kgwilson

I lived in London from 1973 to 75 a city of around 8 million people at the time. Most people didn't own a car. There was no need. There was a tube station or several in every suburb and in peak times there was a bus every couple of minutes. In Australia we have become addicted to cars and have failed to build decent public transport and continue to build more and more motorways while everyone buys more cars. Sydney is an absolute nightmare to get anywhere. Now the newly opened Rozelle tunnel complex to connect everywhere with everywhere else is a total initial disaster. It will eventually work but won't resolve the problem as more and more cars clog the streets until our addiction to private transport changes. That won't happen any time soon. certainly not in my lifetime.

Hybrids are currently very popular mostly by people who realise the EV revolution is coming even though it is in reality already here but suffer from range anxiety. Sure there are not many chargers in the outback but what percentage of vehicle owners are going out there? This is being overcome as we write. A company in Darwin is in the process of building transportable Charging stations to remote locations. They have a small batch of solar panels and a big battery to store the electricity and 4 to 6 charging bays. This is done at a fraction of the cost of building a Petrol/Diesel station in the outback and of course the fuel does not have to be transported by huge tankers for thousands of kilometres. As the sunniest place on the planet Australia is the perfect place for such infrastructure of the future.

You can argue all you like but ICE cars running on fossil fuels are in the twilight of their existence. They have served us well for 100 years and are now very refined but they are being superceded very rapidly. They now have so much electronic equipment in them and electric everything including everything that keeps the ICE engine running except the fuel they use, that they are electric except for motive power. EVs have all this equipment as well but also a clean and almost silent electric motor or 2, some even 3. Yes they cost more. The battery is typically 40% of the cost of the vehicle but they produce zero emissions and the motor only has one moving part plus bearings. There have been numerous studies that show the total cost of ownership over the expected life of the car is considerably less that the equivalent ICE car. Toyota has been downplaying the EV revolution and losing. China is about to overtake Japan as the worlds largest car exporter and the Tesla Model Y is the largest selling car in the world knocking the Toyota Corolla of the perch it has held for many years. 40% of Chinas car production is now pure EV. Toyota keeps talking about its revolutionary solid state battery but the delivery date keeps getting put back every time they make an announcement. The reports circulating about the emissions from EV production have all been debunked. ALL EV batteries are recylable and ALL the rare metals used are recoverable. To date only crash damaged batteries are being recycled. Those deemed to be no longer viable for running a car are sold for use as energy storage in commercial and domestic properties. There are also thousands of old Teslas with up to 800,000km on the clock still on their original battery. Also in a desperate move Toyota has announced that it will be producing 10 new EVs by 2026. They are now so far behind the 8 ball they may never catch up. UK based business & Youtube channel, Fully Charged has launched a spinoff business called Stop Burning Stuff (Stop BS) to expose the myths about EVs which are being championed by the baying right wing media. I made the leap 3 months ago & bought a new MG4 Essence 64 (UK car of the year 2023 & Carsales Australia Car of the Year 2023 plus 15 other major awards). I'll never go back to ICE. Quiet, comfortable, effortless power (EV torque is instant & dramatic) fantastic to drive & I never need a petrol station. I charge at home on off peak power or solar during the day. I've been on one 1100km road trip & did 3 topups at fast chargers. Spent about 20 minutes at 2 which was only just enough time to get a snack & use the dunny. The other was by the hotel & I had dinner & the battery was at 100% when I finished. Total cost $53.00. My first service is in 2 years or 40,000km when the A/C filter is replaced, Brake fluid replaced & running gear, cooling fluid etc checked. Cost a bit over $250.00 Electric is the future Now. Hydrogen may supplement this but currently storage and production are expensive and difficult.

I had a ritual and I wrote on my flight log "Change tanks every 1/2 hour" and yellow highlighted it & I put the time in when I did it. It didn't have to be that often but that was just a personal thing & kept the weight balanced as well. Always worked for me.

Jacobs engine brakes may be efficient on large trucks but are so noisy they are banned in towns and cities. One pedal driving in my EV requires hardly any braking at all. In fact in the handbook they recommend using the brakes occasionally to prevent them rusting and pitting. After 100,000 miles (160,000 km) in 2 years an EV wagon used as an industrial work vehicle showed no brake pad wear at all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj7fJ5JI-yI and the battery will outlast the rest of the car. Just look at the Tesla high mileage club & you will see Teslas with 200,000 to 500,000 miles & many of these on older battery technology. And of course the largest selling car in the world is the Tesla model Y. All this will have a beneficial effect on electrically powered aircraft. Weight is the only archilles heel.

Do you have proof of that?

Luddites continue to push the myth that EV batteries catch fire all the time. The reality lies in the statistics. From US insurer AutoinsuranceEZ Per 100,000 sales Petrol car fires 1529.9 Hybrid car fires 3475.4 Pure EV fires 25.1

i just bought some David Clarke H10 compatibles on Ebay, $22.45 delivered (seem to be the same as the Ali Express cheapies) & installed them today. Just as good as the originals I reckon. I think the only difference is delivery time.

Weight is the major issue but energy density is improving all the time and there are numerous companies that have attracted a lot of investment and are in the prototype phase for short range domestic air travel. Batteries catching fire is also blown out of proportion. Battery Electric cars are 100 times less likely to catch fire than petrol/diesel cars and about 300 times less likely to catch fire than a hybrid. Battery fires get the attention of the press but are mostly from electric scooters and small items that have poor management systems or are being charged with an incorrect charger.

I've flown Coffs coastal a few times. There is usually not much traffic if any at all. If there is circuit training on 21 they can send you over the water but mostly straight down the beach at 1000 or below.

Battery technology and battery management systems have improved dramatically in the last few years. CATL the worlds largest battery manufacturer are saying that with appropriate battery management & conditioning the 64kWh battery in my EV should reach 1 million km before degrading to 80% of its original capacity. The car won't last that long. So if this technology is available for training aircraft then battery replacement will not be an issue.

There is only one authority in the world like CASA & that's CASA.

Everyone who joins SES is required to undergo a police check but what it entails is unknown to me. This is instgated by the people from head office in Woollongong. So far no-one (at our Unit) has been refused and it usually only takes a few days to get the result.

It is only one of a number of documents you can use to prove ID. ASIC is only 40% or 25% proof (if used as a second document) of ID so it isn't considered very strong proof at all..

Proof of identity requirements vary from State to State and organisation to organisation. Most government agencies require documents that make up a total of 100 points, with each having a specified value. Birth certificate, Citizenship certificate and Passports (including foreign) in NSW are worth 70 points & then there are a whole lot of others including drivers licence, WWC card, Pensioner concession card, Doctors reference, Tertiary education photo ID, DVA card, and even an ASIC/Maritime security card worth 40 points for the first and 25 points for the rest. As well as that there are 14 other things like utility invoices, rates notices, bank statements, insurance policies, trade cards etc worth 25 points each. So an ASIC is as good as a drivers licence, student ID or a doctors reference as proof of identity.

Absolute rubbish. There are more airfields that are classified as ALAs than there are other aerodromes. They have no security, are unclassified, unregistered, often with no fences and are meeting places for pilots of all persuasions who couldn't give toss about security controlled aerodromes that they do not frequent and in numerous cases have never been to in their entire flying career. I assume that you know Tyagarah is an ALA. Try turning that into a security controlled airfield. I'm sure the council would be happy to throw $10 million or more at it for fencing, another couple of million a year for operating costs and for what benefit? All that would do is get rid of most of those who operate from there and reduce the number of visitors to virtually none.

It is not compulsory to have an ASIC and if flying at an aerodrome that is not security controlled, whatever that means, what regulation requires an instructor to see this useless piece of plastic?

I opened the video and saw it was an hour long and closed it again.

Sovereign Citizens not only ignore all and any rules, they make up their own to suit themselves. It is a perfect system for them.

So I fly in to Coffs without an ASIC, taxi to the Aero Club, go inside for a cuppa. Ask someone for the gate code, fly home. No problem with ATC or anyone else there but due to an ill conceived and enacted system that does not enhance safety in any way this is Illegal?

Have you heard the term "Get a Life". This is a forum for opinions on all sides of an issue and anything goes. It is when the poster is attacked and not the issue where the line is drawn. Personally I welcome debate with any CASA, State or Federal representative on security at certain airports or airfields. In fact i already have spoken a number of their representatives and told them what I think. In some cases I have agreement from them but they are bound by their employment contact to tow the department line officially.

Analogue ASI, VSI, Altimeter and Compass have the advantage of not requiring any power, gyros or anything else to operate

It seems to me that a lot of decisions by government agencies are made based on a perceived possibility rather than any evidence to suggest the decision is necessary. For example the need for an ASIC card at regional aerodromes. No other country has considered this necessary, not even the US where 911 happened. It's part of the bureaucratic mentality we have here in our public service, more particularly CASA. In the UK a survey of pilots and evidence based information gathering found that a class 2 medical for private pilots was a scam & provided no benefits to safety at all. It just increased bureaucracy and costs so it was scrapped in 2015 with no adverse effects since.

I'm not writing anything off. I still fly my Jab 3300 powered aircraft and will continue to as long as I can. Venture capitalists look in to the future and it is not with fossil fuelled technologies. They will not invest in those industries any more. There are massive strides in renewable technologies and batteries are only one part of the equation. If only 2% of the new inventions & proposals get up they will blow everything we are currently at (including what's in my new EV) out of the water and on to the scrap heap of history. The transition will continue for decades. That is if we don't destroy everything first.

Yeah, it must be part of a job creation scheme to justify having such a dumb useless system.