Does SOAR Aviation allow RA AUS pilots to fly VH registered aircraft ? Is it legally possible for this to occur ?

This pilot has suffered very severe injuries - the specific details are best not discussed here, but I hope there is at last some immediate accountability or show cause action from CASA, directed at both SOAR Aviation and also RA AUS regarding the certification process for Bristell aircraft.

Does the number of serious accidents with SOAR Aviation Bristell aircraft reflect on its' suitability and/or the quality of training delivered by the organisation? Either way, to quote an extract from Shakespeare's Hamlet, 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark'

RAAus shouldn't come into this at all. This is on Soar, as well as the student.

The injuries the student sustained are horrific, and Soar are, no doubt, looking down the barrel of a gun now.

I can't find details of any other flying training organisation that has such a recent history of multiple accidents in the one aircraft type.

If everyone is so convinced there is no problem with the aircraft, what safety management systems that are supposed to mitigate and manage risk at SOAR aviation were in place? Because, clearly, they were unable to prevent these accidents from occurring?

Pitch and yaw consistent with sudden application of power...looks like a badly handled go around leading to loss of control. Poor guy.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...r/ao-2019-071/

It is rare that ab-initio students are taught go arounds close to or at the flare. Most go arounds are from 200 feet. A very low altitude low energy go around at low airspeed (inadvertent low airspeed or otherwise), can be significantly different in terms of rudder use to prevent yaw as power is increased, to the same event at 200 feet at airspeeds well in excess of Vref.

In most light aircraft (C152 for example), unless the pilot applies immediate sufficient rudder to stop the yaw as the nose is raised into the initial full flap climbing attitude, there is danger of loss of directional control and entry into an incipient spin. This can be critical if initial flap retraction is delayed or different to the manufacturer’s recommended procedure. For sometimes wrongly perceived safety reasons, it is common that a company go-around SOP is often taught at training schools in preference to the manufacturer’s POH advice.

. The go around from the flare is a critical test of flying skill because of the high drag, low airspeed and yawing situation. Students who have had insufficient practice at this manoeuvre before first solo are ill-equipped to be aware of its dangers. Often they are taught a generic go around procedure rather than the procedure recommended in the manufacturer's POH. The procedure should initially be taught at a safe altitude until proficient; rather than thrown in for good measure (if at all) at the flare and at speeds below Vref for the aircraft type.

Newly graduated instructors are often inexperienced in total flying hours and real world flying experience. Some may be apprehensive of very low altitude full flap low energy go-arounds simply because they were not taught properly in their own ab initio days - nor on instructor course. In turn, they may not be sufficiently competent to demonstrate this manoeuvre to their student. Often, instructors are reluctant to demonstrate a manoeuvre because they feel guilty about taking up the students hands-on flying time. Talking someone through a manoeuvre is no substitute for a well flown demonstration. A picture is worth a thousand words.

At a safe altitude and before first solo, students should be taught a go-around under the hood. This prepares the student for an event where it may be raining and forward vision is momentarily lost during the flare. In addition, students should be taught how to safely recover to land off a bounced landing by applying sufficient power to cushion the bounce. Certainly this is important before first solo where bounced landings are not uncommon.

It is generally safer and requires less skill, for a student to recover from a bounced landing and land ahead (all things being equal with regards to remaining length of landing area) rather than risk a low energy low speed go around with full flap where strong yaw on application of full power has the potential to lead to loss of directional control. New instructors need to be certified competent in the teaching of these manoeuvres before being let loose on ab initio student pilots. At present, it is a case of the blind teaching the blind.

Assuming a contributory cause of this accident is found to include improper go-around procedures, then it may have been prevented if the student had been taught the correct method of going around at low altitude in the first place. That said, being taught correctly doesn't always guarantee a student will follow that teaching in the heat of the moment.

Lack of standardisation can be a problem at flying schools that employ many instructors. Lack of supervision of new instructors is often the case. Experienced (Grade One) instructors tend to concentrate on CPL or IFR training rather than regularly fly with ab-initio students. This can lead to missed opportunities for quality assurance checks on new instructors.






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Here's something to ponder:
Let's say a trainee pilot happens to have an ARN and a CASA Basic class 2 medical.
Let's say they have two identical LSA aircraft there, one RAAus, one VH.
Let's say the trainee's instructor is dual rated RAAus/GA
Let's say the training records are identical for RAAus or VH for that school.
Given that there is no such thing as a student licence any more, what would be stopping an RAAus trainee doing the odd flight - even solo - in a VH aircraft if all those ducks lined up nicely?

Tik Tok, Tik Toc.................

I doubt that most people understand what you are saying and that's the problem.

Sorry, it's more in relation to my previous comments,

It'll become public shortly.

The best part about this thread is that SOAR are paying for ads promoting their course within it ... wooopsie

You couldn't make this stuff up.

Don't forget, add 5 knots for a buffer.

Then another 5 knots if it's turbulent. And it's it's turbulent, don't use full flap, add another 5 knots for that. And if there's a crosswind, add 5 knots for that. And if it's gusting, don't forget to add half the gust factor!! All of that should quite comfortably bring in a 172 at 90 knots over the fence :}

So what are they actually teaching in Effects of Controls, Stalling and Missed Approaches ?

Australian Aviation at it's finest.

Also, don't forget to take away the number you first thought of......

Might be okay for jet aircraft with 140 kt approach speeds, but adding 5 kt multiples here and there on aircraft with very low approach speeds can be fraught with danger.

In case it wasn't bleedingly obvious, that was a piss take.

Unfortunately however it is indicative of the mentality of some.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8e05e7760.jpeg

C h e c k m a t e.

No!!! Really??? Say it isn't so???

I wonder who else will appear on the ASQA website tomorrow???

Ohhhh, IBAC, what have you to say?

****'s getting real now.

cnuts in aviation getting what's coming to them???

Say it isn't so ;-)

This is poetry in motion.

Well, this might as well get it's own thread

Porter you were spot on!

I hope the REAL reasons for this are made public.

I feel for the Staff and Students.

Quote:

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I hope the REAL reasons for this are made public.

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Dangly, They will be! This is only the start. You can expect the newest member of a certain list to be on a new list, a court list ;-)

There are other frauds on the list now, one at a time.

Meanwhile any news of the poor student who was injured?

Report out. Amazing. https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/577965...-071-final.pdf

What the ATSB found

The ATSB found that the pilot commenced a go‑around at low level when the aircraft deviated from the runway centreline in crosswind conditions. During the go‑around, the aircraft aerodynamically stalled and commenced a spin.

It was also identified that the student pilot did not have the necessary qualifications and skills to safely operate the Bristell solo.

Finally, the required Soar Aviation solo flight dispatch procedures were not followed. As a result, it was not identified that the student pilot was not authorised for, nor met the required competencies, to conduct the flight.

Pretty hard to blame the school when a bloke who isn’t qualified to fly and is too thick to realise it just grabs the keys and heads off for a burn

Pretty easy to lay a large chunk of blame on them, why was it so easy for any Student to grab the keys and go for a burn? This wasn't some early morning flight before any admin or instructors were around to monitor. How was he able to book this into their system? Why did he mention in the report that he was told "You're good to go" by his Instructor? Why was it not clearly stated from the previous debrief that he was not ready for solo as they "don't usually say that, it is clear from the debrief"? Why did he continue even though he felt uncomfortable and didn't feel he could bring this to an instructor?

Might be able to shed some light on this - I passed my CPL there early 2020...

The keys have always been in the aircraft folder, was like this since day dot. Had never heard any issues prior to this one of other students grabbing an aircraft without permission (although I once grabbed YWM instead of YWN and we didn’t pick up on it until after the flight).

Scuttlebutt at the time is scheduling made a human error and swapped him out from a Vixen to a Bristell while working on the schedules.

In terms of progression, I was given a flight schedule at the start of my CPL which did have 3 famil flights to be completed. Majority of my debriefs (I have some copies still) usually end with “next flight xxx”. However was pretty aware of the next flight anyway.

The general process for getting ready and being signed out was - Grab folder (had keys, MR, dipstick) go and preflight plane. Either before or after this do all your flight planning, then fill out necessary paperwork (you had to fill out a risk matrix for each solo, regardless of where you were in the syllabus). Once that’s all done you have to grab an instructor and depending on the matrix you grabbed a grade 1/2/3 and they checked. Licence, Medical, MR, planning, ASIC, Matrix, W&B, your hours on type (cant remember if anything else). Then once they were happy they signed the matrix and then despatched you on the system. Post flight you also needed to see an instructor to discuss any issues.

From my perspective I never had an issue speaking up to someone and at that stage the chief instructor was very approachable.

Apologise for any poor formatting/grammar. On my phone typing this!

I’m impressed that you were one of the lucky ones that actually got a CPL from there!

I felt the ATSB report lacked investigative depth. It was also damned annoying trying to read the politically correct "they or their" instead of "he". "He" being the student of course. Nothing worse than jarring grammar.

One way or another the student botched the very low altitude go around. It begged the question had he ever had the manoeuvre demonstrated to him? Why did he fail to counter the yaw and pitch up associated with a full power low energy go-around in the Bristell? There was nothing in the report that indicated the manufacturer's recommended go-around procedure compared with the procedure the student was taught to use.

Was there much difference (if any) between the Bristell arcraft manufacturer's recommended go-around procedure and the go-around procedure for the previous type he had been flying?

Did the investigator ask each SOAR instructor what procedure they taught ? You can bet some adhere to the manufacturer's published procedure while others have their own personal ideas. If there was no such advice in the POH why didn't CASA airworthiness notice this when the Bristell was approved for student training?

Seems to me the ATSB report missed the opportunity to check the standardisation of go-around procedures by simply asking all the flying school students at Soar and not just a sample. Understandably, much of the ATSB report was about administrative failings of SOAR operations. It is just a pity that more attention was not paid to the actual aircraft handling side of the accident.

A low altitude low energy go-around can be a demanding manoeuvre in any aircraft. Particularly for a student pilot. Experience has shown few instructors are competent at teaching the manoeuvre. Moreover, inexperienced instructors can be quite apprehensive of demonstrating the sequence - if at all.

If, as claimed in the report, some instructors said the Bristell would drop a wing in the stall, then could this be an airworthiness issue? After all, there are certification rules that govern wing drop tolerances.

Even if little is learned from this accident, I would plead ATSB to trash its adherence to Public Service political correctness in future reports and use normal Queen's English grammar. It makes official reports easier to read.

Was thinking just that, the student was in the wrong but the main cause was the unsuccessful go around

I cant comment on the Vixen, I was put on the Bristell from the start. However what I was taught is almost the same as the POH. I was taught - Full power, Pitch for 66, Trim as necessary (if you were trimmed for approach you really needed to trim ASAP, I could imagine this had an effect on the situation). Once speed was stable and clear of obstacles, remove first stage of flap, Pitch 66, Trim and same process once stable remove last stage of flaps (standard approach was 2 stages of flap).

POH is as follows;
Balked Landing (Go around) 1. Throttle - full power (max.5800 rpm) 2. Wing flaps - extend as needed 3. Trim - adjust as needed 4. Wing flaps - retract at height of 150 ft after reaching 120 km/h (65 KIAS) 5. Trim - adjust 6. Repeat circuit pattern and landing