Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2022 i Australian Flying

Australia and New Zealand will share a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) for GNSS by 2028, Minister for Resources Madeleine King announced in mid September. The system, to be called the Southern Position Augmentation Network (SouthPAN) will increase accuracy of GNSS systems from the current 5-10 metres down to as little as 100 mm, providing capability for GNSS approaches with vertical guidance to LPV and LNAV/VNAV PBN RNP APCH approaches in supported areas. SouthPAN will enable aircraft to make more reliable approaches to airports in remote areas, bringing safety benefits to operators such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service. After Geoscience Australia signed a $1.2 billion contract with Lockheed Martin, Minister King said SouthPAN would provide essential satellite positioning services across Australasia for several industries including general aviation. “SouthPAN will provide…

An aeroplane in flight can’t beat the laws of physics. On the ground it can’t escape economics. Proof of the law of supply-and-demand’s effect on the price for second-hand aircraft, has never been stronger than in the last few years – the period before and after COVID. Like the property, and second-hand car markets, prices have skyrocketed to unimaginable levels. Just like the classic diagram of an aeroplane in flight, with lift, weight, thrust, and drag, there are multiple forces driving second hand aircraft values, both up and down, as well as increasing or decreasing the volume of aircraft on the market. Up, up, and more up Prices for good second-hand aircraft, of most types, in major markets, are said to have risen, in the last two to three years,…

Babcock Australasia (Babcock) continues to invest in its staff, with the graduation of two Rescue Crew Officers (RCO) to Air Crew Officers (ACO) based at Babcock’s Adelaide Airport Search and Rescue Base. The base has two Bell 412s positioned and operating in the search and rescue role. The majority of ACOs are recruited from the Army or Navy, but Babcock recognised the need to develop its workforce rather than relying on this small pool to draw from. Enter Cam Fewtrell and Dominic Hodalin who have become the first RCOs to graduate as ACOs both operating from Babcock’s Adelaide Airport base. Babcock Mission Critical Services Chief Aircrew Officer (CACO) Matthew Dobson said it was important to support and nurture emerging talent in one of the most competitive job markets in history.…

VHS v Betamax, Ford v Holden, Boeing v Airbus, RAAus v CASA. What do they all have in common? Each of these have pros and cons, but also, they often evoke an emotive response from supporters and detractors. At RAAus, we are very attuned to our differences with the CASA system, and we are immensely proud of these and the offering we provide Australians wishing to participate in aviation activities. «these limitations are what a typical private pilot or pilot working towards a commercial licence is doing anyway» I recently read a social media post where a person that wanted to start their pilot training asked which pathway should they go – RAAus or CASA? The only commonality between answers was that they were all different. However, one of the…

When Ruth applied for her first role in 1992, she planned to work in aviation for six months. Fast-forward to 2022 and she has just clocked up an aviation career spanning three decades. Initially qualifying as cabin crew on the Boeing 737 and 757 for charter operator Inter European Airways, Ruth continued to British Airways where she became a purser and CRM instructor. She was then encouraged by flight crew colleagues to move to general aviation and began the next phase of her career on business jets. From airlines to GA, and across multiple continents, she has flown an endless list of princes, presidents, musicians, and movie stars; shielding them from paparazzi, catering to their special requests, and helping create a haven in the cabin where they can rest and…

Sport Aircraft Association of Australia National Councillor Russell Ford told Australian Flying that AusFly 2022 was a success despite inclement weather keeping some aviators grounded at home. However, some companies that exhibited at AusFly have expressed disappointment at the turn out, whilst others reported that the national fly-in was too experimental focused. AusFly was held at Narromine 16-17 September under sunny skies, but persistent rain and thunderstorms on the Thursday kept many aviators at their home bases, particularly around Melbourne. Estimates show that about 130 aeroplanes flew in across the two days, which was down on the 250 hoped for before the event. Regardless, Ford believes was a good turn-out in view of the weather. "Despite the weather, it turned out an extremely successful event. The lead-up weather-wise was very…

Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) told Australian Flying in September that they no longer had any objections to private pilots being able to fly on a self-declared medical standard. Previously, RAAus' official position had been to oppose the move because it was seen as a threat to their business plan. However, current RAAus CEO Matt Bouttell said his organisation now had no objections to private pilots being granted medical privileges largely equivalent to recreational pilots. "Our position is simple," he said, "a risk-based approach to aviation medicine is what’s required. RAAus has demonstrated that we can operate safety under the operational limitations that we have, as have the other sport aviation organisations. We don't own [self-declared medicals]; we've just demonstrated that it can be done safely. "If that encourages other sectors of…

A newspaper editor by the name of Kelvin Mackenzie is most famous for the letter of dismissal he penned to The Sun newspaper’s astrologer, a letter which started with the words “As you will already know …” Anyone making predictions about the future secretly hopes that no-one tests their forecasts. Ten years ago, Australian Flying published an article by Steve Hitchen about the next generation charter fleet. The article, titled “New kids on the Block” [Australian Flying March-April 2012], looked at aircraft that were shaping up to replace the “long-serving workhorses of the aviation charter industry”. The “workhorses” to which the author referred were the big Pipers, Cessnas and Beechcraft of the 1970s and 1980s. His conclusion was: Unless the Tecnam P2012 becomes a runaway winner, charter aircraft will likely…

At some point when you were learning to fly and were frustrated by another poor weather day keeping you on the ground, an instructor would have said, “it’s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here.” Perhaps you were once tempted to fly too close to cloud? Then you may have heard, “there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.” And, after a particularly hard landing? “A great landing is always preceded by a great approach. If in doubt, go around”. These little cliches serve a very real purpose; those little distilled bon-mots are there to remind us that every time we pilot an aircraft, we take our lives, and those of our passengers, into our…

With all of the avionics technology available to general aviation aircraft today, space on instrument panels is becoming prime real estate. From PFDs, MFDs, back-ups, engine monitors, GNSS units, iPad mounts, multiple comms, transponders and a heap of other stuff, today’s panels are crowded houses. This has spawned a number of new avionics units with compact dimensions to lessen disruption to panels when they are installed, which saves money, time and project stress. Trig Avionics kept that in mind when they developed their new range of nav/comm units. The TX56/57 range is designed to go into a radio stack, and at only 33 mm high, will leave a lot of space for other things. What they will deliver is a new comm unit that has a VOR function as well,…

ADS-B technology has been used in Australia since 2004. All IFR aircraft are now equipped with ADS-B Out and increasingly ADS-B Out is being used by the VFR fleet to increase situational awareness, enable tracking from home using popular tracking systems, to support SAR and to enable ATC services in some cases. Whilst ADS-B Out is mandatory for IFR, ADS-B In fitment has been very slow in airliners due to the cost of avionics upgrades and downtime. At this time, Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) only provide separation warnings based on interrogation of transponders. ADS-B In data, if received by TCAS or another separate receiver, is used only for situational awareness or other specific applications, usually on a display in the cockpit. The choice of equipment for general aviation is…

1 CASA to release Alpha-numeric Regos this Week 2 ATSB stumped by Cherokee Six Crash 3 Completion Data shows TAFEs lag behind RTOs 4 Lightspeed launches Delta Zulu Headset 5 Fundraiser nets $25,000 for Northern Rivers 6 CASA to approve Flight Examiner Courses 7 Airservices teams-up with UNIQ You to foster Women in Aviation 8 Aviation community Optimistic after Jobs Round Table 9 Avionics Sales Revenue booms in 2022 10 A Champion of Safety: Vale Peter Lloyd SIGN UP TO KEEP UP! The Australian Flying website is updated daily with the latest GA news stories. Visit us online now at www.australianflying.com.au to also check out our free classifieds section, photo and video galleries, blogs, flying tips articles and comprehensive Warbird coverage. And be sure to register for our FREE weekly…

The Lottery Office Outback Air Race 2022 (OAR) finished in Coffs Harbour in early September having raised $750,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. It is a fundraising record for the event that was held for the 11th time. Thirty-four teams and 86 people set out from Darwin on 29 August and landed at Coffs Harbour on Saturday 10 September, having flown 2000 nm. Canberra team Wacky Warbos, consisting of husband and wife Ian and Connie Warburton flying Cherokee 140 VH-IAL, were officially declared the winners of the race, with Goondiwindi’s Team Tait raising the most money with an impressive tally of $106,000. Pilot and race committee member Julie Jardine said the fundraising cause was motivation for the teams. “When we fly through the outback and visit remote towns and…

There was no way we were going to get in: too high, too fast and too close to the runway. I thought this was a go-around for sure. Charles Gunter had other ideas. He pushed the prop levers forward to full fine, ran out the flaps and closed the throttle. With the big twin shuddering under the sudden increase in drag, he pitched the aircraft to about 20 degrees nose down. The altimeter went into reverse and the VSI flirted with the bottom stop. I watched the ASI all the way, but it hardly twitched, registering minimal increase in air speed as we plunged towards the ground. When Gunter was happier with the picture out the windscreen, he hauled back on the stick, bled off the excess speed and deftly…

Flight bags are one of the great necessities of general aviation. As pilots we are obliged to be prepared for almost anything, meaning all sorts of accoutrements enter the cockpit the same time that we do. With most GA planes traditionally lacking a lot of storage places, the flight bag becomes the repository for the pilot stuff. Even in this digital age where iPads now substitute for charts, weather print-outs and flight computers, there are still headsets, fuel testers, hand-held radios, torches, power cells, back-up charts and pens, pens, pens to be carted around. Add to that the wallet and car keys and you’d have no chance without a decent flight bag; you can’t buy spare hands at the pilot shop. The beauty of a good flight bag is that…

There’s an often-quoted line from a famous Nobel laureate that says "you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Bob Dylan, for all his talents, was obviously not an aviator. In aviation, you need a weather forecaster to not only know which way the wind blows, but also where you might encounter low cloud. Not knowing can be deadly, as panelists discuss in a video that is part of the second phase of our Your Safety is on Your Hands campaign. The panel looks at a fatal crash involving an amateur-built Wittman Tailwind aircraft where the pilot had diverted and landed safely due to bad weather. But, he took off again in what seemed like safe conditions and pressed on, only to encounter dangerous weather that…

This discussion contains extracts from the SACAA’s accident report. It is compiled in the interest of promoting aviation safety as is not to establish legal liability. Aircraft Type: Aero Vodochody L39C Registration: ZU-HIT Date: 30 June 2012 Time: 0802Z Location: Klerksdorp Type of Operation: Display Pilot: ATPL Age: 49 Total hours: 2019 Hours on type: 41 Hours in the past 6 months: 39 Meteorological info: CAVOK No. of people killed: 1 SYNOPSIS On 30 June 2012, two L-39C aircraft were scheduled to perform aerobatics at the air show at Klerksdorp in the North-West province. The pilots discussed the procedure the day before the accident, but no safety briefing was held on the day of the display. Shortly after both aircraft took off from Runway 36, they completed one uneventful loop…