Thx1137

Yeah. Was trying to do the finger thing. Just need practice :-) I have no real complaints about the Jabiru it is just me needing to get used to it. It would be perfect for me if it had the SportStar throttle and stick but obviously not necessary. If other people can fly it then I am sure I can get used to it :-)

Well, I had my flight in a Jabiru 160 today. I swear, it felt like my TIF! All I have ever flown is the SportStar. They are a nice, well built machine with a reputation for being easy to fly. Thats not wrong! Riddle me this batman: "how many times can you hear 'more right rudder' and still not do it (the foot relaxes)!". Answer. Dunno but when I find out I will let you know! :-) I got to compare the SportStar to a J160 and to be honest. I had trouble with all my basics such as checks and, use the radio? hah! I was too busy going "what the!"! Good old human factors. Get overloaded and you can almost forget to breath :-) We took off and did a bit of "straight and level". I think that was OK. The trim was very stiff and seeing how it actually operates I guess I can see why. It does not move a trim tab but moves the whole elevator. I did some S turns to try and get a feel for countering the large amount of adverse yaw (at least compared to the sporty), again, not too bad. We joined the circuit and I had a bunch of problems there: 1. Power setting. We were very heavy and a small amount of power change made a really big difference. Maybe I really only had problems with this because of number 2. 2. The throttle on a SportStar has both course and fines modes. Push/pull for course, twist for fine. I found it darn near impossible to do the small changes that I pretty much do automatically in the SportStar. I missed the twist! 3. The cockpit layout is completely different and it affected my checks more than I thought because I kept looking in the wrong place and the little interruptions caused me to then have to think "where was I in the checklist?". This is small but it takes your eye off the ball. Fortunately it shouldn't take long to get into the swing. 4. The yoke/stick. Besides being in a different hand, it feels completely different. It also has an amount of 'play' in it. I dunno if/how much the play affected things and didn't notice it during flying but it is something the SportStar doesn't have. 5. Approach corrections. a. I was mainly using aileron and only a little footwork. That is no good at all. Lots of feet needed here. b. Taking all the power off when over the fence. It really wanted to plumet! It really wanted to wait until I was in ground-effect to dial it all off. c. In the Jabiru we basically sit at an angle facing inwards. This means when I was trying to line-up I was actually flying to the left of the runway. (we had two flights, during the second backtrack I was able to see where "straight" was) 6. Takeoff. I kept pumping the rudder because I would keep relaxing my right leg (I use enough rudder in the sporty so don't really know why I had so much problem here) Some of these things I was expecting, some I wasn't and some affected me more than I would have thought. During the second set of circuits I did better so that makes me happy. I didn't do 'good', that will have to wait for next week. :-) I couldn't say I enjoyed my first flight of the J160 but not many of us enjoy being taken far out of our comfort zone (I hated feeling like such a newbie but there it is!). It is almost purely a matter of getting used to the differences so I will persevere. Even if you licence says your allowed to fly a particular type of aircraft I knew it was sensible to get lessons on a new aircraft before flying one but this has driven home that it really is not optional and probably requires more hours than some of us think! (I guess lots of experience on different aircraft types mitigates this but not having such experience I don't really know!) Steven.

Thats the problem with fines. Many people just seem happy to pay them. I met an electrician once who said he got something like 12k in fines per year but he didn't care because he just upped his hourly rate to cover it. The me, me, me and I don't care if I stuf everyone else around attitudes really bug me. Confiscate the car, or in this case, aircraft. It has more impact.

lol :-)

hehehe :-)

Thats true. What I don't like is the ambiguity and to me, the implication that it was closed because some people might not like it. I always have to deal with people who are supposed to provide explicit guidelines and rules but instead leave holes that we can drive a planet though. The older I get the more it bugs me :-) To me there is a simple template: 1. Describe the request 2. Document the high level process used to investigate the request 3. The investigation findings 4. The result determination 5. The next step (acceptance process, appeals, etc) It tends to remove guesswork for those "not in the loop". Without it, people assume the worst. And are often justified in doing it...

I am sure they are however I would expect to see some reasoning other than that provided. As for if we need it. I don't but that isn't the point. If I get told "no" I want to know why whether it be CASA or my mother! And saying that others might object is a rubbish reason. At least give them the opportunity to _actually_ object.

Kill the project because it "may be controversial for other sectors of the aviation community". Hmmm. And three years and they didn't consult with the "other sectors of the aviation" to find out if it _IS_ controversial?! After reading lots of negative stuff about CASA I thought, no, make up my own mind. Except for the safety roadshows, so far so bad.

No, though I would expect they will get a bit upset if you cancel for no good reason. Especially on the day of the flight!

Very dissapointing isn't it. :-( What gets me is when it is a toss-up (in my mind!). Last week I was going to fly and could have gotten around the cloud but wasn't sure if the weather was going to be ok to get back. So we jumped back in the car an went home. I hate booking an aircraft and not using it for most of the booked time. :-(

I expect the drivers use SimConnect which means they can't work in FS9 unless someone writes drivers using FSUIPC. It is not trivial so unless the manufacturer is planning on creating some I don't think you will be in luck any time soon unfortunately.

PocketFMS has been updated to v1.3. My favorite changes are: 1. We can drag the map around instad of click-to-center 2. The mouse wheel controls zoom 3. It can export to KML (Google Earth) 4. It can export to Oziexplorer There are many more changes listed in the release notes but I have been hanging out for these ones! Steven.

Arrgg!

As long as we don't transcribe their collection of data they cannot stop us accuiring the data manually or from other sources. They own *their* library of data not the data itself no matter what they try to say. This is mainly airfield data I am talking about, if they own the airspace data that might be defencable, even if it is small minded. If needs be I would call each airfield in my area to get the appropriate information. If many of us did this we could collect a lot of info quickly. It is "funny" that the US is so copyright centric yet for public data they make it very easy for the public to obtain.

G'day Mike, If you like PM me your email address and I will send you an airfield file that works with SkyAngel. I converted some airfield data I have. It contains 720 airfields. Not all the data is complete but it is a start :-) Steven.

Looks very nice. I have pretty good spatial data in ShapeFile format (sourced from Geoscience Australia and Russia) which I use in my own little flight planner. I also have a pretty good database of airfields and towns so I will have a bit more of a look when I get home.

Japan (again) and NZ are the only overseas places we will be visiting, at least for the forseeable future so I reckon NZ as it would be a lot cheaper.

My fun wasn't with internet but with Optus and a mobile phone. Cancelled the account then literally 7 months later got a big bill! I rung them up and they said nope, the account was not closed (why not bills for 7 months!) It transpired that after I had my account cancelled, they rand my phone to confirm I _really_ wanted it canceled. Because I didn't answer the phone they decided I wasn't serious. I pointed out that the sim card was in the garbage so how was I going to answer the phone? The dick says, I gotta pay and I said I would prefer prison and they wont get a cent ever again. The third person I spoke too was reasonable and said they were idiots an fixed it (I assume it was nothing to do with the ombidsman complaint...). In the age of computers I swear services are getting worse and people dumber.

Perfect, thanks Dexter. (I thought I already posted this!) I ran a test. I don't like the pass/fail indicators much either. It seems to me that my unit has issued a set of fail blinks so I will have to do it again with a watch with a second hand in front of me!

G'day Tim and welcome. I wish I could have afforded it when I was younger. Better late than never! Steven.

I got my XS3 yesterday (Thanks Ian :-)), had a read of the instructions then had a bit of a fiddle, wanting to make sure I knew the device because I don't think I want to pull out the instructions if I ever have to deploy it! A question for confirmation for those of you who already had one. I read that pressing the Test button causes the 121.5 homing to be activated so testing should be done between x o'clock and 5 past. I wanted to make sure that is correct for Australia before I pressed any buttons! I can't seem to find any info about this on the net. I read that in a different vendors PLB that extending the aerial activated the device. I nearly had a heart attack sitting here thinking "did I start it up!?" but no, the light didn't come on and there was no mention of that in the XS3 manual and no rescue services banging down my door at home last night. :-) I can't believe how nervous the thing makes me re false activation!

Clearly to talk sensibly about it we need to have access to the information used to put together the recommendations. I wouldn't expect to see all of it but summaries of the key facts would be good. The US case sounds interesting to me based on the obvservations of a guy I know who did a lot of flying over there recently. Lots more aircraft, less rules and safe (he reckons safer but I don't know why...). At least thats the way he saw it.

G'day Dave. Welcome to the site. There is certainly a lot of study involved but the flying makes up for it :-) I might start aiming for a PPL myself at some point because it would be good to be able to take more than one PAX but I probably wont until I am happy with how I fly the little machines first. For me it is just for fun. :-) Steven. Steven.

No worries Decca. My answer was more for Tomo though. :-) The VFG is very nifty but I certainly don't feel the need to carry it around. I do have a little T91 tablet PC I take with me though and it has the RA-Aus CD, VFG, AIP, ERSA, SportStar manuals, PocketFMS and OziExporer on it so I guess I do carry it around after a fashion :-) I think the 50nm ERSA thing might be aerodrome specific (I have seen it on a few hire and fly forms) as I can't find any regulations about it.

I have read that the ERSA is required for flights > 50nm. I don't think the VFG is required. Steven.