flying dog

Possibly. I posted it here because it made me laugh at how stupid the words are. Say one thing, mean another and do something else.

There is this big push for people to get tested and all that. My thoughts are neither here nor there. But we are bombarded with these adverts. "From the chief medical officer in Canberra......" He goes on talking about the virus. "If you think you have Covid-19: Stay at home and get tested!" So let me check I understand what he just said: If I think I have the virus, I stay at home and they come to me and test me? I don't think so! Me thinks the script writer is being paid too much. But, it makes me laugh. So I thought I would share it here.

Thursday or Friday night. About 20:00 TOLL rescue helicopter landed at COOMA Hospital from Marouya. Anyone know what happened?

There is 6 pages of replies to this topic and I haven't read them all. If it is the one I think it is they showed a picture of the plane and it was VH registered. How does VH become ultralight? I'm not demeaning the fact. Just curious if these two are the same or not.

That looks like it. But 3.33 of a 45 minute show isn't really going to give you much.

Well, if things keep going as they are now - Sunday 22 March - Domestic flights are being cancelled. Boarders are going to be blocked...... Social closeness rules mean you have to have 1.5m between you and "others". Schools may get "early holidays" from Tuesday. I think holidays will become virtual the way things are going.

The ballad of the dunny roll

I'll "bite" at this. Ok, NOW they aren't covering Covid19 as a valid reason to cancel trips. Say you booked it 12 months ago - totally unaware of CV19. Now, they say they aren't flying to .... (where ever). That's not YOUR fault. Granted it is probably better to stay home. But as there are no flights, you should get your money back. Of course the insurance companies will try everything to get out of paying. But given you paid for it before this happened - and therefore wasn't in the equation - they can't really say "NO" to you.

(Weird, I'm not getting notifications of replies.) Sorry I can't give a link to the episode. I've got a paytv subscription. So I watched it there and can't find a "free" version to share.

Aircrash investigation S19 E10 Runway Breakup. Overview: Plane 737. Pilot flying IMC into airport. (HEAVY rain) Lands short - crashes. Findings: - The pilot used to fly turbo props and was used to doing landings "aiming for the green lights" rather than using the PAPI, or aiming for the "piano keys". - The plane was descending at 1100 FPM. Boeing's specified max is 900. - If the Rate of Descent is greater than 900 (fpm) it is an unstable approach. - "He was coming in steep and ALWAYS below the glideslope." My "problems": In the review it is said: In vertical speed mode the crew must manually select their rate of descent. Um, duh! That's why it is called Vertical speed. On the "He was coming in steep and always under the glideslope" part: If the plane was ALWAYS under the glideslope, they wouldn't have reached Top Of Descent. Why were they going down? Ok, maybe to try and sneak in under the weather. Given the plane has a given Ground speed - and yes I get that this can vary with wind speed changes - the "Top of descent" is a function of altitude and ground speed if you want a constant rate of descent. So, why wouldn't you use VS if you have a given altitude and ground speed? It wasn't clear the airport had ILS. But did have PAPI lights. ILS is better I know because if the wind speed changes - and therefore the ground speed - the plane's position on the glide slope will change and the plane will act accordingly. On the Rate of Descent. Doesn't that depend on the airspeed too? If you are doing 600 kts IAS and a ROD of >900 FPM, yes you have a problem. But if you have an IAS of 160 kts and a ROD of >900 FMP, why is that a problem? All the plane sees is "air over its wings" - be it going up, down, or level. So I am not exactly sure I get why the crew using Vertical Speed mode is/was a problem.

OME, It is on a hard drive. I don't use windows. The hard drive it is/was on died about 3 years ago and though I did get it restored, .5TB of files is not fun searching. These days I am up to my neck in other things and time is not as plentiful as I would like. Today it is raining and if I run out of things to do, I may look for it. Deceiver, Things aren't as nice as I would like them to be and I am "on edge" just now. Sorry. From memory it is about 5 Meg in size. But I can't really trust memory these days.

Errr, > I can also host it for others if you were so inclined. Why? It is a spreadsheet which is loaded onto your computer. If I post it, it is mine. And I shall have to find it too. It was about 5 years ago when I wrote it.

I don't know where it is now, but...... I was getting a few messages of topics being mentioned here a while back and there was talk of a flight planer spreadsheet. I did a quick search but couldn't find it. (But I have been away for a long time etc etc) I wrote one up a LONG time ago. I think I showed it to a guy called Noah, but he was more interested in water navigation. It has most Aus VFR/IFR waypoints known. Most airports. But you can add custom waypoints too. You set the aircraft type, fuel tank size, burn rate, etc. You enter the winds, and it does the rest. It does fuel calculations and times. It gives warning if you use your reserve fuel, and a big warning if you won't make the leg with fuel remaining. It's locked because I put WEEKS of work into it. But it is usable for basic flight planning. I can try to dig it up if someone is interested. It also gives you a printout of destination airport details, but you have to enter the values. Since ........ (What's it called?) Has come out and "every man and their dog" has it, everyone went away form the mechanics of doing flight plans "the old way" and use it instead. As much as it is nice to have things which are "online" and all that stuff, I think it takes a lot away from people actually understanding what is going on and how important it is to make a flight plan. Though I can't say from personal experience: when ever is the weather correct? (Slight sarcasm there.) Oh, and it is BIG! I've had a couple of people test it and found a couple of bugs which I fixed. But it is kind of gathering dust these days.

Though a sore point, maybe it will be so much better when all aircraft have ADSB in them. Then ATC can track the craft so much quicker and easier.

I guess it is academic now. But I hope people will learn for future benefit.

Well, I guess typical military. Go in, "hot and fast, and make a mess of the place." Sorry, but it just seems so mindless. EVERYONE knows there is a SEVERE BUSHFIRE alert. (EXTREME?) they land a helicopter with a HOT search light in the middle of a DRY GRASS FIELD.

Ok, so I'm not going stupid. (Too late. I'm already there.) WHY on earth wouldn't you turn off the lights before landing? I get it that it is usually done. But isn't that why we still have pilots and not computers? COMPUTER Landing: 1 - make sure landing lights on. HUMAN Landing: in dry grass etc etc etc. TURN THE LIGHTS OFF AND DON'T START ANOTHER FIRE. Sheesh! Ain't rocket science.

Today (Wednesday 29) I was watching the news. It was going on about the people from Canada coming over and looking at the crash near Braidwood. Somewhere near there I saw/heard an article about a helicopter landing somewhere and having to take off quickly ...... "Because the heat from the lights started another fire" WTF!!?? (Excuse that, but seriously.....) The lights on the helicopter started another fire? I'm not sure if they said: THELIGHTS or THE HEAT FROM THE LIGHTS.....

Sorry folks, but again: I am not getting notifications. The button at the bottom is ticked. I know it is kinda off topic, but I am just stating what is happening.

Slightly "Off topic": I believe I am subscribed to this thread. The "notify me on replies" is ticked. Ok, I get e-mails - which is good - but when I come to the site, I am now not seeing a notification indicator. Thoughts?

Ok, stepping back a second, if it was CFIT, there will be a lot of the CVR to hear. They were flying at 125 kts. So not exactly "just under mac 1". Sure things will (did) go sideways, but not that fast from the start. Yeah, once a wing hits the ground: all over red rover. But WHY (how) did they get into that configuration? That is something which does need following up.

I just read saccani's post. Interesting. Dumb question/s: Granted they were dropping water on the fire, and it would probably been from a low altitude. But not to the point of tree top I would hope. Way back the news report was talking about the last few seconds of flight - alas it was given in metres rather than feet. (Sorry, I'm still a feet person for altitude) I seem to remember they were 1,000 above ground level. As that is/was in metres, that is quite high to run out of margin. (No offence) Has the CVR been played back to anyone yet?

I am not wanting to be too quick to ask, but I heard on the news that it wasn't a simple crash. It nose dived from a pretty high altitude. Not so much CFIT. Just curious to what happened - though I guess everyone is wanting to know.

Probably more for ATC people, but here's a question: This "morning" at 01:30 local time I woke up and heard a plane flying around. It came and went a few times and though it didn't bother me, it raised a question: (I loaded Flightradar24 and looked.) (Should have taken a screen shot of the flight path to show) There is a small UNIDENTIFIED aircraft with no call sign flying left/right (East/West) over the city (Sydney) As far north as the harbour and south to maybe redfern. West as far as glebe and east to maybe edgecliff. 01:30, not all data is correctly logged in brain{ }. Ok, there are no arrivals at that time so there isn't any worry on that side of things, but a: No call sign and b: at 01:30 Anyone have any ideas on what was happening?

Ok, thanks. Not wanting to seem difficult, I shall re-word the question then, as I don't think I asked the right one originally anyway. You "enter" Australia "way out there" but you still have to get through immigration. Until then, what is the term used to describe "where" you are? Because if you don't meet the "requirements" you can be denied entry to Oz. But if you are already "in Oz", it becomes a bit hard for me to understand. Anyone?