kgwilson

The recriminations are becoming louder. Boeing has temporarily halted production of the Max. There are now more than 380 new Max's in storage. The FAAs Steve Dickson chastised Muilenburg this week for pursuing an unrealistic date for the return of the Max to service which is now pushed out to an unknown date in 2020 after he (Dickson) was grilled by the House over FAAs decision to allow the Max to continue flying after the Lion Air crash. With no production the 600 companies supplying parts have to decide what to do with skilled workers. If many go elsewhere for work then that leaves a vacuum when production does start again.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/118252923/boeing-considers-halting-production-of-737-max

If they are LEDs as they should be these days the power drain is miniscule and they don't cause radio interference like the horrible units of old which then required supressing.

Just FYI if you are posting a URL (web site) click on the link icon ( looks like a chain) & paste the URL details there. Then when someone clicks on it they will be taken directly to that web site like this

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/6545947/pilot-dead-in-plane-crash-after-leaving-from-shellharbour-airport/

I have a J170D Model. Just wondering what unfair criticism you are aware of?

 

Mainly it was people knocking the engine but that seems to have gone quiet lately. The Coff flying schools J170 engines have always made TBO & the last one was replaced as a brand new engine was cheaper than getting it overhauled. The ergonomics of the cabin are not perfect but then this can be said of many aircraft. Some are downright awful, much worse that the Jab. I did my conversion to RA from GA in a J170 & as soon as I realised (on the first flare) the lack of inertia means you fly them to the ground I found it a delight to fly.

A friend of mine with an RV6 reckons that if you float and don't seem to be slowing or losing height you should side shake the stick which will have the effect of disrupting the boundary layer & the aircraft will come down. I haven't tried this as I have not had the problem. Any comments?

With no park brake control, what would make them lock up in the air, since they had to be free to take off?

 

When you apply the brake on downwind to check hydraulic pressure it is possible (though not likely) that it may not release.

Remember the SBS doco on Boeing whistleblowers in 2011. They got the sack, the problems were ignored, 3 x 737 NGs broke apart on landing overruns & all was pushed under the carpet. At least the latest whistleblower  has already retired from Boeing & has had his say at an inquiry. The Boeing "Profit before Safety" culture has been exposed but has it been eliminated? Dennis Muilenburg is saying all the right things now but he was in this up to his neck all the way through. This saga has a long way to go yet.

Scrapping the Max & moving on to a new design would be the best option but the timeframe to do this is huge & the cost is prohibitive. Maybe they could redesign the wings to have taller landing gear, then the engines could be moved back to where they should be.

Learning to fly in an aircraft that is easy to fly but with sensitive stall characteristics is a recipe for disaster and it seems to catch more experienced pilots by surprise as well. Very large flaps & small ailerons won't provide a lot of control authority at low speed. The rudder is more than half of the vertical stabiliser & aggressive use of this by an inexperienced pilot may also contribute. Also it is going to float in ground effect a lot more than a high wing.

The Jab 170 on the other hand which has been given a lot of unfair criticism IMHO is harder to fly but is really strong with a large VS smallish rudder & doesn't have the same ground effect issues with the high wing. Learn on a J170 & once mastered everything else is easy.

I owned an Aluminium fabrication business for a few years. Our products were mainly gates and panels, balustrading etc where there was not much stress placed on the product but it also had to look good so joins were chamfered and the MIG welds ground down and polished to provide a seamless profile and the product powder coated. I never had a single failure or return from a customer. All the aluminium joins on my Sierra airframe are done with gussets and blind rivets  (except the main spar which has solid rivets). It didn't take long to cut up heaps of gussets and then drill & rivet them in situ on the bench.

I installed differential  Matco disc brakes & didn't bother with a park brake so I don't have to remember to make sure it is released. I can get the brakes to lock up with enough pressure but to do this would be just silly. On downwind if you have pressure that shows the brakes are working but not that they are free.

JG3 created a google map a few years back of airfields near pubs & food. I think the stipulation was 1km or less walk. It is a great resource. Here is the link.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?msa=0&ll=-26.88041971011401%2C137.021484&spn=41.56424%2C48.251953&mid=1HDxCTbbdJ7DiSSakAVEBsIzGCrg&z=4

and this is the thread

https://www.recreationalflying.com/forums/topic/21838-airfields-near-food-and-pubs/?tab=comments#comment-236372

If you have good brake pressure when doing downwind checks the risk of failure on landing is very small so if you have no pressure on down wind you have plenty of time to plan. If you don't check & do a deadstick, find no brakes the reaction time will be a bit longer but a restart is the first choice always & then going around you can sort it out. 

The prop must have stopped in the perfect horizontal position as the lower cowl is crumpled and the spinner also all the way round.

1. The grass, or even dirt/gravel provide higher rolling resistance than a sealed runway, but stay off the grass if it is damp.

 

2. If the engine is idling, it is still producing a modicum of Thrust.  How far will your plane roll at engine idle?

 

3. If you do 2, you can't do 3. Once you do 2 you are committed to the landing, just like a glider.

 

I've done plenty of deadstick landings, restarted and taken off again so yes if you do 2 you can still do 3.

Employers who are paying their volunteer fire fighters must be feeling the pinch by now. What government support is there for these people especially if the situation continues for several more months?

I frequent another site about flying called Boldmethod. It has questions and articles about flying safely.

 

The latest question is about brake failure.

 

If you are landing and you apply the brakes only to find they have failed, do you go around? Or words to that effect.

 

One of the answers on the site made me wonder what the capabilities of the pilot were.

 

I checked this out too and I thought that their responses were a bit convoluted although reasonable. The "Declare an emergency with ATC" option assumes you are at a controlled aerodrome and I don't know any that have runways that are so short a single engined aircraft could not land 2 to 3 times in its length.

To me it is just simple.

1. If you can choose the grass
    
   
2. Cut the engine when you know you will make it & try to touch down as close to the theshold as possible deadstick. 
    
   
3. Decide early if you are slowing enough & start & go around if you are not.
    
   
4. Repeat 1-3 but get it right this time.
    
   

I lost the right brake in a 152 when I was training on a cross county exercise & my downwind check was a bit ho hum. On rollout (grass) I nearly ended up in the ditch but the rudder still had a bit of authority & was lucky. A top up with brake fluid & a bleed fixed it for the flight home.

South Grafton. Aero Club open most of the time but the veranda always there for shade. Pub 3 minutes walk with good counter lunches & beer garden. Shopping centre 5 minutes walk.

That 185 appears to have had a chequered history with at least 3 crashes based on the photos above. Conditions were fine and calm. Motueka aerodrome is 38 feet amsl with 725 metres of sealed runway & 785 metres of grass. I've been there several times in a 172 & PA28 Archer II. He obviously chose the grass. The threshold of 02 is 6 feet higher than 20 so basically flat. There used to be lots of meat bombers & helicopter training there. Don't know if that is still the case but landing should have been a doddle. No obstacles, just the ground.

Government contracts are always the most lucrative and easiest to rort. The childcare industry is one simple example although some finally got caught. Winning a government contract is like winning the lottery. They pay the most and don't do a good job of checking results. They sometimes don't even check whether money they spend is going to the right place.

XF looks good to me. It does everything that I am interested in.

 

Me too.

CAA in NZ have proposed that the class 2 medical be replaced with a commercial drivers licence standard for private aircraft up to 2730kg carrying up to 5 passengers and that the RPL category be scrapped. A Notice of Proposed Rule Making has been issued and is seeking comments.

See https://www.aviation.govt.nz/rules/rule-development-and-change/nprms-open-for-submission/

Sounds sensible to me and removes a licence category so simplifies everything.

Human factors applies to every one who is a human in everything they do but it is especially important in aviation. I was quite surprised that I had to take the course with RAA in 2009 when it was part of the PPL syllabus in NZ in the 1980s but just new to RAA at that time. On the course were a lot of pilots who just pooh poohed the course, the concept etc which I thought at the time was a pretty poor attitude and still do. It didn't help that the course instructors attitude wasn't much better.The course left quite a bit to be desired but it endeavoured to make the students think a bit more about their own shortcomings and vulnerability. On that score alone it was worthwhile.

No steam is airborne water droplets just like clouds except it is hot and vaporises to form water vapour as it cools or it will condense to form water that is no longer airborne. Steam is immensely powerful when super heated under pressure. The yanks have still not found anything better to catapult launch their aircraft off carriers.

If its amateur built RA it can't fly in CTR but if it is amateur built GA it can. Why, because the pilot has a PPL or RPL. If CASA had any reasonable sense of logic and allowed a RA CTR endorsement on a RA cert then they may catch up with the rest of the world.

We've had fires since July and smoke/dust haze for 6 weeks. How the water bombers manage is amazing. Tomorrow the new Grafton bridge opens & 9 aircraft from our club are supposed to be doing a flypast at 9am. It may or may not happen. I have woken to find a nice day here in Corindi & think I'll go for a fly, arrive at the hangar & can't see the end of the runway.