onetrack

......to supply many thousands of electric Dlifters (that's a Chinese Drifter) to Australia at a very good price, provided Australia didn't impose a tariff on Chinese aircraft. "I can't guarantee anything, Xi, ol' mate", siad Turbo - "but as there's an Australian election coming up, we could install a Manchurian candidate, and even beat Clive Palmer at his electioneering efforts, provided you supply enough funding to back a major election campaign. If we put up a part-Chinese candidate with an Australian father, no-one will notice he's a CCP stooge, and we'll be virtually guaranteed to win the.........

There's one small problem with flying Part 103 in the U.S., and it's the simple fact that the population of the U.S. is 346M, in the same area of land mass as Australia, with 25M people. It's not like vast areas of the U.S. are like Outback Qld, with 1 person per 1000 sq kms. And this sums up Part 103 flying in the U.S.; "While Part 103 prohibits flying over congested areas (defined as one or more people), it can be difficult to ensure absolute compliance, especially in urban or populated areas." The place is chock-o full of people and aircraft, and you plan flutter around in the equivalent of an airborne bicycle, with no equipment that you can use, to find other aircraft in the vicinity? Then there's the not-so-small problem that law enforcement in the U.S. is brutal, and you may find yourself in jail for infringements of laws you didn't even know existed. Add in the litigious nature of U.S. society (whose reach is not limited to America), and if some offended party claims injury or otherwise, and launches a lawsuit against you, you may wish you'd never seen the place. Then there's the point that virtually every American owns a firearm (or 113), and they're basically very angry people, and they're ready and willing to shoot at anything overflying "their patch!", with high-powered weaponry (AR-15's and AK-47's are very popular), and this could make flying just a little more dangerous than you ever imagined. I've seen more than one American on other forums bragging about shooting down "nosey" drones, and annoying "noisey" RC aircraft, overflying "their patch".

Even the slightest level of damage to an aircraft needs inspection. Not a pilot I'd fly with.

Give the man credit - he didn't leave us hanging - well, only for 10 years - as to whether he found the problem or not!

You should've elected the professional nudist who offered himself, the last time nominations were put up. Then he could claim the board had nothing to hide.

I don't know what electrical wiring has to do with "woke" aviation. I guess some people on here are the experts at diverting threads, well away from the original posters thoughts.

It was a Swiss cheese event, but I'd have to opine the greatest single problem was the poor flight paths planning, that led to a constant conflict point. No different really to the Blackhawk helicopter/RJ-700 crash in Washington DC.

There's plenty of crash records that show, that even fully-trained and highly experienced pilots crash with devastating results, due to misplaced over-confidence in their skills and abilities - and they often take heaps of pax with them. I would hazard a guess that this pilot in question would have ended up killing himself (and possibly others), even if he had done more training hours, because his personality traits showed his penchant for risk-taking was extreme, and his supremely confident opinion of his own abilities was a recipe for disaster, when it came to flying and judgement of suitable weather conditions. I was reading the crash report on the Junkers JU-52 in Switzerland, and despite both pilots being "highly trained" and "highly experienced" ex-Air Force pilots, they were risk-takers in the extreme, and should never have been allowed to fly the Junkers and carry pax. They failed to understand some pretty basic flying skills such as density altitude, flying into enclosed valleys, updraughts and downdraughts in mountainous terrain, and flying too slow. Add in a tired old pre-WW2 aircraft, and the outcome was entirely predictable. Yet these pilots passed all their tests, and even had glowing reports with regard to piloting skills. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/last-of-the-warbirds-the-2018-ju-air-junkers-ju-52-crash-82d41c659dfb

I'd like to know what drinks or drugs were involved, in the planning of THAT monstrosity!

Some Chinese ones are still in the "testing" phase, obviously. Maybe someone crossed up the wiring? https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/electric-air-taxi-flips-over-in-botched-take-off-in-china/vi-AA1C9YmR?ocid=FW79805#:~:text=Suddenly%2C the aircraft tipped onto,the campsite on March 30.

International trucks of the 1960's and 1970's (the "Butterbox ACCO's) had the best wiring harness I've ever encountered. Not only were the wires colour-coded, they were also numbered about every 10cm. That made life, SO much easier! The wiring diagram showed all the wiring colours and numbers, and you could go back to the rearmost part of the truck and just scrub the dirt off a wire, and you knew immediately which wire it was, and where it came from, and where it went to.

If he was colour-blind, he shouldn't have been in possession of an electrical licence. "Woke" is a very abused and misused word today, it originally meant, "be awake" (to conniving trickery, as regards racism and social injustice). There's nothing wrong with people who have some kind of physical or intellectual deficiency being employed in certain jobs, provided they can perform the job to the required standard, and be generally accepted as capable. Now "Woke" is applied to anything that offends conservative senses and established values or positions. There are plenty of incompetent people amongst conservative ruling classes, just look at the recent list of British PM's. As regards employing women, I have employed women dump truck drivers and they had a better attitude to operation of equipment than most males. They had a better maintenance record, when it came to things being broken by abusive treatment. They were better at repetitive, boring tasks than many males. But not all women were capable of doing the job, it was no different to how some men weren't worth employing, either. And when it came to WW2, 30% of the workforce during WW2 were women, and they built everything from machine tools to aircraft, without too many problems. Most of the problems that affected them were related to abusive and domineering treatment by men. The women who carried out transport of new aircraft from the factories in the U.S. to Britain, did outstanding work.

The biggest problem I usually have, when camping out on the left coast, is to try and keep cool! When the temperature is still in the high 20's at midnight, you don't need Merino underlays or other heat-trapping systems! 😄

There are plenty of forgotten, ignored, and unrewarded war heroes in our world. We've been conditioned over many decades, to believe that heroes only come from the ruling class. Many military awards are handed out on a very unfair basis, as we've witnessed recently in the Afghanistan War, SAS debacle. Military people who spent the majority of their time behind a desk getting high awards for combat roles, and this has been happening since WW1. Have you heard of Charles Arbuthnot Crombie? Probably not. He was a member of the "ruling class". He was a Beaufighter pilot during WW2 and has been credited with a confirmed 12 Japanese aircraft kills, and another 4 possible kills. He abandoned his shot-up Beaufighter over Burma with his clothes on fire, and landed in a "god-awful swamp". After surviving the swamp landing, he had to fend off locals trying to capture him for the Japanese. He was rescued by Allied troops, returned to duty, was awarded a DFC and DSO, and became a Squadron Leader and CFI of 5 OTU. But he was killed just 12 days after WW2 ended, when his Beaufighter crashed short of the runway at Williamtown after an engine failure. He got just a short paragraph noting his death in most newspapers, and no memorial.

Skippy, Outdoor GearLab is an American review site, they're based in Zephyr Cove, Nevada, and any dollar figures they quote are U.S. dollars., which as you know, is a seriously different amount in Australian dollars! US$199.99 converts directly to AU$333, then you have international shipping charges and local retailer markup to contend with. Plus the Therm-a-Rest NXT is only 75mm thick, whereas the Zempire Monstermat is 100mm thick.

Skippy, according to the review below, the Therm-a-Rest NXT comes in at $569! The review is dated Dec 2024. Are you getting your Therm-a-Rest NXT pricing from some shady individual offering you a good deal, in the public bar of a run-down hotel?? 🙄 https://australianhiker.com.au/gear/therm-a-rest-neoair-xtherm-nxt-sleeping-pad/

I worked as a contractor in the Nickel mining industry in the early to mid 1970's, South of Kambalda. Nickel was in huge demand back then, for armaments and armour plating, largely because of the Vietnam War. It was an interesting time. Anaconda Copper of America came to Australia, and formed Anaconda Nickel (Aust), to mine the Nickel S of Widgiemooltha (this company wasn't the Anaconda Nickel that Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest formed later on in the late 1980's, to mine nickel at Murrin Murrin - "Twiggy" just "borrowed" the name). Anaconda Nickel of the 1970's spent money like water, and their financial controls were poor, to say the least - but they were one of the richest mining companies in America. Then the copper price went way down, and the Chile Govt of Salvador Allende nationalised their copper mines in Chile, with little or no compensation. The Anaconda company and its subsidiaries effectively became almost bankrupt over a very short period of time, and they had to sell what assets they had left, to try and survive. Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) took over their copper assets in the late 1970's, including the huge Anaconda copper mine, smelter and refinery in Butte, Montana - but ARCO then closed down all the Anaconda operations by 1982, leaving Butte a ghost town - and a seriously contaminated one at that. The History of Anaconda Copper and the Anaconda Company - https://utahrails.net/mining/anaconda-history.php The sad story of Butte, Montana - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-profits-of-doom/302177/ The story of Butte above, was written in 2001. The cleanup of the massive levels of toxic waste and water contamination from Anaconda's mining, still goes on in Montana today. https://dailymontanan.com/2024/06/28/down-with-dirty-dirt-and-waste-in-place-in-butte/

I presume you mean "Nickel". Yes, Nickel ore comes in the sulphide form, and processing it releases a lot of sulfuric compounds, which are highly acid. Thus you can get acid waste and aquifers becoming acidified if proper processing/handling care isn't taken. Even the raw ore is quite corrosive. But sulphur is a useful product used in industrial processes, so the sulphur should be extracted and used. The problems start with inadequate environmental controls or controls/regulation that becomes corrupted via bribery, or other forms of corruption - which is possibly all too common in places such as China.

From Wikipedia - "52-0994 – C-124C is on static display at the McChord Air Museum at McChord Field in Lakewood, Washington. This aircraft was formerly under civilian registration N86599, and located for many years at the Detroit Institute of Aeronautics. On 9 October 1986, the aircraft was flown nonstop from Selfridge Air National Guard Base near Detroit to McChord Field. While flying over Washington, the aircraft was joined by a Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Lockheed C-141 Starlifter of McChord's 62nd Military Airlift Wing. This is the last recorded flight of a C-124."

Peter, are you sure that was 2012?? Looks more like 1962 to me!! That's an AL-series International truck behind the aircraft, the last AL-series was built in early 1956! Military Air Transport Service (MATS) was redesignated the Military Airlift Command (MAC) on 1 January 1966, so I would fully expect that photograph is early 1960's. The last C-124 Globemaster was built in 1956, and when MAC was formed, the few remaining Globemasters were taken over by MAC, as the C-141 Starlifter (which was designed to replace the Globemaster) was already in service (from 1963), and by 1970, all the remaining Globemasters were "retired" to the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard - and the Globemaster was taken out of service completely, in 1974.

Faulty connections, corroded connections, damaged plugs and connectors, these are all the nightmares of electrical/electronic trouble-shooting, and they can take a long time to pin down. It's a steady process of elimination.

$22, you get what you pay for, which isn't much! It's only 4cm high, that soon compresses down, if you weigh the 75kg of the average male. I personally prefer something thicker for my old creaky bones! I'd rather spend a little more money to ensure I got a nice comfortable mattress. Anaconda and the other camping/outdoor stores usually have a better available range than K-Mart, but watch the pricing, and check around, there's some huge markups in this stuff.

Skippy, air mattresses are pumped up using a small 12V blower or a hand or foot pump. Once inflated to the desired firmness/height, the valve is closed. A lot of air mattresses tend to suffer from air leaks, and sharp objects can puncture them easily, thus care in positioning must be taken, and the area where the mattress is positioned must be free of any sharp objects. Self-inflating mattresses are made from a sponge-type material that is compressed when not in use. When you wish to use a self-inflating mattress, you unscrew a valve that allows air to be sucked into the mattress, as it resumes its full thickness, which is its natural shape/size. The valve is opened again to release the contained air when you wish to compress the mattress to a transportable size. You can also pump air into a self-inflating mattress to make it higher and firmer.

.......nickname of "Black Jack", words that when spoken in awe, would subdue any opponent. Black Jack got his nickname from his habit of regularly appearing out of the gloom in low light situations, and by saying nothing when he suddenly appeared. It was enough to unnerve any ordinary person - but Jack could unnerve, hardened, tough, and fearless racers, just with his silent appearance from out of the darkness. Few people know that Jack was also an exceptional LAME, with tickling Beaufighter engines his favourite pastime. In fact, once the RAAF wartime pilots learnt about Jacks skills, they all wanted him to tickle their Beaufighter engines, too. Jack took his "tickling" skills to the BunnThruster with alacrity, and before long, the Imp engines were starting to sound like Bristol Hercules XVIII engines, and when Jack also suggested fitting armaments such as the Beaufighters 20mm cannons to the BunnThruster, to give it some credibility, there were cries of.........

........send an unsuspecting test pilot on the initial flight of the BunnThruster, because no-one in their right mind would.........