Matt

Here's the first video I've put together from the trip, it's a collection of video taken during my 8 year old niece Molly's first two flights in a small aircraft. The first flight she was very quiet taking everything in but loved it, the second flight we got adventurous playing around in some low scattered cloud and experiencing some "G" with a few wingovers. She loved every minute of it and her third flight (which we didn't get on video) was more of the adventurous stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O18HeHtcVQc The "Aunty" Matt reference in the title screens refers to me being "Aunty Matt", none of us can remember why I'm Aunty and not Uncle but it's been like that for about 6 years and will stick with me I think...requires some explanation when Molly talks about her Aunty Matt :)

G'day Phil, As some forum members would know - I'm more than happy to talk about flying and especially our aircraft :). I use Adobe Premiere Elements for video editing. Was initially using Microsoft Movie Maker but it's very limited in it's capabilities. The clamp is a neat little unit I found about 18 months ago when I was looking for a clamp to mount on the tubular canopy brace in the Sportstar. It's got rubber covered grips and we've used it to clamp to the dashboard (as seen in the pics above) as well as to the rollover bars in the back of the cockpit. It's made by a company called High-Sierra and cost about $15 from memory. It uses a standard camera screw so it'll fit most cameras with no problems. It doesn't leave marks on anything we've clamped it to yet. Here's the manufacturer website http://www.highsierramfg.com/ TAS of the CT4 is 125 knots at 23"/2600RPM and we average 40L/Hour. Happy to answer any more questions, will also posts some more photos once we've sorted through them all. Cheers, Matt.

In addition to a heap of photos, we also took about 10 hours of video. Once I've finished transferring it to PC and editing it I'll post the finished product(s) on YouTube and links here...don't hold your breath for this though, it'll take a week or two to get the video done. Cheers, Matt.

That's no good about the virus Paul, hope you get well soon. It is indeed a great trip, we've done it twice now, the first time in the Sportstar via Flinders Island for Xmas in 2005 and this time with the CT4 via King Island. It is initially a daunting thought heading over that much water but by the time you're leaving the mainland coast at 9500' you can normally see either King or Flinders island (depending on which way you head) which is a comfort over the thoughts of flying off into a great expanse of water with no land to be seen. I'd recommend it to anyone, there's some great scenery to experience flying around Tassie. Cheers, Matt.

We're back. A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everyone, feel like we've been on another planet after our 2 weeks in Tassie without internet access :). As promised, here's the trip report and photos from our Christmas journey from Canberra to Devonport...get a coffee/tea/beer and a comfy chair before starting this one! The Trip Across The plan was to leave on Saturday the 15th as Kaz and I were supposed to finish work on the Friday then attend our respective company's Christmas parties. That plan was moved forward a day when the weather forecast on the Thursday indicated perfect weather for Friday with a front coming through that night and not so good weather to follow. So we told both our bosses that in the interests of flight safety we'd be having an extra day off and wouldn't be making the Christmas parties...thankfully we both have very understanding bosses. Our track would see us leave Canberra and track our normal path to Melbourne via Tumut, Albury and Mangalore. Normally we'd stop in at Point Cook but there's been another change in political climate down there and they wouldn't permit us to land. In lieu of Point Cook we headed for Moorabbin via the VFR lane from Kilmore to Sugarloaf. An inbound call at Academy and we track to join downwind for runway 34R. Having descended from a cruising altitude of 7500' where we had a nice cool flow of air into the cockpit, we're blasted by the hot air of a typical Melbourne summers day with a northerly wind. We head over and park under the tower and head into the airconditioned terminal building to meet up with my folks for a quick catchup and to exchange Christmas presents. Loading up the CT4 like Santa's sleigh we refuel for the trip across Bass Strait that would see us track direct to Lorne from Moorabbin and climbing to 9500'. With the hot weather and a fully loaded CT4 it took us until just before Lorne to get to 9500' without pushing the temps into the red. Leaving the mainland behind, we contact Melbourne centre to set up our overwater sked calls - in addition to transponder and being tracked on radar, there's an extra level of comfort knowing someone is keeping an extra eye on you as you head off over water. The skies had been clear until we approached King Island where a cloud layer at about 12000' had thickened up and we started to see signs of upper level rain. As we head over King Island and near our turning point, we run into the edge of the rain and the horizon suddenly disappears as the cloud base had also dropped with the rain. Straight onto instruments and conduct a 180 degree turn to get us back to clear skies. Once clear of the rain we have a look to either side of the rain band to see how far off track we'd need to go to get around it, we also dropped down to 8500' to see whether it was any clearer underneath. As we turn back to our planned heading and near 8500' the cloud base was above us an there was now a horizon again and the rain had reduced to a light shower - good enough to fly through with the Tasmanian north west coast visible through the drops streaming on the windshield. As we approach the coast we're now in front of the cloud and rain band and heading to blue skies as we track past Wynyard and begin our descent into Devonport. Overflying Devonport township there's no other aircraft in sight or on the radio as we overfly the airport and join crosswind for runway 06. We touchdown and taxy around to the GA parking where Kaz's brother is waiting to greet us. Flight times for our trip: Canberra - Moorabbin 2.5 hours, Moorabbin to Devonport 2.3 hours. Trips in Tassie Most of our flights in Tassie were joyflights for Kaz's family including our 8 year old neice Molly who had never been flying in anything smaller than a 737 - she barely spoke during the first flight taking it all in but once we landed and I asked how was it, the response was and emphatic "that was AWESOME!!!". All up I think I did about 13 or 14 flights from Devonport heading east towards the Tamar River and west to Burnie. There's so much variety in scenery flying around this area - great coast lines, rivers to follow, mountain ranges and a patchwork landscape created by all the farms. Kaz and I wanted to get some longer flights in while we were there and managed to do a trip across the north coast to the east coast then down to the Freycinet Peninsula and Swansea. We then headed inland to a little town called Ross in the midlands then followed the mountain ridge up to Cressy, Deloraine then back to Devonport. This was a great trip, the east coast is magnificent with some beautiful white sandy beaches and especially the contrast of Wine Glass Bay which is dwarfed between two rock formations which are about 1500' heigh. We wanted to do a similar trip across Cradle Mountain to Strahan on the west coast but the weather was never good enough for long enough to allow this trip...maybe next time. The Trip Back Home The trip home would be a reverse of our trip down but we'd actually be laying over in Melbourne for a couple of days to spend a couple of days with my folks. Again we couldn't get into Point Cook as we have done before so the next option closest to my folks place was Melton. Another flight plan dictated by the weather, we headed off from Devonport on Sunday morning bright and early and again climbing to 9500' for the journey across Bass Strait via King Island. Another uneventful crossing and an almost silent radio with the exception of our sked calls and we cross the coast at Lorne and track for Melton and begin our descent to be under the control steps as we approach Geelong - we tried to get a clearance but the cloud was marginal at Melton for VFR according to the current weather the controllers had...ironically we had a clear path ahead of us and didn't come within miles of a cloud on our approach into Melton. No harm done and we were actually better off down low - had a very strange experience of descending into ever warmer air until about 3000' where the outside air temp dropped from about 26 to 14 almost instantly, it was like someone had just installed airconditioning and turned it on...now that'd be nice! As with every other time I've flown over Melton, there was not another aircraft in sight and we landed at what looked like a deserted strip where my folks were waiting to pick us up. After a couple of days in Melbourne and again planning to fly on the "best of a bad bunch" of days - you've probably all seen the weather for Melbourne this week, plenty of high 30's and low 40s' - not the best flying weather. Making a decision to give up a New Years Eve celebration, we had an early departure today (New Years Day) leaving Melton in 32 degree heat with a 25 knot wind at 8am and tracking overhead Mangalore for a quick stop off at Yarrawonga to pick up a new canopy cover, bungs and some other bits that Di at Punkin Head had finished off for us - as with our last experience with the Sportstar, Di makes fantastic covers and I can't recommend her (and her mum!) strongly enough to anyone needing an aircraft or canopy cover. After collecting our bits and checking out Di's new addition baby Ellie who's just turned 3 months and their recently completed hangar-home we climb back into the hot cockpit for the last hour and a half leg of our journey back home. As we climb out of Yarrawonga I'm happy to see a tailwind of about 10 knots that was forecast as a 25 knot headwind ;). Passing over the Hume Highway south of Tarcutta we get ATIS for Canberra which indicates no cloud, a variable wind at 3 knots and a moderate temperature of 24 degrees. Overhead Tumut we contact approach and get our clearance direct Canberra and we look forward to getting home to a cool shower and airconditioning. Cleared visual approach for a left base ruway 35 from about 15 miles out (it was VERY quiet in Canberra today) we track south of Parliament House and after a smooth landing we open the canopy to let some coolish air in and taxy to parking. Flight times for the return trip: Devonport to Melton 2.7 hours (strong headwinds ), Melton to Yarrawonga 1.2 hours, Yarrawonga to Canberra 1.4. Here's some pics from the trip...some of the 1000 odd Kaz took...the joys of digital cameras! Patchwork of clouds and farms between Devonport and Ulverstone Kaz having one of many power naps as we head over Bass Strait...hard work for some :) King Island The Victorian coast in sight The flight deck at 9500' over Bass Strait Approaching the Victorian coast - looking left towards Apollo Bay Finals for runway 04 at Melton Turning finals runway 06 at Devonport Taxying out for a joyflight Taking our neice Molly for her first flight...check out the concentration on her face Landing roll after another joyflight Coming in to land after another joyflight Port Sorrel Entrance to the Tamar River St Helens Sand dunes of St Helens East Coast of Tasmania south of Bicheno Freycinet Peninsula Wine Glass Bay

RIP George As with everyone else who has posted, Kaz and I are stunned by the loss of one of our own. We had heard about the crash on the news and lamented the loss of two more of the ultralighting and recreational aviation family without a thought that we may have known the unfortunate folks...it is only as a result of this forum that we have been introduced to so many great people outside our geographic area. George is one of those great people. Someone I enjoyed "posting with", enjoyed reading his posts and appreciated and firm believer in his mantra of "stick and rudder" flying being the basis of good aviating. Rest in peace George, you will be missed by many, including many whom you never met. Matt & Kaz.

Hi everyone, just to let you know Kaz and I haven't dropped off the face of the earth...merely dropped off the mainland to spend Christmas with Kaz's parents in Tasmania - for any forum members on the north west coast between Devonport and Wynyard, you'll probably have heard or will be hearing a lot of us as we buzz up and down the coast. Will post a full trip report of our transit flight from Canberra to Moorabin to King Island to Devonport as well as some local flights we've been doing with pictures when we get access to some broadband internet...how slow is dialup!?!?!??! Cheers, Matt.

Oh, in that case "YAY" from us...need to post a "survey" thingy to prompt some folks into action. Cheers, Matt.

Also pays to check what combinations of food / drink don't agree with flying. Milkshakes and me don't mix when flying. Also had a bad experience once with a sausage roll...very weary of them ever since.

Suggest all of the points you raise HPD are human factors issues i.e. training, currency etc. and could/should be resolved by setting and maintaining high personal standards and high training and instructor standards. Applying any additional technology to the airborne environment will require more of the same...training, currency and testing. Back to the thread though - can't see how a transponder can be a bad thing, not much workload or distraction in it's operation - turn it on before you takeoff, turn it off when you land, change the numbers when a controller tells you to.

Bit of a stretch to think that's the impact of having and using a radio. As pilots we're trained and expected to multi-task, if you can't press a button, talk/listen on the radio and maintain a lookout I'd question whether you should be in command of an aircraft. We should all be aiming for higher standards of the fundamental skills required to command an aircraft, not less of them at a lower standard. Just my thoughts. Cheers, Matt.

Yep, it's a doco. Bought the DVD yesterday and watched it all last night. It was put together by the SBS in conjunction with the RAAF (no doubt as a recruitment and marketing tool) and from my experience and knowledge it looks to be a pretty accurate representation of life becoming and being a fighter jock. I've actually met and had some decent chats with a few of the pilots in the series, all very down to earth guys "just doing their job"...just happens to be one of the best jobs in the world. Cheers, Matt.

There's nothing in the AIP, VFG (which is where Pelorus32's diagram is from) or any other official documentation that defines procedures for going around at non-towered aerodromes further adding to the "what's the correct procedure" debate. Appears that various instructors teach various methods...no doubt taught by their instructors and so on. Should we adopt the GAAP procedure in the void of any other? Should this actually be raised with CASA as the regulator? As for the "orbit", in the scenario (in my humble opinion) it's nothing more than "going around" - there's nothing that states (again that I can find) that "going around" can / is only initiated from final, I've performed a go around from final, base and in a few instances late downwind. In each instance the radio call was "<CALLSIGN> going around RWY # <POSITION>" i.e "MCT going around RWY 30 from BASE" and continued to complete the circuit i.e. climb to circuit height and fly the rest of the circuit...base, upwind, crosswind etc. making required callsigns as you go including identifying position relative to other traffic if pertanent. Cheers, Matt.

There's much talk of the "expensive" ADSB-in displays but I'm yet to see any discussion about actual unit's being proposed or their potential cost. I have seen a few demonstrations of ADBS-in displays, the primary "low cost" option being a PDA / Pocket PC. Bit of a blurb and a picture in this Airservices article http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/pilotcentre/projects/adsb/news/CDTI_testing.pdf

There's another media release that details the capabilities of this company and if you check out their website http://www.sac.com.cn you can see that they have been around for a long time and are producing military aircraft and contribute parts to Boeing, Airbus, BAE and Bombardier...suggest with that background they could probably put together a reasonably good quality 300KG aeroplane...no doubt at half the cost or less of an American or Australian equivalent. Did anyone think Australia had a chance - nope, our labour costs are simply too high to compete with the developing industrial nations such as India, China etc. It's not just manufacturing either...how many forum members are IT professionals? I work for CSC, globally we have about 110,000 staff, 1/4 of these in India, why? - the labour cost of an IT engineer is about 25% of the Australian equivalent. A pretty significant variance and compelling reason to move some or all of your business operations to these countries.

Back to the "road going" analogies, blind spots for trucks, busses, cars etc. are now being addressed with "gadgets" in the form of cameras, radars (reverse parking sensor is in essence a radar) and the like. The reverse parking sensor concept has now been expanded and located on the front of the car to provide proximity detection and control - the last point on cars such as the new Mercs, Lexus etc. where cruise control is linked to the forward facing detectors to maintain distance from vehicle in front - getting closer to "auto pilot". We're also seeing cars fitted with infra red cameras and tv displays in the dash for the equivalent of "night vision" for better visibility in poor weather, darkness etc. Why not similar concepts for aircraft? A camera mounted under the aircraft looking forward and down with a display in the cockpit? It will happen, might take another 10-20 years, but the "gadgets" we see in the car and airline cockpits today, we'll see in the recreational and sport aircraft in the future I'd expect..."rag and tube" types aside maybe :)

I'm personally not aware of the concept of orbiting in the circuit at a non-towered aerodrome...and by "orbit" I assume you mean a 360 degree turn? Our training covered "go around" or "missed / baulked approach" for landing. Orbits were taught as being used outside the circuit area as a delaying action - we get plenty of these on approach to Canberra at peak hour for separation purposes. Similar might be used if inbound to a non-towered aerodrome i.e. orbit at 10 or 5nm for example to sequence into circuit traffic. As mentioned, orbits were taught as something that you did (or were directed to do) outside the circuit area. In the above situation i.e. #3 and speedier than #2, I'd commence a go around to the right side (as I'm the overtaking aircraft) maintaining visual separation with #2 and depart the circuit area to hold until the situation (airfield temporarily closed) was resolved or divert to an alternate field. Another option would be to "hold" in the circuit pattern - effectively continue to fly the circuit at circuit height - and maintain separation to the right side of slower #2 if he was doing similar i.e. "holding" in the circuit pattern. My thoughts...for what they're worth. Cheers, Matt.

Not having any experience with bang-chutes or the procedures for their operation, I'd expect the emergency procedures would be similar for bang-seats (ejection seats) where the decision to deploy the chute or seat is a reaction, not something to be done after careful thought or planning i.e. X happens, do Y, if Y fails pull Z. The benefit of hindsight and armchairs allows us to look back at deployments or ejections and question the logic of whether it should have happened or not. Unless there's someone lurking in these forums who have been in the situation where they had to make that choice (chute or seat) and willing to contribute to the discussion, all we can do is ponder "what if...".

Interestingly there's no CASA or Airservices procedure for "Go Around" at non-controlled aerodromes. The only procedure which exists (that I can find) is AIP ENR 14 (http://www.airservices.gov.au/publications/current/aip/enr/1_1_1-116.pdf) which is reproduced in the CASA Visual Flight Guide. There's no reference to non-towered aerodromes at all...hence the variations in that being taught to students. My training was to fly parallel on the dead side, climb and join crosswind - this was normally mid-field or thereabouts. Training did include the procedures in AIP to controlled and GAAP aerodromes.

Great minds Steve ;)

Good point Terry and something I had been thinking about as well, no doubt something that will be uncovered during the ATSB investigation. I'm not sure of the legalities but I'd expect that solo students (in the circuit at least) are required to be be under constant visual supervision by their instructor who should have a radio, this was the case during my training - GA and RA-Aus. Cheers, Matt.

Great story Maz, even if there wasn't any flying involved! You've given us a new entry for our "places to fly to" list and the idea of an overnighter with tour, dinner etc. sounds great. Might have to arrange something for the new year. Cheers, Matt Oh, and the pictures worked great ;)

A practice implemented at Point Cook a few years back due to high number of aircraft in circuit (up to 8 at times!) and one I adopt at all non controlled airfields is to identify yourself as "number #" when turning base and final. This allows me and the other pilots in the circuit to verify their sequence in the circuit. Back to the topic though, in addition to "see and avoid" (not 100% effective), surely any additional information that can be provided which is relevant to you, other aircraft and the airspace around you can only be a good thing. I can't understand why any pilot would want to deny themselves the opportunity of having more information at hand to aid in decision making. My 2.2c Cheers, Matt.

I believe the 700' crosswind turn was introduced with the "mid field crosswind join" in an attempt to reduce confliction / increase separation over the crosswind threshold area where aircraft on upwind and aircraft joining crosswind can be in the same space at the same time. Cheers, Matt.

I would see the flying academy option as a positive, it's likely to improve the focus on aviation in the region as well as improve airfield and its facilities (pavement, lighting, navigation facilities etc.) for everyone and it would be highly unlikely that they'd deny access. To be honest, my first thought went the sale was being discussed was "wouldn't it be good to buy it and set it up for the booming international flying school market"...obviously some others with the $$$ had the same idea. Guess we'll have to continue to wait and see what the future holds...wouldn't count on the government doing anything...positive or negative. Cheers, Matt.