GraemeK

I hope you realise that this will be the start of a lifelong obsession which will leave you absolutely penniless but with an incredible smile on your face! :thumb_up:

Hi Cherry Great stuff, and the Yarra Valley is a great place to fly. I'd give the Jabs a go, lots of fun and with your GA experience you'd pick it up pretty quickly. I'm flying the J160's out of YLIL, so I'll watch out for your 'chute

Yep - I do love the 160, great aircraft to fly, but very hard to get a fix on fuel unless you're actually filling the tanks. As an example, the other day both wing gauges were showing >60L (ie FULL) when the log indicated around 100L. After about 30min flying, LH tank was around 5/8ths (45L) and RH a tad less than FULL (55L) - so assuming the start volume by the gauges was 120L, less 7L for 30 min equals 113L, how does that compare to the measured 100L by the gauges? I reckon we need dipsticks or something to get an accurate feel for fuel in the Jab. BTW - no smartarse comments re my total inability to keep the ball centered in flight - I know it's something I need to work on:keen:

Correct - that's how I remember which is which (need all the help I can get to remember things these days!!) ....

From one old bod to another - go for it gibbo! I've just started having had no previous flying experience - and it's a whole lot of fun! :thumb_up:

I'm with you CS, annoys the crap outta me, we don't have the luxury of pies at our place but I feel like throwing my coffee at people like that (plus I just know they do it deliberately to annoy me). Serious note - all of us have been in the situation where someone else's call interrupts some pearl of wisdom (or even an urgent instruction like TOO SLOW!) from our instructor. But we deal with it, and I'd much prefer to hear from others to improve my SA. As others have pointed out we need to be able to learn to deal with distractions, even on late final.

Yeah - he was probably very lucky that he didn't actually get it to fly - that might've been REAL scary :hittinghead: ......

Video is here ...

It comes free with RAAus membership! Not sure I understand your question re cloud - since you mention minimum I assume you mean you're above the cloud? Then you'd have to be at least 1000 feet above the top of the cloud layer.

The cloud doesn't affect the cruising levels, but does affect what is defined as VMC - ie as you say, in Class G below 3000 or within 1000 of ground VMC is 5000m and just clear of cloud and in sight of ground provided you have radio. The bit about below 5000 is here in the AIP (ENR 1.7 - 6): "VFR flights must be operated at levels selected in accordance with Section 5, Table B “VFR Table of Cruising Levels” when at a height above 5,000FT AMSL, and must be operated at such levels when below 5,000FT AMSL, whenever practicable (CAR 173)." Note that IFR levels are on the 1000's, not the 500's.

Here's the original article ..... :thumb_up:

Were the pre-solo and pre-area exams the RAAus ones? If so, then they're the two air leg exams you need :thumb_up:.

Absolutely incredible book, especially given it was written in 1944 - 65 years ago, closer to the Wright Brothers than today. And still very current, despite some unfulfilled prophesies like in a few years no airplanes will have rudders ....

Guess there'll be differing views on this, but personally I adopt the AMEX philosophy - never leave home without one!

I'm just a simple soul, but I reckon "All Stations" is just that - anyone who can hear the call. "XXXX" Traffic is only directed at traffic in the vicinity of XXXX. EDIT: just found the AIP reference - AIP GEN3.4 page 32: "All Stations" - when a pilot/ATC broadcasts general information. "XXXX Traffic" - when a pilot broadcasts location specific general information.

Well done Bec - it's really great to get the exams out of the way early, then you can concentrate on flying!

The printed Visual Pilot Guides are available free from the CASA store (well, not totally free, you gotta pay postage - but why not order the other safety freebies at the same time for one lot of postage). There's some good stuff there ..... Thomas Logistics - Safety Publications

Here 'tis :thumb_up:

While I follow the rules and use "XXXX Traffic" I agree that the reverse is much better (although by adding the tag at the end it should be OK). As far as CTAF's go, other fields using the same frequency can be confusing. We share 119.1 with YCEM (makes sense because we're so close and it would be dangerous to have different frequencies anyway) and with YPID (a nuisance, mainly unintelligible but interferes with our transmissions especially when the circuit is busy). As for the third person phrasing (even worse is "turns finals"), it annoys me as well. We are also trained to (where possible) make the call just before turning - that way anyone hearing the call and looking out has a better chance of seeing you as the wings bank.

The rules for over water flights are in the CAO's. For instance, CAO95.55 states: "© the aeroplane must not be flown above the sea at a horizontal distance from land of more than: (i) if all persons on the aeroplane are wearing life jackets and the aeroplane is fitted with flotation equipment that is capable of ensuring that the aeroplane will remain afloat if it is forced to land on water — 20 kilometres; or (ii) in any other case — the lesser of the distance that the aeroplane can glide in the event of an engine failure and 20 kilometres;" CAO95.10 (single seater privately built) and CAO95.32 (weight shift & powered chutes) use the same wording.

Apart from some bad static, most of the calls were reasonably intelligible. Got a real laugh from their mistranslation of an ATC call as "at bang Point Ormond". :hittinghead: While I know there are problems, this program totally missed the mark I'm afraid .... EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV743JSd-bI"

To me, this boils down to airmanship - the Captain exhibited good airmanship (and good judgement) in holding clear of the runway for the RPT and by clearly communicating his intentions. The RPT pilot was the reverse. If he truly called at 20nm with 5 minutes to run, he should have been on the ground close to 34. The fact that he was still on approach at 36 suggests his call was made further out than 20nm - and that is just plain crap airmanship. If I'm flying around 25nm out to the east of the field and hear his 20nm inbound call for 23, I feel reasonably safe (he's past me and heading away from me). The last thing I'd expect is to find him up my clacker because he was actually 28nm out when he made the call. (Although one of the thing's I've learnt is to take inbound positions with a grain of salt - many times people are way out!). Call me cynical if you like, but I reckon he heard the Captain's taxi call and then made his inbound call early to make sure no-one got in his way - after all, who cares about stuffing around a lowly rec pilot when you've got a few gold stripes and a few pax in the back! As turbo said, a “scatter the pigeons out of the way call”. And, while there is no requirement or need to acknowledge a positional call, to me it would have just been good airmanship to respond appropriately to the Captain's holding call (provided of course the frequency was not too busy).

The VFR (Day) Syllabus is on the CASA site: Day (VFR) Syllabus Not sure if this helps ....

AFAIK the BV: and IT: values are for remote monitoring of the AUTO site, and are normally stripped out of the METAR stream. BV is Battery Voltage and IT Internal Temperature I think? Rest is pretty standard.

Came across one t'other day. Lots of smoke around from controlled burns, but visibility well over 5000m. Very light wind from the north, maybe 3 or 4 knots. So it's RWY 36, which is the default anyway at YLIL in still conditions. Despite being VMC, my instructor warned me that it may be difficult to see the threshold of 36 on final - I was glad he told me, because on base it was difficult to even see the field itself looking through the smoke with the sun to the north (despite the ground being clearly visible and horizontal visibility solidly VMC). We were able to locate the strip with a little difficulty and turn final (although local knowledge came in handy). However, it was not until late final we were able to see the gables marking the runway threshold (and these are quite important when the position of the grass runway itself can vary within the runway strip). Touch and go was uneventful (although uneventful for me at my stage might seem pretty awful for you experienced guys ). As we took off we looked back and could see 18 perfectly (sun behind us). So, after talking to the others in the circuit we reversed the circuit to use 18 despite the slight tailwind. I guess the thing that would worry me is a non-radio aircraft inbound - they would see all the indications (smokestacks, lake ripples, etc) of a northerly, even if they overflew they might miss an aircraft in the circuit and the windsock would still clearly suggest 36. So the risk would be that they'd head downwind for 36 and (since all circuits are to the west at YLIL during the day) thus be in direct head-on conflict with other circuit traffic. With radio, and being able to monitor CTAF, SA would be much better - good argument for radio I guess! The other lesson for me was that things up there can be quite different to things down here! Thanks TP for researching this issue - sure got me thinking!:thumb_up: