old man emu

Spacey,

Non-stop it's a 5 hour drive from Penrith at 100 kph via Mudgee. So if you take a break at Lithgow; Mudgee and Dunedoo that's about seven hours'.

1 hour ago, spacesailor said:

Climbing in & out of a bed high on wheels , won't be the best idea

Woops. I missed the "w' in that sentence.

"These adjustments are necessitated by the chronic shortage of airline professionals, particularly pilots and engineers"

And who's fault is that? For nearly fifty years Australian airlines invested in education, especially in engineers. That allowed for the expansion of their fleets, and for the replacement of loyal staff who were retiring (and natural attrition). But then the "bums on seats" mob overrode the very people who had made the airlines safe and the services reliable. How many engineers could QANTAS have trained if the Leprechaun didn't dig so deeply into the company's coffers to line his own? 

It's one thing to post big profits this year and next, but to remain viable year in and year out, a company must weigh up profitability versus sustainability. There's a lot contained in the adage "moderation in all things".

16 hours ago, 440032 said:

Seems the aircraft were fenced off from the public to keep them (the aircraft) safe?

Unlike every major airshow and fly-in in USA.

If, and I do mean "if", the Tooraweenah event is not cancelled due to lack of interest from the very people it has been created for, then there will be a static display area (with security) open to the public to get close to the aircraft.

So that this event can be run safely and the possibility of aircraft chopping off the tail feathers of preceding aircraft, I have to prepare an order of departure. I will not be able to do that if people try to enter on the day.

Therefore AIRCRAFT ENTRIES WILL CLOSE MIDNIGHT 13 MAY 2023

To make registering for this event simple, we’ve created a Google Form. Please visit https://forms.gle/5zwPr3ZCJUexGWwS7 to register your entry.

However, entries from passengers in the "Neatest, correct flight plan"  competition will be received up to 10:30 am on Saturday 20 May 2023.

That 172 better be at Tooraweenah on the 20th May. Info has been sent to your club

Would Councils really like to retain ownership of the land used for this type of air park? They might like the rental income, but the maintenance costs might not be so tasteful.

6 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

Getting back to Bankstown, it seems to me most new pilots, even those with an Aviation career in mind start with a RA pilot certificate so the amount of ab initio training in GA is noweher near what it used to be.

GA or RA doesn't affect the movement statistic, which simply record wheels on the runway. I wonder, too, how they gather the statistics for helicopter operations. At Bankstown it seems to me that there are more copters operating in training than fixed wing.

Interesting word "helicopter".  From a Latinized combining form of Greek helix (genitive helikos) "spiral"  or "helix" + pteron "wing" 

29 minutes ago, Blueadventures said:

Move to another airfield where you can get hangar space.

Skippy,

For the next few months you can expect fogs if your plane is down at The Oaks. How foggy does it get up at your house up on the higher country?

What you need to do is prevent the atmosphere within the airframe to refresh. In other words, you need it to remain the same as it was on the day you parked the aircraft. Putting that cover on properly will greatly reduce the airflow around the aircraft. Since you have aken steps to put a protective coating on the interior surfaces, what little condensation might occur will not get to cause problems. 

I know that you have put your heart and soul into building your baby, but maybe you are acting like a 'helicopter parent". Care for your baby, but let it have a life of its own. 

1 hour ago, turboplanner said:

it's not surprising that most people here will be thinking about the cost of owning your own aircraft.

It's not the capital cost of an aircraft, maintenance/operating costs and insurance that differ between basing an aircraft at these Secondary airports or somewhere else. The costs explode on Secondary airports through landing fees, parking fees/hangarage fees, which are all determined by Chief Financial Officers whose sole purpose in life is to inflate the bottom line. 

It's a crock that if I use an aircraft to go to Sydney to see family for a few days and land at Bankstown or Camden, I have to pay a daily fee to leave the aircraft there. What am I going to do with it so I don't incur a parking fee? Perhaps I should get one of those Goodyear inflatable planes and pack it up in a suitcase when I land. And what do you get in return for that fee? Sweet F. A. No tie down cable. No temporary hangarage. And definitely no security surveillance. 

These airport landlords even make it hard for maintenance organizations. If they have to stand an aircraft aside, say whilst waiting for a part to arrive, and the aircraft is outside for a day or two, along comes the  airport parking patrol and slips them a bill for parking.

21 minutes ago, Carbon Canary said:

At least the Cessna 150 was only a few years old back then ! 😜

Still had the plastic on the door trims.

In this day and age, the thing that will sell a block of land in a new development in a country town is NBN access. That lets certain professions take advantage of high speed communications while enjoying a less hectic environment to love and work in.

Another thing is a modern light industrial area to attract businesses that are not tied to the local area for work. I know of a specialist motor vehicle restorer who moved from Sydney to a rural town, without adversely affecting the amount of work he is getting. I recall that some of the sheet metal work on Col Pay's Kittyhawk was done in an industrial unit in Orange. 

17 minutes ago, Ben said:

$35/hour including hire,

When I started, I got 2 hours for that amount.

Let's say that ab initio training takes 40 hours before you get a grade of licence that lets you take passengers into the training area. Of course the number of hours varies due to many factors, mainly surrounding money and time available to put into training. Of that 40 hours, I'd guess 20 would be used doing straight forward circuits and bumps, including first solo and first few solo hours. You could add 5 hours for crosswind instruction and practice. That leaves 15 hours for upper air work, forced landing, steep turns.

It seems that a few of the Bankstown schools are popping over to Camden for circuit work, and maybe they do some upper air work. I don't know the exact boundaries of the Camden Training Area, but this mud map shows what I think would be suitable boundaries for one centred on Camden which avoids conflicts with NBW Airport. The area I have shown includes The Oaks Airport which is also a training centre.

10 hours ago, RFguy said:

do that

Nah. I was being sarcastic.

And it's not only Bankstown that is undergoing change.  Just got asked to circulate this:

Australian Aviation Museum - officially opened by Paul Keating  - closed and dispersed because a volunteer organization could not afford the rent. Australian Aip Props - owner retired, building resumed. Clamback & Hennessy - exorbitant rent + retirement - building pulled down.

Massive warehouse for TOLL Transport. Another massive building for the NSW Police Airwing. The rents are so high that even CASA moved its offices to a high rise beside Central Railway Station in the Sydney CBD. At least there's a Bunnings, Maccas, Hungry Jacks KFC and Aldi, and if you want mogas there's a BP servo. 

4 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

Flying low to the ground doing a beat up of the film set & hit the power lines. It is that simple.

The soundtrack of the film supports that. The engine noise recorded was way too loud for an aircraft on final for a landing, unless it was battling a cyclonic strength headwind. It indicates that the aircraft was low.

5 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

The black ones are the only sort to buy.

4 minutes ago, RFguy said:

buy the one with dual filters-

Well, thanks for the Late Edition news.  I might as well take the one I bought back since it only has a flow rate of 13.25 litres per minute, meaning it would take 1 minute and 30 seconds to filter 20 litres of fuel, which came from a brand new underground bulk tank and was carried 50 kms in a clean container.

As a traffic accident investigator, I soon learned a tad about the physiology of memory formation in the brain. It is not instantaneous, taking a few minutes for all the neurological and chemical reactions to take place. to create the memory. Therefore, if trauma occurs, the process is aborted and no memory is made. Try as one might, you can't recall what is not there in your memory. So for a pilot to describe minutiae seconds before suffering trauma, makes me sceptical. 

I often wonder what our brains are doing when we are driving on a regular journey, say coming home from work, or on an hours' log run that we do often, and we can't remember passing landmarks, or we suddenly realise that we are further along the way than we thought. A mate of mine called it the TIBMIN situation - thumb in bum, mind in neutral.

An "aircraft movement" for statistical purposes is either a takeoff or a landing. They don't reflect the number of individual aircraft using an aerodrome. So, a student pilot doing circuits and bumps will create six takeoffs and landings in an hour. That's 12 movements by one plane in one hour. So to say that movements have not changed is not a reflection on the vibrancy of an aerodrome,

This is what Bankstown looked like about 10 years ago: 

The red areas on this view are the non-aviation areas of the airport today: 

Since the Government leased to aerodrome to Big Business, the North/South runway has been eliminated. The general parking area to the top right is now non-aviation industrial units, and the area to teh west of it is currently being prepared for the building of more of the same. Landing fees and parking fees make the place unattractive to private owners.

Because of the hike in rents to "commercial equivalent" aviation support businesses such as Hawker-Pacific spares and engine shop as well as Aviall spares have left. One of the two propeller repair businesses has closed. As soons as a business's lease needs to be renewed, the rents demanded skyrocket. If business  which built its premises before the Commonwealth handed over the head lease of the aerodrome to Big Business closes down, the owner of building can't sell it to a new business. The building becomes the property of the head leaseholder with no compensation. There goes the superannuation of the self-employed blokes who built those facilities out of their own pockets.

Nancy Bird Walton Airport will impact on the associated training area associated with Bankstown. Apart from the NBW Airport control zone limits, massive residential development to the south of it will severely limit airspace for training due to safety reasons, as well as the cries from the newly-arrived NIMBYs in those 21st Century slums.

Don't forget that Big Business also has the lease of Camden and the land where Hoxton Park used to be (now a big warehousing site)

Public Transport: Fly into Bankstown to attend to business or pleasure in Sydney, and you'll need a taxi or Uber to go any further as there is no public transport. It is 15 minutes by road to the nearest railway station.

I'm afraid, Ben, that your optimism is unfounded. Bankstown Airport will become a site fit only for commercial aviation. Maybe Big Business will see that Camden should be developed to promote General Aviation in the training and private sectors, but being located on a floodplain that got swamped last year, it is not likely. It is ironic that the leaders of Big Business, who rely so much on air travel can't see the need to provide for the training needs of the next generation of commercially licensed pilots.

Since I plan to be able to assist pilots to obtain Mogas at the Event in May, I had a look at some videos about the Mister Funnel, and noted some comment from contributors here. So I decided to buy one to have available on the day.

First step in finding one was to look if Bunnings have them. They do show them, but when I asked about them I was told they could only be obtained through their Special Orders section.  Luckily I happened to find them in a mower shop in Dubbo.

The shop had them in three sizes, roughly container sized of 500 ml. 1 litre and 2 litre (don't quote me, that's just a guestimate). After checking the prices at the mower shop, I reckon that the one from Bunnings is the 500 ml one and would be as useless as tits on a bull for aircraft. The price is about $35. The 1 litre one looks to be the most convenient size for control of pouring - cost about $55. The 2 litre one is probably overkill - cost $75.

These funnels don't come with a long spout - extra $13 - or bodgy one from another cheap funnel.

IMPORTANT SAFETY WARNING!

Never seen this on a funnel before, but the Mister Funnel carries the warning: "Static electricity can ignite fuel and its vapours."  I'm going to make up an earthing strap to connect the funnel and jerry can to the plane, which should be earthed as well.

This is a fascinating topic. Petersen have created a very informative website to provide information about the use of mogas in aero engines. https://www.autofuelstc.com/ which is well worth reading through, especially the FAQs in the side columns.

I was going through the POH of a friend's plane and found that it had the Paterson (?) STC for Mogas, issued in 1988. (Lycoming O320-E2G). Has anyone heard of, or takes advantage of, this STC?

The STC specifies that the fuel to be used had an Anti-Knock Index (AKI) in the low 80s. So what's this AKI? It's a measure of a fuel's resistance to detonation. It is a calculated value based on the average of the values of the Research Octane Number (RON) and its Motor Octane Number (MON).

The research octane number (RON) describes the behavior of the fuel in the engine at lower temperatures and speeds, and is an attempt to simulate acceleration behavior. The motor octane number (MON) describes the behavior of the fuel in the engine at high temperatures and speeds – a full-throttle range. 

The values published by BP for its Ultimate fuel are RON = 98; MON = 86. Therefore the AKI is (98 + 86)/2 = 184/2 = 92 AKI.

The values for BP's Regular unleaded are RON = 91; MON = 81, giving an AKI of 86.

Since both fuels are ethanol-free, and the Lycoming O320-E2G has a compression ratio of 7:1 is there any point in paying the extra for 98 octane fuel?

NOTE: The STC advises that if unleaded Mogas is used, a lead additive is also used. This can be achieved by using Avgas for 10% of each 100 hours' running. The Avgas can be mixed with the Mogas, but the mixture must be described ar Mogas.

Ian,

You sound as though the Force of mathematics is strong in you. I appreciate that. However, I wonder how many of those who read your post have a clue what the Unit Circle is. I do, but for them it might be a number of high rise residences laid out on a round ground plan. That wind problem is depicted visually on the sliding scale of a Jeppo at the start of the calculation phase of flight planning, which makes it clear to most people.

I wonder how many people, when doing a flight plan seek the answer to, "If the forecast winds are relatively correct and remain so during the period of my flight, what sort of crosswind can I expect when I arrive?  And another useful help the Jeppo wind slide gives: If I'm heading ddd degrees, and the noise stops , which way should I be looking to head so that I set up my Final direction to land into wind as much as possible.