octave

I think the word ultralight is used to push certain buttons in the reader. The perception is that an ultralight is much more dangerous. We could just ignore this and allow perception to grow but politicians are easily swayed by public opinion. Re "making a big deal" I sent a polite email to the VIC Police Media who were very happy to check the facts and then change their press release, they thanked me for bringing it to their attention and I thanked them for changing the press release. No big deal. The fact that the public doesn't know the difference makes it all the more important that the news they get is honest and accurate, this also means taking the good with the bad. The annoying thing is that in a period where ultralight safety has improved the public perception does not seem to have taken that onboard.

Does that mean that my RAAus Pilot cert allows me to fly Any Aircraft under 544kg (including VH Reg)? thats certainly not my understanding.

Yes I would agree with that

My point here is that there is a lot of implied criticism of RAAus and the training and maintainance standards. Calling a VH registered aircraft an ultralight suggests that it is regulated by RAAus and this is not the case. This cuts both ways, GA aviation surely dont want their aircraft being described as and ultralight (even if it could be registered either way). Again I quote an article published earlier this week. " Police will investigate whether low-flying ultralight planes are a safety issue in the area" This is why the distinction is important. (again it cuts both ways). I also refer you back to the article "Light plane deaths up by 50%" the main thrust of this article is the suggestion the RAAus training and maitainance standards are questionable. Really I suppose the important thing is the regulatory system under which the plane and pilot opperate. When the media refers to a plane as an ultralight it suggests that the pilot is trained under RAAus rules and that it is maintained under RAAus standards. Re - "So, the Midget Mustang is an ultra light and some-one needs to apologise to the media for advising them incorrectly." My RAAus certificate would not allow me to fly a VH registered Midget mustang. Perhaps if we want to split hairs we could inform the media that a VH aircraft is maintained as a GA aircraft and must only flown by a GA licened pilot and is not regulated by RAAus. Does any else think I owe the media an apology????? Cheers Graham

My intention is not to distinguish between GA RA pilots, many of my flying friends are both. There seems to be a belief amongst some sections of the media that ultralights are much more dangerous than GA aircraft. This is a quote from a news story " Police will investigate whether low-flying ultralight planes are a safety issue in the area" full story at Charity flight 'hero' lost in plane crash - National - BrisbaneTimes The problem is if this sort of thing is not corrected early is seems to become "truth". The Age article that quotes incorrect stats is still on the net and informing peoples opinions about the safety of all aviation. Once again my intention is not to be insensitive. It is a sad day when we lose any of our flying friends.

I think these emails and letters play a part (hopefully) in the gradual eductation of the media. I was quite dismayed that the Police Media Unit got it wrong as this may be where the media draws its initial information from, to their credit after I emailed them I received a reply and the press release was fixed within 10 minutes. I think it is also a good idea to make these emails reasonable an not angry or abusive, we to be thought as calm and reasonable people. Cheers Graham

Success!!!!!! This is the email that I sent to the Police media Unit. Dear Sir/Madam, I wish to point out that the article on your web site incorrectly states that the tragic plane crash in Mornington yesterday was an Ultralight. This aircraft was a Light Plane and therefore regulated by CASA not an Ultralight which would have been regulated by Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus). The problem is that light plane accidents are wrongly being attributed to ultralight aviation. If a plane has a VH rego on it, it cannot be an ultralight In the interest of accuracy I am hoping that this can be corrected Regards Graham Reply from Police Media Unit Hi Graham Thank you for your email. I have amended that article Victoria Police - Man killed in Mornington plane crash and will let my colleagues know of the error. Kind regards, Anna

Re: Were you able to do it using words of one sylable or less? Yep down to single letters ie VH = GA

I think the media is calling this aircraft an Ultralight because that what it says on the Victorian Police Media Unit web site. I have just emailed them to (politely) point out the difference between GA and RA. I think it is important for us to (politely) correct this common miosconception.:hittinghead: Of course it doesn't make it any less tragic when a fellow aviator is lost.

I just came accross Mr Bibby on a mountain climbing forum, it seems he doesnt like climbers either. Apparently many climbers wrote letters of complaint to SMH about his article (after a tragic fatality on the weekend) and his methods of gathering information (ie asking questions on their forum without declaring that he is a journalist).

Good result, at the very least Mr Bibby might pull his head in for a while.

I keep a regular logbook but also an electronic logbook from ForPilots.com: Aviation Software, Shareware, Books, Computerized Logbooks, and Information this is stored on your own pc but it is easy to create backups of your data, I save this data on an external drive also just in case I post a copy to my Yahoo mail accounts just in case the external drive fails.

The Science of Santa 1. No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only santa has ever seen. 2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world, but since santa doesn't (appear) to handle the muslim, hindu, jewish and buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to population reference bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each. 3. Santa has 31 hours of christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each christian household with good children, santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. In conclusion - if santa ever did deliver presents on christmas eve, he's dead now.

The thing that annoys me is that I can not see the point in requiring an asic card if it is almost never policed. To travel overseas you need a passport, this works because you cannot leave the country without presenting it. In the 2 years that I have been flying I have never been asked to present an asic card (luckily), if I were that way inclined I would have had so many opportunities. It could only work if you could not enter the tarmac area without showing your card.

Yes I went through a phase after getting my certificate, in my case I was flaring too high, the problem resolved itself when I realised that I was not looking at the other end of the runway but I was focusing too close in front of the aircraft. Since this realisation I haven't had this problem.

Yikes, just read this article and I am just off for some coastal flying.:ah_oh: May have to don my pelican proof vest. On a more serious note this article was an eye opener and it will certainly be on my mind whilst flying today!

And presumably these oragnisations must also faced with funding cuts NASA The British Royal Society European Academy of Sciences and Arts National Research Council (US) Federation of American Scientists World Meteorological Organisation American Meteorological Society Do you really think that CSIRO scientists are deceiving us to keep its funding? Do you think they also deceive us in other areas?, are you saying we cant trust any information coming from CSIRO or just that information that may be unpalatable. As far as RA goes the fuel we use is truly a drop in the ocean compared to cars. Personaly I think we should be should be seriously interested in alternative fuels for cars so that petroleum can be save for the truly important such as ashphalt (no point in cars without roads) plastics and of course fuel for our RA aircraft:thumb_up:

What is CSIRO’s stance on climate change? From the CSIRO website Scientific evidence suggests: * climate change is real and underway because the scientific evidence for global warming is compelling * most of the warming of the past 50 years is due to human activities * climate change will continue throughout this century * we contribute to, and support the assessments of IPCC * there is great value in understanding the likely impacts to reduce damage and increase benefits * to tackle the problem, we need to: o obtain better information about impending climate change o adapt to the likely climate changes o mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. full text at CSIRO and climate change: questions and answers (Fact Sheet) If climate change is merely "science fantasy" what do you make of CSIROs position? If the theory is just bad science then what does that say about the majority of the scientific community. I am sure you can always find the odd dissenting opinion but then I will bet you can find a few doctors who would disagree with the link between smoking and lung cancer. If CSIRO (and most other credible scientific organisations) is so wrong, what is you theory, is it incompetence or deliberate deception?

A few videos taken on the South Coast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLYvSqhh2qk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_sxFymgF9A" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_CrBN6vS8I"

"The most basic recreational plane can be constructed from hand-hewn lengths of aluminium tubing and sail cloth". Adj.1.hand-hewn - cut or shaped with hard blows of a heavy cutting instrument like an ax or chisel; "a house built of hewn logs"; "rough-hewn stone"; "a path hewn through the underbrush So thats how you build an ultralight!

A search of the websites of: CSIRO NASA The British Royal Society American Association for the Advancement of Science European Academy of Sciences and Arts National Research Council (US) Federation of American Scientists World Meteorological Organisation American Meteorological Society to name but a few - support the theory of human induced climate change. So if human induced climate change is so obviously flawed are these respected organisations incompetent or are they all misleading us as part of some conspiracy?

Well done:thumb_up:, its a great feeling the first time you put it down.

moruya crash A pilot was killed when his plane crashed during an aeronautical display on the NSW south coast on Saturday afternoon. Police said the single-engined plane went down at a beach on the south coast seaside town of Moruya about 1.30pm (AEST). "The solo pilot was doing acrobatics before the crash," a NSW police spokesman said. "He died at the scene." Several witnesses will be interviewed by police and a report will be prepared for the coroner. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will investigate the cause of the crash. A Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said it was difficult to say whether a mechanical fault was to blame for the crash. "The aircraft itself is a Nanchang, which is an ex-military Chinese training aircraft," Mr Gibson told Macquarie Radio. "A number of them are now being operated privately in Australia and people use them for joyflights as well."

One dead in NSW plane crash A man has been killed in a plane crash at Moruya on the south coast of New South Wales. Police say the man was flying in a single engine plane and performing air acrobatics before his plane crashed on a beach near Moruya airport at about 1.30pm AEST. The man was the only person on board. Police and ambulance crews are at the scene. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the accident

well done!!!