Ultralights

i am an EX GA flyer as well, i have never looked back! and soon if part 103 gets up, with a new CTA endorsement, there will be no need for GA aircraft at all!

i heard a rumour that a few yrs ago, the land the Oaks airfield is on was for sale?

yet another sausage factory. just hope its not the same level of "professionalism" as taught at other so called professional airline pilot schools.....you know what their reputations are like....

dont worry Ian, i wont tell anyone....;)

opps.

gee! theres enough people at the oaks now! the runway should be sealed soon! new terminal building and all!

now thats a great pic! how was it taken?? i want to get pics of the Vampire in flight like that!

you chop em in half, and they still sound like a Dak Dak! must say though, the rear fuse section behind the wing immediately reminded me of a Lightwing!

looks like it would be fun and cheap to build. wonder how it would go with a 503 or bigger in the nose?

What a brilliant weekend to go flying! high cloud cover, Nil wind, forecast was VRB03Kts..... perfect! full fuel and off we go!

Departed Cessnock, and tracked East towards the Old Aeropelican aerodrome, but decided to head thurther south. shot approaching the lakes region (above the F3 freeway)

Looking back under the wing as i approach the coast at 5500ft, area is Swansea. if you look closely enough you can make out Aeropelican.....if only they made it into an Airpark!

just a bit south, the old princess Hwy and Catherine Hill bay!

Tanker traffic Jam.... this is about 1/3 of the tankers waiting off the coast of the Macquarie lakes region, waiting to be loaded with hunter Valley Coal. there is just as many boats off the coast at Stockton and thurther north.. Build More Coal loaders people!!!

The view the other side!

Looking south to the Central Coast

The Entrance..

Looking North back over where i have just been, Turned west to avoind Sydney Control zone. descending to 4500 ft.

bit lower cloud in the west. overhead Gosford. at the F3 turn north to avoid control zone.. by now my feet are starting to go numb in the cold. it was warm on the ground and up to about 3000ft, above that there was an inversion, and some very cold air... but thats part of the fun right?

theres the F3, time to turn north and track direct to Cessnock.

if you look closely you can see the Mooney Mooney Bridge. Feet getting numb, time to move them around a bit, found i can trim the aircraft just be moving my legs back and forth! :)

I love clouds. and watched in amazement as the cloud developed a tower right in front of my eyes.. amazing!

Hunter Valley on the horizon... almost frozen by now... last shot as the camera batteries died...

all in all, the flight was great, not a single bump in the air anywhere!! and the little vampire continues to impress me at every flight! i have her now so its finger tip light to fly. and the 503 purrs along nicely at 5500 RPM producing 80Kts! :)

"Too bad, APEC is on, deal with it"

ahh the joys of having a police officer as a partner... (yeah wer'e back together)

looping? hmmmmm pass.

what about MOGAS in 2 stroke engines?

from what i hears it must be Mogas as it has no lead.

i actually quite like it! now if they could only substitute old Lead acid AA' batteries with the new Lithium Polymer batteries ' the thing could fly for hours!

yep, NVFR rating can only be done by a PPL holder and in Vh rego aircraft, fortunately when i was flying out of Bankstown, the flying School would hold Night flying/BBQ nights 1st Wednesday of every month.(in non daylight saving time) so it was about 2 hrs of night flying, either in the Syd basin training area or circuits at Bankstown. than at 8 pm the BBQ would be fired up..... all in all it was a good evening and well attended.

though i love flying in the late afternoon, i have always made sure i am on the ground at least 15 mins before Last light.. (ever tried locking up a unlit hangar in the dark? not fun.!)

from what i saw in the vids they already have a flying prototype

i think this has more chance!

http://www.cartercopters.com/

hello all, as you might as well know, i have a Vampire, though it does have a 2 hr endurance, i will be needing to purchase fuel from various destinations. (carting 2x 20 lts premixed jerrycans around will exceed my MTOW) so my question is, where do you get those fuel cards from? is there different cards? or different card issuers? some better priced than others? the usual questions i guess.

Thanks in advance.

Rob

so from a quick glance and not actually reading it, all flying from Hoxton Park, Bankstown, the Oaks wederburn and Camden will not be permitted unless with approval for 10 days?

sounds like an interesting little adventure, Fortunately my favorite time to fly is a few hrs before Last light!

Funnily enough, while doing my NVFR years ago, i found the landing light ON to be a distraction at night

If approaching an airfield in even fading light well before last light, don't be afraid to turn on the Pilot operated Lighting! the runway lights will help immensely in giving you a reference in the flare and judging height about the runway, in complete darkness, with runway lighting only, its surprisingly easy to judge flare height, i find the landing light on a little distracting as it takes your focus from the runway sides and length when the runway itself becomes lit from the landing light, and you seam to naturally focus on the section that is light up, and not focus down the length of the runway that is highlighted by the runway lighting..

ohhh, im good at that! (the GPS circuits that is)

yep, he has retired, and sadly no property yet.

where do you actually buy an ex military aircraft?

I wonder if it gets treated like the F18's in the ARDU unit? the Hornets of the ARDU are rigged with all kinds of stress sensors (which cause massive corrosion) and are always flown hard. hence the Hornets in our hangar at work are always the least hour airframes but suffer the most fatigue damage.

but i suppose if its been maintained well, it shouldnt be an issue, especially if all the extras have been removed.

I have always wanted to own an ex military aircraft! (secretly hoping for a short world war so i can buy up a few surplus F16's)

My GPS is set to WGS84. i believe its the Australian Aero standard

A little History, a few years back, about 7, i discovered a little hobby called Geocaching! basically it involvedhiding a weather proof container somewhere on this great earth, filling it with collectable little goodies, and listing the GPS co-ordinates on a website (http://www.geocaching.com) anyway, in times past, i made one of these little cache thingoes, and placed it at warnervale aerodrome! and its still going! latest visitor flew in! exchanged some things, and went on their way! the notification of this visit led me to write this post...

Geocaching has evolved to incorporate metal tags called travelbugs, and some have journeyed around the globe via people hunting down these caches and taking the bugs and placing them in another and so on and so forth, the prinicipal is simple, when you find a cache, you take a momento, and leave one to replace it.. some caches are in Very remote areas, and some are in the hearts of cities, usually in hidden film canisters in parks etc etc...

seeing as my one is hidden at a aerodrome, i think you can see where im going with this idea!

to hide a cache, all you need is a good hiding location, and a GPS co-ordinate.

What ya think?