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Old 23rd Jan 2014, 20:46
  #63 (permalink)  
scrufflefish
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: australia
Age: 66
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I think cowl flaps (#54) is probably on the right track. I live locally and worked at Tyagarah for 10 years, mostly flying DH82, C172 and microlights, but also some para ops in their old C182.
The noise complaints were constant, and the source of the problem was usually training ops from Cooly, but Tyagarah always got blamed.
The parachute operation there tries to minimise noise impact where possible, but are often required to climb over land, and some pilots are not as thoughtful as others about their impact on locals. When they are busy, which is most of the summer, ops are often early am to dusk, 7 days/week with a turnaround time of 20-30 mins, so I can understand it will be annoying to some locals, but I can confirm that all the serious complainants over the years have been recent arrivals who bought near the strip and then got upset. At one point a very well off one offered to pay the Council the equivalent of the revenue the strip was generating if they would close it!!

On the other hand, the parachute operation has become very big and there is a lot of money being made, and it is evident that this often takes precedence over other issues.
It is not an all weather strip and at times the Council closes it due to rain. The jump plane usually continues to operate with the result that the strip becomes unusable to other operators due to the huge ruts created, and this has caused damage to other aircraft. This cavalier attitude reached a point last year when the strip was closed while Council workers were filling ruts caused by the skydive aircraft. There were a number of workers and a truck in the middle of the strip about 200-300 metres in from the eastern end. All operators had been informed about it, but the 208 taxied out past the large "Strip Closed" sign and took off over the workers. Everyone at Tyagarah realises that we need to work with Council to keep the strip open and maintained, this sort of behaviour doesn't help.
(Apologies for thread creep).

Update, just informed by a reliable source at Tyagarah that the tanks have been temporarily patched and the aircarft flown out for repairs.
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