CASA is always at us about fuel management, but it seems to me we actually don't have any accurate way of knowing how much fuel we have on board. In the ATSB Short Investigations Bulletin No.46 released this week there were two fuel-related incidents, the most serious being the crash of a skydive plane in Adelaide. In that particular case, CASA hinted that the aircraft concerned may have had two dipsticks, calibrated differently. I have come across this myself. I recently hired a plane where the dipstick was marked 50, 60, 80, 90, 110. What happened to 70 and 100? Dipping tanks is considered the most accurate way of checking fuel levels, given that even with calibration charts, gauges just can't be relied on. Yet it seems to me that the dipsticks we use are hardly precision instruments.
Every year on Australia Day I ferret through the Australia Day Honours List to see which aviation luminaries have been gonged for their services to aviation. This year, it appears there weren't that many. Richard de Crespigny scored an AM, which was very much deserved, and Cliff Robinson from Queensland Air Museum got an OAM. But other than those two, there was hardly a mention of aviation at all. There can be only two possible answers to this: no-one is worthy or no-one got nominated. In what are very tough times for general aviation, there are still people out there battling relentlessly for the industry. Without them, general aviation would be in an even more desperate position (yes, it is possible) that it is now. That leads me to believe that there are plenty of worthy people out there. Consequently, the answer must be that they aren't getting nominated. Now, I do know that many aviation people have been nominated and granted honours over the years, but there are also many who have done more than their bit who still go unrecognised. We as an industry need to step up and nominate; it is the very altruistic nature of these people that prevents them from nominating themselves.
Pilots of NSW, you are being handed a golden chance to fly one of the sexiest and fastest single-engine props on the market. Aeromil Pacific is touring their Cessna TTx demonstrator throughout the state next week. If you haven't had a close encounter with one of these yet, it's about time you did. They cockpit is one of the most comfortable I've sat in, and even though the avionics are Garmin 2000 with all the associated glass, there are a lot of familiar things about it as well. Book yourself a test flight with Aeromil Pacific and experience this machine for yourself.
And just in case there are any IFR aircraft out there that have never upgraded to GPS, you have until Thursday to get it done! The next round of mandates kicks in. As well as being all about performance-based navigation (PBN), this is also happening because Airservices is planning to decommission most of the VORs and NDBs around the country in the next few years. There'll be a back-up network still in place, but it's not going to be extensive.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch