Light aviation’s guru blogger Dan Johnson grabbed the opportunity to test fly the newest FAA LSA-approved aircraft, the Aeroprakt A32 Vixxen.
Click the photo above or here to see the article and accompanying video: Dan flies the A32
You can read more – much much more – about all manner of light sport, recreational and ultralight aircraft on Dan’s blog: ByDanJohnson.
In a life long before aeroplanes, I was involved in the world of corporate and stakeholder communications. As a result, I developed an interest in company logos, colours and type faces. It would be easy to consider this all a matter of superficial ‘look’ and ‘image’ which is the obsession only of corporate design agencies and of relatively little interest to actual business users. However, as I have learned, logos, colours and typefaces can have quite an influence on customers and others – particularly if you want to build familiarity and ‘brand recognition’.
When I brought the first Foxbat to Australia in 2001, it was adorned with the logo of the UK distributor – a red star with a stylised fox head and the script ‘Foxbat’ written at an angle across the bottom right corner. But why ‘Foxbat’ and what’s the red star all about?
The answers are simple, if a little mixed up in intent. The aircraft was christened a ‘Foxbat’ by the then UK agent – Gordon Faulkner – in a slightly misguided but in the event very memorable reference to the mach 3+ MIG-25 jet fighter, which the USA military codenamed ‘foxbat’. I say slightly misguided, as our Foxbat is actually built not in Russia, like the MiG, but in Ukraine. The red star is also very cold-war Russia, quite unlike the bright blue and yellow colours of Ukraine, which represent the clear sky and ripening wheat for which the country is famous.
However, I quite liked the original Foxbat logo and Gordon agreed I could use it, so it adorns the tails of all the original 45 or so 450kgs gross weight A22L aircraft delivered in Australia.
When the factory announced the 600kgs gross weight A22LS (Light Sport) version, I wanted to differentiate it from the original lighter weight A22L aircraft. From a distance of a few metres, the A22L and A22LS look pretty much identical, and the signature yellow paint continued, so one obvious way was to change the logo. After discussions with a local designer, I decided to drop the red star and the ‘Foxbat’ script and use only the fox head symbol. In fact, this was subliminally sharpened up to make it look more aggressive and, in a distant gesture to the red star, I changed the colours to red and black.
This new ‘red’ logo was applied to the first few A22LS aircraft – until someone ordered a red one, and the red fox head on the tail just didn’t look right! At the same time, I experienced a couple of misunderstandings about the colour of the registration numbers/letters on the fuselage sides. These are required to be of sufficient contrast to make them easily distinguishable, so I had been using black letters or numerals. All OK on yellow & white aeroplanes but almost invisible on red and blue ones. The designer came to the rescue and we agreed on silver letters and numerals, with a black shadow – which made them easy to see on all aircraft colours. To co-ordinate with the registration colours, I changed the fox head logo on the aircraft to black, white and silver.
In mid-2015 the factory announced the new, fast cruising A32. Many people were happy for this to still be called a Foxbat but, clearly, this was quite a different aeroplane – both to look at and to fly. After much agonising, I finally decided to go with’ Vixxen’ – again, more aggressive, with the extra ‘x’ added to make it a bit more memorable. And so the logo received yet another make over, hopefully to align it with the name. The silver elements were changed for black and the eyes were changed to red, for some eye-candy appeal.
Finally, about 18 months ago, the factory agreed to our suggestions to build an aircraft aimed at appealing to Australia outback landowners and pilots. We added a heavy-duty metal luggage bay with a side door, fat tyres with mud guards, a siren, a UHF radio and a bigger climb prop as well as a couple of other additions. But what to call this aircraft? We decided to be a bit more adventurous than ‘Foxbat Farmer’ and the like. In the end, our sales and service support partners – Cleveland Bay Aviation in Townsville – came up with ‘Kelpie’. This name has a bit more going for it than ‘Dingo’ or ‘Wombat’, suggesting hard work and ruggedness, developed for Australian conditions. And so the latest in a line of logos was born – a bit whimsical but a a bit of fun too. Maybe it’s a combination of the original fox head and a touch of Scooby Doo, ‘well friendly’ as my grandson would say.
So that’s a potted history of our Foxbat Australia aircraft logos. I’ve stayed away from typefaces and, to a large extent, colours, which could be the subject of several volumes in themselves.
And now we are working on a completely new logo…for something completely new in 2018. And it’s absolutely nothing like a fox head! Watch this space.
Yesterday there was a fairly strong and gusty crosswind on Tyabb’s 35/17 runway. The crosswind was made even more tricky as the wind was blowing from the north west over the hills and trees near the airfield, making for very uneven and turbulent conditions.
Quite by chance, Mike Rudd, our video producer, was there trying out a new video camera, capturing a couple of aircraft landing – but due to the conditions, there weren’t many up and about in the skies! However, my colleague Ido Segev was flying an A32 Vixxen demonstration with a prospective owner. (Thanks to Stuart for the loan of his aircraft).
This very short video (click the photo or here to view on YouTube) first shows a landing by a Beech Travelair twin, piloted as it turns out, by Roger Merridew, a very experienced pilot and owner of Lilydale Airfield. He is followed closely by Ido and his passenger (who was sitting in the left seat) in the A32 Vixxen.
It’s interesting to note the different techniques used to land each aircraft in what was a 12-15 knot gusting crosswind. In many ways, as you can see, the A32 Vixxen handles the conditions better than the Travelair. The secret to making a successful crosswind landing in the A32 Vixxen is speed management and the minimal use of flap. The aircraft was down safely and exited at the first cross-taxiway, about 70-75 metres from the threshold of runway 35.
Good demonstration Ido!
PS – the prospective customer placed an order after the flight!
Congratulations to Aeroprakt on the production and registration of their 1,000th aircraft! This is a great accomplishment for them and Foxbat Australia is proud to have been a part of Aeroprakt’s success. Well done everyone at Aeroprakt and here’s to the next 1,000!
The 1,000th aircraft is a yellow (is there any other colour?) A22LS, which is now in service at Aeroprakt’s flying club/school based at Naliwaikowka Airfield near Kiev. Over half of the aircraft produced have been the 450kgs gross weight A22, A22L and A22L2 models, followed by the Light Sport A22LS. The recently launched A32 ‘Vixxen’ has already reached 55 production units with yet more on order.
Alas – only six of the much desired twin engine A36 have been built. Now, that’s an aircraft I’d love to fly around Australia!
Foxbat Australia – along with many many others – has been experiencing a complete loss of email service due to the forced migration of our services from our original supplier, Uber Global to TPP Wholesale who’ve taken them over.
At the present time (Saturday 5.00pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time) we have been unable to send or receive emails using our @foxbat.com.au addresses and have not been able to do so since the afternoon of Monday 13 November. We have also lost approximately the previous month’s worth of emails from the servers.
The email addresses most affected are:
peter@foxbat.com.au
ido@foxbat.com
info@foxbat.com
If you have sent an email to any of these addresses in the last week and not received a reply, please re-contact us by phone or text – our phone numbers can be found by clicking on this link: Peter & Ido phone numbers
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience you have experienced. However, this has been entirely due to the complete inability of TPP Wholesale (a) to migrate our emails correctly and (b) worse, their utter disinterest in sorting out the mess they have created.
I know we are not alone and many online businesses are suffering far greater hardship than us. Nevertheless, it has been extremely frustrating to try to deal with an organisation – TPP Wholesale – which clearly has so little interest in supporting their customers. If you have any choice in the matter, I’d advise avoiding them like the plague. They really don’t care.
We are and have been taking substantial steps to get our email service back on line – hopefully during the next week. Meanwhile, please contact us by phone or text as above and we will respond quickly.
Thank you for your understanding.
The Icon A5 is probably one of the most hyped aircraft of recent years – a stylish, amphibious Light Sport Aircraft carrying over US$85 million in investment over the last 10 years or so.
It uses the ubiquitous Rotax 912ULS (100hp) engine in a 2-seat pusher configuration and sports a highly designed automotive style cabin. All in all, it appears to be a beautiful and unusual aircraft – although at US$389,000, there will be a limited number of people who have enough pennies to buy one.
The only problem is that out of a total of 22 delivered aircraft (so far), three have crashed, killing three people, including a couple of senior employees of the Icon company.
Here is a link to a YouTube video which, I think, fairly and in an unemotional way describes the aircraft and the three accidents very well. It also makes some suggestions as to what may be the factors which have contributed to this extraordinarily high accident rate in what is probably one of the most tested new aircraft on the planet.
Click on the photo above or here for the video: Icon A5 accidents
Rotax has issued a new mandatory service bulletin covering their oil filters – SB-912-071.
Due to a manufacturing deviation, the sealer gasket on the oil filter may leak, causing possible loss of oil pressure and oil.
If your 912ULS engine number is within the series from S/N 9 569 542 up to S/N 9 569 782 inclusive, or you have service replaced your oil filter since June 2017, you need to check the filter. If it has a green mark in the specified location, the filter is OK. If not, check for leakage and if any is seen, the filter must be replaced immediately. Even if there is no visible leak, the filter must also be replaced immediately on listed engines.
If there is no green mark on the filter, no leakage and the engine is not listed, the filter should be replaced within 25 engine running hours or within 200 days from 01 November 2017, whichever occurs sooner.
Here is a link to the service bulletin which gives full details: SB-912-071
Here is a link to the listed 912UL & 912ULS engines affected: SB-912-071UL
Back in 2001, I went for my first demo flight in an Aeroprakt A22 Foxbat – piloted by Gordon Faulkner, the then UK agent for the aircraft. I ordered a Foxbat and, when soon after, I told him I was moving to live in Australia he encouraged me to ask the factory if I could represent them in Australia, and gave me good reference. Gordon had lived in Victoria for a few years and had many fond recollections of his flying in Australia.
The factory agreed to appoint me as their dealer in Australia and the rest, as they say, is history.
So I was interested to read this letter about Gordon in the latest issue of the UK’s ‘Microlight Flying’ magazine (click on the picture above – Gordon’s the one on the right – to download a readable copy of ‘The man’s a gent’). It fully matches my own experiences of Gordon, from his considerable help with building my first Foxbat, through to training me to fly it.
Over the years since then, I have lost contact with Gordon. But a big thank you to the man who set me on the road to what has been an exciting and rewarding journey representing the Aeroprakt factory in Australia.
Rotax has issued an urgent and mandatory service bulletin on their 912/914 series engines. It applies to a limited selection of engines built between June 2016 and October 2017 – check your Foxbat/Vixxen 912ULS engine number against the list below to see if you are affected.
(A) from S/N 6 785 971 up to S/N 6 786 198 inclusive
(B) from S/N 6 786 501 up to S/N 6 787 000 inclusive
(C) from S/N 9 569 001 up to S/N 9 569 690 inclusive
(D) from S/N 9 569 693 up to S/N 9 569 702 inclusive
PLUS S/N 9 569 823
In summary
Rotax reports that deviations in the manufacturing process of the valve push-rod assembly may cause partial wear on the rocker arm ball socket. This wear could lead to a rocker arm cracking/fracture which in consequence may lead to a malfunction of the valve train. Possible effects are rough engine running or an unusual engine operating behaviour.
The bulletin requires the removal of the rocker covers of affected engines and an inspection – and if needed, replacement – of the valve pushrods.
In simple terms, if the pushrod ends are a silver-ish colour, they are OK. If they are black they will need to be replaced.
Time frame for completion of the bulletin is:
– either at the next scheduled service
– or if a scheduled service is not due, within the next 25 hours of engine running time
– or if 25 hours running time is not completed, by 30 April 2018 at the latest
Here are links to the Bulletins:
What needs to be done: https://legacy.rotaxowner.com/si_tb_info/serviceb/sb-912-070.pdf
Which engines are affected: https://legacy.rotaxowner.com/si_tb_info/serviceb/sb-912-070ul.pdf
If you believe your engine is affected, please contact Bert Flood Imports, the Australia Rotax engine agent, for more information.
Bert Flood Imports phone number is: 03 9735 5655
This one is a bit long, but well worth reading through to the 10 tips at the end. Thanks to Peter Kelsey for the words.
Wing Commander Ken Wallis (courtesy Gary Brown)
None of us is as young as we were and those of us distinctly nearer to the cemetery than the crib may be less competent pilots than we once were.
Greater experience and good currency may serve to compensate adequately for poorer reaction times and worsening cognitive skills but there will come a time when the sensible thing is to accept that continuing to fly as Pilot In Command (PIC) is risky and foolish. Continue by all means with someone else as PIC if you like but continuing in command and putting yourself, your passengers, your friends and your family at risk of a catastrophe because of your refusal to recognise the significantly reduced state of your abilities may be folly. When is the right time and what can you do to postpone it?
When should you stop?
26 years of age was generally regarded as the maximum for a new pilot to join an RAF fighter squadron during World War II. Beyond that watershed the poor old chap would probably not have quick enough reactions to survive although experienced fighter pilots of greater age could counter their slower reaction times with better anticipation.
55 is regarded by many as signalling another stage at which Commercial Air Transport (CAT) and General Aviation (GA) pilots should start asking themselves whether they are still able to hack it as well as they used to. 60 was often the compulsory retirement age for airline pilots until they were more recently allowed to continue to 65 provided that the other pilot in a two person crew was less than 60. This extension made no difference to accident rates. Nonetheless, somewhere around the 55 to 65 years stage pilots need to accept that, much like the engine on a certified aircraft, they have passed their TBO and further use must depend upon condition.
Insurers of GA aircraft have concerns about elderly pilots, especially those past 80 and/or flying only a few hours each year. On the other hand, in Air Facts (a US publication) Opinion of October 2011, Bob Claymore, Executive Vice President of United Flying Octogenarians, writes, unsurprisingly, under the heading: Older Pilots are Safe Pilots. However, he does accentuate the importance of diet and exercise if you want to continue in good working order.
Originally built in 1934 and fitted with a new fuselage in 1938 after a mishap on landing, this DH.83 Fox Moth is still flying. It is kept serviceable by careful maintenance and tender loving care.
Recreational pilots have no retirement age and on the face of it they can go on for ever if they can pass their periodic medical and the flight with an instructor. As for the medical, even the EASA Class 1 level concentrates mostly on the physical rather than the mental. Answering the questions about your own and your parents’ mental problems, your weekly consumption of alcohol, when you gave up smoking and then managing to write out the cheque are not that searching an investigation of your cognitive skills under stress.
So there remains a cohort of GA pilots who have made it through the various filters and are ‘legal’. Some of these may find themselves and/or their families still wondering whether the time has yet come to hang up the headset. And some may be attracted to Abelard’s prayer, Give me chastity O Lord – but not yet. The issue becomes increasingly important as the proportion of elderly pilots within the aviation community increases year upon year. This is partly the consequence of the ever increasing expectation of life and better health amongst the elderly and partly less availability of spare time from work and family commitments among those of working age.
Having researched the views of various authorities I can tell you that the question of continuing flying into old age is complex, involving numerous factors, many incapable of even approximate quantification. It is clear that at some time after age 55 competence will have fallen off to such a degree that it is no longer sensible to keep flying as PIC. For some that age will be early and for others late. I can recall interviewing at his home in Norfolk Ken Wallis, inventor and builder of the Wallis autogyro amongst many other creations. Accurately described as a cross between Biggles and Professor Branestawm he was at the time, in his early nineties, incensed at the CAA for withdrawing his display licence. In a hangar at the back of the house he kept his ‘harem’ of 16 or so autogyros and he would regularly wheel one of them out to take off from the parkland that surrounded his house. One of the harem, Little Nellie, had featured in the Bond film You Only Live Twice with Ken as stunt pilot. He considered himself, and probably was, entirely capable of continuing to display at local fetes but now the CAA were putting a stop to his charitable fund raising. My sympathies were with the CAA official, unwilling to risk a summons to the top floor of Aviation House in the event of an incident and an outraged reaction in the Press. Ken continued to fly regularly until nearer his death at the age of 97.
Elderly drivers
Elderly pilot issues are very similar to elderly driver issues. Indeed when it comes to the chances of causing death or injury to a third party the inadequate car driver must present an enormously greater risk to the general public than the inadequate private pilot. While analyses of accidents involving elderly pilots are few and far between, the much greater database of road accidents is a valuable source of statistical evidence.
To quote from Older drivers: An RAC Foundation perspective:
How safe are older drivers?
‘The car is undoubtedly important for facilitating mobility in old age, but there are often concerns about the safety of older drivers behind the wheel. In fact, today’s older drivers are no less safe than their middle age counterparts. The misconception
that the elderly are dangerous when behind the wheel is a function of their overrepresentation in the casualty statistics – older
motorists do not tend to have more accidents but their frailty means that they are more likely to be seriously hurt or killed when they do.
Until the age of 80, older drivers are only at greater risk of injury for every mile driven because frailty increases with age. It is only when drivers are over the age of 80 and/or travel less than about 2,000 miles a year that there is any type of increased risk due to driving ability. There may be an increased risk for drivers with certain illnesses although the effect of conditions such as progressive dementia has yet to be conclusively proved.’
While driving is not the same thing as flying it does call for similar skills and it is reasonable to expect corresponding similitude in the loss of a competence that was once taken for granted.
What are the particular problems associated with elderly pilots?
The Air Safety Foundation of AOPA USA has considered a substantial body of American literature on this subject and summarised this in a useful report: ‘Aging and the GA pilot’. Search for the report under its title. Page no’s from the report are shown against quotes below. Refer to the Selected Resources section at pp 25 to 39 of the report for the sources of quotations in this article.
However, even within the much larger US GA scene there is a shortage of hard information about the competence of elderly pilots. Nonetheless, accident statistics have been analysed and tests in simulators carried out. The report quotes from a research paper by Pamela Tsang as follows (p 11):
“The psychological literature shows definite age-related changes in certain cognitive functions that have been identified to be essential for flight performance (e.g., perceptual processing, certain aspects of memory performance, and certain psychomotor control). The cognitive functions that do not yet exhibit clear effects of age tend to be the more complex ones that involve several stages of information processing such as problem solving, decision making, and time-sharing. On the one hand, there are ample data to suggest that the more complex the performance, the larger the age effect tends to be. On the other hand, complex performance developed through extensive training is found to be more resistant to negative age effects. Since expertise in many complex job performances, including flying, tend to develop with experience and age, the interactive effects of age and experience and their relative contributions need to be carefully studied.”
A salient problem is radio communication. This may result from failing short term memory or maybe loss of hearing when stressed is the cause. Radio communication is the area in which aging itself has the most obvious and measurable impact (p 12). This suggests that inadequate R/T may serve as an early warning of failing flying competence.
The report summarises the big picture as follows (p 13):
… different pilots experience the aging process differently, and compensate for it (or fail to) in a variety of different ways. There are, no doubt, certain commonalities among older pilots, but in the broad view it seems that individual factors—experience, proficiency, physical fitness, genetics—come together to play a much greater role than chronological age in determining a given pilot’s ability to fly safely on a given day.
The report also quotes from a research paper prepared by Richard Golaszewski for the FAA and others in 1983 on The influence of total flight time, recent flight time and age on pilot accident rates. “… For low values of recent flight times, older pilots exhibit higher accident rates. … Accident rates increase with age when recent flight time is less than 50 hours per year.”
Here are some steps that you might take to keep flying safely into old age:
1. Fly frequently or not at all.
2. Physical health is crucial. Diet and exercise are all important here.
3. Note the gist of every instruction/clearance from Air Traffic before reading it back. When, two minutes later, you cannot recall what the precise altitude limitation was your note will tell you.
4. Fatigue is an increasing pitfall for the ageing pilot. Recognise that you cannot competently do as much you used to do five or ten years ago and limit your hours per day accordingly.
5. Cut out the more demanding sorts of flying – fly a simpler aircraft (after good type conversion training) – give up night flying and flying in marginal weather.
6. Use ATC and radar more. Accept that you are more prone to wander stupidly without a clearance into controlled airspace than you used to be. Get a Traffic Service and the extra protection from doing something stupid that this will provide. Failing that a Listening Squawk will be better than nothing.
7. Carry a Personal Collision Avoidance System (PCAS) or other electronic proximity warning device. Your eyesight is not as good as it was.
8. Get a noise cancelling headset. Your hearing is not what it was either.
9. Give yourself plenty of time for preflight work – NOTAMs, weather, performance, weight and balance, preflight checks and passenger briefings need to be considered without any time pressures. Avoid in flight decision making challenges by already having in place alternative plans to deal with eventualities such as adverse weather.
10. Consider flying with another pilot. In this way workload can be shared although it will be important that neither of you is ever uncertain as to who is the Pilot In Command at any time.
How might you keep flying safely?
Perhaps the most compelling pointer here is that if you are inclined to fly at all as an elderly pilot then you should either do it frequently or not at all. In most recreational fields the elderly tend to ease off in frequency as their age advances but when it comes to flying it seems that this is quite the wrong approach. I am reminded of an acquaintance, a former WW Spitfire pilot with three operational tours, who wanted to keep driving into his eighties and nineties so he always made sure that he drove at least every other day.
My brother’s keeper
Younger readers may not feel concerned personally with these thoughts just yet but may nonetheless find themselves thinking of some other pilot about whose competence they have doubts. Few of us would have the temerity to approach another pilot in cold blood and suggest that if it is time that they considered retirement but failing to do anything is failing in your duty to that pilot, their potential passengers and to the GA community at large. A better alternative is to discuss the position with other pilots, especially instructors. While an approach by another younger and probably less experienced pilot may be dismissed as insolence a similar approach by several pilots as an agreed body or a CFI would be very difficult to ignore. If you have your doubts about an elderly pilot’s competence you have a duty to perform and you would not want to come to regret having done nothing to prevent a subsequent disaster.
