onetrack

But surely, somewhere along the way, people will wake up to the rort of "loyalty points". There are already plenty of articles from educated people warning others of the fallacy of "chasing points".

...arrange to have him visit, and offer to show him the wildlife of Burkina Faso, with a specially-guided tour of the local Wildlife Park, where unbeknowns to Cappy, he would "accidentally" fall out of a Park tourist vehicle, into the path of a pride of hungry lions....

Qantas doesn't make money flying people around the world - it only makes money, because it rorts every FF points holder - to the extent that the FF programme is actually more valuable than Qantas.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/qantas-frequent-flyer-program-turning-into-airlines-biggest-money-spinner-20170512-gw34wq.html

......but as Crown Prince of Ouagadougou, Turboid was merely showing African dictators how to really cream in the bribe money (to be fair, he learnt this off the Captain, with his N.S.W. system of brown paper bags of money, development approval payoffs, mining leases made out in politicians names, etc, etc...). But after Turboid saw what the other African dictators were already creaming in, he decided he couldn't really teach them anything, as they made him look like an amateur.

So, to improve his already substantial bribe income, Turboid decided he would get into 419-type scams, and he reckoned selling non-existent aircraft via Trade-A-Plane, would be ideal.

It was simple - rich clients, fast and easy contact via email, the anonymity of the internet - except for that nagging problem of the Cappy finding his IP address.

He decided that something had to happen to that inquisitive Rat from New South, he could arrange to....

....the offender had a family relation who was a member of the police "Purple Circle", and as such, was untouchable. He hinted at close family relationships with Russ Hinze and Joe Bjelke-Petersen, and the cop went white, fully remembering what happened to the copper who had the temerity to try and book Russ Hinze.....

The class actions are popular simply because they're fully-funded, and offer a possible return, for no requirement for the plaintiff to pay anything up front. 

I joined a class action against banks once, for recovery of account fees that were deemed unlawful, based on the fact that the fees charged had no relationship to the costs or losses incurred by the bank.

The class action failed miserably (as virtually all bank lawsuits do), simply because the judge ruled that there was no need for the bank to prove it had lost money or incurred costs via customers failure to pay, or pay on time.

The judge ruled the bank could charge what it liked as fees, simply because it was a penalty decided by the bank, and they could decide on the size of the penalty.

The class action cost me nothing up front and it cost me nothing to lose. The correspondence from the litigation funders made this abundantly clear.

The lawyers writing up banking contracts and agreements rarely leave any holes in those contracts and agreements.

And at the end of the day, who has the virtually unlimited funding to reject any lawsuits, for as long as it takes for the other side to run out of money, and will to prosecute?

The Bond Corp funding clawback saga took 27 years to come to a grinding halt with a mediated settlement - then the litigants who didn't join the class action in the first place, stepped in to make a claim for their share of the $1.75B pot, proffered by the banks.

Then the W.A. Govt stepped in with legislation that stopped any further litigation or claims resulting from the case, to enable an end to it all - and the new litigants took that action-stopping W.A. legislation to the High Court, and it was thrown out as invalid, and "inconsistent with existing tax laws". Thus the merry-go-round started up again, and it will continue to at least the middle of the next decade.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-16/court-rules-against-wa-government-bell-group-alan-bond-laws/7417122

I can remember a story from many many years ago, about a child being taken for a first joy ride, who stood up to see his house from the air, and got his small foot jammed in the control linkages.

The pilot was apparently totally unaware of the source of the jamming, and the aircraft crashed, resulting in fatalities.

Have a mate that filled up his diesel ute 3 hours west of Perth while a tanker was doing a delivery

 

Butch, I think you have your compass points screwed up. There's nothing but many sq kms of ocean, 3 hrs West of Perth. I presume you meant to write, East of Perth.

The common rail fuel injection systems on the current diesels need very clean fuel, because injector and high pressure pump tolerances are now half what they used to be - around 0.0005" (0.0127mm), and the pressures are huge (25,000psi to 30,000psi/172 to 206mPa). Any water in these components reduces the lubrication between them, and therefore fuel system damage is guaranteed.

Sizeable amounts of water in fuel should not get through filters, the filter should simply block up, and the engine should starve of fuel. The utes filtering system is obviously poor, if the fuel pump can suck water through it. There's a booming market selling "add-on", high quality fuel filtering systems to the 4WD diesel crowd, to prevent engine damage from fuel contamination.

Bex, for the low sum of between US$18K and US$50K, you can have one in your hot little hands. The price varies according to the range of materials/metals you need to test.

https://www.bruker.com/products/x-ray-diffraction-and-elemental-analysis/handheld-xrf/xrf-analyzer-price.html

(Onetrack is horrified to see the direction of the NES go deep under water, like a bottom-of-the-harbour scheme, or a Spanish submarine (a lot of which never surface again, unfortunately).

This direction is totally unsuited to this forum, and the NES, which is supposed to be purely to do with all things flying around in the air.

As such, OT believes there is a need to lift the NES out of its potentially watery grave, despite the submariners snide comments about "more aeroplanes at the bottom of the sea, than submarines stuck in the sky". Accordingly, I believe the gravity of this situation needs to be overcome, to enable serious lifting of the NES.)

As Turbo gunned the Cessna 150 upwards again, after his astonishing death-dive recovery from under Murray River Gum branches, HiHo was seen to reach for......

The C182 Katmai conversion? Only a couple, according to this bloke on Farcebook....

https://www.facebook.com/planesalesaustralia/posts/todays-cessnasaturday-is-this-incredible-1978-cessna-182-katmai-conversionim-not/1986672874755321/

We've had discussions before, about fuel types/fuel brands, and people who "swear on XXX brand or grade", on other forums - and some surprising things came out - a lot from one bloke, who was a former fuel distribution company manager.

1. 35% of our petrol is refined overseas (largely Singapore) to Australian Fuel Standard, and delivered in tankers, ready to use. 50% of our diesel is refined to AFS overseas, mostly in Japan and South Korea.

2. The basic fuels are "generic". That is, they are delivered by oil tankers from the overseas refinery, or pumped from the local refinery, into the fuel farm tanks in the bulk terminals that are located in, or generally adjacent to, ports - and the various fuel companies and retail distributors draw down from those fuel farm tanks.

Those bulk terminals are individually owned by various companies, and sometimes a group of companies, comprising 2, 3, or 4 oil companies, plus major distribution companies.

It is surprising how many of our fuel terminals are fully owned by global corporations you have likely never heard of, such as Vitol, and the Australian, ANZ Terminals, who specialise in the ownership and operation of bulk product terminals.

So there is no such thing as "an exclusively refined Shell, or BP, or Mobil, fuel". They all draw down the same "generic" refined fuel, from the bulk terminals.

3. Having said that, there are "premium fuels" that have an "additive package" added to the road tanker upon filling from the bulk fuel farm. The fuel distribution manager confirmed this.

That additive package is exclusive to the particular fuel company, and they keep the ingredients commercially secret.

But it is known that numerous pricey and exotic petroleum product chemicals can improve fuel performance. Some of those chemicals you would never have heard of, such is their exotic nature.

Other additive ingredients are detergents (to keep fuel tanks and fuel systems cleaner), combustion-improving chemicals, fuel system lubrication improvers, and even items such as organic chemicals, typically things like plant oil essences.

There are active chemicals in many plants and trees that aid in fuel combustion. These chemicals are often freely released into the air, and they are called VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds).

Typically, a VOC from pine trees is terpene - from deciduous trees, it is isoprene.

Terpene is used to produce Turpentine, Isoprene is utilised in rubber manufacturing. You can physically see the VOC's in the air from Eucalypts, they are the chemicals that produce the blue haze in the lower atmosphere, usually in the evening.

These additive packages are tested - in on-road actual conditions, as well as in the lab - to ensure improved fuel performance. Thus the extra few cents a litre for the premium fuels.

4. The quality of your fuel can be degraded by dodgy retailers adding cheaper, more-volatile or less-volatile ingredients, that reduce the fuel specification. There have been dodgy retailers caught who were adding heating oil, excessive levels of ethanol, toluene, and even canola oil, to fuel tanks in their service stations.

Naturally, the Govt is intent on stopping fuel scams, and they check underground fuel tanks in servos on a random and reasonably regular basis, to try and ensure fuel scams are stopped in their tracks.

5. By far the greatest fuel problem is fuel contamination via contaminated older underground tanks. Older underground tanks become contaminated with mud from flooding, with water from condensation, from underground water gaining tank entry via rust pinholes, and from rust inside the tank formed by the water.

In recent years, fibreglass tanks have become the underground tank of choice, and these are a far superior underground tank.

The great advantage of avgas is that it is produced to aviation requirements and specifications, and follows a fuel handling process that is tighter than mogas, to ensure the chances of contamination are virtually non-existent. Avgas contains more stable volatile ingredients to reduce the chances of vapourisation.

But if you must utilise mogas, buy premium mogas with reputable "name brand" oil company performance additives - buy it from fairly new servos with the latest style of tanks and tank venting and tank security - and keep away from smaller fuel distributors who can be tempted to add their own, unauthorised "additive package" to the fuel, to ensure they make more profit, rather than making the fuel perform better.

More info (some of which, needs updating) - https://www.aip.com.au/

...is owned by a Chinese consortium, fully 51% owned by the P.L.A., to ensure that Chinese jets (of all types - civilian or military) get priority in the landing queue, and reduced landing fees.

"Surely that can't be true?", says Cappy with a desperate look. "That means us RA flyers will be even further down the list, than we already are!". "Don't worry about that", says Turboid, "We just need to re-negotiate the purchase deal, and extract some major concessions from the Chinese. Just look at what Trump has done, he's slaughtering them in the streets!" "No, that's HK you're thinking about", says the Craptain.

"Well, look, we buy more Chinese-manufactured rubbish than anyone else in the world, apart from the U.S. - so just look at the leverage we can apply, to gain the concessions we want".

"I'm not looking for a concession, that's only for seniors!", cried Cappy - "and the last thing I want, is to be identified as a senior!!". "Look, said Turbanrunner, "You're already a.....

....outvoted or outnumbered. Let's hit the skyways pronto, so they can't follow us!" At that, Cappy hailed down a passing rickshaw (because they were still in NSW, and rickshaws were becoming a favourite form of transport there, now that the Chinese owned virtually all of Sydney, and outnumbered the original Aussies).

He jumped in, pulling the Turboy fanner with him, and barked to the rickshaw driver, "Wangaratta Airport, and don't slack off on the pedalling!"

Naturally, the reason he hailed a rickshaw was because he constantly made out he was flat broke, and he didn't want to raid any of the brown paper bags of cash he carried in his briefcase, in case some corrupt official claimed he was being shortchanged, and dobbed him in. As the rickshaw gathered speed, Cappy looked behind nervously, and was horrified to see....

....as they spotted the trays, and could see "Special Fried Cat #66" written on them, their mood suddenly turned a whole lot uglier.

"Fried Cat!!!," screamed one of the BoB blokes, "You mean to say you've been feeding us Fried Cat, with the "special" every night - and we've been told all the time, it's FISH!! You devious bastard!! You're worse than an $8 cheap meal cafe that uses canned, Tom Piper Braised Steak & Onions, and sells it as "Hungarian Goulash!!". The crowd growled a low guttural growl, and surged forward.

At that, Ahlox went a little pale around the gills, and said, "But these are specially IMPORTED Cats, not the regular Moorabbin back alley cats!! Besides, all Chinese specials are coated in a ton of batter, so you can't identify the mystery meat contents! It's been that way for centuries, every since Chinese Restaurants started! We're even better than the Indians at it - they just bury their mystery meats in sauces and gravies!!"

Meantimes, the Turbanwhammer was using the commotion to make a fast getaway, before the crowd turned its attention back onto him. He grabbed the Cappy, who was still on his hands and knees on the ground, picking up stray nuts, and said, "Where did you put the keys to the Jab? We gotta get out out here, before....."

Now, Lionair have found cracks in pickle forks in 737NG aircraft that have done considerably less than the mandated 22,600 cycles ....

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-08/lion-air-reports-cracks-in-new-boeing-737s/11687598

Kind of makes the Qantas union calls for grounding and checks on all the Q 737NG's look a little less dramatic now, doesn't it?

Lionair carried out the crack checks, despite there being no official need to carry them out, and despite the aircraft not fitting into the "affected" models, with the required number of flight cycles.

deleted - wrong thread

...spat 'em out, declaring, "these are Fake Nuts!!" At that, the crowd went wild, just like a bunch of Trump supporters at one of his rallies, when he yells, "Fake news!!!".

"Fake??!!!", called out one old grizzled bar fly. "That Turboyfanner has been slinging around FAKE nuts??!! - he should be lynched!! Let's get him!!!"

At that, the Tirboyd took to his heels, as he sensed the angry mood of the crowd. Flying through the doors in a panic, with the BoB crowd hot on his heels, he ran into....

....collection of wrinkles that any bulldog would be proud of. But then, anyone who dyes his nut sack purple is definitely on the outer, when it comes to social acceptability."

"Did you see what else he did, that was outrageous, and showed that off, too?", said Onetrack. "I thought the Gay Pride Parade was full of some real whackos, but when Turboid.....

...said, "I have things planned for them, but that can wait. Now, about this Sgt you put on my tail...". Bull grimaced and looking a little shamefaced, said, "Well, I had to get him off my back somehow, and sending him to Moorabbin should be enough to ensure he gets mugged, carjacked, and robbed - all in the one day - so he would probably forget about chasing you up after his Moorabbin experience. "Oh, I don't know", said the Turgid One. "I got carjacked three times in the last two months, the house has only been burgled twice, and I was robbed on the bus four times, so it's not like his Moorabbin experience would be unusual". "Sudanese gangs?", inquired Bull. "No, it was mostly Greek kids and Vietnamese juveniles, they make the Africans look tame. But hey, that's a small price to pay for living in such a great place".

Suddenly, the door flew open, and there was the Rat - "You Bastard!!", he yelled, "You Rotten Mongrel Bastard!!". The assembled group in the bar spun around, stunned. The Rat went on.....

....looking through his stash of money bags to see which ones had been rifled by the Bull, to pay off the Sarge.

Meantimes, the Turgidfanner was having trouuble wih his phne whic obviously hs a faaulty keybaod, because he keeeps geting worrds misspellt and names balsed up - or else he just has no proof-reading skills and just punches off answers as fast as he can produce his faulty keystrokes.

But Onetrack has gone quiet because he has taken great offense at the Turgid ones sneering description of Vietnam Veterans who carry MG's and who go down VC tunnels head-first.

Obviously, unbeknowns to Turgid, Onetrack is a locally-famous Vietnam Vet and has great familiarity with the M60 MG, and the NVA regulars and VC's in black pajama outfits, who set many booby traps and mines for Onetrack when Ontrack patrolled in the twilight under the canopy of the Deep Green J.

But Onetrack survived the regular NVA and VC onslaughts, utilising his cunning and great skills, and is now contemplating what kind of VC-type punishment he can inflict on the Turgidfanner, by visiting his home abode in the dark of night, in deep jungle camouflage, and setting some nasty booby trap surprises for him.

Or perhaps Onetrack will just simply set a great big Vietnamese scorpion under a sock in one of Turgids shoes during the night, to ensure he gets a proper VC greeting. Such is the punishment meted out to those who chose their words less than carefully, when taking aim with sneering words at our War Heroes.

Meantimes, Bull had finally made it to the pub, and was greatly surprised to find that he could still run a tab, despite having no money, no hope, and no....

There are 5 cops on the side of my Missus' family. FIL was a Superintendent (now deceased), BIL was Snr Sgt and occasionally Acting Inspector. His son has been a Drug Squad detective (you've probably seen him on TV leading drug busts), went back to being OIC of a suburban cop shop (by request) - then he got called on again to become a Liaison Officer, travelling to the U.S. to co-ordinate operations with the FBI, DEA and other major U.S. agencies.

You may have noticed some really major drug busts involving global drug lords in recent times, he was part of organising those busts. The Chinese Triads are the worst, they mainly operate out of HK, and the Chinese Police are often unco-operative with Western Police forces, for reasons you can well guess at.

The bottom line is, these blokes continually put their lives on the line. On the beat they are called on continually to break up violent fights, deal with drink and drug-affected offenders, and extremely violent offenders (who are nearly always armed today, and those offenders often harbour a vicious and murderous attitude, to anyone in a blue uniform).

To add to that, they have to deal with the overpowering and exceptionally dangerous chemicals when they (almost daily) find clandestine drug labs, have to deal with being knifed, bitten, spat on, abused, kicked and punched, on a nearly daily basis.

I'm a Vietnam Veteran and I've seen some sights people shouldn't have to see - but Police are exposed to violent and gruesome murders virtually weekly, all their working life - and the worst ones are the murdered children.

My BIL was attacked and bashed by a large group of Aboriginals when he was surrounded and outnumbered as he went to arrest an offender - a situation which often confronts most coppers when they have to make an arrest.

All in all, I would not be copper for $250,000 a year - and yet the base pay rate for a newly-instituted Constable in W.A. is $57,000 a year - about the same as a bus driver.

Don't criticise the Police - yes there are some dills amongst them, and a handful of corrupt cops - but as the old Pirates of Penzance song goes, "a policemans lot is not a happy one".

We can, and we have done before. But flying Perth to Brissy means we either have to rent a car from Brizzy airport (more expensive), then drive 80 kays down to the GC, incur tolls on the way, put up with the seemingly never-ending roadworks on the Pacific Hwy, and then return through the same BS.

We need to allow plenty of time to get from the GC to Brissy as you can get substantial hold-ups on the Pacific Hwy, meaning the stress levels rise.

It's so much easier (and cheaper overall) to go through the GC airport. The car hire costs are lower there, the congestion is less, and the amount of driving we have to do is greatly lowered.

As far as Q is concerned, I no longer have any interest in supporting the $24M chubby Irish leprechaun, and all his gay supporters. Q cancelled all my FF points because I didn't fly with them for 3 years - and every time I've gone to book a flight, Q was the most expensive option.

Virgin have always provided a highly satisfactory service to me, and have always provided the lowest cost flights (excluding JS) - and Virgin give you the ability to bid for an upgrade, a system which I just happen to like and enjoy.

I'm really peed off about Virgin dropping their OOL-PER (and vice versa) flights. I like to fly non-stop, and as it stands, Jetstar is now the only airline doing PER-OOL and return, non-stop.

As I refuse point-blank to fly Jetstar any more, after a number of JS flights we took were delayed, cancelled or late (let alone travelling with all the badly-behaved bogans), it now means we're obliged to do two-stage flights through SYD (or MEL).

The stepson and his wife live on the GC, and we like to see them fairly regularly, and it's bloody long way at the best of times.

We've scored business class most times in the past with Virgin (via upgrades), and enjoyed their flights and service. But now, it looks like we've little option, but to do the two-stage trip every time.

That makes it even harder to score an upgrade all the way through. I guess we could always try to win Powerball and buy a personal jet. 

Obviously, just ongoing training compliance work by people from VET. Hopefully, a lot more of these organisations who get vast sums of money from the Govt for training, are scrutinised and checked, to ensure that proper training is being carried out, that people being trained are getting good value in their courses, and that the shonky operators of these dodgy businesses are weeded out.

This mornings ABC story of one fraudulent schooling operator being found out and jailed, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Whenever vast sums of Govt assistance money are freely available, the shonky operators are always ready and willing to acquire as much of that money as they can, without any degree of ethical behaviour.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-06/private-college-reaped-$2m-from-students-but-never-taught-class/11662164