Cyprus-Forum.com

[Londonrake]

I remember those!!

A race memory from the 60s and 70s that they were related to:

Dist.jpg

They always seemed to go together in the dark.............................. and invariably when it was raining. As I recall.

[Kikapu]

I know very little about modern cars to fix anything, but back in the early 80’s in the US, I had a girlfriend (we are still friends) who had a VW Beatle and I learned to adjust the valves gap and the points every 3,000 miles, about once every 1-2 months. It was a lot of fun and was well rewarding to hear the sound of a “sawing machine” whilst driving down the road.

[Paphitis]

You should have ....pulled the one that has bells on. Still you are young and still learning I suppose.
By the way, will I have your ....esteemed support at the forthcoming Cyprus elections? On the other hand best not to, you always appear to back losers

No alarms. All we have is 2 Exhaust Gas Temp Gauges. The temp rises extremely fast to begin with because the fan is rotating slow at first not pulling a lot of cool air in and as the igniters ignite the temperature rises to anyway between 800 and 900 degrees in about 5 seconds before it stabilises. Max EGT is 960 degrees. Well we got to probably around 980 or so degreees. Makes your heart flutter because you don’t want to be the guy costing the business big bucks.

Our hands is always on the fuel shut off. As soon as we hit 960 we pulled it. Temp still rising momentarily to 970 degrees and then declining fast to a residual temp of about 400 degrees.

If we were over 960 for more than 3 seconds, you cook the turbine.

We are only allowed 2 attempts, then wait 5 minutes and then a final attempt.

Always better starting into wind but in Sydney, not always possible because of the number of planes there. Well there are not as many as there use to be a year ago but it’s a busy airport.

Just as a tidbit, the 2 most busiest airways in the world as in the most busiest and second most busiest is in Australia between Melbourne and Sydney. It’s the busiest airspace in the world apparently.

It’s the SY-ML and SY-BN route and BN-ML is in the top 10 as well.

[Paphitis]

The hardest but about my day today is that on engine start I had an over temp on the number 2 engine for 1 second which necessitated a fuel cut off. Tried again and had another over temp. Then had to wait 5 minutes for the turbine to cool down, tried again and another over temp.

The danger here is that if the over temp goes for more than 3 seconds you cook the turbine. The engine has to be removed and reconditioned costing a few million. So had to wait for an engineer to come. In the end, another plane was flown from Canberra so that the engineers can do an engine change tomorrow. Spent a couple of hours in the lounge. Pity I couldn’t have any alcohol.

If you had one of these point-gap gauges, you could have fixed the problem yourself.

C14367AD-E808-4A0A-B19B-266BCE6A9B55.jpeg

I offered Kikapu. But they told me to go to the lounge.

Something about not being a licensed engineer.

I said if I’m flying this today, the head engineer is coming too as insurance.

[Kikapu]

The hardest but about my day today is that on engine start I had an over temp on the number 2 engine for 1 second which necessitated a fuel cut off. Tried again and had another over temp. Then had to wait 5 minutes for the turbine to cool down, tried again and another over temp.

The danger here is that if the over temp goes for more than 3 seconds you cook the turbine. The engine has to be removed and reconditioned costing a few million. So had to wait for an engineer to come. In the end, another plane was flown from Canberra so that the engineers can do an engine change tomorrow. Spent a couple of hours in the lounge. Pity I couldn’t have any alcohol.

If you had one of these point-gap gauges, you could have fixed the problem yourself.

C14367AD-E808-4A0A-B19B-266BCE6A9B55.jpeg

I offered Kikapu. But they told me to go to the lounge.

Something about not being a licensed engineer.

I said if I’m flying this today, the head engineer is coming too as insurance.

Extra insurance always helps at 35,000 ft.

[Kikapu]

I know very little about modern cars to fix anything, but back in the early 80’s in the US, I had a girlfriend (we are still friends) who had a VW Beatle and I learned to adjust the valves gap and the points every 3,000 miles, about once every 1-2 months. It was a lot of fun and was well rewarding to hear the sound of a “sawing machine” whilst driving down the road.

It was meant to be a “sewing machine”, as we don’t saw things whilst driving.

Anyone driven one of these air cooled VWs know what I’m talking about.

[Londonrake]

Paphitis. I think what Milti's been trying to tell you is he'd no more believe a pig could fly than your good self.

We all know they can't of course.

Pig.jpg

[Kikapu]

Who says pgs don’t fly.

FlyPgs.com.

60BBC70A-D8F7-4EC2-80F3-832B46277314.jpeg

[Paphitis]

I know very little about modern cars to fix anything, but back in the early 80’s in the US, I had a girlfriend (we are still friends) who had a VW Beatle and I learned to adjust the valves gap and the points every 3,000 miles, about once every 1-2 months. It was a lot of fun and was well rewarding to hear the sound of a “sawing machine” whilst driving down the road.

It was meant to be a “sewing machine”, as we don’t saw things whilst driving.

Anyone driven one of these air cooled VWs know what I’m talking about.

No I haven’t. But they say Hitler invaded Europe on the back on VW engines so that’s saying something about the quality of German engineering.

German cars are great but the problem with them is that maintenance and parts are expensive and sometimes parts are not available,

[Paphitis]

Paphitis. I think what Milti's been trying to tell you is he'd no more believe a pig could fly than your good self.

We all know they can't of course.

Pig.jpg

What can I do LR? I’ve been flying since 1992.

Do I need to prove it Milti? Not really. But I’ve been flying for 28 years now with probably a break in between of about a year during which was a tough time and I was looking in the air whenever a plane flew over head so wasn’t that great fir my mental health.

Aviation is an amazing industry and I feel privileged to be a part of it.

The industry has been kind to me I got say. But I haven’t seen anything as bad as COVID in terms of downturn. Seen a couple of market crashes and a GFC but nothing as bad as 2020. We are starting to rise again but we are still no where near where we were in January 2020.

I remember distinctly flying around on max hours in January and February 2020 going into places Sydney with planes everywhere. Holding for 60 minutes at times. Then taxiing out behind 9 aircraft to depart. I posted a photo of that once. I haven’t seen that in a year. Still some activity but it isn’t that great.

I never thought back in February that things were going to decline in the way they have. By March 2020 I had a US E3 Visa. Still got it and have had no notification that it has been cancelled. Probably because the position that was offered to me starting in May was never officially withdrawn. But the likelihood that things will change in that space in the near term is unlikely. If COVID isn't controlled that is. Or the public decide to live with it which will depend on the vaccines and what they achieve.

A lot of good people leaving the industry now. Those thoughts even cross my mind now as well and I have about 20 years of flying left.

The industry is at a crossroads for sure. But if things go back to normal, there won’t be enough pilots. Shortage will be worse than before so now is a good time for young trainees.

Yesterday I looked at my FRMS 365 total. It’s a software that talkies our hours, flight and duty times, and all our currencies. I’m current but I only flew 286 hours since March 2020. Normally I would have flown well over 900 hours.

It’s difficult to fathom how we can be profitable in this state. The good thing is that we own our planes and have little to no debt. But we are not listed on the stock market so there is no reporting so no one really knows. We are owned by a wealthy family of lawyers. 3 brothers actually. 2 are very high end silks in Australia and the other was in the RAAF at EDN as well.

We are an actual airline - 5th largest company in Australia but that work is decimated apart from some regional services. But the big money is in our Government and non government contracts for the Australian Governmebt, NSW, Queensland abd our contracts in the resource sector. The reason why that’s good is because we are paid by them to be available for an x amount of hours and sometimes they only use a quarter of the hours. So a lot of profit in it.

The Government has a very generous business support and welfare system in place for citizens because of Covid and its impact on the economy. Unless the program is renewed, it will end in March 2021. So we could have redundancies again.