Pominaus

I don't know the rates at this school, but around me the schools are defo making quite a bit more on lessons than they are from hiring, especially when it comes to taking the plane, laying over and returning. so the hiring side of things is just additional revenue options for when all the planes are on the ground. I actually got quite confused by the full story... so he built up 100 hours at school A, endorsements and what not, then went to school B and they said no? To be honest it is the height of the 'back to the sky' season - lots of schools around here are chockers right now, they might genuinely have enough students to fill the plane with dual time, or maybe as they say they prioritise their own ex students hiring over randoms.. makes sense to me.. However on the question should it be a requirement of RAA membership... no way! Someone, the school, another company, an indevidual owns that plane with their own money, and should (laws permitting) be able to do with it as they please. Now standard discrimination laws apply - if they won't let you hire it because you're from Melbourne and they're from Sydney you might have a case, but no I don't think that's a good idea. Ultimately the person offering the hire should be able to say no to an airline pilot if they just saw them hoon into the car park and aren't feeling good about the way they might treat the plane. Honestly if you put in the rules that anyone offering a plane for hire has to accept anybody with the right ticket if the plane is available, you'd just see a lot of for hire planes get pulled pretty quick and we'd all lose.

Just about the only thing I miss about tiny British gardens - all your neighbours having an electric lawnmower lol! Glad to hear I'm not the only one baffled by leaf blowers though!

I agree ballpark $30 is very reasonable - I pay about 4-5x that to go to other industry conventions where an awful lot more booths are paying to sell me stuff lol.

RIP Defender!

Yep, a lot of them where we live. Now spring's here, the schools out of Moorabbin are pretty busy, so fairly regular planes over head through the day, and a few night training flights in the evening. A neighbour caught me watching one the other day - cloud was low, so the plane was low enough to identify- and that triggered him on a 20 minute rant about rich guys flying noisy planes over his house (by which he means mostly about a mile away and just loud enough that you can just about hear them outside your house, unlike his 9am on a Sunday morning lawnmower/leaf blower/chainsaw). Having that yellow streak that helps keep pilots alive, I've kept my involvement in aviation a secret from him, though have flown over my... so I guess his house before.... oh the temptation to go full throttle!

Lol outrage. Personally I just fun looking into it, & op corrected them on the length from the start.

... yep! I didn't want to go to the sun, but they listed it as 22'2" long, so news.com.au just copied that and converted it to meters rather than pop on over to Wikipedia lol. Not sure where the Sun copied it from, but they got all their photos and bulk of it from Reuters... though the Reuters article doesn't list length. Maybe the sun just googled the wrong plane? Though tats a foot shorter than a pA28 Lol. I like to think they put in G7000 to google, google said did you mean G1000, aand just went with the first plane that came up

Knowing modern journalism it was probable copied whole sale from someone else's mistake lol. It's kind of like the old pirate radio stations that used to have their news and weather 10 minutes after the official stations

Congrats and good luck on the CPL! What's the plan for your commercial? I know some people do it for the next rating, but if you are looking for work, probably best to look at the hours going forward as resume building. I hear some employers might not count any time on jabiru's/foxbats as they don't use them - say meat bomber command or air taxi, but then as more and more schools start to use LSA's to lower costs, some schools looking for instructors might rate your jab time more highly than the 152 they retired.... Probs best to ask some advice in a chosen field if you have a plan imho.

Yep it's down Just checked downforeveryoneorjustme from my phone: It says they're hosted by rackspace, so I really wouldn't have expected any hosting problems, unless it's reseller hosting?

That's fair enough! Yeah for me it would be a no brainer as around here it's 50-100 bucks difference, so I wouldn't have to do many RA flights a year to be saving money, but if the margins are that small, and no options near by ... I'd probably let it lapse and reactivate when you do want it tbh - their membership fee is one of those numbers that's small when your flying, pretty huge when you're not. If you can that is; their website seems to be down for me right now lol.

I heard another podcast with one of the owners of TVSA not too long ago I think, and the Bristell sounded like they were pretty much brand new at the time, maybe they're building in the pay-off cost? I notice their website price sheet hasn't been updated to include the Bristell, though a C152 is only $199, and they burn what, about 10L more an hour? Or maybe the Bristell's are just more in demand with lessons? $140 is still a doable price in the east melbourne area - it's just availability unfortunately. I know lilydale for example charge about $140 solo for their Jab, and I think Coldstream have a technam, but if you take it cross country, the school's only making money on the time you've got it in the air. Whilst you're camping/fishing at the other end their plane is sitting around doing nothing, so if they have enough demand, it just makes more sense to them to keep the plane on base racking up dual hours. Are you able to hire midweek? It might be easier, schools quite often have a much larger ground squadron on a tuesday? Might be worth looking into joining a club at your nearest to build up some connections? I'd image a school would be more willing to hire to a known person than a rando?

Can't even imagine trying to land a two story plane with a fin that big in a crosswind! I'm defo qualified to pass judgement on the flight crew, but man I just enjoy watching those massive wings flex. Every time I fly back to the UK the long leg is on a 380, and I'm always amazed just how much those wings rise up as you pound down the tarmac!

I broadly agree, but I think this was loss driven. They lost over £200m in 2016, £100m this year and were projecting over £100m losses again next year. Granted they employed about 2000 people, but those numbers aren't sustainable. They briefly made a slight profit in 2015 after years of losses due to fuel price mostly, but really it's not reasonable to expect the state to fund every failing business. Fortunately for the workers, there does seem to be some demand for them from other airlines. It's a sad thing, but what can you do? If a company is loosing a hundred mil every year whilst their competitors make hundreds of millions per year... you have to say that really either the company is being run appallingly, or, more likely, passengers prefer to fly with someone else.

Nice one, best of luck! Did you decide to go with Lilydale in the end?