Wayne T Mathews

Bloody hell!!... The pissy little sh*ts!!... I sure hope you shook 'em out over the strait... I'm told it's the only way to teach them not to do it again, you know. Well, that is if you haven't already shot their a*ses with a 410.

G'day Hunter... Love ya pitchah... Wanna get one exactly like it, only different? Keep the sunny side up, Wayne.

Hear hear Lyle, with the exception of the last sentence. I'm not sure that all our members appreciate the enormous and unrewarded efforts of our leaders. Not because it isn't deserved, but because I don't think the majority knows what's going on behind the scenes. I, as an example, didn't have a clue how much effort has and is being put into our association until you and I had dinner with the people we met down at Temora last Easter. What an eye opener that was for me. But how do we get the message out to the majority? They can't take everyone to dinner. Keep the sunny side up, Wayne.

Oh c'mon, be nice... Make it Gaye's Boy,,, please...

The culmination of a whole bunch of deep thought and hard, but enjoyable work by the sound of it. Well done Pud. Keep the sunny side up, Wayne.

Yep! Exactly true. My son used one to get rid of a rat in the kitchen of our farmhouse in the States. Needless to say, mother/wife WAS NOT amused though.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Bernie. For me, I believe Ian has satisfactorely answered most of the points you have raised. Except perhaps, the 16% of viewers who are non RA Aus members being privy to our "dirty washing". But from memory, there was a suggestion/discussion earlier that suggested only members be allowed into what I think should perhaps be a restricted for members only area. 320 non RAAus members a day having access to our "dirty washing", and the possability of one or more of them deliberately causing mischief, is something I think will need to be addressed Ian.

Good afternoon OME. The evidence is building that you may be right about the waxed/unwaxed lacing. I checked the Cub, and for sure, the lacing is waxed. Thanks again for the heads up. Wayne.

Bernie, you said you don't agree with this plan. That it smacks of Dictatorship. I can't see how getting our representatives to answer our questions could be a dictatorship. But then I may be missing something. Could you please explain your thoughts to us?

Thanks for the heads up OME. If that Pitts is Col and Ryan's, then it spends a lot of its time in my hangar, and we've been laying out mouse baits for months because of the problems we've had with them. I went through my J3 with a bright light and mirrors yesterday morning after Ryan called to tell me what had been found, just in case she'd been damaged too. Luckily she hasn't. But tomorrow I'll go back in and check what sort of lacing she has. I know it's ceconite, but I don't know yet whether it's waxed or not. Regards, Wayne.

Yikes... I'm gunna go dig out Dad's maps and stuff. And brush up with my compass, clock, and grease pencil. Just in case.

Now that's an accolade...

Nobody important to the new gummint wants to retire to Mallacoota eh?... What a pity.... Still, they've got a grand airfield, and it's a lovely village... two and a half out of three ain't bad.

Wow! Have they done, or are they going to do, anything about "the channel" into the inlet?

I agree with Frank. And why did the aircraft have those special inspections and the pilots go through retraining etc? Well, because someone in the FAA saw the video, that's why. Folks who do this sort of thrill seeking understand that one is never punished for the crime. One is only punished for being caught.

Oh dear, here I go again, asking questions I might regret... What's a "usual suspect"? And am I in danger of becoming one? (asked while wincing, ducking, cowering and cringing all at once)

I agree with Graeme, I also think you are on a good thought here Ian. It may need some fine tuning, but it's pointing in the right direction, for sure. Thank you.

I agree with you CFI

Thank you for answering my questions Col. In a previous life, as a check and training airman in a multicrew environment, twice, I was part of teams that went to a lot of effort to try and stamp out the need for "little black books" by insisting on standardised transparencey. IE: we didn't want F/Os & F/Es having to keep notes on how their individual Capt's wanted things done. It didn't work then and, I'm told, it's still not working entirely. Oh, there's been massive improvements since the bad old days. But my point is, we're all human. As much as I don't like them, I have to accept that little black books do, and always will exist, dammit. So, should we expect the outgoing crew (and that includes David, whom you didn't mention) to hand over their little black books to the incoming crew? Get real, of course they won't. But if we play nice, they might agree to hand over copies, or at least copies of parts of them. So lets play nice, eh. The next point I'll make, is that the outgoing crew are not departing the ship. They're handing over their post on the flight deck to the incoming crew. There's a massive diference. Now let's address the accusations that you have said are starting to sound like, "have you stopped beating your wife". (I'm going to take a couple of deep breaths before I continue this) We all have/do love more than one person. Be it our daughters, our sisters, or other men's wives, we have all loved more than one person. When we see that person bruised and bleeding, is it unreasonable to ask what the hell is happening? Of course it's not. Raw emotions are involved, and raw emotions are rarely polite or civil. But let's not be distracted by the emotive questions and/or accusations Col. Let's look at the bruising and bleeding. And fix it. We've had two of our directors submit what have been politely called, "untimely resignations" within the last six months, and a third one say he would have resigned if he wasn't leaving shortly anyway. Why? We obviously have a problem, and before we can attempt to fix it, we need to know what the problem is. We need to know why these good people want to resign. And it's being kept secret. Why? Because if they tell us they'll be sued? That's bullshit Col! Pure, unadulterated bullshit! In case you haven't noticed, there's a ground swell building up. We, the members of RA Aus, want to know why our representatives are being induced/forced to resign. That's why the NSW members have elected Don, and hopefully you. We want you to go to Canberra and bloody well find out why our representatives are resigning. And then fix it. In closing, I'd like to thank you again for responding to my post. And I'd like to thank CFI for telling me to calm down. Wayne.

OK, I'll bow to your seniority and wait for the answers. When you get the time, will you tell me how the hell you keep up with what's happening when things are moving this fast?

Hhmmm,,, Is this board stuff the truth... seems to be the crux of your post. Well actually, considering the man who has told us this board stuff, is a board member, and I've seen nothing to suggest Ian lies, I'm going to go with: It's true. Do you have any information that proves, or even suggests, it's not true? Or do you just want us to stop talking about it?

...blue with anyone recently, except for Stew... ...who everyone knew was a dunce because...

Hear hear... And if as CFI says, "..it's broke ...and needs fixing"... we'll need to make some decisions.

Holy sh*t!!! I was told a month or so back that SR was not necessarily the good guy I took him to be at the member's meeting in Temora last Easter. But I had no idea, or inkling, that he would/could cause at least two of our directors to want to quit. And for one of our directors to consider leaving us and moving to SAAA because of him.... Holy sh*t!!! Folks, we've got a problem. And we NEED to know the facts.

My vote?... Hell yes! We, the members, own RA AUs. As owners, it is our duty to look at why our elected directors are quitting. And if there's a problem, it's our duty to rectify it. We can't do that if we don't have the facts.