68volksy

There'd be the normal trespass rules to apply also i'd imagine. Most beaches are off-limits to powered vehicle as Local Councils have the say of what can use the public spaces in their area and when so I'd suspect they'd be the ones who you would need to get permission from to use. You'll find most beaches are in local government areas and sign-posted as to what use they can be put. Mind you if you're flying low and slow enough to read the signs... If you're planning a beach landing i'd check with the local Council first - no doubt there are some beaches around the country that are actually designated ALA's. All roads in the country have very strict rules about trespass and registered vehicles. The son of a lady at work managed to score himself a fine for riding a childs toy tricycle on a public road. Private land is however pretty much entirely up to the landowner as to its use by aircraft. If you've got their permission then there's no legal issue with landing there from what I can figure. Whether it's safe to land there is an entirely different question. A landowner can be taking on possibly a phenomenal amount of liability by saying "you can land here" though as it no doubt creates a duty of care and any lapse in that duty is then open to litigation. Most farmers insurance policies i've seen exclude aviation-related activities. In a practical sense it all goes out the window in an emergency situation however the landowner is still able to sue for and damages caused to them or their land (same as in a car accident). That's why it's best to carry insurance.

The buying v hiring debate generally comes down to time and money in my experience. The money side of things generally evens out at around the 100 hours a year mark (excluding purchase cost) if you're paying someone else to do the maintenance. If you have time to do your own maintenance (and I personally argue that's a waste of perfectly good flying time but many seem to enjoy it) then it works out cheaper of course. Second hand with aircraft is best option as they tend to depreciate over time (RA more than GA as GA aircraft pretty much bottomed out 20 years ago) and as with a car the first hit of depreciation is driving it off the showroom floor. You may find yourself led more by your heart than your head in the "buy v hire" debate however and I can say there's no shame in that whatsoever!

For me it was a matter of slowing things down. Had great landings when I started then didn't fly for 16 months and when I came back it was all over the place. My instructor managed to break down my circuit/approach/flare/touchdown and found a few funny habits I seemed to have picked up. Main issue was that for some reason i'd just pull the power entirely when I was over the fence and then try to catch the plane purely with back pressure. It meant that I had a very limited window in which to catch the plane at the perfect height and put it down gently. My instructor basically took me back to square one of the landing lessons and had me leave a little power on and fly along the strip. Then when the plane had settled it was simply a matter of easing the power off and catching it each time with back pressure on the controls. The tiniest little bit of power made a huge difference to how gradually the aircraft would settle onto the runway. I think I used to have this mentality of "i'm over the piano keys, time to land" which was screwing me up. Maybe you could try to break it down into steps and try to flare with a little bit of power on like i'm now doing? All the runway is there to use so don't be afraid to waffle half way down it with power on before touch down (so long as you have enough left of course) a few times to get a proper feel for how the aircraft works. Once you've established a process that works for you and is gentle enough for you to stay ahead of then you can work at moving all parts of the process further back towards the keys. For me I also moved my turn onto finals back a little and made my circuit wider so that everything fitted into the process without me feeling rushed at any point.

New suite of changes on the GA side of things - Part 141 as mentioned above does look set to change all this. The new reg will remove the need for an AOC for flying instruction - it will be replaced by the granting of an "Approval" instead with much reduced requirements. Training of CPL and above will still need be done by an AOC holder under Part 142. Won't go any way to reducing the cost of flying training as most organisations don't try to recover the cost of their AOC. It will create a new category of flying training organisations though.

Just been hearing some more about the RPL. Primary purpose still seems to be to keep pilots flying and to keep them flying GA-registered aircraft and to give new pilots another option. Perhaps brought on by RA-Aus seeming to have been becoming an increasing headache to government types (CASA, ATSB etc.). The guys I've talked to in these organisations give the impression that the directors of these organisations still respect the original reason for RA-Aus starting out and the aircraft types and pilots it was aimed at however the super-fast-lightweight brigade has been raising eyebrows from the start. These guys seem to be considered more GA-light rather than RA-Aus heavy however legislating for them would be a major headache. I know the ATSB has been waiting around for a few years for an accident like the one at Old Bar (they didn't have to wait too long unfortunately) to get stuck into. An accident/incident that would allow them to properly investigate how well an RA-Aus aircraft was put together and how the training standards held up under scrutiny - to "test" the RA-Aus mandate really. RPL primarily means the GA guys who can't or don't want to bother with the medical side of things can keep flying the aircraft they're used to. Believe it or not GA aircraft have unbelievably onerous maintenance standards built over 100 years of aviation and for this purpose are seen by many people as safer. I know the flying school has a great many guys who hang around or drop in for a visit on occasion who have simply stopped flying rather than convert to RA-Aus. There are numerous others who have made the decision to fly RA-Aus purely on medical grounds - not the right way to decide between the options in my view. It'll be interesting to see the impact this has on the Tecnam/Sportstar/Jabiru fraternity most of all for me. If a GA pilot can buy/keep an old Piper/Cessna for $50,000 and keep flying until they've had enough will it have an impact on the $100k-plus alternatives they're faced with in entering RA-Aus? The 'new breed' might be cheaper to run but $50k is a whole lot of fuel/maintenance costs to make up. I understand the RPL guys will also still be able to fly all the GA planes they always have been able to (including all the bigger/faster things) so long as they have another full-GA pilot in the right-hand seat which is pretty common when you're travelling with more people. Also means they can own and fly all the normal 4-seaters and simply have to arrange another pilot for fly-aways etc.

I believe the only authorised source for flight planning is Airservices. CASA and BOM are trying very hard to get this information out there lately. Also need to carry paper plans and other proper documents is on their radar - GPS or Ozrunways type stuff not sufficient.

I must say SAAA ran a very good fun weekend at Cowra in 2010. I enjoyed my visit there much more than my visits to Temora. More to see although not all of it is aviation-based. Vintage cars and engines, model aircraft displays. They put a lot of their exhibitors in one very big marquee which always helps the place feel busier than it actually is. Attracts less people but certainly feels a lot more festive. Maybe feels this way due to their being less people. I'd love to see Natfly embrace a more festive atmosphere. A phone call to the carnival ride people and one to the fireworks people would sort a lot of that out. Also find it odd that they never get the Avsafety guys from CASA along to do their presentations. Ausfly have cottoned on to this - good on them! All the major govt organisations (BOM, Airservices etc.) also seem to have a team of people who are ready and waiting to present their stuff at these things. I drove all the way to Natfly last year salivating over the idea of munching on a sauce-coated dagwood dog whilst watching planes come and go. Still carrying a bit of the disappointment of no dagwood dogs (!) and very little in the way of flying displays that year I suppose... I know it's all good and well to support local business but this event really is a big event and brings a huge amount to any town that hosts it. Narromine would be feeling the hurt to no end so it's great to see them come out with this event. I'm much more inclined to feel it upon the residents of Temora (rather than RA-Aus) to make Natfly a success - they're the ones with by far the most to gain. If Temora isn't behind it there's plenty of country towns out there (like Narromine) who would love to welcome several thousand visitors for a weekend.

There's one in Goulburn NSW. Owner would most likely be very happy for you to have a fly. It doesn't get out much anymore although used to be on-line at Goulburn Aviation flying school for many years. Powered by a Jabiru engine also and in very good shape - recent new wing covers and well looked after. There's a rather long and interesting story about the very few Visions that landed here if I remember - I did look it up once. They were licensed under an overseas standard that had no counterpart here and as such they had a lot of trouble getting them registered in Australia I thought? The three or so that are around managed to slip through a loophole at the time that quickly closed. Love to hear the true story if that one's way off.

Can I add "or the paddock straight ahead" to the above list? I think it wise not to limit your options to the airfield - especially if it's busy. I think it safer to pick a spot in the following order if the field is busy: 1. safe paddock straight ahead or off to the right of path of travel 2. safe paddock directly alongside the airfield (overflying field and staying on the dead side) 3. airfield or taxiway. Basically staying out of the way of everything you don't know about as much as possible.

I do like the idea of keeping the options open. Not so concerned about getting into trouble with others in the circuit as I am about not smashing into them... I do like the trend of the robinsm and fh line of thinking. I can see a great deal of danger in always having the "if I have an engine failure in the circuit I will glide back to the runway" mentality in your head. Engine failure after take-off is pretty standard - there's not much wiggle room on that one. Engine failure on downwind is a whole different ball-game though - there's certainly a great deal of the downwind leg where you'd probably not try to make it back. I'm happy for the discussion to lead wherever it might. Having a landing place in your mind at all times is most certainly the best option. Talked to a couple of instructors about this (who've managed to handle a couple of engine-outs without a hassle) and they both said they've always got an option in their mind.

That was my first thought also. Part of 'aviating' is avoiding obstacles though wouldn't you say? So then I thought of the risk of taking another aircraft down with you - or not being able to do anything about an aircraft lining up or backtracking. All well and good making it back to the runway but what about the aircraft on late final and the one about to roll? Couldn't care less about cutting someone off in this instance but it scares me that I probably wouldn't know about it (or how close we came) until everything was back in the hanger. It's interesting these responses are exactly the responses an old instructor I was talking to told me he used to always get. His feeling was that people get into the habit of trying to make it back to the airfield (a good option perhaps) and fail to see any other perfectly suitable (in some cases better) sites elsewhere.

I'd imagine the traffic controllers are looking purely at efficiency of the operation rather than specific ground rules. There's a good deal of science that goes into air traffic control. There's probably a regulation out there that answers this but my thinking is the same "turn to the right" rule should probably apply to us when taxiing. Might simply be a common sense thing. I know at Goulburn it's been more of a hit-and-miss arrangement lately though...

Just posing a hypothetical for discussion: There's a lot of people who recommend always flying a circuit within gliding distance of the airfield. Just wondering whether people might still consider this the safest option if the engine failure also takes out your radio? Outside controlled airspace of course...

Old Mr Piper new what he was doing and kept it so very simple! The Warrior tends to stall with a great deal of aileron effectiveness still remaining and would certainly never resort to dirty tricks such as dropping a wing! One accepted stall recovery technique is simply letting go of everything and then picking it up when it's flying again. Tends to lose a little more height than the usual recovery though... It's certainly a good slab of rectangular wing on the Savannah - a couple of the guys at the flying school have built them over the years. Talking stalls with them was very similar to the Warrior stalls. Mind you they were talking almost taxi speeds for the stall speed. There was a degree of caution though as if the wings are screwed on at slightly different angles (see your average Cessna?) they will drop a wing in the stall. Due to the low stall speed this had the potential for a good deal of height loss. Only hearsay mind you - never flown in a Savannah.

I fly at Goulburn Aviation - contact details at www.goulburnaviation.com.au. Teraya Miller is the CFI - she cross-hires the Gazelle but will be able to get the owners details or know where the prop came from. My understanding is they had the new composite prop to put on quite some time ago and indications were that certifying it wouldn't be a problem. The owner got a little caught-out unfortunately. Having one spare would certainly have been worthwhile.

It appears the guys in Gympie have been persuaded to build a few new props! Sounds like a couple of schools out there might have got a raised eyebrow from RA-Aus about using non-certified props... Anyway there's been 3 new ones manufactured so far and the school has snaffled one. Recently new engine and now new prop - the mighty Gazelle will be leaping into the air!

Hi guys, If anyone's interested in reading of someone else's adventures in learning to fly there's an absolutely brilliant post by Eric McCandless in the Rec flying student area. I've copied the link below but who knows if that'll work: http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/my-recreation-aviation-flight-training-diary.38378/ I loved reading it - just bringing it a little more attention.

Brilliant Eric! There's nothing in those notes that I haven't experienced in some way myself - it's great to hear someone else's experience in such good detail. You're in good hands with Teraya.

Just worth noting also that charter/airline employers generally do not count RA-Aus hours as worth any salt in the commercial world. If you're looking down the charter route they're usually after a good amount of hours in 120 knot plus machines with constant speed props and the airlines certainly won't count RA-Aus hours. Just a point I thought worth raising if you're looking for employment down the line with a decent organisation.

Report is out on this one. http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/3600179/ao2011043.pdf Another case of pilot error. Even though the pilot had 1000 hours up his sleeve. Very sad. 250kg over take-off limits is a big error.

Hi nunans, Going with a school that does both RA-Aus and GA makes a lot of sense. They do both at my school and I'm pretty sure the conversion process is nowhere near as hard as you mention. I know one guy just did the conversion so he could fly his Jabiru into Canberra and it was only a short transition - a couple of navs into controlled airspace and instrument time pretty much covered it from memory. If the CFI believes you are competent I think they can recommend you for the GFPT or PPL test.

Hi Steve, It is the guys up in Gympie that are no longer doing the certified props. Stopped doing them about 6-9 months ago. If you know for certain this is not the case could you supply a contact number and I'll double-check it against the one the school's been dealing with? I'm afraid the whole 2-blade versus 3-blade debate is quite redundant to us at the moment as the only certified prop is a 2 blade wooden one. Cheers

I think that's been done - there's been a lovely new 3-blade composite bolly prop sitting around for it for years apparently! I thought Tom fitted it for a while when he took it to his place a couple of Christmas's ago and loved it.

Thanks heaps guys. I think they've contacted Tony in Gympie (or whoever the guy is in QLD with the Gazelle approvals). He used to supply the prop until about six months ago is the story and now no-one supplies a certified prop. Been trying for years with RA-Aus to have a composite or other wooden prop approved for training but very hard to find an engineer to sign their life away on it for a reasonable sum of money. The school could put one of the many unapproved props on it and no-one would know but that's certainly not the way they do things...

Howdy, The flying school I learn at has a Gazelle that might soon be due for a new propeller. There's a bit of concern at the moment that none seem to be available that meet the criteria for use in a flying school. Does anyone know with certainty where a suitable propeller might be available? The guy who used to make them decided to stop about 6 months ago apparently.