walrus

1. This is real tiger country, if you crash here, we may never find the wreckage. The weather is your enemy because you are using a slow machine. Furthermore, going from Mansfield to Gippsland you will encounter at least TWO separate weather systems, maybe more; for example hot inland concditiond with turbulence around Mansfield, a seabreeze front on a Gippsland afternoon and thunderstorms over the ranges where some mixing occurs. Then there is sea fog (yesterday around Portsea) and smoke, haze and dust north of the ranges.........and that is all on a settled day. Now if you are in some sort of bullet like a Cirrus or Bonanza, you just need a short window. You can get high enough 9500 - 10000 to pretty much see the whole route. Furthermore, at 160+ knots, a 10 knot seabreeze sprining up or a thirty km diversion around a thunderstorm is no big deal, plus you have an autopilot and excellent navigation gear. BUt you are only doing 65 knots aren't you? That means a ten knot seabreeze can ruin your day and forget about 30 mile diversions, you dont have time or fuel so your route planning needs to be very different and by the way, dont forget density altitude; if you have to land some where high you will be walking home. The advantage? At 65kmots its prettyy hard to inadvertantly go from VFR into IMC. My bugsmasher is somewhat in the middle. What I would do is treat such a project as an adventure with very wide time frames and a very flexible itinerary - like the old sailing ships - they never contracted to go for example "Melbourne to Sydney", the contracts specified they were going "from Melbourne in the direction of Sydney". Now if you can set out with an open mind about where and when you might end up, plan your trip as a succession of small stages that only nibble at tiger country with go/nogo points between them and lots of alternates you will have a wonderful tme. Just dont get caught on one side of the range with a long slow trip home in darkening weather.

Agree 100% with Ben and AOPA. The CASA proposal, as always, is redolent with weasel words and qualifications that destroy any idea of reform. The application of the criminal code doesn't help either.

Hopefully an exercise near Jamieson.

The devil is in the detail - this is where AVMED and Spence will short change us; look at all those qualifiers: "most of Australias private pilots". .....AND RECREATIONAL pilots. "private pilots who meet fitness requirements" "those who meet eligibility criteria and satisfy requirements" Then of course this massive disclaimer... '"The self-assessment would see applicants answer a simple set of questions using CASA's current online systems. ....simple?? Access to training modules and comprehensive guidance material will help you make a well-informed and appropriate decision........appropriate? says who? Adoption of the proposal will mean that most people who fly the majority of hours in private operations will be able to apply for a Class 5 medical self-declaration, noting the medical exclusions and operational limitations........most can apply, but most won't get it. We estimate the new system will cover about 70% of the Australian aircraft fleet.".......about 70% of the fleet? Aeroplanes don't need medicals, - pilots do. ...and we conclude: There will, of course, be exceptions and some people will still need to see a doctor."........ in other words anyone with a "condition" - which means everyone, is still fair game for the medical inquisition. The only thing absolutely sure is that AVMED will require a bigger budget and more staff to give us this new "freedom".

Thruster, I fear you the GA and the RAA community are in for a huge disappointment regarding medical certificates very shortly. Don't you realise that the simplest approach to medical certificate reform is to remove the RAA self declaration option? That will silence GA regarding the equity issue. AVMED will not do anything that threatens their careers.

Where does it say RA-AUS registered aircraft are banned? It IMPLIES permission is required but not that it isn't forthcoming unless you are a microlight/ultralight/weight shifter. It also says that the aerodrome is not available to anyone for training and suchlike. There is no blanket ban on RA aircraft in controlled airspace. Having said that in my opinion and remembering certain events involving previous mass "arrival" of RA aircraft, it would be extremely unwise for someone without a CTA endorsement to head for Bathurst and the operator is entirely justified in excluding unqualified people.

The core of Qantas strategic weakness is that it isn't a national airline at all. It is a Sydney - Centric organisation with very deep connections to the NSW political establishment. The reason for this connection, and it's importance, is that direct international flights are a major determinant of the destination for international business investment and tourism. Qantas deliberately biases its offerings to intending travellers from London and Los Angeles towards Sydney and have been doing it since at least 1975.\\ The way this works is that flight schedules are arranged so that Brisbane and Melbourne are effectively at least three hours further from LHR and LAX than SYD ona round trip basis. There is a cost penalty too. That means that investors get off the plane in Sydney and choose it as their headquarters. This is how Sydney became headquarters for arriving foreign banks and IT companies in the 1970's. A recent check using a VPN to masquerade as a British or American traveller shows they are still doing it. 'Every business decision Qantas makes has to take account of this secret bias and it seriously distorts their business. For example Qantas hogs the available Sydney slots but still opposes foreign competition because they will run direct flights out of Melbourne and Brisbane.

Moorabbin is going to close the instant the Minister thinks she can get away with it. To believe otherwise is naive.

Spaceman, wash your mouth out! You are talking facts and logic. That doesn't apply to the Greens.

Anyone think that the Minister for Qantas has the slightest interest in GA and recreational aviation? I do not. ''I wouldn't be surprised if the aviation white paper sacrifices piston engined aviation to the Green zealots. Forget changes to medical certification, weights and regulations. If anything, they may become more severe in my opinion.

A TV repairman committed suicide many years ago after a TV station did one of those phony repair exposed shows. ‘’Trouble was that the TV repairman diligently went through an expensive fault finding process before discovering. the “ten cent blown fuse” - and charged according to his time as he should, only to get abused by 60 minutes or whoever. Translation: Stop confusing the apparent minimal nature of the change with the cost of the process to determine its safety and pay up. If you don’t think that’s right, then go buy your aircraft fasteners at Bunnings, after all, according. to you, a 1/4 inch bolt is a 1/4 inch bolt isn’t it?

rotax 912 iS ECU requires two rotations at more than 200 rpm with twelve volts on ECU, so don’t bother trying to hand start it.

Anyone who thinks electric cars are the answer doesn’t understand physics or logistics or failing those, is a potential genocidal dictator. A short drive through any third world city will demonstrate. Consideration of the marginal productivity of one litre of oil to a peasant farmer will indicate that the economic imperative is against you.

A standard sized cooler, Rotax or setrab should be fine provided you are not doing anything unusual. Your Airmaster comes set at about 5700 for takeoff and 5500 for climb.

I suspect part of the problem might be Covid. The other part may be that the engines may be used in drones and there is a war going on……..

See my PM and don’t worry.

Onetrack, it has mechanical injection. No electronics.

Section 10 refers, but section 11 is wanting. There is one manouvre that should be absolutely prohibited: that is a “touch and go” on a short strip intended for STOL training. ‘It is axiomatic that if it’s a real short strip with obstacles at each end then when you “practice” STOL landing techniques then there is no room for error once you are committed. Think about it; to be successful you cannot do a touch and go because technically that requires at least the full length of the strip and then some. A failed touch and go almost involved me in a crash but for the extreme actions of the demonstrating instructor.. ‘’In my opinion, either practice STOL techniques with a touch and go on a looong strip with no obstacles. If you are practicing for real on a short strip, make a commit height decision and once committed, land, do a full stop , backtrack and takeoff. I assume the instructor wrote our incident up but no action was taken by anyone. ‘’The technique of using touch and go for teaching STOL or precautionary landings on “real” short strips is akin to testing your cars brakes by charging at speed at a concrete wall to see if your judgement and brakes are sufficiently capable. If they are lacking and you are not killed, you get to buy a new car. ‘’Precautionary or STOL touch and go is in the same class as practicing engine failure on multi engine aircraft.

Boycott BP?

The basic medical is a deliberate sham. ‘’Why? Because it requires a GP to certify that you have no “conditions” - that is what “unconditionally “ means. A “condition” is one of millions of possible dimensions of a human that is outside the established range of values for a particular branch of humanity. For example “alopecia” Hair loss, is a condition that technically can be used by CASA to exclude you. There are very, very few people in the world who do not have a “condition” of one sort or another. ..And I’m including one year old babies in that classification “people”. No one can pass the standard if CASA puts its mind to it since everyone has at least one condition. ‘’Regarding sleep apnea, I saw the question on BMI slither onto the class 2 medical questionnaire about 2012 and correctly predicted that sleep apnea was going to become a trendy addition to CASAs aresenal. Of course CASAs wet dream would be to require you to provide your DNA for genetic screening - just imagine! Millions of conditions ! They could then build impossible medical regulatory structures. Please don’t think I’m joking.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2020/aair/ao-2020-065 Have a look at the carbs 😞 You don't have to drain them every time but don't leave the plane for months and let them dry out with unleaded fuel in the bowls.

Do NOT let fuel sit and evaporate in carburettor float bowls, run the engine bone dry with the fuel off. Anyone who has had to clean out a small motor carb will know this. See images at https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2020/aair/ao-2020-065 Apart from that, full tanks to minimise opportunities for condensation. Then this: https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/country-sites/en_au/australia/home/products-services/fuels/opal-factsheet-storagehandling.pdf

OME, I think the lawyer mentioned S58 of the Act which has to do with confidential information being membership data or suchlike. ‘’I don’t want to get involved in law fair or organisational fights, been there and will not do it again. ‘’As for the Board, their hands may have been tied by the Act and they may not have had any good options and this was the least worse. ‘’Our ski club board had something happen once and our Boards legal advice was that they HAD to take action, else members could pursue them in court. I wonder if the SAAA Board were in the same position?

reading between the lines of the latest email, it appears that the issue may have been to do with alleged contravention of the Act. in relation to use of confidential information in some dispute this apparently leaves little room for the Directors to move.....but I don't know.

Could you please post details of the event ASAP? That would include accommodation, food ,and fuel plus time.