KRviator

Final report is out. Landed (very) long and didn't go around.

Found this today from the Australian Airport Association: MY bolding - See the scope creep already? So it is no longer about 'just' landing fees. It never was... I'm in discussions with the OAIC at the moment about the privacy breaches, so will see what they ultimately have to say about the matter, but from what I can see, arbitrarily changing the Privacy Policy for a new secondary purpose which is unrelated to RAAus' operations isn't legit...Hopefully they agree... I asked the AAA who their members were that would be accessing my data. The response? "We can't tell you, it's private!". ? RAAus has also put out this FAQ about going's on too... aaa-agreement-faqs.pdf

The vest itself is a combination of MOLLE equipment over a tactical vest. Some of the US RV'ers use those fly-fishing vests as an alternative too. Ultimately what I use may not fit anyone else, or they might have different priorities in what they want to carry, but the beauty of the MOLLE system is you can customise it to suit your own needs & wants. An example is this bare vest is on Ebay for $40, and you can add whatever pouches you want and will fit in your cockpit. You'll notice I haven't focused too much on food, though there is a small snare in one of the pouches. You can go 3 weeks without tucker, and I hope I would be home by then! Survival to me, isn't about camping in luxury, it is about making sure you are still alive when the paramedics find you, so I have put more medical, first aid and location aids in there than rations. For remote areas, I would carry water in the back of the plane, but not on my person. You can still go 3 days without water and again, I hope AMSA would have at least found me by then, even if the ground party is still some days away. To that end, I typically use OzRunways with tracking enabled, I have ADS-B in the RV, and for XC flights, I file a plan, rather than just a flight note or worse, nothing at all - even if ASA does get confused because not many RAAus aircraft request flight following...The recent Mooney prang inland from Coffs shows the benefit to ADS-B in the search effort, even if it wasn't a happy ending...

Insofar as political politics, I don't think people are ignorant or uncaring. I think most of us have simply had a gutful of our elected officials behaving in a worse manner than my 7 year old. Screaming and mocking each other across the chamber, concerned only with getting themselves reelected and their parliamentary pensions than the overarching good of the country. How many hospitals, freeways or schools would that $1080 tax refund buy? But that wont get the asshats voted back in... I'll get off my soapbox now......

I think that's the gist of it unfortunately. I am ropeable, not so much with RAAus and their direction - though I am not happy with that either - but with their decision to publicise our details to other organisations with zero consultation and no accountability for the 180* backflip.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: I do need to route it (the shoulder straps) inboard of the PLB & Firefly pouches and that can make it rub on my neck, so I tend to ensure I always wear a collared shirt with it up to prevent any discomfort. I have even flown Victor 1 with an inflatable life jacket over the vest several times without issue. The longest flights I've done with it so far have been Sydney-Caloundra return at 3.0 + 3.5 hours in a day and it hasn't been uncomfortable.

A L2 ASP is a Level 2 Accredited Service Provider - basically a Sparkie who can work on the network infrastructure, as opposed to simple electrical stuff inside your house. You can buy them (the markers, not Sparkies ?) from the link in my previous post, or probably the manufacturer directly, and yes, they simply clamp around the wires.

How high AGL are the wires? You can buy those RotaMark rotating ones for around $160 each, and they can be installed from ground level with a hotstick, so any L2 ASP should be able to do it for you for their hourly rate.

Not when you consider who was flying the following aircraft and what was at stake given the previous Youtube videos posted of this outfit...

So here we are, the final report is out, and what a goatphuck that operation was. AIUI, LowFlyer1770 was Bruce Rhoades, the CP of the operation, and he passed away last month, but I cannot see any reasonable person, yet alone any reasonable pilot attempting to defend the shenanigans going on up there...? Multiple flights conducted overweight, or with no evidence the aircraft was in balance Multiple flights conducted with no records of them bar the GPS296 logs Multiple flights exceeding required maintenance timelines Multiple flights conducted without the MR in the aircraft. The report speaks for itself...

The tampon and sanitary pad are for controlling severe bleeding. Absolute worst case, put tampon into wound, and pad over the top, tape it and hope for quick rescue. They are small, and already sterile. The condoms for carrying water, use as a slingshot elastic, small tourniquet, makeshift gloves, or even waterproof storage if needed - because I know one of you will ask about them next! ?

Nothing in the back usually, except my flight bag occasionally. But I always fly wearing a survival vest. Using the logic "I fly in a plane I built in my back shed!" makes explanations at the bowser much easier. ?

Yeah - but you're in Victoria. The state that introduced legislation to charge pilots for conducting instrument approaches to an ASA-owned Navaid...

So does this logic apply elsewhere, or just aviation? Central Coast Council just spent ~$1.5 million dollars rebuilding my local boat ramp, at ratepayers expense. I don't have a boat and they do not charge those that do to launch their tinny of a weekend but I've still paid a small portion of that $1.5M. What I do have is an RAAus-registered RV-9A, with a 165HP engine so it's massively overpowered. Which in turn means I can fly a complete circuit, to 1000AGL and back to wheels-down, in 3 minutes 20 seconds. And which, since I am not based at Warnervale, means "paying for a service I receive" costs me $150/hr in landing fees to fly circuits at Warnervale - which is less than 5 minutes away from where I keep my -9 and the closest aerodrome at which I can safely do circuits, plus another $110 if I refuel on council land - even if I bring my own fuel! My actual use of the runway, that portion that my wheels are down, at 125m/lap for that hour of circuits amounts to around 2250m total or a $66.60/km toll if we were doing it like they do for the new toll-roads. Reckon that'd stand up anywhere else but aviation? Imagine the outcry if Council introduced a 'pay-for-service' charge at each of their boat ramps. For "maintenance of the facility" of course. Afterall, it costs money to have a tractor tow a slasher over the grass once a month. And then there's the salary for the ARO to catch the rego numbers of those pesky Gyro's and other GA'ers that have the audacity to fly to Warnervale because it's the only aerodrome within cooee for the Central Coast... User-pays as a concept is fine unless there is a monopoly. As soon as you have that, or any other lack of meaningful competition, then the user-pays concept is exploited to the detriment of all users.

Only sometimes. If it is amateur-built, the payload formula specified in CAO 95-55 does not apply.

I don't think anyone "gives" authorization. If you have complied with the requirements of the SB - and those other SB's it references - your TBO becomes what is written in the SB in hours or years.

The problem with switching a 12VDC load with a 240VAC switch is the arc damage. 240VAC passes through 0 Volts 50 times a second, rendering any arc minuscule, whereas using such a switch to control a DC load will have the switch taking the full circuit current (or higher if you're switching a motor) instantly, or breaking the circuit under load. Unless a switch has a DC rating, it's not at all good practice, yet alone a good idea, to use a 240VAC switch for any meaningful DC load.

Just checked your gallery there this morning and it's working fine. So is the homepage, so hopefully it was just an ISP issue or something temporary.

Easily. Well, it was easy enough when I convinced RAAus that there were no grounds to refuse registration as the 'payload formula' listed in the CAO's didn't apply to amateur-built aircraft... CAO 95.55 simply says the MTOW for that category is 600Kg, so with a 445Kg empty weight, I have 155Kg payload. That's enough for me + just-under-full tanks, or me + mini-me + half tanks. Though now the KRviatrix has seen the utility of having our own plane, it's time to port it over to VH- so I can take two adults.

AIUI, you do not need a transponder in US 'E' unless you are within 30 miles of a Class B airport, they call it their "Mode C Veil". Outside that, you can fly VFR-in-E with no transponder.

For your bedtime reading, may I present Section 8.7 of the Part 139 MOS...Which - because not everyone understands CAsA - is simply windsock standards from the aerodrome standards manual. The stuff in red is what you need. OF course, if you are only using it yourself, I'd probably go one of the US red-and-white ones that you can use to gauge wind strength as well,...

I think you're being overly critical of these blokes. It's reported they took 2 years to build the bloody thing, if that's true, then that's a substantial investment in time alone, yet alone materials and sheer perseverance. It's not something they thought "Hold my beer and watch this" and knocked up after a weekend on the pi$$. I built an RV-9 in my back shed. I didn't do it to advance aviation, or try to prove anything to anyone, beyond myself, and that was simply that I could do it, and I could do it safely. To outward appearances, these blokes have done the same thing. No one knows what kind of control laws they have written, nor the quality of the components or software they've used. Given half a chance, I'd build something like that myself and take one of my rugrats flying over a waterhole too. I've no doubt the Cretins Against Sensible Aviation will get upset about it - indeed their public comments thus far, effectively "We're sure he's broken the law, we're just not sure which one it is..." don't really inspire much confidence.

Rotax has published their owners manual that contains the fuel flow tables. All 2,480 lines of it. After much crunching of data in Excel, it would appear that the sea-level 100% fuel flow is a staggering 56.27 LPH. I don't think my OX-340 (165HP, FP) gets that on takeoff, even though the fuel flow meter squawks on the Dynon...

And that's the problem. I have an RV-9A, registered RAAus. I'm swapping it to VH-, but as I built it, I can maintain it. If I sell it to someone else, they will need a LAME to maintain it if they keep it VH-, but if they bring it back to RAAus, they won't. The system is broken. At least I made a comment on this peculiarity, but whether they recognise it and then close it, or simply 'meh' it off, remains to be seen.

I ordered 8 through Bursons a couple weeks ago - they had to overnight them from Melbourne, but that's another option.