jackc

I was based at 85Tpt Pl in Moorebank Ave with about 15 rigs, Only 1 had the Road Ranger RTO 913 13sp gearbox. The rest had the Allison HT75 auto. Fruehoff trailers.

Those were the golden days for me, in the Military as an ECN367 Specialist Vehicle Operator on pay level 6. NO log books, NO scales, No Cops. Nice big ‘Green’ Diamond REO rigs with Cummins NTC 335 power in ‘73 and ‘74 doing Melbourne to Northam near Perth with Explosives across the Nullarbor, some of it dirt. My guard had his F1 sub machine gun. (damn it NO ammo) Best job I ever had 🙂 $17.90 a day travel allowance on top of Army pay. Then Gough Whitlam stuffed the whole show 😞

A company I drove for for a number of years in car carrying, the man who owned the place was a gentleman and a good friend, too. His son took over the business and they got a short contract hauling military vehicles to Shoalwater Bay from Gladstone Port and back, for an exercise. I was given precise instructions to have a load of beach buggy machines delivered at 6am to Samual Hill camp. I gets to the boundary gates in time to do the delivery and they are locked……I wait, no diligent diggers turn up to let me in. So me being a professional steering wheel attendant, breaks out the rigs tool box and dismantles the gates off the steel fence, drives through the the fence, stops and reassemble the gates and on my way (just remember here I have broken into an Army facility) On up to the camp to be greeted by a man in green. I will call him Major Malfunction 🙂. He questions how I got in so I told him what I did to make ‘his’ delivery on time……..I was immediately shredded for my effort. I said ‘son’ don’t ever set me a deadline and make it hard for me to deliver……because I WILL deliver, what ever it takes!! On the way out, the Army Engineers are welding gate hinges reinforcing post etc. I stop and one smarty pants say you won’t get in as easy next time……I say yes I will, bring an Oxy Set next trip. 🙂 I was fired as soon as I got to the Depot, no more job for me. The young son was never a patch on his old man….. In my later years I never did quite fit with the Transport Industry and that is one reason many fleets are closing up and drivers giving the road away. They have all had enough and it’s very hard to find good replacements…….

Sadly, some drivers are little better than steering wheel attendants. But also there many who are very good at their work but are subject to all sorts of policies, company regulations etc. A certain bus company has little pigeon hole mailboxes for each driver. at their depots, Driver returns from trip to check his ‘mailbox’ to a pile of infringement notices……your Coach idled here for more than 5 minutes, 3 notices. You were overspeed for more than 30 seconds, 3 notices with location. You were ‘off route’ in 4 places at these places (Camera does not take pics of roadworks detours etc’ Drivers camera? 27 times picking your nose? I would walk into the bosse’s office, with my fist full of infringements an tell him to wipe his rearmost facing orifice with them, drop the Coach keys on his table and tell him I am a driver, not a robot. Suggest you hire my replacement from the Robot Employment Service…..I am outta here 🙂

Maybe Electronic Conspicuity Devices need to be……dare I say it? Mandated? Drones ADS-B set up and mandated, so they can dodge us? Like it or not……it’s coming, one day.

I worked there in the middle ‘70s, drove the oldest of 104 trucks in the fleet, an AB184 Inter with a 160 Cummins in it. Training? What was that? Care? What was that? Stan, Ron’s father was a gentleman. I sadly had some horror stories of that place. Best days were crawling on the roads, loaded and as far away as possible from the yard 🙂

Fix that…..tell ALL Gliderists to ditch their FLARM boxes and get a Sky Echo while the subsidy is running then everyone ends up with ADS-B. Mr ‘FLARM’ can go whistle 🙂

I am not so sure IF the Sky Echo can accommodate the FLARM freq that is used in Australia. The best solution would have been that a global harmonised FLARM frequency be used, like ADS-B. The ACMA allocated the freq band used in Europe to some other unrelated users in Australia, Telcos etc? I suspect that is why the cost of FLARM units is so high in Australia because of its small market here with dedicated frequency not used in other parts of the World?

Trouble is, the Govt NEVER gives anything without strings attached. Personally, I believe people should fund their own safety equipment, Be like expecting the Govt to supply free seatbelts for your old pre 1963 car, or something like that.

It came to me from a third party of some authority that the Glider pilot was on the radio making all the correct calls during his flight, the other aircraft was not heard communicating at all, no calls were heard at all? One could only assume he was on a different frequency maybe? As I said, hearsay only……

I simply bought my SE2 and paid full price…….don’t care about waiting for subsidy, it was a piece of safety equipment I wanted, regardless. Safety will always come at a price, my motorcycle helmets were in the region of $900, my brains are worth a lot to me…….IF i won’t pay the price for good safety equipment…….I won’t undertake the relevant activity.

Mention retro fitment of BRS? RAAus just go ‘ballistic’ over that 🙂. Been there once and decided to simply buy a parachute I now have. Plane falls apart? Catches fire etc? I am OUT the door hoping parachute does it’s job……

This will be the start of arguments between peak bodies, CASA will get in the middle of it and…..3 years later nothing will have been done and then age of pilots will add to the points scoring in support of various ideas…..

Sounds logical to me, but people will say WHY should ADS-B be compulsory when some people only fly in low traffic areas? Should it only be in certain high traffic areas only? I checked the cost of FLARM units and they were costly, in the order of $3000 or so?

Global Radio Frequency Management starts here, then trickles down to all countries. https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx

Not to mention FLARM and ADS-B don’t work together in Australia where in Europe they do? Also, nearly all gliders are primarily white in colour, sometimes rather hard to see……

Try riding motorcycles in a city environment……stress level wise I would be better off flying.

My related condition report I complained about, was on a plane that was about as airworthy as a 3 wheeled billycart, would be roadworthy.

When an RAA employee told me, they did not care IF I used Blue Tack to stick the wings on my plane…….when querying a condition report…….that was the end of it for me……. There are good people in that organisation, then there are some not so good……

In which case I will take future RAAus videos with a grain of salt? Bit sad really. While it’s appreciated that RAaus did the video in good faith, the content appears to be a little wanting.

Only way to test a Thruster with a 582, works for me with a snatch strap secured to a Landcruiser bullbar 🙂

Ferrite beads can be your friend 🙂

Sometime a thread can suffer severe ‘yaw’ so long as it does not stall then spin 🙂

Don, Sadly I am late to the aviation ‘party’ I will get a little fun from it before EOL but being the Dinosaur that I and many others are, I wonder if Aviation as a hobby will simply die in Australia? I am a member of EAA in the U.S. and all I see is them going ahead and bounds. I joined AOPA here and tried to get them interested in the promo area for young people etc. Gave up as they did not care, busy junketing about saving airports is their deal. Banging on about Bankstown etc, that is a lost cause. They got angry when I did not renew my membership. Whilst I am still messing about with my Thruster and Aeropup, I now have a J-230D that actually flies and needs nothing done to it, except jettisoning its Microair radio 🙂 Jack.

Motorcycle riding experience teaches you the same…..