Bats

Truly amazing - he who shall not be named, managed to restrain himself from broadcasting the news - with a side order of snide. Funny though how things like helicopters bring out the little green man in people, I was at a kids sporting event out in the country a while ago and one of the parents dropped his kid, plus as many others as could be fitted in, by chopper. A couple of people had to pass the odd remark about showing off, completely missing the point that whilst they were quaffing drinks and socialising, he was working, heading straight off to go and do joy rides somewhere in the neighbourhood, never mind the fact that the chopper made it a 20 min round trip vs nearly 2 hours by car.

Insurance companies must be becoming very twitchy around quad bikes; watch them start setting exclusions and/or declining to insure properties that use them. Had one up the road, where a friend of a family member lifted the keys from a farm office and took a quad for a jolly without the owner being present or aware. Ramped a dry dam wall and broke his back in the subsequent landing and promptly sued. As happens all too frequently, insurers settled on the basis that nothing is certain in litigation and if their defence fell over it was going to get expensive. Obviously the settlement amount was a lot less than the court would have awarded, but still substantial. Property owner and all the rest of us copped it in the renewal and the legal fraternity got just a little bolder in financing the next, no-win-no-fee matter that came through the door.

Indeed, I don't believe the SAAF operated any Jaguars - I seem to recall someone sending me another view of this taken from a following car, aircraft was being relocated to a museum or some such.

That's it - I've seen it on several forums I participate in, where ever more "cool" features added with each revision actually just get in the way of the conversation. I suspect I'm not alone in visiting here daily, or every few days, browsing the posts under "New", contributing to a few threads, then heading off again, unless there is a topic of particular interest. I don't really want to have to customise settings and/or learn how to navigate around the place.

My pet bugbear - forums that add ever more subsections, meaning that unless it's something obvious like an accident, finding a thread again can be an exercise in frustration. I think Colin Chapman summed it up best; "simplify, then add lightness.."

Always told Mum I needed to get out more - tripped up by pop-culture, I missed the whole Terminator thing, I'll pay that one. I guess I was a bit distracted, having gotten into a deep discussion about the case with the resident teenager.

Bit subtle for me there, Doggy? To quote the favourite red-headed bogey of our times, please explain?

I think that first image was something other than JATO, I've seen it explained as fitting two ramjets (either off V1's or copies of) to increase the Mustang's top speed. The story I saw said that they did increase peak speed, but created so much drag when not operating as to be a liability. Asymmetric ignition would have been interesting ;) Ramjets need high speed airflow to operate and would thus not be much use accelerating an aircraft from a standstill for take-off.

Your mileage may vary, I was told schools have to pay to become assessors and need to recoup the cost. Yet another rort in my experience.

Always surprises me that a technical pursuit like aviation has a relatively large streak of conservatism. Cirrus, after a fairly dismal period of poor accident rates in the early days, has done a lot about training pilots converting onto the aircraft and last time I looked at stats, was doing better than comparable older designs and had been for several years. There is plenty of factual information available on the spin certification issue, without having to rely on old wives tales or posts from enthusiasts. Short story is they are perfectly capable of recovering from a spin, however in certain circumstances may require non-standard control inputs to do so, hence the US authorities declining at first. The BRS or CAPS as they style it, is as much a point of difference for marketing purposes, as it is a necessity for certification and as I understand it, the design could have been modified to achieve certification without it. It goes without saying that in certain circumstances you may be worse off under the chute - powerlines being an obvious concern, but it is equally true that there are circumstances where without it you're not likely to survive. It does give you the choice though. And no, I don't have a Cirrus, not am I likely to ever want one - low n slow plus short grass strips is more where my interests lie, but I do admire someone who has taken on the established big boys at their own game and made a success of it. Vive la difference'!

Paint that up as a warbird and you'd convince a fair portion of the population. Certainly has moved a long way from the RV-4 it was developed from, I see this version even has a different tail.

What are these problems that Cirrus need to fix? I'm battling to understand how you can lay the blame for a Continental throwing a rod or similar at their door.

Manual I've seen says 400' in level flight or glide, just under 1,000' in a spin - these are absolute minimum demonstrated height agl.

I remember the Leopard was a perennial favourite in the English flying magazines I used to pore over - never did work out how they planned to seal that huge tip-up canopy to enable pressurisation at 55'000 though. Funnily enough I tripped over a video of one of the prototypes flying the other day - not sure if it was just the small size, but it seemed to approach at a fair clip.

Haha, maybe I should have used that one for the puzzle - short answer is I don't know, I hoovered up the photo from somewhere on the 'net and the caption only mentioned the Maverick (Incidentally I have some reservations about referring to something with that sort name with a feminine pronoun). My best guess though would be a Busby Mustang 2, I've seen a couple of different canopy configurations on them and at least one with a similar cowling.

Interesting that there seems to be a set of dunlops dangling more or less as nature intended - at least on one side. I guess they may have still been in transit when she dropped back on the runway or otherwise the fire damage was sufficient to disrupt the uplock mechanism.

Just as well nobody thought sitting tight in a burning aircraft was a good idea this time around; that's pretty well toasted.

I'm sure the media would be pleased to see your evidence in relation to the lack of DDOS activity, given that all and sundry have already gone on record claiming that it did occur. I await imminent vision of egg-smeared visages.....

That's him.

Ok, pending Phil's confirmation that I got it right here's one that stumped me - now watch the brains trust get it in one ;)

Got it I think, Bu 181 or perhaps one of its many derivatives eg SK-25, C-106. The right rudder in the original photo disguises the characteristic sweep which you see from side on.

You're right on the retracts - missed that, however some of the Nord built versions had an inverted inline Renault which answers the cowl difference. I went trawling around the net afterwards once the retracts issue penetrated me skull, thinking it may be a forerunner to the 108, however that was the M37 and this isn't it I don't believe.

Bf 108 Taifun or licence built copy? There seem to be a couple of variations on the tail shape around. Met one once that had fake guns that pushed LPG into the barrels with igniters going, produced a very convincing "Brrrrrrrrrrp" when strafing surfers.

Short answer, almost nothing new, seems the same guesses are being recycled now. Unfortunately most scenarios point to a degree of finger trouble in the front office whilst executing a go-around - which in that enlightened part of the world is bad news for the crew and likely worse for the Aussie. I sincerely hope that a report emerges in due course exonerating them, however....

Runway is just over 700m with varying over runs at either end. Give either Airsport (the school) or the gliding club a call for an up to date runway report, normally fine unless they have had heavy rain in the day or two before.