onetrack

.......took the first available flight to Inner Mongolia, which Penny had earlier determined, was the place where...............

UPDATE: 5:10PM WST - Sadly, it's now reported the 69 yr old pilot of the microlight has passed away from his injuries.

That little exercise must have been a heart-stopper for any pax near to the door. However, it wasn't actually an operational door, it is apparently a plug where a door can be fitted. Alaska Airlines have now grounded every B737 MAX 9 in their fleet.

......as they talked, the subject progressed to "blowing things away" and "blowing things up", and they both then realised they had mutual common ground in a love of explosives, firearms, dead rabbits, and general destruction, where mind-numbing, boring peacefulness usually ruled. Together they hatched a plan to position explosives behind the dunnies, as OT gleefully related "Gelignite Jacks" exploits with explosives and dunnies, and OT's fun experimentation with various home-made explosives as a teenager, as well as the sheer pleasure he'd gotten from blowing up VC and NVA caches of explosives. "Right!" said CT, "First off, we'll need a couple of sausages of Powergel, a few electric dets, some sandbags to reduce the whooomph, and a........

News is coming to hand of a microlight crash a few kms WSW of Beverley townsite, near Little Hill Rd, off the York-Williams Rd. The pilot, a man in his 60's is reported as having incurred serious injuries as a result of the crash. The crash occurred around 11.00AM WST. It is understood the pilot was the only person on board. Emergency services have responded to and attended the crash, and further news should become available later today. It's hilly and rocky terrain, with cleared paddocks on the lower slopes and flats - and numerous rural power lines run through the area - so I trust he wasn't another power line victim. It's been blowing a gale for the last 3 days across most of the lower part of W.A., but today has been a fine day with only a moderate breeze, a perfect day for flying. Windy says a 4kt wind from the SE out there. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-06/person-injured-in-beverley-plane-crash/103290378

Well, I guess that situation is typical, flight crew can't often see flames on the inside of the wing, between engines and fuselage, so they rely on cabin crew to alert them to what's happening, "down the back". Airbus has complimented JAL crew on a "textbook evacuation", and I think the fact that all 379 people got off with no injuries is an outstanding effort, regardless of any errors on the flight crews behalf. It appears the Captain of the Dash 8 may have been fatigued, he put in a sizeable amount of hours in preceding days, checking out earthquake damage and flying in supplies. He had also previously been getting takeoff priority, as a result of him carrying out disaster work. Bottom line is - he was told ""JA722A Tokyo tower, good evening. No.1 taxi to holding point Charlie 5". This is certainly not clearance for takeoff - but with inoperative red lights at holding point C5, the Dash 8 Captain obviously thought he was "No 1" in lining up to take off. The problems stem from ATC not using better U.S. style ATC terms, such as, "Hold Short at runway", which is clear and unambiguous. Add in the fact that runway incursion warnings were also not operating on 34R, and there's all the holes lined up. Also, sitting on a well-used runway for 40 seconds is not good. I've regularly heard "takeoff without delay" from ATC, as soon as we lined up on the main runway.

A carpet python? Nasty buggers, I don't like them. Found one crawling across the road and through the bush once, just West of Brookton. I stopped the ute and followed him over to the fenceline, and he reared up like a King Cobra, and was going to have a go at me! So much for "harmless pythons"!

The worst part about the buggers is the incredible speed they can run at, when spooked! - and they usually run straight up your arm at warp speed!!

It's pretty obvious the Dash 8 Captain thought he had takeoff clearance, even though he was told to hold. Surely a glance skyward when approaching the main runway would have alerted him to the oncoming Airbus? And it's claimed the Airbus crew did not sight the Dash 8, thus their reason for not going around. I'm quite surprised by this claim, it's not like there was only one pair of eyes looking out the front window. It was a clear night, so no level of reduced visibility that I could see, but maybe a lot general airport lighting and too many flashing lights distracted them from sighting the Dash 8, until it was too late. Or maybe they saw the Dash 8, and thought it was going to stop at the hold point, and it didn't, and they were too far into landing to conduct a go-around. The puzzling part of the communication transcript is the Tower talking to JAL166 (which appears to be lining up behind JAL516) and during the communication with landing instructions Tower says, "we have departure", with no other reference. This looks like fuzzy communication techniques to me. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-04/japan-airlines-crash-permission-to-land-coast-guard-not-cleared/103283704

The aircraft was an Airbus A350, only a couple of years old. Shortly after landing it slammed into a Japanese Coast Guard Dash 8 that was enroute to the earthquake zone with supplies. It's reported that 5 of the 6 crew on the Dash 8 died, only the Captain survived, and he has serious injuries. All 379 of the pax on the A350 evacuated safely before the Airbus became fully engulfed in flames. https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-airlines-plane-set-on-fire-tokyo-haneda-airport-airbus-2024-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_516

Wow, they sure lit that one up good and proper! https://abc7news.com/japan-airlines-fire-haneda-airport-airplane/14258485/#:~:text=TOKYO%2C Japan -- A plane,400 people%2C got out safely.

I've tried casting urethane rubber mounts and despite the initial result looking good, I found that within 12 mths, the urethane deteriorated to the point where I could pull the mount apart easily - it tore like old, rotten material. I was extremely disappointed in the result, and I don't know what I did wrong, I followed all the mixing and casting instructions to the letter. I had no problems making the silicone molds, it was the urethane casting that was a total failure - but only after it had set for the 12 mths.

....f the Diggers who had secreted himself in an abandoned, empty Furphy water tank, with the intention of....... (As an aside, OT compliments Turboplanner on his stunning achievement, in condensing C.E.W. Beans, "The Official history of Australia in the War of 1914-1918", from 12 huge volumes, into the one - albeit lengthy - post in the NES. It is obvious that Turboplanner has done this in order to receive a gong in the New Years Honours List, and very shortly I will be calling the GG to highly recommend Turbo for an AO.....)

I would imagine that these things will have similar restrictions to recreational aviation machines, when they are finally allowed into the airways. And that would mean a lot of major restrictions on when and where they can be used, and what speeds they can attain. And I would expect they would be strictly VFR, and largely kept out of controlled airspace, for many years to come. I cannot imagine that the necessary technology, vastly increased aviation regulations, and other "controlled environment" requirements, will be in place to allow them to operate wholesale, for at least another 20-25 years.

I could go one of those personalised 1 or 2 person dedicated air transports once they get the bugs out - but I reckon it will be decades before any even remotely viable flying car is a commercial success - simply because movement on the ground and movement through the air, are at diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum. You get bingles and scrapes in cars in every car park, so you'd have to keep right out of areas where physical contact is possible, so this is a major drawback. The Chinese are not missing the boat either, and you can see them trying to integrate phone and tablet technology with personalised flying transport. However, to get real commercial success, someone has to produce a totally reliable and effective method of avoiding gravity taking total control of your "flying car". I like the port and starboard lighting in this thing, someone has actually thought about identifying the direction of travel of other craft.

Planey, your uploaded image is non-functional.

Has the QC deteriorated again at Boeing, to the extent that flight control assembly checks aren't signed off by a second inspector? Just makes you wonder how much Boeing relies on good luck, and individual employees being conscientious in their assembly work.

Auctions? - Wow, this is a pretty cool addition to the site, Ian! But I think it also needs a link to the auction/s in the LHS menu.

Definitely a case of the marketing dept making claims that the engineering dept can't deliver! - certainly not in their lifetime, anyway!

.....and his skull put on a post, as a warning to others. By now, Ahmed had figured out that the lever sticking out of the floor of the TurboArabDrifter was a clever magnification device. When you pushed it forward, the soldiers got bigger - when you pulled it back, the soldiers got smaller. As Ahmed had no desire to encounter big soldiers, and wasn't even entirely wrapped in the idea of meeting small soldiers either, he decided it was better to make things smaller as much as possible, so he pulled the lever back and looked for........

Yes, the "Golden Days" were full of some dreadful airline disasters, many of them weather-related in the days of inadequate forecasting, and inadequate pilot aids for bad weather. And many were just plain foolish "press-on-itis", and poor flight planning.

I must admit, the era of wicker chairs, white suits, and boaters in aircraft, was one I enjoyed.

....the Jerusalem Airport, where he sighted a TurboArabDrifter, got extremely excited about it, and after some haggling and bargaining, swapped the donkey plus 6 bags of the finest Wadi dates, 600 Egyptian Pounds, and a genuine original copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for the TurboArabDrifter. Greatly pleased with his hard-won deal, Ahmed climbed astride the TurboArabDrifter (which catered for Middle Eastern tastes and preferences, by having a donkey saddle instead of a regular seat, and a lightly-perfumed cabin which smelt of 18-day-old camel and donkey dung, which was a great hit with the locals), found the pegs to place his feet and started whipping the cowling, all the while yelling.........

....told them he was on a Crusade to fight back against the warmongering advance of a truly evil group known as CASA - and he told the awe-struck locals, that CASA had made inroads into every area of aviators lives, and turned their existence into misery, with stifling petty regulations and rule, bombastic field officers, snail-like communication when aviators sought assistance and clarity over what they could and couldn't do, and where they could go - and CASA had also instigated cruel and unusual punishment, in the form of..........

You asked for advice, you got given good, comprehensive advice - but because it's not what you wanted to hear, you reckon it's a waste of time asking? I hope you don't just end up an aviation statistic, because you knew better than any good aviating advice?