Roundsounds

You'll find old VH-PBS knows what to do by herself! You weren't keen on the Citabrias?, they are the best abinitio trainer you'll find. A tip - start yourself a "reflective diary" using a school exercise book. After each session find a quiet spot (on the hill overlooking the airport is good) and run through in your mind what you covered during the flight. Write down a few things that went well and a few that didn't. Research what you could do to fix the things that didn't go well. Also note anything you're not sure about and need to ask the instructor, cause you're likely to forget if you don't write them down. Review the notes the day of / or prior to your next lesson. Maybe even do it with your instructor if time permits.

That'd be an Antonov AN2.

Good work and as Nev says, you'll have good days and not so good days. Remember to go around if you feel uncomfortable with an approach or landing, don't wait for the instructor to prompt you. In your early days, you're better off going around rather than trying too hard to correct a large balloon or big bounce. A little exercise for you to help develop your thought processes regarding energy management during approach: Draw a 3x3 grid (like noughts and crosses) Across the top label the columns with airspeed as: Slow, ok, fast. Down the left side label the rows with your approach profile as: High, ok, low Now write in each box of the grid your actions. eg the centre row, third column will represent profile ok, but airspeed fast. I would reduce power and maintain profile until airspeed is ok, then reset the correct power. If you follow the simplistic teaching of elevator controls airspeed and power controls flight path you'd raise the nose to fix the fast airspeed, but now you're high on profile so you'd reduce power - pretty dumb I think. You need to assess your energy state (combination of speed and height) before making corrections and remember power + attitude = performance. So unless you're in a glider or had an engine failure you've got two factors affecting performance. In all cases for low experience pilots I recommend high+fast=go-around and low+slow=go around. I hope this helps and does not cause confusion, it's much easier explained on a white board! Keep up the great work!

You simply cannot beat a J-3 Cub for general handling. Flown solo from the rear seat, which provides excellent perspective for judging attitudes and feeling whether in balance. The ability to fly with the entry door open is great too. A real classic and absolute joy to fly!

Sounds like you're making good progress. Don't let the flare distract you from the rest of the circuit, like I said it will all click into place and you'll wonder why you were worrying. I use the following work cycle commencing on base and continuing on approach: LARF L = Line-up A = Airspeed R = Relax! (Physically, not mentally. It helps you check to see the aircraft's in trim and reduces your tendency to over control) F = Flight path - hi/lo? and over or under shooting? Good luck with your next session!

Your instructor would be the first point of call to ask this question. We all learn differently and your instructor should be able to provide you with several different methods of judging flare height and how to complete the hold off. I won't let my students attempt a landing until they can fly a tidy circuit and approach and judge the flare and hold off. I do this by having them complete the circuit down to the flare and hold off, initially with me managing the power into the flare and prompting "a bit higher or a bit lower" without intending a touch down. The run along the runway then finishes with a go around, if you can successfully fly this sequence the actual touchdown is easy. I brief that any unexpected touchdown / bounce leads to a go around and I deal with bounce recovery later on. You then just need to manage the rollout, which effectively is high to low speed taxiing. Like any learning, it's broken down into building blocks and not one huge sequence of events which students can find overwhelming. I think some instructors forget what those early stages of flight training are like as a student. Good luck, you'll find it will all click and wonder why you found this stage difficult.

The "Latest News" links include one to a fly-inn June 15 and another regarding a NOTAM affecting Kingaroy last Sept 2014. The website really needs some regular maintenance. The L1 Training was rolled out 1 December 14 on a 3 month trial and the page and links are still sitting there with no updates on what the future holds re L1s.

They must be an amazingly clever design, there's one on the RAAus register with an empty weight under 400kg. Makes them quite useful, even with a reduced MTOW of 600kg they can carry pilot plus 1 pax, 60 litres of fuel and has retractable gear. Much more useful than any of the RV range of aircraft when it comes to RAAus rego. I really admired the one on display at the last Avalon airshow.

Very sad, I recall being in awe of Colleen's outstanding formation flying skills in various displays and competitions with Schofields Aero Club over the years.

Wedderburn certainly isn't my favourite airfield due to many reasons, but you can always exercise your right not to use it if you consider it to be unsafe.

Thanks Jake, very sad indeed. The CASA register records the aircraft as a SH-2Ft which I assumed to be a Glasair 2.

From the bit of footage on the news flash, it looked a bit like a Glasair II.

There reporting system needs to encourage reporting of near misses. There are two obvious ways of effecting this: 1. Create an anonymous reporting system for near misses. Or 2. Guarantee no punitive action for reported near misses (provided they are not justifiable and deliberate breaches of reg's). There seems to be a perception of big brother is watching and waiting to pounce on anyone who makes a genuine mistake. I'm not suggesting this to be the case, but it seems to be the perception talking to members and reading blogs etc. The option of anonymous or mon punitive action reporting may help change this perception.

Andy, at the end of the day most incidents result due to an HF issue. What the RAAus doesn't have the ability to do now is identify or forecast the most likely combination of pilot, aircraft, weather etc which will result in an incident. Once this info can be extracted from the existing data, decisions can be made regarding what the most appropriate mitigators might be. I work for an organisation who has such a system in place and it works very well.

Very interesting data, but of little use to tackle the issue of reducing the rate. Until incidents are reviewed to determine common causes, any attempt to fix the problem is simply a shot in the dark. The other key is to create a culture of reporting near misses. People will not report near misses whilst they feel they will be penalised for doing so. I heard there was a proposal to introduce a demerit system, this would definitely stop people reporting incidents. The more safety data that can be collected and analysed, the better the outcomes of any attempts to reduce incident rates.

Surely the smart thing would've been for whoever put these questions together to have just copied them from the sample Q's given in reputable training manuals. At least they would've been written by someone who knows the subject and have been subject to proper scrutiny and editing process.

OME, John sold the aircraft late last year. It's been based in the Hunter since changing hands.

Very pleased to see a post from you Dutch! The description from acro had me a little concerned. Not good news for all involved.

Kaz, this is the incident at Bishops Bridge. There's already a thread running on it.

Acro, the all red one or the red, white and blue one?

http://www.maitlandmercury.com.au/story/3198167/pilot-dies-in-bishops-bridge-plane-crash-photos/#slide=15

Maybe the organisation would be better off with a full time incident investigator. This would free up time for the Ops and Tech managers to focus on incident prevention / education?

The requirement to maintain not less than 1.3 x Vs is included in CASA Air Display approvals to prevent this type of event occurring. It's a shame, damaged aircraft and doesn't reflect well on RAAus.

The QLD Coroner made some very specific recommendations regarding RAAus and oversight of aircraft maintenance. RAAus told the Cornoner they didn't have the resources to perform audits of maintainers (probably in the hope there would be a recommendation for more funding). The Coroner then recommended CASA perform these audits on behalf of RAAus. I think this might be driving this matter now. There's been a fair amount of Comms with us via newsletter and magazine articles.

The video explains why the gear bolts let go!