icebob

Hi Ian, No, I will be back on the 29th Feb: As well as the flying contract I will be setting up a branch office on Telegraph Road, Bangkok and then returning home. The return on the 30th was just wishful thinking - I can get a cook/house cleaner for $90 per month there. Bob.

Hi All, Sorry just no room for a drifter, wife wanted to pack jumpers and it's 30degrees plus there?????????? Hi Patrick, Oh don't I wish that was so, backpacker hotel and cut lunches, long days and short nights maybe. Actually we are in the Pathumwan Princess Hotel which is attached to the BKM shopping towers, handy, as the big weekend open air markets are just down the road a little. The international airport is an hour away(in traffic) and the Australian Embassy is just half an hour away, the nightclub area is handy, just around the corner and the arcade that sells all the top electronic stuff is within walking distance if you do not stop at the bars to cool off. Bob.

Hi Timbo, It is a govenment contract.

Thanks but it is work, true, well all right not all work. I have about 20hrs of flying fixed wing and 8 hours or so helo to do. The only sad thing is I am not allowed to take my new camera flying with me there. Bob.

Hi All, just a short note, I leave for Bangkok in the morning for work and will be back 30th Feb. The authorities have still not found the rest of the guys i work with, ha, ha. now this is the type of job I like! Those many long hours in the 206 look like they have paid off, taking the wife with me too, self protection, I do not want to end up in one of "those" bars now do I? I have been told by a good source the there is a baker of Aussie pies in Bangkok called Lady Pie, there goes the slim figure,ha, ha. Bob.

Glad you enjoyed this Ian.

Hi All, Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I have been down this road with another Nation wide organisation made up of about 98% volunteers. We did in fact supply the then CEO with individual current members letters of no confidance in the board but we went further than that, we the members demanded an emergancy meeting to show cause why the whole board and all senior staff should not be removed. We then listed the/our reasons and gave each board member the opertunity to reply at the emergency general meeting. We also informed the board members that there was some issues that would be forwarded to the police within hours of the meeting and any board member who resigned before or at the meeting would be acepted but not free from police investigations. Of the eight board members only two turned up to the meeting to hand in resignations the rest posted thiers into our HQ well before the meeting and one ex-board member is currently serving the balance of 11 years with no parole(ex- financial controller). We set up a tempory board of four for a two year term with the organisation paying membership for those two years and advertised for a national manager & national technical officer. This organisation re-built its self and is doing fine now. I think Ian is correct without a board will make no difference to the general running of RAA the only time there will be a hic-cup is with technical issues until a technical manager/ quality manager can be found. The other issue i see is currency of training of senior staff, I do not see an issue with update training occuring within the usual employment time slots of senior staff, it benifits everyone. Hope this insight helps. Bob.

Well done all those office staff and volunteers it is a pity Paul, "the system" let everyone down and caused so much heart ache. I am sure some owners have worn thier nails down to the armpits by now. Paul can I ask what now? A proceedure change or what? Bob.

When I built my first "kit" aircraft a few years ago I was so frustrated at finding no one in RAA in the Sydney area available to inspect the aircraft at the time I needed it and would need to wait a month for the inspection. I put the aircraft on a a 3ton truck drove to RAA HQ got the Maintenance Manager to inspect it and did all the paperwork needed on the spot. The park up the road from HQ was handy for the inspection and it drew a crowd/clown plus one dog. Bob

Hi Rocketing, had this problem for years until about three years ago I picked up one of those $60 car crash cams and told everyone about it. Sending a file or two to the right authorities and posting pictures with no comment in the aero clubs around have worked wonders. Bob.

Hi Mark, I origianlly purchased this unit to run a weather station that I have built including a web cam. The whole thing runs so well, just a few little tweeks and a lot of calibrations but I am getting there. The plan is to have the weather station self sustaining. My next test is connecting it all via 4G and run a number of in field tests, was thinking maybe somewhere like The Oaks for the very distant test as wi-fi reception there is about 40% and have live feed available from the web cam and weather info too. If it all works was going to offer it to Ian for this web site. So far the whole project has cost me just under $400 for everything. The major softwear I got free and the computer is running a cut down version of Linux. Hi damkia, I like the thought of the black box would be easy to do, very easy, there are a lot of off the shelf items that will run on it and the forum has people who have done similar for door movements in a factory. Bob.

Hi All, the last few days I have been logging on to this web site with a Rasberry P1 I purchased for $41 and all up this little computer has cost me $100 to assemble. I have found this cheap computer very good for what it is but what blew me away was I went into a computer store today, there was a 7.8 inch mini Ipad knock off for $99, all I could say was "bugger". Well anyway I have had fun making this computer. Bob.

Hi Geoff, Well if you go to the RAA "bible" you will notice position descriptions that are so loose fitting as to be no good to give direction. The Manual is well written as a perface or overview but no way acceptable to any sort of auditor for the directions and responcibilities of office holders. Has the members been given a snow job, well all i say is read the book and think how you would do the job EXACTLY to the word in the book, you would may not be able to. As I see it the problems start with the very basics, all of RAA's publications need re-writting to the relevent quality/CASA standard for starters, then a lot of issues would go away because it's in the book and we all do it this way, end of story. CASA has some wonderful booklets, videos and aids to help a GA flight school to start up but 90% of that information could be used for RAA, there is also the staff from CASA if brought onboard could point the current board and HQ staff in the right direction, less duplications, less stress, less waistage and less staff turn over. On a rainy day get out all the old RAA magazines and read the "managers" pages carefully you will see by the wording everything that has transpired now was in thier thoughts years ago. You can not grow an organisation using crisis management. I was told long ago a crisis manager is that person inpailed on the rotisserie of your BBQ. Yes Geoff I will be sticking around, except for the odd times I am away with work. I believe in the principles of RAA and its members not the methods of running it currently. Please note I let my membership go last year and went back to GA out of frustration.

Geoff, You may well be correct but let us not point at the staff at RAA to harshly as I and a couple of RAA members could find no documented evidance of current quality training and audit training for staff or board members. The Tech managers role documentation is so wide open as to be unworkable and if you do not have the people who can re-write the functional guidelines when "wandering" happens and by the look of documented evidance that has been happening for more than 10 years. So at the heart of it who is responcible - at the end of the day the members are. Bob.

Hi all, Please see my post above. Why did RAA fail the first audit - reason - no one know how to conduct a quality audit, what the relevent standard/s was/were, no one with internal audit qualifications and experiance except from a "borrowed" book just days before the actual audit. Now CASA had informed RAA of the audit some time before it was to happen and what was to be looked at, how the audit was to be conducted and by whom. RAA had the list but it appears they "did little" except to sit on thier hands, not transperent enough perhaps. Question :- a)how many audits(not financial) has RAA had? b) how many audits has RAA conpleted that CASA was happy about? c) What areas did the audit/s look at and how many non-conformances were there and why? d) What rectification work was done and what time frame and who signed the non-conformances off? If RAA has not done any quality audits from the start(cannot remember the date) then there is grave areas of doubt about the whole management of RAA and the boards lack of accountability to members. Ok just so we are all on the same page, I have a degree in Quality Management/audit Systems, I have been a quality manager for 10 years + I am internatonally registered and qualified and I had a team of twenty quality auditors for which half are also internationally registered and qualified, we audited mainly airlines and military aviation world wide, until my semi retirement two years ago, now I just fly charter work part time. Bob.

Hi All, I do not usually jump in but I am this time with a bit of history. When I first joined RAA in 1998 I was in the position to offer the then Technical Manager for him to be qualified to certificate 4 in Quality Management to be the RAA Quality Manager and two other staff(full time) qualified to certificate 3 as internal quality auditors AND do initial quality audits and write a quality policy manual with the aim of getting RAA qualified and certified to AS9000 - ALL FREE OF CHARGE TO RAA. So what happened, all I got was a stoney silence - I wonder why. For me that was a really great intoduction to RAA, so I just in the end after a lot of sillyness and a trip to the ACT to do my busness face to face, got my qualifications and buggered off back to GA and did not bother to re-new last year, I must of known something, maybe? Bob.

Oh, don't tell me OME is screwing around with us again:augie: Bob.

Hi Herm, on the Rotex owners web site in the USA there was a carbi-heat unit on sale there and the X-air Irish web site had electric ones for the 582. hope that helps. Bob.

Well good news then, not a worse outcome. Until the pilot and police and all that make a statement we may never know for sure, and yes a concern that the pilot had a head injury and was wandering around or under some undergrowth needing rescue. Bob.

Could it have been stollen for a joy ride?

You also forgot incorrigible Bob.

Graeme - The Dave Clark syle ones fit, not the full bone dome the cheaper style with the skull cap inner section, there is some cloth tabs that hold the full head set in/on. The only problem is with some heads and the Dave Clark fitted there is very little pressure around the ears so a little constructive bending is needed. - No not the head the side supports of the head set. Bob.

Graeme - BIG ONES:crazy:

Well done Motz:cheers:. Bob.