Beach

[Disco]

What"s the go with the beach endorsement?I want to be able to practice forced landings etc over the beach and get down low.

[asra]

Hi DeanA beach endorsement is only valid if you have prior permission from the controlling authority, or beach owner, prior to use.The minimum legal hight gyroplanes can fly is 300ft AGL. The other thing is we aren"t legally allowed to fly over people so you should be flying over the water rather than the beach. When flying over water we are not allowed to fly further than 150m from the shoreline, unless the pilot is wearing a life jacket and gyro is equiped with flotation equipment. With this provision met you are still limited to a max distance of 18Km only. Regards SamL......

[Disco]

Sam and other forum members,Surely I can go over water if i"m well within gliding distance without a lifejacket.

[Disco]

Was the 180m rule made up when 500 feet was our limit?

[asra]

Disco, the 150m rule has been around since the 500ft AGL max ALT rule. So yes I guess it was devised due to the min glide ratio from that ALT. As for rules, we can only quote you what is correct and law, but remember, if a gyro pilot is court breaking the law, it will reflect on all of us.Sam

[Disco]

Yeah Sam, I understand about reflecting on all of us.

[asra]

G"day Dean,Rules are a bit like contracts. They are there in case things go wrong. It gets back to perception. I think it was Ken that posted (a while back in another thread) about creating good relations with the public, and other forms of aviation. If you are annoying the crap out of some-one, they will be able to find a rule of some description to get you with. If you are doing your best not to annoy any-one, chances are that no-one will worry too much about you, even if you aren"t strictly within the limits of the law. This is where the "common-sense" thing comes in. As a hypothetical, lets say the bloke up the road works night shift (and consequently sleeps during the day). If you ( I am speaking metaphorically) go and fly in circles around his house (100 metres out and 300 ft up) in your 150 decibel machine, simply because you legally can (all other things being equal), then one of 3 things will happen:1. He will ring some-one up to get your wings cut; or2. He well load the 12 gauge with SG shot and give you a charge; or3. He will drive to the strip, and when you land he will give you a punch in the eye.Any or all of the above could have been avoided by simply exercising common sense/courtesy. And any of the above are going to cause you some form of grief. I find that if you say to yourself " will this cause grief to anyone" before I say "is it legal", most of the time you"ll be right.FWIWFred

[Russell]

Geeez fred me ol china..........for someone livin down a wombat hole

[Disco]

Fred,That"s one of the most sensible post i"ve seen on this forum.

[asra]

G"day Russ,Not wombat burra, It"s a swallows nest (you know, builders nightmare?). Got me final certificate of completion on Monday. You woulda enjoyed that experience. First time in a long time I"ve been speechless!! I reckoned I had all bases covered. The inspector walked in and floored me in about 30 seconds. Looks at me yellow stringy bark kitchen bench tops, and says they won"t pass. "Why not", I says. "Wood"s not an approved material", he says. "What is?", I says. "Chipboard", he says.When I could finally speak again, I give a 10 thousand word burst on wood science. He sorta gained the impression he was a bit outta his depth, so he used the old public servants fallback - "I didn"t make the rules", so I said, "you betta tell me who did". "Building Commision", he says. Stand by, I"ll get em on the speaker phone. Gets this poor simple ******* on the phone, and he says the same thing. I said "why isn"t wood approved?". He gets a book out and declares "It ain"t water resistant!". "Beauty" I says. Where are ya. "In Melbourne", he says. "Ina tall building?" I says. Yep. "Can ya see the bay?" "Yep" he says. "Well ya betta get your **** down there, because half them boats you can see are made out of wood, and them poor bastards are gunna drown". There was about a 15 second silence. I"m thinking to myself "Freddy old son, I think you"ve overdone it this time". Then he starts to laugh, and then says (you guessed it), "I don"t make the rules!". "Ya betta switch me thru to the bloke who does" I says.He said" I"ll give you a hint. WE don"t give a rats rectum about the benches if they are more than 3 inches from the wall".About this time, the inspector had had enuff. He made me put a bit of plastic over them untill he was outta site. Job done. Bugger it. Now I haven"t got enough room to tell you about the carby heat. You got a land line yet?Oh yeah. When you take off from my joint, you can see the beach, about 5 minutes fly away. (that kinda keeps it on topic).CheersFredDean,No worries mate. Now days they call it "risk management". In my day it was called "looking where you are going".CheersFred

[Des Garvin]

;D Fred you just made my day. Geeess mate ya expecting a bit much of a public servent to think out side of the square box. Well at least the inspector came up with a solution for ya. Thanks for posting that one. Now how did ya overcome the carbie iceing prob.

[asra]

No worries, Des. Actually, the poor old building inspector turned out to be not a bad bloke, after we got the initial rough edges smoothed off.