turboplanner

There is a case ongoing at present in this country, which demonstrates this new era very well, and as usual the only real winners are the law firms.....there is no such thing as a gentleman s' game anymore......Maj.....

Problem is too many gentlemen were killing and maiming the public and couldn't have cared less; now they have to pay for their damage as well as picking up their dog crap from neighbours driveways.

 

The winners certainly are not just the law firms; many people who would otherwise have a marginal life, or say of blinded would have to accept a lower wage now have security for life if someone has been negligent. If they've been killed, their families can invest the award and get continuing income to replace the lost husband/father's income.

 

Work out what your family would need to educate the children, service and renew car, maintenance on house etc, and you'll see the death payments which sound a lot are not excessive over 40 years or so.

 

Same with a quadriplegic - total house remodel, cranes, facilities, full time nursing staff on shift, physio for 30 years or so.

 

 

I was going to say definitely not, or we all would have heard about it, but he must be mellowing!

 

 

Like the rudder on a boat Ozzie?

 

 

Pow if that was the issue I'd agree with you but the members are getting NOTHING!

 

There is ample scope for some matters to be dealt with in camera.

 

Last time I looked at the Constitution there was no provision for board members to be committed to secrecy; this is an Incorporated Association required to operate in accordance with its constitution.

 

 

Turbs, If a student and instructor have an incident incurring public Liability, the student is covered by the RAA member Liability insurance if sued. The instructor is also covered by RAA membership liability insurance. However if the person affected sues the FTFS facility as a business, there is no coverage by RAA there. RAA is not in the business of insuring private businesses, that's for the operator to ensure he carriers sufficient and appropriate professional liability insurance.

It's a side issue but the last time I looked at RAA Public Liability I think the member cover was $1.75 million. Since a quadriplegic will cost the member around $6 to 7 million plus legal costs getting up towards the same for both sides, and since you can't guarantee you will not cause a QLink Rex to go down or drop debris on to a populated area, I think my recommendation was around $20 million coverage, which by the way is not all that expensive. That being the case, my thought was that it would be better for RAA to drop the cover and lower the subscription rate, to allow the pilot to manage his own protection, perhaps with a minimum insurance requirement.

 

The instructor would fall into the same category.

 

I'm also of the opinion, from very successful experience with a large number of Associations that the body deriving the income should be the one paying the Public Liability Insurance, and this is then reflected in the rates that body charges. So the FTF insures to a safe level and charges that as part of the fee.

 

Under that model RAA operates specifically as an administering body rather than part pilot, part FTF, etc guaranteeing itself as seat at every legal claim.

 

That's a pretty rough picture but I know it has worked for about 30 years.

 

As I see it there are two issues here:

 

1. The FTF's appear to have been given the impression they were covered; that will sort itself out one way or the other

 

2. At the present time I can't find any serious responsible structure above the level of FTF to ensure that those they certify are satisfactorily trained and enforced to operate safely, so I see a huge risk factor on the head of the FTF. This has been greatly exaggerated by the discovery that RAA board members did not put in place an SMS in 2010, and RAA board members and presumably CASA employees again failed to take immediate action when the issue came up this year. The situation may well make nice pickings for a grieving family, including those who have lost members since 2010.

 

No doubt there will be an increase in civil law suits against operators in the future, and one would be wise to cover ones butt in any way shape of form available.

I don't see any increase; the lawsuits have been at a steady rate since the mid 1980's where there has been negligence. It's up to the family members left behind to decide what to do, and not all decide to go after the alleged culprit. The problem is, once you get one, you live it for maybe 7 years - it just does not go away.

 

By the way, are you a paid-up contributing member of the RAAus yet Turbs ?.................Maj....

No, but I may well be when a suitable aircraft configuration becomes available. In the meantime I'm supporting Motz who with his contributions over the years has given me plenty of food for thought and practice.

 

I certainly haven't been trespassing on your site, because it seems to me to be not much more user friendly than it was for years ago.

 

You may also have overlooked the fact that you are rather cheekily using someone's open forum site to publicly discuss something it isn't possible to discuss on the site you're in charge of. Hugs and kisses.

 

 

Possibly. Maybe people, especially those who are on the RAA board, should check to see that the interconnect 'tween brain and mouth is intact, lest they continue to sprout nonsense both here and in the boardroom.

The people on the board are from the peer group of members, so they may or may not fire a blank now and again.

 

They should not be expected to suddenly have a level of posting expertise that is perfect.

 

A forum particularly is a place which breeds quick responses, which sometimes my be more measured if the person was spending 300 hours writing a submission.

 

Better to get their thoughts in rough form rather than not get them at all.

 

Oddly enough, for about five or six relatively recent fatalities it was their failure to fly a perfectly good glider that killed them rather than the engine stopping, and without those statistics RA woulod be looking a lot more reasonable in terms of risk factor, so he may well be on the money.

 

 

LOL - need it a teensy weensy bit faster, and with space/cap for spare fuel etc............................and before you know it the price will be up there with the others.

 

A tandem seater is OK because it addresses the training requirement, but beyond that I think that to keep the engine cost and structural cost you would need slow speed and short range.

 

People have already fallen into the trap once of trying to create a budget touring aircraft, and as we now know, the first engine failure/rebuild usually marks the end of their flying days.

 

Having said that I'm aware of the yearning for minimum dollars with maximum image/performance, and I've seen that fail in other sports in spite of a lot of mentoring and organization, so I'm not saying the solution is easy by any means.

 

HITC, I saw your two seater about midway between what I'm thinking of now, and a Jab class, and in fact taking all things into consideration that may still be the base level unit.

 

It would pay to talk to a few manufacturing people about your design. Typical truck build time is 20 hours, but that's assembling sub assemblies. Some of the sub assemblies which make up sub assemblies can contain 30 parts and require two or three stage pressing, but assembly times are way down on what you might think because the build is in jigs, sometimes using multiple air spanners, riveters etc. Have a good look at your lawnmower parts list for just a few hundred retail (and retailers are using close to a 100% markup. I wouldn'y write your idea off by any means.

 

 

Ok. before i post this, I just want to add that i know Maj personally and I would trust his word unreservedly.Here is the response i received today from the GM.

 

Andrew

 

 

 

Thank you for your prompt response which I was interested to read, most other respondents having been altogether unaware that they were – until October 2013 – even covered. The Board decided last October to delete FTFs and SFTFs from the provisions of this Policy when it was realised that Facilities were not being asked to make any recurrent contribution towards recurrent administration, auditing, or insurance costs. This was seen as inequitable given that all other member categories, including Clubs, are required to pay recurring fees. I agree that this decision could have been communicated in a more timely manner.

 

 

 

The option of reinstating this liability cover remains, should FTFs/SFTFs be willing to also make annual premium contributions. I have requested an indicative pricing from our broker, which I’ll be sure to pass on.

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Clayton

 

 

 

General Manager

 

 

Maj, this is no way aimed at you...But here goes..

 

SERIOULSY!!!! What the hell!!! Im speechless. Im not responding to this. I did some quick maths, my club has 40 members, each paying $185 OR MORE in anual fees. Thats $7400 per year just from our small club alone in memberships. To be told we are not contributing is ...well.. mind boggling.. And to add insult to injury, he agrees that the news should have been conveyed in a more timely manner.. No explanation, no apology..nothing...Just cut and paste from the original letter. Its a sad day. Im almost ashamed to be a part of this circus.

Major, this is a formal communication from Recreational Aviation Australia.

 

It is unambiguous.

 

You and the other board members are seriously exposed, and I don't have any sympathy for you at all after months of warnings.

 

"The information I have is that the FTFs were never covered anyway....at least as far as the insurance companies were concerned. There is work afoot to look at buying coverage for them this time around, if possible............Maj...."

 

If this is true, and if it was implied the FTF's were covered, you and the board members have a further potential liability, because there have been fatalities where potential public liability claims would still be in the timeline where litigation is yet to be started.

 

To say you urgently need to resolve this would be an understatement.

 

 

.....and loud exhaust to..................

 

 

My point is for entry level flying locally, climb performance and cruise speed are not issues, so you can go way down the power scale, to a lower cost level.

 

There may well be a few who want to go the way you are talking but they are in a different category and we should rule out low cost flying just because they have other ambitions.

 

 

All good philosophy here, but:

 

(a) A percentage of people want to fly 100 kt aircraft - their safety or otherwise isn't relevent to this discussion, they are a separate group.

 

(b) Since we've taken them out of the equation, saying things like one size fits all doesn't work is not relevent.

 

If there is anything in the current regulations which prevents people flying Drifters, Thrusters or similar let's focus on that.

 

© Discussing the accident rate back in history has, I think, been reasonably fleshed out, and the pilot training regime addressed.

 

(d) That leaves structural failures, and if we look at more current fatalities, my memory seems to bring up pilot error, whether pushing the aircraft to the point where it broke up in flight, or flying in the dark, or having an airstrip with no EFATO splay etc. And more importantly, not seeming to feature in the numbers of crashes you might expect.

 

So I wonder if that is an issue other than the perception from family members, which will curtail your ambitions instantly.

 

Nearly every motor sport has had to address its cost in recent years, where the top end product consumes dollars at the rate people have the capacity to pay, and quite a few have a huge capacity to pay, which creates a volume market which squeezes the family/wage earner participants.

 

Examples are:

 

In the 1970's when you could probably buy a good trail bike for $700.00, I was out in the bush and came across the Australian (may even have been World) champion practising on his $16,000 hand built bike.

 

Yesterday I went to a tractor pull, and they seemed to have a handle on it:

 

There were top end hand built machines with 450 cu in engines putting out several thousands horsepower, costing squillions.

 

There were also classes for standard rebuilt tractors costing under $5000.00

 

For the kids there were ride on lawn tractors, with engines where the owners had obviously studied how to port, change compression, timing/tune exhausts, and they were as good to watch as the top enders.

 

RAA has not addressed entry level operations as far as I can see, and currently aren't broadcasting any interest, so it will be up to members to band together and the frist stage is to talk about the grass roots machines which will work within the current regulations, then perhaps organise three or four decentralised fly ins around Australia.

 

Someone here wrote a nice post about the experience he had owning an Ultralight, Frank has also often talked about the excitement of just flying around his patch, and I've followed Tomos stories about the fun of flying his single seater and towing it halfway around Australia, so I don't accept the sob stories about it all being in the post and spoiled by CASA etc.

 

If there are current impediments, let's hear them, and see if someone can overcome them.

 

 

OK let's say a lot of people have lost the plot and now fly Jabs. Let's get that out of the way.

 

That leaves the Ultralight section we are talking about.

 

Ozzie is saying the cost is too high for training and pilot licensing, but the safety standards are not going to be dropped to the wild west days, so we need to get over that.

 

Furthermore, if training is carried out in a Drifter type aircraft the hourly rate will be proportionately lower.

 

 

You've said that a few dozen times Ozzie, just a one liner with no explanation.

 

How about explaining what the impediments are to building/buying a Drifter/Thruster type aircraft today?

 

 

".......makeup for any TV cameras that may be poking..............................."

 

 

Pylon, you're missing the point, the thread was not introduced to talk about Tecnams, Foxbats and Jabirus.

 

Nor is it about high end 912 powered Ultralights

 

Both those categories have their own set of issues such a price and touring limits.

 

This discussion started about the Drifter/Thruster Category with smaller engines and local flying expectations.

 

That's the marketing gap that is not being filled right now.

 

 

Another possibility, if the instructor was introducing him her to leaning out the mixture during cruise, could have been an HF pulling the level down the gate instead of pushing it up.

 

It's normal for mixture training to be done during navs.

 

 

I think you're quite correct Frank, but it could have been a forced landing where the student pulled it back to idle and the adjustment was out, the engine stopped, so they made for the airport.

 

 

There's not a lot of information available on new aircraft/kits, so some discussion on makes/models/prices/availability might start the discussion rolling.

 

 

Thruster, Drifter = Affordable recreational aviation = More fun.

I agree with you, the question is why have these aircraft died out so much, and what could be done to bring affordable flying to more people?

 

It's not the increase in plastic fantastics - those people are entitled to engage in that part of the sport, and it doesn't appear to be restrictive regulations.

 

 

"............step into my long johns, draw myself up to my full height, and..............."

 

 

Too much policing still for my liking. So i should carry my maintenance logs in my flex along with my stupid paper licence and PLB and medical and blah blah etc. Screw this police state. I shouldnt have to carry another licence, pilot log, engine log, airframe log, medical or a PLB with me. all crap. some form of id is fine and check that the ac is rego and airworthy but screw that. its plain harrassing.

Fortunately for the rest of us potentially below you, you don't have a choice.

 

 

".....boring thingy that members wouldn't be interested in, except..............."

 

 

.......part of the secret service, and ..............

 

 

In the case of these oddball examples you won't be pulling back on the stick but heading straight for the ground.

 

Get your lessons from a qualified instructor, be professional, to minimise risk and maximise safety.

 

 

.....think this is the end of it because if you phone us for a confidential intereview (References: board members Madge, Red H%^%^$^, $^&*&*_*+, %(%)(*&+.(*^_&_)(&.)&^_&_*&, +()&+(&_+)(&_*^&_^&, +_))))(*,and +_(_)*)* - we don't even tell the Members!) we will explain how if the plaque is not attached straight you will get the leans within 180 seconds and die, or even worse, get the runs and have your waste beat you to the ground, with...........................