motzartmerv

Yea thanx for the advice. I'm glad your engine hasn't let you down in 400 hours, but your hardly in a position to be offerin advice on how to be a "reliable" operator after 400 hours mate. No offense but your a pup in this dog pit mate. We have roughly the Same hours operating rotax aswel, so you really think I should ask what my lames are doing wron when we hve had no major iasues with them? 400 hours...lol.. I'm still laughing mate. Come in here bragging about your awesome maintenance and operating. Mate some schools do 400 hours in 3 months.

Lol. Whn you have 5000 hrs plus, operating jabs.. Come and Bragg.. 400 hours.. That's cute

You maintain by the POH? Maybe thats been our problems all along. We are maintaining IAW with the "maintenance Manual" and not the Pilot Operating Handbook. Ill contact our Lame's, L4's and L2's and break the news.

Jabs and rotaxes don't windmill ( generally)

cant get carby ice if the engines switched off...

Scissors!!!

What relevance is cta? Inside cta your generally assigned an altitude and sepearted ( depending in class of airspace an flight rules) Class G is where hemisphericals matter.

Lol. Ask a simple question and look what happens. :)

IFR obviously?

They couldn't possibly be. If they are, we need new peers!!!

Back when? One month ago was our last thru bolt failure. ;) but hey, let's not let this 'data' influence anything Latest spec bolts. Installed by the factory. Yawwnnn!!

Yea Deborah, it's a death by many cuts as far as I'm concerned. But I disagree , it's not just a difference in wording . A stall is NOT .. I repeat... A stall is NOT the angle between the chord and the relative airflow. That's angle of attack. An instructor can simply not stiff a definition like that in a national publication. It's not wording. It's just plain wrong.

I am serious, and dont call me Shirley.

Ive been quielty pushing for something similar Pots. And, heaven forbid we make the senior Instructors pass some commercial exams? Aerodynamics? Meteorology? As instructors we often make judgement calls on weather conditions to take PAYING students flying in. Surely a more robust knowledge base in this area is needed? My 2 cents

The RAA has in its ranks, Instructors who one could call "experts" in this field. That certainly is NOt me, but instead of just putting up with the Professor and copping his poorly written explanations on such an important subject, why not inlist OTHER instructors, to produce something meaningful. I would love an A4 page "Instructor forum" article on stalling from someone like Dave Plikington, Or NEV, or any number of guys/ Girls who could, im sure offer something very substantial and meaningful. This article from the GURU is nothing more than regurgitated briefing notes outlines from various sources, poorly worded and misquoted. No instructor needs another copy of the CASA briefing page on stalling. We all have this already. And most should be well around the lesson plan for teaching stalling. Id like to hear 'expert advice" on things like: * What are some of the most common mistakes pilots make with regards to stalling * What can an Instructor do to give the student a "real" feel for the stall in "real life situations" but do it safely * What can we do to ease a students fears if he presents with anxiety regarding stalling etc * What are the greatest DANGERS when teaching stalling, and how can we manage the risk. * What patter do the "experts " use ? I have heard many different variety's. An article based on things like that, from an experienced "stalling" instructor would make its way into my kit bag straight up.

Yea, monitoring is a must. But my point is, what good is 1 or 6 when thermal runaway, or detonation etc is the cause? All we can do is operate INSIDE the specs, thats all we can do.

yea, dam those idiots that keep having problems hey.. How? How does it make a failure less likely if you have a guage telling you its running hot? Ive had a 6 cyl with full EGT and CHT monitoring. It showed no ver temp events UNTIL one day it DID..And grenaded.. On Crosswind. You can send the data to Jab and they will just say "no explanation" can be found for the over temp event. Helpfull. Now wheres ya cheque book...?

I dunno, but ive had a Gazelle dump all its coolant (most of which came in the cockpit and over the windscreen) We got home no problems. Reduced power as per the POH and nursed it home. CHT actually went cold due to the sensor not being wet I recall. But this wouldn't have been accurate obviously. No damage was caused, and the engine is still going. 7 years later. Certainly wouldnt recommend running or continuing flight tho, in our circumstance we had no real other alternative. The engine couldn't be used normally, ie, no go around was available, we couldn't gain altitude, so technically, it was still a forced landing and if the Rotax loses its coolant, you need to fly it in exactly the same way as you would in a forced landing. The only benefit is that you may be able to fly it to the forced landing area of your choice..!/2 an hour away..

Define new? The latest offerings? Or the several so Called upgrades over the last several years. Our latest thru bolt failure was with bolts fitted by the factory in a top end. Surely the FACTORY are aware of their own SB's? Any idea, when confronted with 'experiment or observational data that contradicts' the hypothesis, means its WRONG, regardless of how good we think the idea is. I forget which scientist said that, but its been a core principle of scientific endeavour ever since. What im saying deb, is that its nice idea, that we can blame not fitment of latest spec bolts, but unfortunaltey, the evidence doesn't support it. Time to move on and find ANOTHER idea. Eventually, once all the "external" ideas are proven wrong, maybe. Just maybe, we might actually look at the design itself...Just sayin..We can live in hope.

Ok. I wasnt going to. But I will raise a few points I find ...Concerning. Remember, this is a nation wide publication, and this column comes under the heading "Flight Instructor's Forum" Facilitated by the Aviation Guru professor Avius." Im not exactly sure what the idea behind the column is to be honest. But in the past I have had to discuss at length with MY students why our methods differ from those professed by our Guru. Its not helpful. I will paraphrase the sections I have issue with. " Major Aim- It should be stressed that an inadvertent stall should never occur. It is a big killer of pilots. The first time you show a student a stall the goal should be to debunk any preconceived idea that the lesson is a frightening experience." Gee, where would they get that idea from Professor? You just opened the paragraph talking about how stalling kills people. "The most important thing they have to learn is that the point of stall is the time they should begin the recovery" Thats the most important thing? Ok, I disagree. I wont go into the grammar. " But why does a stall occur? ANSWER: It is the angle formed between the chord line of an airfoil and the relative airflow" Ok, the stall occurs because it is an angle? Huh? Professor. You asked WHY a stall occurs, not what angle of attack is. It may seem like splitting hairs, but a subject like stalling needs to be taught Clearly, concisely, and above all, needs to make sence. He/she goes on to describe the angle between the chord line and the relative airflow being like a top and bottom jaw. Ive heard this description before and often wondered why one would need to use this description, but thats not the problem. The problem is this statement. " - A stall happens when you open the jaw to angle of about 16 degrees. If you close the jaw by just a couple of degrees, no more stall.." A couple of degrees? I thought you said it stalls at 16 deg's? Why do I need to "close the jaw" by a couple of degrees? Im confused. " What controls this bite or angle of attack? ANSWER: Just one thing. The elevators." Did you mean the elevator ( Singular) as in, just ONE thing. Now we have multiple elevators on the aeroplane? Which one controls the angle of attack? You said just one of them..Which one of the two or more elevators controls it? "Explain what happens if a wing drops at the stall and why - (use of ailerons/ autorotation). Refer to the lesson on effects of controls ." What happens if a wing drops at the stall and why??. Did you mean, explain what to do IF a wing drops. Or, explain THAT a wing MAY drop at the stall because .... Again, this poor use of english by an instructor trying to teach other instructors is pretty sad. Ok, so now we get to the actual stalling lesson in the aeroplane. "Phase 1. Recovery without power. Control column is eased forward to the horizon. As airspeed increases, ease out of the dive" First of all. I have major issues with using the horizon AT ALL while teaching recovery from a stall. The horizon has NOTHING to do with the aeroplane stalling. Control column is eased forward to the horizon? Are we pushing the stick towards the horizon? Ok. What if the nose is below the horizon? Do I PULL the stick to the horizon? What dive? You just said to lower the nose to the horizon? Wheres the "dive" come into it? " Phase 3. Effects of power and flaps. This is one of the most important aspects of of the stalling exercise.Stalling in the landing configuration. Recap the three steps to a recovery 1. Full Power 2. Nose to the horizon 3. Check yaw with opposite rudder" Professor. You just spent half a page explaining that "nose to the horizon" was first THEN POWER was applied. What is the correct order? Further and MUCH MUCH more importantly, power should NOT be applied first as this may cause the aeroplane to either torque, or yaw aggressively and CAUSE autorotation. So the stall in the landing configuration, lets look at a typical stall turning final and apply the GURU's recovery procedures shall we? The pilot gets a bit too far back on the stick during the turn onto final, the nose is DOWN below the horizon, and the aeroplane is now in a stall, banked and yawing. Professor says step 1. Full power. This causes yaw and (remember effects of control professor) pitch UP. Now we are really starting to stall baby!!. thats ok, lets go to step 2 Step 2. Nose to the horizon. Cool, ill just PULL THE NOSE up the horizon. Thats what you said to do professor. NOSE TO THE HORIZON. Patter like this is not only confusing, its downright DANGEROUS. Surely the RAA can edit this sort of crap before it gets displayed in public for the whole aviation community to see. No wonder we are seen as amateurish cowboys.

I intend to. Have you read the article Dave?

Nah. I'm not gunna go Into it. It's rubbish. Would xpect better from a junior instructor, let alone our " guru".

Im sure people would have a crack, and Ive senced the Professor has changed "actors" a few times like doctor who.. Its meant to be an Instructor Forum. Instructors dont need regurgitated Briefing notes or lesson plans. And if you ARE going to build an article offering advice for Instructors, then id suggest getting the terminology and facts right.. Pretty sad effort this month..

A few types (with rotax's) comes stock with purpose built winter Oil cooler covers that you screw into place for winter otherwise you wont ever achieve 50 deg's before takeoff.

Spotstars are nice little aeroplanes. They fly beautifully, no vices. I've never had an issue with the nose gear. We has used a few over the years and they have always stood up to the treatment. They can be a little squirmy on the ground so you need good feet, but nothing a tail wheel driver would find challenging. Very well built aeroplanes:)