damkia

So, let me get this straight...It is even affecting the odd user with a consistently intermittent problem. Perfectly clear now. I'll go and finish that scottle of botch now.......

I was more concerned about the (deliberate?) lack of anyone actually quoted as taking responsibility to find out the "who", whatever the outcome. (whitewashing) If RAA want to give information in a reasonably presentable public way, take a leaf out of the journalists "6 W's" (what, where, who, why, when, and how) and include all those in your release. Poor writing style or half of the information doesn't help the current RAA cause.

Maybe time for some independent forensic auditing/accounting to be brought in. One of the majors (PwC or similar) MAJOR UPDATE http://www.theage.com.au/business/liquidator-loses-bid-to-keep-alleged-fraud-in-the-dark-20121219-2bn2e.html These are the people that RAA are using! They appear to be the ones in pursuit of the offender, but he was employed by them at the time, and may (HIGHLY speculative, but not to be totally discounted) have had something to do with RAA???? Could we have a comment about the specific individual that was undertaking our audits?

For the clarification of members an "EGM" usually refers to an "Extraordinary General Meeting" in a business sense. The basis of that is that it is a meeting that is held out of the usual schedule of meetings for a particular purpose (more often, although not solely, for an "emergency")

"...We are conducting an audit to determine what and how these practices have occurred....", and I would hope the "who" that is responsible for the "what" and the "how" is also brought to note in the audit, with the appropriate corrective actions applied....

In OH&S circles the general figure quoted is about 30 near misses to every incident (causing damage/injury). A near miss is defined as an actual occurrence of a set of circumstances that could otherwise have lead to an incident. We tend to generally talk in ratios of (say) 1:100 or 1:1000000 chance of an event happening, assuming that it is near enough to zero to discard as a possibility. Beware the "1's" as they DO happen.

Irrelevant if he was going the opposite way to the existing traffic.

It would be interesting to turn one into a "black box" for small aircraft by way of recording elevator/aileron/rudder/throttle/pitch/roll/yaw movements every half second or so. You can get 3 dimensional inertia sensors for the latter half of the measurements, and easily rig some sensors for the other inputs. Combined with electronic engine monitoring systems this would give a complete and reasonably reliable indication of what went wrong during an accident. All this for an extra kg or so of weight.

Has anyone asked for the assistance of the responsible Federal Minister, Anthony Albanese?

Make sure you are at the general meeting asking ALL the questions that SHOULD be asked. Clearly you have a far greater understanding of the requirements than the rest of us combined. Do we have anyone here from the media (Journalist) who would like to cover the general meeting as a story? The only way this is satisfactorily going to be solved is by public (and I mean "general public") awareness of the management of the body that controls some of what is actually flying over their heads. This would push the incumbents to the fore to answer the hard questions. Could a FOI request be made, or a legal "discovery" process be initiated of the background information?

Helicopters: they fly in much the same way as a brick doesn't. Condolences to the family. I still have clear and vivid memories of seeing the Ch7 helicopter crash video back in the 80's. The footage was shot from inside the chopper at floor level as it spiraled down. Still sends goosebumps down my spine thinking about it 30 yrs later...

My bad... Although there is nothing that says you cannot have your financial year starting and finishing whenever you want. A lot of large companies use September 30 as their corporate end of year to relieve pressure on the "mid year" when all their subsidiaries/contractors are expected to finalize their paperwork. RA-Aus could call Dec 31 theirs.

Easter is usually late March to mid April IIRC - well within the 5 Months to end of June From http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/ec-cal.html "...Easter is the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. The Paschal Full Moon may occur from March 21 through April 18, inclusive...."

Replace "Board Meetings" with monthly General Meetings, open to all members to attend. Hold meetings in WA /Tas (alternating), SA, Vic, NSW, Qld, on a rotating basis with NatFly being the other General Meeting and a lay month over Xmas/New Year. This allows people to have two opportunities to raise issues in their state at a General Meeting per year, and keeps the Committee "on notice" of their performance with people being able to sit in on the discussion. The General Meeting could incorporate the Committee Meeting after the actual "general" part of the meeting with attendance by a nominated/volunteer number of scrutineers from the general members (3 or so). All Committee members are to attend all General Meetings unless there are extenuating circumstances. Meetings to be held on Sat/Sun to facilitate travel for weekday workers on the Committee and give the general members a better chance to get to meetings

Duplicate...

I would think it would depend on where you want to deposit the fuel.... If you are bulking up the fuel tanks so they do not split under pressure, capping them so securely that they will not spill fuel, then there is only one place for the fuel to go if they are crushed - the path of least resistance - which I believe includes plastic/rubber fuel lines in the cockpit and out the front over a stinking hot motor. Personally, I would keep the "weak spot" as far away from the passengers and the hot engine as possible. Maybe it was designed this way INTENTIONALLY?

Not wishing to go on a complete tangent to your thread, but this is why I have always said that home built aircraft of any type (GA/RAA/UL) should be under the auspices of the SAAA, who already have a more than adequate inspection schedule and monitoring/accreditation processes. Even if you are not building to full blown "Amateur Built/Home Built" status, it would be wise for a builder to maybe contact SAAA and organise an inspection by people that have a more experienced and less biased set of eyes than the builder. My second comment would be to Gary Morgan - If he is responsible for the design and any subsequent modifications, then he should be able to get the airworthiness certificate withdrawn if it is deemed as an unacceptable modification. I hope from the inference of the other topic that this is what has happened.

That reminds me of the old line about sailing (Sydney to Hobart) - "Like standing in a cold shower with the air conditioner on maximum for four days, throwing $100 notes down the plughole as quickly as you can"

....and their reason for not making it availabe electronically on their official website is????? This could be done now - TODAY... The rat is decomposing.....

My 2 cents worth at this point... We have tried the separate administration of rec flying and it has failed. (x4, apparently - even with guidance) CASA will now be looking at having more oversight in the new RAA to prevent a repeat performance. They may even take over some governance issues totally (Issuing L2's, reporting/actioning of incidents, etc). Clearly the dust has not settled on this yet at all. Why then not cut out the middlemen? Why not simply keep it as amateur built, and factory built, up to 2 seats, and up to and including 1500kg MTOW, per the recreational licence now permitted by CASA as a stepdown from the full PPL? There would be a lot of crossover and a lot of benefits to having the CASA rec licence and administration (CTA, aforementioned STC's, proper investigations of incidents with FULL reporting, etc), and it may be possible for current RAA qualified trainers/organisations to get qualified in the CASA rec licence. Anyone says anything about "cost..." only needs to look at what the "cheap" version has achieved....not so cheap with $XX000 worth of aircraft sitting on the ground, deregistered and not able to be used. Ya gets what you pay for. Maybe it is time to look at this as an opportunity for a rethink of recreational aviation's "placement" rather than leave it as a rehash of everything that went wrong last time. We have the opportunity to improve our pilot training, gain CTA access, welcome a whole host of new members (CASA Rec licence holders), allow larger aircraft for training and use, and improve our image as a responsible organisation.

Have you considered a UL Power engine? Their big 4 pot (UL 350iS) is a bit lighter than the Jab 3300 with better power/torque characteristics and better fuel economy. http://www.ulpower.com/engines/ul350iS/index.html

Thank God Land Rover don't make aircraft..... On the bright side............you would never get lost, all you need to do is follow the oil drip marks all the way home.

Ahhh, HD V twins... Don't so much "idle", as "fail to stall". I would be interested to see how they go about balancing a very unbalanced engine, then try to get a roughly equal torque output from the shaft. It's going to play hell with any props on the front, even with a PSRU. I would have thought taking the cylinders and heads and machining up a new bottom end for them would have been a good start.

Until you look at the significnt changes in weather noted by the US authorities during the grounding of all aviation in the weeks after 9/11. Apparently the contrails (vapour trails) are responsible for seeding a lot of cloud formations across America

It is a change in standard assembly practice as set out by the engine manufacturer, therefore is a "change". As an example, there is a set way of drilling and dressing rivet holes that is followed by all LAME's. This is to give consistent results rather than better results. If everyone went off and did their own thing there could be an argument made that anything goes, if YOU see it as an improvement.