Zibi

At the moment I don't have a tablet and use a Windows phone, so no OzRunways for me. I also wasn't aware that they offer such option. Right now I'm trying to find a best and most cost effective option, so I'll take OzRunways into consideration.

Since I'm about to get a cross country endorsement I'm looking at options of letting people know where I am and where I was. What I would like is something that reports my position every 5-30 min and uploads it somewhere accessible for other people. So far I'm looking at getting either a cheap phone and using one of the tracking apps (I haven't looked at specifics yet, but there's plenty of them) or getting a dedicated device that does it. One thing that would be important for me is that it uploads my position as I go rather than based on a trigger (like sms or something) or upload at the end of activity (like most activity tacking apps do). There seems to be a lot of dedicated tracking devices on ebay, but most require you to trigger it before it reports back or there are dedicated fleet tracking services, which are a bit over the top for what I would need. Does anyone have any experience with anything like that?

Well, it does matter to me as right now I can't do my rego renewal online. The old link for renewals doesn't work any more and I still haven't received my login, which is required to get it done on the new system. I know RAA have my correct email address as I have been receiving emails from them including the news item about the new portal...

You have two more variables, in that situation, that you are not including: initial speed and initial pitch angle. Climbing and Vx you might be at 700' as in your example, but you are also pitching up higher and going slower so you have drop your nose through a higher angle and you have less energy to carry you on as you are dropping your nose. So even though you might have started higher, by the time you get to your glide speed you might lose more height than what you gained by climbing quicker. I don't have any practical experience with either of those situations (apart from simulated engine failures during training) but the way I was taught was that unless you have a very good reason to climb out at Vx (i.e. a hill ahead) it is generally not worth it.

Exemption from getting electrocuted? Those exams are not to keep people out, but rather to keep them safe.

Well, lets go through the whole scenario: 1. Are you aware you will have tail wind on early final (you should be able to judge it, as you've been flying in it before landing): a) yes - you extend the downwind leg to compensate for the tail wind, and in that case you're going to undershoot it because of the headwind lower b) yes, but you also notice the windsock on the ground pointing in the opposite direction, so you do a normal base turn and anticipate the wind shift so land spot on c) no, so you make an early base turn to compensate for the headwind - you end up overshooting it 2. Let's assume you made the base turn as if there was no wind, and now you're on final with tail wind: a) you continue an approach with your usual descent rate, you find yourself too high, and then when you hit the headwind, you have much higher airspeed, you you'd start climbing - overshoot (I'd guess this would be strange and unusual behaviour) b) you compensate for the tail wind with a steeper descent rate, once you hit the headwind you'd end up undershooting

No it's not, she's a German comedian Martina Hill. Some of her other works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfAp2QL25Y

I know it can be done to a point now. The question is should and would we. One of the more plausible scenarios I have seen was a manned fighter (or other plane) accompanied by a couple of drone wingmen. In a situation like that the main pilot has the situation awareness (which is often lacking in a remote control operations) and command ability plus you have the bonus of shorter and more robust links between the controller and the drones so harder to jam or take over.

There is still a big problem with drones - you either make them autonomous, but then you're letting a machine decide who lives and who dies (most of the drones operate on loitering basis, not in and do the job like say a cruise missile). The alternative is remote control, but that involves a communications link which can be jammed or overtaken. In that situation you still need a pilot who has to be trained and who has to maintain currency. Plus the current generation of drones only works once you establish air superiority , otherwise they're just target practise for normal fighters.

Since we're sharing old photos and stories, I wonder how long until we end up with a story like this from one of those planes with ejector seats: http://www.vfp62.com/f14_rio.html

Don't think it's Perth, but here's the video:

Death is just one of the criteria (and not the necessary requirement) for a Darwin award, just removing yourself from the gene pool is enough. Like for example this guy, which has a highest proability of getting this year's award: More can be found here: http://www.darwinawards.com/

I just stumbled onto this site: http://earth.nullschool.net/ Which has some pretty cool visualisations of the wind and ocean currents at different altitude levels around the world. I wouldn't use it for flight planning, but it's really nice to look at :) You can change the view by clicking on the earth word at the bottom left. From the authors about page

Riley, you are aware that Czechoslovakia doesn't exists for some 20 years now, are you? Anyway that's Hajdúszoboszló in Hungary as someone posted in the youtube comments section: