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Had a great overnight fly out to Lake Dunn a nicely prepared strip surface and is planned to be lengthened a bit for Royal Flying Doctor requirements / use. Weather was mint, great company and good feeds. It's a 207 N/ml flight from my home strip. Lake Dunn August 2025.mp4

It's not such a huge step from timber to communications....

Not sure what this has to do with Chinese aviation. But there is a simple truth about Ukraine, no matter what news source you look at- ruzzia invaded Ukraine. If they just go home, the war can stop. That's the truth.

In a freak accident, an unmanned plane took off from a Sydney airstrip by itself on August 30, 1955. When a pilot in training suffered engine troubles, he landed at Bankstown Airport. After he climbed out, he spun the propeller by hand and the plane unexpectedly started moving on its own. The Auster, like this one below, somehow took off from the runway and began flying in ever wider circles. For hours the unmanned plane flew over the city, its range extending from Mascot to Vaucluse, over Punchbowl, Rockdale, Redfern and the CBD. RAAF planes were dispatched from Richmond and Newcastle to shoot down the plane over the ocean, but they were unsuccessful. Eventually two British pilots JR Bluett and Peter McNay, who had flown up from Nowra, were able to knock the plane out of the sky. The two pilots were celebrated, but the Australian government was grilled on why it took three hours to successfully intercept a light plane with nobody flying it.

Welcome to Aircraft Pilots .com There are few little things that need tidying up which requires 3rd party updates but these will automatically happen when they update their files

There actually are standard words for this, depending on whether you’re talking military, aviation, or general radio procedure. The typical format is a two-part assessment: Strength (how loud the signal is) Readability (how clear the speech is) 1. Signal Strength (first word) Loud – very strong signal Good – strong, but not excessive Weak – signal is faint Very weak – barely readable Fading – signal strength varies 2. Readability (second word) Clear – perfectly understandable Readable – understandable without difficulty Unreadable – cannot be understood Distorted – signal warped, hard to understand With interference / noisy – background noise present but copyable Broken – speech cutting in and out So, examples you’ll hear are: “Loud and clear” (the gold standard) “Weak but readable” “Good but with interference” “Unreadable” Aviation / military shorthand In NATO and ICAO radiotelephony, there’s also the “Readability Scale” (1–5): 1 – Unreadable 2 – Readable now and then 3 – Readable with difficulty 4 – Readable 5 – Perfectly readable So a pilot might just say “Read you five” instead of “Loud and clear.”

Caddx Walksnail FPV and iNav on a SpeedyBee flight controller in my DW Hobby 1.9m Savage Bobber Bush Plane. Just love the unobstructed views from this aeroplane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDP1mhP9Jow

Some 17mm ID Gates Molded Heater Hose contributions ; 24081 - 724mm long 23760 - 482mm 19498 - 322mm 19489 - 345mm 19497 -429mm 19311 - 452mm 19457 - 462mm 19310 - 463mm 19413 - 508mm 19486 - 559mm 19414 - 609mm From https://www.gatesaustralia.com.au/~/media/files/gates/automotive/catalogs/automotive/gates-molded-coolant-hose-id-guide_web.pdf Clamed specification -40 Deg. C +135 Deg. C All molded in various shapes - you will have to pick the ones that best meet your needs😈

Loud and clear came about people got confused with '5 by 5' or '5 by 9' none of which is that complicated. I recommend you only use 'loud and clear' or a short plain language description ie "muffled", "understandable but lot of background noise"(borderline too long), "weak but clear" etc

Bolts replaced, new brake disks installed and taxi runs done. Trying to get the balance between too much space between the disks and pads and too much travel in the brake lever. I just need to araldite in the screw in fittings for the fairings and it will be good for a flight test (and I can get back to flying).

..... they imitated Ed Devereau and Tony Bonner by saying "What's that Skip? Chairman Mao has fallen in the liver and hurt his reg? Come on Skip, rets lun and lescue him" Skip, who would normally answer with a few Zulu type clicks, which when translated from Zulu actually meant "Don't be a dickhead Tony, I'm only a kangaroo", then replied, because the NES has disclosed that he is a Chinese speaking ex Prime Minister, by saying .....

Took the Nynja for a fly on the weekend to Lake Dunn, a 207 N/ml each way and stayed overnight. 29 aircraft attended the catchup. It's never an advertised event as it's just a by word of mouth catchup of flying friends. The strip is to be extended about 100 meters to comply with RFDS aircraft requirements. The strip was in perfect surface condition. Weather was excellent and tail winds of about 15 knots each way so can not complain. Lake Dunn August 2025 with text.mp4

I can remember Bex - r- better saying much the same thing in his frustration with us, and it’s interesting that two giant Chinese retailers already have warehouses and retail outlets in most States of Australia, delivering our internet orders sometimes same day. I have two memories of their abilities. In one case a former boss of mine went to China and set up a plant to make panels which resulted in a very successful business. A Chinese official came to his factory a couple of years later and said “We’re building a free way through here, we’re going to move you there (about 20 km away), what design do you want for your new factory. In Australia this would lead to a digging in 5-year process, trifling compensation etc. They said they were paying for the new factory and all transfer costs, so he accepted the deal, got a newer, bigger, more productive factory and today is worth upwards of $20 million. The other case was when the South Korean cars started chewing into General Motors’ Holden sales in Australia. The Button plan ensured that local manufacturing couldn’t compete, so around 2004 the Director of Finance at Holden was sent to China to set up and build a Carline for Holdens to beat the South Koreans. By the time he had it part built, GM realised the new middle classes of Chinese business owners had started building McMansions to live in and China had become a Car country as against people in blue overalls and riding bikes, and took over the line to build Cadillacs in much bigger volumes than Australia could sell Holdens. This is one of the early promotional activities in Shanghai in 2011 Cadillac Stunt Drivers Shanghai - link GM went into a joint venture with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) They build a factory with 160,000 capacity per year. Cost was $122 billion. It’s the only plant in China to achieve 100% automated welding. It has one line for steel bodies and another line for all-aluminium bodies (with laser brazing). SAIC – GM produced 673,007 Chevrolet/Buick/Cadillac in China in 2024. Since 2017 China has been Cadillac’s biggest market

..... chuck the used Depends down their long-drop, then he would towel himself off, put on 3 new pairs, and watch the Mongolian ladies swoon because of his new rounded shape "down there", before striding confidently, although bandy leggedly, back to the CT, when he would ......

Electic motors are ideal for producing very high speeds. In the 1960s we raced insanely fast slot cars; Pylon RC Aircraft racing has been popular for many years. It's based on the Torque x rpm = horsepower relationship; spin the motor faster and exponential brake horselpower is generated. However there are two militations; one is heat and the other is the rule exponentially more power demanded = exponentially shorter battery. 1/4 mile Drag Racing is an application where we are starting to see some battery powered cars.

Update. I figured it couldn't hurt to move it. Only thing of course is because of the length, unless it's in the tailplane, something's gonna poke out. So 3D printer to the rescue 😀 There wasn't a lot of traffic this morning. I did a circuit without no one else on the radio. From that brief flight it seems that making the aerial vertical has made it sound (to me) more consistent. That is, whether I was on the ground, or downwind or turning to base it sounded much the same . It was getting a bit breezy for this low hours pilot so I took the opportunity to work on tidying it up. I was hopeful that someone might be in the radio down the other end and I wanted to test the difference from port and starboard 'broadside'. You'll notice because the aerial is close to starboard, it's closer to some tubes. My general understanding is the dipole radiation pattern is two torus. Basically two doughnuts with a very smaller hole. I have one tube virtually in the centre where the two 'doughnuts' are 'stacked', so I figure it won't have much effect. The top tube will have more of an effect. As you can imagine, the number of degrees of 'shadow' it would cause depends on its diameter and the distance from the aerial. This is pretty close. So I would say maybe 40mm of the aerial just there is 'shaded' by about 35°. It gets too complicated to imagine how much effect that is though, because the rest of the aerial around it must radiate some energy into that space. As well, I believe a metal object close and in the way will re-radiate some of the energy, thus 'filling in some of blanks' so to speak. The signal won't be as good in that general arc but more than zero. ANYWAY, with all that in mind, I taxied the plane to have the starboard side perpendicular to the runway so that if there was someone down the other end, my signal should be somewhat shielded by that tube. Someone was down the other end. They read me 4. I then turned around 180°. They read me 5. This all adds up. So, in the end it would seem it was worth fiddling with the aerial. On the ground, slightly weaker signal on the starboard side, but still readable. In the air, for most circumstances it should be fine above, below and behind. I feel for any installation the engine in front will cause some shadowing. And starboard, from a distance should be fine as the radiation 'normalises'. Close, the total of the signal will be stronger so I imagine still readable. Probably would be better to have it in the centre, but I would probably have to run a new cable to reach. This was much easier 😄

I bought a flight computer when I started flying. Used it for study and com subjects. Used it for ground speed checks when I first started flying for a living then stuck it in a draw. In the last 46 years I have never felt the need for such a device. GPS have made things so much easier since they appeared. I am a simple person, I like the KISS principle with the emphasis on the last S with me.

I have decided that the site will need a lot more work before we can upgrade to v5 of the forum software so we will be moving to the new domain of Aircraft Pilots .com this Friday 29th Aug 2025. This existing site will close at around 7pm AEST and the files will begin to be moved across from Recreational Flying .com to Aircraft Pilots .com. When the site has been fully moved across and testing is complete, a redirect will be placed here at Recreational Flying .com. What this means is that when you come to Recreational Flying .com and see the site logo changed to Aircraft Pilots it will mean you will be on the new domain Aircraft Pilots .com. When this happens you can update any links you use to come to the site replacing the Recreational Flying .com to Aircraft Pilots .com. If you have any major issues from Saturday morning in getting on to the site at Aircraft Pilots .com, please use ian (the normal at sign) jackaroo.com.au

It seems to me he's grasping at straws.........but I can agree with his larger point: that it's all speculation unless we get a good look at the detail of the data. And until then, it is wrong to be suggesting where the error/s may lie.

I never said it is a perfect machine - no aircraft is. There probably isn't a model of aircraft in the market that has not been in an incident. My exception was to your comment that they have "has some serious handling issues", which they actually don't. The problems were the data was wrong, which resulted in aircraft being poorly loaded. You do that with anything in this class, and you will get the same result. I agree - this latest incident raises more questions than it answers, and given the little bits that we know, there is no way of knowing what happened. But the lack of comms etc, as you have mentioned, leans me away from an aircraft issue - but sadly, we may never know.

Nokia is an amazing story. It was a timber and sawmilling town in Finland and the timber was running out. They looked for a new industry and decided to make mobile phones. They built up the world’s leading business at the time. Like most people, I thought it was an Asian company until I went there and they told me the story.

I had an experience similar to that depicted in the clip. Fortunately I was a bit further out on final to rwy 35 at Moorabbin. This was late 60's/early 70's. Hadn't had my unrestricted PPL very long. I had taken my brother, uncle and brother-in-law on a short local flight, their first flight in a GA aircraft, a Beech Musketeer. We had turned onto final, and were at about 300 ft when the bottom fell out of everything. I remembered what my instructor had impressed on me, and applied full throttle, but held the plane level, overflying the runway level to the ground as I built speed before attempting to climb and slowly retract the flap. Go around and try again. There were a couple of white faces on my passengers.

Badge engineering 🤫

Did the book tell you about the cunning level of misinformation that would be readily available in the 21st century? 😄

..........trust he had built up with Cappy. During a prawning trip he'd met up with an Indonesian trawler Captain, Solly Wesi who ran, as a sideline an "import/export business" Solly pointed out to bull the benefits of buying on the high seas, where there were no taxes and selling on high seas near Australia where there were no duties. I f the products were assisted to get on the Indonesian boat, rather than bought and even paid to do so there was a big wad of cash to be shared by the two trawler skippers. Knowing deals like this could turn nasty, bull hired Cappy for security. Cappy knew the normal military rifles were inaccurate on small vessels due to the constant rolling, so he took his gold plated Under and Over skeet gun and a case of SGs. All went well for three months and they were rolling in money, but the Australian Coastguard had picked up from a gossiping poster on WF that "some" people were about to buy themselves new, top of the range LSA aircraft from Romania. Weipa was the go to port smugglers went to and also the base of Sergeant Shane Track, Commonwealth Police, who was embedded there as a beachcomber but didn't seem to be very successful. He drank everyone under the table and went home every night with a diffferent chick. Owing a Drifter, his ears pricked up at the latest WFgossip, and he was fishing on the wharf when bull's trawler came in. He noticed the smell of a particular stinky cigar wafting from the boat. A week later it was his stint on the Coastgard boat out of Darwin, and they accosted various Torres Strait Islanders, inspecting their fish catch and fining them for any under-length. Oddly none of their boats carried the Australian Torres Island flag. This flag shows the back end of a bull (not our bull), so people should have been aware the flag was a joke. And every one of them swore they were not Austrasians, had never been there, and living 400 metres off PNG, were never likely to go there because PNG paid a lot more. They argued they were not under Australian jurisdiction. Just then, a trawler appeared over the horizon, and bull deployed his nets quickly. As the Coastguard boat "Harold Holt" drew near, the Captain hailed bull and asked how the fishing was going. "the xxxxx all seem to have gone out into the xxxxxxx indian ocean" replied bull, trying to appear innocent. Everything looked OK and the Coastguard boat was pulling away. "WAIT!" yelled the Sergeant. He could smell that stinky cigar smoke wafting across from the old gentleman who looked to be a tourist, but who was watching him with the intent of a .......................

I'm not sure what the issue is. Most modern routers use both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz as their WiFi frequencies. (6Ghz is a new frequency on WiFi 7 - a new standard) your older tablets and phone should be capable of talking WiFi 5 or 6 on 2.4Ghz. 2.4 is the "old" frequency but still in use by a wide variety of "legacy", oldish and new devices. If you are having problems connecting on 2.4Ghz it may be a problem with your router and it might need to be replaced. Take your tablets and phones down to the local mall that offers free WiFi, if they connect and talk you have a problem with your router. What is your router?

China produces new military coaxial helicopter prototype - and surprise, surprise, it's almost identical to the newest Sikorsky S-97 Raider .... https://armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2025/breaking-news-new-chinese-high-speed-coaxial-helicopter-resembling-us-sikorsky-raider-raises-concerns

I am currently on Vodafone because I am mainly in metro areas and the pricing is better including international calls. Yes, the combined VF/Optus coverage is better than the VF coverage previously but I think it is misleading to say it is better than Telstra. In pretty much every area the Telstra coverage is better and if you regularly travel in rural areas you still want Telstra.

I am sure 99% of people realise this, but just in case, - The Optus/Vodafone coverage is now combined - so it's a lot better than in the past. There are times when my Avplan on Optus/Vodafone has got a connection, but another device using Telstra has not. - if you see SOS on your phone, it means your carrier (or reseller) has no official coverage, but one of the other carriers does, so a call to 000 will go through, but not a call/sms to your significant other.

.......the most posts on how to fly when you're ................... Willie came to Melbourne and the concert before interval was what we were expecting, but the concert after interval clearly belonged to the group talking to themselves, trying to play guitars and making odd noises.

Yes, please do, because that's a load of bollocks...

Ukraine & Russia have intertwined histories. Most of the population are bilingual. Their traditions ,secular & religious are very similar. I strongly doubt that any such "cleansing" has taken place, if for no other reason that it would be impractical to sort the Russian from the Ukraine speakers. On the other hand I think it highly likly that the peoples of the Russian occupied regions, are being brainwashed into good little Russians. Your comments sound very much like Putin propaganda rational for invading - to save the Ukrainians from the Nazi government , etc😈

Ship Happens. Nev

Thanks everyone my L2 removed the sprung legs and re-drilled and reamed new bolt holes at the top centre connection point to bring the wheels back to upright. Ready for test flight just waiting for registration certification..

You're the man for the job Ian, and all your hard work over the years is much appreciated. Thank you. Rgds Planey

Wind shear near the gound is hard to predict and can have wide ranging effects . We are going to have to deal with more of this as the weather seems to be becoming more extreme more often. A gusting wind change associated with a sea breeze or cold front is common in some places. Hit the Power and loosely hold the attitude. Do NOT chase the airspeed. IF you have been lifted UP chance are you go down soon. Be ready for it. Downburst from nearby storm s used to cause Jet losses till the training changed for late approach situations. MAX power is the first action. If you are interested there's a lot of info on reaction times on engine failures at about V 1.( go or stop). where it's very critical.. Balanced field Length. Nev

Turns out the aforementioned list has a lot of discontinued 17mm (.65-.66") ID hoses. For currency you may be better cross checking between: https://www.maxiparts.com.au/Documents/Supplier/Gates/gates-molded-coolant-hose-id-guide_web.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOoqVQCrOxyL-PSBb3p2dyjN8JTcyHwveCFPfpouutmQ076b1I4vA (Gives shape & dimensions in inches) And https://www.gates.com/us/en/fluid-power/engine-hose/heater-hose.p.4257-000000-000001.v.4257-01361.html (Gives currency, shape , dimensions in mm & inches) 😈

......spending a happy happy hour with various Mongol chicks who slavishly follow the hairstyles and dress codes of Melbourne in the sixties. Not many people know that Harry was sent by the Australian government to Mongolia to stop the Domino effect which would have seen Australia a communist country; it was that important. Of course it also stopped the trouble-making, sniping and chick marauding in Canberra too. When the sub landed at Khalkhin the Dominos had reached the town and were being fought off by descendants of Ghenghis Khan and two CIA operratives, Cappy and Turbo, the two leaders shown in the background of the photo. The Dominoes were just about to break through when................

I wasn't being serious but in that case probably best to leave the timber in place, just in case.

......ensured there were no Pbreacks required on the journey, or Cappy whine "How far is it to the next stop all day. The only problem was the drop tank's lugs which were prone to sticking and would let the drop tank go .......

..... what the Chinese or Russian sub reported that Harry himself smelt like when they picked him up. It is little known that Harry now lives a life a leisure flitting between Beijing and Moscow, and he does those flits by tracking thru Zav Kan (Turbo & Cappy spent some time in that area under cover and behind the lines during the cold war) in a highly modified CT with wingtip tanks and a central drop tank that .......

Solly's 1st mate was Wes Pap-ua-smear. Because all of the Torres Strait Islander flags were down in Cantberra covering up the Aussie National Flag at press conferences. ..... coiled Eastern Brown, but Cappy and his trusty shotty full of SGs, although it also crossed his mind that taking on the Aussie Govt, just to protect bull, was not one of his best ideas. But then the danger was over, as bull had sent the crew and Captain of the Harry Holt $1,000 each plus a 5 kg bag of uncooked prawns, although that smell of prawns reminded them of ...... Cappy looked like a big version of this as he prepared to protect bull.

I keep having to replace , my & wife's 'tablets ' & ' laptops ' due solely to " WiFi " being g out dated . They are still usable with a long " cord " to our modem . spacesailor PS. : who is going to make a transmitter box , plugged into the " Ethernet port " on the nbn , to adapt the old wireless ' receiver ", ( in our tablets ) to the new frequency, we could dispense with the " Wifi router " . plug in the " new transmitter " . And be happy again .

The list of "compatible" phones is limited. Some iPhones & a couple of Samsung's😈

Best used to be 5 by 5. Scale 1 to 5. Nev

Nothing pulls the Pads back. The pack of pressure should be enough for them to turn freely. Nev

I debated swapping to Telstra from Boost to take advantage of the satellite messaging. Decided to stay with the Zoleo. Gives me messaging and email over satellite. Also main feature for me, GPS tracking for those holding my flight note. Works out better and cheaper than changing. When apps like Life360 work over satellite that will be a game changer for me.

I bet that's one border collie that will never be persuaded to get into an aeroplane, ever again!! That pilot is lucky to get out with just a knee fracture, that aircraft is a mess.

They can ditch the glossy mag, it’s just part of the rich boys club that has become RA these days!🤮

New parts have arrived, the rubber bushings are now red nolethane bushes. Even got a few baggies with machine screws and the little screw in fittings for the fusilage to hold on th fairings. Moved the planes around in the hanger, just working on how I am going to move the engine hoist to the airfield. Interior is out, and I have found all the interior nuts I need to remove. sitting ataround 360kg (empty plane with fuel) there is 2 degrees of positive camber Planning on getting some time next week (perhaps tomorrow) to go and make a start on this. Need to remember to get 5min apoxy glue on the way. Caboose.