richo

Try Milawa, south of Albury. Landing is free (with prior permission) and next to the strip is Brown Bros winery with a fantastic restaurant!! Good grass strip and you can get strip condition over the phone before setting off. Cheers.

Hi there Rampage. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can skip the GFPT and just continue on to PPL. But there's some advantages to doing the GFPT. Firstly, it allows you to take a passenger for a local flight, with the permission of your instructor. But more importantly I think is that it conditions you for your PPL test flight procedures. Lots of us get pretty nervous when an ATO climbs in beside us for the first time - and i think its good to get over those nerves on the GFPT flight rather than the PPL flight. Maybe your situation is different. I see you're from BDG so I guess you'd be taking the test with Chris Gobel, and if you've flown with him before maybe it wont make much difference if you go on straight to PPL. But, at 30 hrs, you've got a way to go until PPL.... I dont think I'd be able to resist the GFPT for the privilidges it gives.... Oh yeah - i did my gfpt with chris too!! Cheers Richo.

Hi David, When i was looking, got a good quote via a broker. I was after 5 years, and that was no problem, but balloon was difficult to negatiate "due to the age of the aircraft". Mine was as 1971 cherokee, so if you're looking for a modern ra type, balloon or longer finance may very well be possible. Not sure if i should mention names so PM me and i'll give you the broker. They have an office in Shepparton!! Cheers richo

hi there. i suggest you also go for a chat at Shepparton. Talk to Nathan. He can offer both Ra and GA too. Cheers

Hi Pete. Ask around. Ask people who have finished their license/certificate. People will normally be more open about their instructors once they have finished their course i think. And, different instructors have different teaching styles. So an instructor who was good with me might be less so with someone else and vice versa. For example, I've flown with instructors who barely talk at all in the air, and save it up for when you get back to the office. I didnt like that at all but other students had recommended this instructor. I prefer to talk a lot. I learn a lot more that way. Cheers

Hi, (my comments relate to Australian PPL exam, not sure how relevant that is to you. but here goes...) I recommend the Bob Tait PPL book. It has lots of sample questions in it, some of which are practically identical to some I had in my exam. I purchased a practice exam, which I would not bother to do again. The sample questions give you the gist of how questions are structured. Be sure to know how to calculate start and end of daylight, and how to apply that to practical situations - for example a flight leaves Echuca at xxx for Alice Springs. How long have you got for the flight? Ensure you fully understand the terms used - "mean time", "local time", UTC etc. Weight and balance will come up too, and dont forget to revise your BAK stuff. Air law is important to know. You can find the answers in your reference material, but you should know the basics. I had questions on number of passengers, age of passengers, doing practice stalls with instructors. Know how to find answers in your reference material. In OZ, we have a Visual Flight Rules guide which is very handy, but the index is hopeless and you need to know where things are, for example the conversions page or VFR minima for alternate. The VFG has some clanger mistakes in it too so know about that. (The OZ VFG 2007 has incorrect end of daylight graph and incorrect declared density chart - handy not) There was a couple of questions on navigation and flight planning. They were pretty simple. Just a straightforward flight planning exercise with a deviation at some point. If you'd like to know more, send me a PM, I'd be happy to elaborate further. Cheers Richo

Hi Chris and welcome. I'm really interested in the 235's. They got a great wrap in the last Australian Flying Mag. I've got a 140 which is fine, but no hope of getting anyone in the back seat with 2 up front and full fuel, not to mention a bag or 2. But the 235 can get away with full tanks, me, the missus and our 3 junior pilots! Seems like a good combination to have use of the 235 for family getaways, and the jab for your own flying fun. Cheers Richo

Hi Fabien, Welcome. LFGH is near Sancerre, thats good wine country, and beautiful country for flying around. Cheers!! Richo

Hi Peter, I just got my PPL too and am doing exactly the same thing - buying a decent GPS. My cherokee has a dodgy old Garmin 100 which I'll remove. The 296 i believe is now obsolete and replaced with the Garmin 495. Its pretty much the same I believe just faster. Theres some good threads on GPS here if you search. The 495 you can get for about $1600 set up and ready to go. I think thats what I'll do. Cheers richo.

Hi Darky, I got my ASIC last month through CASA. It only took 2 weeks. Passed my PPL 2 weeks ago and now waiting for that in the mail. Cheers richo.

No Ros I didnt go up last weekend. Should have though..... Got the light a'c championships at the field this week, but will go up next week for a few local flights. You're right - weather is perfect. but at ECH we've got a month of this weather togo. Do you come to echuca? cheers richo.

Hey Ros, yeah, i bought my cherokee about a year ago. havent flown as much as i thought due to various reasons, but i love owning my own a/c. Autumn here is pefect flying, so i think i'll be busy for next few months. I live out of town, and theres an airstrip in the paddock next door!! cool. Buying an a/c neednt be expensive, especially if you just want to fly it rather than park it front row of a fly-in.... (you might of guessed, mines a bit average to look at). Hey Mazda. Thanks - i love echuca. Lived in a few places, but none like this. We've got great restaurants, wine, even a chocolate producer!! And great flying weather. And get this - you can get a cold beer at our aero club for $3. Thats great!! Cheers to all richo.

Hey Wags. Chin up.... I think the point of the KDR is simply to point the examiner in the flight test to some areas of weakness in the theory. If your KDR showed some weakness in, say, loading and balance, you'd expect a few questions on that while your taking your flight test. Your wife passed the exam, so well done to her. If she passed it easily, i wouldnt think there'd be much on the KDR. Everybody gets one. thats my thoughts anyway. cheers and good luck. richo

Thanks Alley. I actually called the Riverland home about 10 years ago. Lived in Waikerie, Berri then Loxton. Nice part of the world. Plenty of good flying weather up there (not that echuca's bad either!!). When we flew to Renmark, the windsock was wound around the pole, and we coudnt find any definite features to tell us the wind direction (although i guess we could have just flown down to the river, that would have been telling i think) so we relied on the forcast wind direction to select runway. No one else was in the cct and we hadnt heard anyone on freq since we'd tuned in. Anyway, very late finals, rounded out and guess what. Yep, we floated halfway down the runway. Light wind was behind us. Long taxi back to the parking apron gave me plenty time to consider how i could have done that better..... Good experience I guess all the same. My instructor was in the a/c, i think he just let me have a quiet think about it. See you up there some day. Cheers richo.

Thanks Pete. richo.