Garfly

That's Queenstown NZ, Alan. This is a similar one:

An excuse to have another look at this old favourite:

Yeah, according to this mob (US National Snow and Ice Data Center) the extent now is not as low as in recent summers. It'd be nice to take heart ... if one could just get a handle on it all. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ July 18, 2022 Arctic sea ice extent continued its summer decline. Extent is below average but not as low as in recent summers. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent is currently at record low levels for this time of year.

Of course. From what I'm hearing, nobody's saying otherwise. The ICE will see most of us lot out (even if the ice cap doesn't ;- )

I doubt that truism would have eluded them. It's clearly an interim measure. Better to spend a few mill moving forward on this experiment than a few bill on a clean sheet project when, either way, a lot of the tech will be obsolete in a matter of years. (How ironic, though, that a 60 year old airframe design is being re-purposed for the project. When the Cherokee was born, the Wright Flyer was a 60 year old design!!) As the ABC reported this week even pilots may be obsolete sooner than we think: Regional councils back plan for electric air taxis during 2032 Brisbane Olympics as 'future' of transport https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-21/electric-air-taxis-coming-to-south-east-queensland-2032-brisbane/101256380

I think you pick up on the reasoning (economic and technical) in CAE's own blurb: “The development of this technology is a first for CAE. As an engineering powerhouse and one of the largest Piper Archer® operators, CAE is uniquely positioned to make electric-powered flight a reality at our flight schools and beyond. CAE’s partnership with the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec for investment into R&D has enabled us to boldly look to the future and prepare our electric aircraft for take-off,” added Parent. “Piper Aircraft is excited to support CAE’s development of an electric aircraft modification conversion kit for the Piper Archer®”, said Piper Aircraft President and CEO, John Calcagno. “With 28,000 aircraft in global service, the PA-28 is the ideal platform for real world flight training curriculums and professional pilot training programs like CAE’s. Piper Aircraft is focused on aviation’s commitment to greenhouse gas reductions and as such, we look forward to collaborating with CAE on the integration of an electric propulsion system for the Piper Archer®.

I gather they're only thinking of it as a basic trainer so 2 POB and one hour could work, I guess. Anyway, they seem serious.

https://www.avweb.com/air-shows-events/farnborough/cae-piper-to-develop-archer-electric-conversion-kit/ https://www.cae.com/news-events/press-releases/cae-launches-electric-aircraft-modification-program-with-piper-aircraft-inc

Good job not everyone in the industry has been so fatalistic over the years: How aviation safety has improved “When I started in the business almost 30 years ago, my boss had one basic message: You have to expect an average of 20 jetliner losses around the world every year,” recalls Josef Schweighart, Head of Aviation Germany, AGCS. “Thankfully, such statistics are now history,” he says. “There has been a staggering reduction in the numbers of both fatal accidents and fatalities in the intervening decades, the result of technology, improvements in air traffic control and pilot training,” he adds. Source: https://www.agcs.allianz.com/news-and-insights/expert-risk-articles/how-aviation-safety-has-improved.html

My view is a bit different on this issue, as expressed previously in this little rave:

A mere glance at their CDTI (cockpit display of traffic information) would have done it, though.

We all need our self-affirming certainties challenged from time to time. But 'hair of the dog' ain't much of a remedy.

Sure, T88, that's the default situation and that wouldn't change. What's new (to me) is that with an additional ID for the device itself (used only when needed) you can take your SE2 along even in an aircraft that has no ID at all. In that case you presumably transmit a generic ID ('Unknown' ?) but you're still squawking 1200. I guess it'd still be at least as useful as an old fashioned transponder, no? I think it'd be better than nothing - and better than transmitting the wrong ID. That could get confusing.

BTW, FWIW I just learned something new from this: https://support.ozrunways.com/help/en-gb/2-3rd-party-hardware-integrations/42-skyecho-2-ads-b-in-out I knew that you could move the SE2 around from aircraft to aircraft as long as they each had an ICAO address programmable into the device at each plane change What I hadn't realised was that you can also apply for a code to be assigned to the SE2 device itself which you can use in case the aircraft you move to does not have its own code. I think that could be quite handy, from time to time, so might be worth getting, anyway. As I understand it, though, all VH registered aircraft already do have - as a matter of course - an ICAO hex code. Excerpt from the doc. above: "Not an aircraft owner? The SkyEcho is a portable device. If you are not an aircraft owner and/or moving between aircraft that do not already have their own ICAO addresses assigned, upon request CASA will issue the SkyEcho device with its own ICAO address. This allows the EC device to be used on multiple aircraft without re-programming. Please note: * If the aircraft you are flying already has its own ADS-B Code/24-bit ICAO address, you must program that code into your SkyEcho. * If the aircraft does not have its own code, then you can use the code assigned to your EC device instead."

I think the young man who said "We are at war because old men wanted it" got it in one. Even by low estimates, 20,000 of this generation of Russians (alone) have died this year at the behest of - for the sole benefit of - old 'rogue politicians'. An entire Sydney-to-Surf fun-run crowd, slaughtered in their prime since February. Not even counting Ukrainian losses. And for what, exactly? What strikes me about the attitude of these young folks (admittedly, a skewed urban sample) is how few of them show a hint of the Putin-esque world-view that apparently fuels the war: mother-Russia under imminent military threat from NATO and the west. (How many actually do feel threatened? By percentage, probably similar to the number of Americans who believe Trump won in 2020. And for similar reasons.) But this national paranoia was not, at all, the spirit of the Gorbachev/Yeltsin era - not even of the early Putin era - quite the opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–NATO_relations#:~:text=Formal contacts and cooperation between,program on 22 June 1994.. But what our ex-KGB guy, clever and cruel in equal proportions, understood was that to take and hold power for life (despite the constitution) he needed to beat up and exploit ingrained historical anxieties around the outside world bent on humiliating and defeating the motherland. (Thanks Napoleon. Thanks Hitler.) Yes, of course, inept and chauvinistic foreign policy wielded by old, rogue western politicians helped Putin enormously along the way. But in any case, nothing infuriates citizens of former Russian vassal states more than the idea that their wish to join NATO could only have originated in the (expansionist) West. As if they have no authentic agency of their own; or perfectly good reasons of their own. Ask the average Estonian or Pole - and now the average Finn or Swede - whether they jumped or were pushed. It seems that most informed Russians don't think it necessary - or even reasonable - to defend the Putin / Lavrov war in order to defend Russia as a whole - in its cultural fullness. After all, if Alexei Navalny was in Putin's place, the whole problem would go away. Only the prospect of young Russians having a fair shot at a long life would remain.

I can hear millennial ancient mariners saying the same about those new fangled lodestone compass thingies. ;- )

Another side of the other side:

AFAIK, with the OzRwys/iPad combo (and presumably others) you can use the SkyEcho2 as your external GPS source. Listed in the menu SkyEcho_DA0D in Settings (when the device is on and connected) there's a button Enable GPS - Augment internal GPS receiver with using this device https://uavionix.com/products/skyecho/#03eacdb395889b06f The high-integrity, SBAS GPS with Fault Detection and Exclusion (FDE) also provides position data to the EFB application and correlates your position with received traffic for viewing on supported displays.

A rare exception being cited in the report on this very accident: "Another 1019 series airplane owner relayed his experience with the flight control lock. He stated that, on one occasion, he had planned a local flight with a passenger in the back seat and became distracted and forgot to remove the flight control lock before flight. He was able to taxi for departure, still unaware that the lock was in place, and became distracted during the pre-takeoff checks because he was talking to the passenger. He stated that he was able to complete the initial stages of takeoff with the control lock engaged, and once he realized, he had to struggle to remove the lock due to the forces on the control stick during takeoff. After a few seconds he was able to free it, and the flight progressed uneventfully." NTSB Report.

Your grandad was a chap of some wisdom. My own research indicates that, in all his 72 years, Putin's bestie, Sergey Lavrov, never had the benefit of its like. (Any more than his former counterpart, Pompeo - Trump's erstwhile bestie.)

Anyway, for me it means being way more wary of chopper wake and downwash than I was before. All the more after finding this AAIB (UK) report of a Cherokee getting spun in by a Sikorsky's vortices. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5422f94de5274a13140006ed/1-1993_G-BPJT.pdf Excerpt (click image for higher rez): 1-1993_G-BPJT.pdf

Below is the French (BEA) video (in English) that was referred to by Juan Browne in the video above. The presenter makes the point that whilst the danger of chopper downwash near the ground is well understood by most pilots the hazards of rotor wake at large distances and long periods (greater than comparable fixed wing craft) is not well understood. The video's take away message for chopper and ultra-light pilots respectively is:

Yeah, I liked what the NTSB guy said in the AVweb video (OP) about attribution bias: "When something bad happens to the other guy we figure it must be due to him being a dummy; when it happens to us, it must be due to a bit of bad luck."