Australia hands us a grand canvas for light aircraft flying, Shelley Ross says in this edition. ‘Once you get past the busy controlled airspace that defines a lot of our frankly gorgeous seaboard, there’s a whole lot of beautiful Class G and E airspace for us to use, handing us our passport into the best of regional and outback Australia.’ She has good tips for flying OCTA, including making correct radio calls, doing early planning when flying into an unfamiliar aerodrome and joining air safaris.
Pilots will find more helpful tips in Monica Kade’s feature, Scanning: the art of seeing. ‘Every flight hinges on the sharpness of a pilot’s eyes and their ability to scan the skies effectively,’ she writes.
One of the less considered challenges of IFR flying is managing traffic, particularly around non-controlled aerodromes. In Better off apart, Nick Stobie says ATC assists with en route separation and handles the flow of traffic into the controlled aerodromes around our major centres. But when we descend into and depart from aerodromes in Class G airspace, the responsibility for separation is thrust onto the pilot.
In Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Brendan Reinhardt says the widely misunderstood phenomenon of servo transparency – or jack stall – can turn a helicopter pilot into a passenger, without any warning. He analyses an incident when a Squirrel helicopter carrying skiers in Colorado skimmed too close to ridges and ploughed into one, but all passengers survived.
In the close call, Bogged down in assumptions, a reader recalls flying to a familiar cattle station where the owner had said they were going to upgrade the dirt strip. ‘I assumed he had because it looked like asphalt,’ the reader says. However, the uncertified black soil strip looked dark only because of rain and the aircraft became bogged. The lesson learnt: ‘In hindsight, the wiser course of action would have been to complete a precautionary search and landing and then consider my options.’
This 64-page edition includes crash comics, quizzes and valuable safety insights, making it a must-read for aviation enthusiasts.
Flight Safety Australia is also available for annual subscription.
