old man emu

Actuaries (blokes who work out the cost of a risk ... to the insurance company) are like WH&S inspectors who require people working in factories where no vehicles are moving to wear Hi-viz clothing - just in case. No assessment of the likelihood of an incident. They only assess the level of adverse effect.

Bankstown and Camden Airports have Bellman hangars built in WWll, and the original hangar of the Macarthurs is still there. More chance of their collapsing due to rust than due to aircraft impact.

Since when has it been common practice for a business to purchase expensive equipment? I thought that the practice now was to lease the equipment through a finance company, as you do for cars. If that's so, are the titles to the aircraft free of a lien held by a finance company?

Absolute trust in the GPS leads to absolute trust in fuel gauges. This misplaced trust could leave you dead-sticking into a paddock, but at least you would know where you are.

Not that there's a Corby in every garage, but I think that "the timber block that the tailwheel spring is attached to cracking" counts as a matter for concern to all Corby pilots, and any others whose tailwheel has a similar attachment method. Extending it further, the lesson to be learned is that checking the condition of landing gear components is a good idea during pre-flight.

Regarding the clarity and readability of incident reports, I think RAAus, as the body which requested the report should ensure that anything they make available to others clearly sets out what happened, and that the report is readable. A pilot might only submit one report during a lifetime, but the RAAus (I suppose the Technical Officer?) is getting reports on a weekly basis. The receiver should have the experience to be able to frame clarification questions, and contact the submitter. Unless, of course, the policy is "no names, no pack drill", and the submitter cannot be contacted.

https://australianaviation.com.au/2018/07/soar-aviation-sells-50-stake-to-private-equity-firm/

Have a look at the embedded video. Can anyone identify the certificate that is handed to the student?

The Glassdoor reviews are from employees. The polar opposites of opinion, and information from other sources, makes the positive endorsements questionable.

Imagine if the sort of money that has gone though SOAR had been channeled through each State's technical and further education system! The skies would be black with training aircraft of all types, and we'd have LAMEs touting for business all over the country.

I always found pre-flight planning and then the execution of that plan part of the enjoyment of a cross-country flight. The closer the actual flight corresponded to the planned flight, the bigger the pat on the back. I reckon it would be boring to follow a cursor on a screen during a longish flight. Even sight-seeing at the countryside gets a bit tedious at times.

The Indian business model;

 

1. Find and target people with money.

 

2. Spin them a yarn that sounds highly plausible.

 

3. Rip them off mercilessly.

 

Sounds like either a pyramid scheme or a Ponzi scheme.

Interesting tidbit from Prune concerning why SOAR's originator left his original employer after "disagreement over business plan"

Sacked over fleet suggestion

I'm going to somewhat lend my support to Neel (originator of SOAR) on this. It is true what he says. I assume that its me he is talking about. Neel did work for me at MFT after leaving another school. He did approach me with a business model. At the time, I had my own business model, which differed somewhat to his. I was happy with mine, and it provided me with the work environment that was important to me. He believed very strongly in his concept, I wouldn't budge on mine. We parted ways. There was slightly more to it, but nothing sinister.

The article was primarily about something else. If he was to summarise it in a sentence, as he did, he is being truthful. Do I have any regrets. None at all. I will say, he had a plan, he executed it, and he achieved the business model he was after. Not many achieve that. Are we on each others Christmas card list, maybe not, but I must somewhat take my hat off to him.

Here's the link to the very long thread at PRUNE. Worth reading. https://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-aviation-questions/626527-flying-school-owner-makes-afr-rich-list-7.html

Is it time to apply the 1 in 60 rule and get back on track?

Not all VET providers are ripping the system off.

 

Of course not. But where do the providers who do not rip off the scheme come from? They certainly have a lot of eucalyptus oil in their veins.

The motto of the RAAF might be "Per ardua ad astra", but the motto of the private pilot is "caveat emptor".

why not have a landing fees app based loosely on  the parking fees app administered by RAA, or somebody else. It would simplify things lots...

 

Because the whole landing fees saga is one of Big Business seeing an opportunity to gouge money from the community without giving anything back in return. Do you think that the Australian Airports Association is a benevolent organisation having the aim to promote private aviation? It's not. It's aim is to smother private aviation in favour of the Big Boys. If RAAus administered landing fees, it would weaken the control the Big Boys have over airport operators.

You can go to Bankstown, Moorabbin, Archerfield, Parrafield and Jandacott and find a suitable hangar to sub-let from the Leaseholder. The Leaseholder will charge you rent which is equivalent to commercial industrial space rates, but you will not be conducting any income-producing activity. The Leaseholder will charge you for water and electricity usage at a higher rate than the suppliers of these things, plus the Leaseholder will charge you a service fee for delivering the invoice and handling the payment. The Leaseholder will make you have regular independent audits of how you minimise the environmental impact of your activities, as well as creating a myriad of inspections and reports that have to be submitted.  The Leaseholder will charge you for standing aircraft outside the hangar on airside.  The Leaseholder will regularly up the rent "in line with commercial rates". On the bright side, the Leaseholder will be responsible for the 6-monthly fire-fighting equipment certification that the hangar requires. The will also have to provide you with the results of any inspections for the presence of Asbestos Containing Materials in the hangar.

So, now you have got the keys to the hangar. Have you purchased "Hangar Keeper's Liability" insurance? Don't forget the Public Liability insurance. If you've got any property in the hangar, don't forget the Contents insurance.

Have you determined how you are going to determine the price you are going to charge for hangar space? Have you determined how many aircraft you can reasonably fit into the hangar? Have you had a Lease Agreement document drawn up and checked for loopholes? What frequency are rents to be paid? What are your ways to recover outstanding rents? 

Finally, where are you going to get customers? Look around these airports. Where are the aircraft that were parked all over them 25 years ago?

This give an idea of the opportunity for rorting

The only people making a success of the VET Fee Scheme are the unscrupulous graduates of the Diploma in Pocket Lining. https://www.smh.com.au/education/vocational-education-how-the-shonks-and-shysters-took-control-20150925-gjujt5.html

Have you noticed that a lot of the operators of these dodgy "institutes of learning" are "recent immigrants" from the sub-continent?

Highly unlikely, but what if the cause turned out to be a short circuit in wiring passing through an empty belly tank?

If society grows more and more computerized, what happens if human beings forget how to do simple arithmetic? Back in 1957, Isaac Asimov, American author and biochemist, a highly successful and prolific writer of science fiction and of science books for the layperson, addressed this very question in a short story titled "The Feeling of Power". https://themathlab.com/writings/short stories/feeling.htm

The first part of the story is applicable to this current discussion, unfortunately Asimov was writing in the USA during the Cold War, so the ending is predictable in light of the war paranoia of the USA.

Since O'Hare is an extremely busy airport with aircraft landing and taking off like a beer bottling plant, it's easy to see that by declaring an emergency ATC had a wider scope to interrupt the bottling plant. Although the 747 can easily fly on three engines, and actually was in descent at the time who would know if the other three engines would not stop, too? A stitch in time saves nine.

An article from early last year (2019) about the whiz-kid behind Soar.

https://www.smartcompany.com.au/entrepreneurs/influencers-profiles/soar-aviation-neel-khokhani-flight-school/

Interesting to see the great division in opinions of the staff https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/Soar-Aviation-Reviews-E2602783.htm

I was wondering about RAAus member numbers, then I got onto this information:

All Soar students have RAAus membership. Soar claims 400-odd students. When I equate those numbers to the fee for membership, my cynicism gene kicks into action and I start wondering about someone coping a kick-back to  smooth over a few bumps.

Caution with names. We are talking about Vocational Education Training, nothing to do with military veterans. Designed to deliver workplace-specific skills and knowledge, vocational education and training (VET) covers a wide range of careers and industries.

Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualifications have been developed with the specific goal of preparing students with skills for work. VET is designed to help people to join or re-join the workforce, move into a new career or gain additional skills in their existing career. VET qualifications have a very practical focus. As well as specific skills for your chosen occupation, a VET course will often include generic work-based topics such as workplace health and safety.  

I wouldn't consider that the two crashes in 14 months were indicative of poor training methods. How many other flying schools have had accidents during landing? As for the serious crash, here's the preliminary report https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2018/aair/ao-2018-066/  Interesting that the student was flying an VH aircraft on a RAAus certificate.

As for not meeting Australian Skills Quality Authority standards, we don't have the information that lead to the decision to cancel SOAR's approval, but doing so is no light step. The standards that an organisation (Registered Training Organisation - RTO) has to meet are very high. If you have the time, grab a cuppa and read this https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2019C00503.

The purpose of these Standards is to:

1.     set out the requirements that an organisation must meet in order to be an RTO;

2.     ensure that training products delivered by RTOs meet the requirements of training packages or VET accredited courses, and have integrity for employment and further study; and

3.     ensure RTOs operate ethically with due consideration of learners’ and enterprises’ needs.

The VET (Vocational Education Training) standards for what SOAR said it would meet in training are described here https://training.gov.au/Training/Details/AVI50219

My thought is that SOAR failed to meet Standard No 3 (above). Blind Freddy could see that SOAR could not have the facilities to "operate ethically with due consideration of Leaner's ... needs". Just think how many aircraft and instructors you would need to efficiently train 402 students over a one, even two, year period. I doubt if the RAAF could do that at the height of WWll.

How many of these students are studying navigation as Uber Eats drivers?

The usual reason given by other government departments (motor vehicle registration and licensing etc) for requiring a physical address, rather than a post box address is so that legal process can be served, if necessary. RAAus should allow members to provide a physical address (for delivering correspondence dealing with breaches of rules), and a post box address for licence and registration renewals and other associated correspondence.

Not having had the need to read the constitution, I assume that there is something in there covering how members are to be contacted in relation to allegations of offences.

If anyone is doing an exam on air legislation get the appropriate document and study the sections relevant to your licence, in the country you are flying in. Nev

 

That is so correct. If you are preparing to undertake an examination on any part of a training system, learn and apply the methods based on what is in the syllabus. That will give the answer that the examiner wants to see, with the added advantage that the theoretical basis for the method will be implanted in your mind. That will provide a fall-back position for when everything else fails.

After a pilot has run up a bit of experience, then the application of theory is modified by that experience. Consider how your driving experience has altered the way you drive since the time you were on your Provisional licence. Back then you drove with strict compliance with the road rules (one hopes). But after a few years you learned how those rules are bent a little in the day-to-day flow of traffic. Consider your usual drive to work. Same thing every day. You'll even see the same vehicles every day. You all know where minor delays are likely, and you all adjust your driving to get the best result. 

Sometimes Apen seems to be going down the path of over-thinking things.

 

But it is good to throw this "over thinking" around on these forums. Now I bet Apen will fly with the map on his knees and his eyes outside. After all, this is recreational flying. We don't have "air races" any more where it is essential to keep "on track, on time" to win the prize.

The 1 in 60 rule is a nice thing to know if you are flying very long distances at high speed, but to try to apply it for short flights at speeds below 100 kts is making the argument ad absurdum. Have a look at the presentation of the 1 in 60 rule in this video. The track lengths and off-track distances are very small, resulting in off-heading amounts of only a few degrees.

Using Turbo's information, 0.5 nautical miles is about 925 metres. Since VMC visibility limit is 5000 metres (approx 2.5 nautical miles). Blind Freddy could see that far.

Another factor affecting off-track position is wind direction. If a pilot obtains the current weather before planning a flight, then the pilot will have a general idea of which side of the planned track the aircraft is likely to be blown to if the wind is greater or less than forecast. If a pilot is flying with a navigator (usually she who must be obeyed) the navigator can keep an eye on Track Made Good and advise heading corrections.