Mazda

Oh Airsick, that's a classic!

Steve & Ultralights, are you flying to Camden this weekend?

Careful Adrian! Everyone makes mistakes. It doesn't sound like these were intentionally made to ruin your day. Plenty of experienced people have landed with the gear up. People in 152s are most likely to be pretty low time students who are still using a fair bit of effort to fly the aeroplane and may lack awareness. People sometimes get radio frequencies wrong, or have the wrong radio selected. By all means lodge incident reports, but it might also pay to have a friendly chat to the people concerned. Maybe they will learn something from you. Maybe have a talk to the flying school's CFI about some of the incidents to see if training can be improved. It sounds as though you are very aware and looking out, which will keep you out of trouble! Maybe try to anticipate what the perceived idiots might do and keep that in mind. Could that aircraft at the holding point taxi out in front of you? Possibly!

I know of a pilot who died from a heart attack not long after his CASA medical too. It does happen. If you have people flying with you regularly I think it would be a good idea for them to have a bit of training! I'm fortunate in that my OH wouldn't have a problem landing or dealing with emergencies. Other pax don't know what to do. One thing I like to tell them in the pax briefing is where the radio PTT button is, so at least they could talk in plain English to someone if there was a problem, plus a basic "this makes it go up, this makes it go down, this makes it turn." It's not a substitute for training, it's just in hope that they would be able to keep it in the air and call for help - then hopefully someone could talk them down. It could be difficult for them to find somewhere to land though. Not everything has a transponder, and not everywhere has radar coverage anyway.

Sincere condolences to family and friends. A sad day indeed.

I'd suggest Sydneysiders have a good look at the NOTAMS to check for temporary restricted areas associated with World Youth Day. (The day that goes for a week or so). From 15 July to 21 July Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River area is closed except for RPT floatplanes or helicopters with permission from CASA. For a few hours on the 17th, it is completely closed - well, permission is required from the Police. Also there is one at Kenthurst SFC to 2000 with a 2 mile radius and a GPS position given, just in case anyone wants to know where the Pope is staying. It's in the Richmond zone, but that's not usually active on weekends.

The manoeuving speed is probably close enough. If in doubt, check with your instructor. The problem with some aircraft like Cessna 210s is that their cruise speed is relatively high compared with the speed that is only supposed to be used in smooth air (yellow arc of the ASI).

Well done Ewen! Your instructor would not have sent you solo if you were not ready for those conditions, so you must have been doing well. There are some good comments above, and the use of less flap is something to consider. On a crosswind take off it is can be an idea to hold it down and positively lift off a few knots faster than normal, rather than letting it fly off (as there is sideways pressure on the gear). If you haven't flown much in wind the other thing to consider is ground speed. With a decent headwind component, even with the extra airspeed you are carrying you'll be landing at a similar (or even lower) ground speed so you will stop just as quickly on the ground. Also think of the wind over the ground. The downwind leg will happen faster as you are being pushed along by the tailwind, but consider an early base turn because when you turn final, you are now battling more of a headwind. Think in terms of engine failure - would you make it to the field? Also if there is a crosswind component, will that push you wide, beyond the centre line, resulting in a fairly ugly situation of trying to over-bank? If so, maybe you should start that turn onto final early.

According to the media pilots had to navigate all by themselves!

I think there are also some unofficial "understandings" - and at Griffith I think the Aero Club has had words with security!

Ian I haven't been in a Yak 52 for years, but I don't remember any problem with fumes.

I'm pleased he is OK. I was going to land a Warnervale a while back but the ERSA said PPR so I didn't. It that the case? If I'm flying by and want to drop in, I'm not permitted to land?

There are AIP Sups out on this, with a bit of a backpedal on the last one. Some frequencies have been transferred, others haven't. 121.1 has already been transferred to 124.55 and 125.8. If you do call on 121.1 you'll get Sydney Radar anyway. It's an absolute disgrace that radar controllers are also doing Flightwatch, but if no one complains about it that is how it will remain. Ian that sounds like last Sunday. I headed south with a groundspeed of 59 knots, then reached showers and decided it wasn't the best day and turned around. Coming back I was doing 146!

I have no doubt that Vista is just a virus!

It's crazy isn't it? Airservices has tried to shut down Flightwatch saying it is OK to have on the Radar frequency, but it doesn't work! Imagine what it could be like on a marginal VFR day, with people asking for weather, and IFR aircraft being separated in IMC. Write a letter to the boss of Airservices, outlining your experience, and ask him what you are supposed to do! You could use the phone to cancel. Alternatively you could operate under a flight note, with the flying school holding your SAR.

An Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System could have alerted them, yes. Or the controller could have just told them they were off track and below Lowest Safe.

Ant I'd suggest a map based one as there's less of a chance of gross errors! Even something like the old Garmin Pilot III (no longer made but probably available 2nd hand). Small, light, black and white moving map ... I can't imagine they would be expensive 2nd hand.

Maybe, but there ARE radar traces almost all the way to the crash site, and I don't think it was at G. The radar trace shows the aircraft conducting a GPS approach as though from BLAED to BLAEI, but it is well away from those waypoints. I'm not sure what happened but it does appear that they thought there were at BLAED. I still find it hard to imagine that the controllers turned off the alarms. If only they had said they were off track! Radar on the east coast is good, even if patchy down low in the mountains. The fact that there were radar traces of their position is proof of this.

Ultralights thanks so much for the trip report! It is great to see all these places - I've never landed at Hay or Narrandera so I found this really interesting. Please keep them coming!

It's a bit of a mystery. I do know of one operator who did manage to replicate an offset appoach on their Trimble. The aircraft actually tracked first close to Ulladulla. After that it did seem to be off track, flying IFR in Class A airspace. I have no idea why the controllers didn't say something then, or later when the aircraft was clearly well off track, low, in IMC, and near mountains. The families of people involved have been pushing to try to have radar controllers looking after the airspace.

The Benalla Cheyenne had commenced a GPS approach, and the radar trace shows the aircraft conducting this GPS approach, but it was off track. They were using the old Trimble GPS which has an offset mode, and the offset is supposed to automatically turn off when the approach is commenced. One school using this GPS conducted some ground tests and found that the offset mode sometimes didn't turn off when the approach was commenced. So that is also a possibility. I wish the controllers had said something though. They had to silence an off track alarm something like 3 times and still let them commence the approach.

Antzx6r (nice bike :thumb_up:) it is true, but I'd hate to see more mandatory rules! Maybe if there were more instructors around (like the older guys starting up without AOCs) the competition would mean the ones waiting for an airline job wouldn't get students. I'm not talking about the younger but enthusiastic prospective career instructors who mentor their students, I mean the ones who would rather be anywhere else. You know the ones. There are some good career instructors around, but sometimes they are hard to find.

I'm not sure of the time requirements in the UK, but I do know that private pilots can become GA instructors. They do not need a CPL. In the US, GA instructors do not need to operate under an AOC (i.e. fly with a school). At first this might sound like it would encourage the cowboys, but I think it goes the other way entirely. For one thing, people can teach their family members in their own aircraft. The best thing though is the old experienced guys can still instruct. I'm talking about the retired airline and military pilots, or people who once had their own flying school, charter busines, airline. In Australia these guys are discouraged from instructing! Many of these older guys are not prepared to work in a standard sausage factory flying school, being paid peanuts and being told by spotty faced grade 3s how it should be done. They don't want to teach in tired old aircraft when they have their own spotless personal aircraft which is not on the school's AOC. And they sure don't want to part with tens of thousands of their retirement savings for an AOC, and spend hours and hours satisfying CASA that they've produced enough paperwork, just so they can spend a few hours on weekends passing on some of their skills.

That's not quite accurate. The Jeppesen database waypoints cannot be altered on TSOd GPS, that's true. However they WILL take user defined waypoints as well. Even fully integrated FMS type units like the UNS-1 and Proline 21 will take user waypoints. IFR GPS units are available to anyone who can afford them, but they are not cheap! ADS-B won't have anything to do with it. If it is mandated, and if we get the 1090-ES version, it will just be like a transponder for us. It is only the ADS-B 'out' planned for fitment for small aircraft, so there's no screen, and not really any benefit to us.

It’s a really tough one because the safety record is good. Mandating additional requirements would make it more difficult/expensive and could lead to an instructor shortage as there is in GA.