Jump to content

Garfly

First Class Member
  • Posts

    3,141
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

Everything posted by Garfly

  1. This is a follow-up study by the ATSB into the "see and be seen" implications of the Mangalore accident. Feel the exasperation. It seems the lag to fear most is the one due to ideological inertia. https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2022/aair/as-2022-001 What the ATSB found The study found that the pilots of both aircraft were unlikely to have acquired the other aircraft visually due to meteorological factors, aircraft closing speed and shielding of the opposing aircraft by cockpit structure with 2 of the 4 pilots likely having the opposing aircraft shielded from their view at key moments. The ATSB analysis indicated that even in clear conditions, more favourable to visual acquisition, the closing speed and shielding by the aircraft structure would have limited opportunities to acquire the other aircraft. Neither accident aircraft was equipped with ADS-B IN systems. The study shows that had the aircraft been equipped with this technology the pilots would have been alerted to the position of the other aircraft much earlier than by visual acquisition. Both a cockpit display of traffic information with an ADS-B traffic alerting system or an electronic conspicuity device connected to an electronic flight bag application could have provided this. // ...
  2. Aro, I don't notice the lag you speak of, other than with internet based displays, of course [as opposed to ship to ship systems - including SE2]. Even from the ground, I can see the target turn as soon as the aircraft in sight does. [I suppose there's some delay, even with radio TX/RX.] Anyway, with the accident we're discussing here, there were, what?, twenty long seconds wherein a quick scan - in either cockpit - might have done the job. And yes, normally, in the circuit we are 95% eyes outside - sometimes pre-alerted, sometimes not. Still, we spare a second or two for the ASI, the fuel pump, hatches, harnesses ,Ts&Ps, fuel quantity and, depending, maybe even a second or two for a traffic display. After all, we're aware of how many times one aircraft has descended, oblivious, onto another on final - after having been converging for a good half minute or so. I'd guess that any road user with some miles under the belt can recall times when that last-second, double-check of a side mirror has saved them swapping paint with a fellow traveler - mere inches away. I don't see a big diff. BTW I think that it's in the circuit that aural traffic alerts might be distracting and more trouble than they're worth. (Nothing's quicker at getting 'the picture' than the visual cortex ;- )
  3. Who's talking about "working from a screen" or "separation standards" (whatever they may be in this context)? It's about habitually glancing at a screen - as at mirrors in our cars - and avoiding mid-airs using real time imagery, whenever 'seeing' and chatting cannot cope. What's really tempting is to put your faith in the bigness of the sky. We can't see through metal and we can't see behind without using "gadgets" of some kind. There's a reason the US went for (pretty much) universal ADSB/CDTI take-up. An exasperated ATSB must be close to recommending we do the same.
  4. Precisely! ... or this airport. I'm pretty sure the final report of this accident will say again what was said of the tragic Mangalore midair (where again, both involved PICs were experienced instructors); that even quite affordable, readily available tablet based CDTI gear (cockpit display of traffic information) could well have averted this accident. How long will the "strictly eyes-outside-the-cockpit " principle stand in the way of so obvious a safety improvement? (Cue image of pax frantically tapping shoulder of pilot peering out ahead.) It's a kind of mindless ideology lag at the core of the problem. Look how long it took for the safety benefits of GPS tech to be accepted - and finally embraced (well, by most, anyway). It took a good generation or more. That's human factors of the group-think variety! ATSB MANGALORE.pdf
  5. Yep, "Utopia" ain't the half of it.
  6. No, not always. And yes, definitely. Turn back to airport in a Tripe? "Let's face it. Our planes are not great gliders." Re: Turn back to airport in a Tripe? https://www.shortwingpipers.org/forum/showthread.php?12704-Turn-back-to-airport-in-a-Tripe Yes, but very few C172 captains turned up in full dress uniform.
  7. Well, the Tripe seems to have been the bee's-knees for charter biz back then. Just ask mini chauffeur and First-Officer Muldoon of Executive Air Transport. [Click thumbnail for full size.]
  8. On YT: "Now that GAMI's G100UL is fully approved and awaiting distribution, owners are hearing questions about how unleaded fuel might cause valve damage in aircraft engines. It was once a thing in car engines, but in this video, AVweb's Paul Bertorelli examines the issues and finds valve seat recession an unlikely consequence of using unleaded aviation fuel" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJBJjZTjsk
  9. Ha, ha, nice image. But, drift, per se, isn't a problem; the catching of it, though, sometimes is.
  10. Oh, yeah, I think most would agree with that. By making it almost impossible to get lost GPS/EFBs have taken much of the sport out of air navigation. The plus side is that the anxiety around getting lost has also gone, so you can better enjoy the other aspects of flying y'self around. But the OP's question was not about having the max fun from flying but how to efficiently complete an ASA/NAIPS flight plan when the necessary waypoint designators were hard to find. First off, I'd have thought you'd have been the last person to suggest that what CASA requires is a reliable measure of common sense. ;- ) And second, CASA does not require you to carry paper if you have EFB charts. I reckon the wise pilot would have to answer "well that depends". But the legendary wise pilot (if he/she remains so mid crisis) is not going to rely on any single 'system' if he/she can help it. You'd be a fool to entirely trust your compass, too. Or even your watch. (Much less those many numbers you had so much fun jotting down the previous night.) 😉
  11. OME, if you'd shout yourself one of those newfangled EFBs, every aeronautical chart for the whole country would be at your fingertips. And they'd be current. You'd not have to sweat lat/long bullets to manage the simple task of finding BODD / Boddington. hkaneshiro your question was a good one and good answers have already been posted above: OzRwys (or AvPlan) is your friend. All the waypoints you mentioned are immediately apparent when you turn on the appropriate layer. (No need of the permanent clutter that'd be necessary on paper.) And they will appear (on demand) on every chart-type in the system - WACs, VNCs, VTCs etc. Of course, there are way more WPs available than are shown in the plan samples below - the others have been cleaned up (by deselecting the layer). Also, such a plan can be formatted for NAIPS and then submitted from the device with a just few clicks. As you'd well know, the EFB is way, way more than "a quick reference source of navigational information whilst in flight." CLICK THUMBNAIL FOR FULL REZ.
  12. Very interesting Mike! Looking forward to further reports. That solid one-piece undercarriage member is very impressive. The U-bolted individual legs of the earlier Rangers never did inspire a lot of confidence (though they seem to work ;- )
  13. So, it seems like this new Microair is the first available low cost solution to having a proper transponder, i.e enabling an RAAus aircraft to operate in Class E and, presumably, if the time ever comes, to enter and/or transit Class C & D? Is that right?
  14. https://shop.raa.asn.au/co-gas-alarm
  15. What fact am I to check? That a Forbes journalist - in fact - once wrote that the Wrights were, at a certain time, "obsessed with secrecy". You want me to check that fact? FACT CHECK: It's online. I supplied the link. It's there. Go read it. Or do you want me to personally research and "check" whether there was any justification for that journalist to publish such an opinion in their article in the first place? Well, that writer - and that journal - has no need of any defence from me; but if they did, I could offer nothing better than continuing their quote from where I left off: "Chanute urged the brothers to try for some of the aviation prizes that were being offered for flights of specified times and distances, which would have established their dominance in the public's mind. They refused. "We would have to expose our machine more or less, and that might interfere with the sale of our secrets," they wrote to a friend in January 1906. "We appreciate the honor and the prestige that would come with the winning of a prize...but we can hardly afford at the present time to jeopardize our other interests in doing it." In my opinion, that is fact enough on which anyone might reasonably base such an opinion. Anyway, it's hardly even a criticism of the Wrights. The article universalises their dilemma (which is what makes it a good piece of writing); anyone in the Wrights' shoes would have had to decide whether it was better to reveal or to hide their experiments during that delicate phase of development. It was clear to all that a lot was at stake. And finally, I would remind you that my links to those 3 articles was prefaced with: "Yeah, Capt. Google turns up heaps of interesting versions of that story" Truth be told, I don't really care who is credited with inventing the aeroplane. But being accused of spreading false news, that's something I care about.
  16. It's great to see old Arthur walk and talk:
  17. OME, I reckon Tooraweenah's airport, as a kind of living/working historical monument, is a bit like the one at Old Bar, NSW. Take a look at the various monuments etc that the town has erected to its airport - they are clearly proud of it and keen that it keeps going as a working strip. They even got it Heritage listed. I'd be happy to make that case in an email if you think it would work. If you click on these thumbnails, hopefully the texts will be readable.
  18. That's what I thought, and why I posted it. As you say, much about flying is still not appreciated by a lot. IMHO by the time they've learned to walk all children have Newtonian physics sussed out, at least to the level they'll need when they learn to fly. Actually as they try to copy birds they'll need to unlearn a lot of it, otherwise they're likely to pull-back to save their 'fall'. It's not that Newton was wrong (on that score, anyway) it's just that 'book learning' and instinct are not team players.
  19. Yeah, Capt. Google turns up heaps of interesting versions of that story: https://www.forbes.com/2003/11/19/1119aviation.html?sh=fff90901bda6 How The Wright Brothers Blew It In 1905 the Wright brothers enjoyed a complete monopoly on heavier-than-air aviation. They had the world's only working airplane, were the only two pilots able to fly it, and had applied for a formidable patent that would cover any plane with three-axis control. Yet within five years they would regularly be surpassed by competitors at home and abroad, and before what was remembered as the Golden Age of Aviation arrived in the 1920s, they would be out of the aircraft business entirely. What happened? // ... The layoff was caused by the brothers' obsession with secrecy. They had a patent pending on the airplane's control technique, which enabled it to climb, dive and turn, but even after the patent was granted in May 1906, they were unwilling to show the machine to anyone who might steal its design, since enforcing their patent rights could be a long, laborious, and very expensive process. Having conquered flight, they wanted to cash out before going any further. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/62555/why-not-use-the-yoke-to-control-yaw-as-well-as-pitch-and-roll After inventing aileron control (the Wrights were still using wing warping at the time -- this was before 1910), Curtiss needed a way to control movement of the ailerons, and subsequently of the rudder. The original 1903 Wright Flyer had the wing warp controlled by sliding the pilot's platform (a flat surface, on which the pilot lay prone) right and left, and coupled the rudder, so that roll and yaw were inseparable. Curtiss decoupled them, and needed to add a third control -- and since he was also sitting upright, even in his first airplane, his feet were available. Running the elevators and ailerons on the control stick was obvious, and it was equally simple to put one's feet on a bar that directly operated the rudder -- and this layout became the standard almost instantly. Even the Wrights adopted it before they demonstrated their Flier to the Army. https://aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0103.shtml The first recognizable example of the modern aileron ... was designed by no less than the aforementioned Henri Farman. His biplane, the Farman III, was equipped with four flap-like ailerons fitted at the outboard trailing edges of both the upper and lower wings. Farman's primary innovation was that he was the first to make ailerons an integral part of the wing, in the same manner we still use today, instead of the separate movable surfaces that had been used previously. These ailerons can be seen deflected downward in the picture below. Henri Farman and the Farman III Farman's innovation was considerably more effective and less complicated than wing warping and was quickly adopted by virtually all the aircraft builders of the time. Only Orville Wright held out, but even his stubbornness gave way in 1915 when he finally converted to the aileron. Yet the story still isn't over! A group of American aviation enthusiasts had formed the Aerial Experiment Association to build and fly new aircraft designs. They had realized the need for roll control, but were keenly aware that the Wrights had patented wing warping. Looking for an alternative, Alexander Graham Bell conceived of a device similar to the French aileron. A patent on the AEA's aircraft developments, including Bell's ailerons, was granted in 1911. Following the dissolution of the AEA, one of its leading members Glenn Curtiss continued to use the aileron on his new designs, which greatly angered the Wrights. Though the Wrights had patented wing warping, the patent was vague enough that it could be construed to cover any form of lateral control. In response, the Wrights sued Curtiss for patent infringement and eventually won the case. Europeans like Henri Farman became quite alarmed by this development and were concerned that they too would be forced to pay the Wrights royalties for the use of ailerons. When French aviator Louis Paulhan came to the US to demonstrate his designs, three of his aircraft were impounded on the grounds of patent infringement.
  20. https://www.flyingmag.com/sonex-shares-progress-on-highwing-development/ Sonex Shares Progress on Highwing Development The kit manufacturer plans to debut the prototype at EAA AirVenture 2023. By Julie Boatman February 10, 2023 The Sonex Highwing features a cantilever wing and center section enabling the Lexan polycarbonite windshield to remain a feature. (Sonex Aircraft]
  21. Yeah, that one's probably more comprehensive and instructive. Always a good one to review.
  22. Here is a review by a UK owner of his new factory-built 600Kg Nynja:
×
×
  • Create New...