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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.

Please, if you find anything that is not working properly or just doesn't seem right with the site then let me know...thanks

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

It'll buff out

Yes you can, a couple of users just donate $10 here and there, just turn off the PayPal subscription although a donation of $50 or more automatically gets you a 1 year First Class Membership, again you can turn off the subscription.

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

Here are some more screenshots of different size screens and side vs top menu systems...

Guys/Gals, there is so much involved in building the site up from the current version of the software to the latest version of it so it is taking a very long time and a lot of work. I am currently in two minds whether to just leave the site running an old version of the software which is not good to do in this modern age with all the hackers etc out there. The main consideration apart from site security is the future cost of getting the integration done now with the old software and then have to pay again, although not the full amount again, when the development of the new software version is completed.. There is also another consideration and that is in what shop software I use. I have a perpetual license with CS-Cart so I don't have to pay for updates. If I was to pay for that CS-Cart it would cost me $1,350 and then $400 a year for the updates. Staying with CS-Cart is going to cost me $500USD to get the required development done. The other option is to go for OpenCart which is free but will cost a couple a hundred dollars to get the required addons of AustPost Shipping and the Credit Card payment interface, these come in CS-Cart already and free. The OpenCart and Forums software integration is only going to cost me $200 though. Decisions...decisions...decisions???? Anyway this is what I have so far, after all this time, on the latest forum software but as I said there is still a long way to go:

Found the issue, there are 2 registrations in the system for you each with a different email address, pmccarthy and pmccarthy1 (with 21 posts). This could have been caused from several years ago when I merged 2 sites together and the system automatically placed a 1 after the imported users username. This should be all fixed now as I have merged the 2 together keeping the username just pmccarthy and changed your email address to the one used on SA. Let me know if all is ok now, thanks

I will look into it however remember that SA and this site are 2 completely different sites so the user details are not linked between the 2 sites.

My view on this which has gone right back to day 1 is I refuse to charge anyone a fee to maybe find out something through the use of the site that may save their life. THAT is what this site was set up to do, help aviators to learn from each other's experiences. I personally think that if I charged people a set fee for that, then I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. It would discriminate against those that can't afford it by maybe, just maybe, using their life as a "your life for a fee". What kind of person would I be if I did that, no, any donation is so much appreciated.

Yes, all content as it is now will be moved to Aircraft Pilots although if I do get time I may clean up some of the old posts from 20+ years ago

Update, forum software v5 is not playing nice with our current setup so lots of work to be done there. Evaluation of shop software completed and decision is to try and stick with our current software. Will keep you informed.

Also Clear Prop has just about every nut, bolt fastener and clamp...aviation grade...here in stock...and many different gauges of WIRE and transponder kits...just ask for anything you need. In fact, doing so helps this site that you get for free than to just recommend going elsewhere