Stoney

Hi Marty, I'm happy to take you for a fly if Murray Bridge is on your itinerary. Send me a message if it suits. Cheers, Gary.

I thought it was a dramatic pause.

I think that Fly Tornado is getting soft and mushy. I think I like him that way.

Thanks for the reminder Gaz. I have spent the last hour revising this important topic. The rules we use for safe flying really are written in blood. It would be disrespectful not to take heed.

While I generally agree with the rest of your post, my concern with this section is that I don't know where to look for you "a minute or so before joining". I once had an aircraft call "joining mid-field cross wind" while I and another aircraft were doing circuits. I was just airborne, and in my mental map had the calling aircraft directly above me and a little over half a circuit in front. On turning downwind (and calling such, with no reply) I completed some checks and was looking for the traffic to follow on downwind when I suddenly saw an aircraft coming from my left on a direct collision course. The plane was starting to bank left to join mid downwind and the other pilot would not have been able to see me under his upturned wing. I took immediate and abrupt evasive action and the collision was avoided. This was the plane that called "joining" over a minute earlier and was a student pilot with instructor on board. A "joining" call at the time of joining, or a response to my "turning downwind" call or the other pilot looking up the downwind leg could have avoided the near tragedy. I now always visually check to the left when joining downwind, something that was not taught in ab-initio training.

Just keep them away from the propeller. You don't want to be around if the Shitsu hits the fan.

Congratulations Rich. I have really enjoyed watching your warts and all lessons. More instructors should have Bruce's attitude. I think he does a terrific job.

I have done the APA - and am very glad I did so. I am also surprised at the amount of negative comments, although I shouldn't be. It is the main reason I don't visit this site so much these days. With the exception of a small number of friendly and helpful people, the number of whinging, negative, sarcastic know alls has increased to the extent that I get depressed reading their opinionated crap. RJW - your question is valid, "has anyone here actually done it". Notice that out of 39 posts (mainly derogatory and negative) that all of these detractors have not actually done it. Don't listen to these morons. Yes, in an ideal world, we should have learned these things during ab-initio, and maybe there are some instructors who do use it as revenue raising, and maybe a piece of paper doesn't make you a better pilot. Neither does being a big mouth keyboard warrior with nothing useful to contribute but your own overinflated egotistical opinion. RJW - there are many reasons I am glad to have done it. For the sake of 4 or 5 hours with an instructor, I received many times more than that in real world experience. It was like giving the instructor the green light to open up all the things he thought he should be teaching but either weren't in the syllabus or not gone into in such depth. Many things that were taught were covered it so much more detail, the expected tolerances were tighter and I was fully engaged in each lesson. I came away from each and every lesson with a healthy sweat from the sheer mental focus. Some things taught were a complete contradiction to what I had been taught as part of my GA PPL training because the instructor had to teach it and observe me achieve a 'minimum' standard to qualify. However, his comments were that these things were not appropriate in 'real life'. It made perfect sense to me and I did have the opportunity to put this into a real world scenario not so long after, he was absolutely correct, my PPL training was not appropriate. Fine in theory, but not the real world. It was also an opportunity to fly 3 different types of aircraft, so that I was constantly thinking and really flying the aircraft, not lazily going through the motions in an aircraft I could fly in my sleep. We also went to local farm airstrips that were never included in PPL or RAA training, probably because they were not officially certified but this type of airstrip constitutes a fair proportion of the places I now fly to in the real world. I think also that during ab-initio, I flew the way I was taught, but didn't really have a solid, almost instinctive understanding of why. Given more experience, the APA training builds on this, and I understood the reasons for different actions better because it was built of a firm foundation. OK, so I now have three extra letters printed on my certificate, it doesn't mean much to anyone. No one else even knows unless I tell them, and I only say something if they ask. It doesn't make me an outstanding pilot or better than a pilot who hasn't done it. There are many better pilots than me around, a great many on this forum, and probably even some of the twits with nothing nice to say, but the point is, I am a better pilot than I was before I did the training. That is all that counts. I learned so much, that I will do some more of it at my next BFR. I will do some extra hours with a different instructor and ask them to show me the things that they don't teach students, but they would want their kids to know. RJW There is so much more I learned, and I am happy to talk with you further if you send me a personal message.

My apologies. I misread the question and stand corrected.

Port Lincoln Aerodrome YPLC has these indicators - LH circuit one direction but RH circuit the opposite way. It works quite well, the terminal buildings are always the dead side.

Nice to see you on this forum Bulldog. We caught up a few weeks ago at YMBD. When you are ready, you can let the good people on here know your story. They will be supportive. Glad you are venturing into the cyber world. Cheers, Gary

Fabiru - a locally produced light aircraft with a reliable engine

I can see both sides of the discussion. All the lambs I have ever eaten have been vegans.

I was reading another thread where there was confusion over the latest rules and also separate exemptions to the rules. If our resident legal eagles get confused, what hope is there for the rest of us. I have done a little research into over water and life jacket rules (for my own information) as there was a lot of misinformation being passed around during a recent conversation with a group of pilots. Here is my summary extract that I believe apply to RAAus 600kg MTOW aircraft. Over Water Flight Rules CAR258 states - Must not fly out of glide range of land BUT AIP ENR 1.1 62 (1) & (3) overrides this by saying "No distance limit for private flights" THEN CAO 95.55 7.1 © (RAAus 60kg MTOW) states not out of glide range, or if out of glide range but less than 25NM if wearing life jacket and have radio and ELT Life Jacket Rules AIP ENR 1.1 62.4 states - each occupant must wear a life jacket except if exempted by CAO 20.11 BUT CAO 20.11 5.1 1(a) states "equipped" with 1 life jacket per person if further than glide range from land THEN CAO 20.11 5.1.7 advises they do not need to be worn unless below 2,000' and out of glide range. What a ridiculous system that expects us to read multiple sections of three different documents and then filter out the extraneous information. Then there are the further exemptions for crossing Bass Strait etc Are there any more relevant rules or have I been lucky enough to find them all?

Thanks Nathan, I have contacted Melbourne Centre on my last two flights. Firstly when flying towards Tailem Bend (which is often used for radio beacon navigation exercises). Melbourne Centre advised an IFR training flight of my position and noted "unknown intentions". I always feel better when I know the intentions of aircraft in my vicinity, so I called Centre and advised my position and intentions, and that I had the other aircraft in sight. I think all involved are then happier and more comfortable that we all have situational awareness, and even though VFR, I am on the correct channel and actively monitoring. A few days ago, I was flying from Sherlock to Brooklands Airpark (YBAK) which is just inside the edge of the Langhorne Creek parachuting zone. I had heard the drop plane giving intentions, but did not respond as I did not intend to fly through the area, but only I knew that. Melbourne Centre then called something like "VFR aircraft, flying at 2,500', 6 miles SE of Tailem Bend. You are about to enter a parachute drop zone." I called Centre and confirmed my position and advised that I was aware of the drop zone and would remain clear and stay East of the river. Both ATC and the drop plane acknowledged, and we all got on with what we were doing. We have radios for communication for good reason. Area frequency, is not usually that congested that we can't make a quick call where there is potential conflict, even if only to put other peoples mind at ease.