onetrack

Phil - 6 hours and 24 mins of storm-watching and plane-spotting?? Doesn't this bloke understand, the average attention span of the average Yoo-Toober is 26 secs, before they click onto the next vid??

Although they say a Fly-in Breakfast is on every 3rd Saturday of each month, it appears you have to call and check with them first, and advise you are coming. Contact details on their webpage.

http://stradair.com/members-info/

... they resembled a couple of pigs wallowing in a mudhole. The problem was, the sheer porky size of both Mavis and Cappy, when the two of them were together in a tub full of vegetable matter, led to calls from the crowd of, "get 'em out of there!", and a few boos and catcalls - which led to Mavis and Cappy being removed unceremoniously from the tub, and hosed down to recover all the potato peelings stuck to them, so the contest could continue with other, substantially more attractive participants. Mavis and Cappy were quite put out by this rejection, and sought consolation in the form of........

I'm amazed to find, after a little more reading, that none of the helicopter charter companies in Southern California, and not even the California Police helicopters, are certified for IFR flight.

It appears the fitout costs, the training requirements, and the insurance costs, are so high, when the operators go for IFR certification, that none of them are prepared to do it.

It seems incredible that they all own these high-tech, mega-dollar choppers, and yet they can't afford that last step to protect their flying investments, and their clients.

It remains to be seen though, just what the lawsuit payouts will run into when they are finally arrived at, for pax that were millionaires and billionaires, and whose relatives will put in claims for multiple hundreds of millions.

Those payout figures will make IFR certification look cheap.

Hihosland, the same situation is seen again and again - demanding VIP's on board, the pilot/s under pressure to meet unrealistic flight schedules, trying to please those VIP's, often in fear of their job. The "VIP Syndrome".

The worst we've seen of this situation was the Polish Air Force Tupolev TU-154 disaster at Smolensk in 2010.

Under pressure by VIP's on board, to land in thick fog, the pilot misjudged his glide path, hit a tree with the port wing, inverted the aircraft, and killed all 96 on board. Most of Polands senior pollies and military leaders.

We will quite likely not find out the pressure placed on this particular chopper pilot, potentially by Kobe Bryant. Maybe the insistence was verbalised, maybe the pilot just felt a lot of pressure, with no definitive urging.

It appears, though, that the pilot made serious piloting errors, unbecoming of someone with his reported experience and training. He was trained in IFR, why didn't he plan and fly an IFR flight?

Instead, he flew blind, utilising VFR, and tried to "bust through" the fog level by feel. He failed, and apparently failed in a classic manner.

Incredibly, it appears he was within 12 secs of busting through the fog in his climb to try and find clear air - but before he made it, he became disoriented, turned left and started descending rapidly.

He hit rising terrain at 290kmh travelling in forward flight, with a descent rate of 4000' a minute. As the expert says, when you exit cloud at that descent rate and speed, you've lost control of the aircraft.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-08/kobe-bryant-ntsb-helicopter-crash-report-latest/11946228?section=sport

.... News Ltd, with a breathless article so full of aviation errors and click-bait words such as, "aircraft horror", "near-death-experience", "brave little girl", "wresting with the controls", "ATC heroes", that most of the WF forum members were either ROFL, or shaking their heads in their sage aviation knowledge.

But Mavis was now a media favourite. She spent all of the first day considering huge financial offers to join "MAFS", "Survivor", "Bachelor in Paradise", "Bride and Prejudice", "Love Island Australia", and "The Farmer wants a Wife".

Now, Mavis being a country girl and all - and thinking that maybe any young farmer looking for a wife, might own a Drifter - she settled on a good offer to join, "The Farmer wants a Wife".

The first thing Mavis had to do, of course, was to visit.................

Possibly the scariest part about this Sikorsky chopper pilot, is that he had accumulated 8000 hrs, and had been instructing others. Looks to me, like another graduate from the Arthur "Bud" Holland School of Flight Training.

One just has to keep in mind, that Bud Holland and this chopper pilot, along with many other risk-taking crash pilots, are basically murderers.

The innocent others in their aircraft placed their faith in these peoples flying skills, and their lives in their hands, and these pilots cared not a whit about their pax safety, nor their own, with their reckless, risk-taking style of flying.

When others place their lives totally in your hands, it behoves you to take no risks whatsoever - no matter what the pressure.

Sport Hornet from Higher Class Aviation. Intially produced as the Hornet by US Light Aircraft Corporation, the production was then taken over by Higher Class Aviation.

HCA went out of business around 2008, after getting into serious financial difficulties.

There was some further limited production effort between 2008 and 2011 by another entity, Oklahoma Light Aircraft, but this effort appears to have been a last-gasp, last-ditch effort.

Not to be confused with the Australian Hornet STOL - nor the FA-18 Hornet from McDonnell-Douglas.

9843 feet of runway at Sabiha Gokcen, and they land 2/3rds of the way along it - with a 14kt tailwind - and it's a wet runway as well!? This crew must have bought their licences in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Absolutely unbelievable.

They went through the runway perimeter fence still doing 63kts, tearing an engine off whilst travelling another 550 feet (168 metres), whilst falling about 25 metres, and end up smashing through a concrete perimeter wall.

I don't reckon anyone could have thought up a destruction test scenario, that severe. It's a credit to the 737 that only broke up into 3 sections, and that only 3 people died.

Get a look at the solid concrete wall they would've hit, if they been going a little faster, and travelled another 20-25 metres. The 737 would have been concertinaed into half its length, and the death toll would have huge.

At 27kg/hr fuel consumption for the 100HP version, that translates to 32L/hr. The engines fuel economy isn't exactly going to be one of its best-selling points. It's the engine no-one is looking for.

Coroners findings (Inquest results) are usually listed on every States relevant Departmental website, by year. I do not have links to every States website, but here is the West Australian Coroners Court findings, listed by year.

https://www.coronerscourt.wa.gov.au/I/inquest_findings.aspx?uid=6256-4150-5-7479

No, not every incident is reported to the ATSB, and numerous reported events do not raise an inquiry, if the incident is not deemed to be of any significance.

The relevant laws are Sect 18 and 19 of the TSI Act 2003. Remember this much - "it is not the function of the ATSB to apportion blame for transport accidents or incidents".

Here are the FAQ's relating to the TSI Act ...

https://www.atsb.gov.au/about_atsb/legislation/trans_safety/tsi_qa/

Note that an "Immediately Reportable Matter" (or incident), is an incident that affects Transport Safety in Australia - whether it be air, rail or ship. The Responsible Person has 72 hrs to report a Reportable Matter.

And below is the Enforcement Policy of the ATSB and the TSI Act 2003.

Note that where there has been a failure of a Responsible Person to report a "Reportable Incident" under Sect 18 and 19, the ATSB first relies on education of that Responsible Person as to their responsibilities under the TSI Act 2003.

Secondly - only in the worst cases of failure to report an incident (such as potential criminal activity, or where there has been death or serious bodily injury), will the ATSB then refer the matter to the AFP for possible prosecution under the relevant Criminal Code laws.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/about_atsb/legislation/enforcement-policy/

The TSI Act 2003 ...

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00617

I ran out of editing time - but the final resting position of the Pegasus 737 NG appears to be pretty much dead centre of the photo, about in line with the most distant large pylon, and on the far side of the perimeter road.

KGW - I hear what you're saying - but to be fair, this Pegasus Boeing 737 NG went over a huge bank at the end of the runway, and then crashed downwards, over what appears to be at least a 20 to 25M drop, into some pretty rugged terrain.

I think, in the circumstances, this aircraft survived as well as could be expected, given the forces involved. You can see the terrain at each end of Sabiha Gokcen, from Google Street View.

I've been there, and noted there was a major drop each end of the runway. Not the best terrain position for an airport that I've ever seen.

If the aircraft had broken up to this extent on fairly level terrain, after an overrun, I could understand your concern - but the terrain involved would do serious damage to any aircraft travelling through it, in a similar speed and manner.

(airport perimeter fence, and end of the runway, on the distant skyline)

Interestingly, I left a "comment" note on the W.A. Dept of Finance website, saying they had no information on their site regarding aircraft sales - and I have since received this reply from a W.A. Dept of Finance, "Senior Revenue Officer" ....

"In regards to your enquiry on private aircraft, section 14 of the Duties Act 2008 (‘the Duties Act’) provides that a transaction involving a chattel (e.g aircraft) is not a dutiable transaction unless it is aggregated with another dutiable transaction, pursuant to section 37 of the Duties Act."

So that's it, literally from the horses mouth, as regards the Stamp Duty situation in W.A.

....avoided her by saying he'd just got a message that he was wanted back in the office, so he had to run..."

This caused Mavis to start searching for someone else to become interested in - which is when she found the Pipe Major playing with his bagpipes again.

"Oh, I didn't know you owned a pussycat!", said Mavis, as she leaned forward to pat the bagpipes. "My what a funny-coloured pussycat, that is!"

"Hoots, lassie!!", exclaimed Jock the Pipe Major. "That's nae a pussycat, that's ma bagpipes! Ye'd better not pat the bagpipes, they could increase in size substantially, if ye did that!!"

"Ooooh, said Mavis, "I thought it was a funny-looking cat! But I just love pussycats!, and I always want to pat every one that I see!"

"Och lassie!", said Jock, "I wish I wus a pussycat, you could pat me anytime!", he beamed. "Ooooh, you are so naughty!", exclaimed Mavis. "Lets go over to the bar, and we can.........

Turbo, I was envisioning a possible misunderstanding between pilot and journos, as to what what actually said, and what was reported. But the ABC article reported the pilot explicitly stating (to Seven News) ..."we lost rudder control".

Then, later in the initial reported statement, the pilot claims, "we kept the aircraft under control" .... ?

Finally, in another, later report, the same pilot reported engine failure, as the cause of the crash.

I guess if the engine stops and the airspeed drops, you sure won't have too much rudder authority - but I just wonder why engine failure wasn't even mentioned in the initial report? - and why one second he's claiming he, "lost rudder control", and next second he's saying, "we kept the aircraft under control"?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/plane-crashes-off-fraser-island-survivors-swim-ashore/11910632

Hella do not produce LED replacement globes for their incandescent globe range. They only produce LED's in complete lamp assemblies. Here is the 2019 Australian Hella catalogue.

https://www.hella.com/hella-au/assets/media_global/HELLA_AUS_CAT_2019_20_v0219.pdf

You can purchase fireproof satchels for your logbooks that will help logbooks survive crashes and resultant fires. It's important to ensure they really are fireproof though, and not just "fire-resistant".

The best fireproof satchels are made of fibreglass coated with silicone.

Muilenberg would never be found guilty in any American court, because the amount of money you can throw at your defence, wins cases in America. Trying to prove intent, or criminal negligence, is where a case against Muilenberg would fail.

But if Muilenberg was a European, and worked for Airbus, and an Airbus crashed due to a similar design fault - killing American pax - I'll wager the Americans would have him charged, and extradite him to face court in the U.S.

Even now, French prosecutors are recommending that Air France executives be charged over the AF447 crash, due to their tardiness in attending to the Airbus pitot tube problem, which they claim AF execs knew about.

There was talk of charging Airbus executives for what I presume, was design failures in the A330 - but the recommendation was later dropped, because it appears the case against Airbus execs was shaky.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/17/air-france-could-face-trial-over-2009-crash-of-rio-paris-flight

It looks like a 70's Volvo. As they said about them - "it should look good, once you get it out of the box!"

A straight-wing 1928 Waco ASO, also first called, the 10-W. It was renamed post-1928. A popular alternative name was the 220-T, probably because it was powered by the Wright J-5, rated at 220HP.

I really do wonder if Dennis Muilenberg ever had any real appreciation of the problems associated with the MCAS system? I personally don't think he ever did.

He's a classic example of a corporate favourite promoted to a level way beyond his abilities.

The corporate history of America is full of these people - people who have no understanding of what they are building, no understanding of their customers needs and requirements - and most importantly - no leadership ability, poor planning and decision-making abilities, and no ability to respond rapidly and efficiently with effective results, when disasters of any kind, strike their operations.

Muilenberg probably still believes he's the only one with the answers and the abilities to get Boeing out of trouble. The problem is, he doesn't realise he's the problem.

And the board has taken too long to come to the realisation that Muilenberg is the problem. Constant under-stating of Boeings problems, constant optimistic projections that are never met, constant re-assurances that the MCAS problem wasn't a design fault, it was a pilot training fault.

Deflection, deflection, and more deflection of responsibility. A classic of someone unable and unwilling to take responsibility for bad decisions made, and a lack of desire to fix those problems, because it might cost Boeing serious money.

But at the end of the day, because of those inherent and basic Boeing problems - from poor oversight of contractors, poor attention to QC, a poor company culture where loyalty to the corporate mantra took priority over attention to safety, poor attention to the ramifications of fault-riddled design, failure to properly and effectively address those design problems - this has all accumulated to ensure that Boeings corporate survival is at risk.

I would not be in the least surprised to see Boeing end up like GM, with a Govt bailout and major reconstruction.

The sad part is, GM in 1955 was the biggest, richest, and most powerful manufacturer on the face of the planet, with an astounding array of high-quality products. Check out GM's 1955 Powerama.

Yet, years of spineless corporate (lack of) leadership, led GM down the path that Boeing is now heading down.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/24/business/boeing-dennis-muilenburg-mistakes/index.html

It looks better now, re-engined with the flat four, than it did in it's original form in 1954, with a Gypsy Major engine. I never knew this all-Australian built aircraft even existed.

https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/the-fawcett-120-october-13-1954-news-photo/1081596588

You will often find that a Google search is more effective than a website search. Just type into the Google search menu, "recreational flying: fuel pump Rotax 912", and it will more than likely find the result you're looking for.