Innholdsfortegnelse for September-October 2024 i Australian Flying

Finally free, I finished full time work in June last year, and my partner Simon finished towards the end of March. At last, we could now do more flying, and would be able to go on extended trips away. So with the Australian Women’s Pilots Conference in Mildura as the planned destination, we set off almost as soon as Simon had downed tools (or more correctly, computer). The plan was a drive and fly trip, because we didn’t know how long we would be away, and we wanted Tilly the dog to come too. She is an aviator, complete with mutt muffs, but getting hire cars with dogs is difficult, so we drove a car and a plane. She travelled in the car. Our first stop was McCaffrey Field, near…

An RAAF officer at the Shell Harbour air show suggested I seek permission to feature the PC21 in Australian Flying. So, I contacted Defence Media setting out my experience, qualifications, father’s role as a WWII bomber pilot in the RNZAF and why an article would be good for recruitment. Out of the blue came an email from Squadron Leader Lachie Hazeldine, QFI with the Central Flying School at RAAF Base East Sale (YMES). He is the leader of the RAAF aerobatic display team, the Roulettes, having been a member for nearly six years. The invitation was to spend a day at East Sale, including a flight in the PC-21, where yes, I would get to take the controls. The friendliness and professionalism of Lachie and his team, covering every detail…

Aircraft Registration: ZS-SNN Date of Incident: 12 September 2014 Time of Incident: 1710Z Type of Aircraft: Diamond DA 20-C1 (Aeroplane) Type of Operation: Training (Part 141) PIC License Type: Student Pilot Licence Valid: Yes Age: 34 PIC Total Hours: 52.1 Hours on Type: 52.1 Point of departure: Fisantekraal (FAFK) Intended landing: Fisantekraal Accident site: Fisantekraal Met: 20°C: 250/10:CAVOK POB: 1+0 Injured: 0 Killed: 0 SYNOPSIS The student pilot was engaged on a navigation exercise when the incident occurred. During the approach for a landing on runway 23, the student pilot flared the aircraft too high and the aircraft landed hard and bounced. The student pilot finally landed the aircraft after a few more bounces. The aircraft sustained damage on the nose wheel and the propeller blades. The student pilot was…

Aside from flight training for overseas students, owners and pilots of smaller aircraft in Australia have little contact with GA in other countries. Flyinga GA piston-single to visit our cousins in New Zealand is more of an expedition than a regular flying trip. Our other close neighbours have so few GA facilities that a trip by light aircraft is largely impractical. That isn't true in other parts of the world, however. Cross-border GA flights in Europe are a normal part of piloting, and our American friends make the most of their proximity to the Bahamas and Canada with little fuss. So, the need for an international body to advocate for GA isn't obvious to many Australian pilots and aircraft owners, which is unfortunate, since just about every rule change that…

Vloggers generally offer their content for free and have some things in common. First, a passion for sharing aviation. Secondly, a massive investment in set up, filming, and editing their work. A rule of thumb is 40 hours editing for every hour you watch. Thirdly, vloggers want you to ‘like and subscribe.” Some vloggers are sponsored and offer discounts on those products, others have their own branded items available, like T-Shirts and caps. Here, not in any order, are a dozen of general aviation’s top vloggers. There’s something here for everyone. The heading will find the vlogger on YouTube. In brackets are their number of subscribers. Stefan Drury (150k) Drury, or Stef as he likes to be known, owns a Cirrus SR22 and is a popular Moorabbin based pilot. He…

Some spouses have access to each other’s phones. I am such a spouse. Or—more to the point—my wife is such a spouse. She is my childhood sweetheart and now a biochemistry professor, and she knows how to get into my iPhone (as do my kids, by the way). There are no secrets—there can’t be. As we settled into our 1977 Cessna 150 at Archerfield for a flight to Warwick, she intended to send a quick message to one of our kids. She had to do this from my phone: hers was packed in the back. That’s when she ran head-first into a series of texts I had sent to Cameron, a pilot out at Newcastle Waters station in the Northern Territory about purchasing a 172 from them. She was not…

Ask a dozen pilots why Madame Beech or Mr Piper put a rudder on their aircraft and you will hear all sorts of bull – but very few will answer: it’s mainly to counteract design problems like aileron drag and P factor. More on this later. Back in the days when Pilate was only a student, I wrote a slender document called Patter for Instructors. It worked well – instructors liked it and so did the CAA. Most of the flying schools in South Africa copied it, which actually quite flattering; I was trying to make a living from training pilots – not selling bits of paper. Forty years later, when I sold my flying school, three of the instructors decided to turn this little twenty-page book into something really…

Editor’s Pick Earlier this year I wrote to the government department responsible for handling the ADS-B rebates and said that if they were truly committed to safety they should consider opening up the rebates to pilots, not just aircraft owners. Not surprised that they didn’t respond. They keep saying that it’s about safety, and as we know that one word often puts the brakes on common sense. In my opinion it’s a mistake to assume that aircraft owners are pilots, or by default consider ADS-B a safety device. Some owners aren’t pilots, and likely don’t understand how the system works. While I’m sure some pilots are of the opinion that they are better off if they fly unseen (such as those making up call signs to avoid fees) there are…

By now you’re probably well aware of the internet and all the resources it has to help out us aviators, in various formats and levels of accessibility. A lot of what’s on the ‘net is junk, regardless of which authority may have produced it, and YouTube and all the latest generation of instafame/tiktok/whatever is chock full of grifters and garbage. You have to really sort carefully the mud from the rare gems. They’re out there though, and worth finding when you do. One of the best of the gems, is the Fly Better series of PDFs by Noel Kruse. Noel, as well as flying Sabres, founded the Sydney Aerobatic School. Amongst other things, the SAS was famous for getting student pilots on TIFs doing loops and rolls. I’m just happy to…

As an RPA Trainer & Assessor teaching the next generation of RPA pilots, I believe it is of the upmost importance to be up to date on the rules & regulations that surround RPA operations. Are you licenced? Do you need a licence? Are you registered? What are the rules and how do you find them? If you wish to work commercially as an RPA operator, you will be required to get your Aeronautical Reference Number (ARN) & attain your Remote Pilot’s Licence (RePL) as a starting point. The RePL course (usually over 5 days) covers various aviation topics such as human factors, air law, basic aviation knowledge, meteorology & navigation and how to operate, launch, control & recover an RPA. Once the theory is complete you must then sit…

In a communique issued this week, Cannane said CASA’s plan to permit Aircraft Maintenance Technician Certificate Class 1 (AMTC) certificate holders to overhaul engines is a return to bad practice that has a history of contributing to engine failures. An AMTC Class 1 is a person authorised under Part 43 to repair or supervise maintenance on an aircraft including return-to-service and engine overhauls. “CASR Part 43 is proposing a change that will resurrect a system that caused aircraft accidents, some fatal,” Cannane states. “In fact, the proposal will enable the AMTC Class 1 to overhaul a piston engine. Australia’s past experience results, when a LAME could do this, [it] was not a safe environment. “To reduce/stop the accidents, Schedule 7 was amended to prevent the splitting of the crankcase by…

Currently, Bankstown has VFR lanes to the north via Prospect Reservoir/Brooklyn Bridge and Parramatta/Hornsby, and one to the west via 2RN. The proposal would create two more lanes in the Engadine/Sutherland directions. The intention of the new lanes is to relieve traffic congestion to the north-west of Bankstown and link the airport with new training areas. "CASA, in conjunction with Airservices Australia, is proposing to reclassify a portion of airspace southeast of Bankstown Airport to uncontrolled airspace and create a southeast corridor that can be used by all aircraft flying under VFR, up to 1500ft," an Airservices briefing paper states. "Aircraft would have the option to use the southeast VFR corridor for travel to and from Bankstown Airport, or for other aviation purposes, provided they maintain an altitude below 1500ft.…

Australian Prime Minister John Howard once said that there were good economic reasons for airports to be run by private industry. Despite significant opposition, the Federal Government used those economic reasons–valid or otherwise–as justification for leasing out the capital city major and GA airports, as well as larger regional airports, to private enterprise. One of the key reasons for exiting the airport game was so the government would be able to avoid capital investments needed to upgrade the airports, re-directing funds to other programs. Coupled to that was the presumption that private markets would be willing to take on the investment burden. Whilst the government was successful in avoiding investment, history shows that the operators to which the metropolitan GA airports (metros) were leased preferred to put their money in…

Maxine Milera didn’t tell the author that she’d never been interviewed before until after the interview was over. In general terms, a writer can tell that from the outset, but in this case Milera’s professional demeanour gave no outward indication that this was her first time. And that’s at first surprising given that’s she’s been an integral part of Recreational Aviation Australia for nearly 20 years including stints as Acting CEO. Then you remember that Milera has spent most of that time toiling in the backrooms of RAAus whilst others were left to front the media. Now she’s stepped up to the more high-profile CEO role full-time, she’s going to have to get used to people throwing questions at her. If her meeting with Australian Flying is any barometer, it’s…

Australian Helicopter Industry Association (AHIA) President and AHIFF Board Member Ray Cronin announced the winners as part of tonight’s RotorTech 2024 Industry Dinner. The six winners are first year engineering apprentices who will receive a $3000 scholarship to help the continuation of their studies. The winners of the AHIFF Scholarship for 2024 are: • Shadae Boylan - Heli-Muster NT (NT)• Mark Fetherston - HeliFlite (WA)• Simon McLaine - Helicopter Resources (Tas)• Max Peisley - Helico Australia (Qld)• Heath Harris - Sydney Helicopters (NSW)• Fergus Grubb - Yungar Aviation Services (Vic) The AHIFF was created three years ago when prominent helicopter industry leader John Cameron approached the AHIA to donate $500,000 to help further the industry. "It was a magnificent contribution to the industry so we took those funds and started…

Aviation in Australia is in the midst of a sometimes hard to pin down battle that we simply cannot afford to lose. Aviation needs more highly skilled people now and into the future in the cockpits, hangars, workshops and offices. Nowhere is this more apparent than in regional operations. In recent years, the challenge has been acute in the maintenance sector, where the number of new people gaining qualifications and licences has dropped dramatically. According to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) about 140 new Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (LAME) licences are being issued each year, which is way short of best estimates of the number needed to replace people leaving the industry while also growing the workforce. Knowledgeable people in the maintenance sector say we should start training about…