Plane crashes on landing at Adelaide Airport, South Australia

Adelaide, South Australia – Saturday 27th September 2008

In front of about a thousand spectators, the King Air B200 Twin Engine Corporate Charter VH-URU on a charter flight from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island crash landed on Runway 30 (South East to North West runway). No-one was injured with passengers praising the work of the pilot.

The large crowd was at the airport to see the new Qantas A380 Airbus arrive for the first time at Adelaide and where treated to a perfectly executed crash landing of the twin engine King Air.

It circled the airport for some 30 minutes to burn of fuel before doing a low level pass along the runway to steady in the gusty winds before landing on its belly skidding to a very quick stop.

The video shows the approach and crash followed by the passengers escaping and emergency services quickly approaching. Sorry for the slightly bumpy footage. It was really an opportunistic shoot with no time to set up with tripod etc as I’m sure you can imagine.

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New version of Banksia Park Weather online!

Click here for Banksia Park Weather
Finally got around to changing the Banksia Park Weather Station site to its new version moving the Flash movie off to a sub page and using JavaScript to keep the ‘static’ page updated every 25 seconds. It’s got more features and more useful areas including a longer range forecast from Weather Underground, access to radar, warnings from the BOM, and will allow me to grow the informational part of the site that explains weather in simple terms. The version on-line now is just the start.

So if you’re living in any of the following suburbs, it’s probably the closest site to get temperature, humidity, barometer or pressure, wind direction and speed, and a whole host of other information on the weather :

  • Banksia Park, South Australia, 5091
  • Tea Tree Gully, South Australia, 5091
  • Vista, South Australia, 5091
  • Fairview Park, South Australia, 5126
  • Yatala Vale, South Australia, 5126
  • Surrey Downs, South Australia, 5126
  • Redwood Park, South Australia, 5097
  • St Agnes, South Australia, 5097
  • Ridgehaven, South Australia, 5097
  • Houghton, South Australia, 5131
  • Lower Hermitage, South Australia, 5131
  • Modbury, South Australia, 5092
  • Modbury Heights, South Australia, 5092
  • Wynn Vale, South Australia, 5127
  • Golden Grove, South Australia, 5125

Click on the image at the top of this to be taken to the Banksia Park Weather Station or click on this text.

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2003 Ford Falcon BA Workshop Manual

Workshop manual for the 2003 Ford Falcon BA. This is what seems a very extensive workshop manual at 2,089 pages, however it does not include the electrical diagrams. It goes into fault diagnosis of most of the electrical though. It does cover in great depth all the other parts of the 2003 model Ford Falcon.

It’s a big PDF file at 148MB so it will take some time to download.

Sections covered:

  • 100-00 General Information – Pg 1
  • 204-00 Suspension System – Pg 82
  • 205-00 Driveline System – Pg 154
  • 206-00 Brake System – Pg 236
  • 211-00 Steering System – Pg 339
  • 303-00 Engine System – Pg 408
  • 307-00 Automatic Transmission – Pg 895
  • 308-00 Manual Transmission – Pg 1011*
  • 309-00 Exhaust System – Pg 1140
  • 310-00 Fuel System – Pg 1157
  • 412-00 Climate Control System – Pg 1190
  • 413-00 Instrumentation – Pg 1315*
  • 414-00 Charging System – Pg 1397
  • 415-00 Entertainment System – Pg 1419
  • 417-00 Lighting – Pg 1459*
  • 418-00 Module Communications Network
  • 419-00 Specialist systems and Computer – Pg 1549*
  • 501-00 Body System – Pg 1602

* Some of the above are what I think should be there. The numbering suggests there may be some parts missing, but in all, it’s pretty comprehensive.

Special note: To remove the rear bumper of a Ford BA Sedan, see page 1766. This is what I was looking for when I found this file.

Download the file using this link (VERY LARGE – 148MB) <- updated link, thanks for letting me know Tony.  🙂

If you do go through the trouble of downloading it, don’t forget to save it to disk. Nothing worse than having to download it again and if it’s not what you want, you can always delete it.

Note: Because of this file’s size and popularity, I’ve had to remove it from my site. If the link breaks, please let me  know and I’ll find an alternative. (I don’t download it anymore as I’ve already got it.)

If you happen to have the electrical schematics especially showing the colour coding of the wiring and the fuse box detail, please let me know. It would be very much appreciated.

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Telstra moves more Australian jobs to India

A comical help desk call from a customer with a very strong Australian slang to the Telstra India help desk with an agent that has a very strong Indian accent and doesn’t understand many of the Australian slang terms.

It begins with the announcer making the statement that Telstra moves more Australian jobs to India.

Download the audio clip in MP3 format here.

Here is the transcript of the call. A good read if your not able to get the audio.

Announcer: Tuesday February 17th Telstra moves more Australian jobs to India
Agent: Hello, welcome please to Telstra customer service how may be helping you
Caller: Oh yeh I’m on my mobile in Warragamba
Agent: What, pardon, what, kindly repeating location sir
Caller: Warragamba, I’m in Warragamba just past Wallacia
Agent: What, what, what, repeating please
Caller: Warragamba, out past Wallacia, Mulgoa, Luddenham
Agent: Warragambling Mudling Home… Not finding a postal code for Warragambling Mudling Home
Caller: Listen sunshine don’t worry about that, the point is me landline’s carked it
Agent: Cark, cark, what is cark?
Caller: It’s stuffed
Agent: Stuffed! What do you mean it is stuffed? You are not to be stuffing telephones. You’re to be talking into them. What have you stuffed it with sir?
Caller: Look mate, don’t come the raw prawn
Agent: Raw prawn! You have stuffed your telephone with raw prawns what is this.
Caller: No, no, no, no. I’ll start again. Me phones not working
Agent: Well of course it’s not if you stuffed it with raw prawns it will not be working. Eventually it will be very smelly.
Caller: Look just forget I ever said raw prawn
Agent: Excellent we are not specialising in sea food issues. Sir this is Telstra customer service. If you are requesting a recipe for line for crustations I will kindly be transferring you…
Caller: No, no, no. Listen it’s me phone ma hammer it’s packed up
Agent: Well unpack it then it will not work if it’s still in the box especially if you’ve stuffed it with raw prawns.
Caller: No, no no. Not packed up like that, me lines gone dead buddy
Agent: My name is not buddy. My name is Rajeve Biligalvindalswami. Whence are you calling from?
Caller: I told you I’m calling from Warragamba
Agent: Aahh! I found it here. Westminster. Isn’t it your being in the United Kingdom of Great Britain…
Caller: No, no, no. I’m in Warragamba. I just want someone to fix me bloody phone line.
Agent: Why did you not bloody say so in the first place?
Caller: I did. I did!
Agent: You did not! You’re telling me you stuffed your phone with raw prawns.
Caller: Ah Oh I give up
[Caller hangs up. Hear beep, beep, beep.]
Agent: Goodness me silly bloody Australians. That will serve them right for winning one day cricket isn’t it hey. Ha ha. They thinking we Indians know damn nothing. I am telling you we know damn all.
[Phone rings]
Agent: Hello Telstra customer service

Note: This is a piece of comedy work. Any connection with any real person is not intentional.

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My LinkedIN profile

Not sure if you’ve seen or heard of the LinkedIN site. It’s a Facebook for professionals. I’ve got my profile there now so if you want to know what I am up to with work etc, go and check it out.
View Trevor Van Der Linden's profile on LinkedIn

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Adelaide On-Site Towbar Fitting

I had a towbar fitted to my car a while ago. After ringing around, I settled on Adelaide On-Site Towbar Fitting, a mobile come to you company. Mistake. There is nothing worse when you pay a professional to do a job and then you find out they have wired your car wrong. Go to pick up a new trailer about 40km away and as soon as you plug it in and push the brakes, the fuse blows.

Luckily a little electrical knowledge found the problem where Adelaide On-Site Towbar Fitting had wired the brake (red wire) and the earth (white wire) the wrong way around.

So how would you go if it was you? Do you have the knowledge to figure it out on the road side?

The company I’m talking about is Adelaide On-Site Towbar Fitting with the slogan We Come To You  Towbars. They are located at 91 Philip Hwy, Elizabeth South, SA , 5112, Australia. Their phone numbers are Ph: (08) 8235 2977, Other: 0418 817 025, Mobile: 0418 817 025 and they have an AH Contact of (08) 8287 3992.

Handy as they come to you to fit the towbar. Price is the same as taking your car somewhere. Quality, well..

I just don’t understand why they don’t test there work.

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Outlook problem

When you recieve an email message as an attachment to another email, you can’t open it. No messages are displayed or anything. It’s probably becuase you have Google Desktop installed. You need to remove Google Desktop and the problem should resolve. It happens with both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

Dont believe me, try this. Hold down CTRL key while starting Outlook. You should get a dialog asking if you want to start in Safe Mode. Say yes. Now try opening the attachment. It opens? Yes – because Google isn’t loaded. No – Sorry but this fix probably won’t help, however feel free to try un-installing Google Desktop.

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Banksia Park Weather goes live

Finally Banksia Park, SA has weather information available to it’s residents live and on-line. With the type of land around Banksia Park the Bureau of Meteorology sites just don’t provide a clear picture with the closest being Parafield Airport. It’s still under construction from the perspective it still needs a 10m mast for wind speed and direction, it’s giving residents an alternative to be able to get readings from.

The site has been collecting data using a Lacrosse WS2310 automated weather station since 3rd Jan 2008. You can see the live and historical data at Banksia Park Weather.

Visit Banksia Park Weather here: http://trev.id.au/weather.

 

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Courseplanner tutorials

Re-produced to remove problem with hackers

The Wiki at MyOddWeb Wiki has had a not to bright individual damage the great information at the site relating to thier Courseplanner software. I managed to find what I think is the original info on the tutorials and have re-posted it here where it’s not so likely to get damaged by vandals.

The two main parts are “Creating a Flight Plan” and “Exporting a flight plan from Flight Simulator”. Just click on the readmore link to get to the interesting part (unless of course you are already seeing it).

Creating a flight plan

This is the tutorial to create a basic flight plan.

  1. Start Courseplanner
  2. Go to the third Tab – “Flight Plan”. Courseplanner automatically reloads the last flight so, if there is already a flight simply press the “New/Clear” button on the toolbar, (second one from left).
  3. Look for the departure airport. SCCI. Press “Ctrl-F” and enter “SCCI”, double click on the airport and Courseplanner will take you there.
  4. Click on the airport, (see note below about cursors). A list of all the runways is now show, select runway 07. This means that you will be taking-off heading 07.
  5. You should now see two new points in the flight plan, one called “SCCI” for the airport and another called “USER” to make sure that you fly straight for 3 miles before you turn toward the next point, (whatever that point might be).
    You can remove the extra point by un/checking the “Add Extra Waypoints” below the flight plan.
  6. Same as number 3, look for SCGZ, when you click on the airport you will see that along with the list of possible runways you also get 4 intersections and one VOR.
    Select runway 08 for landing. Landing is opposite to take-off, so you will be landing heading 26.

Adding routes

So that’s a “basic” plan. Now let’s assume that you want to use some routes between your two airports.

  1. Repeat steps 1 to 5 above. (I will assume that De-clutter is ON to make it easier).
  2. Incidentally you will see two routes going from the airport to ALMIR, (use the Ctrl-F option above to locate it).
    Click on the intersection and select either the Jet or Victor airway.
  3. Select one of the routes.
  4. Select the airport to land as point number 6 above.

Note about cursors

  • Courseplanner has 2 cursors, an “Arrow” and a “Hand”, to toggle between the two simply right-click on the map.
  • The hand is used to grab and move the map, where the arrow is used to select points or select an area.

Note on routes

  • If you cannot see some routes then some of the setting were changed either by yourself of during previous installs.
  • Look for “Almir”, (Ctrl-f), if Courseplanner can find it but you cannot see it on the map, (white triangle), then your data is corrupt. Download the latest version to get a new uncorrupted route database.

Note on plans

  • On the first tab you can give you plan a unique name. To ‘create’ the plan select the red ‘check’ button next to the find button. And all the files will be moved to your flight sim directory for you.

Modifying a flight plan created in flight simulator

By default flight simulator does not include SID or STAR and neither does it line-up the plane for proper landing. You can use Courseplanner to update your flights and insert flight plans.

Create a plan with flight simulator.

In this example we will assume that you already have a flight plan created by flight simulator.

Select a flight from FADN(Durban Intl) to FAJS(Johannesburg Intl).

  1. select the IFR plan
  2. Press ‘Find Route’ using VOR to VOR, (it doesn’t really matter what you choose).
  3. The plane and/or weather you choose is immaterial as this can be updated with Courseplanner.
  4. Save the flight plan

Updating the Flight plan

In our example the plan created was FADN -> USER->DNV->LYV->WDV->HGV->JSV->FAJS

The two main problems are that there is no SID and STAR and that the final 2 VORs will cause the plane to fly over the runways after take-off and just before landing.

Selecting a new SID

By default there is no SID/STAR selected, but you can go to the [[Landing]] tab to change the departure SID.

Selecting a new STAR

Same as with the SID, you can go to the [[Landing]] tab to change the Landing STAR.

Don’t fly to all the Navaids

In many flights it might be useful to use a navaid as a reference without actually flying to that point.

A good example is the DNV after departure, although it might be a good reference to know how far we are from the airport, it is not actually useful to fly to that point itself, (that is why we are using a SID).

See the [[Flight Plan]] tab for more information on how this can be done.

Re-create the plan

Once you are happy with the changes then simply create the flight plan. See the [[main toolbar]] for more information.

”’NB”’: The plan will be moved to the directory you chose in the [[config general|configuration]]

If you find something wrong with this, I’d be interested in hearing from you. Also if the original author doesn’t want this appearing here, please let me know. It’s posted for other people like myself to still have the ability to get the info needed to make use of a product like Courseplanner from MyOddWeb

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Andrea Corr’s embarrasing moment with her thumb

Every now and then you come across a video of someone famous doing something that makes you realise that they are just people like you and me. Here is one of Andrea Corr sitting next to her brother Jim who’s doing all the talking on an interview. Andrea looks like normal Andrea, just looking around and up comes the hand and she starts sucking her thumb. Then realises what she’s doing, pulls it away and gives the camera an embarrassed smile.
I’m not sure when this interview was or where but it looks a few years old.

But by all reports, it’s not something she worries about to much as she’s quoted to say “Also, sucking my thumb comforts me. It helps me fall asleep. If I get tired, the first thing I do is put my thumb in my mouth. But I don’t think it’s because I’m insecure. It’s just very comforting and I love it. I can’t give it up.”

http://www.andrea-corr.uklinux.net/extra/

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