounge during a "stop-over". I know that the stopovers allow time for essential housekeeping for the aircraft, but 300+ people heading for the loos at the same time with the same internal pressures is hard to take. And armed guards with unsmiling faces don't make for a happy experience.

Has anyone ever seen the Deed made between the Commonwealth of Australia and a local Shire/Municipal Council when the Commonwealth handed over the maintenance of an aerodrome to the Local Government body? This is the first page; As you read through the deed, you come across these little bits at Clause 2(h) and 2(k) I obtained this from one of the files dealing with Tooraweenah aerodrome that are held in the National Archives. If you search the National Archives database for your threatened aerodrome, you will probably find a similar one.

There's a bulk strip, new prop and new CSU unit. Another case of get-home-itis that has many lessons for us all. The first one is the need to answer the question, "Am I fit to fly". In this case, I'd say fatigue was the first link in the chain of events leading to the failure to put down the Dunlops.

Mistrust of a Nation's political leadership is the spark that has ignited so many revolutions in which real blood has been spilled. The more that is exposed, the more the mistrust grows. Acts like stacking an important body like the AAT in blatantly biased ways reeks of treasonous behaviour. However that use of the word "treasonous" is more emotional than factual since treason can only be committed by physically harming in various degrees the Sovereign, the Sovereign's family, the G-G or the Prime Minister, or by waging or aiding the waging of war or hostilities against the Commonwealth. But its use here suits the tone of teh post. At the moment there seems to be a song and dance going on about banning Neo-Nazi groups. But those groups are too far on the fringe ever to gain power in a post-Hitler world. However, we are suffering from so many immoral acts committed by powerful Right Wing parties that one might consider banning them also. I will agree that the Left Wing's halo is tarnished as well, but that side of politics appears to have confessed its sins and set out on the path to reformation.