onetrack

The Coulson 737 Fireliners are ex-SouthWest Airlines aircraft, and on average, they are 23 yrs old - so not exactly the "big bikkies" you might think.

One site says the basic cost of a 737 Fireliner is US$7M.

The NSW Govt is spending AU$26M in total, buying the 737 Fireliner, (along with a 10 yr flight & maintenance personnel contract by Coulson), plus the two Citation V's.

https://www.airmedandrescue.com/latest/news/coulson-and-nsw-purchase-boeing-737-fireliner

It is NOT a certainty, that Fred would have been prosecuted. Worksafe (W.A.) have both Prosecution and Enforcement policies that are reasonably clear.

A prosecution is commenced only when it is in the public interest, where it can be proven that there is a substantial degree of negligence and culpability, and where there is repeated bad behaviour, that is blatantly flouting OH&S laws and regulations.

The Commissioners delegate has to ensure that a prosecution has a substantial degree of a likelihood of success, before initiating it.

In Freds case, where his OH&S failures were merely laxity and a degree of poor management, I would opine that he would have escaped prosecution, but would have been issued an enforceable undertaking, or an improvement notice, to show that he had improved his approach to OH&S regulations, training, and manuals. 

Fred probably wasn't even aware of, or been familiar with the Worksafe Code of Practice. Worksafe would certainly have made him aware of it.

A fairly sizeable number of industrial accidents in W.A. do not result in prosecution. Only in the worst cases, where serious injury or death resulted from substantial non-compliance, or repeated offending, has prosecution been carried out. Where an employee has contributed to his accident, is also reason not to prosecute.

Worksafe Prosecution policy - https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe/prosecution-policy

Worksafe Enforcement policy - https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/worksafe/worksafes-enforcement-policy

Looks to me, from the witness description, very much like an unrecoverable stall at low altitude, whilst banking.

It seems so many pilots neglect to watch airspeed when travelling low and slow, and looking for terrain features or terrain recognition.

There is also an unexplained control-issue event involving another Liberty XL-2 in 2015, at Camden.

Might be the Liberty has some "issues" as regards handling?

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5750261/AO-2015-125 Final.pdf

jetjr - OH&S laws and regulations are not designed to totally prevent accidents. They are rules "for the guidance of wise men, and for ignoring by the foolish".

Here's another local example. This is a true, actual "job accident" event. My best mate (John) is a semi-retired fitter and turner.

He's a very professional machinist and workshop operator, and managed to get to 70 without killing himself, or losing a number of fingers, because he's had extensive safety training in workshop procedures, and is generally, a careful operator.

He moved from the city to the bush in S.W. W.A., and becomes friends with a farmer nearby (who just also happens to be an enthusiastic RA-Aus flyer, and an instructor as well, as I understand). I won't reveal his name, because I'm sure some members of this forum know him. Let's call him Fred.

This farmers profession is actually accountancy, he took over the family farm in his late 30's after his Dad died suddenly, and his Mum pressured him into coming back to the farm.

Fred's a nice bloke, I like him - but I consider that his farm management and farming skills still have a lot of gaps.

I would say that's largely due to a lack of professional or "on-the-job" farming training.

He employs my mate to do some repair and maintenance work around the farm. John is an excellent "hands-on" repairer, he starts to bring every run-down mechanical item on the farm, up to scratch.

One of the jobs John is instructed to do, is to fix the door tracks on the fertiliser shed. This shed is a very tall shed, with a set of two bi-fold doors.

That is, the doors slide on tracks, but they are hinged in the middle as well, so they fold up and take up less space.

Bill has gone away on business, and John sets up (on his own), to fix the door tracks. He has a very big stepladder to get up to the tracks, 4 metres above a concrete floor.

He figures out the wind is blowing from the SW, so he needs to tie the doors back against the wind. He does this, and he's satisified he's made the job safe.

But - remember, John is a workshop man, he's received no training in operating in a rural or outdoors environment.

Bill has done exactly zero to give him any job training, advice, or to provide any safety manuals. You can see where this is going.

John climbs 4 metres up the ladder, and commences work on the door tracks. Suddenly, and with no warning, the wind reverses direction and increases in speed, with a heavy gust.

But because John has only tied the doors back in one direction, against (what he thought) was the prevailing wind, the doors move, suddenly and sharply.

This movement dislodges the ladder, it falls to the concrete floor, and John follows it down, landing on his side on top of the ladder, on the concrete.

John shatters his left femur (upper leg bone) and his left elbow, as he tries to save himself. Luckily, he still had his mobile phone within reach.

Drifting in an out of unconsciousness, and with barely any phone signal strength, he takes 2 hours to raise help.

The end result for John was extensive surgery, a full-length steel pin in his femur, a steel plate and screws in his elbow, and about 4 months in a wheelchair and another 3 months on crutches. It's 12 months before he's back to anywhere near full strength.

But here's the kick in the story. Upon arrival at hospital, John is asked whether he was working for Fred as an employee, and was it a jobsite accident, or was he just working as a friend with no renumeration involved.

This is important for the Hospital, because if it's a jobsite accident, it's a workers compensation claim, and a report and records have to be forwarded to Worksafe.

But John is fearful of "getting Fred into trouble" - so he tells the Hospital staff he was just working as a friend for Fred.

Right here is where John is making a stupid choice, and the whole safety system is being derailed. John gets no workers compensation payments for his serious loss of income while he's recuperating.

It would have made no difference to Fred, he already pays workers compensation insurance premiums as part of his farming operations.

But, as my stepdaughter explained to us, if John had reported the accident as a workplace accident, Worksafe would have investigated, Fred would have been educated in the safety areas, brought up to speed on safety training procedures, be shown how to write up safety manuals, be shown how to carry out safety audits, and generally have his farming operation "smartened up", as regards employee safety.

As it turned out, Fred was largely unaware of his insurance arrangements, and what he was even covered for. He was relying on his insurance broker to "look after all that".

Fred probably had a half-decent PL policy, but he was unaware of what it could have covered. He failed to make himself familiar with any of his insurance policies.

If John had received advice that he could have sued Fred for damages under his PL policy, he could have sued Fred (without malice) and received a payout for his injuries. Insurance companies are there, just for that purpose.

Fred would probably have ended up with higher insurance premiums if John had got a payout on his PL policy, but that would be Freds punishment for not ensuring that his OH&S was up to scratch, and for failing to become familiar with insurance policies.

As it stands, the accident has not been recorded as an industrial accident, when it should have been, thus distorting overall statistics, and also leaving the accident out of the OH&S database, when it could have provided another example for an education and training session.

OME, the idea would never work. All the W.A. business people I know, handle the time differences easily.

If they have large volumes of East Coast business to carry out, they merely rise earlier and finish earlier.

After all, sizeable amounts of business dealings are carried out between Australia, the U.S. and Canada - with up to 15 hrs time differences.

It's just another factor to be added into the business transaction/dealing arrangements.

And to finalise my argument, the U.S. - the worlds largest economy (yes, it's still bigger than China - just) - has no less than 6 time zones - and the U.S. hasn't had any problems becoming the worlds largest superpower, and the manufacturing and technology powerhouse of the world, despite being "hampered" by 6 time zones.

Nev, this interview of one of the 737 Fireliner pilots contains his quote that the 737 Fireliner "flies slow really well".

I find it hard to understand how a delta-wing commercial jet, designed to cruise at 450kts at FL380, can perform satisfactorily at slow speeds at very low levels. 

They are talking 150 feet at 130 kts with the 737. To me, that looks like a suicide mission, particularly when you take into account the savage, tornado-like windstorms, generated by large bushfires.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/buying-time-the-pilot-behind-world-s-first-boeing-737-water-bomber-20190127-p50tx2.html

I can find absolutely nothing on any of the relevant websites, as to how the 737 Fireliner is refilled.

Plenty of info on how it dumps its load in a fabulous manner - but it obviously refills by magic.

https://fireaviation.com/tag/737/

One of the problems with firebombing is the quality of the water being used. You can't use seawater, it creates corrosion problems in aircraft, and damages the landscape and vegetation with an overload of salt. So you need fresh water - and lots of it, available quickly.

Canada is a whole lot different scenario to Australia. The Canada land mass is 9% freshwater lakes. The country is loaded with 20% of the worlds water.

But in Australia, you can travel a long way, before you find a decent freshwater supply, that has adequate volumes to support firebombing.

I struggle to see where this aircraft is going to be totally and outstandingly effective.

The 737 obviously needs to land to refill - where are the multitude of airstrips long enough to take a 737?

What about the turnaround time? I was under the impression the 737 is no F/A-18, it must take considerable time to do the turn around, particularly if the only available strip is many NM away.

What about the refilling methods? Are they trucking the water in to the nearest long airstrip? It would take considerable time to organise the necessary bulk water supplies - and I can't see where there's many public piped water supplies, that have substantial volumes of water to spare - particularly when it's potable water in their pipes.

What about the refilling process? It can obviously dump 15,000 litres pretty fast - but 15,000 litres is a lot of water to pump back into the tank, in a hurry.

I'm having trouble finding this type of information, as regards the Coulson 737's in action. Plenty of action shots, none of the nitty-gritty logistics info.

I must admit, I was quite surprised to read that the pilots of the Coulson Fireliner reckon their 737 handles and responds beautifully at just 130kts.

The OH&S problem, with its related complaints of excessive bureaucracy, progress-slowing procedures, eye-watering OH&S infringement penalties, and litigation leading to massive payouts, is simply a problem of all participants not understanding the processes involved.

Now, before I go on, I can tell you this much. I have a stepdaughter who is a senior OH&S manager for an oil and gas company, and she operates in the Moomba region. 

In a previous life, I have been a part owner and managing director of a large family earthmoving and mining contracting business. I was involved in writing up the company safety manuals.

We started out in 1964 with just the brother and myself and one machine, and ended up, 30 years later, with an average of 65 employees, 55 major items of equipment, ranging from 50 to around 100 tonnes in weight, and operating as W.A.'s largest family-owned mining contracting business in the mid-1990's.

The mining industry is one of the worst examples of "safety gone mad". But if you saw the stupid, risk-taking behaviour of many mining, and oil and gas industry employees, you might begin to understand how the OH&S regulations, rules, and procedures have become so extreme.

On the other side of the coin, farmers are notorious for a complete lack of regard for safety and good procedures. I have had farmer clients when I was an agricultural contractor, who killed themselves in horrible accidents, due to a total disregard of basic safety procedures.

One farmer killed himself by using a front end loader with an automatic transmission, to lift sides into place on his truck tray.

He was working alone, without advising anyone, in a remote location. He backed the FEL away from the truck, and left it idling in gear, while he walked into the area between the truck tray and FEL to tighten the bolts holding the sides in place.

The FEL, still idling in gear, without any handbrake applied, crept forward, and pinned him between the truck tray and the FEL bucket. His wife, the only person who would normally have come looking for him, was away in the city for a week.

It took him a week to die, in the most agonising form of death I could imagine. His death was totally preventable by very simple obedience of some very simple safety procedures.

Another farmer client killed himself by "jump-starting"a large 4WD farm tractor, standing in front of the drive wheels, whilst doing so.

He failed to carry out the basic check of ensuring the transmission was in neutral, and positioning himself in a high-risk, danger zone.

The engine started rapidly, the tractor roared off, and he went under the wheels. The incredible part is, he was of mature age, and should have known better.

The bottom line is, a practical interpretation of a good safety approach, simply-written manuals, coupled with audits and good, straightforward training, backed up by a good PL policy, is all that is needed, to ensure compliance with OH&S regulations, and to ensure safe work practices.

The OH&S enforcement agencies should, ideally, be primarily, educational - and secondly, only punitive, when severe and repeated infringements of regulations and procedures are encountered.

Some individuals have a, "they're not going to tell me what to do", approach to the OH&S part of their business operations - when they should be co-operative, and encouraging safety authorities to give them advice and education, as to how to improve their safety training, manuals, and procedures, to reduce injuries and fatalities, and to protect themselves against litigious claims.

As an aside, in the 30 years I was in the family business, we never incurred a major injury (in a heavy industry that is notorious for injury and death), and only incurred one fatality.

How did that fatality occur? We had a young, keen employee, a great lad, who simply failed to wear his seatbelt when driving one of our Hiluxes - against his safety training.

He drifted off the bitumen (obviously due to a lack of attention) on a local, wide highway, in the middle of a fine, clear day.

He hit a wooden white guidepost, which broke in half - and one half came out from under the front wheel, stood up at right angles to the rear tyre tread - whereby it punched a massive hole through the tyre, deflating it instantly.

He went to swerve back onto the sealed section of highway, once he realised he was on the shoulder - but as he pulled the steering wheel to the right, the totally-deflated left rear tyre caused a rapid and massive oversteer effect, which sent the Hilux broadsiding across the highway at 110kmh.

With no seatbelt to hold him, the result was entirely predictable. The Hilux rolled twice, he was ejected through the passenger window, and hit the road head first, breaking his neck instantly.

Such a total and unnecessary waste of life, and such an entirely preventable accident. But there was no fault on our part as his employer, he failed to obey safety instructions.

Yes, that is very puzzling. But the wreckage appears to reflect a stall, leading to an unsurvivable high RoD in a flat spin, ending in a pancake into the ground. 

The pilot and co-pilot may have potentially survived - but when a full load of fuel catches fire, with stunned or unconscious victims trapped (before any rescuers can reach them), then the end result is what you see.

I was under the impression that the CAC was enough proof of our ability to build aircraft?

During WW2 we built a wide range of aircraft and aircraft engines, including fully-locally-built Beauforts, and Australian-built P&W R1830's.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C995505

Facthunter, after a lifetime of buying lots of many costly mechanised items - with some items I've bought, costing up to a million dollars each - I've found that the cost of an item, has little bearing on how good it is.

Mechanised items that are in high demand, and which sell well, do so, because they provide excellent value for money, with outstanding features, coupled with good reliability, and good resale value.

Icon is slashing its workforce by 40%, because they are struggling to sell any serious numbers of the A5, at US$389,000.

It seems pretty obvious the company is only targeting buyers who have more money than they know what to do with.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/august/02/icon-slashes-workforce

The Gimli Glider story tells us a lot about the limited 767 controls and instruments left, after both engines stop.

The RAT does not supply full hydraulic pressure for controls on the 767, I can't say whether this has changed with other models of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

That bloke is going to be roasted like a spit chicken, driving an unregistered, overwidth vehicle, with non-compliant lighting, and no indicators, on the road! It's a good job he stopped at the red light, or those Troopers would've thrown the book at him! 

You have to be very aware of the fact, if you are first on an accident scene, where accident victims are trapped for more than 15 minutes, with severe crush injuries (particularly to large muscle masses, such as lower limbs) - and those body parts are still under crush pressure - you can kill the victims in a few minutes, simply by removing the crushing pressure, if you do not have the immediate ability to hand, to inject the victims with a saline drip or sodium bicarbonate.

What happens is, the rapid release of great pressure from the muscle-crushing weight, causes the large area/s of crushed muscle, to release a sudden and large volume of potent toxins, such as potassium, phosphorous, and myoglobin. 

By far the most dangerous of an overload of these chemicals in the bloodstream, is potassium.

Large amounts of potassium released from crushed muscle mass after the crushing weight is removed, can cause rapid heart failure.

This is called the "Crush Syndrome" or in the old days, the "Smiling Death". Victims would be released from their crushing weight, and would show no major distress (often due to shock), but they would die rapidly, often with a smile on their faces, because their nerve endings were so badly mutilated, they weren't feeling a lot of pain.

An overload of myoglobin in the body can cause renal failure, as the kidneys fail to cope with the by-products of the excessive myoglobin in the body.

However, this is usually a slower process, and can be managed after the victim is extracted.

There is a substantial degree of disagreement amongst health professionals and medical services over the exact procedure for extricating crush victims, and the correct initial treatment of them.

In the U.K., medical authorities advise that severe crush victims trapped for more than 15 minutes, should not be released from their crushing weight until paramedics are on site to inject the victim.

In Australia, St John advise that trapped victims can be released from crushing weight, but that the first responder must continually monitor their condition, and be alert to the possibility of sudden heart attack (myocardial ischaemia), caused by a potassium overload - whereupon, the first responder will need to apply CPR.

Wow, that must be the fastest crash inspection conclusion in recent history! The damage must have been so substantial and so obvious, it wasn't even worth a laboratory inspection.

I'm thinking that the major components must have exhibited very clearly visible tearing damage, over an extended area, a potent indication of severe overload. 

I was in the local Coles the other day, and there was a little old lady at the head of the checkout. She was pretty thin and obviously quite old, but she was keeping up with things pretty well as regards her purchases and loading her shopping bag,

She completed the transaction, and she must have put her (probably half-full) bag on the floor - but I didn't see her do it, because I was chatting to the Missus.

Next thing, I see her struggling to lift her bag off the floor and into her trolley. But the bloke in front of us rushed in to help her, and lifted the bag into her trolley. She thanked him and trundled off with the trolley. Outside, we saw her climbing on to her electric gopher, and I think someone else might have helped her transfer the shopping bag onto her gopher.

I remarked to the Missus - "Gee, that old lady is doing pretty well, she's upright, alert, and obviously still in tune with everyday stuff - she must be around her early or maybe mid-90's".

Next day, the Missus is chatting to one of her friends who lives one street over, and she told her about the old lady.

Her friend says, "I reckon I know who you're talking about! That's Mrs So-and-So, she lives a couple of streets away from me - and she's 104!!

So there's still hope for us all oldies yet! I reckon keeping continually interested in what's going on around you, and keeping active, has to be the major life-prolonging moves.

Spacey, you've got to know what you're looking for, before you go looking.

I'll wager as soon as the Swedish authorities find the "smoking gun" in the crash wreckage, they'll alert all other aviation authorities, so owners can do inspections on the relevant area.

Here's some of the most incredible miniature engineering you will ever be likely to see - miniature V8's in model boats, a miniature Clerget Rotary, a vintage V8 aircraft engine, a miniature 14 cyl Radial, a 1/5th scale Tiger tank, complete with miniature V12 Maybach engine, a miniature 4 cyl Gipsy Moth engine, a miniature DOHC 6cyl Jaguar engine, a miniature Caterpillar Sixty crawler tractor, and a 392cc miniature air-cooled V8, installed in a homebuilt, fully roadworthy, motorcycle!  The motorbike sounds just great!

The detail on these miniatures is just mind-blowing. I hate to think the amount of hours and effort that went into each of them.

The Yak 11 RC model does appear to be powered by a commercially-available 5 cyl model radial, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXskxbJFvvs

Still not the right information. EASA issued an emergency airworthiness directive that restricted use of the GA8 (in European aviation) to ferry flights only, on 19th July.

Casa and CAA NZ followed a day later with a total grounding of the GA8.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/gippsaero-ga8-grounded-following-deadly-sweden-cras-459808/

Well, the original question was poorly worded and poorly outlined, then, IMO. A pilot requires a different skill set for every single type and variety of airborne equipment - isn't that the reason for endorsements?

A hot air balloon only has lift acting on it, so the pilot of a HOB has only two options available to him - go up or go down. Compare that to the knowledge and skills required to pilot a B747, and there's a major difference.

I thought this forum was about recreational flying with powered aircraft. I haven't seen any hang-gliding or HOB forums on the site?

Garfly, are you telling us, the Irish invented ASI's?? They couldn't possibly have!

If the Irish had invented ASI's, they'd read in MPH and Knots - to be sure, to be sure ... 

Pilot licencing has little to do with the processes involved in keeping aircraft that utilise aerofoils, airborne.

Pilot licences are required for every type of craft that travels through defined airspace, and that includes hot-air balloons - and today, even drones over a certain size.

The OP posed the question, "How to fly", and as I understand it, he was referring to heavier-than-air craft, that utilise engine power and aerofoils to stay aloft.

Ahem, Spacey - using Helium to keep the Festo Air-Ray afloat, does not involve the processes of heavier-than-air, "flying"!! 

So .. on the basis of Sir Georges pioneering findings, I propose that the definition of "How to Fly", in one sentence, is as follows;

"Overcome gravity with a suitably-shaped aerofoil, and overcome aerodynamic drag, by applying sufficient thrust".  I rest me case, yer 'onour.