KRviator

No no - $500 a flight is only if you were going to do an hour of circuits at Warnervale! FWIW, an extra $10M liability coverage for an additional $20 premium sounds like good value to me, but I am not a beancounter...

I'd forgotten about this site. It shows a greater history than FA or FR24, going back a couple years for my ADS-B outputs.

Thou shall not copy-and-paste PDF files from your C: drive... The actual file can be found HERE.

Do what I do. Ignore it. You are under no legal obligation to contact them, or lift a finger to dispute, an incorrect bill they have issued. They have the onus to provide a true and correct invoice before expecting payment. No more so than driving down the main street. I don't pay a toll to drive from Gosford to Wyong, yet the local council - of which I am a ratepayer - expects me to pay $8.25 for each and every landing. Now given I can achieve a landing every 3.3 minutes that is $150 in landing fees for an hour of circuit training, in an aircraft that I own, and that is before the operating cost of the aircraft is considered. Or, put another way, it is a toll of $41.60 / kilometer of runway used, based on 200m ground roll multiplied by 18 circuits. ARTC charge less than 20% of that to run a bloody 2000-tonne freight train from Brisbane to Sydney. And if I refuel - from my own jerrycan - after that hour of circuit training, well then that's another $110 just for the 'privilege' of refuelling on council land. So, just like the Council parks, boat ramps, ovals and roads that I don't pay to use? And what happens when they're not? Warnervale is the only north-south runway between Cessnock and Wollongong, it serves an LGA with a population approaching a third of a million direct residents and probably 1.0m indirectly, yet they charge more than any other airport I've seen, with a taxiway that is worse than some "4wd tracks" I've driven on...

Seem's I'm too late to edit the previous post to include the link to the drama's I had initially, but you can find a bit writeup about it in the thread What's up with the SAAA?

Yes you can, but there are several hoops to jump through, Jaba covered most of them nicely, but there's a couple gotchas, see below. That was me, and eventually I gave up and went back to RAAus because I didn't have my MPC at the time and wasn't prepared to pay for a LAME to issue a MR, or a WCO to redo the W&B per the AP's requirement, even though it had been done by an RAAus L4, an approved CAsA delegate. The difficulty of getting in touch with either of the (at the time, only) two AP's in NSW didn't help either. Now I have the MPC, when I can tee up a time I'll have another crack, but here's a few tips: Make sure you de-register your aircraft with RAAus well before you attempt to register it with CAsA. Where the CAsA registration form asks "Has the aircraft ever been on a foreign register?", the muppets in Cant-berra interpret this to mean "Any register other than ours, at any time since Noah built the ark?", not just "A register in another country" You can register your plane VH at any time, but you can't fly it until you have a CoA from an AP Unless you built it, or "a substantially similar" one, you will need a LAME to raise the MR, which can't happen will you have a CoA The AP or LAME may want a new W&B done. If you haven't done the MPC & W&B course, you will need a CAsA-approved WCO to do this. Ask beforehand. The AP may want to issue you a test area to complete your "SAAA-approved" Phase-I testing, even though you have successfully been flying RAAus for months/years. Ask beforehand, and discuss where this area will be. The AP may want you to complete the SAAA "Risk-Radar" bollocks, even though you have successfully been flying RAAus for months/years. Ask beforehand and discuss.

I believe the certification requirement is recovery from a 1-turn spin, not a fully developed one.

You can remove and replace the landing gear tyres, IAW Schedule 8, that would include the removal of any wheelpants to actually get to the tyres in the first place. Removal of "non structural" components, cover plates and fairings is also permitted as part of lubricating various components if required.

Point of order! There is a distinct difference between a "deadman" switch on a train, and the "Vigilance/Alerter" system, which is the button you have to push every 45 seconds or so. Suburban trains usually have a deadman system, either the power controller or a pedal that has to be held "just so", or the brakes will be applied, and in Sydney after Waterfall, they introduced the Vigilance as well, whereas locomotives typically have the Vigilance system only, that being the button you have to push. That being said, the Vigilance system can lull you into a false sense of security - usually around 0700 struggling up the hill into the rising sun after signing on at 1000 the previous night following a crappy sleep. It beeps, and you reset it as part of an unconscious reaction without being fully alert. Newer vehicles usually have the Vigilance "task-linked" to other onboard systems, such that the act of blowing the horn, changing power settings or making a brake application resets the cycle with the logic being you're alert enough to be actively driving the train, so why bug you just now? The eye-scanner technology has been trialed by rail operators before and found to be a dismal failure. Train driver's can appear to lose focus for relatively long periods, which the system picks up as fatigue or at-risk behavior, though when you are driving the train several miles in advance and know almost to the meter where each signal and speedboard are, you don't need to actively focus your eyes on the track immediately ahead - which is what these systems seem to be programmed to look for and flag an alert if it doesn't happen.

To take that a step further, a single-seat aircraft of any registration doesn't need an ELT, as they are classed as "Exempted aircraft", along with HCRPT, turbojet-powered aircraft, balloons, gliders & airships. One benefit of those SPOT systems is they work outside ADS-B & mobile coverage, though depending on your chosen plan, you may have many miles between your reporting points, significantly increasing the potential search area if you can't get out the SOS feature before you crash. They're also portable between different modes, planes/boats/4WD's etc. Spot Basic sends (but doesn't confirm receipt) a location packet every 5/10/30/60 minutes but you can bring that down to every 2.5 minutes for an extra $200AUD/yr. ADS-B, for example, outputs a position accurate to within a few meters every 0.5 seconds. Depending on your cruise speed (and potential search area if you go missing), you may feel the increase in messages is worth the cost if you go the SPOT route, you may not, but it's something to consider either way.

A PLB is NOT compulsory for flying. For flights beyond 50nm CAR252A specifies you must carry "an approved ELT", or "an approved portable ELT", of which a PLB may meet the requirements, if it is registered with the AMSA and it meets the AS/NZS 4280.2:2003 standards.

It depends what you want. From a purely survival standpoint when flying, I carry on my person a GME MT410G PLB. I figure I can get out a quick mayday on Area if I am going to need the PLB and for 'most'of my flying I have mobile coverage. I considered the SPOT, but my RV has ADS-B, so it doesn't make sense from a tracking point of view. 4WDing in remote Australia would be another story though.

I found this one a good idea. I have a 10m wide door and was wondering how to fit a Mooney or Bonanza in there. Though I've decided to simply sell that hangar at Temora, and buy another block and build a much bigger one... Another option would be the Aero Aircraft Dolly's for each wheel individually.

Getting current on the Rotax-powered Tecnam & Foxbat was an expensive PITA waiting for it to warm up. Flying my own -9A, I go full power as soon as the oil temperature is over 100*F, usually that's the time it takes me to program the GPS and get to the end of the runway at Somersby, unless it's an early winters morning.

I did up a database of Certified airports and ALA's for the Dynon Skyview and Garmin G3X systems last year. Once installed, they show up as User Waypoints, and are displayed on the map. If you don't fancy paying for Garmin's aerodata and only fly VFR, it's a cheap alternative, and you can keep them up to date yourself.

The empty weight on my 2-seat RAAus-registered RV-9A is 445Kg, so 155kg payload. That's me + not-quite-full thanks or me + mini-me + fuel for a 3 hr junket. Until I swap it to VH, that meets my mission requirements.

Why does this sound suspiciously like the case of Patrick Crumpton who was fart-arsing about at low level over the Clarence river and hit a powerline killing his young passenger? Any time you are flying below 500AGL and not in the process of taking off or landing, you're breaking the rules, with a few notable exceptions, none of which apply to your typical junket around the patch on a weekend. If you are below 500AGL to your mates strip and you hit a powerline, you're covered as the rules permit it. If you're under 500AGL and you hit a powerline being a stuntc*ck, you deserve everything you get.

They're high bypass engines aren't they? He'll probably come out the other side shaken, but not stirred.

The hard part with having an accountant for a missus is she's always banging on about "Everything being an Asset or a Liability". Technically, employees are assets - though they are viewed by the vast majority of large companies as liabilities. The worst part is when you have worked for a company that was - and I'm being honest here - a truly fantastic place to work, and one of the best in the industry in which to work, then seeing the damage a change in management and managerial culture can do to employees morale and the businesses bottom line. ?

It is a part of the 2018 Privacy Policy. It is not part of any privacy policy prior to that. The 2018 policy was added to their website after I called out the CEO last year for not complying with their own policy after they apparently left their old one up. And their was ZERO notification to the membership that the existing privacy policy had been changed to include the disclosure to airfield operators.

So I have a question... WHEN will RAAus provide my details to an airfield operator? Whenever they (the airfield operator) request it, irrespective of whether or not I've actually landed there and then - like the AvData clowns - will I end up arguing with them about my plane being in a hangar interstate at the time....Or will RAAus expect some kind of proof that I was there before releasing my details? Going by their actions this far, I'd expect it to be the former.

It wasn't IDH, but VH-INH, and the problem wasn't that it dropped its' nosewheel, but that it didn't...? The BASI report for a bit of light reading...

I think that's what it comes down to. I usually plan the flight on SkyVector and print out the NavLog page(s), then email the plan to the iPad, open it in OzRunways, and then WiFi the plan to the Dynon for the autopilot to track. While the engine is warming up, I'll plug it into the KLN-90. I have and can, but refuse to, use a whiz-wheel. It has no place in a modern cockpit. If I really want to do any E6B calculations, I use an app on the phone. I have no qualms about using any of the 4 GPS' I have on board for sole-means area navigation, though it is the KLN that keeps me legal for that, nor even about going VFR-on-top using the KLN for position fixing. Battery going flat? Plug it into the 12V socket. Ipad overheats? Pull out the phone and spin up RWY. Drop the phone on the floor? Pull up the VTC overlay on the Dynon. Dynon fails? Use the KLN to find the nearest suitable airport. There are a multitude of single-place failures in light aircraft, but consumer-grade electronics utilised for GA navigation aren't one of them anymore. I can't even remember the last time I bought a paper chart...?

Could you edit your post to remove his mobile number? Might well be his personal one and there's bots that crawl websites looking for thing like that and email addresses.

Where's it been stopped? It was the ADS-B paint, to disable that, all you need to do is select Standby when you need to. One of the VAF guys makes a habit of it, hell even Boeing does it: Images from Wired.com