Schofields Flying Club Ltd - 1 Tower Road Bankstown Airport 2200
(PO Box 200, Georges Hall, NSW 2198 AUSTRALIA)
Phone: +61 2 9773 3611 Email: mail@schofields-flying-club.com.au
SCHOFIELDS FLYING CLUB NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 2007
Welcome to the December 2007 edition of Schofields News. There are the usual plus some new features -
President's Notes by Mike Allsop,
Ask the CFI by Patrick Watson,
X-File X081 (De Schelde S.21) by Anthony Coleiro,
"When they saw the new Clubhouse, they
rejoiced exceedingly with great joy." Flying in New York by Richard Purdy, Hot Goss by Latrodectus, Opal Tour Day 2 (White Cliffs) by Marianne Searle, Innovative Hardstand by Mike Allsop, Opal Tour Day 3 (Andamooka) by Carole Rocks, Be Careful about Ice by Philip McLeod, Sale of Surplus Inventory by the Relocation Sub-committee, and The Last Word from Latrodectus. As well, there's some of the usual administrivia that you've come to expect. So, read on and enjoy!
"When they saw the new Clubhouse, they
rejoiced exceedingly with great joy." Flying in New York by Richard Purdy, Hot Goss by Latrodectus, Opal Tour Day 2 (White Cliffs) by Marianne Searle, Innovative Hardstand by Mike Allsop, Opal Tour Day 3 (Andamooka) by Carole Rocks, Be Careful about Ice by Philip McLeod, Sale of Surplus Inventory by the Relocation Sub-committee, and The Last Word from Latrodectus. As well, there's some of the usual administrivia that you've come to expect. So, read on and enjoy!
NOVEMBER NEW MEMBERS: Welcome to Patrick Sherry, Paul Duggan, Gary Pittard, Andrew Anderson, Paul Grabham, Chris Grabham, David Grabham, Michael Morrison, Benjamin Hansen, Adrian Wells and Robert Pryke. Prospective new members of the Club can download a Membership Application Form (174kB pdf) here. Note that it is still necessary for new members to attend the Club in person with photo identification before applications can be processed.
DECEMBER NEW MEMBERS: Welcome to Kenneth Ford, Matt Ford, Kevin Hadley, Anthony Scott, Fleming Anderson, Adrian Hart, Alexander Anscombe, Dale Baxter, Sean Collins and Kimberley Vinette Herrin.
NOVEMBER DUTY PILOT DRAW: The Volunteer Duty Pilot Monthly Draw for October ($50 free flying) goes to Karen Heugh and Keith Caldwell. The Club appreciates the efforts our tireless band of volunteers generously give in helping their Club and this is one small way of saying thank you!
DIARY DATES: The Club has a number of social and flying activities planned for 2008 and you will be able to check out the full details on our Coming Events page early in the new year. Below is a summary of the programme for December 2007 and January 2008:
| Sat | 15 | December | Christmas Party Special Guest: Peter 'Topper' Tippner Details | Clubhouse |
| Mon | 17 | December | Committee Meeting | Clubhouse |
| Tue | 25 | December | Christmas Day Public Holiday | |
| Wed | 26 | December | Boxing Day Public Holiday | |
| Sun | 30 | December | Last Light Drinks | Clubhouse |
| Tue | 01 | January | New Years Day Public Holiday | |
| Mon | 28 | January | Australia Day Public Holiday | |
Mike Allsop
What happened to 2007? By the time we all read this newsletter it'll be only days to Christmas. On that note, I would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous and Happy 2008.
We have achieved a lot as a Club in 2007. By far the greatest effort has been directed to our relocation project, and we hope you will really like the result. With any luck we will be given the keys before Christmas and spend the following few weeks getting ourselves well and truly established to ops-normal. After a couple of weeks of settling in, we hope to have a Members Open Day at the new location early in February, followed later in the month by an "Official" opening ceremony with a number of special guests. We will of course keep you posted on these events via our usual channels as the time draws nearer.
We boosted our fleet with the acquisition of popular C152 JNB midyear, and have now agreed to purchase a newly refurbished Archer II in Club scheme, to be brought on-line before Christmas. You'll love it. We have updated avionics in the Warriors. We have Arrow JRY set for an interior refurb and new windscreen at its next 100 hourly. All while substantially building our hours during the year with our targets well in sight. We know you like the quality of the fleet and of our instructors, and we intend to keep it that way for you.
That being said, November hours have been a real challenge due weather! We have additional fleet capacity on the weekends to help you catch up with your training or to secure that private flight you have lined up. We had a great example of instructional leadership last weekend when the weather was not suited for a PPL cross country nav. Not to waste the visit, our keen student was taken by her instructor on a short trip into the training area in the full knowledge of the poor visibility to be expected. The object of the exercise was to show where the decision points would be and the basis of making a weather decision for real. Then how to deal with "real" limited visibility up-sun on the return. As they say, you need to see it and feel it to appreciate it, and what better way than with the calm assurance of your instructor on board. Well done.
On instructors, we are very keen to see that you get access to an instructor when it suits you, with due notice of course.
Returning late from the training area in VH-JNB If for any reason your instructor rings to cancel a flight which should otherwise go ahead and this causes you inconvenience, please feel free to ring the Club and we will endeavour to find an alternative. Sometimes "stuff happens", but at the end of the day you are the customer and we are here to provide top grade service to you. The normal procedure for variation or cancellation of a booking should be through the front desk at the Club, that way proper "juggling" can take place on all accounts - customer, instructor and aircraft.
As mentioned in our last newsletter, Pat Watson has now succeeded in having our Instructor Rating Training Approval re-instated. This is a great result for Pat, and provides an added line of business for us to follow though in 2008. We are getting a lot of enquiries from people interested in CPL training in all facets, but not wanting to go the route of the big pilot factories. This is a particular niche for us, and we intend to work co-operatively with some other organisations at Bankstown to help satisfy training demand. Of course, you already know of our attention to PPL training and the needs of private pilots in general. Keep an eye on Australian Flying Magazine for ads promoting exactly that. If you have friends or family keen to learn or hear about leaning to fly, put them in touch with our GM, Nelson Crawshaw who can give advice on all we can offer. Pat Watson is always keen to help make it happen.
So it will be good-bye to Tower Road very soon. Remember too to consider a Christmas gift voucher for yourself or favourite passenger. TIF for a niece? Scenic with visitors? We can do it for you. In the meantime, keep an eye out for bargains on stuff that we cannot take with us to Birch St. "Other man's treasure" as they say.
In the meantime, safe and happy flying.
Mike Allsop
President SFC
Pat Watson
CARBURETTOR ICE: I have been asked by the Committee to write an article on carburettor Ice. Carburettor ice is the major suspect in a recent partial engine failure in one of our aeroplanes.Instead of reinventing the wheel, I found an excellent article in November - December 2004 edition of Australian Flight Safety on that very subject and you can download the article at www.casa.gov.au/fsa/2004/dec/32-33.pdf. If you have any questions, please fell free to see me at any time. Until next month, Happy Flying.
Patrick Watson CP/CFI
A Dutch company called Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde started an aviation department with the collapse of Pander & Zonen picking up that company's chief engineer in 1935. What followed was the production of some light touring aircraft. From these early designs came the S.21 a single-seat fighter of unconventional layout intended for the interceptor roll.
The aircraft had some unusual features. It was all-metal in construction, a reverse gull wing with twin booms.
De Schelde S.21 single seat fighter It was powered by a 1,085 hp Daimler-Benz DB 600G 12-cylinder inverted V liquid cooled engine driving a pushed propeller via a shaft, which could be jettisoned in flight if the pilot had to bail out. The cockpit was extensively glazed giving the pilot a good field of view. The radiator was located at the front of the aircraft under the cockpit and split in two by the retracting nose gear.
Heavy armament was proposed for the aircraft with four 7.9 mm machine guns mounted on the side of the forward fuselage, a 23 mm forward firing cannon and one rear facing 23 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub, although how this was aimed is unclear.
Only one prototype was built as the Germans occupied the factory in 1940. The aircraft was transported back to Germany where it was tested to destruction; it was never flown. It was calculated by the designer that the aircraft would have had a maximum speed of 590 km/h.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Aircraft - Orbis Publications |
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War Planes of the Second World War - Fighters Volume Three - William Green |
Anthony Coleiro
| Newark Tower | "November 40019, traffic 3 miles at 10 o'clock is an Airbus A340. Report sighting that aircraft" |
| N40019 | "Traffic sighted" |
| Newark Tower | "Maintain visual separation from that aircraft" |
| N40019 | "Wilco" |
T he exchange to the right was one of my first experiences since November last year when I started flying in the congested airspace of New York. I was in a Warrior and had just flown south down the Hudson River at 900 feet to the Statue of Liberty, dodging a swarm of helicopters along the way. You can do the whole trip below the New York Class B airspace without any clearance if you want to, but I decided I wanted to take a short cut home and was cleared by Newark Tower direct to my departure airport, Caldwell in New Jersey, about 12 miles past Newark.
The New York skyline from the uncontrolled
airspace of the Hudson River. The clearance was: "Track from the Lady via the numbers direct Caldwell. Maintain 1000. Squawk 4512".
This meant I was cleared direct from the Statue of Liberty to Caldwell Airport and I had to pass over the numbers of runway 04 at Newark whilst all the international traffic landed 1000 feet below me making sure that I maintained separation from Jumbos and Airbuses. It was pretty hard not to see them or miss them.
I'd arrived VFR, unannounced and with no flight plan at the "Lady" but had no trouble at all getting a VFR clearance into the New York Class B airspace on a busy Saturday morning. It took about 30 seconds. No waiting, and the controller seemed happy to help out.
So I climbed up to 1000 feet and headed for the numbers. It wasn't hard to find the runways. Runway 04 left is 11,000 feet and 04 right is 10,000 feet. As I passed directly over the airport, a number of aircraft were taking off and landing.
Imagine the reaction if you arrived at Stanwell Park, dialled up Sydney tower and asked for a VFR clearance direct to Bankstown.
There are a number of other interesting differences flying over here as well. Language was definitely a problem to start with. There were three issues. Accent, terminology and speed of delivery.
Katama Airfield on Martha's Vineyard. Starting with the last one first, the way they are able to handle all the traffic and give people like me clearances is to cram as many words as they can into every minute. This means talking fast, very fast. This works both ways as well. I've had to speed up my delivery by a factor of 3; otherwise you can pick up a sense of annoyance from some controllers who obviously think you are talking too slowly. I've got some great examples of radio conversations I'll send over in the future.
Terminology is another issue. Even though ICAO is meant to standardise everything it doesn't. There's still lots of local jargon. For example: "Position and hold" is the US equivalent of our "Line up and hold". To me it could be dangerously confused with "Hold position".
The third problem is the accent. We all speak English, but the number of times I have to repeat something so they understand what I've said is incredible. This is even though the JFK controllers get lots of practice with flight crews from all over the world, some of whom I can't even understand when I hear them on the radio.
I get lots of radio work over here as I generally fly IFR. Caldwell is also a Class D airport with a tower. You even have to get a taxi clearance prior to taxying, although interestingly you only have to establish radio communications prior to flying into their airspace. You don't technically need a formal clearance to enter the Class D airspace, you just have to talk to them. I've made many trips out into Long Island Sound to places like Martha's Vineyard and into the Amish country of Pennsylvania. Going IFR makes it very easy. Up and down the East Coast corridors there's a thing called TEC which stands for Tower Enroute Control.
Block Island out in the middle of Long Island Sound. This means you get passed automatically from one controller to another as long as you don't go above the TEC altitude for the route. There a set routes from one airport to another, although quite often they totally ignore the set route and give you something totally unexpected for your clearance. In fact, two times out of three you will have planned for the TEC route and you end up with something else. This is a problem when it comes to IFR clearances because over here you have to read back the full clearance. The longest one I've read back so far took about 45 seconds (at my new accelerated speech rate) and contained around twelve waypoints and Victor airways, initial altitude, altitude after 10 minutes, heading on departure, departure frequency and transponder code. So you have to write fast as well as talk fast.
When flying VFR, people are encouraged to use flight following which works pretty well. They stop you flying into controlled airspace without a clearance and give you traffic. Traffic is a real problem. I've had lots of near misses, so you really have to keep your eyes open all the time. Even in the Class D airspace at Caldwell, I've had some close calls although the tower even has radar. But I'll talk some more about that at another time.
We're just about to go into winter which is another interesting topic when it comes to flying, which I'll also cover talk about when it has finally set in.
Richard Purdy
Here is a pot pourri of achievements, commitments and (nautical) milestones reached by some of our members:
(Left) Tim and Carmen Fu and (right) Phil and Anna (née Forbes) Coller
TIM FU: Recent Club flyer Tim Fu likes aeroplanes that much that he chose our Club as the place for he and his bride Carmen's wedding photo shoot. This is another first for Schoies at YSBK.
Aaron Dailey We all know we live in a world of diversification, but what next - wedding receptions!
ANNA FORBES: On a very warm and sunny October day Anna Forbes married Phil Coller at Springwood Anglican church. After photos at Norman Lindsay's Gardens and a champagne celebration with workmates and friends, they then partied with many of our friends and family on Nepean Platypus for a four hour dinner cruise. They then drove down to Melbourne to board the Spirit of Tasmania and spent a week exploring the countryside, returning via the Yarra Valley in Victoria.
AARON DAILEY was sent solo in VH-JNB by instructor Tom Blazevic on 14 December 2007. Congratulations, Aaron!
Day 2: Sunday, 2nd September 07 - White Cliffs (Fathers' Day)
After a very good nights sleep in our cool underground digs, we awoke to a clear, crisp and sunny day. The original plan was for all of us to be in the one bus for a tour around the local sites, unfortunately the bus had packed it in and we were to venture out in smaller groups. This sounded like a good idea but unfortunately in reality took too long to execute, fortunately for us we were in the first group.
Our tour guide for the trip was a charming local lad, "Patch" resplendent with obligatory patch and missing front teeth, and blue checked flannel shirt, as it was still winter.
Our aircraft lined up at White Cliffs airstrip Now we did think he was going to just drop us in town to let us wander about and then go back and get the next lot of eager day trippers. No, this was not the case so off he carried out of town and out to the moonscape diggings, which were very interesting.
We also got to visit his diggings and abode, complete with his pet goat and resident pig. The goat had a habit of hanging about on the roof of the ute, when ever it could get away with it.
The locals do not take too kindly to the tourists wandering off the track into their territory and the signs politely tell you that you have taken a wrong turn. The claims are quite small 50x50m and at a cost of $90 per year you are allowed a maximum of 2. The entire opal field is 133km x 168km, and there are still around 200 years left in it, according to Patch. Looking at the amount of people in town and the equipment they use, that seems a fair assessment. The Mining Association runs the town and the claims. The Policeman lost his job in 1952, as there was no crime, and no work, so crime did not pay, for the police.
There are only 4 people left in town from the original settling families. Patch is one of them and so is Gwen Fogga who, at 94, still rides a 500cc motor bike to muster the sheep, or so the story goes. Funny she wasn't in her original little cottage in town, but away in the hospital, hopes she recovers to take on Patch for another day of telling tall tales and yarns from days long gone.
Speaking of days of old, another colourful resident was Jock and his extensive collection of all that is old, very old, and even older and exceptionally dusty!!
White Cliffs from the air Come to think of it he was pretty dusty himself and had quite an attitude about how dammed hard and horrible the old mining days were.
Still, being eager on our early days of this trip we were willing to listen to anything he cared to tell us, but woe be tied if you interrupted him, 'cause then he would have to start his spiel all over again, ah it takes all sorts.
Another interesting display was the original solar power station. This was a prototype and was very efficient. In 1986 it was connected to the town's power grid which pleased the locals as previously they were reliant on the power from Wilcannia and when there were bad storms they were without power for days. Things have progressed now and the site was closed in Nov 2006, but in its time it was one of the most progressive and successful Solar Power generators using the might of our very powerful sun, of which this country has in abundance. The afternoon was spent wandering around town and some of us went out to the old campsite area and did a bit of fossicking. A few chips were found but nothing to brag about, though Alan did keep his a secret until we got back to the bus. The evening meal at the hotel was great as we had the "private dining" room, because the place was packed.
A lot of people had come to town as the Birdsville Race had been cancelled due to the equine flu. It worked out well, for there were lots of very happy faces around the table and I called for a toast to all the Fathers, not to forget their special day!
Only our second day and what a lot of fun we are having, on with the trip.
Marianne Searle
As you know, we will be moving to our new site very early in the New Year. One of the aspects of our current site we will not miss is the periodic inundation we get during heavy rain, and the persistent bog that remains. The aircraft parking area at our new site is mostly grass at present, with a nice taxiway up the middle. Our plans have always been to have some improvements made to enable some or all aircraft to park completely on hardstand off this taxiway. We also want to ensure we are well clear of soft ground or standing water in our airside parking configuration.
If you have ever dealt with your local council regarding "soft surfaces" and retention drainage for stormwater you will appreciate how a simple idea can get pretty complicated and expensive.
This stuff is called "Hexadeck", and
comprises interlocking hexagonal tiles In short, bitumen or concrete pads or fingers pose a number of consequential project requirements which we are unwilling to progress at this stage. Enter a new idea.
"How about we find a surface which is solid yet drains through itself?" "How about this surface be relocatable?" With a bit of creative analysis and sleuth work, Nelson Crawshaw found some heavy duty ground matting used by the USAF, now on sale in Australia. This stuff is called "Hexadeck", and comprises interlocking hexagonal tiles made of high density UV resistant plastic good for 30 tonnes or so point load. It can be laid on unprepared ground or on a smooth substrate, and allows water to drain right through.
BAL have given us authorisation to trial this material as parking fingers on our new site, which is fantastic. It would seem to meet all their requirements for a "soft surface". Last week we took delivery of about 50sqm as a sample and laid it on soft ground behind one of our parking rows. As a test, we have Arrow LSG parked on it and proved that it easily managed the taxy-on, taxy-off without any special edging. It is not at all slippery, and seems to remove water well. We will see how it goes for a couple of weeks before committing to larger quantities for our fingers over at Birch St. If all goes well in the full scale trial, we could well make Hexadeck a permanent fixture. Just in case you were wondering, no tile can be removed without the 6 around it moving. With proper edge trimming and fixing intended, this should be strong and secure. (We hope!) Give us your comments if you are out at the Club in early December.
Mike Allsop
President SFC
Day 3: Monday, 3rd September 07 - White Cliffs to Andamooka
After two days in White Cliffs it was time to move on. We ate yet another hearty breakfast in the Underground Motel, and then packed up our gear before squeezed as many as possible into the Motel's 4WD, eventually shuttling everyone to the airstrip on the outskirts of town. We were headed to Leigh Creek for fuel, then on to Andamooka.
We flew over massive salt lakes including Lake Frome and Lake Torrens.
Refueling at Leigh Creek The only way to really appreciate the sheer size of these lakes is from the air. It took us about two hours from White Cliffs to Andamooka, at least 15 minutes of this time was spent overflying the salt beds.
Everything looked very dry, particularly the Mt Druid Ranges, with little vegetation and even less water in sight.
Andamooka's red earth airstrip came into view and we were soon on our way into 'town' to stay at Dukes Bottlehouse Motel. As the name implies, a feature of the Motel is a huge bottle shaped room on the front of the building, constructed totally from bottles cemented together. After a counter lunch and a cleansing ale we were off on a tour of the town and surrounding area. Peter, our guide, took us to his mine! They do it a little differently in Andamooka, mostly preferring open cut mines as opposed to vertical shafts ~ the area surround the town was a mass of open mines, some still being actively explored, but many abandoned.
Our aircraft lined up at Andamooka airstrip It all looked rather like you'd imagine a moonscape ~ not a blade of grass in sight, and not trees or scrub to speak of.
We were taken down into some of the mines as Peter explained the process and described how boundaries and finds were jealously guarded ~ no one ever admits to a good find, or at least to where they may have 'hit the jackpot'. It seems, miners often secretly take their opals out of the district for valuation ~ we were very cynical when told, "there's no money to be made in opal mining". We were fascinated, and we spent a bit of time very discretely scouring the mine walls looking for a piece of opal Peter might have missed. Alas, he's very thorough and there were no major discoveries that day, unless you count the gift shop goodies!
We were back at our hotel in time for some domestic chores or a quick kip before heading off to the local pub for Happy Hour and then some dinner ~ never seen such big servings ~ general consensus was that we might need to do another weight and balance check before taking off for Coober Pedy!
Tomorrow we're off to Roxby Downs, Olympic Dam and Woomera Rocket Range!
Carole Rocks
As a GA pilot in warm and sunny Australia, I suppose that like many others the thought of aircraft icing is one of those areas of knowledge that I listened to as my instructor droned on about the theory of icing, but really, in my mind I never thought I would encounter as a real problem of flight.
Apart from the very real possibility
Out of the gloom came the answer,
two vehicles that spray a deicing agent of Carburetor icing the knowledge was assigned to "Interesting to know, but not much use" category of my memory. Unless you are one of the rare GA pilots who have access to aircraft that can climb into the really chilly air, or you fly to Cooma in the depths of winter you probably felt the same way.
Recently I had reason to travel to Sweden and Belgium on business which I coupled with side trips to various museums, and this brought all those old lessons into sharp focus. It was 0600 local time and I was on an MD80 commercial flight to Brussels from Stockholm Arlanda. There was about 3cm of snow on the wings, it was still snowing and the temperature was -4 C at ground level, I suddenly thought of the consequences of flight under those conditions. The thought of ice robbing us of that most precious thing, LIFT, was suddenly a worrying reality.
How do you deice an entire aircraft, and keep it free of ice and snow until the aircrafts normal systems can take over in flight? Out of the gloom came the answer, two vehicles that spray a deicing agent, usually monopropylene glycol or sometimes the toxic ethylene glycol. This agent removes the snow and ice and inhibits it reforming quickly. Needless to say this process takes a little time as the whole aircraft is sprayed and inspected twice by the ground crew. Therefore we never left on time.
The photo was actually taken on the day I left Stockholm to return to Australia, it was too dark on the day I have described in the text.
So next time you are on an aircraft that is late leaving the gate, remember those of our aviation comrades in the northern part of the world where Icing is currently a very real and present danger.
Philip McLeod
(Now much more careful about ice)
We are sure you would all be aware that the construction of our new clubhouse is forging ahead. At this rate it may well be that we get the keys to the door in late December. However, as with any handover this just means we move into the next phase of our relocation. Let's call this phase two.
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Pickup available upon purchase 10 x Cement pot plant holders - 1 metre diameter $20 each 4 x Terracotta pot plant holders - 600mm diameter $25 each |
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Concurrent with these activities will be the winding down of our Tower Road premises. As you will have seen via our web, the demountable buildings have now been sold. The Palm Trees are still open for offers.
The next level of sales for Tower Road surplus inventory is for those medium items that will not join us at Birch Street. There are two item groups in this level, first are those that can be sold and collected now. Second are those that can be sold and earmarked for collection when we have moved out. Due to the small number of items we have produced a schedule that you can review if you click here. This also includes information on how to participate as a buyer.
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Pickup available after Club relocation 3 x Split system Reverse Cycle Air Conditioning units all in working order $300 each |
The date for this historic event will be announced as soon as we have operational status at our new clubhouse. As indicated above, this should be mid to late January. Keep an eye on your Inbox and our web home page for updates; the following is a selection of items we are now offering for sale.
To participate in the buying process simply send us an email to mail@schofields-flying-club.com.au with the subject line MOVING SALES and the details of what item you wish to buy. Please include your name and a contact phone number.
Items will be allocated on a first in basis. Payment will be required within 7 days from our notification of a successful sale. Removal will be the responsibility of the buyer at a mutually agreed time with the club.
Your Relocation Committee
G-PEE-S NAVIGATION: London toilets are now just a text message away. London's public conveniences just got a whole lot more convenient. A new service lets caught-short shoppers locate the nearest public restroom using their cell phones.
For all except those possessing the steeliest of bladders, the following situation is no doubt familiar: You're in a large city, dying to go to the bathroom, but there is not a public toilet to be found. The mounting psychological and physiological pressure as the search for relief becomes ever more desperate makes it an experience few care to repeat.|
A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and still make such an obvious error, he replied, "Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings. I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh." And now you're wondering how I had de Gaulle to print this in the Newsletter. I figured I had nothing Toulouse. |
The "SatLav" service is described as the first of its kind in the UK and was inspired by an idea submitted by 26-year-old student in a council innovation competition. The service, which pinpoints the caller's location by measuring the strength of the phone signal, covers 40 public toilets - most of them free - in Central London. The area covered includes such tourist attractions as Oxford Street, the West End, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
The service doesn't come cheap. At 25p [pun intended] to send the special text message, one is tempted to assume the service seeks to take advantage of the biologically desperate.
BEST WISHES: Please accept without obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the summer solstice festive season, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice and with respect for the religious or secular persuasion or traditions of others. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures. These wishes are made regardless of the race, creed, colour, age, physicality, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
FEEDBACK AND CONTRIBUTIONS: Well, that's your Newsletter for this month. With help (in the form of contributions) it might be possible to continue to produce a newsletter every month. Don't forget to check the latest news on the Club's website at www.schofields-flying-club.com.au. Contributions, comments, feedback, and suggestions to latrodectus@schofields-flying-club.com.au.
THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH: You don't stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing.
Latrodectus
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