Phil Perry

Oddly enough Turbs, I got told in advance during Early I/R training that I might have some difficulty 'Switching' from Instruments to Visual, and this was indeed correct, but it passed fairly quickly, as the instructor had placed me on a four mile final in a fairly strong headwind. . . it IS a bit of a weird sensation though I grant you. . . .but not so bad when you are expecting it. . .

I've just had a chat with an Aussie Gentleman on the UK Hubnetwork, ( 'HAM' radio system ). . . who works up North here in Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, who used to fly in Drifters from Boonah. . . .His name is Neil,. . .we don't 'DO' surnames on HR. usually, although I told him that I post using mine. He flew in the early 80's, and I had never even seen an Ultralight at that point, although I gather that they were around at the time, and before I stupidly left the country in very late 1982. . . . . I gave Neil the site address, and he said, while we were chatting, that he'd had a look at it. . . so if you're around Neil. . pop in and say Hi. I wonder if there are any Boonah flyers on here from that period . . (Jurassic or summat wasn't it ? ? ?) Phil. . . .G4 OHK.

Thanks for that Jerry. The CAA say that the aircraft was based at Coventry, whether that was it's actual point of departure on the day of the Accident I do not know. However, most of the Midlands area was reporting large areas of fairly foggy / misty conditions on that day. Will have to wait for the official AAIB report for the clinical details. Terribly sad anyhow.

They obviously took a few frames of the same line there Peter, . . and I've landed at RAF Scampton on a number f occasions but not for about 15 years so I can't really recall the layout of the dispersals. It's apparent that our pictures have been flipped horizontally, but not having access to a ZOOMABLE HD image, I dunno which one is the correct way around !

This is what the local jungle drums are saying Nev,. . No instructor would take up a student into an 'iffy' wx forecast unless he was a total drongoe. . .. but it is an interesting point to note that Flying instructors in the UK do not HAVE to be I/R nor UK imc rated in order to teach flying in GA aircraft. . . Personally, when I returned from Australia in 1983, I renewed and re-established my Instrument rating, and I held / renewed it for many years. . . as the weather here is a total bugger and can be very unpredictable to a clinical standard. I have no doubt that this has saved me grief on a number of occasions,. . I simply refiled IFR in any circumstance when VFR became impossible mid flight for whatever reason. I no longer have that qualification, as I can't afford to keep it up on a state pension, nor fly GA very often. . . But when flying with friends as 'Advisory' ballast,. . at least I can steer them in the right direction. . . It surprises me still that flying schools really do not all prepare new pilots in the process of handling bad weather situations. . . in aircraft with minimal instrumentation too. . . No good buying an artificial horizon if you have no instrument flying experience, as some of my friends have done. . .which is why the weather related 'loss of control' accidents continue to occur. . .

Six Avro Vulcan B.2 aircraft of No 617 squadron ( Remember them ? ) and six Handley Page Victor B.2 aircraft of either No 100 or No 139 Squadron (from RAF Witttering) lined up at RAF Scampton. These Vulcans and Victors are painted in their 'anti-flash' white paint-scheme. Night all, sleep well.

Air Accident Investigation Branch at the scene of the fatal air crash on the Overbury Estate As you can see from the pictures, the viz was not good. Air ambulance forced to land 3 miles away due to fog. A pic of the aircraft held by the CAA Warrior 3 / 161 2 Dead at the scene R.I.P. This was a training flight. Other reports said that it took off from Gloucester Airport ( Staverton ) a short while before contact was lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FA1yCfz9s4

Only HALF my brain cells Nev ? . . . .you are Too kind Sir. . .

In my missive above,. . .I ought to have added that my Local Airport Birmgham Intl. ( EGBB ) has regular problems woith foreign pilots whose command of the 'International language of the air' is not so good. You will probably not read anything about this in any MSM as the CAA and the airport authorities obviously do not wish to worry potential and regular passengers using the site. ATC Officers are bound by contract to secrecy of course. . . . My home is almost directly beneath the approach to Runway 15 at B'ham, range 25 NM. . . although I have a well elevated antenna which easily picks up aircraft on an approach to Rwy 33 as well, and when I am tatting about in my shack, I regularly monitor 118.05 ( Brum Approach / Radar) just to see what's going on. . . Some of the traffic I hear is hilarious. With my home made 8 element yagi Beam antenna, I can listen to the Tower and Surface movement control as well. . .this is how I expected a call from the maintenance dept after hearing about an Etihad Airbus A380 turning of the runway prematurely, and smashing to bits another one of my taxiway signs a few weeks back. . .I listened to the conversation between the pilots and the tower.. . . . When the Maintenance guy phoned me, ( I've got to know him quite well now ) I replied " Yeah, Nigel, I heard. . .which one do you want replaced ?". . .he seemed very surprised that I knew about it. . .*Giggle* . . .I pretended to know little and when I asked which airline,. .. he just said Sodding Arabs again. . . . should stick to camels. Ngele the Maintenance manager is a Nigerian so it's OK for him to make racist comments I gather. . . . ( ! ) I named him 'Nigel' as it's a nice 'Inglish' name. .. and he's quite happy about it too. . .Nice bloke with a gorgeous wife, but we won't go into that. . .

Always wondered why weather reports had to be in code. . .OK, we had the famous 'Q' codes for use with CW ( Morse ) transmission in the early days, but with these days of high speed, digital packet and RELIABLE real time radio communications, what the heck is wrong with giving an airfield Metar / Taf in plain English ? RPT arrivals could easily be sent, via digital packet comms, an ATIS report, printed out on the Cockpit display, including whether it was a standard instrument approach or whatever . . . EVEN AN AUTO-TRANSLATED REPORT FOR ALL THESE BLOODY FOREIGNERS. . .so all they need do is notify receipt of information 'Bravo' Etc., and that saves even more time and strife dunnit ? Does it waste that much valuable Computer / radio airtime ? It was kept for Teleprinter comms, and this is understandable, and 45.45 / 50 Baudot AFTN terminal transmit speed wasn't exactly Fast, but with modern digital tech now universally available, surely Metars / Tafs in CODE ought, by now, to be consigned to the dustbin of history. I hope it continues to go that way. . . . we dumped morse code and teleprinters for promulgation of Flight regularity / WX messages a while ago . . . . At our little toy airfield, we normally don't bother with 'QFE' reports to incoming flights, even though short distance trips often originate from even localish UK airfields with wildly varying elevation figures. . .. . .since 'Surface Pressure' is only one syllable more than 'Queue Eff Eeeee' innit ?. . . .Moreover, it does not confuse any 'Newbie' pilots of incoming aircraft. . . .Even the Yanks have used 'Al -Timm etter' for decades. . .and that's just ONE example of unnecessary 'Coding' of information . . . It's almost as if some people want to keep certain procedures a 'Masonic' style secret from 'Outsiders' They wouldn't wanna do that really,. . .would they ? ?

Local ex-client of mine asked if I could wrap his Dodge pickup. . .I couldn't understand why he wanted to do this as the paintwork was an immaculate metal flake royal blue, with two thin off central white stripes ( vinyl ) running lengthways. I had to decline the job due to no workshop space. He's had it wrapped all over in bright Orange and it looks bloody hideous ! ( IMHO ) APOLOGIES for continuing the thread drift BTW. . . . .

**PLEASE NOTE** I am reading the term 'SHRINK WRAP' in this thread. . . I must stress that I am not speculating about the incident described in this thread, just a bit of info for you. I do not think it particularly pedantic to point out that this type of 'Wrapping' for plain colours or indeed Graphic images onto vehicles of many types, is more correctly STRETCH WRAPPING. It is extremely popular for changing the colour of a car, as it is a lot less costly than a repaint, but does not last anywhere near as long. The material is pulled over an area and then 'Pushed' into recesses and other concave / convex panel geometry by 'STRETCHING' using a hot air gun. The vinyl material is a stable 'CAST' product, which retains it's shape when stretched. Basically the opposite of Shrink Wrapping used in food packaging etc and it is a massive industry. I was involved in this work until I retired in 2014, and was only asked to 'Wrap' an aircraft once, ( PA-28 161 ) declining the job due to concerns about the stuff becoming detached in flight and the possibilty of fouling control surfaces.. My vinyl suppliers said they would not guarantee the product for aviation use either. . .product liabilty and all that malarkey I suppose.

Well done Guys. . . .I had many 'flights' on these beasts,. . .they were extremely uncomfortable I thought, but lots of fun. . .Cow of a ride mate, ( To Ryde - NOT Cowes, I.O.W. ! )

Anyone know what this is . . .?

This Polish Squadron has been mentioned before on RF. This Video tells their story. . .and their Betrayal at Yalta at the end of WW2. ( runtime 22 min )

William Leefe Robinson VC (14 July 1895 – 31 December 1918). September 1916 From: Lieutenant Leefe Robinson, Sutton's Farm. To: The Officer Commanding No. 39 H. D. Squadron. Sir: I have the honour to make the following report on night patrol made by me on the night of the 2-3 instant. I went up at about 11.08 p.m. on the night of the second with instructions to patrol between Sutton's Farm and Joyce Green. I climbed to 10,000 feet in fifty-three minutes. I counted what I thought were ten sets of flares - there were a few clouds below me, but on the whole it was a beautifully clear night. I saw nothing until 1.10 a.m., when two searchlights picked up a Zeppelin S.E. of Woolwich. The clouds had collected in this quarter and the searchlights had some difficulty in keeping on the airship. By this time I had managed to climb to 12,000 feet and I made in the direction of the Zeppelin - which was being fired on by a few anti-aircraft guns - hoping to cut it off on its way eastward. I very slowly gained on it for about ten minutes. I judged it to be about 800 feet below me and I sacrificed some speed in order to keep the height. It went behind some clouds, avoiding the searchlight, and I lost sight of it. After fifteen minutes of fruitless search I returned to my patrol. I managed to pick up and distinguish my flares again. At about 1.50 a.m. I noticed a red glow in the N.E. of London. Taking it to be an outbreak of fire, I went in that direction. At 2.05 a Zeppelin was picked up by the searchlights over N.N.E. London (as far as I could judge). Remembering my last failure, I sacrificed height (I was at about 12,900 feet) for speed and nosed down in the direction of the Zeppelin. I saw shells bursting and night tracers flying around it. When I drew closer I noticed that the anti-aircraft aim was too high or too low; also a good many shells burst about 800 feet behind-a few tracers went right over. I could hear the bursts when about 3,000 feet from the Zeppelin. I flew about 800 feet below it from bow to stem and distributed one drum among it (alternate New Brock and Pomeroy). It seemed to have no effect; I therefore moved to one side and gave them another drum along the side - also without effect. I then got behind it and by this time I was very close - 500 feet or less below, and concentrated one drum on one part (underneath rear). I was then at a height of 11,500 feet when attacking the Zeppelin. I had hardly finished the drum before I saw the part fired at, glow. In a few seconds the whole rear part was blazing. When the third drum was fired, there were no searchlights on the Zeppelin, and no anti-aircraft was firing. I quickly got out of the way of the falling, blazing Zeppelin and, being very excited, fired off a few red Very lights and dropped a parachute flare. Having little oil or petrol left, I returned to Sutton's Farm, landing at 2.45 a.m. On landing, I found the Zeppelin gunners had shot away the machine-gun wire guard, the rear part of my centre section, and had pierced the main spar several times. I have the honour to be, sir, Your obedient servant, (Signed) W. Leefe Robinson, Lieutenant No. 39 Squadron, R.F.C. * * * Took off from Sutton's Farm, Hornchurch - sadly did not live to see the end of the war. Close by to Bentley priory and Stanmore airfields a local pub was named after Leefe Robinson. Was changed to the Miller and Carter not long ago. I suspect it's one of those pub/restaurant chains that pretends it's not.

I got a right Rollocking for filling a C-150 to the brim at Berwick one time. . .Instructor Alan B warned me about possible condensation in the tanks if I didn't,. . .but the overspill grass parking area was not level, and the Aircraft was parked slightly wing down towards the fuel breather pipe. . . . .Not sure how much fuel crossfed onto the grass. . . .

Hiya Butch. . .Ping my email and I'll send you a Rans S6 POH in .PDF format. . . I have around 190 hours on these aircraft and they are OK. No nasty surprises, and no gear collapses. I've flown 503, 582 and 912 versions. quite a cheap machine and fun to fly. They start at prices around £6K for a 2 stroke model in the UK, but there are a lot of them around. The POH is in 'Americanese' so all the quoted speeds are in MPH. . .and I wouldn't take those as gospel either. . especially some of the approach speed recommendations. . .bit too slow in reality. . . Anyway, it may be of some use. Depends which variation you're looking at, some have the throttle control mounted on the front of the lower seat frame, connected by a torsion bar to a parallel control on the right hand seat. some have the 'Push Pull throttle on the centre panel. Older models have a slightly smaller fin area with the top of it angled downwards,as with the top of the rudder. Whereas later ones have a slightly bigger fin area withe the top of it, and the rudder, level. I've noticed NO difference in rudder control authority on either. On most of them the trim control is a vertically mounted plastic 'Cogwheel' between the seats, alongside the 'Handbrake' style flap lever. Phil. <[email protected]>

Whilst I knew the pilot in the abovementioned accident, I do not know if he was fully / appropriately insured for passenger Injury liability. Our Flying site management insist on every user presenting their documents on an annual basis for inspection. This means ALL documents pertaining to the aircraft and the pilot(s) of any machine based at the site. These are all logged and tracked. I don't have the latest update on the insurance requirement, but last year it was quite a comprehensive requirement, but there are dedicated companies in the UK who deal specifically with leisure aviation and their premiums and payout record are, to be fair, pretty good. They do not seem to believe that flying is 'Inherently Dangerous' The reason that the management do this is that they are the last line of attack for law suits, being ultimately responsible for the safety of all activities on the site, including visitor safety. This seems to work, although there was a lot of whingeing and crying when the new management took over Seven years ago and announced their plans. . . as it was the Wild West before this and no one knew who was insured or even legal. One Gentleman was suspended from the site in late summer 2017 for a period of six months for allowing his Permit to fly to expire by a few days, and yet was still flying passengers. This alone would have invalidated any insurance claim. He was very lucky not to have been permanently banned.

Whilst I knew the pilot in the abovementioned accident, I do not know if he was fully / appropriately insured for passenger Injury liability. Our Flying site management insist on every user presenting their documents on an annual basis for inspection. This means ALL documents pertaining to the aircraft and the pilot(s) of any machine based at the site. These are all logged and tracked. I don't have the latest update on the insurance requirement, but last year it was quite a comprehensive requirement, but there are dedicated companies in the UK who deal specifically with leisure aviation and their premiums and payout record are, to be fair, pretty good. They do not seem to believe that flying is 'Inherently Dangerous' The reason that the management do this is that they are the last line of attack for law suits, being ultimately responsible for the safety of all activities on the site, including visitor safety. This seems to work, although there was a lot of whingeing and crying when the new management took over Seven years ago and announced their plans. . . as it was the Wild West before this and no one knew who was insured or even legal. One Gentleman was suspended from the site in late summer 2017 for a period of six months for allowing his Permit to fly to expire by a few days, and yet was still flying passengers. This alone would have invalidated any insurance claim. He was very lucky not to have been permanently banned.

Wrong colour mate. . .the proper one is 'Midnight Blue' ie almost Black. I still have my old one framed.

Passchendaele. I really like this photo and it is one of my favourites. The eyes do it I think,. . . . eyes that have seen far, far too much. The Battle of Menin Road Ridge: An Australian Battalion have tea and food in the first support trench on the evening before the battle on Westhoek Ridge.

Allo John. I Echo my mate Bexy's comment . .Welcome to the . . .Forum ! I'm an Oldie, learned to fly aerial appliances in the UK but mostly in Australia. Best yearz of me life mate. . . .Some darned useful / valuable commenteers on this Forum, mostly filled with some really nice people AND some weirdies like me. Come on, don't be shy. . .tell us what you've been doing and what you'd like to do ( keep it clean tho, - family show ) Phil.

Have not read Sharky's book but have heard of it. .. There are manifold massive clusterwhatsits in the history of British High Militatry command. . .always the wrong specialists in the wrong job, and politicians putting their oar in. . . Been reading stuff on WW1,. . .Jeeze. . . 'several .someones' should have been hanged for the utter stupidity and basically murder of British soldiers, AND those of other countries with their damned stupid battle plans. . . but a whole new thread would be needed to even scratch the surface . . . .