Thx1137

OMG. I really shouldn't find that so funny :-)

Being a computer programmer I can tell you that 9 times it is the softwares fault. Putting the data in the wrong folder shouldn't have caused a message like that, it is worse than \ useless because it didn't tell you what the actual problem was. These days I try to say something like "The map data could not be found. Please ensure that it is in the \Maps folder." instead of "Read failure." I get programmers who still do the later, until I hit em over the head! We do get the other side sometimes though. Like displaying a message such as "Please press the OK button to continue." and having users complain that they can't continue because of some error message (that reads "Please press the OK button to continue."). But, usually it is just crappy coding or design.

I already picked up a copy of Oziexplorer, the southern MapTrax pack and a Uniden Trax430 last week so it might be hard to justify buying something else soon however a 7inch unit would be of interest depending on cost.

Clearly the term "safe to do so" has a different meaning for many of us. People like myself would only do it if it was definitely safer to do so than doing the standard procedure. For others it seems to mean "I can do it because it is more convenient (for me) or because 'standard' is boring and, it hasn't killed me/us yet". I would lean towards TOSGcentral's "blind paranoid" because the people similar to my second example scare the crap out of me whether they are on the road (two of my friends who liked to go over crests on the wrong side, in the dark, no lights on and say "see, no one was there!") or in the air. As I am still new to flying I would love to know why some examples of when someone would do it, especially regularly.

Is that human weeks or CASA weeks? ;-)

Yeah. I noticed that too. Being relatively new to flying I was wondering if it has always been like this. I got a surprise when I went to the ATSB site and checked out the weekly incident summary. They seem to average around 12 pages worth for just one week! Mostly bird strikes and CTA incursions from the couple of weeks I went through.

Congrats. :-) It is a great feeling isn't it! Soon there are the navs, I really enjoy them, being in the plane for an hour or so without an instructor, something different to circuits. I soloed just over 12 months ago and only just managed to put the video on facebook tonight! The one day I took the video camera, missus and youngest daughter to the airfield is the day I got to do the solo. Great timing. :-) What days do you fly? I am there either Saturday or Sunday afternoons, usually between 1 and 3.

Go to : News and download the Australian airfields. There are over 200 fields added that don't come with FSX and most are very good. They are free. If you like RA then go to FSnordic.net and grab the Evektor EV97 Eurostar. Make sure you grab the 1.1 patch too. I would also (did!) spend the $$ at Full Terrain Experience - Flight Simulator X Scenery for to grab the Australian scenery as it is brilliant compared to the FSX mess that is called Australia.

hehe. I disconnected an optus mobile because I no longer wanted the phone number. 8 months later I get a final notive bill, I rang up and said I had disconnected. The optus bloke says no you didn't and that I must pay. Now, I have had it with these guys so I said, you can take me to court but you no getting one **** cent!. A week later I rang again, the woman (after some mucking around) says "oh yes, you did try to cancel but we rang to up to see if you really wanted to do it". hahaha. The rang me on the phone number I disconnected and didn't answer the phone. So they decided to to do what I told them to do. This time she agreed that it sucked and fixed it up. I used to LOVE optus. But slowly they became exactly like telstra. My telstra troubles. ghod. you name it. These days they often ring to try an get us back. My wife has been telling them 'no' so they really did it when last time they asked to speak to me instead of her! They did end up getting me one day. This bloke didn't say where he was from but tried to sound like some long lost mate. When he ased about maybe getting back with telstra he said "yeah, I know you have said that before". I hung up on him. I do not care what they offer, even if it is the best of the best. They can get stuffed. It takes 3 major stuff-ups before I switch. Virgin, Teltra and Optus are in the no-fly zones for me and family. HATE EM. Now that I have that of my chest (sort of :-)). Have a good Easter :-) Steven.

My take so far, I am still studying... I believe that at a CTAF it is not _compulsory_ to stop. See and be seen and all that. At my CTAF, often aircraft will keep rolling while scanning then stop at the line when another aircraft is spotted. The CASA guys at the last safety seminar I went to _strongly recommended_ stopping all the time but I didn't get the idea that it was a regulation. Controlled airports are a little different I think. We _must_ stop before crosing any active runway (unless given specific approval to cross while taxiing) but depending on the airport (check notams, atis, etc), usualy can cross inactive ones. Even in controlled airports we should still apply some caution though so we should still be scanning and be prepared to stop before inactive runways, even when given clearance.

Outside of the normal slow flight regimes we have during training I have had two other exercises. If I did poorly I guess I might have had more. Basically, we were flying along at low altitude at 60kts and two stages of flap and "checking-out the scenery at the beaches" and other sight seeing. My take on this is that he was wanting to see how well I could fly slow while having my attention drawn outside to non-aviation tasks. As Scott says, we should practice to improve proficiency. I love it when the instructor is on the ground and I can practice some things while doing a nav. Steven.

Congratulations! It is pretty sweet isn't it. :-) I remember when I first took off by myself (only 20 hours ago!) and thinking, "I have done it now. Now I HAVE to land!" :-)

Congratulations. :-) It must have been hard, it is a bit hard to imagine what it was like but I suspect there was some nervousness and relief in there somewhere! Steven.

Once! I am almost forgetting what the other runways look like! :-) On my first trip to Milang I was at 3,500 when I saw this object heading towards us on my right hand side. I am looking at it thinking, it can't be a plane but there was no flapping of wings. It ended up being a pair of Eagles. I was ready to take evasive maneuvers because I had read that they may attach aircraft. It was a great sight though.

I would have said something like: "SportStar 5572 please confirm your callsign as I am also SportStar 5572!" :-) I always say to them I like to scare them all equally so I don't mind swapping now that it is a bit later in the game :-) The landing sounds like fun :-) I remember one of my landings on my second solo. Approaching 32 and looking like I was going to clear the trees nicely then I hit some sink and my left wing dropped. Full aileron and some power and got it back on track when I then go lift and was way high. Can't win sometimes. It mainly seems to be 32 that that happens to me on though.

I thought that might be the loop. :-) I did that on my first nav, I had to divert from Goolwa because they were doing parachuting so that was novel. I is a good loop as I usually have lots of bumps, lift and sink so it helps me get used to a reasonable workload. I can hardly imagine flying in smooth air?! My first lesson was with Leo but the next 12 hours or so were mostly with Steve. These days I mostly swap between Ryan and Wayne with the occasional Steven and Leo :-) Steven.

Ohhh, landing at a different airfield somehow seems a bit exciting. I get to do that soon myself :-) What was your flight plan going to be for the nav? I am wondering if it is just around our training area or if we go further afield. I would have thought we would go somewhere different to introduce some unfamiliarity.

G'day Thumper, I always wanted to find the manuals myself but didn't have much luck. I had another go tonight and got a bit further :-) I found some manuals for the EFIS, I am pretty sure we have the D100 model. Have a look at: Dynon Avionics - Support Documentation. I think the GPS we have is the Garmin 396. Manuals for that can be found here: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/store/manual.jsp?product=010-00425-00&cID=156&pID=313 Steven.

A fact is a fact. If it was reported that a VH aircraft crashed but it was in fact an RA aircraft we should still correct it. We certainly should try not to emulate the behavior of those that are against RA. Obviously it is easier to get the will power to correct something when it is against us though! It is terribly unfortunate that we have to mindful of political things when yet another of our small fraternity and their loved ones has suffered for their love of flying.

Damn fine idea for a topic. :-) Mine was about 6 months ago. It was a fine day with light winds and for a change, it wasn't turbulent. I had brought my wife and youngest daughter to the airfield for the first time so they could watch and video me doing circuits. On the third circuit on base the instructor says "make this one a full stop". Amazingly enough I only thought, "gee, that was quick!" but didn't think of it more as I had a final to turn. He said, "stop here" after just taxiing off the runway and said "are you happy to go by yourself?" and I said "what! are you serious!?" and he said "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think you were ready". I was surprised because my second landing was crap. Not dangerous but at the time (until last week, arrg) was one of my worst. I started getting nervous as he got out of the plane but as soon as he left I did my pre-takeoff checks again then make my calls on got onto my runway. When I was about to roll I thought to myself "this is it, once I am airbourne there is just me". I thought to myself "it's ok, just do what you know how to do" and after that I wasn't nervous at all. The circuit itself was ok and I swear my approach and landing was the best I ever did. I get a bit distracted with an instructor in the plane because I want to do well whereas then I had no one else to worry about. I loved that flight. When I taxied to the parking area I couldn't remember whether the dead mag check was at 1800 RPM of 3,500. That was the only issue with my first solo (in my eyes :-)) Unfortunately the missus was really wobbly on the video camera but still. It is good to look at and what a day to have them come to the airfield! She did well considering she hates flying :-) It seems many of us think the very same things which I guess shouldn't be a surprise. Steven.

I was hoping you meant temperature :-) The temperature only hits the green on a long climb in ours. Steven.

Initially I kept forgetting to clear the nose on departure as I was busy trying to keep a correct heading and attitude with Aldinga's bumps but these days it is better and will hopefully become a habit soon. I also have a quick dip of my wings every now and then to see if there is anyone hiding in there. It is a pity that we can't fit out our aircraft with active radar. Steven.

On SMH a bloke that was from Hoxton was saying "Now that they've closed Hoxton Park Airport, there are fewer places for these planes to land and this sort of thing will be happening more and more often." arrggg. What is the bet that instead of people thinking "we need to keep smaller fields open so this sort of thing is less likely" they will think "we need to get these small missiles away from civilisation so ban them". Steven.

Yes it is a requirement, definitely before your first solo. Membership has the following: The student pilot joining fee is $160.00, which includes the issue of the Student Pilot Certificate, 3rd party insurance cover, Operations Manual, Technical Manual, 12 months RA-Aus membership and 12 months subscription to the monthly Recreational Aviation Australia journal. The full schedule of all RA-Aus fees and charges is available in pdf format. My temporary membership lasted for 3 weeks I think it was. If I wanted to continue to learn to fly I had to join and pay the fee. Steven.

I stink at math as well but with a bit of effort I could learn the rules-of-thumb that I can use while flying. There really isn't that much that you _need_ to be able to do in your head. Especially if you aren't doing cross-country flying. My nav book says we can use the whizz-wheel calculators. I am not sure about the electronic ones, I know some of them are allowed in the US but not sure about Australia. The whizz-wheel calculators look a bit scary but they are seriously cool devices. It is sooo much faster calculating on those than the electronic ones. Steven.