Methusala

Feet or inches?

I think that the media, enthusiastically assisted by others who are captivated by their own privileged position of power and money, make up a lot of these stories. The constant meme regarding 3d printing of guns seems to me to be overblown hyperbole. Truth is that a plastic gun would be as useful as one fabbed out of wood. The simple fact is that guns don't work without ammo. Try 3d printing a nato round! (Sales of ammunition are at least as tightly controlled in the world that I inhabit as the guns needed to project them) All that is needed to make an operational rifle is a lathe, milling machine, some metal and a capable machinist. Hardly exotic.

So, what's the point of the forgoing? We need good, 1st world accommodation available to all citizens who need it. Con artists abound at all levels of society. Reference in particular, lying politicians such as LNP. Arguing that some take advantage does not negate the case for all to have access to essential needs. This in an affluent society is inexcusable.

This story reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes story. Beggar was in fact a well to do gent who discovered that begging was actually quite lucrative. He acted in mufti and most definitely did not sleep on site! We need to be careful not to confuse flights of fancy with lived experience. For 40 years I plied my honest trade and those $1,000 days were very rare indeed.

Thing that pee's me off is when a poster makes an outrageous statement that would do Ray Hadley proud without any attempt to source the "information". Who can give any credence to a claim that some of Melbourne's homeless earn "$1,000 per day." Please respect the members of this forum by not trolling like a tabloid journalist or a shock jock.

Just head for Mt Beauty or Porepunkah instead.

Thanks for the reminder that we are all humans, not Aussies and others. Mass behaviour will always look like a herd of wilderbeast.

I just couldn't believe that polls today!!! To think that there are still 45/100 Aussies prepared to vote for such a lunatic mob of social deviates and misfits. Jesus wept.

We built Mirages in the 60's

Probably Airbus or the Russians could help them out... oh wait, haven't the Amie's pissed off all of the really sophisticated mobs already? Sounds like the LNP are running US defence.

This is why Driftering in Canberra is not on in winter. Don

Thoroughly rinse windshield to wet the surface and to float off dirt and mud. Using a damp soft or microfiber cloth, clean the windshield side to side with warm water and a gentle soap or detergent. ... Thoroughly rinse with clean water. I humbly stand corrected...ahem!

I'm not sure that Windex would be culpable in this situation. I use it all the time. Saw Dick Smith years ago cleaning the bubble on his helicopter using Windex and following up with Mr Sheen.

In the early days a hang glider pilot called Dennis Pagen wrote a number of well illustrated booklets on the subject. "Micro-meteorology for Hang Glider pilots" covered localised effects of wind at lower levels.

Fly-ins died when the nuts from CASA started to attend and do ramp checks. Someone that I know was hauled over the coals for fitting an un-approved but very much improved tailwheel to his Drifter. We all know that Austflight will not provide spares and that the fabled Robinson bros, who own the type approval for Thrusters are not interested. Ultralighters go about their business quietly and with the great store of practical knowledge accumulated over the years. Happy flying.

Thanks Wayne for posting your stunning images taken from Frank's Drifter. My wife and I were in Cairns this week. Frank and Frances treated us like kings (as usual) and I was accorded the extraordinary privilege of taking the front seat (after an audition). Frank shows us the true delights of ultralighting to which I'm addicted. Recreational aviation is not necessarily the same as this. When I want to travel I use cars, airliners, trains etc. Flight like this is the true expression of freedom and adventure. While in Cairns we were also able to catch up with another group of aviators as well as reef gazing and visiting the Atherton tablelands. I recommend all southerners take a trip up there at least once a year. It truly relaxes and invigorates your winter depressed soul. Don

Read an article in Air Asia's in-flight mag written by a check captain about the relative utility between Boeing and Airbus. He stated that with side-stick control one can place a work table in front so calculating in-flight by the non-flying pilot is natural. He also recalls that eating a meal with control column in front obviates moving the seat back. This removes the second pilot from reach of primary controls. I've heard waitresses in flight parrot,"If it's not Boeing, I'm not going ". Ask Richard De Crespigny about Airbus! By the way, the A350 is a superior plane to the 787.

Great job for Thrusters and Drifters and circumvents the stupid bar on using these great machines as working tools. Fence and stock inspections and getting fodder to stranded stock in floods as well. They can also be used economically for small scale chemical application. Boo to 'jobs for the boys' CASA

The Napier Sabre, according to a history that I read, had far more potential than the Merlin. However Rolls Royce had the inside running through connections with the Air Ministry "done 'cha know", and so got the inside running. Sabre's development was severely curtailed. All Sabre engines were destroyed at the end of the War.

The US blew any chance of claiming moral authority at least with the unleashing of WMDs upon Japan when she was on her knees in the dying days ofWW2. Australia, objectively has not done any better since the 1st Fleet declared Terra Nullius , poisoned and shot natives and stole their land. Anzac was an illegal invasion and Vietnam, Korea and Iraq? Let's just trying to forget the chestthumping and stickwithaviation. Don

Translation of the passage by Google: The crash was observed by several eyewitnesses, including a military pilot from the region. He assumes that the pilots had a serious control problem. The pilot could watch from his garden as the plane flew over the valley, made a left turn - and then suddenly abruptly tipped to the left front. "Such maneuvers were done earlier to simulate the failure of an engine. But nobody does that with passengers, "says the man to the Tages-Anzeiger. Thereupon an engine had howled loudly, seconds later the airplane had been balanced again and continued the flight normally

FYI from my brother overnight in Luzern: Well, over lunch & since my eml of Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 8:36 PM [your time], I read the 20min.ch article, which had the "turned 180 degrees to the south and fell to the ground like a stone" = «Sie flogen [better = flog] eine 180-Grad-Kurve Richtung Süden, dann fiel sie wie ein Stein vom Himmel.» A search shows this as published by 20min.ch on “05. August 2018 17:11; Akt: 05.08.2018 17:18” – and is described as «Ersten Erkenntnissen» = “1st reports,” so why didn’t the TV in general and SRF in particular report this ‘back then?’ Never mind. Then, also in your citation: {Der Absturz wurde von mehreren Augenzeugen beobachtet, darunter auch ein Militärpilot aus der Region. Er geht davon aus, dass die Piloten ein ernsthaftes Problem mit der Steuerung hatten. Der Pilot konnte aus seinem Garten beobachten, wie das Flugzeug über das Tal flog, zu einer Linkskurve ansetzte – und dann plötzlich abrupt nach links vorne wegkippte. «Solche Manöver machte man früher, um den Ausfall eines Motors zu simulieren. Aber mit Passagieren macht das niemand», sagt der Mann dem «Tages-Anzeiger». Daraufhin habe ein Motor laut aufgeheult, Sekunden später sei das Flugzeug dann wieder ausbalanciert gewesen und habe den Flug normal fortgesetzt.} You may translate that with google-translate, but the sense is ‘turn, stall, recover’ with power added somewhere in that sequence. And so the ‘struggling’ idea. Now, reports say ‘no pieces lost, no visible [pre-]damage observed.’ IF the pilots were ‘struggling’ THEN I would think they would head for the next known landing-place - like Mollis, say [~30km, one valley all the way], but if I understand correctly, they continued and some time later initiated the fatal 180 to face south, exactly the ‘wrong’ direction for Mollis or home-base Dübendorf. So now if report-snips here are correct, we have two turns, two stalls but only one recovery. "Your guess is as good as mine?" Don

One can only wonder how this JU 52 came to dive vertically into the earth with 2 very experienced pilots aboard.

It's said that asbestos fibres can divide to diameters that are small enough to penetrate the wall of the cell's nucleus and physically damage genetic material. I knew a guy who was employed cutting asbestos water pipes with a 9" B&D saw in the late 50's. Died a pretty horrible death 30 years later. As a young plumber, I would make circular penetrations in the soffit lining for vent pipes using dividers. Dust would float all around me. Have heard that mesothelioma only gets a small percentage of those exposed. I know that exposure to dust in the construction industry has scarred my lungs but I'm lucky so far at 67.