Roundsounds

The Pitts, Yaks 50,52,55 all have a tendency to "fall on their back" due to gyroscopic effect as the aircraft yaws through 180 degrees from the up line to the down line. (ie to the left in the Pitts or right in the Yaks). They also tend to roll in the same direction as the yaw, so in a Pitts you'd have full left rudder, right aileron and forward stick. Once the aircraft starts to accelerate it now has the correct control inputs for an inverted spin entry, which often occurs early on in conversion training if these control inputs are held for too long. Pilots who aerobat aircraft like the Tiger, Chippy, C150/152, Citabria tend to be taught to reduce power as the nose of the aircraft approaches the horizon and therefore don't experience this. When I was instructing in the Pitts S2A / Yak 52 I spent a great deal of time training people in recovery from inverted spins entered from a stall turn, the entry often occurred unintentionally.

The Pitts, Yaks 50,52,55 all have a tendency to "fall on their back" due to gyroscopic effect as the aircraft yaws through 180 degrees from the up line to the down line. (ie to the left in the Pitts or right in the Yaks). They also tend to roll in the same direction as the yaw, so in a Pitts you'd have full left rudder, right aileron and forward stick. Once the aircraft starts to accelerate it now has the correct control inputs for an inverted spin entry, which often occurs early on in conversion training if these control inputs are held for too long. Pilots who aerobat aircraft like the Tiger, Chippy, C150/152, Citabria tend to be taught to reduce power as the nose of the aircraft approaches the horizon and therefore don't experience this. When I was instructing in the Pitts S2A / Yak 52 I spent a great deal of time training people in recovery from inverted spins entered from a stall turn, the entry often occurred unintentionally.

Kermode's Flight Without Formulae is also a great reference.

There's a nice Champ for hire at Wangaratta for $150/ hour solo (Classic Air). It's a fair drive or train trip, but it's apart half the price of a Citabria. There's also a freshly refurbished DeHavilland Chipmunk at Albury, contact Hazair.

Try this recovery method in a stall turn in a Pitts, you'll find yourself in an inverted spin 9 out of 10 times. You need to install the wings, which may require back stick.

I'm pretty sure some of the factors quoted here do not alter the indicated stall speed. ie: wind velocity, air temperature, air density and I'm not sure what is meant by aircraft performance? The critical one missed is load factor, it tends to be the killer of pilots who blindly rely on IAS as a stall predictor. I believe ALL instructors should hold an aerobatic flight activity endorsement. There's no other training that will allow you to fully appreciate how an aeroplane can stall at any IAS and attitude or how to recover from the stall, or more importantly the impending stall. The number of instructors I've flown with who are tentative (or simply scared) of stalling is frightening. I believe the stick position is by far the best stall warning. Every pilot should stall a new type when converting, including clean, landing configuration, power on, power off, level flight, turning and various combinations of these configurations.

Nowra is another tax payer owned facility which is under-utilised and over controlled.

VH or RAAus rego?

Unfortunately this doesn't always make it from the text book to real life. There are still many "wrong lever" incidents occurring despite the unique shapes of various knobs and levers. Nothing like looking, thinking, then actioning. The trim and carb heat knobs on Citabrias are significantly different in size and subtly differ in shape, yet errors still occur.

This might be a cheap lesson in identifying the control before operating it. Better trim misidentified as carb heat than gear lever as flap after landing!

Sounds like this guy just needs to learn for himself as to why you "fly circles" around your home field.

You'll find old VH-PBS knows what to do by herself! You weren't keen on the Citabrias?, they are the best abinitio trainer you'll find. A tip - start yourself a "reflective diary" using a school exercise book. After each session find a quiet spot (on the hill overlooking the airport is good) and run through in your mind what you covered during the flight. Write down a few things that went well and a few that didn't. Research what you could do to fix the things that didn't go well. Also note anything you're not sure about and need to ask the instructor, cause you're likely to forget if you don't write them down. Review the notes the day of / or prior to your next lesson. Maybe even do it with your instructor if time permits.

That'd be an Antonov AN2.

Good work and as Nev says, you'll have good days and not so good days. Remember to go around if you feel uncomfortable with an approach or landing, don't wait for the instructor to prompt you. In your early days, you're better off going around rather than trying too hard to correct a large balloon or big bounce. A little exercise for you to help develop your thought processes regarding energy management during approach: Draw a 3x3 grid (like noughts and crosses) Across the top label the columns with airspeed as: Slow, ok, fast. Down the left side label the rows with your approach profile as: High, ok, low Now write in each box of the grid your actions. eg the centre row, third column will represent profile ok, but airspeed fast. I would reduce power and maintain profile until airspeed is ok, then reset the correct power. If you follow the simplistic teaching of elevator controls airspeed and power controls flight path you'd raise the nose to fix the fast airspeed, but now you're high on profile so you'd reduce power - pretty dumb I think. You need to assess your energy state (combination of speed and height) before making corrections and remember power + attitude = performance. So unless you're in a glider or had an engine failure you've got two factors affecting performance. In all cases for low experience pilots I recommend high+fast=go-around and low+slow=go around. I hope this helps and does not cause confusion, it's much easier explained on a white board! Keep up the great work!

You simply cannot beat a J-3 Cub for general handling. Flown solo from the rear seat, which provides excellent perspective for judging attitudes and feeling whether in balance. The ability to fly with the entry door open is great too. A real classic and absolute joy to fly!

Sounds like you're making good progress. Don't let the flare distract you from the rest of the circuit, like I said it will all click into place and you'll wonder why you were worrying. I use the following work cycle commencing on base and continuing on approach: LARF L = Line-up A = Airspeed R = Relax! (Physically, not mentally. It helps you check to see the aircraft's in trim and reduces your tendency to over control) F = Flight path - hi/lo? and over or under shooting? Good luck with your next session!

Your instructor would be the first point of call to ask this question. We all learn differently and your instructor should be able to provide you with several different methods of judging flare height and how to complete the hold off. I won't let my students attempt a landing until they can fly a tidy circuit and approach and judge the flare and hold off. I do this by having them complete the circuit down to the flare and hold off, initially with me managing the power into the flare and prompting "a bit higher or a bit lower" without intending a touch down. The run along the runway then finishes with a go around, if you can successfully fly this sequence the actual touchdown is easy. I brief that any unexpected touchdown / bounce leads to a go around and I deal with bounce recovery later on. You then just need to manage the rollout, which effectively is high to low speed taxiing. Like any learning, it's broken down into building blocks and not one huge sequence of events which students can find overwhelming. I think some instructors forget what those early stages of flight training are like as a student. Good luck, you'll find it will all click and wonder why you found this stage difficult.

The "Latest News" links include one to a fly-inn June 15 and another regarding a NOTAM affecting Kingaroy last Sept 2014. The website really needs some regular maintenance. The L1 Training was rolled out 1 December 14 on a 3 month trial and the page and links are still sitting there with no updates on what the future holds re L1s.

They must be an amazingly clever design, there's one on the RAAus register with an empty weight under 400kg. Makes them quite useful, even with a reduced MTOW of 600kg they can carry pilot plus 1 pax, 60 litres of fuel and has retractable gear. Much more useful than any of the RV range of aircraft when it comes to RAAus rego. I really admired the one on display at the last Avalon airshow.

Very sad, I recall being in awe of Colleen's outstanding formation flying skills in various displays and competitions with Schofields Aero Club over the years.

Wedderburn certainly isn't my favourite airfield due to many reasons, but you can always exercise your right not to use it if you consider it to be unsafe.

Thanks Jake, very sad indeed. The CASA register records the aircraft as a SH-2Ft which I assumed to be a Glasair 2.

From the bit of footage on the news flash, it looked a bit like a Glasair II.

There reporting system needs to encourage reporting of near misses. There are two obvious ways of effecting this: 1. Create an anonymous reporting system for near misses. Or 2. Guarantee no punitive action for reported near misses (provided they are not justifiable and deliberate breaches of reg's). There seems to be a perception of big brother is watching and waiting to pounce on anyone who makes a genuine mistake. I'm not suggesting this to be the case, but it seems to be the perception talking to members and reading blogs etc. The option of anonymous or mon punitive action reporting may help change this perception.

Andy, at the end of the day most incidents result due to an HF issue. What the RAAus doesn't have the ability to do now is identify or forecast the most likely combination of pilot, aircraft, weather etc which will result in an incident. Once this info can be extracted from the existing data, decisions can be made regarding what the most appropriate mitigators might be. I work for an organisation who has such a system in place and it works very well.