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Contents

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Features

20 24 30

Assuming the Mantle Pip Spence has taken on what many believe is the hardest job in aviation. Steve Hitchen spoke with the new CASA Director of Aviation Safety about how she intends to tackle the tasks ahead.

Strength in Numbers With many in the flight training industry feeling they are not well represented, there have been moves afoot to create a flight training association. Angela at Avalon did her own investigation.

Parts Unknown When pilots are not familiar with a private airstrip there are many hazards to consider to operate there safely.

Steve Hitchen did his homework before setting out for an unfamiliar airstrip and survived to tell this tale.

36

With your Own Two Hands Kathy Mexted from the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia details the commitment and obligations needed to operate amateur-built aircraft according to the Australian rules.

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Lessons from a Logbook Jim Davis finds some serious shortcomings in his night visual teaching and finds himself lumbered with a difficult aircraft owner that results in a ground loop.

The Connected Cockpit Connectivity technology is advancing cockpit capability on a yearly basis. Kreisha Ballantyne examines devices prevalent in GA cockpits and how they interact with each other to reduce pilot workload.

Neither Stranger nor Enemy Tony Self looks back on the much-loved and very admired Piper Comanche series and examines the factors that caused the demise of such a great aeroplane.

Regulars Editorial AirMail News Rotors Products Good Sports Safety Matters Down to Business What Can We Learn Kreisha of Habit Short Final

8 10 12 60 64 66 68 69 70 72 74 Cover: David Smith’s sweet Piper Comanche shows off for the camera.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

8

Editorial

STEVE HITCHEN

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Pip Spence has begun her tenure as Director of Aviation Safety by declaring that CASA isn’t broken, sentiments which are sure to attract severe criticism from an aviation community suffering from a distinct lack of belief in the integrity of the regulator.

Editor: Steve Hitchen stevehitchen@yaffa.com.au Senior Contributor: Paul Southwick Test Pilot: John Absolon

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ew CASA CEO and Director of Aviation Safety Pip Spence has described CASA as an organisation that is "certainly not broken" (p21 this issue). The moment she told me that, I knew the comment would have the most vocal of general aviation's activists bellowing like Puckapunyal sergeants. It's a barrage that Spence needs to prepare herself for.

CASA is very much a broken organisation on the operations side because it has failed to become what it was inaugurated to be: an authority on aviation safety.

CASA is supposed to be Australia's repository for aviation safety expertise, but instead we are saddled with a regulator that knows less about aviation than the regulated.

That much has been said time and time again, on occasions in front of a bench of senators.

CASA is disconnected; so far detached from the industry that it has no genuine feel for what is and isn't safe. CASA writes rules, aviation operators ignore the rules and do what is safe and practical.

If that wasn't the intent behind CASA, then the organisation is certainly broken.

I have always given new Directors of Aviation Safety time to settle in and cut them as much slack as I think they deserve, but I am also on record as describing

CASA as a "failed experiment", so there's no point trying to pretend otherwise right now. I’d be caught out pretty easily if I tried.

As I see it, one thing that will concern the general aviation community is that, although Spence concedes there is room for improvement, she doesn't see too much wrong with the baseline she's starting from. The risk in that approach is that CASA's baseline in operations needs to

Doing some improvements around the place is unlikely to be enough to effect any real change.

But Spence is a very different cat. She's a seasoned bureaucrat that knows too well that you don't pillory the organisation you've taken over when you're still trying to work out where the coffee machine is. And you certainly don't spill the beans to any cranky aviation journos until you've gathered enough white hats to

I am not convinced the status quo reflects that be solid enough to underpin the improvements, and I am not convinced the status quo reflects that; there is just too much evidence against it.

But was CASA designed to be this way? Part of the motivation for slotting the "S" into the CAA's initials was to distance the regulator from the industry, and it was presumed the only path to that outcome was to create a new authority from the ground up.

The whiteboard was wiped clean, but the presumption was wrong.

Unfortunately for those desperate to survive in the consequential environment, the designers used a permanent marker on the whiteboard and the ink is stubbornly entrenched. The original design of CASA is too rigid to operate with any efficiency.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

your side to make your vision for the organisation work.

Having said that, an assessment that CASA is not broken isn't a very good springboard towards a better future, but in the context of time in the seat so far, we probably couldn't expect her to say anything else.

That won't, however, silence the bellowing.

May your gauges always be in the green,

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YOUR COMMENTS

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Australian Flying welcomes your input.

Send your AirMail, with your name and contacts (which can be withheld from publishing upon request) to: stevehitchen@ yaffa.com.au or write to: Australian Flying, GPO Box 606 Sydney NSW 2001.

off from Lilydale? You must use only "approved data" but you do not have it for a grass runway.

David Pilkington

A Matter of Interpretation This very learned reader has raised the point of the data required by the CASRs for take-off performance not aligning with reality. It proved an excellent test of the new CASR Part 91 plain English guide, and right or wrong, shines a light on how a pilot with standard knowledge can interpret the regulation, plain English or not.

Hi, Steve.

Have you looked at a practical example of using the Plain English Guide such as taking

your favourite Piper Warrior for lunch at Tuki?

How would you comply with 91.795 Take-off Performance for example?

The current regs allow us to use those old DoT P-charts or the UK CAA Safety Sense Leaflet 7 as the POH states: "Effects of conditions not considered on the charts must be evaluated by the pilot, such as the effect of soft or grass runway surface on take-off and landing performance". The new regulations are very different from the current CAO and clearly state that "You must ensure ... that the aeroplane has the performance ... You must

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

determine the aeroplane performance from 1 of the following: • the AFM • the manufacturer’s data manual (if any) • other data approved under CASR Part 21 for the purpose."

Neither the AFM nor any manufacturer's data manual has performance for a grass strip with a gradient. Do you have data approved under Part 21 (that is not as simple as sticking a copy of the old P-charts in the flight school's Ops Manual)?

You know what "must" means so can you take your favourite Warrior to Tuki? Can you even take

G’day Dave.

This was an interesting challenge that was too hard to turn down. The Part 91 plain English guide (PEG) contains the 91.795 info on p82. It makes it clear that the characteristics of the take-off runway must be considered and refers to section 24.02 of the Manual of Standards (MOS), which according to the PEG is silent on the matter of the runway surface. I dug out an old Department of Civil Aviation P-chart for a PA28-140, which corrected for the surface, but later flight manuals for Warriors don't have that correction in it. So therefore, I have no data to calculate take-off distance on grass, wet or dry, long or short. However, I believe I can take-off because 91.795 contains the statement For aeroplanes with take-off performance charts that are unfactored it is recommended that the following factors are applied to the takeoff distance required: MTOW 2000 kg or less - 1.15. So I read that as telling me I can take off on grass if I add 15% to the take-off distance required.

What is not clear is if I must add another 15% for the slope at Tuki or if the correction factor is meant to account for all missing data.

It is possible that the answer

lies somewhere within the CAOs, but certainly the PEG doesn’t make that clear.

Cheers, Hitch

A foul for Angel Flight Steve, Regarding Angel Flight and it’s disappointing loss in court. I think it was Clark Butson of Polar Aviation, having gone to court with CASA, who said that he’d spent a million dollars in legal fees to learn that CASA has the power to do anything it likes. He had had a run in with CASA that started with what, from memory, began with a disagreement between Polar and a CASA officer about some operational procedure.

It’s also my view that government industries tend to stick together, and that in our hierarchical system of government it’s all uphill to win against such a well-entrenched and wellfunded Commonwealth corporate such as CASA. CASA’s writ of “safety” can cover a multitude of sins against any unfortunate individuals that fall foul of the regulator or those that believe they have an indisputable case against CASA. We have a very long way to go before general aviation is afforded a rational and respectful place in the normally accepted realm of free enterprise, as are most

other pursuits. Nothing will change until there’s a change in the political sphere and this will require leadership of a high order, possibly spurred by a media campaign. The latter is probably our best hope.

Sandy Reith

Eyes inside Hi, Steve I’ve been flying for nearly 40 years and I’m still doing it without an iPad. I was taught properly using charts and a compass and clock and I have to say I haven’t gotten lost that many times over many hours of flying. Today I see young pilots at flying schools and they’re hopeless without their iPads or at least a GPS. I don’t think

I’m one of those people that hates technology or progress, but I also don’t believe in progress for the sake of progress. What I don’t like is that using iPads and glass cockpits encourages pilots to have their eyes inside the cockpit too much, which is something we were always taught against when I was learning. Do we no longer think there is a need to look outside the aeroplane? I reckon it won’t be long before there’ll be an accident caused by the pilot having their head down and not watching where he was going. Then where will we be?

Regards, Monty Addams

Monty, you are not alone in your thinking; many of

us who were taught with a WAC and a whiz-wheel feel the same. When I first tested an SR20 with Avidyne glass, I identified the same problem. However, if I could go back and change my opinion now I would! Time has proven the opposite to be true; glass cockpits and iPad apps actually allow more time for the eyes to be up and outside the aeroplane if the pilot disciplines themselves to do it. It was emphasised to us so rigidly because making calculations for wind, TAS and GS took time and could be intense, which tended to drag our eyes down to our laps. Now an iPad EFB will not only give you your groundspeed, it will estimate your time of arrival and locate you on the chart in a matter of seconds. With that done instantly, the

pilots eyes can be back up and outside faster than they ever were in the old days.

Where I do find technology to still be a problem is when pilots use the read-outs to try to fine-time the aeroplane to the nth degree, such as finessing the mixture to get a digital EGT exactly right.

Sometimes that can keep the eyes down for too long.

Cheers, Hitch

OPPOSITE PAGE: If your aircraft flight manual doesn’t have take-off data for grass runways, from where do you now get approved data to ensure you comply with CASR 91?

ABOVE: Is technology ensuring pilots’ eyes are in the cockpit too much?

The answer may be the opposite.

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12

FLYING LATEST NEWS

News

PG13

RotorTech achieves Record Attendance Goal "That is confirmed by the great growth in the event.

Despite the challenges of COVID the total combined daily attendance nearly doubled over the three days of the show compared with 2018, and the number of participating companies involved in the industry exhibition increased by almost 40%. The floor space occupied by the trade show increased by around 50%.

"From the first day of RotorTech, the buzz in the industry exhibition and conferences showed that the helicopter and unmanned flight communities were enthusiastic about being there, and were making the most of the opportunity."

The exhibition comprised of 140 exhibitors covering everything from major aircraft manufacturers to equipment OEMs, software developers and retailers.

The turn-out also eclipsed the last RotorTech records.

The Australian

AMDA FOUNDATION

Rotary aviation industry convention and exhibition RotorTech 2021 set a new record for attendance last June.

The event, which was held at the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane, attracted more than 1800 visitors over three days, a record despite the lack of overseas attendances and the lock down imposed on the Melbourne metro area.

The result is very satisfying for AMDA Foundation CEO Ian Honnery.

"We believed that industry sought an inperson event as a platform to begin rebuilding confidence and reaffirming face-to-face relationships," Honnery said.

PG 12

REGIONAL AIRPORTS

Records were set for both attendances and number of exhibitors in the expo area.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

AMDA FOUNDATION

Australia’s rotary aviation industry held a successful conference an exhibition in June despite the constant threat of disruption due to COVID-19.

ROTARY EXPO

RotorTech was canceled for 2020, and the industry was keen to get going again after a 12-month delay.

Helicopter Industry Association's (AHIA) and Australian Association for Unmanned Systems (AAUS) conferences programs included Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack via video link and new CASA Director of Aviation Safety and CEO Pip Spence. Other presenters covered many aspects of rotary aviation including lessons learnt from helicopter operation in recent natural disaster and developments in the drone sector.

Pip Spence told the AHIA conference that CASA data showed some growth in the helicopter industry.

"Our registration and licensing data shows modest but steady growth in both helicopter pilots and airframes over the past five years," she said.

"This is not a common picture amongst many other sectors in the industry.

"The growth reflects the importance or rotary operations in Australia – and our community’s increasing reliance on what you do."

Spence also directly address the rotary aviation industry's ongoing concerns over the Flight Examiner Rating and how it applied to helicopters.

"Through the flight examiner review that was completed at the end of last year CASA has acknowledged that the current requirements are onerous and difficult to achieve.

"We are committed to implementing all the recommendations from the review ... The prescriptive hours requirements do not themselves give assurance

of capability and applicants have not always been assessed on merit.

"The Technical Working Group is working collaboratively to address this, as well as how the examiner rating is being used."

Spence indicated that CASA was looking at the possibility of flying instructors or check pilots doing flight tests in some circumstances.

Honnery also paid tribute to his workforce, which was faced with many COVID-induced challenges, but rose to meet them all.

"Our team has faced many challenges in bringing RotorTech 2021 to life," he said, "but its success is also proof of the commitment of industry to getting back to business."

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Federal Government hands out $29.5 million to Regional Airports

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operators and passengers, the delivery of goods and services and better meet the operational requirements of aeromedical and other emergency services, including supporting bushfire preparedness."

Successful projects include: • $2.6 million for taxiway and drainage works, and new approach lighting at Albury, NSW • $2.175 million for a new taxiway and apron at Merimbula, NSW • $1.7 million for upgraded light infrastructure at Wagga Wagga, NSW • $1.1 million for construction of a sealed parallel taxiway and run-up bays at Naranderra-Leeton, NSW • $658,000 for sealing the runway, taxiway and apron area, installation of aircraft

Narrandera-Leeton Regional Airport in the Riverina district of NSW.

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The second round of the Regional Airports Program will fund 89 projects around Australia.

In late July, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Barnaby Joyce announced $29.5 million in grants for regional airports.

The funding is part of Round Two of the Regional Airports Program (RAP) and will be spread across 89 projects around the country.

“For our regional communities, the local airport provides an essential link to the rest of Australia,” Joyce said.

“That’s why we’ve committed $100 million over four years from 2019-20 to 2022-23 to help owners of regional airports right across Australia deliver upgrades to improve runway and taxiway pavements and install new lighting or fencing.

“These projects will improve the safety of aircraft,

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monitoring and counting system and lighting at Swan Hill, Vic. • $610,000 for new runway and taxiway works at Murray Bridge, SA • $600,000 to reconstruct the runway at Hughes, NT. Merimbula’s funding is on top of a $4.5 million grant in the first round of the RAP. Joyce had preceded the announcement with information on grants made to four airports in his electorate of New England: Armidale, Inverell, Quirindi and Tamworh.

Australian Airports Association (AAA) CEO James Goodwin said funding for regional airport infrastructure had never been so important.

“Regional airports were among the first hit and will be one of the last to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic with passenger numbers dropping more than 70% during the peak,” he said.

“This investment from the Australian government not only ensures regional communities can continue to enjoy safe and efficient air transport, it also future proofs regional Australia for generations to come with infrastructure which drives economic growth and connectivity."

The full list of approved projects is on the Department of Infrastructure website.

Plans underway for Alice Springs Aviation Centenary AeroEdge presses on in the Wake of Tragedy Buying a Private Aircraft: Tips from an Expert Australian Aviation Hall of Fame to induct Richard Williams Avalon to go ahead Despite Grand Prix Cancelations Pel-Air to run PC-24 Jets for NSW Ambulance

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September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

14 News

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Avidyne releases Vantage Avionics New systems introduced as retrofit options to replace old avionics.

AVIDYNE

Avidyne’s new Vantage multifunction display.

Avionics manufacturer Avidyne announced a new suite of avionics in July aimed at upgrading GA cockpits.

Called Avidyne Vantage, the new avionics are being released as a retrofit to replace ageing

Avidyne systems that have been in use for many years.

“We are incredibly excited to introduce Vantage as an innovative option for GA pilots seeking to update their flight decks,” said Avidyne President, Dan Schwinn.

“We’ve challenged ourselves to provide large displays that are even easier to use than our earlier products, while being more capable and functional than anything we have done before.

"Eventually the Avidyne Vantage product line will include a wide range of display sizes and levels of functionality, and certification across a wide range of aircraft and associated legacy equipment. Vantage provides pilots with an uncluttered interface and beautiful design with powerful capabilities that

dramatically enhance situational awareness and make flying safer and more enjoyable.”

Avidyne will launch the Vantage system firstly as an upgrade for Entegraequipped Cirrus, of which there are thought to be around 4000 aircraft of the 2002-08 vintage.

“Cirrus owners upgrading to Vantage will enjoy the only option available for 12-inch touchscreen displays for any Cirrus, and will include Avidyne’s unique hybrid touch interface and tight integration with Avidyne IFD-series navigators and DFC autopilot," said John Talmadge, Avidyne’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

"They’ll also appreciate the upgrade from 10- to

12-inch size and higher resolution XGA displays, standard synthetic vision capability, and well as dual AHRS with MFD reversion and split-screen capability.”

Avidyne says the Vantage PFD for the Cirrus is similar to the Entegra system, meaning there will be little transition training needed between the two. The Vantage MFD offers full and split screen displays of maps and flight plans, Jeppesen approach charts and airport diagrams, multiple user configurations, checklists, and shares much of the same interface as IFD550/540/440 systems.

Avidyne Vantage upgrades are scheduled to be available next year and will be priced at $US12,500 per screen.

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Textron’s Denali to carry Beechcraft Brand In the days leading up to Oshkosh in July, Textron Aviation announced that it was shifting the indevelopment Denali turboprop from the Cessna brand to the Beechcraft brand.

The Beechcraft Denali will join the King Air 260 and 360/ER in the line-up of Beech-branded turbo-props.

"The Beechcraft Denali represents our continued strategy to invest in clean-sheet and current products in both our Beechcraft and Cessna iconic brands," said Ron

Draper, Textron Aviation, president and CEO. "Beechcraft turbo-props are renowned for their versatility and reliability, and the single-engine Denali is a perfect complement to this legendary family of products.”

Textron believes the Denali will outperform its competition and deliver lower operating costs.

The panel will contain Garmin G3000 avionics and the aircraft has been engineered to achieve a cruise speeds of 285

KTAS, and with a full fuel payload of 500 kg, the Denali will have a range of 1600 nm at high speed cruise with one pilot and four passengers.

“We continue to receive interest around the world from turboprop and piston owners of competing aircraft, who are looking to move into an aircraft with greater performance and enhanced passenger experience,” said Lannie O’Bannion, senior vice president, Global Sales and Flight Operations.

TEXTRON AVIATION

New single-engined turbo-prop sheds the Cessna name.

Textron’s new SETP has been charged with carrying the Beechcraft name forward.

“The Denali will offer an outstanding combination of lower operating costs and technological advancements, along with the widest and most comfortable cabin in its segment. And all of it is backed by the most extensive global network

of factory-direct service centers in the industry.”

The first GE Aviation 1300-shp Catalyst FADEC engine has been mated to the Denali prototype and Textron expected to complete engine runs in August ahead of the first flight due in late 2021.

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WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP AIR RACE

Former Red Bull Pilots sign-up for WCAR Twelve pilots have signed up to continue the legacy of World Championship air racing.

World Championship Air Race is gaining momentum for the 2022 season with more pilots committing to the competition.

After announcing Australian Matt Hall as the first competitor in April, WCAR now has 12 pilots on the books, including former Red Bull Air Race World Champions in Hall (2019), Japan's Yoshi Muroya (2017) and Czech pilot Martin Sonka (2018).

Other RBAR Masterclass alumni

include British tyro Ben Murphy, Frenchman Mika Brageot, Canada's Pete McLeod and Spaniard Juan Velarde.

Four other pilots who competed in the RBAR Challenger Class will be racing in the WCAR GP1 class: Italy's Dario Costa, France's Melanie Astles, American Kevin Coleman, three-time Challenger Class champion Florian Berger from Germany and South Africa's Patrick Davidson.

Astles will be the first woman to compete at

the top level of air racing since the first season in 2003. She raced in RBAR Challenger Class for four seasons, collecting four podium finishes for one win. Astles finished runner-up in the 2019 championship standings.

Germany's Florian Berger will race for a team owned and organised by 2016 World Champion Matthias Dolderer, who will not compete himself in WCAR. Berger is the most successful Challenger Class pilot in history, winning nine races from 23 starts

Melanie Astles is the first woman pilot signed on to race in the premier division of World Championship air racing.

and taking the title in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

All pilots are thought to be flying Edge 540s except for Brageot, who has opted to campaign an MSX-R. No dates or venues for the 2022 series have yet been announced.

WCAR will launch the 2022 season with conventionally-powered,

legacy race-planes, while working with aerospace partners to embrace the latest advancements in aviation technology.

The series will evolve its race aircraft through the staged introduction of sustainable fuels, electric drivetrains and electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) racecraft from Season 3.

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20

Director of Aviation Safety STEVE HITCHEN

Assuming

the Mantle New CASA Director of Aviation Safety and CEO Pip Spence made some time in her schedule to chat with Steve Hitchen.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

australianflying.com.au

MAIN IMAGE: New Director of Aviation Safety and CEO Pip Spence at her desk in Aviation House.

LEFT: Spence rates the strength of commitment of the CASA people as one of the organisation’s positives.

P

Overall, would you say that you've taken over an organisation that is in good shape?

I haven't taken over a broken organisation. I think there are things we could definitely do better and there is room for improvement, but CASA is certainly not broken.

ip Spence is one of the most wellcredentialed bureaucrats to ever occupy the office of Director of Aviation Safety. With stints behind her at the Department of Transport Airports Division, NBN, Western Sydney Airport and Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under her belt, she has the Canberra street cred to know how regulators work.

At the time I spoke to her, she was only six weeks into her new role, but already had a solid handle on the task that was ahead of her.

place and people are genuinely committed to that outcome.

And now is this really amazing time when we've got new technology coming on board and we're seeing that things are changing in a way that they haven't for a really long time in terms of new opportunities, and I think it's a wonderful time to have the opportunity to make a difference.

SH: Many people view the DAS position as a poisoned chalice.

Why did you want the job?

The strength of the commitment from the people who work here is amazing. I recognise that there are a lot of issues that we need to work through with the new flying operations regulations, but the fact that we have gotten to a point where we're not constantly talking about fixing all the CASRs is actually a massive opportunity. So I think another positive is where we're at in the journey. There's a very clear message about some of the CASR parts that we need to go back and look at: Part 61 and Part 66. Everyone's raising those issues with me, but we're starting from a higher point when it comes to trying to fix things, and I think compared to where we've been, that is actually a real positive.

PS: I've watched quite a few different Directors of Aviation Safety over my career, and it might be a poisoned chalice, but it's such an important job and I genuinely feel that I've got the right temperament to help at this point in time. I'm someone who can listen, someone who's passionate about the aviation sector and understands the journey we've been on to get to where we are.

I'm also open to being told there's another way through on things.

CASA is an organisation that despite tensions with the industry has really passionate people who are doing things because they want to make the sky safer.

There's a real mission in the

six weeks I've been here that I've had the shutters come down and people say they're not going to talk about it. I am trying to make sure that I hear from industry first-hand about what their specific concerns are and then just sitting down with all the right people within CASA to better understand why we're doing what we're doing.

When you arrived at CASA, what were the positives you found in the organisation?

What about the negatives? What did you find there?

For a very long time there was a bit of defensiveness around why we do what we do, and I think that there's a whole lot of reasons why that's happened. I think the biggest challenge is just the scale of change that is going on. I was aware of the flight ops regs coming in at the end of the year, but I wasn't aware of the scale of the internal changes that are going on, and I think the stress that will put on people is something I have to be very mindful of. And all of that's in an environment where people are stressed anyway.

We're talking about the change to a centralised approach to decision making and the changes to the regional offices, and they are big philosophical changes for this organisation; it will impact on a lot of people.

Have you experienced any pushback from the organisation to proposed changes?

Since I arrived, the big things that I've been talking to people about are fatigue management and the flight ops regulations.

We've had some constructive conversations about how to be a pragmatic regulator. I'm good at asking questions, and I'll continue to ask, but it's a risk you'll find some people who'll say the arrangements are right the way they are and we're not going to change them. I can't say in the

You've done a fair bit of mentoring in the past, but who mentors you?

Who are your influences?

I was very lucky when I started.

People like Mike Mrdak [former Secretary of the department] and Peter Harris [former Secretary of the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy] were very supportive of me, particularly when I went to the minister's office and I still keep in contact with them; Steven Kennedy [former Secretary of the department] from a broader public service perspective. There are a lot of people who I talk to and whose opinions I value. It's not the same as mentoring, but there are a lot of people out there who have a valuable things to say and I'll always have a chat to Ken Cannane [AMROBA Executive Director] and Ken Keech [AMDA Foundation GM – Civil Aviation Relations]; people like that who know the industry and will give me an unfiltered version of what needs to be done.

How do you go about making decisions when you face conflicting opinion in the advice?

I don't like to have a series of bilateral conversations; I like everyone in the room to be able to say what their view is to try to work

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

21

22

Director of Aviation Safety STEVE HITCHEN

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: As the first woman to hold the DAS title, Spence hopes she can show other women they can have a career in aviation.

CASA

Spence believes CASA has room for improvement in the way it operates.

A very different person from those that have come before her, Spence believes she has the temperament that CASA needs in a leader.

through areas we can just filter off, but at the end of the day, just absorb what you can and be confident you have enough information to make the decision based on what you've heard and what you know.

It depends on the issue who you might test your thinking with.

There are a lot of people who've been around for a long time and who I've spoken to and I've thought "I'm not always going to agree with you, but you'll give me a perspective that no-one here will give." I always worry about groupthink.

If everyone says "Yep, this is the only way to go", that would make me more nervous if there was not a dissenter in the room because it would make me ask what is it we haven't thought about.

Is it daunting that ultimately the call comes down to you?

It would be silly to say it wasn't.

I take it very seriously. Whereas in my previous job I made some big calls about what we're doing with people through COVID and how the organisation operated, at CASA there is a much broader part of the Australian community that are impacted. "Daunting" is probably a bit strong, but I certainly take it seriously; it weighs heavily.

aren't always going to be those that help someone's business grow.

Would you describe yourself as a reformist? Are you going to make big changes within CASA that weren't already happening?

This organisation has been on a long journey and what I see my legacy as being would be more around the way in which we operate; the values that sit behind the way we engage. I know there is scepticism around the concept of a respected regulator, but for me that's something I'd like to think people genuinely felt that we're

gone through the history of all of those. Like others I've watched how it played out in the public arena, but I would have thought inevitably there will be a whole lot of reasons why decisions were taken, and I don't think it's my job to second-guess why those decisions were taken in the past. I think the proof will be if a not dissimilar issue comes up under my watch is how I handle it, particularly around making sure we're proportionate in our approach on issues and give

“it weighs heavily on me to make sure we take the right decisions” an organisation that listens and if we're not taking someone's views into account they can understand why. I'm not going to say that we've just got to start again; I'd much rather see incremental reform building on the platform that we've got and think about the values and the culture of the organisation.

You have inherited some ongoing controversies like the Glen Buckley issue, Angel Flight, Bristell. Are you satisfied with the way CASA handled those?

I wouldn't pretend to say that I've

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

everyone a fair hearing. But also that we're firm and take decisions that are based on safety.

Do you think controversies such as this are part of being a regulator?

It's not just aviation safety regulators. I've had a bit to do with other regulators in the transport portfolio and essentially we're taking decisions that will impact on someone's business and that's why it weighs heavily on me to make sure we take the right decisions, but the right decisions

CASA is responsible for regulating heavy commercial, general aviation and recreational aviation. Is it valid to apply heavy commercial thinking to GA and RAAus? No. Sometimes I don't think we're as good as we could be around communicating. We don't expect the small GA operator to have a Qantas manual of operations; we are proportionate. There's been a lot of conversations about looking at fatigue rules and how we make fitfor-purpose regulation taking into account the nature of the business, and that's going to be different depending on where you sit on the scale of operation and whether or not you're carrying passengers or just doing it because you love flying.

This is an issue people have been grappling with for some time. It hasn't just come with the new flight ops regulations and creating the air transport category. If I'm Joe Bloggs and I'm paying someone to take me from A to B, whether it be charter or RPT, what is the basic expectation I've got in terms of the level of safety? I don't think that we've gone too far in that space, but if you can give me a few more weeks to get my head across that one!

There are constant calls from within the GA community particularly for CASA to simply scrap the CASRs and just adopt

australianflying.com.au

the US FARs the way NZ and PNG did. How do you respond to that?

It comes back to whether you want to rip up everything and start again. No. We've got to where we are with the new CASRs and I would expect if you delved into it there would be more issues if you went down the path of just having the FARs or EASA rules. I think the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel and the Technical Working Groups have been a good way to work through the issues. To then draw a line through it all and start again just seems incredibly disruptive and I'm not too sure what you would get from doing that. I think we've got a better way of helping

smaller operators to understand what does apply to them. I am not disagreeing that it's complex, but there might be another way through it in the Plain English Guides. I think the centralised guidance system that's being set up should also help.

Recreational Aviation Australia is confident it is going to get a maximum take-off weight increase to 760 kg when CASR Part 103 comes out in December.

Is that going to happen?

There are processes to work through before a final decision can be made. I met with RAAus to understand their perspective and ultimately we're looking at it from a safety perspective. I won't say definitively "yes" or "no", but there will be a conversation around what the appropriate arrangements for

RAAus would be in terms of how we would do that safely.

What would CASA need to look like in five years time for you to consider you'd failed at your job?

If the same issues that people are raising with me now about not always listening, not always reacting, potentially gold-plating regulatory requirements. If they're saying the same thing to me in five years time as they are now, that would be failure. If people genuinely felt there's no point talking to us because nothing will change. This is not a broken organisation, but we can always do better; we have to do better.

You're the first female to ever be appointed Director of Aviation Safety. What does that mean to you?

It's part of the reason why I applied for the job. Back in the department we did a lot of work around what we can do to encourage women to participate in the sector. We need more pilots; we need more engineers ... let's tap into female participation. You can't be what you can't see, and if someone can see me doing this job and say "maybe I've got a career in aviation" then I would feel incredibly proud as a result of that.

I don't think I got the job because I am a woman, but I'd like to think because I'm in this job more women will come into the sector. I feel very lucky to do this job and I want to make the most of it.

Do you think as a woman in this role you’re going to have to carry a bigger stick than a male would have to?

I've gotten past the point where I feel that people don't take me seriously because I'm a woman.

You'll tie yourself in knots if you spend time thinking about that.

I just have to do the job the way that anyone else would do it. I would hate to think that I have to be harder because I'm a woman so you can see that I can be hard.

That would be wrong.

FLYthe DREAM

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

23

24

Flight Training

ANGELA AT AVALON

Some in the flight training industry are agitating for a dedicated association. Angela at Avalon reaches out to a cross-section of the flight training community to explore the reasons why, whether existing associations may or may not fit the bill, and whether generally there is support for the move.

Strength in Numbers

F

light training organisations (FTOs) typically serve two masters: the airline industry and general aviation.

Already battered by COVID and suffocating layers of regulation and associated costs, with even more regulatory changes to come, the industry is facing a new crisis set to compound its woes, in turn negatively impacting other sectors of the aviation industry.

They face the existential threat of disappearing instructors, sucked up into the vacuum of a world-wide shortage of pilots driven by the pent-up needs of travel consumers. Some FTOs are seeing the writing on the wall and are calling for a more united voice in preparation and, at the same time, fix some preexisting worries. Already suffering pre-pandemic, it is past time, according to several key industry players, that flight training organisations were recognised as a foundational pillar of the industry and supported accordingly by those who populate the ecosystem.

It would be foolish to argue that quality flight training is not essential to the industry for resourcing and safety. The

alternative is not enough trained pilots and inexperienced pilots; most certainly not what aviation needs. Some argue the problem is not that flight training needs a voice so much, the problem is general aviation needs a voice. A monumental undertaking. But rather than try and fix all the ills of the industry at once, some in the flight training industry are saying you can only eat the elephant one bite at a time and the industry needs to grow its own set of teeth to do so.

By association There are many different voices, both large and small, within the flight training industry. From local aero clubs, to privatelyowned organisations with one or two instructors or many, to airline cadetship institutions, major airline flight schools and global, foreign-owned flight training organisations that exist solely to train pilots that return to work in their homeland.

These organisations hold a spectrum of opinions about whether a dedicated industry

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

association is necessary. Ranging from “they don’t take notice of any association, why have another?

Won’t another association cause just more association fatigue?” to “we really need to do this now, absolutely we do!”

However, opinions of the existing advocacy system, if one even exists for FTOs, differ little.

General aviation working groups and steering committees, such as the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel, or the General Aviation Advisory Network, set up by the government to facilitate industry consultation, are mostly seen as "occasionally effective but never really result in anything exceedingly tangible"’. But also, although these groups do give a reasonably representative voice a chance to speak, they are simply groups managed by the government that feed into government’s requirement for consultation.

Among those consulted for this article, most believed that the relevant authority moves when it sees something that it wants to "fix" and industry consultation is required to make

the necessary changes to policy to fix it. Effectively, these groups, committees or panels, in themselves, are not perceived as quintessential industry lobby or advocacy groups demanding the government’s attention to the problems that industry wants fixed.

The perception problem extends to those within the government-established working groups; existing associations and organisation representatives.

And this is a perception problem; whether reality or not, these perceptions exist in the FTO community.

Typically, group or panel members are invited to participate by government. That is, not specifically chosen by the industry they represent but instead selected by government. Further, an association or organisation will only expend energy on a

australianflying.com.au

CLOCKWISE FROM MAIN: Flight training is considered general aviation, and the backbone of aviation at all levels.

A flight training association has the potential to make training more consistent.

government committee if it sees the possibility of change that benefits it or its members.

Seems reasonable enough, but what one flying school representative believes important to the FTO industry may not necessarily be entirely representative of FTO as an industry. There is a difference between being an industry representative and being representative of industry – a nuance lost by government when it developed the General Aviation Advisory Network Terms of Reference. Broad-agenda associations are viewed similarly; do they, or can they, really represent the specific interests of FTO? They have other members to consider, sometimes with conflicting interests. And, if only a few FTOs are members of a crosssector industry association, that’s

only a few FTO opinions.

Dedicated industry associations, on the other hand, typically receive a great deal of information from their membership, seeking to find the problems that exist across the board, and then represent that issue for their members. Those in the industry agitating for an association believe that without the democratic processes an association offers, regardless of expertise level or good intentions by government’s working group members, it is difficult to measure whether the voices to power are, in fact speaking for all, or at least a healthy cross-section of industry.

SHUT TERSTOCK

The nature of flight training has changed over the past 20 years with airline technology filtering down to FTOs.

Perceived value Perception matters, and when money is tight, perceived value matters more. Without September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

25

26

Flight Training

ANGELA AT AVALON

australianflying.com.au

“there was a scale of opinions from ‘pretty useless’ to ‘relatively ineffective’”

FROM TOP: Training organisations vary from aero clubs to airline academies and all waypoints in between.

Senior instructors are being lured away to airlines both here and overseas.

exception, the FTOs interviewed acknowledged association fatigue.

Both the doing of association work, and the number of associations that exist. So why won’t one of them do? Of the existing associations that those consulted considered might, or do, bring them value, there was a scale of opinions from "pretty useless" to "relatively ineffective" to "occasionally effective in their designated spaces". Broadly agreed, however, was that the association names, "recreational aviation", "sport aviation", "aero club", "aircraft owners", "airline", "airport", etcetera, don’t represent who they, flight training organisations, really are.

Many of those interviewed do

not see themselves as a club, as just aircraft owners, or as recreation, and they are most certainly not an airline, although all due respect for those institutions was paid.

They see themselves as a business, albeit a business as passionately involved in aircraft flight training as any club or sport organisation.

But why does it matter what an association is called? The perception of some is that submissions to government marked "aero club", "recreational aviation", or "aircraft owners" don’t exude connotations of important commercial and economic matters. Others note that compounding the perception problem is that flight training is regarded and regulated as a general aviation activity, reinforced by the department’s definition of general aviation as “not commercial air transport services”.

Time and again The Australian Aviation Association’s Forum (TAAAF) was mentioned. Most agreed that the TAAAF “gets

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

access to government at a level that other organisations may not have”. And yes, FTOs are often members of TAAAF member bodies, and to be fair, many of those bodies aim to represent their flight training interests and perhaps even committees dedicated to it, but, this means once again, that the FTO voice is not a primary voice.

The flight training industry would need to have an association, to be a member with an independent voice on this forum.

And, as effective as the Gliding Federation of Australia (GFA) and Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) are seen to be in terms of getting a voice for their members into the ears of authorities, one industry representative assessed their power thus succinctly: “The GFA and RA’s lobbying strength outweighs that of other associations because they are bodies to whom CASA has delegated some authority, so it’s not really like and like. They are not just an industry association.

Whereas CASA retains that [power] in the GA space.” GFA and RAAus offer some power of voice for FTOs that operate in those sectors, but not the power of a choir singing from the same songbook.

Further, because RAAus and GFA are regulators, their work is funded by membership dues that pay for registration and insurance for their member’s aircraft and licensing, and the work of the association. A steady stream of membership fee income means resourcing lobbying or advocacy work becomes less of an issue for them and adds to their efficacy.

Says one interviewee, “[the dues] also pay for someone to be at a government meeting regarding flight training, whereas a GA flight training operator might attend the same meeting, but no one is doing their job back at the flight school,

nor are they being paid”.

Wants and needs What would FTOs want that the other associations don’t want anyway? This was a question that some of those consulted struggled to answer clearly.

However broadly, yes, flight training organisations want a lot of what GA wants, certainly resolution relating to certainty of airspace access and airport tenure. But drilling down for examples of FTO industry-specific needs, one contributor noted some related industry groups were expressing concern about the number of flight reviews required. An FTO association might argue the number is enough or not enough given it is in their industry’s best interests to ensure pilots are competent. However, other industry groups might argue for fewer due to costs or their individual knowledge of the pilot’s competency. FTOs would, on that issue, need an independent voice to advocate for their industry.

Mentioned almost unanimously were issues with VET and HECS student loan structures and processes, and Parts 141 and 142; the technicalities and implications of which are hugely important to the FTO sector, but peripheral to other aviation sectors struggling with their own set of relevant regulatory burdens.

So, it seems from asking a dozen FTOs of interest, there is indeed a desire, and a framework of needs could be developed, but who would be involved, what might the association look like, and why?

All for one The FTOs consulted were almost united in their opinion that, to be effective, it should be all in; from small aero club to foreign-owned

21 e r h e t b t 21 o a r t e c nam 17 O cemb c e et T w 16 & o 5 De e M ho Nov t s r i e A w 30 n a b o Bris Airsh lo n a v A

0424 704 010

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Flight Training

australianflying.com.au

ANGELA AT AVALON

LEFT: The heli training community is well represented by AHIA, but even they’ve struggled with Part 61.

BELOW: Several associations gathered in Wagga Wagga in 2018 to thrash out GA issues, but specific representation for the training industry was lacking.

flight school, and certainly that no organisation should be excluded.

One operator stated that “this isn’t just about flight training ab initio, this is about flight training in all sectors, regional airlines, major airlines should be involved because they are doing flight training and we want consistency and standardisation.” Another agreed, saying that, as a small organisation with few humans at the coalface, the larger organisations come with more resources available for the work. “They would offer an association credibility. Foreignowned companies not only employ a lot of the instructors coming out of the smaller schools, but that they too are dealing with many of the same issues with regulations, airspace and air traffic management”. All were agreed, there is strength in numbers.

Everyone might be invited to the table, but what value does the airline industry need to see in recreational or aero club training that means they will pay attention to and support the small guys in the association without simply seeing it as a resource for its immediate needs? And what would it take to convince a regional aero club that it needs to play in the same pool as the airline industry? The answers, as with all good storylines, comes back

to the Very Big Problem: a looming global pilot shortage.

The pilot vacuum Economists, consulting groups, and a variety of industries worldwide are acknowledging the pent up demand for travel and recognising it as a key economic driver in a post-covid world. More travel, whether for business or pleasure, means more flights and therefore more pilots. Greater demand for pilots sounds like good news for the flight training industry, but flight training organisations need to train and retain pilots as instructors for pilots to fill that demand.

A March 2021 report by global consulting firm Oliver Wyman, predicts the US alone will experience a shortage of 34,000 pilots by 2025. Globally an ageing workforce, many pilots recently taking early retirement at the request of airlines, pilots finding family-friendly careers in COVID, young people turned off airline pilot as a cool, stable career, and the prohibitive $150,000 price tag of training, are all contributors to the predicted shortage.

Without pilots, Oliver Wyman predicts, travelers will increasingly experience canceled or delayed

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

flights, or airlines may dump lessprofitable sectors because they don’t have the pilots.

The Australian airline industry has its own part to play in mitigating the looming pilot and pilot training crises. To keep up with the growth predicted in the travel industry and mitigate the pilot shortage, it needs to pave and maintain the pathways to its doors.

And this is where some in the flight training industry see training organisations in GA and RA (and the maintenance and engineering training sector that some believe should also have a seat at the table) having some power, but also, critically, where it needs the big organisation’s support.

General aviation, charter, and outback work is where pilots traditionally clock up valuable experience hours in order to move onto an ATPL pathway. And recreational aviation may not immediately produce employable pilots, but it does afford the opportunity for motivated students to advance to CPL and on. It does not keep talent off a pathway, it adds talent to it. But, convincing the airline industry that it really does needs GA and RA exposes another problem. An airline industry focused on the pathway to its own door, without considering

the effects of that pathway on the organisations from which the pilots come, poses an inherent problem for the FTOs themselves: sustainability.

If the major airlines take the regional airline pilots, and the regional airlines take the charter pilots, and the charter operatorss take the hour-ed up instructors, how are flight schools going to manage with a very diluted experience level?

Major airlines understand the need for good instructors and good flight schools, if not, they would not have established their own. But they don’t always take the pilots from their own pool, they prefer the choice a more sizeable pool can offer.

Alone no more A weakened supply chain of welltrained pilots is no good for any sector of the industry, let alone the foundation industry that relies on retaining well-trained pilots to become quality instructors to produce the well-trained pilots for the rest of the sector. Which is why all training organisations, according to the majority of industry voices, need to be a part of a dedicated flight training association, if it comes to be. As one key industry figure put it, “it seem that we all battle the same flight training issues, but why is it always on our own?”

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30

Unfamiliar Airports

STEVE HITCHEN

Parts

Unknown

MURRAY GERRATY

Too often planes are damaged at airports because the pilot didn’t know what they were getting into.

Steve Hitchen seeks advice on how not to make the same mistakes and executes a flight plan based on knowing all the risks.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

I

could have nearly cried. My favourite aeroplane had been destroyed after another hirer tried to land at an airfield unfamiliar to him without doing much homework first. There was an obstruction on the runway; a call to the owner would have told the pilot that.

A decade later it happened again. Another aeroplane that I share a lot of wonderful history

with was damaged when a hirer taxied it into a ditch at an airstrip that had actually been closed.

Calls to the owner had been unsuccessful, but the pilot decided to land anyway.

It is easy to pillory these two pilots, but many of us, on genuine reflection, can probably name an instance or two when we should have done more due diligence on a destination than we did, with only fortune standing between us and disaster, or at least mortal embarrassment. In most cases, private airstrips are labeled as Prior Permission Required (PPR), and that is not something to be ignored.

PPR is mandatory, and shouldn't be overlooked in favour of convenience or haste. It's not just about permission; it's also a chance to ask the airstrip owner about the condition of the movement areas, obstacles that may have sprung up since the airfield guide was

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printed, when it was last used, are there animals on the strip? It's also about unknown unknowns: what else is there that could impact your decision to land?

Understanding that I was a typical PPL and therefore capable of making typical PPL blunders, I thought it time to review my own procedures for going into unfamiliar airstrips before I bent someone else's favourite aeroplane. I reckoned the best way to do it was to choose a strip at random and go through the exercise step by step.

And so, with instructor in tow, I set off for parts, literally, unknown.

The dart meets the map Just to spice things up, I was determined to choose an airstrip that my instructor, Murray, also wasn't familiar with. This was

to be a joint learning experience.

The western district of Victoria is littered with private airstrips; there was no shortage of parts unknown to experiment with.

But one caught my eye more than others because, had you asked me, I would have confidently announced that there was no airport there: Cressy. West of Geelong on a line between Colac and Ballarat, Cressy is not exactly a metropolis; in the 2016 census it failed to crack the 200-resident mark.

But in 1939, the Royal Australian Air Force deemed the town the perfect place to put an air force base. RAAF Cressy served for seven years before it was closed, hosting the gamut of contemporary aircraft like Beauforts, Wirraways, Oxfords and the legendary "Capstans" – Spitfires. The skeleton of what was once a busy airport is still there, now in private hands, but still operating, and

there was a lot we didn't know about its current condition.

Our first resource for info was ERSA, but Cressy had no entry, so we turned to the Country Airstrip Guide, where we found more questions than answers. We found a diagram showing two runways of 1100 and 950 m long intersecting at the north end, with a hangar at the south end. Ominously, a power line crossed the approach to RWY 33 and there was a notation about a tower only 1.3 nm due north.

The info was fairly comprehensive, but after matching what we read to what we saw on Google Earth images, we understood there were some unknowns about Cressy that we needed to turn into knowns, such as: • what is the preferred runway in nil wind?

• are the runway distances all usable or are there displaced thresholds?

• does the tree line to the south impact final in terms of turbulence?

• where are the run-up bays?

• what are the runways widths?

• what are the movement areas like after rain?

• where are the runway exits?

• are there any obstacles on the movement areas that we may need to avoid?

Most importantly, what was that tower and was it going to be in play? We solved that issue by logging onto the Radio Frequency National Site Archive (www. rfnsa.com.au), which told us the obstacle in question was a 35-metre NBN monopole on the Hamilton Highway. It wouldn't be too much of a problem, but Murray and I were intending to carry out a precautionary search of the strip before we landed, which would bring the tower into calculations.

There was also a curious note in the guide: The airfield was refurbished in 2020. What exactly did that mean in the context of the movement areas? It was time to get in touch with the owner.

Talking to the man

CLOCKWISE FROM MAIN: Cressy is an old RAAF WWII base as seen from the geometry and size of the runways.

We proceeded to land after deciding there we had covered all bases as far as the unknowns went.

Runway 33 was very serviceable, even though it looked dodgy from the air due to the collage of colours.

The person on the end of the mobile number listed in the Country Airstrip Guide was the owner Paul Lamont. Lamont has an obvious passion for the airfield, sparked by his father having served at RAAF Cressy during the war. He has shelled out substantial amounts of money to buy the field and build a new main hangar populated with antique ground equipment and a going Tiger Moth, all of which have history on the base.

Lamont's enthusiasm was worth knowing about; someone with that passion won't let the place deteriorate to unsafe levels.

So what did he actually mean by "refurbished"?

"It was a grass airstrip, but in WWII they put checkerplate [probably Marston mat] underneath it and it has storm water drains on both sides," he told me. "We re-sowed the runways with rye grass, which is

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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Unfamiliar Airports

STEVE HITCHEN

ABOVE: Cressy’s Tiger Moth sits in a brand new hangar built on the old RAAF floor.

LEFT: Jason Cheney (left) provided some good advice on how to depart Cressy safely.

what it originally had, then rolled it for four-and-a-half days and did a capacity test. So it's back to WWII standard. It was the runway for Beauforts."

He told me the runways were both 50 metres wide and the published lengths were all usable.

Critically, Lamont is so dedicated to his airfield that he drives along the runways at 0730 every morning to gauge the condition. According to his report, he regularly achieves 100 kmh thanks to the extant RAAF drainage system.

Murray and I were beginning to build a picture of what we were going to land on. Wide, long, solid

runways with almost zero obstacles and only that powerline to worry about. If we didn't use 33, not even that was going to be a concern.

But the things I couldn't get out of my head were my own experiences that owners tend to exaggerate the condition of their runways, don't tell you about important stuff that you didn't think to ask about, and that the RAAF were notorious for leaving discarded junk behind when they abandoned an airfield. Could we encounter something unexpected hiding in the grass, like a fractured block of concrete or a longforgotten spoon drain?

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

It was comforting to know that Lamont and his pilot Jason Cheney regularly operated a Beech Baron out of Cressy without much issue; the man is not going to risk his own aeroplane for the sake of not keeping the movement areas tidy.

And of course, the last thing I did was get clear permission from Lamont to use his airfield.

"We'll have the Tiger Moth operating that morning, but we're not expecting anything after that.

You'll be right to come in," he said.

On arrival Murray and I left Lilydale in Archer RCR bound for Cressy around noon a few days later. I rang Lamont again to see what the strip was like; this time he'd been able to hold 105 kmh. For the record, we tracked via Avalon and Lovely Banks. The weather was not as accommodating as the commercial forecast indicated, but we had a workable cloud base

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and plenty of manoeuvring space around the scattered showers.

We managed to eye-ball Cressy about 10 nm out and began to make plans for the approach.

Lamont had told me that morning that the wind on the ground was virtually nil and so gave us the choice of 33 or 01. Either way, the plan was to join crosswind at circuit height and make our decision based on what the sock was doing.

Lamont was spot on: there was not much to choose between the two, so after a short discussion, we decided to remove the spectre of the powerline and opted for 01.

I gave the airfield a good looking over as we turned for downwind, and Murray took the opportunity to remind me of the precautionary search procedure.

"Carby heat on and bring the power back to 2000 RPM," he suggested. "When the speed is in the white arc, get two stages of flap down and trim for 75 knots.

We'll make the pass at 50 feet with the strip down your side of the aircraft so you can have a good look at the surface."

After setting up RCR for the precautionary search and getting her stabilised in the approach, I reminded myself that lurking out there ahead of me somewhere was an NBN tower that would be two times the height I was making the pass at. The go-around was going to need to be crisp and decisive, I thought. The last thing I needed was a tower embedded in the leading edge of the wing!

Our precautionary search was worth doing as it revealed a runway in very respectable condition.

Wide, flat, long, green and with no patches of brown anywhere along its length that could be give-aways of boggy ground. We had chosen our runway well. The other runway was not quite as well presented, with a mosaic of different colours and shades suggesting uneven ground, grooves or even damp patches.

Inspection done, we executed a go-around (crisply and decisively) and climbed back to circuit height.

For this landing, I added one extra thing to my pre-landing checks.

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34

Unfamiliar Airports

STEVE HITCHEN

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RIGHT: The limits of the apron are marked with yellow drums.

What lies beyond is probably not taxy material.

BELOW: The hard stand was plagued with stony patches and tufts of grass.

Turning to Murray I asked him "Can you see any reason why we shouldn't go ahead with this landing? Is there anything we've missed?"

"It looks good to me," he responded.

Regardless, I kept up my vigilance on short final, looking for even the most lame excuse to go-around. There weren't any, so we continued to the ground.

Rolling on Cressy’s runway 01 is in pool-table condition–thanks, no doubt, to the drainage and the concealed Marston matting–it has plenty of length and width for coping with landings that are slightly off colour.

Braking action was good even after the showers that passed through only a few minutes earlier. You could probably still land a Beaufort on it today ... if you had one.

We had about 700 m of runway left and had to taxi every last one of those; there are no crossing taxiways on 01. Turning at the end to backtrack 33, I noticed the second runway was not in as bad condition as it seemed from the air. Like 01, it is well drained and the patchiness we saw from the air was revealed to be different types of grass: some green, some brown, some straw-coloured.

At the end of the backtrack was the right turn onto the old RAAF hard stand. On arrival here I found a weakness in my preparation: I hadn't clarified the condition of the tarmac section that led to the hangar.

Rather than being the smooth concrete grid I was expecting, we were greeted with a collage of veteran tarmac, grassy tufts and ponds of white stone, all liberally sprinkled with small gravel perfect for dinging a propeller. Old yellow

but it led us to finding an aviation jewel in the making. Paul Lamont is fueled by his passion for Cressy Aerodrome. With family history driving him on, he is determined to make Cressy a viable and usable airport. He has already sunk blood, sweat and dollars into getting it back into reasonable condition and has no plans to stop there.

The hangar is new, but built on the same place as the main 1939-45 hangar. The floor is the original air force one, looking very smart after some rehabilitation and at the back of the hangar is a set of metal-walled rooms done up in WWII decor.

At the time, the only residents of the hangar were an ex-RAAF fuel tanker, an aircraft tug and an

“The go-around was going to need to be crisp and decisive” 44-gallon drums lined the route.

Determined that I was not going to consign RCR to a start-up over loose stones, I sought out an island of grey concrete that was clearly a remnant of the original RAAF apron and stopped the nose wheel in the middle of it.

The exercise was done; we had successfully negotiated a safe landing at an airport strange to us.

The only thing left to do now was to depart just as safely.

Finding a diamond It was only by pure chance that I chose Cressy for this exercise,

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

airworthy, working Tiger Moth. All of these have heritage at RAAF Cressy.

Lamont also has aspirations of opening a cafe soon to attract general public and weekend aviators, and at the time was expecting planning approval to erect 10 more hangars, and a government grant to refurbish the hard stand.

Lamont also wants to recommission a derelict taxiway leading from the threshold of 01 to the hangar line, which will alleviate the need to taxi virtually the whole length of both runways on arrival.

It sounds to me like Cressy will

be a very different airport the next time I visit.

After a good hour's flying talk with Lamont and Cheney, Murray and I prepared for departure back to Lilydale.

With the wind still being a mild northerly zephyr, runway 33 was the obvious choice rather than endure another long taxi back to 01. I interrogated Cheney about the departure procedures and especially the impact of that tower and the location of the run-up bays.

His answers were succinct: the tower was not in the circuit and there were no run-up bays; run-ups were done lined up on the grass.

Home plate Murray and I arrived back at Lilydale that afternoon having successfully accomplished our mission: we had negotiated an arrival at an unfamiliar airport, dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts until we had all the info needed to make good decisions.

As a result, there were no nasty surprises that would have forced us to rethink in the air or on the ground.

We returned RCR to Yarra Valley Aviation in the same condition it was in when they handed it to me, which was, after all, the final objective of the exercise. That happened by design more than by luck; always the best strategy when you take command of someone else's favourite aeroplane.

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36

Homebuilders

KATHY MEXTED

With Your Own

Two Hands Kathy Mexted from the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia gives us a run-down on what it means to build your own aircraft and how the SAAA fits into the whole scheme.

T

he SAAA began as the Ultralight Aircraft Association of Australia and later became the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia.

Before the annual Ausfly event at Narromine, airshows and gatherings were held for many years at Latrobe Valley and then Mangalore, Vic, in the 1970s and 80s. With around 1100 members, the SAAA is the key organisation that is involved with VH (CASA registered) home-built aircraft, flown by holders of a Private Pilot Licence (or higher).

The essence of amateur-built experimental is that anyone can build anything they like, out of anything they like and power it however they like. There are no design standards to be met, though the completed aircraft must of course be in a condition for safe operation. Most aircraft builders tend to choose wellproven designs from any number of kit manufacturers, build from a set of commercially available plans or design their own. Metal aircraft are now the most popular by far.

Kits are all CNC prepared and go together with precision.

At first glance, it seems like a mighty leap of faith to want to build your own aircraft, however the reasons for doing so are many and it begins with the ease of

owning your own aircraft rather than having to rely on a hire plane being available and serviceable when you want it. And seeing as so many hire planes are aged in their 40s, there is a great appeal in flying a well-proven design that is just a few years old, with far greater performance. The average Vans Aircraft RV can cruise at around 160 KTAS on about 30 lph compared to trundling along in a Cherokee at 100 knots. Most builders will aim for a two-seat configuration because they rarely need to carry more than one passenger.

Only then, having considered age, speed and accessibility, will the idea of building an aeroplane come to the fore. The most desirable and probably important part of the equation is that you can build the aircraft at home in your shed and in some cases– many in fact, especially in the colder climates–the components can be built in the lounge room on the dining table or in the lockup garage (if the family will allow you to put their collective cars out onto the street for a couple of years). Strange as it sounds, it is a common story. The aeroplane is taken out of the shed when it’s time to transport it to the airfield hangar to attach the wings.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

The role of the SAAA It sounds corny, but firstly you become a member of the SAAA family. Building an aircraft requires a lot of trust and communication with the people who are advising you. They often become lifelong friends.

Secondly, you have access to experienced aircraft builders and flight advisers. Some of these very experienced pilots of AB-E aircraft have built several different aircraft types before are playfully referred to as “repeat offenders.” They become involved in training for our members to safely transition onto new aircraft types and some have formed type-specific groups, such as the Lancair Owners and Builders Organisation (LOBO Oz).

We also have experienced members who are happy to be involved in first flight of new aircraft or to assist with a test flying program. As one experienced builder quipped, "The first flight in an aeroplane that you have built yourself, really focuses the mind!" There can be no understating the benefits of informed company on that day.

In various states the SAAA Chapters have tool banks of specialised equipment for hire or

MAIN IMAGE: The builder of this Titan T-51 gave it serious performance by choosing a Chevy V-8 engine to put up front.

loan, such as aircraft weighing scales, hole cutters for instrument panels and a myriad of other things you didn’t know you needed until you need them.

The SAAA also advocates the interests of AB-E builders and contributes to development of CASA policies and regulations.

Likewise, CASA looks to the SAAA to promote aviation safety in their area of the market. Many of these issues and initiatives are coordinated at the annual fly-in and convention, Ausfly, held at Narromine airport each spring.

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LEFT: The Van’s RV series are among the most popular home-built aircraft in Australia.

ABOVE: A Glasair Sportsman at the SAAA’s Ausfly event at Narromine.

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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Homebuilders

KATHY MEXTED nex gave it The builder of this So

scheme. a very noticeable paint

people are keen to use standard or proven equipment. Jets? Yes, there are already experimental jets operating in Australia, no problem.

Getting started

Around that there is Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to keep members and the general public informed on a regular basis, as well as regular Member NOTAMs. Each season a hard copy magazine, Airsport, is sent to members and the website www. saaa.asn.au lists an extensive array of information papers on subjects to do with construction, maintenance, flight operations, safety bulletins and product alerts.

All this is a long way from the SAAA’s first adventurous members.

In the 1960s, an Australian aeronautical engineer, John Corby, designed the Australian plansbuilt aeroplane, the Corby Starlet.

Hundreds of them have been built around the world and are still being built and flown. Clive Canning is another of the best known early members, regarded for flying his Thorp T-18 that he built, from Australia to England and back.

When he landed in London on 1 July 1976, this was hailed as the first Australia-England flight in a home-built aeroplane. Try to find a copy of the book of his story Charlie Mike Charlie (don’t miss the chapter about being in a life or death dogfight with a MiG!!)

In 1995 and 1996 Jon Johanson flew around the world in his homebuilt RV-4 and set four aviation

world records on his third around the world flight. His final flight was over the South Pole. In 1998 Gary Burns and Alex Schenk circumnavigated the globe in the Lancair IV that Gary spent six years building. Experimental aircraft continue to evolve and have found a firm place among the aviation community in Australia.

To the basics The list of aircraft in SAAA membership includes fixed wing, helicopters and some balloons, the first of which used a 240 litre wheelie-bin as the basket.

the regulator can keep up with. The problem is that there is currently no real CASA pilot licence pathway available for manned drones, so when asked if they can be built, the short answer is yes, but you can’t legally fly it because there is not yet a licence for it. But, that’s the nature of experimental: trying new things.

One of the key elements of the Experimental Certificate operating conditions and limitations is to protect the interests of third parties.

That is, the general public located on the ground or water who are not involved with the operation or activities of the aircraft. Innocent bystanders, so to speak. Even

“The first flight in an aeroplane that you have built yourself, really focuses the mind!”

There are a few gyroplanes coming up. They usually operate via under the sport rotorcraft association, but one SAAA member is building a three-seat VH-registered gyroplane from a Russian kit. There has even been some interest from manned drone fliers. Norm Edmunds, the SAAA Technical Adviser, says there are people tinkering around with technology and racing ahead of what

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

though you can try such things as building an aircraft with a converted engine from some other application, you must keep them away from flying over populous areas.

There are lots of planes flying legally on car engines such as the Chevy V8, Subaru and VW conversions and a few new automotive based conversions coming out of the USA. You don’t see many crazy engines used as most

As a first step, there are considerable internet resources available and most people spend hours poring over websites and YouTube videos and joining home builder and experimental forums to discuss the pros and cons of building. In choosing a design, the builder must consider their abilities to undertake a build and their flying qualifications and experience. Most AB-E aircraft are single-engine, non-complex aircraft, but there is some advanced stuff such as the high performance turbine pressurised Lancair IV-P. Once you’ve chosen a design, (if not before) the next step is to join the SAAA to start learning about building and equally important, to start networking and meeting people to gain information and become educated about the many variables to building and flying Experimental aircraft – fixed wing or helicopters generally.

Possibly one of the best things about the camaraderie within the SAAA is its system of local Chapters, where members have regular meetings and can visit each other’s projects, share tips, build together and most importantly fly together.

The commitment It does take a certain amount of technical skill to launch into a build and mostly by the time new builders find their local Chapter, they have already unpacked the box and read the instructions! The SAAA prefers builders to have at least three project visits by Technical Counsellors.

Some Technical Counsellors specialise in metal or wood, and SAAA recommends that the first visit should be after the first few components–such as the tail, rudder or wing–are framed up. This allows the Technical Counsellor to check the builder is on the right track and that things like riveting and gluing are of a good enough standard. It

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is important in this early stage to check on the workmanship and to iron out any early glitches.

The second project visit is generally done before the wing skins are attached and it is still possible to look at all the exposed parts of the internal workings before they’re covered by the outer coverings. The third inspection is as the aircraft is nearing completion and involves looking at the engine installation, controls and instrumentation. The final inspection is carried out by a Technical Counsellor who assists the builder to do a thorough “nuts and bolts inspection” of the aircraft, before turning their eyes to the paperwork. This must be completed correctly and all in order to apply for an Experimental Certificate.

There is a misperception that the SAAA manages the registration of their aircraft, but they don’t; all AB-E aircraft are VH-registered and are maintained in accordance with CASA maintenance regulations. It is cheaper in the long run to be an SAAA member to

get all the help you need and have an association looking after your back with the regulator.

AB-E aircraft can have several different types of engines. This Evolution is fitted with a Pratt & Whitney PT6A turbo-prop.

Placards The pilots and the passengers flying in an Experimental aircraft are called “informed participants”.

Obviously the pilot-builder is perfectly aware that their amateurbuilt aircraft is not certified to any design standard. Passengers need to be advised of this also. This is done via an experimental sticker on the airframe, visible to people as they board the aircraft. There is also a passenger warning placard to be shown to passengers: Warning – persons fly in this aircraft at their own risk.

This aircraft is not operated to the same safety standards as a normal commercial passenger flight. Casa does not set airworthiness standards for experimental aircraft.

Getting the certificate The final step when the aircraft is finished and ready is to contact a CASA Authorised Person (AP), who can issue the Experimental Certificate.

Their job is not to inspect the airworthiness of the aeroplane, but to inspect the airframe and paperwork. This inspection is to determine that the aircraft is eligible for the Certificate, along with other certain requirements.

Workmanship plays a part of the assessment. Airworthiness is solely the responsibility of the aircraft builder/registered operator. And by the way, how many readers know that “continuing airworthiness” of GA certified aircraft is also the registered operator’s responsibility? No, not to do it yourself, but to see that it is done by a LAME as required by the regulations. A LAME is

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Homebuilders

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KATHY MEXTED Experimental Certificate for the ongoing operation of the aircraft.

Though they cannot be used commercially, Experimental Aircraft can be authorised to fly over built-up areas, at night, and under IFR. They can also be used to carry out aerobatic manoeuvres.

Buying second-hand You’ll need plenty of space for the build, even if it means relegating the family cars to the back yard.

responsible only for the work they do.

When the Experimental Certificate is issued, that allows a test flying phase. This usually takes around 25 hours if a certified engine has been used. If a non-standard engine has been used then the test flying phase is for 40 hours. SAAA also has a Flight Test Guide and Cards available for purchase and

these are commonly used during the test flying program. Other products available to members are aircraft log books, maintenance releases, CofA info pack, and also the services provided by CASA Authorised Persons.

It is a happy day when the test flying is completed in accordance with the program and the AP can return to issue a Phase II

In recent years, sales of Experimental aircraft have gone through the roof; most selling before they hit the open market by way of advertisement; the grapevine is alive and well. Their value is rising as pilots become comfortable with the new kits and tried-andtested designs. There are so many less ongoing maintenance problems that plague the older GA fleet.

Under current CASA regulations, generally speaking, the builder of the aircraft can maintain it subject to a few CASA provisos, one of which is that the builder has completed a course of training

on regulatory matters such as the SAAA Maintenance Procedures Course. CASA is happy that people who build their own aircraft know it best and are competent to conduct the maintenance on it. The sticking point is that while a builder can maintain an aircraft he or she has built, the next owner must have the aircraft maintained by a LAME. Under proposed CASA Part 43 Regs there will be some scope for buyers to do the maintenance and annual inspections.

It is important to note that for aircraft operating on a Special Certificate of Airworthiness (Experimental Certificate), maintenance must be performed according to CASA regulations – essentially exactly the same as for any general aviation aircraft.

Experimental aircraft are not generally exempt from Airworthiness Directives, nor do experimental aircraft operate under a whole suite of general exemptions.

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42

Lessons from a

logbook

JIM DAVIS

Jim Davis has a passion for instructing. He has been training civil and military pilots, in the air and on the ground for 50 years. His other passion is writing, which he studied at Curtin University in Perth. You can see, and buy, his two pilot text books PPL and Flight Tests at www.jimdavis.com.au

Night Flying and other Nonesenses Jim Davis falls foul of the Dunning-Kruger Effect as he learns how much he doesn’t know about night flying, and fesses up to a ground loop.

I

was training this delightful bunch of Pommy pupes in Beaufort West. They were a seismographic crew on a mission to find oil in the Karoo.

Each one was a huge pleasure to fly with. They were young, enthusiastic, welleducated, and they had the money to put in plenty of hours. Soon they had all finished their PPL training and were keen to get on with night ratings.

The first part of this–the instrument flying–went smoothly enough. There was almost no traffic, and Beaufort West had an NDB so we could play let-down let-down. It was when we started the actual night flying that things became interesting.

Two different things happened.

The first was partly my fault. I didn’t have a lot of night flying experience, and Diamond Dick Haremse, who had done my night training, in Kimberley, must have been the worst instructor in the world. Actually Dick didn’t instruct at all – he slouched in the right hand seat, like a bag of potatoes, smoking one stinking Camel cigarette after another.

This meant that my ability to give effective night flying training was close to zero.

But to make matters worse I was too inexperienced to know how bad I was.

I had fallen into the DunningKruger trap.

The second part of the night flying problem was out of my control, extremely puzzling, and quite funny.

I will come back to that shortly, but at the moment I would like to side-step to discuss Dunning and Kruger in a bit more detail, because I think that if pilots understand this subject they will be a lot safer. These guys are worth listening to; they are not about making only night flying safer, but all flying.

Stupid is as stupid does These two were awarded a Nobel Prize in 2000 for their report entitled How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

It was about “the cognitive bias of competence by way of illusory superiority. It derives from the inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude.”

[Wikipedia] Don’t panic; this just means being too stupid to know how stupid you are. Unfortunately it affects all of us and can be lifethreatening in an aeroplane.

It is an overconfidence that is not born of cockiness, it’s a genuine unawareness of our shortcomings. And it is caused by

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

inexperience, or sometimes poor training. In the case of my night flying, it was both.

“The corollary of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that highly capable people tend to underestimate their relative competence. They therefore erroneously presume that tasks they find easy to do are easy for others.” [Wiki again] This means that to be effective, instructors have to keep putting themselves in the shoes of their students.

D & K’s interest in the subject came from the criminal case of a guy called McArthur Wheeler.

He robbed banks after covering his face in lemon juice, which he thought would make it invisible to security cameras. He had heard that that’s how invisible ink works. True story.

In a 2005 study Dunning said, “if you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.” Neatly put.

They also said that, “poor performers do not learn from feedback which suggests the need to improve.” I find that really worrying.

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A pilot’s logbook is far more that just a record of dates, times, places and flights; it is also a history of a pilot’s flying career and a chronicle of the lessons learnt that makes them the aviator they are today. Jim Davis takes a look back through his own logbooks, and records the incidents that have shaped his approach to flying.

BELOW: A retractable single-engined taildragger, the Globe Swift was designed in the image of WWII fighters.

I was really bad at night flying instruction – I didn’t know enough about it to know how little I knew, so I quickly had to teach myself some of the lifesaving stuff that Diamond Dick didn’t bother with, like: • make sure you have a decent horizon and at least half a moon. Otherwise you will take off slap into a black hole that demands instant and precise instrument flying skills • most deaths at night happen within 60 seconds after takeoff. This is when non-rated pilots climb into no-horizon conditions

• make very sure you know what the wind is doing. At a controlled airfield, ATC look after you, but in the bush the wind is your problem. If things start feeling wrong it may be time to fly across the strip at 90° and see if you are picking up noticeable drift • be aware that a country strip and night can be a dangerous place. Keep in mind that you only have paraffin lamps, no lighted windsock, and no crashwagon • during take-off you need to add a bit, say 10%, to your liftoff speed. It will help you to

keep things under control if a crosswind does spring up, and the acceleration makes your inner ear and your muscles give the sensation that the nose is pitching up. This is aggravated by the A/H falsely confirming this. So there’s an overwhelming temptation to push the nose down immediately after lift-off • as the wheels leave the ground go onto instruments immediately, and get the nose slightly above the horizon no matter how bad this feels. The extra bit of airspeed allows you to keep the nose up while climbing and accelerating

towards your best rate of climb speed • stay on instruments. Don’t be tempted to look for a horizon until you have turned crosswind. Do not look round for other traffic before turning – you won’t see anything, and the act of turning your head can induce vertigo • after you turn crosswind look for the flare-path just behind your left wing. Remember that’s 90° left – smaller number on the DI • if you can’t see the flares/ lights, go straight back on to instruments – don’t keep

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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44 Lessons from a logbook looking. Settle down. Level off at 1000 ft AGL and then look again for the airfield and a horizon • relax. You have passed the crucial 60 seconds and the immediate dangers of a night take-off.

A gooseneck phantom

FLICKRCC / ZWEER DE

BRUIN

At Beaufort West I learned all these things very quickly, and was able to pass them on to my pupils without killing anyone.

Those of you who have flown at night using a flare-path consisting of two lines of hurricane lamps, may be familiar with the uniquely South African event – the phenomenon of "the walking lanterns". This is a condition during which part of your landing guidance system simply picks itself up and disappears into other people’s homes.

During one circuit, only a portion of the lights may disappear. But if you head off to the general flying area for half an hour, you may return to find the airfield has completely gone.

It’s a real danger; you either need someone on the ground to guard the lights, or a nearby alternate.

At Beaufort West we had no close neighbours, neither did we use hurricane lanterns. We had the far superior "gooseneck" flare-path. This consisted of two rows of smelly containers that resembled watering-cans with thick spouts, down which pieces of rope had been pushed. We filled these with paraffin and spaced them out along the field before setting fire to the protruding ends of the ropes.

The effect is stunning – you get a healthy, shoulder-high flame, that can be seen for many miles on a clear night. Beautiful things to land by – they add perspective

I teach students to do most of their night landings with the landing-light off. They must feel comfortable with this so if it fails they are quite at home. Anyhow, I did a couple of runs down the runway with the landing light on, but couldn’t see anything interesting, so we landed and called it a day.

and give a good indication of the wind. They were used at military and civil airfields throughout the world for many years.

I suspect that our problem with these magnificent devices was unique, and may go down in the archives as a landmark in the chronicles of night flying.

I suspect that our problem with these magnificent devices was unique

By the time we went to pick up the flares the lakes of paraffin had burned out, and the non-burning goosenecks were empty and lying on their sides.

The following night the trouble repeated itself, and it was only on the fourth night that we got to the bottom of it. I had persuaded a contingent of flare-watchers to park near the edge of the runway and observe the goings-on.

It turned out that an aardvark had, for some extraordinary reason, taken a violent dislike to our flares. The observers could hear the thunder of his hooves as he charged across the runway and ran slap into the goosenecks, sending them flying.

We never did manage to cure the problem, so there was a danger of shunting him with the aircraft.

But there’s always a risk of hitting an animal at night.

On our first session of night flying all went well – the goosenecks behaved in exactly the same way that goosenecks have traditionally behaved themselves.

It was only on the second night that the difficulty presented itself.

A pupil and I had left the circuit for a little while, I don’t remember why, but when we returned, all was not as advertised. Two of the flares had become young lakes of fire and several more had gone out.

Now, goosenecks don’t just go out. They are specifically designed not to do so – regardless of wind.

The pupes on the ground were having a break and drinking beer near the hangar, so they didn’t notice this distressing development.

Trotting around a Globe

ABOVE: Aardvarks can be found widely across South Africa. It was one of these that took umbrage to Jim’s goosenecks.

OPPOSITE PAGE: A gooseneck can, very popular in South Africa for lighting flare paths.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

OMER MEES

RIGHT: Globe’s little Swift has a very cramped cockpit, which isn’t to Jim’s liking.

Thinking about Beaufort West, I was bragging, in a previous article, about never having ground-looped an aircraft. Well … I was sort of half lying. I have just remembered about this old Afrikaans guy, whose name escapes me, so I will call him Oom Frick. Oom, meaning uncle, is a respectful term for an older person.

One day he pitched up at George, from Beaufort West, to collect his Globe Swift. Coetz, the engineer–and my mortal enemy–

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had spent the last six months rebuilding the aircraft after a ground-loop.

If you want to know whether a particular aeroplane is prone to ground-looping, just go through its logbooks. If it has spent more time being repaired than it has flying, you have your answer.

Many will shoot me down for what I have to say next, but I think the Globe Swift is not a nice aeroplane. The best thing about it is its looks. Some say it has the appearance of a WWII fighter, and others say she is stressed for aerobatics. I am not sure I agree with either.

To me, she is just another example of the cramped, noisy, miserable little brutes of that era.

The Vagabond was another, and so was the Family Cruiser and even the Pacer. All Austers also fall into that category, as does the dreadful little French Gardan Horizon, and the truly awful Chrislea products: the Ace and the Sky Jeep.

These last two horrors had rudder pedals which moved vertically up and down – as did the control yoke. I kid you not. No back and forward movement, only up and down. I can’t remember which way you moved it to get the nose up – but neither way is intuitive.

I actually watched one crash at Wonderboom. The pilot became confused about which way was which. Immediately after take-off the aircraft performed a series of ever increasing oscillations, and eventually came down almost vertically on to its nose and stopped in a cloud of red dust.

They took the unfortunate pilot away on a stretcher.

But back to the Globe Swift.

What a misnomer: she is anything but swift, in fact she is slugracingly slow.

You keep tapping the airspeed indicator to check that you have pulled the wheels up, and are not trailing full flap.

Hell, she is a two-seater with a retractable undercarriage and the same 145-hp, six-cylinder, Continental engine as the early Cessna 172s. But she somehow manages to be 10 kt slower than a 172. Only really bad aerodynamics make this possible.

Anyhow, Oom Frick adjusts his hearing aid and asks me to do a test f light on the aircraft.

Coetz, the hated engineer, hovers in the background.

I can’t remember whether he really was an awful person – or if we just hated each other because he was the Cessna agent, and I was the Piper guy. It grieves Coetz’s soul that I have to assess, and sign out his work – I am the only commercial pilot in range so he has no choice.

After our initial introductory pleasantries, Oom Frick turns round to have a short board meeting with Coetz in Afrikaans,

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46 Lessons from a logbook

There are a lot of rules about flying safely at night. Jim had to find out most of them by himself.

while I look on blankly. They decide that it would be best if I don’t fly the aircraft at all – I just sign off the paperwork and we can all go home.

They come to this decision based on my admission that I have never flown a Globe Swift before.

They therefore conclude that I am not in a position to pass judgement on its behaviour.

I shrug, tell them no fly, no sign, and head for my little office.

They totter behind me, and after

some discussion agree that they do actually want me to fly it after all.

Hear, hear I do a careful pre-flight and climb on the wing to get in the left-hand seat.

“Nou wat doen jy?” Now what are you doing? enquires an agitated Oom Frick, as he smooths down his scraggy white comb-over.

I tell him I am about to fly his

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aeroplane, as agreed. This is met by an anguished cry of protest – noone, but no-one, flies his aeroplane.

Another pow-wow ensues and Oom Frick eventually agrees that I can fly it, but only from the right hand seat – and he is going to work the radio. I realise that this could prove entertaining. Frick is planning to communicate with our grumpy, English-speaking controller, Raymond Waitley, via his, Frick’s, hearing aid.

I am just the driver – and there’s no other traffic, so I don’t really care.

Eventually off we blast. It’s an easy flight, I do all the climb and stall tests, taking readings of the temps and pressures every minute, and then head back to the field.

Despite having no toe brakes on my side, I look forward to landing this reputed ground-looper.

We touch down gently on the mains, but as the tailwheel comes down, five things conspire against me. First, the gyroscopic force of the prop turns us slightly right.

I am expecting this, so it should present no problem. But, as the tail goes down, the rudder’s airflow gets blanketed by the tubby little fuselage. This is still no surprise, but the fact that it needs full left rudder, does catch me off guard.

No problem, I ask Oom Frick for some left brake.

The crunch comes when he ignores my “Left brake!” call.

He takes no action at all, but stares rigidly ahead while gripping the base of his seat with both hands.

I try again, louder, “Left brake!!”

But it’s game over by this time.

We do a very large, lazy 180 on the rough grass and come to a reasonably dignified halt.

Oom Frick takes off his headset allowing his comb-over to flop down the side of his face.

I suddenly see why he ignored my pleas for left brake. Unplugged, and lying on the floor in a tangle of wires, is his hearing-aid box.

So have I ground-looped an aeroplane? Yes, I suppose I have ...

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48

Connectivity

KREISHA BALLANTYNE

The

Connected

STEVE HITCHEN

Kreisha Ballantyne explores the network of devices we take into GA cockpits and discovers which ones work together through connectivity and how it benefits the pilot.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

Cockpit

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A

viation has an epigram for everything, but one of the classics is, “when the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the pilot, you’re cleared for take-off.”

While the mighty EFB has certainly lightened our load in terms of having to carry maps, charts, ERSA, printed weather, weight and balance and the AIP, our flight bags aren’t necessarily becoming any lighter with the abolition of paper, whizz wheels and protractors. Add to your bag a potential portable GPS, ADS-B receiver, portable VHF radio, personal ELB, mobile card reader, along with the requirements for EFB back-ups, portable battery chargers, mounts, cases and charging cables and there is still a blooming future for flight bag manufacturers. But before you dash out and buy a new flight bag with wheels, let’s take a look at the enormous range of external devices on the market today and whether you need to buy them all.

We’ll take it as a given you’ve already purchased a mobile phone and tablet device, as well as a Bluetooth capable headset – items you’re most certainly not going to want to leave the ground without. But if you’re flying with technology, you’re going to also need your back-up device, your portable charger (if your aircraft isn’t fitted with USB ports – and even if it is, it might still be worth taking one for outdoor use if you’re visiting an air-show or fly-in) your actual charger (if you’re staying the night) and spare batteries at a bare minimum.

Back up devices While there are no actual mandatory requirements for back up devices for private pilots, it would be a serious lapse of judgement not to carry a second device (or a paper back-up) in

MAIN IMAGE: Bluetooth headset, smartphone and iPad are mandatory for the modern connected cockpit.

LEFT: Smartphones have become central controllers for a number of connected devices. In this shot, the pilot checks the feed coming from his external GoPro camera.

BELOW: This GoPro is mounted underwing on an approved mount and controlled wirelessly from the pilot’s iPhone.

case of a power failure of your EFB. Both AvPlan EFB and OzRunways allow three devices per subscription, and you can use these across multiple platforms (i.e., iPhone, Android tablet, iPad, Android phone) and can sync the devices to share aircraft profiles and flight plans.

Portable battery chargers, USB and lightning cables, tablet and phone cases with in-built chargers (and even in-built fans!) can be purchased pretty much everywhere and the first two items should be as ubiquitous in your flight bag as spare batteries for your headset.

Portable Bluetooth GPS Receiver Let’s assume you’ve fallen into the trap of buying a tablet without an inbuilt GPS, such as the Wi-Fi only iPad. The first external device you’ll need is a GPS receiver: a small portable receiver device that uses the GPS system to calculate your location.

By connecting the device to your tablet via Bluetooth, the receiver acts as a GPS, informing your EFB of your location.

In order to keep costs down, Apple did not include an inbuilt GPS in their Wi-Fi only model, so an external Bluetooth GPS

receiver is an inexpensive, reliable solution to overcome this blow if you’ve purchased this model.

However, many pilots use a GPS receiver alongside their tablet devices, even when they have the cellular model as the tablet internal GPS is less reliable than a portable Bluetooth receiver, which can be positioned on the cockpit dash for better reception.

Furthermore, some portable GPS allow connection to multiple devices, allowing you to connect your back-up device as well.

Options • Bad Elf GPS Apple Lightening Connector • Bad Elf GPS Pro Dual XGPS150A Bluetooth GPS Receiver • Garmin Glo 2 Portable Bluetooth GPS/Glonass Receiver

Size They're about the size of a deck of cards. The Bad Elf Lightning Connector is an adapter that fits into the lightning socket of your iPad. The others are portable devices placed on the windshield that weigh no more than 100g.

Portable ADS-B Receivers After packing the GPS receiver in your flight bag, the next device you may consider is a portable ADS-B receiver. In Australia, all IFR aircraft must be fitted with ADS-B equipment: a Mode S transponder with "extended squitter" hardware and software capable of transmitting ADS-B data to a ground station and other aircraft, detailing precise location, speed and altitude. However, while there is no current mandatory

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Connectivity

KREISHA BALLANTYNE

RIGHT: If you’re an owner, a portable ADS-B device could be attached to cockpit infrastructure.

This is an Open Flight Solutions (now Falken Avionics) Flightbox.

under the VFR, if the pilot is qualified to use those.

So, if your EFB is a perfectly good GPS, why would you invest in an expensive, hand-held portable one? Some would argue that two devices are better than one; others would say the portable GPS is hardier and less likely to overheat. Built purely for the sole purpose of navigating, it won’t be filled with photographs, movies and social media and its battery life will far exceed that of your tablet, with the Garmin Aera 760 claiming 4.5 hours of battery life.

BELOW: This GoPro is mounted underwing on an approved mount and controlled wirelessly from the pilot’s iPhone.

“it would be a serious lapse of judgement not to carry a second device” requirement for VFR aircraft, the regulator is placing an increasing focus on situational awareness and this is where portable ADS-B devices come in: a small device which is connected to your tablet or phone to enable live traffic.

What’s In/Out About?

Australia has implemented ADS-B on 1090 megahertz (MHz). This is the same frequency used by aircraft ATC transponders and allows the use of transponders and GPS already installed in many aircraft. The 1090 MHz system is a simple oneway transmission of data from the aircraft (ADS-B Out) to ground stations, which simply listen to transmissions and forward them to ATC systems. This system is mandatory for IFR aircraft.

Australia has adopted a single system that allows aircraft with ADS-B In equipment to receive ADS-B Out from all equipped aircraft without the need for ground-based translator (or “rebroadcast”) stations. Australia has no plans to require mandatory fitment of ADS-B In. A leading surveillance systems engineer once explained it like this: “ADS-B Out is a little like

having tail-lights on your car.

They are used by 'the other guy'.

In an environment when most aircraft have ADS-B Out, aircraft with ADS-B In will have the ability to see paints from other aircraft that are nearby. An ADS-B In system far exceeds the capabilities of the human eye to detect aircraft and alert you to other aircraft that are a risk.

The availability of surveillance information and Flight Following services by ATC for VFR aircraft, and the availability of accurate information for SAR purposes are significant advantages too.”

If your aircraft is not ADS-B equipped, you may want to consider a portable ADS-B device. Currently, the only portable ADS-B In and Out device formally accepted by CASA is the uAvionics Sky Echo 2. There are a multitude of ADS-B In only devices.

Options • Appareo Stratus 3 • Dynon DRX • uAvionix Sky Echo 2 • Falken Avionics Flightbox Size A little bigger and denser than

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

your portable GPS, but still relatively lightweight – the Sky Echo 2 weighs 120 g.

Handheld GPS While some pilots are privileged enough to fly with the G1000 or Dynon Skyview, others own or hire older aircraft, often with equally ancient built-in GPS systems (if at all) and so, for those who like something more modern than dead reckoning, a portable GPS is a useful device.

“But isn’t my EFB a portable GPS?” you ask, and the answer is yes, it is. It’s not certified, but GPS only needs to be certified for IFR, or if used as a data source for certified ADS-B. Handheld GPS devices aren’t certified either, but VFR flights can legally use an EFB/portable GPS for supplemental navigation as long as the VFR position fixing requirements (AIP ENR 1.1 section 4.2, ENR 1.2 section 1.1.1,)… an EFB (or any other non-certified GPS) does not meet the “radio navigation” requirement of 4.2(e), but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it to supplement an approved navigation method, such as visual fixes, ADF or VOR

Options Garmin seems to have cornered the market here, with the Garmin Aera being pretty much the only product available in the iPad/ tablet comparative space. Like all Garmin products, the Aera is compatible with other Garmin items such as the GDL ADS-B receiver and the Garmin Pilot app, which does make it rather UScentric as the GDL receiver does not pair with either Australian EFB and the Garmin Pilot app isn’t CASA approved in Australia.

However, if your aircraft is equipped with Garmin the Aera’s layout will be familiar to you.

• Garmin Aera 660 • Garmin Aera 760 Size Around the same size as an iPad or tablet, the 660 weighs 245 g, the 760 weighs 560 g.

Satellite communicators Another flight bag device that’s evolved significantly is the satellite phone. Once an enormous brick that required a second mortgage to use, the sat phone has now developed into a palm sized mobile communicator.

Offering monthly subscription plans, and making use of the iridium satellite network, these devices offer text services, an ability to send tracking points, direct SOS contact and weather information. They also offer device pairing capability, with their

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own smartphone apps. Mobile satellite communicators act as SOS beacons in the case of emergency.

The Garmin devices will trigger an interactive SOS message to GEOS: the Garmin-powered International Emergency Response Coordination Center (IERCC) with 24/7 global monitoring. Staff there will track messages and notify emergency responders in your area and stay in touch until your situation is resolved.

Options • Bendix King AeroWave • Garmin inReach Mini Satellite Communicator with GPS Size Both are palm-sized and weigh around 100 g.

Handheld VHF radio transceivers Having just explored a range of gadgets that would have made no

sense to any pilot just ten years ago, let’s now turn our attention to the humble device every pilot regardless of age, airspace or rating – encounters on a regular basis: the VHF radio.

Aviation uses a reserved frequency band within the VHF (very high frequency) spectrum of radio communication. Worldwide, aviation communications use frequencies from 118.0 to 137.0 MHz. Air navigation aids (such as VORs and ILSs) operate just below, in the 108.0 to 118.0 MHz range. For emergency aviation communications, 121.5 MHz is reserved around the globe and is known internationally as international air distress (IAD).

Quaintly, a licence is still required: a flight radiotelephony operator licence that qualifies you to communicate using the radio (CAR 166E, CAR 83).

As any pilot flying across a mountain range knows, VHF radios operate via line of sight,

meaning both the transmitting and receiving antennas must have a clear visual path to each other in order to be heard. Furthermore, they work in a ‘half duplex’ mode, allowing the user to either talk or receive, but not both at the same time. The high quality sound we enjoy in today’s headsets wasn’t available decades ago, so our predecessors adopted our muchloved phonetic alphabet, which was standardised by ICAO in 1956. Sadly, when civil aviation moved to standardised VHF radio we dropped the use of the word ‘over’ at the end of our sentence sometime after the war, although it seems no one ever told the Hollywood movie makers.

While little has changed in the way we use VHF radio, integrated components have brought reliability, lower power consumption, compact designs and portability, making handhelds excellent back-up devices for emergency communications.

The latest handheld devices now

include noise reduction and Bluetooth capabilities for handsfree operation.

As well as being ubiquitous tools at air shows and the mainstay of instructors sending students solo, a handheld VHF radio can save your bacon in the case of an alternator failure or other on-board radio faults.

Options • Icom IC-A25NE Airband • VHF Handheld Transceiver • Icom IC-A16E Airband • VHF Handheld Transceiver Size Other than your headset and tablet, this will be the largest, bulkiest and heaviest device you add to your flight bag, at around 1-1.5 kg and the size of an early model mobile phone.

Cameras Like all modern-day gadgets,

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Connectivity

the action camera will have a companion app and you’ll also need memory card and a mounting system. Kits are available for night flying, mounting the camera on your head; there’s even an extra fitting to filter out the prop. Once the camera is set up, all you need to do is hit the record button and concentrate on your job of flying the aircraft. You may also want to mount a camera externally, but you’ll have to consult the aircraft manufacturer or an engineer if you want to do that.

Your camera will have a battery and USB charger, so if you have USB ports in your aircraft, you can keep it charging. If not, bear in mind the average battery life is around two hours or so, but if you have a portable battery pack with dual/multiple ports, you can service this device as well as your tablet and phone.

Some devices offer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability.

KREISHA BALLANTYNE The app will serve as a realtime viewfinder to help frame your shots. You can also use it to manage your video files and make basic edits. Desktop software may also be available for editing your footage.

Why would you buy a camera if you have an excellent in-built camera on your phone? Indeed.

Modern phone and tablet cameras are great for photos and even short video, but if you want to record footage in phases when you’re otherwise occupied with flying the aircraft, such as takeoff and landing, you’ll need a piece of equipment dedicated to the job. Your cam will also have options for cockpit audio and you may even want to to tap into the intercom to record cockpit and ATC audio.

Options • Garmin Dash Cam 56 • Go-Pro Hero 9 • Go-Pro Hero 8

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Dynon’s DRX unit performs a number of functions in the cockpit including ADS-B In, GPS and a weather receiver.

• Kits are available for nightcam/ filters/audio from pilot stores.

Size Weight around 110 g, size varies from around 62 x 45 mm to 78 x 55 mm With technology comes great responsibility: be sure to take the time to read the operating manual

for any new device you purchase.

If you can, test it on the ground.

Ensure it’s correctly paired to your tablet, adequately charged and that you’ve packed the appropriate cables/chargers/batteries. Be mindful that new tech, while often awe inspiring, can also become a distraction. Don’t forget to look out of the window and admire the view!

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AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

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54

Aircraft Profile

TONY SELF

Neither

Stranger nor Enemy

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

australianflying.com.au

tube designs to modern metal aircraft in the 1950s. By the 1960s, it had developed a line-up of GA aircraft which included the PA-23 Apache, the PA-24 Comanche, and the PA-28 Cherokee. The Apache, later renamed Aztec, was a design inherited from its takeover of Stinson Aircraft, so the Comanche was Piper’s first metal aircraft design.

Immediately successful MAIN IMAGE: The last plane you’ll buy.

Speed, comfort and handling have won the Comanche extensive owner loyalty.

ABOVE: The square-ish cabin is not the most aerodynamic design, but it is wider than a Beech Bonanza.

The Piper Comanche was one of the most spirited and romantic aeroplanes ever to come out of Lock Haven. Tony Self examines this iconic GA aircraft to understand why owners are so passionate about them.

T

he name “Comanche” translated from the Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Comanche people, means “enemy”, or “stranger”.

But the Piper Comanche seems to only have loyal friends, not enemies, although many people are strangers to the type.

The Piper Comanche is a four-seat low-wing retractable monoplane, originally powered by a 180-hp Lycoming O-360 engine.

The first prototype flew in 1956, and entered production as the PA-24-180.

Piper Aircraft had taken to naming its aircraft after Native American nations and words when it moved from its rag and

Comanche production started in 1957, and a year later the more powerful PA-24-250 was introduced with a six-cylinder O-540 engine.

The bigger engine gave the Comanche better performance, with the cruising speed lifting from 140 to 160 knots, with only a relatively small increase in purchase price. Over 1000 of the 180s were sold, while 2500 of the 250s were snapped up by enthusiastic buyers until production of the 180s and 250s ended in 1964.

The Comanche production line then shifted to the upgraded 260-hp PA-24-260, and the over-powered PA-24-400, fitted with an eightcylinder Lycoming IO-720. The 400 was discontinued in 1966, after 148 aircraft had been built, but the 260 was manufactured until 1972.

The design was improved to evolve into the PA-24-260B, 260C, and the dual turbo-charged 260TC. A total of 1029 Comanche 260s had been built by 1972.

In 1972, disaster struck Piper Aircraft. A flood washed through their factory in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Around 100 aircraft on the production line were written off, although 32 unfinished aircraft were given to NASA for crash testing. Piper made the decision to abandon the Comanche and Twin Comanche, and pin its hopes on recovering from the disaster on the PA-28 and Cherokee Six families.

Cub to Comanche The Piper Aircraft company was built on the back of its venerable rag and tube design: the Piper Cub. Piper built over 20,000 of the simple and rugged J-3 version between 1938 and 1947. Other versions of the Cub continued until 1981 with the Cub Special and Super Cub variants. The designs that followed the Cub had a similar simplicity: the Pacer, Colt and TriPacer were all steel tube aircraft covered with fabric (the Pacer was the first Piper aircraft with flaps).

When the Comanche design was proposed, the contrast couldn’t have been greater.

The Comanche was very modern and very complex. It was all metal.

It had a laminar flow aerofoil.

Not only did it have flaps, it had retractable undercarriage and allflying tail. Piper was aiming for the Comanche to leapfrog Beechcraft’s Bonanza, which had already been in production for a decade, and to also take market share away from the newer Mooney M20.

To compete in this tough market, the Comanche had to be better: more comfortable, cheaper, and faster.

Width inside The Comanche cabin is 115 cm wide, which, along with the big windows, gives a more spacious feel for the four occupants than the rival Bonanza at 107 cm, and even though the cabin height is a few cm shorter, the height is more usable because the cabin is less curved.

Twin Comanche owner Graham Bunn says until you’ve flown a lot of other aircraft, you don’t appreciate how comfortable the aircraft is.

“It’s quite a boxy aircraft, which probably loses a couple of knots in drag,” he says, “but adds a heap of room.” He has flown his PA-30 to New Zealand with partner Glenda.

“You can sit there all day without bumping into each other.”

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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56

Aircraft Profile

TONY SELF The short undercarriage legs give the Comanche a squat look on the ground.

B ELOW: Not much has changed on the panel of this 19 63 250 Comanche.

Like most Pipers, there is a single door to the cabin, and an external baggage door also on the starboard side. In some models, the rear seats can be quickly removed to allow for bulkier cargo. The aircraft sits distinctively low to the ground, which makes it easier for less nimble passengers to clamber onto the wing.

Cheaper When the Comanche was introduced, the Comanche 250’s price was 20% to 25% lower than that of a Bonanza. (The PA-24-250 price when introduced was around $US21,000, which is the equivalent of almost $US200,000 in today’s money. The equivalent Bonanza would have cost $US29,000, which

works out, in today’s money, to being $US70,000 more expensive!)

Looking at the stylish Comanche now, it is hard to imagine that it was the economy option. It didn’t cost a lot more to get the 250-hp version over the 180 model, and consequently the 250 was the better seller. It’s therefore no surprise that just on price alone that the PA-24 was an immediate success. But price can be a double-edged sword: the Comanche was also unfairly labelled the “poor man’s Bonanza”.

Laminar flow For the technically-astute purchaser, or the pilot wanting performance, the Comanche featured a laminar flow wing. This was very unusual for its time, and was usually associated

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

with military aircraft and fast jets.

Laminar flow wings are designed to keep the air flowing smoothly along both sides of the aerofoil, resulting in minimal drag. To achieve this, the wings have to be very well machined with fine tolerances. To keep the smooth laminar flow, the wings have to be extremely smooth, and even insect build-up can start to interrupt the flow.

There are downsides to a laminar wing, though. At higher angles of attack, drag increases more rapidly than on a conventional aerofoil.

If the aircraft is rotated too early on take-off, the drag extends the take-off roll considerably. Stalling tends to be more abrupt, too. And the aircraft will tend to float once in ground effect if the speed is too high at the threshold. But it is often said that the Commanche is an aeroplane for pilots, not for drivers.

The proof of the pudding is in the performance numbers!

The Comanche out-climbs and has much better performance at altitude than its peers. As another comparison, a Comanche 180 carrying four people is faster than a 200-hp Piper Arrow with the same load, achieving 140 KTAS at 75% power while burning 38 lph. The Comanche 250 typically cruises at around 155 KTAS at 75% power, burning 53 litres per hour.

Breaking records The sales success of the Comanche was buoyed by record breaking flights. The first major FAI record was set in 1959 by Max Conrad, who flew a Comanche 250 nonstop for 6660 nm. He had removed the passenger seats and fitted fuel bladders in their place. Five months later, Conrad set a similar record in a different class in a Comanche 180, flying 6050 nm in 56 hours, 26 minutes! That record has never been beaten.

In 1964, the first single-engined aircraft to fly across the Pacific from Los Angeles to Tokyo was a Comanche 250 flown by Henry Ohye. The Scottish National Aviation Museum has on display the Comanche 260B named Myth Too. Sheila Scott set 90 world records in this aircraft, and flew it around the world solo … twice!

On a much sadder note, country music singer Patsy Cline lost her life in a 1964 Comanche crash, along with Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Randy Hughes.

Endurance The early PA-24s had a fuel capacity of 227 litres. While this may have been sufficient for the 180, it wasn’t considered sufficient for the thirstier 250. Piper addressed this issue in the 250 by offering an option of two auxiliary wing tanks, outboard of the mains. The auxiliaries increased the capacity by 112 litres. With this option, the 250 had an impressive range of over 900 nm.

But in case that wasn’t enough range, Osborne tip tanks, each carrying another 56 litres, made a 10-hour flight possible. These tanks not only increased the fuel capacity, but allowed an increased payload due to the aerodynamic benefits of having an end plate at the wing tip. And to many an eye, the tip tanks further improved the aesthetics of the design.

Other improvements With a production run spanning 15 years, it goes without saying that many improvements and

australianflying.com.au

“the wings have to be extremely smooth, and even insect build-up can start to interrupt the flow. ” refinements were made over time. The flaps were originally manually operated through a floor-mounted lever, but were upgraded to electrically-operated Fowler flaps.

For the first three or four years of production, the brakes were operated with a hand lever, but toe brakes were subsequently introduced. The maximum allup weight was increased as the design evolved, and fuel injection replaced the carburettors.

In 1964, the fuel-injected PA24-260, with 10 extra horsepower, dual exhausts and a different propeller, replaced the 250. The undercarriage was re-jigged to take away a little more drag.

Piper released the 260B in

1966, with the main point of difference being a reconfigured cabin and baggage area which replaced the rear bench seat with individual seats, and allowed for a third row, essentially in the baggage compartment. This reconfiguration required the baggage door to be moved from the starboard to the port side, and a third window to be added on both sides. It might be a stretch to describe the third row as seats; they were little more than cushions with footwells, and not suitable for adult passengers over any distance.

The 260C, introduced in 1968, had a control panel facelift, with (then) modern instruments and switches replacing the earlier post-war layout. Cowl flaps were

Piper introduced the Comanche 260 in 1964 to replace the 250 model.

added, and the maximum all-up weight further increased. A turbocharged variant, the 260-TC, was also introduced.

The higher the better The Comanche wing performance keeps on improving with altitude, so it is not unusual to find these aircraft at 10,000 ft. At this height, cruise settings for a Comanche

250 can be maximum manifold pressure and 2000 RPM, delivering a true airspeed of 140 knots at 38 lph.

The P-51 Mustang was the first aircraft with a laminar flow aerofoil, and it was quite radical at the time. One of the advantages the aerofoil delivered to the Mustang was performance at altitude. The Comanche wing uses the NACA 64 aerofoil, and it

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September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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Aircraft Profile

too keeps on generating efficient lift at altitude.

While the wing might be happy at altitude, normally aspirated engines are not. The turbo-charged Comanche variants solve this problem. The TC models are technically “turbo-normalised”, which means the turbocharger provides sea-level power up to high altitude; instead of over-boosting,

TONY SELF

the turbo provides one atmosphere of pressure regardless of height.

In the US, it’s not uncommon to find Comanches cruising at 20,000 ft, their occupants on oxygen, some claiming to be able to achieve 200 knots. While being able to fly high over mountain ranges is important in the US, it’s less so in Australia.

Nonetheless, Comanches in Australia and New Zealand

still like to take advantage of the performance. Graham Bunn has had his Twin Comanche to 12,000 feet, on oxygen.

The rarest variant of the PA-24 Comanche was the -400, which appeared briefly in 1964, with only 147 built. As the model name suggests, this version was powered by a 400- hp, eight-cylinder IO720-A1A Lycoming. The big engine resulted in a cruise speed of up to 190 KTAS, but the fuel burn was 83 lph. However, the rarity and the performance have made the

PA-24-400 the most desirable to Comanche enthusiasts. There are nine on the Australian register.

Twice the fun In the same way that the Baron evolved from the Bonanza, the PA-30 Twin Comanche is, well, a twin-engined Comanche. More than 2000 of these aircraft were produced from 1962 to 1972. Like the single-engined sibling, the Twin Comanche was significantly less expensive, when new, than its

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AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

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59

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: This 1972 260 Comanche was one of the last airframes off the Lock Haven production line.

Piper replaced the Apache with the PA-30 Twin Comanche.

One of Piper’s more complex designs, the Comanche is a star performer, but was difficult to manufacture compared to the Cherokee line.

Beechcraft competitors. With two 160- hp IO-320 engines, the PA30 was more fuel-efficient than its rivals with two 180-hp engines, and its performance only marginally lesser. The lower running costs made the Twin Comanche a good choice for twin trainers for flying schools, and it replaced the chunky Apache in Piper’s line-up.

The reputation of the Comanche series had suffered a number of setbacks with a series of Airworthiness Directives and a concerning number of landing accidents. Although the slippery wing may have been the cause of many overshoot accidents, facts often get obscured by rumour.

The death of Patsy Cline in a Comanche resulted in exactly the wrong sort of publicity. The fact that accidents involving twins (particularly in training situations such as loss of single engine practice) are over-represented in statistics, made it difficult for the Twin Comanche. This was particularly true because it had become popular in flying schools.

Like the single Comanche, the PA-30 evolved over time. Like the single, the four-seat configuration was upgraded with the option of an extra row (and an additional window) with the PA-30B model.

An upgraded cockpit was the distinctive difference with the PA30C model. The B and C models were also available with turbonormalised engines.

Piper replaced the PA-30 with the redesignated PA-39 Twin Comanche C/R. The main difference was that the propellers on each engine rotated in the opposite direction, to reduce the perceived single-engine out shortcomings.

The closest to the PA-30/39 in today’s Piper line-up is the Seminole, and it is interesting to compare the two. The Twin Comanche can carry a similar load considerably faster, on 40 less horsepower.

Not drowned Even if the Pennsylvania factory hadn’t been flooded, the Comanche would most likely have been usurped by the Cherokee line of aircraft anyway. The PA28 Cherokee production line was in Florida, where the labour rates were lower. The Cherokees were a much simpler (and less expensive) aircraft to produce; it’s said that a Comanche has one and a half times the number of parts of a Cherokee Arrow. There is a view that Piper were always out of their comfort zone building a complicated aeroplane like the Comanche, but it is also true that the Comanche blazed a trail for future Piper products.

Graham Bunn is currently the Australasian Tribal Chief of the International Comanche Society and says for him, one of the best things about a Comanche is the ICS. “I joined the ICS shortly after I bought the aircraft, and people have been incredibly helpful.

Unbelievably. There is fantastic support for the type from other fans around the world.”

Comanches and Twin Comanches don’t come up for sale very often, perhaps because their owners rarely upgrade to anything else. A lovely aircraft to look at, a joy to fly, and practical to boot. There is an old (Piper) Comanche saying: “It’s the last plane you’ll buy!”

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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60

ROTARY-WING NEWS

Rotors FAA certifies Helitak Black Hawk Tank

H

elitak Fire Fighting Equipment has been awarded FAA STC Certification for their FT4500 UH60 Black Hawk tank. In 2018, the Helitak FT4500 Fire Tank underwent rigorous flight-testing and trials in conjunction with High Performance Helicopters (HPH) in California. The tank received 8110-3 Major Alteration approval in early 2020 with HPH President, Brad Bauder commenting, “High Performance Helicopters has been testing and operating the new Helitak Black Hawk tank design for near on two years now and this tank is a game changer in the Aerial firefighting space. " Helitak, an Australia aerial firefighting design and manufacturing company, has been specialising in rotary aircraft fire suppressions systems for over a decade and pride themselves on the delivery of high-volume water and retardant from their retractable tank system.

The STC Certification project was overseen and managed

by US Technical (Aviation Products, Services, Engineering & Certification) based in Southern California. In addition to continuing to work with Helitak on a number of projects, US Technical will be the PMA house for this product.

After years of research and

development the Black Hawk tank offers a plug-and-play underbelly tank which can be installed or removed in less than 25 minutes, requires no costly aircraft modifications and is currently the only external Black Hawk tank not requiring expensive landing gear extensions.

The FT4500 has a maximum volume of 4500 litres and is filled by the AC-powered Helitak HP6000 Hover Pump at over 5600 litres per minute.

The new range of Helitak fire tanks include the Helitak Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) that controls tankto-cockpit-to base telemetry recording GPS water collection and drop volumes, retardant controls, door-drop pattern operations, maintenance logging and complies with all agency’s telemetry requirements.

CEO and Chief Engineer Jason Schellaars, a former helicopter firefighting pilot, developed the Helitak retractable tank system due to the inefficiencies of the standard equipment available on the market.

“The Helitak formula is to provide an expandable water tank that provides the operator with the availability to lift as much water as the aircraft is approved to lift”, he said. “By comparison, the volume in our competitors’ tanks is limited to the space available between the floor of the airframe and the ground and not what the helicopter is actually allowed to lift.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

JAYDEN LAING

Dave Soderstrom presents news and views from the Australian helicopter industry.

ABOVE: Mackay Helicopters has won a marine pilot transfer contract in NSW. RIGHT: Aerotech’s Black Hawk VH-UHS fitted with the Helitak tank.

On the back of this Helitak has received further orders for their Blackhawk tanks from both Australian and International operators.

Australian operator Aerotech based in Parafield SA, recently integrated the Helitak FT4500 tank onto the companies first Blackhawk VH-UHS. Aerotech and Helitak are working through the tanks installation on the airframe and systems installation prior to flight testing, pilot workup training before the next Australian Fire Season.

Crash destroys PNG Mil-8 Hevilift Helicopters PNG lost their Mil-8 P2-MHM in Papua New Guinea in May. The helicopter was

operating on a contract. The Chief Commissioner of the PNG Accident Investigation Commission (AIC), Mr. Hubert Namani said that the AIC commenced an investigation into a helicopter accident that occurred on the 15 May 2021 at Gobo, Jiwaka Province. Reportedly, after take-off to hover, there was a low rotor RPM indication, causing the flight crew to bring the helicopter back to the ground.

The crew lost control of the helicopter after it made contact with the ground, resulting in a roll-over. The helicopter came to rest upside-down .Of the four people on board the aircraft, two flight crew, one flight engineer and one load master, it has been reported that only one suffered minor injuries and the rest were uninjured. The helicopter was destroyed.

61

DAVE SODERSTROM

australianflying.com.au

the fuel has no impact on agricultural food production.

Kestrel gets First Super Puma Kestrel Helicopters based at Mangalore in Central Victoria has taken delivery of their first Airbus Helicopters AS332L1 Super Puma. The machine arrived from Japan where it had previously been operated by the Tokyo Fire Department.

Equipped with a Simplex Model 316 belly tank, the machine will undergo modification and

registration on the Australian VH register before being employed on the fire grounds within Australia as a Type 1 rated machine. This comes quickly on the heels of the Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk that the company took delivery of at the start of the year.

McDermott deploys Dauphin to Timor McDermott Aviation has one of their Emergency service Airbus Helicopters AS365N2 Dauphin helicopters deployed into Timor-Leste to help out with the humanitarian efforts for COVID-19 and flood relief.

N365JA departed the company's Maroochydore base, repositioning to Darwin and onward to Timor. The company also has a new Bell 214B Big Lifter, VH-

SUF, which has recently been rolled out after assembly.

Mc Dermott has also positioned two of its helicopters in the northern hemisphere for this fire season. Bell 214ST N391AL and Bell 214 N214LJ were loaded in Fremantle docks for deployment in Greece.

Joining them were six fixed-wing, Australian-registered aircraft, including three Firebosses and the Air Tractors.

Air Cranes shipped to Greece Erickson Air-Crane INC packed up the six S-64s that were based within Australia this fire season with all destined for firefighting operations in Greece. These machines are joining another three aircraft from Northern America for a combined fleet of

nine. Some of the first arrivals in the country were quickly put to use on fires.

Coulson to support LA Counties Coulson Aviation will provide Night Operational support to the Los Angeles Basin Counties Quick Response Force (QRF) program with 24 hour operations.

Two 3000 USG CH4-7s operating between Orange County and LA County, as well as a Sikorsky 1000 USG S-61 in Ventura County. They will be supported by a single example of the Sikorsky S-76 Firewatch with wildfire management personal in the front and intelligence gathering personal in the back providing information to County management to help firefighters on the ground.

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

DAVE SODERSTROM

62 Rotors The ongoing sustainment of Australia's fleet of 24 Romeo helicopters is delivered locally in Australia through a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreement.

Surplus Black Hawks go under the Hammer Australian Frontline Machinery, has advertised through tender the disposal of S-70A-9 Black Hawks. Some Twenty-seven airframes are up for sale which the auction house believes will prove very popular on civilian market.

Many Australian operators are now taking delivery of the type for numerous operations. The Army is divesting its fleet in favour of the MRH-90 Taipan.

Rescue Helicopter flies on SAF Firehawk down On 26 May, tragedy beset American company Firehawk Helicopters. One of their ex US Army converted UH-60A Black Hawks converted into a firefighting helicopter crashed in Leesburg, Florida. Four crew were on board the helicopter at the time of the crash. The aircraft involved was tail number N9FH which spent two fire seasons working in Australia with both Touchdown Helicopters and then Kestrel Aviation the following season. Australian Flying magazine sends its condolences

reduced in some states, and others specifying very specific criteria for the local states fire agencies.

to the family and friends of those who died in the crash.

NAFC Tender closes

Mackay Helicopters wins NSW Pilot Transfer Contract

The deadline for the tendering of the various types of helicopters through the National Aerial Firefighting Counsel, (NAFC) has closed for the upcoming fire seasons in Australia. These contracts see the various local and international operators tender for the operation of rotary machines within Australia for the next three years, with two sinlge-year provisional extensions. The number of contracts has been

Mackay Helicopters based in South Mackay, QLD, has won the contract for marine pilot transfer out of Newcastle NSW. The company will use the Airbus Helicopters EC-135 VH-ZGZ for this work. The company is a provider of specialist helicopters aviation services in Australia, with operations including Search and Rescue (SAR), Executive Charter, Utility, Contract Services, Aerial Lifting/Slinging, Airborne Fire Suppression.

DAVE SODERSTROM

Sikorsky Australia lands Sea Hawk Contract

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

Sikorsky Australia, which is based at the Albatross Aviation Technology Park, south west of Nowra has been awarded a $10 million contract by the US Navy to provide further support to the Royal Australian Navy's fleet of MH-60R Romeo multi-mission helicopters.

A rescue helicopter has flown on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for the first time, in March this year, achieving a new milestone in international aviation. Operated by the German non-profit organization ADAC Luftrettung, the Airbus H145 rescue helicopter had its Arriel 2E engines ceremonially refueled with biofuel at the air rescue station at Munich's Harlaching Clinic in the presence of the ADAC Foundation's board of directors, as well as the managing directors and top management of ADAC Luftrettung, Safran Helicopter Engines, Airbus Helicopters, and the energy company TotalEnergies.

The H145 was using a secondgeneration biofuel, which is thought to reduce CO2 emissions up to 90% compared to its fossil equivalent, because it is produced from residual and waste materials from the circular economy such as used cooking oils and fats. As a result, the fuel has no impact on agricultural food production.

The fuel used for the first rescue helicopter flight in Munich was produced by TotalEnergies at its facility in France from used cooking oil, without using any virgin plantbased oil. With this SAF, the

australianflying.com.au

ANAM to restore Daphne The Australian National Aviation Museum located at Moorabbin Airport is to be the benefactor of a current GoFundMe page should it all go according to plan. The current owner of ex-Victorian Police Air Wing Aerospatiale AS-365C1 Dauphine VH-PVF, Mark Whorlow, is trying to raise the $20,000 to cover his costs so the helicopter can go on display within the museum. Known as Daphne the machine served the Victorian public for over 20 years in Police, Ambulance and SAR roles. Daphne saved many lives in the deadly Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1998 and evacuated people to safety during the Ash Wednesday bush fires in 1983, among several notable feats.

Armageddon comes to Oakey Another ex Army Blackhawk has joined the huge range of exhibits at the Australian Army Flying Museum at Oakey, Queensland.

A25-103 Armageddon was towed to the museum’s site and will go into storage for the time being This airframe saw service with the UN in 1993 being painted all white for this operation. Later also operated in East Timor during the humanitarian and security crisis that took place in East Timor from 1999–2000. It joins A25220 Hussar which is currently on display.

OPPOSITE TOP: Erickson’s fleet of Air Cranes has been redeployed to Greece for the northern fire season.

OPPOSITE BOTTOM: McDermott Aviation’s Big Lifter Bell 214B VH-SUF. BELOW: Hevilift’s Mil-8 P2-MHM was destroyed in a crash in PNG.

LEIGH ATKINSON

ADAC Luftrettung fleet could achieve a 33% reduction in CO2 emissions, which, with more than 50,000 rescue missions and more than 3.3 million kilometers flown per year, equates to a reduction of around 6000 tonnes of CO2.

ADAC Luftrettung and engine manufacturer Safran Helicopter Engines share the same ambition to contribute to the development of sustainable aviation fuel. To this effect they are launching a project with one ADAC rescue helicopter in Cologne. The project will study all aspects of biofuel usage on the H145, with an operational campaign to start as early as summer 2021.

Dr Andrea David, CEO of the non-profit ADAC Foundation, to which ADAC Luftrettung belongs, says that, "for us, the sustainable aviation fuel pilot project is a first big step on the way to a climateneutral ADAC Foundation and air rescue service, and our contribution as a non-profit organisation to achieving the climate protection goals of Germany and Europe."

"We want to be a pioneer in reducing CO2 in emergency medical services with environmentally friendly kerosene,” adds Frédéric Bruder, Managing Director of ADAC Luftrettung.

“This means we must also develop air rescue technologically so that the use of SAF is future-proof in the longer term. To achieve this, we have strong partners at our side.

“Importantly, SAF is an officially approved fuel, which means that flight and patient safety remain at the highest level.”

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September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

64

A LOOK AT SOME EXCITING PILOT EQUIPMENT & RELATED PRODUCTS

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World War, it is hard to imagine now that he could ever have been anything but an aviator.

The narrative in this book shows how his temperament and skill permitted him to master the most testing aspects of aviation in its rudimentary form, and how a latent larrikin streak led him to bend a few rules in order to find new operating normals. But what comes through most of all is Jim Hazelton's desire for sharing his passion with other people whilst driving them on to find their own levels of excellence.

It is telling that the cream of 1960s Formula One racing drivers turned to Jim Hazelton to hone their flying skills during the southern summer. Jim Clark, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart–world champions all–were perfectionists on the track and would have settled for nothing less than the absolute best in their flying instructors as well. Time and time again they turned to Jim Hazelton.

“Time and time again they turned to Jim Hazelton” In 1964, Hazelton became the first Australian to fly a singleengined aircraft across the Pacific Ocean. In a Kingsford Smith-like effort, he ferried a Comanche 400 to Sydney via Brisbane. It was such a rare feat at the time that newspapers covered his departure to the USA as well as his progress to and arrival in Australia. It was the beginning of a long career in ferrying that would put Jim at the forefront of the art, and lead to him

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

HA ZELTON PUBLICATIO

Jim Hazelton must have been the only pilot in the world who loved headwinds. Whilst the rest of us curse them for killing our groundspeed, to Jim it just meant he got to spend more time in the air.

For him, there was no better place than the cockpit of an aeroplane.

That is just one of a million anecdotes about this icon of Australian aviation that are revealed in a new book Jim Hazelton: Born to Fly. And if that surname is familiar to you, don't be surprised. Jim, along with his brother Max, pioneered the regional Hazelton Airlines, and Jim later formed his own operation, Hazair, which became a household name among the stations of outback NSW for spreading operations and charter.

But as this book shows, it would be a compete miscarriage of justice to limit Jim's aviation contribution to just those operations.

Most aviators who encountered Jim would probably argue that as a flying instructor and international ferry pilot, he had few peers. As a raconteur, dinner guest and occasional boundary-pusher, he probably had even fewer. His influence was felt so widely in Australia and even overseas that author Mark Nelson must have had a nightmare trying to decide which Hazelton stories to put in this book and which ones to leave out.

Jim Hazelton was the sort of character that took on the challenges of pioneering aviation in a place and at a time that desperately needed someone to do it. Driven by a passion for aviation born from watching RAAF training ops during the Second

NS

A new book casts limelight on an aviation pioneer who spent his life achieving remarkable things without seeking recognition.

criss-crossing the globe constantly for decades. He did the transPacific run 200 times.

Caravan to NZ, Islander to Anchorage, Catalina from Portugal to Sydney; all were challenges that Hazelton both conquered and learnt from and elevated him into the pantheon of the world's most sought-after ferry pilots.

Jim's logbooks record 50,000 hours in a range of aircraft that reads like run-down of all types that come under the heading "general aviation." Aero Commanders, Austers, Avro Cadet, Beechcraft of all descriptions, just about every type of Cessna known to exist, Dragons, Drovers, Helio Couriers, a plethora of Pipers, Pitts, SAAB 340, Marchetti, Air Truk, Yeoman ... the book lists 130 types and that's just from the logbooks they can find!

But it's easy to fall into the trap of reducing such a life to hours flown and numbers of aircraft in logbooks, when the only real measure of a man like Jim Hazelton is in the lives he

changed and the impact he had on general aviation in Australia and New South Wales in particular.

One of the companies he founded, Hazair, is still extant today in Albury and still one of the most respected operations in the state.

Author Mark Nelson remarks that Jim's life and career were so vast it was difficult to include everything in just one book, but he has clearly had a shot at it, and in the process produced a biography that readers will be proud to say they have on their shelves.

It is nearly impossible to distil the extent and depth of this biography down to just one page in an aviation magazine, so to delve more into Jim Hazelton, you're going to have to buy this book.

Jim Hazelton: Born to Fly by Mark Nelson RRP: $35.00 Hazelton Publications https://hazelton-publications. square.site

australianflying.com.au

65

Locomotion in your Hand Multi-Mover has a range of tows that will make it so much easier to get your aircraft out of the hangar and slot it back in again.

The M18 and L25 are powered by 900 W motors, the XL35 by an 800 W motor and the XL50 by a 1500 W. Trickle chargers are supplied that will recharge from flat to full in about five hours.

All of these models have castoring third wheel and an ergonomic tiller head that also contains the control buttons including an emergency stop activated by belly pressure.

They are all fitted with a potentiometer, which enables the operator to set a constant speed up to 5 kmh. Battery indicators reveal when it's time for a recharge, which, with normal use, can have a interval as long as two days for the smaller M18 and up to four days for the larger tugs.

According to the agent, the Multi-Mover range has proven efficient on most surfaces encountered at airports, including concrete, grass and gravel.

The tug itself needs to be connected to a tow bar, which enables a connection to the nose wheel of the aircraft or a trailer if you're moving a helicopter on skids. The hitch height can be adjusted to a peak of 450 mm.

Choosing the right tug is not simply a matter of matching the hitch capacity to the empty weight of the aircraft. The load the hitch feels is very different and is impacted by the rolling resistance, surface and slope on which it operates. The M18 has the grunt to output a horizontal traction of 0.9 kN, the L25 1.4 kN, the XL35 2.0 kN and the XL50 2.8 kN. Rather than getting yourself entangled with the mathematics of selecting the correct tug, the best idea is to ask Multi-Mover or their agent, who can do the evaluation for you.

Multi-Mover Tugs Price on Application www.multi-mover.com.au

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MULTI-MOVER

There will be many times in your piloting career that you will wish you could drive an aircraft into and out of the hangar. Alas, they are unable to do it under their own power, so alternative sources of locomotion are needed.

Generally muscle-power does the job, maybe with some recruits from the flying school, or in some cases a winch installed at the back of the hangar makes life easy.

The other method–particularly popular with large aircraft like helicopters, turboprops and twins–is to use a petrol-driven or electric tow to provide the pushing and pulling power. The beauty of this system is that the tow (or "tug") can be relocated to do the job for multiple aircraft and in multiple hangars, unlike a winch that is restricted to the hangar in which it is installed.

Some of the best tugs available come from the Dutch company Multi-Mover.

Multi-Mover manufactures a very broad range of electric tugs, several of which are either too small to haul aircraft or would be outrageous overkill. The sweet spot for GA is in the middle of the range, represented by the pedestrian M18, L25 and XL35/50, which have proven to be the weapons of choice according to local agent Greg Butchart.

Hauling 1800, 2500, 3500 or 5000 kg on the hitch, these Multi-Movers are powered by two 12 V batteries driving either 15- or 16-inch wheels with block tyres to provide good traction on just about any surface, and cope with most of the inclines that are found outside the average hangar door.

E N O E H T P O H S STOP T PILO

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

PH: 03 9587 3400 EMAIL: sales@skylines.com.au

66 Good Sports

SPORT AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA

The Journey of an RV-7 Kathy Mexted tells the story of an RV7A that has been on a long journey that began in a Hong Kong apartment.

O

it home to Mildura as the new owner, it was more advanced than a quick-build, though had no instruments or engine.

Ross has lived in Mildura since his family set up camp on a family grape farm. His enthusiasm as a young bloke lay with motorbikes, but on a date with his wife to the gliding club open day, Ross discovered aviation. His wife wouldn’t get in the glider. But Ross says the launch took his breath away.

When the instructor asked a loaded question, "Can you handle aeros?" Ross suddenly found himself upside down. He

different sports kept everybody on their toes.

Once life eased, Ross then bought a bigger Thruster which was then replaced by a mini cab.

It had been sitting in a Sydney hangar for 20 years and so he refurbished it with new fabric and a reconditioned engine.

A few years later he bought a partially finished quick build Zenith Zodiac.

“three children at three schools doing six different sports kept everybody on their toes.”

Saturday lessons and back within a few hours. He learnt to fly with Ken Cobden in a Skyfox and then bought a Thruster. As often happens, family commitments took priority and three children at three schools doing six

Some people just can’t build enough aeroplanes and in June 2018 he bought the RV7a from Ocean Grove. With Norm Edmunds as his Authorised Person, Ross was issued a Phase 1 on 5 November 2020. Next

KATHY MEXTED

ne way to counteract the jolt of life in a foreign city is to start building an RV7 in your apartment. Mike Killingsworth and Mac Knell never had a cross word in the 13 years they worked together on the project, which, after 12 months, came from Hong Kong home to Ocean Grove, Victoria with their luggage.

Their log book entries cover 2003 to 7 March 2016 and by the time Ross Woodward took

loved it. As he took his early gliding lessons, he began to question the big picture. What does gliding involve? The news wasn’t so appealing to him; you spend a lot of long hot days at the airfield waiting for your turn.

When he saw a couple of ultralights, his attention turned to powered flying and in the early 1990s as a young married man, Ross found he could get to his

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

came a first-life expired IO-360 Lycoming with fuel injection, which he completely rebuilt with a LAME friend, John Peel.

"The crank and cam were good and we got new mains, new big ends and pots. The fuel injection system was reconditioned with new Skytech starter, alternator, magnetos and basically it came back as a zero-houred engine. It was good fun working with John Peel."

Andrew Mason at Ram Air Aviation in Mildura did all the test flying, including the aerobatics and he then endorsed Ross into the aircraft.

After upgrading from RAAus to RPL with Ram Air in a C172, Ross has been hoofing around in the RV ever since.

The first flight was on 17 December 2020 and has since done about 40 hours. His wife doesn’t share Ross’ "RV grin" but the adult children have no qualms about hopping into the RV. He has recently flown to Loxton and Renmark for breakfast, arriving a fair bit quicker than what he is used to. IAS 145kt at 2400 rpm at 2500 feet.

"My mate is a painter, motorcyclist, tattooist and graphic artist. I prepped it all and my mate put the colour on as I didn’t trust myself. We used an established paint booth. It took me weeks of preparation.

"Using two-pack automotive paint, we did the fuse and wings separately and took the ailerons and everything off. After it was painted, we put it all back together extremely carefully!’

The paint scheme was inspired by a love of simplicity. At 68, it can’t last forever and so he reckons if he uses a simple colour (white) with decals, a new purchaser can easily replace the decals without having to redo the whole thing.

Black and grey and white are apparently not "his colours", however it is worth noting that his last aircraft had the same

KATHY MEXTED

australianflying.com.au

colourway and his rugby top is a perfect match.

The family all pored the CASA list and each had ideas about a good rego. Defying the lot of them, the pointy edge of a compass was plunged into the paper and it landed on VKY. It sounded good until Ross started flying and realised Victor Kilo Yankee isn’t as easy to say as it could be. "You idiot!" he thought, but it’s a minor problem.

In the 25-hour test period, VKY has flown to Swan Hill, Lake Mungo, Pooncarrie, Stawell and Renmark. These have been short trips from Mildura, but he’d soon love to go to Ceduna to see family and immerse himself in the fishing and the people.

The mini cab lives on at Wentworth where Ross is still a member of the Wentworth Aero Club since he started flying in 1991. He joined the Mildura Sports Aero Club ten years ago and the Mildura Aero Club two years ago.

"It was initially daunting coming from Wentworth’s quiet CTAF to Mildura where there is RPT and a flying school. Learning to

merge with lots more traffic was challenging and it really keeps you on the ball.

"I Joined SAAA to do my maintenance MPC and weight and balance which I did with the VP, Peter Leonard in Adelaide. They were so nice and so helpful; it was a good introduction and I found everyone so helpful and friendly.

"It’s good."

MAIN: This RV-7A was born in Hong Kong, fostered in Ocean Grove and finished off in Mildura.

TOP: Ross Woodward showing off his “RV grin”.

ABOVE: Ross bought the partially-finished aircraft without instruments, which enabled him to choose his own.

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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68 Safety Matters

Putting it Simply CASA has introduced the first Plain English Guides to aviation safety rules.

C

ASA has signaled its commitment to listening to and acting on feedback from the aviation community with the finalisation of three new plain English guides to the safety regulations. Plain English guides are now available covering the general operating and flight rules, fatigue management and small commercial drone operations.

The guides set out the regulatory requirements in concise, clear language using a practical format. They summarise and re-state the content of the relevant Civil Aviation Safety Regulations (CASR) and the associated Manual of Standards.

If a pilot, air operator or drone operator carefully follows a guide they can normally expect

CIVIL AVIATION SAFETY AUTHORITY

to comply with the relevant regulations. It means people in the aviation community do not have to trawl through the detail of the regulations and standards for the information they need.

The new guides are part of a genuine commitment by CASA to make things easier for the aviation community. They were developed after listening to feedback from the aviation community about the need to make compliance with the regulations easier and for practical support in delivering safety outcomes.

At a time when the transition to new regulations means there can be additional challenges for the aviation community, CASA is asking itself what more can be done to support and assist in regulatory and safety compliance.

The goal is to allow individuals and operators to focus on the safety of their operations, flying and businesses.

CASA is already working on guides covering other key parts of the safety regulations with the goal of building a library of plain English safety information that will be of most benefit to the aviation community. The guides are available both online and in print, so people can choose the format that suits them.

The current guides cover Parts

91 and 101 of the CASRs and the 2019 fatigue instrument under Civil Aviation Order 48.1. Print copies of the guides can be ordered through CASA’s online store and PDF versions can be downloaded free from the CASA web site.

Fostering skills and safety CASA is active in its sponsorship and scholarship programs as part of the ongoing promotion of aviation safety.

and organisational culture • implementing safety management systems or practices • supporting new or changed aviation rules • drone safety rules.

CASA can consider sponsorship applications for activities outside these priorities.

These would need to have a strong safety focus, address known risk factors and lead to improved aviation safety outcomes.

The current round of sponsorship will be open for

The new guides are part of a genuine commitment by CASA to make things easier The yearly sponsorship program supports workshops, seminars, educational programs and activities designed to shape attitudes and behaviour towards safety improvements.

Sponsorship is usually financial, with most being less than $5000.

In 2021 and 2022, CASA is looking for sponsorship proposals that support current safety priorities in a number of key areas. These are: • the importance of pre-flight planning • human factors, decision making

CASA’s new Plain English Guides cover CASR Parts 91 and 101, and CAO 48.1

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

australianflying.com.au

applications from 6 September to 1 October 2021. Applications can be made through CASA’s web site.

Recently CASA also announced the winners of the first ever aircraft maintenance engineer scholarships. The original plan had been to give three up-and-coming aircraft maintenance engineers a $5000 scholarship each to help them achieve their Part 66 licence.

However, with a large number of quality applications the program was expanded to six scholarships in 2021.

The scholarships recognise the key role engineers play in aviation safety and in supporting a vibrant aviation community. With skills shortages being faced by many industries the support for upand-coming engineers is a timely investment by CASA. The engineering scholarships went to two women and four men working in both general aviation and airline maintenance. Two are working in helicopter maintenance.

Each scholarship will reimburse relevant costs to achieve a CASA Part 66 aircraft maintenance engineers licence.

Training can be done through an approved maintenance training organisation or a CASA-approved alternative training pathway and by demonstrating successful completion of competencies.

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69

Down to

Business 40 Years of the ABAA

Dassault is forging ahead with developing the Falcon 6X despite a general down-turn in business aviation.

David Bell of the Australian Business Aviation Association goes back over developments in the industry since 1981.

Growth of the ABAA The not-for-profit ABAA has grown substantially since I joined in 2003, with membership now in excess of 65 companies.

Thirty-five companies operate over 140 business jets and turboprops, which are used for private business, charter, aeromedical and search and rescue duties. Twentyeight member companies supply a wide range of business aircraft and other products, as well as support services for our industry.

Also, the ABAA has several honorary members, who have

provided many years of dedicated service to business aviation throughout Australia and worldwide. Honorary members include Phillip Reiss, who served as ABAA chairman in the 1980s.

IBAC influence Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, IBAC has represented business aviation interests at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) for 40 years. IBAC members include 15 business aviation associations around the world and several industry partners such as Bombardier and Flight Safety International. The US National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) was the first to be formed in 1947, followed by Canada in 1961 and Europe in 1977.

IBAC has raised the profile of business aviation significantly during the past 40 years.

International recognition has also contributed to the success of member associations including the ABAA. Being part of an international body with high profile member associations throughout the world is vital for our continuing success. Also, membership of IBAC strengthens our relationships with CASA and Airservices Australia.

Development of safety management systems by IBAC commenced in the late 1990s and led to the introduction of the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations

DASSAULT AVIATION

B

oth the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) and the Australian Business Aviation Association (ABAA) were formed in 1981, following strong business aviation growth internationally and in Australia in the 1970s. IBAC, together with several business aviation associations, including the ABAA, then commenced to promote safe practices for the industry and to provide advocacy for their members.

Australia continued to boom in the 1980s until the economy became overstretched, leading to a recession in 1990-91, when interest rates rose to in excess of 20%. Many business jets were subsequently sold overseas and the ABAA became dormant for 10 years until 2002, when it was reformed.

(IS-BAO) in 2002 and the International Standard for Business Aircraft Handling (IS-BAH) in 2014. Evolutionary improvements to these safety standards have been driven

by IBAC Standards Boards, which at times have included representatives from the ABAA. IS-BAO and IS-BAH are voluntary, global codes of best safety practices for business aviation, made by the industry and for the industry. Should the ABAA decide to conduct a conference focused on safety in the next year or so, IBAC would be a valuable resource to ensure those participating as presenters and panelists are able to provide the audience with accurate information and appropriate insights regarding the IS-BAO and IS-BAH programs.

The top 10 Recently released statistics by the USA BCA Digest show the top 10 business aviation aircraft types delivered in the first half of 2021 were: • 33 Pilatus PC12 NGXs • 22 Cirrus SF50 Visions • 21 Daher TBM 9 series • 18 Bombardier Globals • 17 Pilatus PC24s • 15 Embraer Phenom 300Es

• • • •

13 Piper M600s 13 Citation Latitudes 13 Bombardier Challenger 350s 13 Bombardier Global 6500s The above tells only part of the story as other business aircraft types were also delivered in the first half of 2021, including Gulfstream jets and King Airs.

COVID-19 The economic burden of COVID-19 has been crushing for many sectors, particularly, aviation and tourism, with international business aviation activity expected to remain low.

Internal border lockdowns have continued to disrupt travel within Australia, and even though the opening of an Australia-New Zealand airline travel bubble early in 2021 provided travel opportunities for many Aussies and Kiwis, the prohibition of business aviation arrivals in NZ not requiring hotel quarantine, has been very frustrating for Australian and NZ business aircraft operators.

Meetings have been held by two major Auckland Airport FBOs with NZ government officials in an effort to gain helpful ministerial responses, hopefully leading to this anomaly being resolved soon.

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

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What can we

learn?

JIM DAVIS

Jim Davis has 15,000 hours of immensely varied flying experience, including 10,000 hours civil and military flying instruction. He is an established author, his current projects being an instructors’ manual and a collection of Air Accident analyses, called ‘Choose not to Crash’.

A Dry Argument CAA ACCIDENT SUMMARY REPORT AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This discussion contains extracts from the SACAA’s accident report.

It is compiled in the interest of promoting aviation safety and is not to establish legal liability.

Aircraft Registration: ZS-KXJ Date of Accident: 22 November 2012 Time of Accident: 1300Z Type of Aircraft: 1981 Cessna 182R Type of Operation: Firefighting Pilot-in-command Licence Type: CPL Age: 27 Licence Valid: Yes Flying Experience: 335 Hours Hours on Type: 94 Last point of departure: Ulco Next point of intended landing: Kimberley Location of the accident: 6 km NW of Ulco mine.

Meteorological Information: Surface wind SW 510 kt. Temp 25°C to 30°C. Vis fair Number of people on board: 1 + 1 No. of people injured: 1 No. of people killed: 0 SYNOPSIS On 22 November 2012 the pilot accompanied by a passenger took from Ulco mine for a fire fighting operation near Koopmansfontein. The entire morning was spent working on the fire with aerial resources and farmers that were available.

The pilot mentioned that he was operating for approximately four hours and was about to depart when he experienced engine problems. The engine surged and the pilot leveled out to execute a forced landing onto the gravel road.

Whilst heading for the gravel

road he put the mixture on rich and the engine began to run smoothly again. The pilot then decided to head for the nearest landing strip which was Ulco mine. He slowly climbed at about 95 KIAS to reach to the airfield as soon as possible and to gain enough height. At approximately 3 minutes en route to the runway, the engine surged again and the pilot changed to the left fuel tank.

As he was heading to the runway the engine surged again he selected the fuel tank to BOTH. In addition the pilot suspected carburettor icing and applied the carburettor heat and kept it there for a minute and put it off. The engine continued surging again.

The pilot had the runway in sight but was too far to make it and the tar road was too busy.

He opted to land on an open farm which was clear of trees but had two sets of power lines running perpendicular to the aircraft’s path. The pilot aimed to make it over the power lines but only had enough speed and height to make it over the first set of power lines and turned left.

The pilot tried to re-start the engine again but to no avail and elected to shut down. He then applied flaps and landed the aircraft. The aircraft skidded for approximately 150-200 m before the wings collided with trees.

The aircraft sustained extensive damage to the wings, fuselage, left hand undercarriage and the nose undercarriage broke off.

The fuel tanks were confirmed to be empty and although the left hand wing was ruptured there was no fuel spillage.

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

Jim’s Analysis There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye. I have noticed that single engine Cessnas run out of fuel a lot more often than Cherokees. My guess is that the ratio is about five-to-one against Cessna. There has to be good reasons, and there are indeed – three main ones: dihedral, aerofoil section and tank breathers.

I have no idea why this particular Cessna ran out of fuel, but the problem is so common that it’s worth devoting this accident discussion to explaining why you have to keep your fuel wits about you when flying single engine Cessnas.

Dihedral This is the upslope of the wings.

Designers use it for lateral stability in low-wing aircraft. This has an unintended benefit: it makes the fuel tanks slope in towards the fuselage so that the fuel pools at the

inboard ends of the tanks. Because high-wing aircraft have almost flat bottom tanks, the fuel can easily move away from the outlet – so the engine starts sucking air instead of fuel. This condition is called unporting. The main reason for fuel to move away from the outlet is flying with the ball out of the middle.

Let’s give this a bit more thought.

If the aircraft is parked on a lateral slope–say left wing down–you can understand that the fuel in the right tank will move towards the fuselage, while fuel in the left tank will go towards the wingtip, and away from the outlet pipe.

The fuel goes where the ball goes. So if you fly straight but left wing low, the fuel in both tanks moves to the left. And you will notice that the ball is out to the left.

If you do a balanced turn to the left the fuel will go nowhere – it will stay right where it is meant to be because the fuel goes where the ball goes. On a low-wing aircraft the fuel is less prone to unporting.

australianflying.com.au

BOB ADAMS

Aiming to make safer pilots of us, here veteran instructor Jim Davis looks at extracts from official CAA Accident Reports from his homeland of South Africa and analyses why things went wrong and how we may all avoid making similar mistakes.

Aerofoil section Cherokees have a fat laminar-flow wing – with the thickest part, where the main spar is, well back.

Piper put their fuel tanks in this huge volume ahead of the spar.

Cessna uses a shallower, more traditional aerofoil with the spar further forward. So they have to use long thin tanks that fit between the main and aileron spars.

Breather system Fuel tank breathers are designed to let air into the tanks to replace the fuel that leaves them. But as soon as you let air in, you also are likely to let water in – particularly if you fly in rain. Cessnas have a strange way of preventing this: they have a pipe that connects the two tanks, which means that they need to fit a breather to one tank only.

Both types of aircraft have breathers in their fuel caps. Piper got it right first try, but Cessna have been struggling with fuel cap design for more than 50 years.

They have brought out mod after mod after expensive mod in their attempts to let the air in and keep the water out. If you wash your Cessna, or leave it out in the rain, you are likely to get water in through the caps. The latest caps have a red tops to them – to indicate that they are the latest ones, and I think they have got it right at last.

The heart of the problem is Cessna’s stupid interconnect between the tanks.

Parking Let’s say you are planning on an early start, as this pilot obviously was, you will probably refuel the evening before. Now, if the surface is not dead level, the fuel in the higher tank migrates through the interconnecting pipe to the lower tank and then overflows on to the ground. You may spot this on the concrete, but then again you may not. In the hot, dry climate of the Kimberley area, where this guy

was operating, you can easily lose 30 minute's fuel as it evaporates on the hot dry concrete.

If you park on the dirt the same applies, and if you park on the grass – well you are just not going to see the overflowed fuel at all.

So how do you know if the aircraft is dead level? The ball will tell you, but who says the ball was mounted level in the aircraft? The instrument has to be leveled in the panel. And if it’s not right when the aeroplane is parked, it’s not going to be right in the air. So the rule that the fuel goes where the ball goes is only infallible if the instrument has been fitted dead level.

This can also account for aeroplanes that, because they are flying slightly sideways, just don’t feel right in the air, or are a bit slow, or use a bit more fuel than usual. This is apart from the fact that fuel is venting overboard because of imbalance.

If you refuel in the cool of the morning and only depart in the cool of the evening, the fuel will have expanded during the heat of the day and vented out, so the tanks will not be full for your night flight. Of course this applies to low wings as well.

Taxying It’s unlikely that you will lose a noticeable amount of fuel taxying but beware what the yanks call a “rolling take-off.” This is when you do a cowboy turn onto the runway and open the taps. Let’s say the turn is to the left. In the turn your body gets pushed to the right by centrifugal reaction and so does the ball and so does the fuel. This means the fuel in the right tank may unport and the engine will lose power or stop during take-off. Beechcraft handbooks specifically warn about this. And being low wing they are less prone to the problem than low-dihedral high wings.

If you try this you will come up short by up to one whole hour Straight and level Again, I’m afraid Cessna’s breathers let them down badly.

The interconnect pipe allows full-ish tanks to cross-feed which means that you can never be sure how much fuel you have used from either tank.

It’s no use timing fuel usage on one tank and expecting to get the same from the second tank. If you try this you will come short by up to one whole hour. I have spent years bitching about this, writing about it and warning pilots about it, but it still happens. I believe this cross-feeding in flight is the main reason that Cessna pilots keep running out of fuel. The situation is compounded by the selector having a both position.

If you select both it increases the potential for cross-feeding and fuel management means nothing.

Deliberate sideslipping If you plan to sideslip, either for a crosswind landing, or to lose height, make sure you select the upper tank. So if you are going to sideslip to the left you need to select the right tank before you start.

I’d love to give you my normal list of snappy take-home points – but there are simply too many to be memorable. So let me leave you with just this one, which is perhaps at the bottom of most Cessna fuel woes: beware fuel migration from one tank to the other – both on the ground and in the air.

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72

Kreisha

of habit

KREISHA BALLANTYNE

Kreisha Ballantyne is one of the most recognisable aviation writers in Australia. With experience writing for several aviation titles, Kreisha has a broad base of experience, an ability to tap into important general aviation issues and a talent for expressing in simple terms what everyone is thinking. An active pilot, she lives and loves aviation.

Seize the Breeze Confined to quarters during Sydney’s July lockdown gave Kreisha Ballantyne time to reflect on where her personality sits with her aircraft of choice.

A

s I write this, Sydney and Melbourne are back in lockdown and the groundhog days of not knowing the date, day of the week or time of day are back. Once again, it’s hard to remember how the days of freedom felt.

Every time we re-enter lockdown, it’s another reminder of how I am not “seizing the breeze” when we’re not restricted.

Why aren’t I flying more often?

Either by joining a syndicate or just keeping my skills sharp with an instructor until the magical day arrives when I can own my own aircraft (and maybe even hangar and airstrip in the country, because what are we without our dreams? Robots!) – I should be flying, but I am not.

Even though training is permitted in the NSW lockdown, Bankstown Airport is slap-bang in a COVID hotspot. With our lockdown rules in NSW being ambiguous to say the least, I cannot responsibly say that turning up at the airport for flying training (in my case) is an essential reason to leave the house.

While advice from my lockdown-seasoned Victorian friends is fly whenever the restrictions are lifted, I’m finding that like a lot of people over a

certain age, my learning and growth are solidified best if I can fly in bulk. The stop-start nature of the lockdown is causing havoc with my currency. Several potential flight plans have been canceled due to border restrictions and the fear of being stuck somewhere should lockdown restrictions suddenly change.

Once again, the air shows have been postponed, which really sucks when you have an employer who encourages their staff to fly in to events.

I understand this is a “firstworld problem” but not being able to travel–either by flying myself or taking RPT–was starting to darken my pilot’s soul. So, in June, I took advantage of a gap in the restrictions, and boarded my first airliner of the year from SydneyTownsville.

With a big birthday looming, and my train trip across Europe canceled, my best friend and I decided to splash out on five nights on a luxury island in Queensland. With the only way in and out via helicopter, I got the chance to spend an hour in the right-hand seat of an EC135, which I consider almost as good a birthday present as the free bar on the tropical island. My darkened soul began to lift as soon as the Uber pulled up to the hangar. Any flight is good, but the front seat

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

Which one are you? Kreisha believes your personality generally matches your preferred aircraft type.

of a massive helicopter would be awesome. Unfortunately, there were four others in the group, aside from my friend and myself, so I needed to get creative to score the front seat.

Forewarned about the stringency of the luggage allowance (15 kg!) I was still rather cavalier and had overpacked by 1.8 kg. The pilot– who done his weight and balance by hand!–was not amused as the aircraft was full, with another four passengers in addition to my friend and myself. After much checking and rechecking, I was let off being charged an excess luggage fee – partially because I played the I’m-a-pilot-myself card, careful to note I was fixedwing only to avoid getting tripped

up by any rotor technicalities.

Announcing I was a pilot myself caused something of a stir amongst the other passengers, who claimed I didn’t look like the pilot type. However, my confession scored me the front seat –“in case anything happened to the pilot”, I insisted – hoping the group would be ignorant of the fact that the only real help I could offer in the case of an emergency would be as radio operator. Glancing at our EC135 pilot–a serious, introvert type in a neatly pressed uniform–I could certainly see what they meant, but I couldn’t help but wonder: what is a pilot type?

As we walked through the hangar to board the helicopter, one of the group (Tony) pointed

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I don’t usually make ‘sensible’ purchases at the other aircraft in the hangar (a Tiger Moth, an Archer, an R44 and a small, high-wing ultralight) and asked, “do you fly this sort of stuff?” Rather than bore him with the specifics, I nodded and said, “some of them, yes.” Tony, however, was far from bored and asked me question after question about learning to fly, associated costs, whether you need to study at uni and would I ever consider owning my own aircraft. And then he asked: of these aircraft here, which would you buy?

When I told him the Archer, he was surprised; he’d buy the Tiger

Moth, so why wouldn’t I? It looks so cool and vintage and fun, he said (Tony, it turned out, collects vintage cars).

As I rattled out the reasons as to why I would own an Archer over a Tiger Moth–cost, speed, ease of landing, etcetera – I realised that general aviation is the only place where I wouldn’t buy something that fits my personality type. All my life I’ve considered myself “style over substance” but here I was telling a vintage car collector (with whom I’d immediately shared pictures of my own classic car) that I would choose the

equivalent of a Toyota Corolla over a vintage Jaguar.

As readers of this column might remember, I’ve been browsing the Book of Dreams all year, preparing myself for potential aircraft ownership. While I’ve concluded it’s unlikely I can afford to own and run a whole aircraft to myself, I am in a position to buy one and start a syndicate, or to join an existing set-up.

Admittedly, my budget does not match my taste, but that’s not the reason I’ve been shopping in the sensible aircraft section. Or is it?

Anyone who has been actively searching for an aircraft over the past year will attest it’s very much a seller’s market at the moment, with some second-hand aircraft selling before they even hit the classies. I’ve narrowed down my sensible choices to aircraft like the ever-reliable Archer or a low-wing recreational aircraft, but I spend my actual time salivating over vintage Bonanzas, particularly the V-tail variety. I realised I hadn’t made a real move on any aircraft because my head and heart are in very different places. One of the reasons I’m not seizing the breeze when we’re not locked down is because I can’t see a clear flight path for me, moving forward.

After we landed on the island, and were sipping our welcome drinks, it occurred to me that I don’t usually make “sensible” purchases: my classic car has spent more time with my mechanic than with me, I bought a damp Victorian terrace under Sydney’s flightpath because I loved its “period features” and I was, at that very moment, sipping champagne on an island whose accommodation costs were greater than the return flight to Europe I could have just waited another year to book.

I thought about every aircraft owner I knew and whether their personalities matched their aircraft. My sensible, practical engineer friend in his ever-reliable,

slightly over-equipped C182, the corporate engineer with his immaculate weekend aerobat, the two Europeans I know who after a full week in an office spend the whole weekend gliding, the medical specialists who belong to the elite echelons of the Cirrus life, the tinkerers who spend every waking hour building their dreams from kits, the fabulous old Yak owner who fulfils his boyhood fantasies by restoring warbirds, the entrepreneur who owns a super-fast turbo-prop for business and a powered glider for pleasure. Every aircraft owner I know seizes the breeze in the way that befits their personality.

By my third glass of champagne, it occurred to me that aviation is my alter-ego. In all other areas of my life, I’m reckless, impulsive and flamboyant, but in aviation I’m cautious, conservative and measured. If I were a cartoon, I would have had a lightbulb drawn above my head: the reason I’m struggling to find an aircraft that fits my personality is that my aviation personality and my nonaviation personality are at odds with each other. The sensible aviation personality knows that my choices are fine for a relatively low hour, relatively low-earning VFR pilot who isn’t going to fly more than around 50-100 hours per year (in a good year, with no restrictions) but my stylish, ego driven non-aviation personality feels I will be betraying myself if I buy the aviation equivalent of a Hyundai Getz.

So, I can blame the lockdown and I can blame my lack of time, but in truth, the reason I’m not seizing the breeze is that I don’t have a clear plan that suits me. I’ve spent buckets of cash over the years, hiring slightly unsatisfactory aircraft from flying schools and I can’t bring myself to do it anymore, but at the same time, I can’t buy an aircraft, either, until I can feel it with my head and my heart.

September – October 2021 AUSTRALIAN FLYING

73

PHILIP SMART

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AMDA FOUNDATION

74 Short Final

Facing Down the Storm Philip Smart, Head of Industry and Corporate Communications at AMDA Foundation, reflects on the recent success of RotorTech 2021.

I

f the success of June’s RotorTech Helicopter and Unmanned Flight Exposition demonstrated anything, it was that the Australian helicopter and unmanned flight communities are a resilient bunch, and that faceto-face engagement is still high on the industry’s priority list .

Originally planned for 2020, the event held at Brisbane’s Royal International Convention Centre from 15-17 June signaled the first time RotorTech had been held in a capital city location, after outgrowing its original Sunshine Coast venue.

Despite the challenges of COVID-19, RotorTech 2021 not only succeeded in providing the Australian helicopter and unmanned flight communities with a welcome return to face-toface engagement, but also grew markedly in the process. The event attracted 1806 attendances across the three days, around twice that of the 2018 event, and a 40% increase in exhibitor numbers.

Ian Honnery, CEO of AMDA Foundation, the not-for-profit organisation that organises and delivers RotorTech, said research showed that both communities were more than ready to get back into live events.

"We believed that industry sought an in-person event as a platform to begin rebuilding confidence and reaffirming faceto-face relationships," he said.

"From the first day of RotorTech the buzz in the industry exhibition and conferences showed that the helicopter and unmanned flight communities were enthusiastic about being there, and were making the most of the opportunity.”

Despite what the armchair experts told us about COVID’s “new normal” of electronic communication, every industry needs an opportunity to come together face to face. There is no better means of hashing out issues affecting the community, sharing stories of how operators have overcome this challenge or created that new idea, or

AUSTRALIAN FLYING September – October 2021

speaking directly with the regulator, manufacturers, suppliers and each other. And no electronic alternative can compete with socialising with colleagues who share both the highs and lows of the industry.

It’s this face-to-face interaction, the chance conversation and

mainstream commercial industry.

Speaking during the event, Australian Helicopter Industry Association president Ray Cronin said this RotorTech was as much about moving on from the constraining environment of COVID as it was about doing business.

“It’s been a long road to this RotorTech through the COVID pandemic,” Cronin said. “When we ran in to difficulties and had to talk about whether to postpone this event, we always came back to the view that putting on a successful RotorTech would help bring confidence back to the industry.”

And for the unmanned systems community, Australian Association for Unmanned Systems (AAUS) board member Andrew Crowe said the association’s “From Maybe to Mainstream – Realising Drone Potential” conference was an important event for an industry that has come a long way in a short time, and understands that collaboration within the industry will help ensure the future of the industry itself.

“There was a lot of discussion that demonstrated an appetite for industry collaborating with each other, learning from each other’s mistakes and sharing the best way to do things as we move towards becoming a highly professional industry,” Crowe said.

“From the first speaker to the last, the tremendous amount

putting on a successful RotorTech would help bring confidence back to the industry unexpected meeting, that often provide the nugget of information or inspiration on which business development thrives.

And both major communities at RotorTech were in the mood to talk: the helicopter community highlighting developments in aerial firefighting, operations and regulation, and the unmanned flight community navigating its way through the critical juncture of rapid development and innovation towards becoming a

of experience in the room and in the program was obvious.

There were some very insightful presentations from people who are now conducting more complex operations with unmanned aircraft.”

RotorTech was a circuit breaker for COVID gloom, and a welcome platform for business to get back to business. But more than that, it was a meeting place for a community that has maintained its resilience in the face of the COVID storm.

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