nathan_c

Hey Steph, I am actually from 2WG, not 3WG. Unfortunately I have no idea whether or not there is ideas of a dedicated gliding flight being introduced into 4 WG. I actually rarely fly with the 2 wing dedicated flight anymore, and am about to start very consistently flying with a club after being awarded a Defence Flying Scholarship, so even if there was talk amongst the gliding flight I would not be able to hear it. Sorry I couldnt help more, Nathan

Although I don't have a lot of experience to comment with, if he went directly over the top of the Qantas RPT, that seems like poor judgement to me? To me that put a lot of unnecessary lives at risk. If I am missing something however, feel free to correct me, but I cant help but think he could have turned the plane the other way and avoided the area full of planes/people? Cheers, Nathan

While I voted for Worth Attending, I think I would have been happier if there was an option between Worth attending and it was rubbish. I think alot of things could have been improved. Apart from a few highlights, for example the supercar v jet race, and the Mig flying around, I think the show had a little bit too much emphasis on Formation flights, and war birds flying around in circles 'bombing'. This combined with the cheesy bombing and gunfire effects, and at some points commentating that didnt show intelligence, made for a very slow day for me at least. I stayed at the campsite next to that big carpark, across the road from the air show, and had no real complaints at all. Sure the showers could have been warmer, but you get that everywhere that you camp, its normal. One thing I did notice was the lack of lighting in the toilets. At night this made for a real 'I feel like I am about to be jumped' feeling when you ventured in there, especially for the girls I was with. Overall, if there was less slow formations and war birds, with a more fast paced feel to the show, it would have been a much better experience. Oh, also, I forgot to mention above, A lot of the volunteers that my group encountered seemed to be very agro, and had no manners at all, especially one SES member that pretty much ruined the day for me and my group, but I wont go into detail about that. All I will say is that the volunteers/workers need to be a lot more cheery, because it really didn't leave a good impression. Cheers, Nathan

Got back this afternoon, after driving up with friends on Friday, attending Saturday, and coming home today. I have to agree with Cloudsuck, I couldnt put my finger on it before, but it was definately all the slow formation flying every 5 minutes that ruined it for me. I also thought that the sounds effects of bombings and gun fire in the warbird runs were extremely cheesy, and could have been done much better. The L-39 was definately a highlight, as was the mig, but even with those I was ready to leave in the early afternoon, having seen enough. On a side note, did anyone else find that people in Bundaberg are extremely agro? Me and my group of friends must have gotten raged at about 6 times over the last 3 days, without doing anything to harm anyone else. Cheers Nathan

Just got back, attended on Sunday. It was ok, but I found the sound effects of bombing and gunning a little bit cheesy, and too fake, and that I was ready to go home after half a day. I guess the size of Avalon has made me only want to attend the larger ones haha. Overall not bad I guess, cant say I had a bad time. Cheers, Nathan

I couldnt tell you what the law actually is, but it has something to do with taking photos of inside the air base. If SECPOL thinks you are taking photos, or you have a camera with you and they think you are about to, they will most likely ask you to move on, pretty much because of the illegality of photos of the base. Thats my understanding of it at least, but that is only from what I have gathered from signs inside and outside the base saying no photos, and from general word of mouth, so feel free to correct if anything I have said is wrong.

Heh Guess So. I guess I am a little bit wary because of a dealing with SECPOL last time I was inside Amberley. Wasn't me personally, but it nearly got the group of cadets that was on base chucked out.

I forgot about going up to the back fence, might be a decent idea. However, I am not sure how SECPOL would react to people turning up up at the back fence and just sitting there having a look. Even if they are fine, most definately do not have a camera anywhere in sight, that would be one of the worst mistakes you would ever make.

No, there isn't any viewing areas at Amberly. I was lucky enough to see them fly at Avalon, I see them on cadets trips ;) and I hope they are at Wide Bay this year. Sorry to gloat :P

Ill be there. Me and a bunch of friends are driving up on Friday, hitting the air show scene on Saturday and driving back to Brisbane on Sunday, should be a good weekend!

Sorry it has taken so long to reply, Thanks for that detailed explanation, I am sure it took a considerable amount of time to write out. From what you said, that overbalance is most likely what caused the rudder pedal to stay there. It was not a great problem, just more a slight annoyance while in flight :) Interesting about the float planes though, I had no idea they were that touchy while on water. And yes, the Faulke was a side by side seating arrangement, apologies for getting that mixed up, I was just repeating what the name I was told. Cheers, Nathan

Nice Post, I was very interested reading that. Unfortunately I have no idea what yaw overbalance actually is. I have not been taught, or in fact, told anything about this. I do know what Aileron Drag and stick and rudder together is all about though. Mind elaborating on what you mean by rudder overbalance? Im sure I know what that is, just possibly by a different name. It is not the entire AAFC (Australian Air Force Cadets, we are no longer called the ATC), that is buying Grobs, to my knowledge, it is only our section of gliding in the cadets. I actually saw one of the Motor Faulkes on the day that I went up in the dimona, and I was amazed by how slow it takes off compared to the dimonas etc. I also got told that if you got the wings wet, your take off would become a high speed taxi, it just wouldnt lift off. Cheers, Nathan

Ok, so cadets is buying a motor glider to complement the other gliders that cadets own, so it got me thinking, what do others think of motor gliders? The glider being bought is a Grob 109, which I have never ever seen in real life, let alone flown in, so it should be interesting what its like. However, I recently flew a Dimona (which wasnt the best flight ever, but im sure you can find my rant thread about it if you are really interested, so Im not going to repeat it), but i wasnt overly impressed by the way it flew. I have been told that it is not the nicest dimona around, but regardless, you had to push the rudder pedals REALLY hard to get any movement at all from them, and once they were pushed in, it felt like they didnt want to center, and you had to push them hard again to center them to fly straight. On top of this, I just didnt like the way it flew either. So lets have a discussion, has anyone flown them? What do you think of the way they fly? Is the way I described that dimona typical of a motor glider, and has any one had any flight time in a grob?

Good work, Yeah I had a trouble on a few of the joystick test ones aswell, the ones where you had to use the joystick and then tap the screen with the touch pen..... my screen was faulty, and wouldnt pick up every tap, so i failed one of them in the first minute or so, but I told them, so they took that into account. Anyway, as I said, congratulations. I might see you around some day. EDIT: Just thought I would ask, did that website I posted help you in any way? Just want to know if I should continue telling people about it if they ask me.

I went through my specialist testing about 2 weeks ago, and somehow I managed to pass :) The maths components of it consist of 1 test of mental maths, which is alot of .0045 x 3.456 kinda stuff. Dont even bother working that out with pencil and paper, you wont have time, just guesstimate and do your best. The other maths bit is some more involved maths, but nothing that you should have major trouble with. My best advice is to go through and make sure you can do all the maths on this webpage, because its exactly what they will give you. I didnt get any algebra questions like the ones on that page, but no harm in knowing it just incase. RNZAF - Step Up Aircrew and Officers Hope that helps a little bit. By the way, Im applying for army pilot aswell, they just want to see my year 12 school marks before I go to assessment day. Oh oh.

I believe I may have seen you flying around last year in September cosmick. I was at Caboolture with the Airforce cadets for a week of gliding and we saw a yellow aerochute flying around early in the morning as we got up for breakfast, as well as a gyro a little bit later on some mornings. It amazes me that they actually fly them things.

Being in the Air Force Cadets I am obligated to march. Not that I am complaining :P Im the FLT COM (Flight Commander) for 1 of the flights in one of the smaller marches this year. Should be interesting =]

With regards to confronting the instructor, it was a once off flight with him, and I doubt I will ever see him again, as he came interstate to take people flying. I was helping out at a day to give a large group of people an Airex flight, and by large i mean 50 plus people, and because I was helping out we were getting free flights. He was not an RAA instructor to my knowledge, but again, since I dont actually know him, and wont see him again, I didnt actually find out. Im also not going to name gliding clubs either, because thats not my place. Motza, It was a taildragger glider, and In the tail dragger gliders once you touch down (preferably 2 point, or 3 point if there is 3 wheels)) you pull full airbrakes and then pull back on the stick, if its not already there from the flare. Thats how I have been taught anyway, not sure if others do it differently. Drizz, to my knowledge there is nothing wrong with the glider, as it got taken up by the same instructor with an Air experience cadet about 5 minutes later. Obviously the instructor would probably have a different view on what happened (like 2 sides of the story), so what I have recounted was my experience in that flight. Apologies for not making that point clear last night, but it had been a long day, and I was buggered. Cheers, Nathan

We didnt actually say "Your aeroplane" or anything along those lines, but on downwind he said it was my landing (cause ive had a fair few flights b4hand, just not in a powered glider) but he was gonna be resting on the controls. So yeah, because it was gonna be my control for the landing, I wasnt expecting to have the stick pulled back on me.

So it started off well, first time in a Dimona Motor Glider, pretty excited. Got in the air, not used to having an engine :P So then we turned the big noisy fan off and got into it, good thermalling and general flying. One thing I noticed is how much the nose drifts side by side in the motor glider.... I kinda think its because of the side by side seating, and looking through the middle of the cockpit, not straight ahead. So then we joined circuit, and this is where it got interesting. Coming down downwind at RAAF Amberly, all sweet, turn base at a strange time, I kinda think it was too late, but the instructor was happy? Turn final, ok, half airbrake, coming in, the instructor tells me to nose down, so I did, then the instructor told me to flare. At this point we were WAY too high to flare yet, but I followed the instructors instructions. So then he tells me to point the nose down again, so I do, then to flare again...... So I do. Now I was pretty happy with the flare the second time, and we then touched the ground, and then the instructor did something I really didnt expect. Before I could pull the airbrakes to full out, the instructor pulled back hard on the stick, and we flew straight back up into the air. Stall. I had the most sickening feeling when I felt that glider stall at like 10 meters above the ground. To his credit though, as soon as this happened, the instructor put away airbrakes and that managed to stop the glider from nosing over and going straight into the ground, but it was still quite an impact. So yeah, he apologized for not paying enough attention, but I know Im still to blame for at least half of it because I was actually in command at that point in time. Something makes me feel that he thought Airbrakes were full on before he pulled back, but Im not sure.. Well, I just thought I would get that off my head :P *end rant* -Nathan

Haha, thats not Nathan that replied, I am :P Unfortunately I was long gone by 6.30, but I was told about the microburst on sunday. Sorry for your loss. I do remember seeing a Yellow Gazelle there, if it was yours then it looked like a very nice aeroplane. -Nathan

Well I just got back from spending 3 days there. Who else went? I had a great time, unfortunately the weather was a bit of a downer. I also tried to find the Rec Flying tent, but couldnt? Did you end up going and setting that up? Photos will be up soon, but they will be hosted on photobucket or something, cause there is alot of them =) Cheers, Nathan

Well, I know the gliders that I fly have a thing called a FLARM installed in them. I believe for them to work though, the other aircraft also have to have one installed. They sure go crazy then thermalling with another glider :( Oh, and i had it go off on aerotow aswell =\ But anyway, I dont think that would solve the problem, but I thought Id throw it out there.

Just thought I would update. Well I got out there on sunday, and had a great time. As it turns out, I only got one flight in because of cadets lacking in time management skills........ Anyway, fairly good aerotow, and after release, thats when it all went to hell. I wasnt centralising controls in turns, and a few other niggly little problems, but after that was sorted out, I had a good 35 minute flight :) Also, I managed to achieve 2 firsts in one flight. The first one was thermalling with a cormorant (spelling? Oh well, some sort of eagle looking bird.) The 2nd first was thermalling with other gliders! Wow! An amazing feeling, especially when the 3rd glider joined in! Apart from only getting one flight, the only real let down was having to give up my faithful blanik and go for a flight in a puchatek... yuck. I can easily say that given the chance, I would choose ANY other glider over the puchatek. But yea, so that was my Sunday! -Nathan

So ill be heading off this weekend to do a days gliding after not being able to fly since november because of time and money issues. I hope to get 2 flights in at least, but we will see because there is a fair few people to fit in. I want to use one flight as a 'get back into it flight' and then maybe use the second one to continue on stalls and spins, or maybe something new! Im going to assume I will be in the clubs blanik, and I will be flying at warwick if any body knows there that is. But yeah, I just thought id share my progress :)