Incident at Wynyard Airport

[Horatio Leafblower]

Actually Dids, it's 2,000 hours to go for a total of 26,000.

A Titan... now THAT's a 40,000 hour aircraft!

[outnabout]

Given that the GA fleet is ageing, and the average age of aircraft seems to be 40 years, what happened 40 years ago that a whole fleet of aircraft were brought into Aus?

(Be gentle, I'm only young....ish)

And whatever "it" was, why can't "it" happen again?

[Pinky the pilot]

Given that the GA fleet is ageing, and the average age of aircraft seems to be 40 years, what happened 40 years ago that a whole fleet of aircraft were brought into Aus?

And whatever "it" was, why can't "it" happen again?

A pity Gaunty isn't still around on these boards because I suspect he would be able to answer that quite easily. Seem to remember he once posted on that subject.

Just a thought; Torres may be able to explain just as well.

Believe that it had a lot to do with being able to do a tax write off on the purchase price of a new aircraft.

[Jack Ranga]

22k, Dood, 50 wheels up in 7000 years.......not bad mate (1 every 140 years)

Porch, I've heard the EDV story, there's at least an extra 35,000 unaccounted for hours on them frames

[Torres]

Given that the GA fleet is ageing, and the average age of aircraft seems to be 40 years, what happened 40 years ago that a whole fleet of aircraft were brought into Aus?

No single answer.

Aircraft were relatively far cheaper to purchase and cost far less to operate and subsidised finance was available. GA aircraft designs were not stifled by modern regulation and most of the development cost, particularly for US built aircraft, was funded my the US military or NASA. Can you imagine the difference in design and construction cost of a 1960s Cessna seat, versus todays 24G resistant high tech safety seats?

Fuel was very cheap. I don't recall the price per gallon but I do recall a crude price of $7 per barrel (159 liters) in the mid to late 1960s.

The cost of flying training was subsidised by Government. In 1961 my local aero club charged £4/10/- ($9) per hour for a Chipmunk, although as a 17 year old I think my wage was somewhere around £8/10/- ($17) per week.

The cost of airline flying was prohibitively expensive and until the 1980s, very few Australians had ever flown in an airline aircraft. The only airfare I remember was the Ansett flying boat service between Hobart and Sydney; in 1952 my parents flew Hobart to Sydney and back and I seem to recall their return air fares for two was around £600 ($1,200) or approximately two thirds the price of a new Holden FX sedan.

GA aircraft are now older and far more expensive to maintain, whilst the very significant reduction in the cost of airline travel has put down ward pressure on the price a GA operator can charge.

In the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s rural airservices were Government subsidised through the predecessor of the Rural Air Services Scheme (RASS), introduced by the Menzies Government.

And in those days, the DCA inspector was a reasonable, intelligent and rather knowledgeable fellow, a current and competent pilot who probably had the odd DFC or DSO earned in battle, received around 150 flying hours per year at DCA expense and who knew how to sort out problems without fuss around the back of the hangar or over tea and bikkies in the crew room.

[porch monkey]

Ranga my man, you may have heard about it, but I lived it! Ok, I'll concede EDV might have a few more (lot more) hours on it courtesy of it's previous owners. The other 2 that were there when I was are pretty genuine tho. Having said that, last I flew them, someone was working on a SIDS scheme for PA-31's, to get them to around 40,000 like the cessnas. Not convinced I'd want to be flying them then......

[LewC]

The AUD/USD exchange rate in the 70's also might have had something to do with the flood of imports,any where between $1.40 in 1973 and $1.30 in 1974.After the AUD was floated in December 1983 those happy days were gone forever.

[Stationair8]

Plenty of quality paid ICUS time available with those hours then!

Back in the late 80's a PA-31/310 VH-***(one of the first in the country) was doing the rounds of various operators. Somebody made the comment that it only had just over 5000 hours TT, old GA driver say's "I flew that for ***** and they sold it, when it had 10,000 hours on the airframe back in 1979"

[porch monkey]

Yeah, just think of how much money stupid people have paid into that farce over the years......

[43Inches]

Given that the GA fleet is ageing, and the average age of aircraft seems to
be 40 years, what happened 40 years ago that a whole fleet of aircraft were brought into Aus?

Piper and Cessna did what most car manufacturers did in the late 60s and 70s and that's overproduce and sell cheap. They were doing well until the late 70s and particularly the 80s where civil actions against them started to mount up due to faults and poor legal advice. This had two effects, one, to increase price of the aircraft to afford liabilities and two, improve the technology of the aircraft to avoid liabilities, which in turn pushed up the price. Because the market was flooded with so many low cost aircraft only a few years old the market dried up and both companies hit the wall and production of GA aircraft virtually stopped. Today the average price of new GA aircraft is way beyond the average person so sales are relatively sparse. Add to this modern infrastructure and cars can get you quickly to most locations traditionally served by light aircraft in the past.

[Jack Ranga]

Porch, I lived it too but on my own risk analysis I was too much of a scardycat to keep crossing the strait! I figured that the hours on those things would catch up with some poor bastard...........

But they just keep going!!

[porch monkey]

Ranga dude, what are ya? 'fraidy cat is right. 8+ years and over 4000 hrs crossing the ditch, nary a problem other than weather! Harden up mate.

[Wallsofchina]

Anyone found out what the trim problem was?

[PLovett]

Believe, at multiple hands from the original, that the cockpit trim wheel came adrift.

If that is possible. If not, don't flame me as I am only passing on what I was told.

[Wallsofchina]

Thanks for that

[porch monkey]

Possible, as it's only pinned to the shaft. But the electric trim would still be working, should be a non event if that was the case...... Must be more to it than that I think.

[Lancair70]

Possible, as it's only pinned to the shaft. But the electric trim would still be working, should be a non event if that was the case...... Must be more to it than that I think.

I may be wrong here, but I thought the trim was all connected, if the trim wheel came adrift and jammed, the electric trim wouldnt work either as the cable cannot move. ?

[Jack Ranga]

Porch, I do harden up.........not over strait crossings though

[VH-XXX]

Like an autopilot in a boat, it moves the actual steering wheel (Note for Sunfish - I know it's a Helm).

They are not seperate systems normally; if you jam the manual trim you jam the auto trim, just like the autopilot, if you jam the yoke, you jam the autopilot, however if you jam the autopilot, you don't jam the yoke because you can over-ride the servo with the built-in failsafe.

[porch monkey]

The post said it came adrift. The wheel can go out the window, who cares. It doesn't stop the electric trim working. Now if it was jammed, that's another matter. Two different words that can have two different outcomes.