willedoo

Hello Mark,

Just wondering what the fuel range of the 172 is. Hopefully by March it will stop raining & be a bit drier. A trip to Birdsville would be fun, one thing to bear in mind is the unstable weather that time of year & the heat which can still be 40-50+ celsius at that time of year. January is usually the worst, March is starting to cool down a bit. The weather can be unpredictable in the desert regions up there. I've started the morning in January nice & cool & cloudy & within the hour had temperatures at 58-60 celsius & sand blowing horizontally at 40kts. But it's not like that all the time, when it's good, it's good.

Some years it may be a lot cooler & quite pleasant most of the time, it just pays to be prepared for it just in case. Big hats, sunscreen & drink plenty of water & know your heat stress symptoms is the rule of thumb. Another important piece of equipment is a fly veil or net to wear over the head if the flies get bad, which they do, depending on the weather. You can get them at camping stores. I've worked in that country for the last 30 odd years & maybe I'm getting soft, but I always carry one in my pocket during the warmer months.

Have you got a route worked out to get from Adelaide to Birdsville yet, as that would have a bearing on stopovers & sightseeing.

Regards,

Willedoo.

It's a tricky question, there has been a few different makers & many different models. I would guess that the Martin-Baker models would be the most common over the years, from the pre-Vietnam era through to the present day. Here's some links to start:

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_seat[/ame]

http://www.ejectionsite.com/

http://www.martin-baker.com/products/Ejection-Seats.aspx

Yes, as I understand it, the Super Hornet is an interim aircraft until we get the F35 Lightning, which was supposed to be here by 2012, but could be many years away yet. It's a troubled program & the possibility is there that we'll end up with an obsolete aircraft by the time we get it. Our choice of fighters has always been a juggling act of available money, coupled with a lack of choice of suitable aircraft, a desire to have a deterrent effect in the region & trying to figure out what are our requirements in regards to capability given that we have a very specific geographic & political situation in the region.

The US runs a big show & can utilize the many types available in one role or another. I think our problem is, as a small nation with a small budget, we have to try to find a one size fits all type of plane that is affordable as well. Unfortunately, at this time, there really is not much choice within the constraints of our political ties & logistical factors. (a fancy way of saying we can't buy Flankers)

So it looks like we have to make the best of the Super Hornet for a while & the US is determined to advance the capability of it into the future, as they are in a bit of a spot with development at the present. So that will rub off on us & it may one day become quite a capable & useful aircraft in one way or another.

It is a shame they dropped the F111. In all the history of our air capabilities, it is the one that really shines through in ability to fulfill a role specific to this country, all the rest have been a bit of a stopgap.

Well, right or wrong, that's my thoughts on it, I think we've just got rid of the best defence/deterrent aircraft we've ever had. I'd like to see them just keep one as a going concern for history's sake.

I don't really know anything about aerobatic maneuvers, what they do in this clip all looks hard to me. The one they do, I suppose you'd call it a tandem loop for want of a better word, looks the most difficult to me. I was wondering if any pilots out there could shed some light on it.

I don't know much about the Sukhoi 31 that Svetlana flies, only that it was developed & built in the days when the Soviet Union was still intact. Because of that , it got government funding without consideration of commercial viability which might explain why it's one of the best & most advanced of it's type.

Video of Svetlana Kapanina, several times world aerobatic champion, now retired. She makes it look easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKLaJDIoWfI

Will be interesting to see what they do with it, quite a bit bigger & heavier than the T50 &F22. Most likely a heavy interceptor/ground attack role, doesn't seem to be a lot of details on it yet.

Just to introduce myself, I'm 56, male & just an armchair pilot & military collector . I fly as a commercial passenger about twice a month to get to work, used to have a fear of flying in past years, but cured that by getting into flight sims, now I love the real thing. My main interest is military & historic aircraft & Russian military planes. Main goal at present is to save the money to go to Zhukovsky & go for a joyflight in a Flanker if the body is fit enough. Although I have heard that people who are short, overweight & have high blood pressure handle the G forces better, so maybe there's hope for us old blokes yet.