Garfly

This article adds some detail about the Paris Appeals Court process: Airbus and Air France convicted over AF447 disaster after appeal court overturns acquittal | ICLG ICLG.COM Seventeen years after an Air France flight plunged into the Atlantic killing 228 people, a Paris court has found Airbus and Air France responsible. Excerpt: The appeal "Unlike the appellate process in England and other common law jurisdictions, the French appeal effectively took the form of a complete retrial, lasting eight weeks and revisiting the evidence from scratch, including technical expert testimony, pilot training procedures and Airbus’s knowledge of earlier incidents involving pitot tube malfunctions. Prosecutors argued that Airbus had underestimated the dangers posed by unreliable airspeed data and failed to respond quickly enough to known defects affecting the sensors. Air France, meanwhile, was accused of failing adequately to train pilots to respond to high-altitude loss-of-speed warnings and autopilot disengagement scenarios. Lawyers for the victims’ families said the companies had spent years attempting to blame the deceased pilots while downplaying their own institutional shortcomings. The defence maintained that the crash ultimately resulted from unforeseeable pilot actions inside the cockpit. Airbus also pointed to earlier procedural decisions, including the 2023 acquittal, arguing that criminal liability had never been properly established. The decision The court concluded that both companies bore criminal responsibility for failures that contributed directly to the crash. It found that Air France had failed adequately to prepare pilots for the precise emergency encountered on AF447, while Airbus had not fully appreciated or addressed the risks associated with pitot tube failures."

"May 23, 2026 BBC Global News Podcast Air France and Airbus have been found guilty of corporate manslaughter over a plane crash in 2009, which killed all 228 people onboard. Flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm. A court had previously cleared both companies of criminal liability in 2023. But on Thursday, the Paris Appeals Court found the airline and aircraft manufacturer were "solely and entirely responsible", after an eight-week trial. A group representing families of the victims said the justice system had finally recognised the pain for relatives facing ''a collective tragedy of unbearable brutality". Both Air France and Airbus have denied the charges and say they will appeal."

Bedford Pushes Back On ADS-B Fee Collection AVWEB.COM FAA administrator Bryan Bedford says ADS-B was intended as a safety tool.

Yeah, so I think you're definitely better off with your SE2, Skippy. The advantage of the pingUSB (if you'd already had ES ADSB-OUT) would be its low power needs meaning that you wouldn't run into the charging issues you write about. Otherwise, as an ADSB-IN ONLY device it works exactly likes the "IN" part of the SkyEcho2. (N.B This is the US site. I was surprised to see that they're selling for over $500 in Australia now. I remember buying one some years back, when they first came out, for less than half that.) pingUSB | Portable ADS-B Traffic Receiver | uAvionix UAVIONIX.COM pingUSB is a portable ADS-B receiver designed for real-time traffic awareness, combining dual-band performance with a compact, plug-and-play USB device. ( Confusingly, uAvionix also sell something called the ping1090i which is an ADSB transceiver meant for drones and such.)

But I don't see the virtue of leaving it in the aircraft. It might lose its charge by the time you fly again, no? Anyone who already has a transponder for ADSB-OUT might be better off with uAvionix's Ping to get ADSB-IN. It doesn't have an internal battery nor a power hungry transmitter and is designed to be USB powered in flight.

Blancolirio's take:

As an example, clean air for the heater is the sole purpose of the little round intake in the nose of the P92 Tecnam ES. But that's no guarantee, of course, that such systems won't also develop cracks and admit toxic fumes along with warmed up air. So the muff and its muffler are big deals on the annual. But, yeah, in winter months at altitude, I'd say a heater is very nice to have ... and CO detectors are pretty cheap insurance. The fatal Beaver seaplane (VH-NOO) crash into the Hawkesbury over 8 years ago was a high profile local case which, at the time, had the ATSB exercised over the lack of compulsory CO detection. (In this case, they determined that the causes were cracks in the exhaust system along with holes in the firewall.) https://www.atsb.gov.au/sites/default/files/investigation-reports/ao-2017-118-final.pdf Some excerpts: "What the ATSB found // ... Toxicology results identified that the pilot and passengers had higher than normal levels of carboxyhaemoglobin in their blood. This was almost certainly due to elevated levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in the aircraft cabin. The ATSB’s wreckage examination established that several pre-existing cracks in the exhaust collector ring, very likely released exhaust gas into the engine/accessory bay, which then very likely entered the cabin through holes in the main firewall where three bolts were missing from the magneto access panels. In addition, the examination also found that the in situ bolts used by the operator’s external maintenance provider to secure the panels were worn, and were a combination of modified AN3-3A bolts and non-specific bolts. A 27 minute taxi, with the pilot’s door ajar, before the passengers boarded likely exacerbated the pilot’s elevated carboxyhaemoglobin level. As a result, the pilot would have almost certainly experienced effects such as confusion, visual disturbance and disorientation. Consequently, it was likely that this significantly degraded the pilot's ability to safely operate the aircraft. // No regulatory requirement for carbon monoxide detectors // ... As a result of this investigation, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority now strongly recommends pilots wear personal CO detectors, which are now widely available and inexpensive (refer to airworthiness bulletin AWB 02-064 Issue 2). However, at the time of writing, there was no regulatory requirement for any type of detector to be carried. Consequently, it was up to the operator and/or pilot’s discretion to carry such a device. // ... Several overseas investigation agencies have made safety recommendations to their respective aviation regulators to mandate the carriage of active CO detectors. However, despite the ongoing threat CO exposure poses to aircraft occupants and the potential fatal consequences, these recommendations have not been accepted to-date. If there had been a requirement for VH-NOO to be fitted with a CO detector that actively engaged the pilot’s attention, it was likely the pilot would have been alerted to the presence of CO. This would have provided the pilot time to take mitigating action."

All the manufacturers say you should not use vehicle exhaust to check these electronic detectors because it can ruin the sensor. The pilot involved in this amazing CO poisoning survival story recommends having two detectors to check against each other.

Power loss and ditching involving Robinson R44, VH-XSO, 24 km north-east of Horn Island Airport, Queensland, on 8 October 2025 | ATSB WWW.ATSB.GOV.AU

There's a lovely (912) Dragonfly based at Taree.

Speaking of sticks and rudders, this vid is a reading from the gospel according to Langewiesche (snr): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8yiGhnysIU (Despite its trashy thumbnail the video turns out to be a thoughtfully made [20 min.] review of Stick & Rudder's main points.)

A newie has turned up:

AvData Pty. Ltd will be praying that this disease ain't for the spreadin'. Florida Bans ADS-B Fee Calculation at Airports WWW.FLYINGMAG.COM Florida is the latest to restrict ADS-B data use for certain nonsafety purposes amid a push to end the practice nationwide.

Yes, good point, SP ... and what the article (above) reckons is that it can sometimes help to know just how much mush is left before a wing walks off the job - and, conversely, the moment that it's ready to return to work: "We also like AoA indicators because they make it clear when the wing is flying again during stall recovery and can help minimize altitude loss in the recovery, which may mean the difference of climbing away with a system-load of adrenaline instead of diving into the ground when trying to make sure that there won’t be a secondary stall during recovery ... AoA indicators are also a big help when dealing with low aircraft energy situations such as a go-around, clearing obstructions after takeoff, and hazardous conditions such as wind shear or maneuvering to avoid terrain, and allow the pilot to take advantage of maximum wing performance near stall AoA." (But anyways, SP ... aggie and firey flyers like y'self, living out whole careers down low by way of rudder, stick and feel; you all have got to grow your own AoA sense just to pull it off ;--)

Yeah, good question. It also bears on the soon-to-come Controlled Airspace regime at (and near) Ballina, about which RAAus sent out an email notice this morning (without, however, explanation or comment regarding how it'll affect RAAus ops, in and through the area.) There's heaps of info about the new arrangements online from Airservices in various elaborate formats (they seem very keen to demonstrate community engagement) but I couldn't find much about what it's going to mean for RAAus flyers, local and otherwise. Maybe it is written somewhere. Maybe someone on here knows. In any case, maybe we'll find out as a result of the public meetings they've advertised for next week. Meanwhile, I've written to Airservices asking directly. I'll re-post any reply here if we've not been enlightened beforehand. I'm guessing that much of the anxiety that's led to these changes originated with the near miss involving a Jab and an Airbus back in 2020. Separation occurrence involving Airbus A320-232, VH-VGP and Jabiru J230D, 24-7456, near Ballina Byron Gateway Airport, New South Wales, on 28 November 2020 | ATSB WWW.ATSB.GOV.AU RAAus email-out, May 1 2026: Civil Aviation Safety Authority is holding information sessions to discuss the upcoming changes to Ballina airspace. These sessions will cover the changes airspace as well as the soon to be released Gold Coast VTC. A CASA Safety Advisor will be joined by representatives from the Office of Airspace Regulation (OAR), as well as Airservices Staff including the tower supervisor and air traffic controllers who will be based at Ballina. CASA’s AvSafety advisors will be heading to your community to deliver our latest safety seminar for pilots of all licence categories: Time & Locations Below: Monday 4 May - Ballina – 6pm, White Star Aviation Ballina Airport. Tuesday 5 May - South Grafton – 10am, Clubhouse with Peter Clements Wednesday 6 May - Lismore – 2pm, Northern Rivers Aero Club Thursday 7 May - *Murwillumbah – 7pm, Murwillumbah Aero Club *This is also a pilot safety seminar on decision making. (Registrations are required for this event, details below. Tickets are free.)

“The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons.” Jean Renoir

No GPS based navigator deals in Heading. They only do Track. They've no clue as to where your nose is pointing (and don't care ;-). Some EFIS systems have electronic compass (magnetometer) input as well as their GPS track data. In practice, though, the most useful thing a magnetometer does is to enable the display of real time wind-velocity.

Generative AI?

No jest. No contest.

Mogas is a useful term to distinguish it from Avgas in an aviation context.

And getting oil up to temp can take an eternity. ;- )

True ... and right up there among its talents is the ability to handle OUT as well as IN. Plus its tight integration with popular local EFBs for IN display.