Hands

Posted on by

Being a parent can be a bit of drag somedays, the busted knees from too many legs rides, the crook neck from piggy backs that have gone wrong, the cramps from being squeezed out of bed in the middle of the night – just to digress for a moment.. seriously that bloody song about 10 in the bed and the little one said roll over… thats me, I move an inch and there are two little bodies there immediately to fill that gap and thunk, i end up plastered against the bedside table or on the floor…anyway, thats a few of the negatives…

There are however, moments that will remain with me forever – one of which is when we walk to school, the feeling of that little hand sliding into my mine without either of us barely noticing, a automatic action as we dodge the trees and poles on the walk, that little hand just returns and slips into mine. As cliche as it might sound, that action speaks thousand words,all of which would not even come close to expressing the feeling…

…. then we get to school and its yep.. barely a 'see ya dad' as she disappears off with friends to plot the level of chaos. Thats alright tho 🙂

hey onto lighter notes, heres how to ruin your knees in 2 easy steps, the first weighs in at about 15 kilos and the other over 20….

Incoming

Posted on by

If you look carefully you might be able to see the two people standing atop the crazy rock outcropping. I like this image image 'cause it creates a neat analogy between the persons, the incoming storm, which yup.. i got wet for, and the light house which is the apparent destination.. They were probably walking back from the lighthouse, since it was getting rather late (9pm-ish) but I won't let that get in the way of a good image-story 🙂

I hope ya'all finding the right path to your light house 🙂

you.. have got 5 minutes

Posted on by

I heard alot of that from Sarah, tickles and chaos as I pulled over said ' i gotta take picture of this' Lucky I was driving and in control, or else i would not have gotten to stop every 5 minutes 🙂

So, as my 5 minutes was ticking, it was bit like.. oh my gosh.. oh my gosh.. oh my gosh.. whadda i shoot.. whadda i shoot.. 🙂 followed by, don't these people know it takes longer than 5 minutes to take a photo.. sheesh.. i gotta find my spot, without falling the water. setup me tripod compose the shot.. etc.. and then my 5 minutes is up 🙁

anyway on the up side, this little stream and cute bridge was pretty well the first and only shot from this spot 🙂

Pink Jackets

Posted on by

Right who let the dude with the pink jacket in ? I guess to be technically correct it is probably 'peach' so I guess that gives him some relief..

The only straight lines you will find in Trollveggen are on the tourist visitor centre and the newly constructed walk path and look out 🙂

5 shot panorama
D750 coupled with Nikkor16-35 f4 @ 16mm
Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO: 200
Out front: Lee Graduated Filter 0.9x and Hoya Circular Polariser

Old

Posted on by

Old.

There is not really anything graceful about getting old when your a Fungi, the centipedes poop on your head and the spiders weave webs around ya…

I tried a different method of lighting for this one, I used a Bunnings special Click LED work light , dual pack. Its basically a metre long light full of LEDs, battery goes for ages and its pretty robust, great for herding children down the hallway also 🙂 However in this case I could lean it up against the rock and position it just where I wanted it to get the right light, the shutter speed is still pretty long (1 second) but it also means you can roll the light around a bit to get more or less diffusion. I also had my trusty little diffuser over the old fungi.

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 55mm f2.8 @ 55mm Aperture: f32 and Shutter Speed: 1s
ISO 1000
Lightning goodness : Click LED work light with diffuser

Small.. and then there is really small

Posted on by

what is so cool about fungi is that they vary in shape, colour and sizes, kinda hard to get bored of them… It is not until you stand still in the one spot, close enough to the ground, (thats kinda a challenge for me at the best of times) do you realise how many fungi are out there, a cursory scan of an area will almost guarantee that you do not see any, but.. look further and closer and they are everywhere.

This little one I noticed after crouching down and photographing a different larger one. It really is tiny, you can see the twig it is attached to is only about 5mm thick.

Composite Tail Rotor Blades

Posted on by

So as Thursday slipped by this week and most were thanking the fact it was almost the weekend 🙂 over in the US the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and CASA (Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority) in the early morning (Australian time) signed / passed the expanded Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) implementation procedures. Well something to that effect anyways its all inter-governmental stuff which is a bit beyond me as an engineer, but the upshot is that it basically increases the scope and provides implementation of airworthiness approvals automatically accepted by the US from sunny downunder, Australia, yup thats us :). The even bigger deal though, at the same time as signing this agreement/implementation procedures thing, they also completed the validation of the first Australian approval (STC – Supplemental Type Certificate) which I have had alot to do with over the last.. well lets say its been going awhile 🙂

The approval relates to the replacement of the all metal Tail Rotor Blades on a Bell Helicopter 206 helicopter with composite ones. The really neat part is that the blades are certified and produced here in Australia and that it is the very first CASA STC for a rotorcraft that has been accepted by the FAA – that's a really big deal 🙂 it basically means the company here Australia (Airwork Helicopters / AMT Helicopters) can freely sell these composite replacement tail rotor blades into the US market – for once the playing field has been equaled (well nearly 🙂 ) The validation process has been going on for awhile, but it became quite clear towards the end that the FAA were very happy with the high level of certification documentation that was associated the CASA STC – thanks to me 😉 … ok ok,, Auto Avia Design 🙂 🙂 and I suppose CASA had a bit to do with it 🙂

There is already alot of interest from other Australia organisations keen to get various aviation approvals (CASA STC's) here validated through the bilateral agreement. So, whilst manufacturing may appear to have pretty well flat lined in Australia, there are glimmers of hope and when the playing is open for both parties we can really become competitive and get our great ideas and products out there.

For those who may not know, Australia automatically accepts airworthiness approvals from the US (FAA) basically you can buy a camera kit to swing off ya helicopter from Fort Worth in US and its automatically approved – however and its a big one- this in the past has not been reciprocal, we could not automatically get our sweet as aircraft mods automatically accepted over there, in fact, by the time you actually went thru the process of trying it become more cost effective just to do it all in the US – that sucked. So this now implemented Bilateral agreement, whilst does not automatically accept CASA STC's it comes very close, the FAA will 'validate' the CASA STC's meaning they can review them and then give them a FAA STC – noting that a FAA STC is pretty useful since it means you can pretty well sell your FAA STC'd product anywhere in the world, much like the green-back is accepted everywhere, so are FAA STC's.

So, well done to Myles Tomkins (also Chad and John White) at AMT Helicopters/Airwork Helicopters in QLD, without their drive and persistence it would have never gotten past CASA 🙂
Also plenty of Kudos to the QLD government who provided some helpful funding at the start from a innovation fund, after nearly 7 years I bet they were wondering whether they would ever see any return on the funding 🙂

To all you folk out there who choose to beat around in Bell 206 helicopters, grab yourself a set of these blades when your metal ones come up for life replacement, besides buying Australian you are getting a great product with some pretty impressive certification backing it up 🙂

It will be also great to see the Civil Aviation Safety Authority – CASA promoting this agreement and also the first STC cab off the rank 🙂

The official press release can be found on the Airwork website
http://www.airwork.com.au/news-release/

http://australianaviation.com.au/2017/03/airwork-helicopters-obtains-faa-supplemental-type-certificate-for-composite-tail-rotor-blades/comment-page-1/