turboplanner

1 hour ago, jackc said:

The thing that peeves me is having to pore over charts when checking G airspace, too much information clutter where something important could be missed.   If only there were charts primarily for RAA pilot use. 

I'm assuming you're referring to the local area near your strip.

They aren't going to make up maps for RA aircraft because they aren't expected in the zone, and I agree tying to sort out where you can go while at the same time trying to dodge a rainstorm without making an incursion and with the aircraft bouncing around is a nightmare. What I've done is get a small rung binder (A5) and do my own page with any special procedures - pretty much what you're asking for. While you're making the page up you're learning critical points.

29 minutes ago, KRviator said:

Things they are allowed to do (still):
VFR in E - straight over the top of a major international airport, no clearance required. Try that in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane - you can't.
 

USA - FAR Part 103

Section 103.15 "No person may operate an Ultralight vehicle over any congested area of a city, twon or settlement or over any open air assembly of persons.

Just now, aro said:

Which "things" have you searched for? I am not aware of changes in the US regulations, but Australian regulations seem to be going backwards e.g. maintenance on Experimental aircraft.

Probably a dozen different things over the past decade brought up on this site, where I posted the current/new US regulation.

Most of them were significant changes made to comply with ICAO standards, for which Australia had made the ICAO changes the people were bitching about.

....cars in the TECSANL Team for Bathurst. "We think it's time cars were painted white like they are when on the roads" continued the boss Jamee Shell, who herself was sporting a pure white outfit and white makeup and looked like a white Mustang. She knew a bit about racing too. When asked how many were in the TECSANL Team, she said "20 per side as far as I know", and this was considered to be one of the most incisive answers given by a Team Boss at Bathurst in the last decade. Before that .............................

56 minutes ago, jackc said:

Avoidance of some Wars in the past has resulted from skilled negotiations.  When those skilled negotiations fail, then it’s game ON……..

Sorry I should have made it clearer; NCAT is the final legal decision maker. It appears that no one took it to NCAT. There's no game ON after that.

13 minutes ago, jackc said:

Well,  I have picked some pretty big battles in my lifetime, ones that people said I was wasting my time……but I still won.

My personal policy is…..if you don’t have a go, you will never know 🙂. I will be happy to take my achievements to my grave!

To win the battle you have to engage in the war, and it would appear that no one took the action to start the war.

Just now, jackc said:

So is Ben Morgan and the AOPA wasting their time?  Who here would take on what appears to be a thankless task trying to keep the wolves from airport doors?

I mean would I not have a clue, been in Aviation all of 5 minutes with nearly Zero knowledge, and living in an Aviation wasteland.

 

Keeping wolves from the doors of a property is usually the job of the owner or lessee of the property. 

If you want to step in as an independent person, there is provision for that in the Planning Scheme.

If a body decides to change or shut down a Use, anyone who took part in the decision phase can appeal to NCAT.

If no one appeals, then the matter ends with the body's decision.

Happens every week of every year around Australia; quite often the participants just give it away as an own goal.

.....vibrated the ears of the DG residents, causing dizziness and embarrassing falls in the street, and the front stub axles on VN Commodores to prematurely snap, leading to one of the streets being renamed Commodore Street and also .........

4 hours ago, jackc said:

Money, greed and apathy comes to mind.  There are examples everywhere, airports/airstrips,  caravan parks, speedway tracks, showgrounds plus many others.  These facilities created many years ago have been surrounded by development and values have risen to the point where the operators of these facilities have realised there is big money in developing those facilities and the incumbent uses are now unviable in respect of monetary return. 

How many airports that accommodate GA and RAA have been built in the last 20 years?  As I have said in the past, many people will be flying from private airstrip in may cases.  Airports/airstrips in many rural areas will still be around for a long time, but the numbers will dwindle the closer they are to more densely populated areas.  Not a good look, but we just have to keep working to keep existing facilities going and to this end, Ben Morgan is fighting a daily War to try and save airports under threat.

I don’t see many soldiers behind him…….

Not with 7 real issues at 659 coded airports.

One of the 6 cases I discounted was Mildura where according to Kharon's report, Airports under attack, "removed tie downs for GA on hard stand" was the attack.

3 hours ago, KRviator said:

@turboplanner, the thrust of one of your arguments is that Gumby-ments don't (or don't have to) promote things these days, and I would agree in Australia that's somewhat true.

However, Aviation in Australia also has the exact opposite of being "promoted" with seemingly endless impediments to the simple act of committing aviation...what with the ASIC, never-ending regulatory "reform", the Australian-ising of things such that you need an EO to put a GoPro on a wing strut, whereas in the US it's a '337 (if that), Canada has 'owner-maintenance' for a range of basic GA certified aircraft right up to 172 variants, the US has Part 103 for unregistered 'ultralights'. Oh, and we have AvData too, bottom-dwelling parasites that they are.

Beyond the original "Experimental" category, I struggle to think of a single thing that Government has done to assist - not necessarily promote - aviation in this Country. We still don't have SBAS/WAAS after nearly 2 decades, it took years for CAsA to allow "non-TSO'd" ADS-B GNSS position sources in Experimental/RAAus and but for the grace of god a Jabiru didn't become a hood ornament on an A320 at Ballina because they won't stump up the $$ for Class D, because, well, User Pays you know... And let's not mention the rest of the airspace abomination that is Australia. Consider that you can go straight over the top of LAX, JFK or SFO in Class E in the US yet here you're stuck low level over tiger country or coastal because you can't get a decent clearance though an unoccupied Class D! 

 

True, the Government doesn't have to promote aviation - but neither do they have to have introduced so many effin' roadblocks to it. 

I was writing a quick social media answer for an RA audience rather than an exhaustive thesis, but I'm happy to extend the explanation to "assist", "not assist", "like",'not like" or any other words you like to bring up. They are at arms' length from our operations.

You can bitch about a Go Pro mount needing to be engineered, but in BMX I went through a dozen or so where the camera found its own way down top the ground.

It's interesting that each time I've taken the time to search US regulations for "things they are allowed to do in the land of the free" the search has shown it no longer applies and their current requirements are the same as ours. Not saying there aren't exceptions, but the grass always looks greener over the fence.

Interesting also in that apparently only one person on this site made a submission on a similar airways matter which tells me most pilots understand why airspace restrictions are there.

You can also judge the satisfaction among RA pilots and owners with the present status quo from the 10,000 members and 3,200 aircraft owners who are not complaining.

In your case with the aircraft type you've built and the application you seem to want to be using it in, I can understand the difficulty negotiating the GA processes which are primarily set up for established manufacturers to build aircraft on a production line basis. They go through the process you're not happy with because they are used to it, having done it over and over again, and the production units don't have the processing issues you had. I design new truck models, and the design and paperwork takes about 4 years before there's an approved production model sitting in a showroom ready to go on the road and I don't actually have to build the trucks, so your experience is like it's been because you chose to step into the design pipeline. 

..........Puce Parrot Gully, not only being responbsible for an INCURSION which carries a ten year prison sentence, but likely to destroy the habitat of these priceless birds, without which the whole of Melbourne would be covered in cockroach dung.

Not many people know that Turbo had donated $17 million to form the Psittaciformes Protection Programme which had cut down 30,000 trees to get 10,000 hollow logs to build nests for these endangered birds although breeding has been slow since there were only six breeding pairs in the area when we started, but ................

...ground to earth and kill all the little ants and other creatures, and this is what's going to stop the eclectic cars of today when the woke population realises that when an eclectic car rolls over they will not only be covered in acid, but will be grounded, and all the near-extinct creatures like the Orange bellied parrot will die unless they can keep flying, and ...........

1 hour ago, walrus said:

Let’s face it, Government hates private non RPT and non military or government run aviation in all its forms.  Their only concern is to ensure that as an industry sector we die quietly. I cannot think of one positive action Government has taken for GA/RA that hasn’t had to be dragged out of them with much kicking and screaming.

Depends what you are referring to:

If you are talking about Katoomba Airfield, my research so far indicates that it was occupied on a monthly arrangement  until 2017, minimal commercial aviation occurred and the airfield began to fall into disrepair, a helicopter company was granted a license to use it from 2018, the DPI conducted a 56 day Public Submissions period which ended on August 4, 2019 (the Blue Mountains Council opposed development in its submission),  there was no lessee and that the DPI on January 13 2020 rejected a lease application on the basis of overwhelming opposition. 

Ben Morgan's claim of 50 years ofexisting use appears correct; I found 1969-2019 as anchor dates, however;

"Existing Use" is a legal Planning term which almost certainly would have prevented the airport closure in NCAT, but I've found no information that indicates anyone bothered to take the simple task of opposing the decision in VCAT, so on that basis it wasn't the "Government" that shut it down, it was apathy.

If you are talking about the vocasupport link a few posts ago, firstly you would remember Kharon; that's his site and information.

It lists 13 airfields under threat; that's just 13 out of Australia's total of around 659, and of the 13 I would disqualify 6, so about 7 real threats.

Most of the threats are financial rather than government.

Regarding your comment in general, governments these days don't physically promote specific industries like they used to prior to the 1980s, and they oversee the minimum "controlling bodies" so you're not going to see any change; they don't hate non commercial activities, they are just not going to finance any mistakes and negligence in those activities, and encourage Self Administering Organisations which carry their own liability.

In some cases this has produced huge gains; consider motor racing in Australia where CAMS were the Controlling Body. Saloon car racing became less and less popular in Group C, went downhill further in Group A based on formal European classes, but was pushed to the sidelines when "V8 Supercars" was formed and administered its own series.

RAA is in a similar situation to V8 Supercars; its quite free to promote RA flying - nothing holding it back, so you shouldn't be sitting around waiting for "the Government" to act; the train doesn't run on that line any more.

.....voted for Number two because he had the beard but not the cheek fluff which caused an itch a few days later.

Not many people know that the first two photos are the same person, our Onsie, the first before he learnt to sing and the second after he could sing on key and attract long standing audiences without the check fluff.

The third photo is Cappy's warped sense of humour; it's a photo of him in his earlier days when he dyed his hair and tried to be eclectic, but ......................

[btw the photo is taken outside the Wagga Wagga lockup after a hard weekend]

Any RA pilots notice anything about the aerial photo of Katoomba I put up a few posts ago?

....wrapped himself up in a tight fitting garment, but Onesie looked more like Demis Roussos than G, and didn't fool anyone because..........

.......his close association with Prince Ferdinand, the bullfighter, or Spain.

Theirs was an uneasy friendship because Ferdinand was a rampant socialist, meaning he only flew Ultralights if the government paid for them and they had paid a lot because he had wrecked every one they ever gave him by his habit of .......

No white crosses on it, but it looks like someone's private strip.

1 hour ago, Thruster88 said:

The pilot did a very good job to get into a small field from low altitude while keeping control of the aircraft. The field looks rough enough to damage an under carriage regardless of technique. I hope it was not one of our forum members who recently bought an sp500.

 

Since it is safety month I wonder how the investigation might proceed and will anything change as a result.  

Regardless of what actually happened, there's an opportunity for RAA to offer a skills exercise by going through step by step the procedure for landing on a substantial upslope - more or less formalising what has been discussed here.

Bruce would your track be roughly:

Edenhope

Keith

Tailem Bend

Mannum

Sanderston

Mt Pleasant

Gawler

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Anyway, you are on the side of might and therefore right with respect to that airspace submission I made. Actually, I was told verbally by somebody who was there that my submission was rejected because I was asking for " non-standard" airspace.

And I would never consider flying from Edenhope to Gawler by going closer to West Beach etc. I go over Mount Pleasant instead.

Your other east Bruce, you wouldn't be going anywhere near West Beach.

The target I was thinking of was Parafield, forgot your home field was Gawler.

I'll get around to doing the exercise one day.

Any idea of the prevailing winds at Gawler and Edenhope?

Where the other guy said you were asking for "non standard" airspace, I would have described it as "non-available". If I can find the CTA diagramme, that actualy explains it.

2 hours ago, jackc said:

Turbs needs training……he sh1tcans things, tells us his experience BUT but does not offer ideas for possible solutions.  By all means can someone’s ideas, but be ready to offer possible workable solutions otherwise it’s best to say nothing.

Success with RAAus board will determine how he can deal with egos, big or small.

No different to most organisations that have a regulatory flavour to them.

Skills of negotiation need to come to the fore……..

Why would I offer solutions to things that don't need a solution. I didn't make a submission because I didn't find any reason to depart from the proposal.

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Turbs, you are just the right sort of thinker to prick holes in stupid ideas and I would like for you to be on the RAAus board.

I still disagree with you abut the Adelaide airspace submission and wonder how many times that airspace has actually been used in the last 20 years. AND why could not an airliner in real distress use one of its radios to talk to us?

I accidentally pulled an excellent example map of Adelaide CTA up a few months ago when I was going to do an example for you of the net difference between the way you want to skim straight in under the step vs a track to the east of your target from Edenhope, deviating from track to where there was less headwind all the way up, so you would fly to the east of Parafield, go past it then turn back approx SE to Parafield outside the step, so problem solved if the net flight time was the same, but I didn't get around to doing it and I didn't file the CTA diagramme, but it was a VERY busy circle incorporating Adelaide Airport and Edinburgh Airport, and it showed all the holding patterns, some orbital, some an elongated oval with two straights and two end curves. From memory one of these was pretty much where you want to go.

The aircraft in real distress scenario is not an issue because as soon as any aircraft calls a Mayday it gets priority over everyone else, which has included a redirect to Mildura in the past. This includes you if you make that call, so CTA is not about distress its about traffic management.

One RPT flight runs ten minutes late, so the one behind it is put into a holding slot to make time for it to be clear of the runway after it lands. That delay throw the second aircraft landing behind and the third is running early, so it has to be put in another holding pattern, say doing the oval in your "20 years vacant airspace" The No 2 is called in to land, but No 3 is still maintaining the fast oval at the bottom of CTA. A RFDS aircraft calls inbound with a patient for urgent transfer to a helicopter so No 3 is moved to an orbit closer to the airport but with all the delays two more RPTs arrive, with one being directed to a loop towards Port Adelaide and the other to your favourite loop.

From memory there are about 10 orbits and loops within that Adelaide CT circle, so it can be a busy place. From that circle, you can still be pushed out further. I've been in an aircraft Orbiting Murray Bridge.

So ATC need to be 100% sure the space is free, and incursions are big deals.

As an example of unpredictability I was inbound for Essendon from the east of the CTA, all was going well, then ATC called up said there was a Medivac aircraft inbound and I was to orbit over Clifton Hill (about halfway from Parafield to Adelaide), so for about ten minutes I was parked out to the east of the City going round and round in beautiful sunshine trying to keep myself focused on an overpass, so I didn't stray into the next holding pattern. I wasn't looking for a Jab to come zooming through thinking the space was empty, I was totally focused on how I was going to get out of the orbit and still find Essendon.

1 hour ago, Old Koreelah said:

Given my experience of making submissions during “public consultation” processes, Jackc’s conclusion is understandable.

He said "Decisions are usually set in concrete WITHOUT considering submissions"

That's nonsense which anyone can check just by looking at consultation history.

You may not have had much luck or received a specific mention,  but did anyone show you how to make a submission that would work?, ie your issue, the research of the present situation, the improvement your submission could bring etc.

The top priority in Controlled Airspace is the safety of paying passengers both politically and operationaly, so anything you submit that would weaken RPT safety, so if you wanted to do something different you would have to address that as Point 1, with all the points being researched, calculated and provable rather than just a list of assertions. Then the organisation holding the community consultation session is more likely to focus on the submissions similar to yours, and put the assertions, personal wants and unproven theories to the side.

2 minutes ago, jackc said:

Decisions are usually set in concrete WITHOUT considering submissions, they are only paying lip service to people in an effort to make them feel all warm and fuzzy.

Nothing more 😞

BS