GraemeK

Right from the start, my instructor taught me to keep my hand on the throttle in the circuit. If I didn't, he'd pull the throttle on me, which got my immediate attention!

Hi Donna, and welcome to the forums . You'll find a great bunch of people here, from those with vast experience to newcomers at the same stage as you, so there's always someone who can help out with advice. It was a great video, we look forward to seeing more! Cheers

Well done horsefeathers -must be a great feeling!

Welcome griffio! You'll find a lot of friendly folk on this site. Must be great to have your Pipistrel so close to home, easy to get out for a fly ....

Fantastic flighty! Well done

They're not real Apple fans Darky - the REAL fans are out there queueing for their iPads today, not mucking around on forums ....

Good for you Darky! For a while there I was almost about to buy an iPhone, but thankfully you've brought me to my senses in the nick of time :thumb_up:. I'll watch this thread with interest .........

G'day Jeff, and welcome to the forums! They're a great bunch here .... I started to learn to fly when I turned 60, so it's never too late to start! So I'd say give it a go! BTW - good to see another father of twin girls on the forum! Mine live in Hong Kong.

Sorry mate, you seem to have missed the point. GAAP Approach Points were mandatory. VFR Approach Points are new (at least as far as the old GAAP fields are concerned, we've always had them elsewhere), and are not mandatory, except where ERSA says so. ERSA says VFR AP's are mandatory at YMMB and YSBK at least (maybe others) . No problems there, exactly what I said!! My issue is with the tutorials, which should not say VFR AP's are not mandatory - rather they should say "check the ERSA". I'm afraid it is misleading, maybe not dangerously so - but sorting it out in the air creates a risk that would not be there if the regulator's tutorials were correct.

Here's another one. The old GAAP Approach Points are gone, right? And the new VFR Approach Points are recommended, not mandatory, right? Because the tutorial tells me so: VFR Approach Points have become recommended rather than mandatory. WRONG! At least at YMMB, ERSA tells us that we must request clearance at a VFR Approach Point! I understand that ERSA can impose extra limitations, and that's OK - but for CASA educational materials to be dangerously misleading is another thing altogether. No wonder they've got the disclaimer JR!

That would've been VH-INA , piloted by Captain Keith Hants - he literally had to shake the engine off before he could land! I can remember the DC-6's in their heyday - we lived under the flightpath for 26 at YMEN.

As sseeker points out, Jabiru did spin testing (maybe not as extensive as the Flycatcher though) - there's some video on their website. I would have thought some degree of spin testing ought to be conducted - if only because the "No Intentional Spins" placard won't prevent them happening!

True Crezzi, that's pretty much the point of ERSA, to provide location specific requirements such as circuit direction etc - but then I would have expected ERSA to say "radio carriage mandatory", as provided for in the regs. As it stands, radio carriage is not mandatory there - but particular broadcasts are. My point however was no so much the contradictions but that CASA was being slack in not investing the time to work out which fields should have mandatory radio and which should not - they basically said "it's all too hard, so we'll ignore it" in their discussion document. Strange attitude for a regulator, methinks ....

Suspect we'll see a few of these anomalies now that CTAF® is gone. YCAS under the new regs doesn't require radio carriage. Seems like maybe the CASA bureaucrats should have done their homework before rushing into this - and declared some of the old CTAF® fields as mandatory radio carriage (as the new regs allow). Instead, they took the cop-out of publicly saying the old CTAF® list was way out of date anyway and they really didn't have the time or inclination to fix it. Meantime, the ERSA entry for YCAS is inconsistent - it specifically requires pilots to broadcast their intentions before operating on the runway and yet you can operate legally without a radio. Rush into things, you're just asking for trouble .....

Yarra Valley Aero Club :big_grin: But sad to see the developments at Wang - I reckon all GA clubs/schools should be supporting recreational aviation because that is the growth area (not saying Wang didn't, they had the Eurofox I think). Plus I reckon GA should support CTA endorsement for RA - because long term that is the only thing that will stop Moorabbin, Parafield, Archerfield etc being closed and sold off for real estate. I can't understand why people like Australian Flying's Doug Nancarrow, who clearly see the writing on the wall, can't join the dots and see where the future lies .....

I've been into London City a few times, and it's fair to say it's not fun in a crosswind .....

Very disappointing if that occurred in the Jab factory .... But well done Geoff in picking it up - it just shows how important depth of experience (backed up by gut feel) is in detecting problems before things go badly pear shaped. How many of us would have picked it up?

Ah - I thought so! Looks like it's at George Town in Tassie, and the instructor bears more than a passing resemblance to Eugene from RA-Aus. But well done to FFgod!

Penfield is an airfield about 4nm NW of Sunbury, near Riddells Creek.

Tomo, it's on Page 70 of the May-June Australian Flying (same issue as Nancarrow's piece). Don't want to labour the point, but my point was his statements were completely incorrect - looks like he was confusing pitot blockage with static port blockage - as we know, two quite different things! Here's the quote: No mystery, methinks! Reckon I'll leave it at that, unfortunately in my old age I'm at grave risk of becoming a grumpy old man!! :gerg:

Yep David, so did I (they were one of the highlights of the mag) - but now I know I have to think more carefully about his analysis ......

Just to follow on from my earlier post - this is a serious GA magazine, right? And we all follow the South African Jim Davis with his commentaries on flight safety, stuff ups etc? And we hang on his every word, right, because he's the expert? Well, how about this drivel? Well James, let a humble RA-Aus pilot help you. To make it easy for you, I will assume the atmospheric pressure has not changed since the "mud-bugs" infested the vents - I'm sure even the newest PPL will be able to tell you how much the readings will change if the pressure moves higher or lower after the vent is blocked. Firstly, the ASI will indicate normal airspeed!! So they will take off blissfully unaware of any problem! So much for your critical analysis there!! (Of course, as they climb, the static pressure will remain constant instead of decreasing, so the ASI will progressively read low). Secondly, the VSI will not just "under-read" - it will read precisely zero! We know precisely what the error is! Thirdly, the altimeter will indeed read incorrectly (either under or over, depending) - and we know exactly by how much Jim! It will stay constant!! So, when we are at 1000' it will under-read by 1000' and so on! So, we don't have to invoke your new theory about the compressibility of air in the static tube (much as you might have hoped this new insight might have earned you a Nobel Prize in Physics) - it's very simple, basic, PPL BAK stuff! No mysteries here! This really is pathetic stuff for a mag that professes to be there to educate and inform pilots. At my RA-Aus school, if Mr Davis served up this drivel he would be failed on the spot. And deservedly so - this is dangerous advice!

Beautifully written piece Mat! Captures the issues very well. I had been about to subscribe to this mag, but Nancarrow's article turned me against it - along with the stuff about static port blockage in Jim Davis' article - for an experienced GA pilot he sure is confused on what happens when the static port is blocked, maybe he needs to go back to school and repeat his BAK ..... Dangerous, especially when novice pilots are looking for guidance.

ERSA and AIP subscription, maps as needed. CAAP's, CAR's etc - sign up to email advice from CASA, then download what you need. DAP's not really needed, unless you're IFR - but download them if you're interested (I do, just so I know what standard arrivals/departures look like, where things might be coming from).

Further to Andy's post, it's the FCC (the communications regulator) in the US that bans mobiles in planes, not the FAA (the aviation regulator). Reason? As Andy suggests, the cell system really wasn't built to handle a rapidly moving transceiver that is pretty much equidistant to maybe 30 or 40 towers at any one time. There's really no evidence to support interference to aircraft systems, despite investigations by Boeing and others. As for cameras Darky, it just depends. Some of the newer sensors are so sensitive that they literally suck photons out of the air. So if the camera is pointed towards the engines, it can create a photon deficiency in the transmogrifier bypass amplifier, leading to turbo encabulator failure at the nofer trunnion and hence compressor stall. So be warned!!