turboplanner

He didn't say it was relevant, Frank - just reading. It's the vibe of the thing...

I see it gave you a good laugh Oscar.

My comment followed some "denial" posts - "not leave the house" and so on, and the relevance is:

 

1. A person knew or ought to have known that there was a requirement not to fly below 500 feet

 

2. He flew below 500 feet, and a passenger was killed

 

3. He has been charged with manslaughter

 

I stress that at this point he has only been charged, not convicted. The case hasn't been heard, we don't know the details, and we don't know the results.

 

In December, some new requirements were introduced by CASA.

 

 

I do not have a pessimistic view of the system at all. I have about 6,000 calculations out there on the roads, any of which could bite me at any time, but I'm very comfortable that I researched the risks and operated on a go/no go method on each of those occasions.

 

I just don't think it's fair that people should take to the air without any information on what they face if they make a mistake.

 

I also don't think it's fair that they don't know how to insure themselves.

 

These are simple things to do, yet there's massive resistance to making them aware of their obligations.

 

 

http://www.echo.net.au/2014/08/pilot-charged-manslaughter-ewingar-crash/

AlanStick with trucks, unqualified legal advice is worth exactly what you paid for it - nil.

Here's a little reading for you Frank: http://www.echo.net.au/2014/08/pilot-charged-manslaughter-ewingar-crash/

 

 

That's quite interesting Turbs, but you haven't addressed the issue I raised: many of the vehicles Australians are driving at speed were originally designed as farm trucks and delivery vehicles. All the add-ons and options don't change that.

Well we were talking about light commercials and not trucks, and in their early days, before export from Japan really started they were designed for on-road use, in the urban areas at slow speed and on winding country roads, so they already had some handling ability. The utes I had experience with were designed specifically for Australian roads, and when the trial units were landed in Australia they stayed in Engineering hands until the ride, handling and durability were all up to GM Australian standards.

The add ons and options I talked about were not accessories, but driveline and component modules which go together to make a unique ute for the country of destination. Technically they are all different vehicles and will perform and handle quite differently.

 

I'm not sure if you've driven US vehicles, but the utes which go to the US get that floating ride that americans love and the utes which were sold here had the Australian ride we are used to in Commodores and Falcons, plus shock absorber performance for Australian conditions, which usually involves bringing vehicles in without shock absorbers and retrofitting Australian units. Australian market tyres were also tested on the Australian tested and developed driveline which by now included gas shocks and anti roll torsion bars, and wide-track axles. Roll Centres may be changed for additional cornering stability.

 

The Utes have access to a dedicated Proving Ground and also go out in groups on and off-road in test runs which might involve Melbourne to Darwin and back through Queensland.

 

When you buy them from the showroom they have the Australian handling we all expect.

 

 

AlanStick with trucks, unqualified legal advice is worth exactly what you paid for it - nil.

It isn't legal advice. I learned to live with the system years ago. The good thing about it is that it bites the ones who ignore their obligations.

 

 

Great world we have created where a charitable fund raising effort is cancelled due to fear of legal action

Our generation didn't; it's just that the negligent ones are starting to pay. If you are poisoned or otherwise injured by someone's negligence your costs are going to be paid by the negligent whether they are a giant corporation or an individual.

 

 

That way would, most of the time, appoint the favourite of the Government of the day.

 

At the present time we have been going through elections which have produced very close results, but at any time there can be a major swing, or a swing where the government gets a clear mandate. The Rudd/Gillard government and the Abbot government have been virtually stuck in treacle, unable to get big programmes up, but that will change the minute a big issue comes up.

 

 

You keep saying the last part. Do you fully understand the philosophy of RAAus? or are you trying to import another standard from somewhere else? Tobacco kills thousands and alcohol and drugs too. Over 10,000 die by misadventure and errors in Australian hospitals annually. Let's get real with all of this. How many suicide? The deaths in U/L aviation are miniscule and don't involve 3rd part people often. Nev

And you keep avoiding reading up on your obligations based on the laws of today.

 

Yes, I understand the philosophy of RAA - keep it simple, keep it affordable. I administered speedway for eight years and we had exactly the same beliefs - it is non-commercial and we are only in it for the affordable sport.

 

But we had a bad run of luck, or everyone who was injured knew which lawyer to call, and I had a baptism of fire, and quickly learned all about my obligations. You should too.

 

I even decided to get out of the transport business, and take up a quiet profession like farming for meat, and found out all about HACCP, traceability, and the fact that four million Australians were hospitalised every year. I quickly zipped back to transport.

 

Even the find raising sausage sizzles had to be either dumped, or conducted with duty of care, so no one is exempt, regardless of how simple a life they want.

 

 

Turbs the Lawyers ruined the US light aircraft scene for years. They have never fully recovered.

I think that was PRODUCT liability which I understand is yet to be tested by the High Court in Australia, but would knock out many manufacturers if it was endorsed.

 

RAAus is not a public transport system . Nor does money get made from it's activities apart from the training required, and maintenance and supply of parts?aircraft. IF there is any section of aviation where rules can be minimised it HAS to be ours The RAAus. Nev

Even doing something for fun, you can't injure or kill someone without severe financial penalties these days, even if you don't mean to. That's just the way it is now.

 

 

They are not restricted in the mods they make many resist the recall system, seeing it as a loss of face.

I'm not aware of any who have resisted except vaguely one recently. When you see the penalties involved when the government does step in with a FORCED recall, you can see why.

 

 

That may well be what would happen in NZ which is still operating on a prescriptive basis.

 

Governments here have been working their way out of prescriptive action for a few decades, even closing down some departments, no longer having inspectors etc.

 

It's self management of safety these days, and as I said previously CASA have been very clever with how they've managed this. This way it's all up to the people who make money outof/enjoy the sport to fix the problem.

 

 

Yes THAT system has to go. IF an engine doesn't perform the engine time to inspection is reduced. Exactly the same in principle of any airframe part.

The lawsuits are going to decide that in the end where someone is hurt, but to minimise injuries the Recall system we have in the automotive section works very well, with manufacturers usually cleaning up the issue ahead of any government interference.

 

 

That's right FH, but dump that system, set a Design Regulation which specifies minimum performance, and for the manufacturer the sky is the limit and he has total control; easy!

 

 

It doesn't beggar belief for me, it happens way too often. On a recent trip to Queensland we'd just set up the caravan for the night and a trike came buzzing through below the highest trees.

 

 

For example, noone keeps score on how many Lycs/Contis need a hone/ring before TBO etc.

This is a simplification I agree, but you can extract the forced landings by model from the ATSB reports, and I'd suggest the results will not indicate any need to be limiting those operations.

 

What most people are missing here is that you can have TC, but if CASA identify a safety issue, CASA have a legal duty of care like anyone else to address it; they can be sued crash by crash if they don't.

 

I have no information from DIRD but from what I've read on these engine threads, I suspect the certification process for aircraft might be starting to move towards what it uses for other forms of transport, and if that does happen then your suggestion of "making the rules go away" then "reinstating" them wouldn't exist, and the whole process would be based on Performance Standards with the manufacturers and operators demonstrating compliance in a two part (high volume production, low volume production) system, and bearing the costs, and a Recall system. This is the method we have in the automotive section, and it's a lot simpler and seems to work a lot better.

 

 

That's a laugh Oscar, I think you are yet to move off engine ads to actually start discussing the instrument.

 

A gaffe? Please explain. I suspect that adapting a farm truck to highway cruiser involves a little more than special tyres.

Japanese have been one of the world's best marketers.

A typical model may have available to the country of destination four engine sizes, two manual transmissions, two automatic transmissions, a variety of suspensions, two axle standards, a variety of wheel and tyre sizes, two cabs with options from basic cardboard lining/speedo only, canvas on tube frame seats, up to moulded interior with all the options we see in Australia, manual and power steering, and painting with and with or without electrophoretic deposit.

 

So it can be than in Papua New Guinea The Make A, Model B would sell for $10,000 and in Australia for $50,000. They would look much the same in Australia, but be vastly different products.

 

Someone marketing the models in the Tokyo market would be selling the smallest engine, four speed manual trans, basic suspension just to carry a load, optioned up cab with moulded interior, power steering, smallest tyres, short wheelbase, and it would indeed run out of puff at 80 km/hr, but that would be as fast as was needed anyway. If it was a 4WD version, say for an Electricity Company, there would be no changes to the driveline/suspension etc (other than drive to the front axle), because the only off-road condition they need to cope with is loss of traction in snow.

 

Australia usually takes the biggest engine, heaviest driveline, six speed auto and five speed manual transmissions, diff ratios for out 100 km/hr roads, suspensions, anti roll torsion bars, tyres etc for those speeds.

 

So the Tokyo guy who has just been airlifted to Melbourne to go out to Emerald to resolve an issue may well make some comments that we would see as silly, in his first day or so, but if he is transferred here for three years, I guarantee you by the end of year one he is awake to every dodgy claim an Australian can invent.

 

 

OK, next time you see a Hilux, take a look at the tyres and check the speed rating. It's Toyota's engineers who design for that speed and test for that speed for the Australian market.

 

If your story in not an urban myth/old wives tale, and I've worked with many product planners who run the engineering and design teams, occasionally someone is transferred from the Tokyo group to the Oceania group and makes a gaffe or two on his first visit.

 

 

The main reason aircooled motors have a problem is mechanical noise and intake noise. The requirements for road use are ridiculous. because most of these engines are mechanically very quiet I don't know how diesels make it.

There are Australian Design Rules for interior and driveby noise FH, and all engines, including air-cooled make it. They were introduced to counter progressive loss of hearing, and by comparison today, aircraft engines are very noticeable.

Sooner or later someone is going to tip the bucket and descend on GA private and RA aircraft with pressure to quieten them down.

 

When they do, it should be reasonably easy to comply with the ADR drive-by noise level at any given point on almost any road except perhaps roads crossing runway climb out paths.

 

The ADR sets a noise emission limit from a vehicle under load at a certain distance from the vehicle. That is now Australia-wide.

 

Noise diminishes with distance.

 

So for example, if the ADR of the day specifies a driveby limit of 82 dbA 15 metres from the vehicle which coincides with the footpath, which might be 20 metres from the front of a dwelling, then it should be reasonable easy to show that an aircraft with open exhaust at 1500 feet will produce a lower noise level at those dwellings.

 

 

SD there have been people on these threads making outrageous and irrelevant claims to back the agendas they are running. Consequently much of the discussion is at cross purposes. Sure auto and air applications are different in many respects, but they are exactly the same in others. We are not going to get clear of the agendas in this thread and nor was the thread about engine design.

 

 

Maljack, read the reports in the official RAA magazines before contradicting them with a "creative" tag

 

 

I think the term you are looking for is "constant loading", which an aircraft, outboard motor, and 0n-highway truck, and air cooled stationary engine have in common, where the engine is under maximum or near maximum load continuously. In these conditions the temperature starts to make the first half of a bell curve, then flatlines at the design temperature.

 

Car engines, road bikes, and Urban truck engines have "intermittent loading cycles", where the engine heats up when it is pulling hard, but cools again with the gear changes ( a part exception being when cars and bikes are cruised at high speed, particularly into-wind and meet the "constant loading" definition.)

 

Constant loading applications in Australia require additional design work to the engine basics, and cooling system for acceptable life.

 

WOT racing in applications where the engines are constantly loaded, such as the drag boating David is talking about, drag racing, and speedway are constant loading applications, whereas circuit racing is intermittant racing. Circuit racing engines usually fail quickly on speedways, so the development paths are quite different.

 

WOT operation with light or intermittant operation generally shake the engine apart rather than show upper cylinder symptoms.

 

Cooling issues with any of these issues are usually common to all production units and occur at a predictable point. (poor assembly and servicing excepted)

 

 

Pilot reported to be 57 years old

 

 

Probably the most productive thing said in 18 pages.

This might be the most productive action for an owner to take and could also be used as evidence (although I don't know how successful that would be) of an effort at duty of care in the case to a lawsuit after a crash.However, if CASA prescribe a change to 500 hours etc, then they are taking over the liability for their actions, it is likely to be argued that they implied that would prevent failures/forced landings. So I'm not surprised that they would steer away from a prescriptive decision. What they have done is thrown liability on the manufacturer and operators, but incorporated some prescriptive instructions to minimise injuries/fatalities, which would be hard to argue against. Taking this stance, the onus is not on CASA to solve the problem and take liability.

 

 

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