A 30 minute fixed reserve and a 10% variable reserve plus even a 30 minute weather reserve will not last long maneouvring at relatively low altitude as the pilots make THREE instrument approaches. Without the benefit of a RADAR ATC environment to help with track shortening, they would need to fly the full approach, burning even more fuel.

That holding fuel is based on the benign flight path found during a holding pattern and does NOT take into account the constant power adjustments made during an approach to land or the extra drag of landing gear and flap being extended - THREE times.

The VOR approach at Norfolk Is. with the lower operational minima (giving the best chance of success) is the one landing to the west which means they had to start from further away and burn even more fuel.

And that one hour of extra fuel won’t last long when things do not go according to plan. But it may just make the flight LEGAL.

Beyond that, a sensible pilot will not plan to ditch when the tanks are almost empty. Much better to ditch in a controlled condition with the engines still capable of delivering power then in a powerless glide, don’t you think? Anything else is reckless.

As for not making a mayday call - they were all located within (we’re told) approximately 90 minutes. This indicates the people on the ground were fully aware of what was happening and were onto the process of rescuing them in good time. Making a Mayday call when about to die is a complete waste of time and usually only happens in the movies. I can easily forgive this pilot not making a Mayday call because in effect, he had already done so in communication with the ground crew at Norfolk Is.

I hate to burst the bubble for Bakerboy, Liquid Len and others but the PelAir crew kept everyone alive. The RFDS have had TWO fatal accidents in their history. Whilst not intending to malign the RFDS (I used to work for them many years ago) they are pilots just like anyone else and are just as capable of an accident as any other operator. In fact, the RFDS mostly operate into outback locations where the weather is generally fine and nowhere near the state of the weather at Norfolk Is that night.

Bakerboy your post is full of uninformed speculation and a complete disgrace. I trust you’ll issue a retraction if and when this pilot is shown to have carried the legal fuel reserves.

Jim.

The other aspect of the massive capitalisation required for NP is that once you have the plant, you are obliged to keep it going to ensure that you get a return on investment. That means you may not be able to deploy new, more efficient designs and technologies that come about after you have commissioned your nuclear plant because you hve to leverage off your current investment.

Cheaper, distributed power systems cn be more easily and cost effectively upgraded because your ROI happens earlier.

Remember this small event in 1997? Nick took his case of discrimination imposed by Tasmanian legislation to the UNITED NATIONS Humans Rights apparatus. He asked them to make a ruling on whether the Tasmanian legislation was fair and just. The UN agreed that Nick and Rodney should be allowed to hold hands in public.

Tasmania was FORCED by the UN to overturn its laws against people of the same gender enjoying a relationship together. Did they learn their lesson? Obviously they did, because here they are making sure that the UN can’t tell them off again.

I figure if the Australian Government wants to get Tricky over this issue, they may be risking having this precedent brought back to their attention. What do we all reckon?

The beauty of the solar/wind network model is that the power generation capacity is distributed across a larger number of farms and supplemented by private/domestic deployments. That means that the network is more able to sustain power distribution in the event of failure of multiple components.

Then there is the cost of the network itself in supporting the concentrated output. Not only does the network need to be massively redundant, but it will in all likelihood, need to be servicing a power plant geographically remote - not many people want a Nuclear Facility in their back yard. Because the source of the power is remote to the consumer, the distribution network is inherently inefficient. The cost of redundant power generation systems and networks capable of maintaining base load in the case of network failure has not been dealt with at all from what I have seen in the links above.

Conversely solar, and perhaps to a lesser degree wind, can have their generation farms much closer to the consumer. Much more efficient. Much more redundant.

James McDonald,
your comment to Duke,
“Rudd’s CPRS legislation was never intended to work, I think he feels it’s enough to get the ball rolling and bring about a global big-government revolution, and the rest will solve itself. To that end, the quality of the legislation was neither here nor there,”

shows insight, so congratulations, but you have abused it to validate allsorts of personal and convenient conclusions about players.
Insight to a scientist leads to ideas, developing a theory to tie them together into an entity which reasonably could become real when both oneself and others with the theory in mind find the supporting evidence over time if possible.

There is no other reason. Since coming to this country I have been absolutely stunned by the level of racism that is simply taken for granted in this country.

There must come a point when some “sides” are no longer listened to. “Smoking is not harmful to you.” Some qualified medical doctors use to say that. They had the credentials, and they probably smoked… but they actually said it is not harmful. Now we don’t listen to them. We don’t invite them to speak to give a “balanced debate”. It would be ridiculous to do so.

Some things don’t get equal air time any more. Nor should they. But they use to. Popular journalists and politicians and business interests use to promote “the other side.”

Until we really start feeling the pain of climate change… until it is emperically undeniable…. until parts of the Aussie coastline are under water … some people just wont believe it. And then, as Andrew Bolt is pulled off the roof on his home just before it falls into the ocean, , he might still say “its just an anomily… there is no change. Everything is fine! And smoking doesn’t hurt you. And man never walked on the moon”.

Please don’t call one man talking about his minority position view, a debate!

Oh well, I guess that LP will die an uninteresting death at the hands of ill-advised management.

“Is it too much to hope, in all this, that Conroy might be groping towards a media policy (rather than just a broadband policy)?”

is insight. Congratulations!

Hope is more powerful than the 4 letter word it appears as and only works by being present.
I am hoping with you (I hope) and this (so called ‘do nothing’) Government has regularly charged the ‘hope’ battery with excellent reason to hope.

But Arise Sir Malcolm! You ARE David Suzuki!. I was a rusted on ALP voter (as anyone could guess from my soft Marxism, from the Rundle School of Black Skivvies) but became gradually disgusted with their crude developmentalism/corporatism so went to the Greens. Why, I was even invited to read someone’s execrable poetry in Hobart c 1994 at a Pedder anniversary run by the Tas Greens, and helped organize a trip to Taiwan (cos’ I’d spent time there with the local greens) for Bob Brown…but enough of this Diary of a Nobody…suffice to say that Malcolm exhibits the classic symptoms, evident everywhere on Crikey, of personal insult. I got several serves from Rundle too. You desperately seek labels and bio-info so you can dismiss your (apparent) opponent contemptuously. Dogs sniffing arses, identifying deceitful enemies. Both deniers and cultists have reached a shrill crescendo, vilifying/silencing anyone who doesn’t conform. Think Keane, Rundle, Minchin, Bolt…You all know it’s crunch time. Stand back: the tossariat is coming together. Simultaneous competitive ecstasy.

But am I demeaning the potential importance of AGW? No. I’m attacking the creeping fascism of The Cult and the bogus notion that the End Days are nigh. Look at Hugh McColl savouring my bait above: “We don’t need a manifesto from a self-confessed shitproof, dry towel, nobody Pom.” Couldn’t have said it better myself Hughie. Is it any wonder that 11% of Oz Green Party voters think that AGW is exaggerated? Not to mention a sharp, consistent fall in AGW belief right across the Anglosphere? (see Possum Polls on Crikey this week). Malcolm teeters on the edge of political insight when he asks “Obviously if you want ammo for (slagging wind) that leads you to the denialist lobby.” I can tell you Michael that denialist ranks have swelled in the bush as windfraud spreads. People are hurt and investigate. This leads to AGW denial but, far worse, it sometimes leads (unjustly) to rejection of environmentalism generally. So the cult damages the cause.

What is to be done? I still want my packet of chips….

Another egregious example is Robert Gottliebsen on businessspectactor.com singing the praises of Lord Monckton, who is just arrived from his US tour where he peddled his inanity with intellectual giants like Glenn Beck. But according to Robert, it all must be kosher, because, well, he’s been interviewed by Alan Jones!

(Monckton’s thesis is that AGW is a plot to establish one world government…need I say more?)

Kinnimoth’s peculiar brand of denial is based on some esoteric stuff about evaporative cooling ie more heat, more evaporation, hence more cooling.

His argument is addressed properly on realclimate.org and is essentially that the net energy in the atmosphere remains the same ie evaporation and condensation are the reverse processes, and only re-radiation (which is reduced by CO2 and other agents) actually reduces the net energy of the earth.

No coincidence then that the right wing denialists are trotting out their favourite ‘experts’ at this time, is there?

That means we’re only (!) talking about a quarter of our coastline, 1 km deep given over to light industrialization. Its still not looking good. And since coastal ecology is something I care about, to me it looks pretty bad. And compared to the footprint of nuclear power plants, there’s no comparison - NPP has vastly less ecological impact.

But rather than chipping away at my assumptions one by one, can you provide your alternative? Using whatever wind power densities, turbine characteristics, energy demand numbers etc. you think are fair. Can you do a quick sum on what the area required by wind farms in a zero emission Australia would be?

When Australian Companies ruled our skies our safety reputation was second to none now we are selling years of competence to the cheapest bidder,

I would feel a bit better if that company was flying our Politicians, Senior Public Servants and the CEOs of our larger banks and other VIPs rather than our accident and sickness victims.

Prosecute them, strip them of the contract and return our venerable and reliable RFDS to us.

[Edit]

He has also derided Minchin on his belief that extremists infiltrated the ecological movement post the Reagan/Thatchers demolishment of Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR as yet another mad loon’s conspiracy theory.

But perhaps not:

http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d19-Hadley-CRU-hacked-with-release-of-hundreds-of-docs-and-emails

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODQ1ZjZjM2EzNGM0YjliMDdiOTNmZmZhMmI3ZDhkZGY=

Not even the progressive liberal dominated MSM will be able to suppress this story.

If he “voted Green for years” I’m David Suzuki.

Forget leading on the environmental front, we are insignificant.

Lets lead on conscience issues and show the world that we are a progressive nation.

We don’t notice how conservative we are until you spend a meaningful amount of time overseas. It is scary and, embarassing at times.

I can’t wait to hear Rudd’ly spin his way out of this, we all know that Howard was a fuddy duddy on this issue. Hawke and Keating in similar boats although I’d suggest the silver bodgey would have been pretty hard line on this issue. Keating would have just offended everyone and then moved to the next issue.

I am sick of religion and the MOOTED influence it has on society. I even dated a girl that was religious until that is, she told me she would be celibate until marriage.

Get with the times people!!

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

“None so blind as those who will not see.” Of course, I have no doubt that people like Wallace do see, but once a general always a general, right or wrong.