RossK

My last flight was almost my last flight! After weeks of Melbournes coldest start to winter in 40+ years, the weekend looked good for a trip away with only morning fog being an issue. We made it to Hopetoun in NW Vic and spent the night at the local pub being entertained by the friendly locals. I can highly recommend Hopetoun as a weekend fly in get away. Sunday morning arrived with a good layer of low cloud/fog as forecast. This was due to clear by 11am. By 11am the cloud was still 500ft agl max. Our plan was to track direct to Bendigo and refuel and then home via Kilmore Gap. We sat around the strip waiting for the layer to lift and by 13:15 we were airborne at 1000ft agl. By Birchip we were down to 600ft and it was it was looking worse ahead. So we landed on 04 and checked weather with friends in Melbourne. We decided to walk into town and get some fuel whilst we waited for the weather. By 15:15 we were airborne again at 1800ft with a broken layer at about 2500ft I was constantly calculating nearest airstrip for the just in case scenarios. We were about 30 miles from Bendigo when there was a solid bank of cloud from the surface to about 2000ft, The overhead layer had gone and there was a higher layer of cloud at about 8000ft. I wasn’t comfortable with going over the top as we couldnt see past it, so we tracked north looking for a way around. We could hear on the radio that it was clear at Bendigo and reports from a friend in Melbourne said it was clear there too. So we just had get past this bank and we were home. The further north we went, the worse it got, so a quick 180 had us back tracking and I climbed to 2500ft, from here we could see through the two layers of cloud, so I climbed higher and we could actually see the end of the lower bank in the distance. So we headed back on track and went in between at 3500ft. Less than 5 mins later the lower bank just stopped and it was clear to 8000ft and we could make out Bendigo in the distance. I was now relieved that we had enough fuel and clear weather to get home, so we flew on and passed Bendigo at 3500ft, but. I had forgotten one thing. Time. The actual time. I had been counting minutes between airfields and concentrating on alternates. Half way between Bendigo and Kilmore I realised it was 16:50 and we were 30 minutes from home. Sunset was 17:08 and last light 17:35. I texted a friend to confirm last light as it was looking dim outside. Romsey was looking as a viable alternate at this stage. After confirming we could make it before last light, we pressed on. Along the VFR route I could actually see the reflection of the strobe on the wings, it was very dim outside! We made it to Sugarloaf reservoir and by recognising the road layout, I found the airstrip, joined base at 1250ft and 100kts, pulled power to idle, got to Vfe and put the flaps out. Turned final, and greased on probably my best landing of the year. At this point my wife asked “did you see the roos?”! There was three roos between the road and the threshold, but none on the strip! We taxied back and shut down. I think I sat there for a good two minutes, realising that we just got lucky! I have a time stamped photo of us at touchdown at 17:24 – 11 minutes before last light. The photo doesn’t look as dark as it was, but it was dark! The strobe was clearly visible without looking around, the landing light was casting a bright beam in front of us. 15 minutes before last light is dark when you are trying to find an airstrip. Had I realised the actual time when we were at Bendigo, I would have landed. Get thereitis is real, and it nearly cost me big. I will no longer plan to be that close to last light – I will monitor my ETA with reference to last light and if it’s under 30 minutes, I’m finding an alternate from now on. Never again. Never!

The thing that staggers me most with this one, is that they crossed a known VFR route to enter cloud into rising terrain. A VFR route that is there to help VFR pilots avoid this exact scenario! I know these guys are commercial and time is money, but a diversion to Kilmore gap would have added only 5 miles to the trip. Is the time pressure really worth the risk? The outcome suggest NO.

Is there still 2 Flight schools at Riddells using RAA aircraft? You could ask who they use.

Dave's Camair is at Riddells Creek. No experience with their work as we're based at Lilydale, but have only heard good things.

You're probably better off with the GM LFX 3.6l V6, more power for less weight and more compact. The Ford Barra 6 though is near bulletproof, a nice feature for an aviation engine. But it's long, tall and heavy. Restricting the Aussie sixes to 3-3500rpm is going to drastically reduce their output, The LFX would only put out 110kW @ 3100rpm, it's rated for 210kW@6400rpm at the crank Adding a redrive and letting it spin to 5000rpm will push out 170kw at the crank. I suspect any redrive for these would be custom though.

It's an informative video, worth watching and keeping in mind. Video also has a clip of a high wing, fixed gear ditching and it doesn't nose over like we expect it to. Exec Summary - 90% of ditchings are survivable, scary yes, but don't discount the option.

Short answer, Yes. Anything more than 2 hours from home and I am looking at fields with fuel availabilty. Mogas is the preference for us, but will use Avgas when Mogas is unavailable, Happy to walk for about 1km to get Mogas over Avgas. Budget accomodation onsite or camping underwing and you're now a priority stop over 🤩. Tocumwal is a great example; no landing fees, camping or cabins available onsite. 30 minute walk to town, taxis also available Cafe on site Aviation Museum on site Avgas available.

Hmmm Stuck in Salt Lake Clay

The recent Redbull one is also interesting. Whilst the Redbull guys may have done a lot more research and testing with safety measures inplace, they still jumped out of working aircraft (leaving them unmanned) with the result being one crashing. All done after the FAA rejected their application to perform the stunt.

Jabiru J430 is supplied as a kit with MTOW 760kg. Build it without the rear seats and you've got a huge baggage area and a typical usefull load of 300kg with full fuel.

The strip at Phillip Island was bought by a deveopler with the intent to close it all and put houses on it. Council rejected the plan apparently. So the developers response was to stop maintaining it and put crosses at the end. It's now a heliport only strip. Why he doesn't develop it into an airpark is beyond me, that way he would get some return from it an keep the strip active.

Ooohhh, turbine sounds ✈️ Start up

The flaw in the whole system is that someone with bad intentions is not going to apply for an ASIC or AVID. Only law abiding citizens get them, or those forced to, to do their job. You can leave from a small local field and simply fly into a regional airport with RPT aircraft and voila, you have access to a much larger aircraft. After typing this - I'm probably going to get flagged by big brother and have my Red Card revoked.

Rotaries are typically high wear, short TBO engines though.

Sheesh some are hard to please 🙄 They have a flying version, in an established airframe, give it time guys, they are well ahead of the local develpement, as are these guys; https://www.turbotech-aero.com/solutions/#turboprop flying version in this; https://news.jmbaircraft.com/2022/turbine/ No affiliation with either.

The predominant black pigment is actually Black Iron oxide. Carbon blacks are typically used where you need a deeper black or "jet black"

Bruce, the figures are also based around stall speeds. There are some airframes that will happily carry more than 600kg but won't meet the 45kt stall speed. Our own Sportstar has an official MTOW of 575kg, but there is an Evektor Bulletin that increases this to 600kg with the addition of VG's. So, pay the $$ to Evektor for the paperwork, fit VGs, submit paperwork to RAA and an extra 25kg presto...🙂

Which is why I plot starting fuel (top right of the red line) all the way to zero fuel (bottom left), at all fuel quanties the CofG is within the envelope. We saw one W&B cert for a plane that had to have a minimum of 50lt in the tanks to keep within the envelope with 2POB, 90Lt tanks, so usable fuel of 40L!!

Update, still haven't committed to buying another tablet. The first flight mentioned above with the iPad mini, it was sitting on the passenger seat or my knee as I had previously done with the iPad Pro. For last weeks flight to Mt Gambier, I used a Ram mount and it lasted fine, both there are back. I positioned the Ram mount on my left, attached to the canopy with the suction mount, just next to the vent and had the vent slightly open. I think the combination of vertical orientation (less direct sun on the screen) and airflow obviously helps, both days it was only 21deg at ground level, and once we got above the cloud we actually had the cabin heat on, so not a direct comparison to the first effort. I'm still going to buy another tablet in the near future as the borrowed mini is only wifi, no GPS or network connection.

Good post above by TP. It's not hard to know your MTOW and WB for each flight. I've got a spread sheet on my phone with a WB envelope. Enter Crew wt, baggage wt and fuel qty and it plots my WB for the endurance of the tanks. example below is from our trip to Mt Gambier, 165kg Crew wt, 17kg baggage, 95lt of fuel. (baggage includes tie down kit, travel cover, headsets, collapsible fuel bags and our travel bag.) Get a $10 spring balance and everything can be weighed before it goes in the plane. It's not hard. When we were looking at aircraft to buy, one of the first things we asked for was the planes W&B cert. I will add, that at YLIL, W&B was taught and tested during RPC training.

Took Thursday and Friday off to go to Mt Gambier. Left Lilydale at 9:30am Tracked across the City via the Coastal VFR Route, And then ran into this before we got to Geelong, and still under the 4500ft Class C step So tracked north for a while, until we could pop up over it, which ended up being close to Ballarat! Over hamilton, had a quick chat to a REX pilot departing Mt Gambier who confirmed VFR conditions at YMTG, which allowed us to press on knowing we could get down. Well worth the trip, plenty to see and do.

It's gone, I dont understand why they would detroy it. surely a plane that can move 5 tanks around the country at 800km/h would have been an asset?

Because I've learnt there is no point arguing on a forum with people such as yourself. Your opinion is yours, I just don't think this is the right forum for you to share it.

All in all, a great outcome.

You're comparing Ukraine to 2001 Afghanistan??? Really? 😵