turboplanner

Turbo's tuppence:

1. As someone said earlier, ask the person what his references were. That usually at least takes you back to a published document.

2. Always start with the Manufacturer's specification - the designer will have a specfic reason for using a certain part, clearance or lubricant. I'm designing B Doubles at the moment which in 26,000 mm OAL scrape in by 1 mm, provided the rear fuel tanks are moved to a certain position. Someone looking at it wouldn't see the reason, may decide its stupid moving two tanks a couple of hundred millimetres on a 68 tonne truck.

3. Always ask the manufacturer's service department for an update on Service Bulletins. This is where the designer's mistakes are corrected.

Example, one popular 4WD where the limited slip diff sounded like a machine gun going round corners, and there was only one solution - a special synthetic oil imported from overseas.

Transposing the above to aviation - the person who originated the issue usually knows most about it.

4. Don't listen to what the person says, look for a pattern of his actions. Someone full of BS and bravado will soon give the game away.

5. Google, google, google using forums only as a starting point to look for reference material.

6. Where there is a risk to life, a "calculated risk" is not acceptable, it's either go or no go regardless of the emotional pressure.

Example: years ago we had a basic race car class which allowed young guys to go racing for very little money. The cars were completely gutted of any flammable material, and the fuel tank was moved away from the rear, made of heavy steel and securely fastened. There was very little chance of a fire, so we had about a thousand young drivers pressurising for a relaxation of regulations to allow their class to run without $500.00 Fire Suits.

A number of other specification restrictions meant that crash severity was also reduced, so I relented.

Before we could get the new regulations into force there was an accident in another state and one of these cars caught fire and went up like a roman candle.

There was no debate at our next meeting and the decision was unanimous.

Cost us a lot of new members and potential income, but we still haven't killed a single driver in around 45 years.

Does this involve someone's life being put at risk Watto?

It's very obvious from the incautious admissions, and outrageous boasting which takes place on this site, that most people aren't aware that CASA monitors it day by day as a low cost way of picking up infringement trends, CFI standards and valuable evidence of the need to tighten up standards or make strategic visits to certain geographic locations in Queensland, and the unusual compliance with circuit procedure at YSWG2 really struck a chord.

THIS REALLY WORKED!

So it had already been reported to the Government as a means of lowering administrative costs for printing massive amounts of NOTAMS which nobody read, and continually changing Regulations, which no body followed.

Their report suggested that this would also stamp out the practice of straight out downwind landings, which at Wagga had apparently ripped the rudders out of at least two RPT aircraft (Go and have a look)

No one would make a straight in approach when he had a four pair alternative.

Although the Prime Minister's aircraft had only just arrived home he immediately recognised that this provided an immediate solution to the unemployment problem with teenage girls in country towns, and at this stage he has scheduled a press conference for 10 am.....

On the other hand, as they say, you should always be able to recognise your turning points...

Jeez, Ultralight, your vampire's on fire!

Turbo responded: "I don't look out either - I'm scared of heights"....

"....Where's Querry, they wouildn't have closed Tasmania for the night yet, would they?....

....what Lovaks hadn't seen was bikini clad sunbaker near the base turn.........

Turbo had been lazing in front of a log fire dreaming of an aircraft (not a rivet laden sportsczar) parked on a deserted beach, when his email started to beep in a way which could only mean there was another fight on at Recreational Central.

The gist of it was you were doomed if you didn't have a radio, struck blind of you did, and after a post by a car which indicated the world wasn't going to cave in, Turbo absently sent a post to Qerty, who quickly pointed out his name was QWERTY, a family name based on Quentin Winston Erty.

He was from Tasmania, which is south of Australia.

The name sounded familiar, the Turbo realised that his Grandfather's brother, Ringer, had lived in Tasmania next to Sir Winston Erty,

Now some of you class conscious readers will know just where this is going.

Ringer never wanted for food - he had a little gateway in Sir Winston's fence, and Sir Winston, being a Tasmanian wasn't all that good at counting, so things went well until one day the rich landholder was riding near his boundary, and saw a line of sheepskins stretched out behind Ringer's house.

Since he'd been hiring Ringer as the gamekeeper, even though he was a Mainlander, the solution was quick - he was fired.

Ringer didn't see it that way, and stung by the fact that Sir Winston had claimed to be of a distinguished family rather than the top row of keys on a keyboard, he decided on a clever revenge.

Jumping in his trusty Jab 17 (shrt fuselage, small wings, big fin, underbelly fuel tank), he flew across to the property of Turbo's grandfather, who in anticipation had been training the Kangaroo dogs to catch foxes live. He'd become hoarse from whistling them off, but finally they managed to get a pair, put them in a box, and Ringer set off across Cook Strait (It was renamed Bass Strait after Cook said he wouldn't be seen dead going to Tasmania).

While Sir Winston was entertaining friends, Ringer sneaked across with the box let the pair out in Sir Winston's favourite grouse patch, and that's how foxes were introduced to Tasmania.

Even a hundred years later Tasmanians were denying there were any foxes on the Island, but now and again if you'e quick, you'll see one.......

Sorry Qwerty, you know us Mainlanders can't spell.

Wish I was on that beach though

No thoughts, they take off like a bushfire and half the time that makes them better, so I guess we should just emphasise that it might be a good idea to carefully read Mazda's Post and give him a star for the day.

The current Australian Airspace Policy Statement (which is the Airspace Act, i.e. the law) says that Australia is moving to the National Airspace System, which means standard Class G with no radio requirement.

How did he suck us all into this argument?

The MK1 eyeballs can't see behind you. I had an out of town student pilot call turning downwind a couple of seconds behind me once. That was the only call he made in several circuits because he was obviously struggling badly with his City based Cherokee trying to come to grips with our circuit, crosswind, and turning points, judging from the go round and variable pattern he was flying.

But it was enough warning to allow me to twist the Jab to make sure he was no threat.

It's a bit of a gotcha though because that's assuming full flap. In the 115, the power off, flaps off stall is 54 knots, which is sooner than many people expect the stall to occur - especially as the stall warning only works when there is flap down.

Ah the memories.....the one I flew had a car horn installed as a stall warning. It certainly got us focussed as students, since the instructor liked to let us experience it without telling us the first time!

Much easier to fly than a Jab, had twin throttle slides set high up, and one lazy sunny afternoon we were doing touch and goes on the grass at Moorabbin. The instructor was lying back, apparently snoozing, but he'd sit up and bawl me out "1050 feet!" circuit after circuit.

Finally I noticed an almost imperceptible movement of his knee against his throttle, allowed myself to climb, got bawled out again and made a nice smooth landing on the grass as he dozed, but held the aircraft down while easing on full power less noticeably. Suddenly he realised something was wrong, and jerked upright just as I smoothly lifted off with plenty of momentum.

Sometimes you get them back. I'd tell you more about throwing the Victa around but I was reprimanded (correctly) last time I opened up, so I'll just say, I'd like to see this one on the list.

Wouldn't you be peeved if some kid who'd bought an ARF (Almost ready to fly) decided to try it out in the park next door on a common radio frequency.

These guys are passionate about detail. At my local RC field a fierce, yelling argument broke out between three guys because one of them had built a modern aircraft, but the only "pilot" in the hobby shop was dressed in brown leathers and a scarf and he used that!

Congrats on your first nav Ex Tomo.Just out of pure philisophical interest the quote in your signature block is perfectly reasonable.

 

"If you believe the information content in living systems to be the result of chance, then you believe that a tornado can go through a junk yard and assemble a Jumbo Jet!" Professor Sir Fred Hoyle

 

It is perfectly reasonable to believe in both scenarios described by Fred. The problem in coming to terms with these statements is that the poor human brain has difficulty in comprehending and understanding very low probabilities.

 

Cheers.

I just can't grasp that we are made up of particles travelling at speed.

There are some convincing arguments on the other thread for mandatory radios, particularly on cost, but Crezzi, your fishing around with mandate/benefit ratio brings up another comparison.

For the $500 or so would the safety statistics be improved more by mandating radios for the few or mandating PLB's for everyone?

The last two posts have convinced me.

Couple of exerpts from Bryson's book, "Made in America"

"Even the feature that Americans most closely associate with modern British speech, the practice of saying 'bahth', 'cahn't', and 'banahna' for bath, can't and banana, appears to have been unknown among educated British speakers at the time of the American Revolution....."

and:

Contemporary writings, particularly by the indifferently educated, offer good clues to pronounciation. Paul Revere wrote 'git' (for get) 'imeaditly' and 'prittie' and referred to blankets as being 'woren out'. Elsewhere we can find 'libity' for liberty, 'patchis' for purchase, 'ort' for ought, 'weamin' for women 'through' for throw, 'nater' for nature, 'keer' for care, 'jest' for just, 'ole' for old, ....were commonly, if not invariably heard among educated speakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

All of this suggests that if we wished to find a modern-day model for British and American speech of the late eighteenth century, we could probably do no better than Yosemite Sam."

Interesting, I'm currently reading a book on how the Mayan hieroglyphics were cracked, allowing those ancient people to communicate with us today.

To do it the decipherers had to work out their grammar where each sentence starts with a verb, going something like "walks to the river Big Quetzl", but in the written form, where most glyphs are a complete picture which would take hours to write.

So we've come a long way from there.

But, Skydog, the biggest shock I got was reading a book by Bill Bryson, a very amusing travel writer, who obviously had done some massive research for his treatise on English.

It appears that when the first English people populated the US, they were so isolated for so many years that when regular seafaring began the English had moved on with the language, having mixed with various other countries around the world and changed the words and spelling.

So what we critise so often, for the most part is purer and older English than we use today. (Before Shakespeare's time the English used to spell centre as center etc.)

He also came up with a good philosphy on keeping up with the evolution of the language and gave many examples of "in" words which have quickly died without a trace.

The phonetic teaching of the late 20th Century ("it doesn't matter if you can't spell as long as someone else can understand what you say") also appears to have been dropped like a hot rock by the education industry.

However, good old Microsoft will probably decide how we go over the next decade or so with it's ever present spell check.

Personally, I've been working for a US company most of this year and have become bi-lingual, converting to inches, specifying equipment to be made from aluminum, and so on.

I agree that Perception, and Comprehension are a whole different ball game.

Was this the one that took Tomo for his famous ride?

Tough! These these things can and do happen

Yes, I'm afraid it is.

NEWS BULLETIN (Courtesy of ABC)

"A twin engine plane took off from Hillston Airport but had engine trouble, forcing it to land on the nearby Kidman Highway. Inspector Mark Godley from the Rural Fire Service says no-one was hurt but it came as a surprise.

"Apparently there was a vehicle on the road at the time and it has pulled to the side of the road and the plane's now leaking fuel all over the side of the road," he said.

"I think arrangements are being made to have the plane lifted by train and moved to a safer location."

Interviewed at the scene, the driver of the car said: "I was just driving along the Kidman Highway picking up road kill for the forthcoming Dalby Airshow BBQ, when this aircraft headed straight towards me without any radio cals at all.

"I got off the road as far as I could, but after he landed he came up to me and said "qrpgw

i= ][y5o ....----...., Fqptge

y-o, [q49[t'ww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"He apologised later and said some ultralight people had given him grief at the Wider Bay Airshow and he was tired, but didn't I know I was supposed to keep to the right?"

Quite a few people decided to stay and camp, as they watched the XPT train slowly reversing up Kidman Way.

This was going to be interesting.

However, the unidentified driver turned out to be our hero ditDash, who went up to the Train Driver and said "Want a hand reversing this this thing Mate? I'm a Drifter Pilot, and now fly a Jabiru, and after flying that, reversing a train around the corners of Kidman Way will be a piece of cake..........

The theoretical pilot did NOT enter non VMC conditions.

He correctly identified the unexpected weather change and departed the scene in the correct direction in order to stay VFR and this was a typical and correct reaction of a pilot who is exercising his skills as a newly graduated PC.

However, that action sent him out to the east, and in bumpy conditions where it was hard to hold a map and concentrate, he had to start doing things he was not trained to do.

He hadn't been timing his trip, because he wasn't trained to do so, he hadn't marked his map because he wasn't trained to do so, he hadn't been tracking his endurance, because he wasn't trained to do so, he hadn't calculated last light because he wasn't trained to do so, and even if he could find his location on the map, he couldn't fly a correct track because he hadn't been trained in things like Magnetic vs True North.

What had seemed like a very straightforward flight had been changed by an unexpeced weather influence, and he had been pushed out to the east away from the landmarks and over scrub, where the towns were a lot further apart, and a safe conclusion of the flight relied on the ability to Navigate and Calculate as well as Aviate.

When I put forward the risk associated with a weather change to Brett, I got this response:

"And that's why I'll get the forecast before heading to Bunbury to decide if it's suitable to fly or not.

There's no "predicting" in that what so ever."

That's why I wrote the hypothetical case.

I can recall an Incident Report in GA flying where an uneventful Cessna flight into Canberra almost became a disaster when ice built up on the wings just four minutes out from the destination.

Distance has nothing to do with the issue, its all about unfamiliarity with a situation you haven't been trained for, or haven't yet experienced.

......So with 2000 horses strapped to the back, and only one Turbo at the wheel... he was having trouble keeping them all in line.......

....Using all his muscles, he determinedly headed for Dalby, which was more than 25 nm from his home port, but he wasn't going to be held back by his lack of training, after all he'd trained dogs, horses and even the occasional shearer's cat......

Quote: "Ps. wouldn't that drive ya banana's starting all them things!"

No, only fixing them when they blow up.