Riley

Was approached at the airfield a couple of months back by a fellow from up country that was wanting to sell an early ultralight and some associated gear from a deceased estate. Amongst the bits & pieces was a spare Koenig 4 cyl pusher radial engine with prop. I'll do a 'rat hunt' and if I can find his contact details I'll PM you. cheers

Inspirational! I'm tempted to dust off the Riley, glue in my dentures, get out my comb and make a pass at the foxy number in the kerchief with the handbag before Sloper gets there. Good one Planedriver

Don't have time to call it anything - too busy scarpering around the struts to get inside to prevent it 'going' without me'.

When the Champ refuses to start after pulling thru more than 4 blades, it gets called "Bast#rd" !

Tho not a project, there is a currently registered, very useable and relatively cheap 503 Drifter in the sale ring at Calingiri not too far from your stomping grounds. I will presumptuously suggest however, that funding your aspirations to run/smash/rebuild race cars and rebuild/train/fly an ultralight aircraft will require some very serious fiscal planning for a young fellow. PM me if you want details of the Drifter. cheers

Maj. WTF is a saditionist? If ya don't enlighten me, I'm gonna label you one!

Spectacular it may have been but he does himself and aviation a disservice by broadcasting such a stunt and I have to wonder what the odds are of he and his passenger surviving un-injured any repeats of such cavalier foolishness? I reckon the guy has more ego than grey matter and that the Darwin Gene Pool Principle will ultimately attend to his language problems. Being without sin and living in a cast iron house -I can cast the first stone.

Cripes Shimi, a qualified pilot's cert holder at age 15?? That means you've only got about 70 years of flying time left. Better get into it. Heartiest congratulations!!

Top marks for some really enjoyable footage. Guess Ryan could be excused for failing to keep his eyes outside the cockpit on some moments of the flight but ....will he ever be able to pull another 'sandy' on Carlie again? May they evermore live in aviation happiness. cheers

Apart from Dolly Parton along with her 'no-limit' charge card, I guess my next best second choice would be something with a round noise maker up front, floats underneath and a cabin that I could load a fishing rod and a 200 litre drum of avgas into . Perhaps the attached (hopefully) U-Tube says it better. cheers y'all

Cripes Louis, judging by those tie down chains, you must have dragged it out of tornado country. Didn't never saw nuttin like that in the little old Okie town I was in.

Us 'gentlemen' ain't suckers - we just have vivid imaginations offset with minimal comprehension of personal capabilities.

I particularily like the colour co-ordinated camouflage covers on the other three projects in the background of Pic #2. If this clever ruse helps to keep the prying eye of the shire ranger at bay then I should follow suit with the 'tragedies' in my backyard. Love the Commer. Bought one in England in the early seventies with the intention of doing it up as a camper. It had a two-week-old Warrant of Fitness and the chassis broke in half traversing a railway level crossing on my way to work a fortnight later. Bloody amazing that that that much rust could form in just four weeks (or perhaps I was a trifle slack/stupid in my pre-purchase inspection?) Well done with the camper!

Sadly it now matters little how the aircraft was kitted or what ratings the pilot held, the bottom line is too painfully obvious - when we allow her an audience, Mother Nature will have the last word. A sad, sad day and like many others on this website, though I knew them not, I have deep remorse at the passing of six fellow enthusiasts. My sincere condolences are offered to their families and loved ones.

I hear what you're saying Geoff. I recently got a price and an availability quote for a R912A mechanical fuel pump from a well known Australian supplier. I bloody near suffered a stroke when the reply came back .......$538 + postage. After checking out same item on CPS (Aircraft Spruce) internet catalogue and identifying a price of (A) $171.80 plus about $40 postage for the same item, I complained bitterly to the well known Aust supplier that not only was their pricing system ratsh-t but I was unwillingly being forced by their greed to spend my dollars outside of OZ. Their response was that they thought I wanted the super duper pump with the orange hoses (their words) and ultimately supplied me the correct pump at a reasonable price but only after I bitched & moaned. I don't begrudge anyone a fair profit and I realize that sometimes we get caught in a unavoidable 'gouging' situation but the generally ridiculous variance between US and our domestic prices for the same item is very hard to understand and more difficult to accept. cheers

Was at White Gum today helping to get set up Westfly and Gary (Head Sherang) commented that 100 persons had booked for the Sat dinner so far. Guess Matt Hall & family make up part of that number. So it looks like Pud & Brett won't have a chance to share a candle-light dinner for two. cheers

OK, I concur, ( but you had me worried for a bit) cheers Riley

fly-to. At the risk of sounding judgemental, having pondered over some of your curious postings on this forum, I believe if you were RAA President, I'd be sorely tempted to give up aviation and go back to vintage cars. Nothing personal, but just can't suss out your mainstream thinking. Surely you're taking the p!ss??

Marshall 'Pud' Dillon. Has an impressive tone to it. Do you get to pack a six-gun (or gun a six-pack?) and does this mean I have to be nice to you? (I drew a very demanding and equally important job....... cutting the verge grass on the entry road). Look forward to seeing ya there. cheers

Pud, when you're away from home ya gotta remember what yer Mum told ya "Stay away from other men's women and other men's hangars - both of them are gonna get ya in trouble!" Judging from the cone of oil-impregnated dust under the engine bay, I'm tipping 19-4553 to be a Verner-engined SkyRanger that was kit-built about 5 years back. The fellow then had a split up with his partner & went to ground and I doubt that the aircraft has even had the obligatory 25 hour probationary registration period flown off. Mind you, last time I saw it (6 months back) I wouldn't have been game to add more than 5 minutes to it's run time (and that would only have been in run-up mode). Gonna see you at White Gum?? cheers

Can't be there to do any hugging on your behalf Wayne T, but I totally agree that Carol's contribution to fun flying has put wider horizons into interpretation of the adjective 'meritorious'. A very apt & deserving recipient (and most huggable too)!!

Don't know what the Spaniards do when they aren't scooping & dumping but I visited a CL215 fire bombing station in Northern Canada a few years back with my old winger who'd retired from the service as a chief pilot on the 215's in the late nineties. The flight crew lived in a self-sufficient donga-type arrangement at the airstrip in the bush and worked a 6 week rotation. The duty pilot that I met apparently went into town (32km rtn) to the pub for his meals after last light ea day and got back before sun-up most mornings. On the day that I got the cook's tour of the aircraft, this guy stunk of stale booze so bad that if he'd opened his mouth instead of the trap doors over a bush fire, he would have torched the aircraft. When I commented on this later to my winger his response was "this guy is good and good fire bombers get cut some slack but I don't know if he's good because of his nerves or because he's generally boozed up and doesn't recognize fear". Guess if I had been part of that crew I would have also taken up drinking to avoid the fear of the consequences of 'minimal hours from bottle to throttle.' I have a bent propellor blade in my hangar from a Turbo Otter that got crunched in a scooping run over there but I don't know if they ever lost a CL215. So what do they do when they aren't dumping?.................. during the day all of them swotted mosquitos and at night some of them were drinking!

Despite the possibility that we may not be totally successful this AGM in the endeavours to inaugurate the clean-up of the curious activities of some of the Board seniority, it is certain sure that general member interest and participation in ensuing agenda items has been and will continue to increase massively as a direct result of yours, David's, Peter's and many others determination to put things right. Should all not be achieved at this meeting, the growing groundswell of members dis-satisfaction must surely force changes for the better in the coming year. Thank you all very much for rallying the troops and please keep it up for as long as it takes.

The referenced BVSAC newsletter IS very much worthy of a read and thank you for identifying same. By anyone's standards, the RAA higher paid help (with a few exceptions) are causing health problems to members in areas of both indigestion and diarhoea with the big boy's seeming inability to cope. I can't swallow what they're doing/not doing on my behalf and what they are doing generally gives me the $hits! Members please, please ensure that your proxies are correctly registered and lodged in good time for the AGM. This untenable situation cannot go on if my, and your, recreational flying privileges are to be sustained. I expectorate! A seriously concerned Riley

Put on your hard hat FT, you're gonna cop some flak for that curious statement!