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A SPIN IS A SPIN

On 23 rd  May CASA released a Safety update : spin recovery training which “highlighted that there can be varying interpretations of an ‘incipient spin’, and this has led to aircraft not approved for intentional spins being used for incipient spin training and assessment.” Issue 2 of CASA’s Flight Instructor Manual of December 2006 has a Chapter on Stalling which includes the technique for stall recovery “when the wing drops”. There is also a Chapter on Spins and Spirals which includes two different techniques for recovery from an incipient spin. On page 52 it explains the situation where the spin is entered in the normal manner and recovering “before the spin develops fully”. On page 53 it describes the same entry technique however it goes on to state “as soon as the aeroplane has stalled and commenced to yaw take the appropriate recovery action.” That recovery action is different than on the previous page and is identical to that explained in the earlier chapter for a stall with
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LOC-I in Australian General Aviation

Flight Safety Australia Magazine 2016 http://www.flightsafetyaustralia.com/2016/03/angle-attitude-stallspin-crashes-and-how-to-avoid-them/ “According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), in 2014, the number of aircraft ‘control problems’ involving general aviation (GA) aircraft was the highest [it has been] in the last 10 years. This was significantly greater than the 10-year average; however, it was consistent with the general trend (since 2010) of increasing aircraft control occurrences in GA. Around 70 per cent of these occurrences involved aeroplanes and greater than 50 per cent involved aircraft conducting private/business/sports operations. There were 60 accidents—two fatal and six serious injury accidents—and four serious incidents. Of these occurrences, 22 were investigated by the ATSB. The most common control issues were loss of control, hard landings and wheels-up landings. The United States’ ATSB equivalent, the National Transportation Safety Board (NT
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Contest Categories

The trouble with being on holiday is that there is too much spare time which occasionally leads to cogitation. Today it is the aerobatic contest categories. For a long while, contest entry level was Sportsman then Intermediate, Advanced and Unlimited. This mirrored the IAC as, in Australia, we initially followed the IAC rules. I can remember typing up (i.e. on a small manual typewriter so it was many years ago) the first set of rules for the AAC tailored for us. Only Unlimited was in the realm of CIVA back then. We used to use the IAC Known sequences for many years. CIVA has progressively expanded its scope to now include Intermediate / Yak 52 and Advanced – all with a distinctively European flavour as each country gets one vote. As CIVA swings in favour of the aeroplane types prevalent there the IAC sensibly continues to do it the way that suits their many members in the USA and the airplane types used there. For a while CIVA tried to limit the performance of aircraft typ
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CASR Part 61 - Flight crew licensing

CASA has a new Consultation Draft - CASR Part 61 - Flight crew licensing with 3 Feb 2012 the closing date for comments. When the first draft of Part 61 came out about ten years ago we also had a draft Advisory Circular 91-075 to read in conjunction with it to explain how it would work - as far as aerobatics is concerned. It is also important to read it in conjunction with the draft Part 91. This time we don't have a draft AC and I really fail to see how CASA would make their draft regs wrt aerobatics function practically. Discussion points follow. The first point about the new regs is that it is a two tier system replacing the existing three tier system i.e. there will be no CAO equivalent. The regs should define the essential requirements leaving the AC to describe a method of compliance - in the case of aerobatics I would expect that would also represent internal CASA policy therefore mandated as the way that delegates would operate. Perhaps there will be a Manual of Sta
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Aerobatic Contest Rules Discussion Notes

Just some discussion notes about the Australian Aerobatic Club's Regulations (current version March 2010). The Contest Director is responsible for "conducting the contest in accordance with AAC ... Regulations" (I won't include CIVA rules in this discussion). They'll never be perfect but they should be continually reviewed and amended as appropriate to reflect how we want to run contests. i.e. we expect the Contest Director to follow the rules at the time. 4.3 REASONS FOR DISQUALIFICATION "b) Technical Devices - the use of technical devices for the purpose of coaching during a competition flight is prohibited." Seems to me that some people use video cameras on board the aircraft during a competition flight so are they cheating or not? 4.4 ETHICS "Abuse of any contest official or other contestant is grounds for disqualification from the contest." From the introduction, the AAC "acts through the Australian Sport Aviation Confederation&
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Your Street

From the Sunday Herald-Sun newspaper on The Basin, just down the road from us: " Local councils are filled with petty bureaucrats obsessed with over-regulating the lives of suburban residents." Reminds me of the tree saga. We called the council tree expert as we were worried about one tree. He said that was OK but identified two others that should be removed - that was 10 years ago and all are still doing well. At the same time we mentioned a dead tree next to the road just at the front of our place. They weren't interested in removing it. Electricity company sent me a letter demanding removal as it was near the power lines and unsafe - I told them to talk to council. It was indeed unsafe - it came down on the road one night, fortunately no-one was injured. The there was the spa pool fence. I rang the council and was told that I needed a permit for the fence around my portable spa pool. I filled in the form and sent the money. Got a phone call from them a few days la
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Too Dumb To Fly

Editorial in the Sept-Oct issue of AOPA's magazine , Australian Pilot. "A group of us was standing around the other day discussing the death of a fellow pilot in a crash. The newspaper story on the accident which took the pilot's life (and that of his passenger), told the usual story about what a great bloke he had been and how he had died "doing what he loved." We all made the appropriate noises about how terrible the whole thing was for the man's family, especially for the family of the passenger who died. Then one member of our group muttered that the crash had not come as a surprise to him and that he would never have flown with the pilot. "He was an accident waiting to happen, that bloke," he said. Others mumbled their agreement, obviously reluctant to speak of the dead. I hadn't knowm the pilot and so pressed them for more information. Gradually, the members of the group who had known the dead pilot, admitted more and more information
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