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I discovered today that an interim report has been released by the ATSB on the recent Canley Vale plane crash.

I witnessed the plane fly over Rooty Hill train station just after 8am on Tuesday 15 June. A few minutes later, the plane crashed into the front yard of a house, next to the Canley Vale Public School.

I noticed at the time what I thought was a prop blade hanging down from the right hand engine pod. The report confirms my observation, as the pilot had shut down that engine some time before flying over Richmond. My observation about the height was also correct, as the plane was tracked at 1000ft just south of the M4/M7 motorway (Lighthorse Interchange).

ATSB Interim Report into the Canley Vale Plane Crash

Very sad indeed.

July 15th, 2010 | Category: General News | Comments Off

I went back through some video footage taken during Day 1 of the RBA Nationals last year, and took a snapshot of one frame in particular. It highlights how hard reading the wind can be.

As you can see, according to the flags, the wind is roaring in from the top left corner of the photo.  The flags around the middle of the photo lend support to this theory.  However, looking at the flags on the gravel strip at the bottom of the photo (and thus the most important ones being so close to the firing line), the wind is roaring in from the right side of the photo.

So, what is it to be?

Do you aim left and up, or right and down?

Interestingly, the shot shows the wind is changing direction, as shown by the flags on the gravel strip.  The pink and yellow flags bottom left show the original direction, the flags (and bulb) are showing it swinging around to the right.

The video this came from has sound, and yes, people were shooting at this time.

Go figure!

(BTW: to my noobish eyes, there’s way too much information out there to digest, so which ones do you watch?)

July 5th, 2010 | Tags: RBA, Shooting, wind flags | Category: Shooting | Leave a comment

I started target rifle shooting back in October last year, starting off with the club’s Anschutz 1807’s and such with 54’series actions, but quickly acquiring my own Feinwerkbau custom bench rifle. Shooting at St Marys Indoor Rifle Range, being indoor, there was little breeze (or so I’d thought), but at Sutherland, the range is open to the weather, and thus wind plays a part in the placement of shots.

I started off by completely ignoring the wind, and just concentrating on getting the shots on paper, then closer and closer towards the 10 ring.

One night early this year, I turned up to the range, and was horrified to see the wind flags dancing all over the place in the stiff wind blowing through the place.  Up top, in the trees, it was howling through. I scored a 200, one of my first of many to come.

So, what was the difference between this night, and the others, where it’s been much quieter? Well, I was forced to wait for the breeze to relax.

Rather than waste ammo (and I was starting to shoot Lapua eXact, at $35 a box of 50!) shooting at each target, hoping, and praying for some luck, I waited for the wind to be more favourable to me.  During my sighters, I noticed that the breeze would blow hard, and then completely relax.  That state of relaxation would last about 30 seconds to a minute or two, then it would pick up and blow hard again. I took my time, waited, watched my timer tick down the minutes and seconds, and intently watched (nee, “studied”) the flags. I could feel the breeze kinda give a dying sigh, and collapse.  I could see this effect in the flags - they’d go limp, but sway from side to side, slowing, then hanging limp. I’d then aim, fire, unload, reload, aim, fire, as quickly as I could whilst the breeze was dead, getting in two to four targets each time, before the wind cycle would start up again.  I’d hear the noise from the trees before feeling the wind whistle through the firing line. Sit back, relax, and start studying the flags again.

The 200 was a very satisfying result.  I ended up with the highest score that week, with my name on the board in the club house for all to see.

The lesson learnt that night was that patience pays.

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July 4th, 2010 | Tags: Shooting | Category: General News, Rant, Shooting | Leave a comment

About a week ago, I was discussing with a colleague the pain of not finding any Apple iPads for sale in Sydney. It’d been around 4 weeks since they were released into the Aussie market, yet I couldn’t find one anywhere. I wanted to turn up to a store, plop down the plastic, and walk away with a new iPad. Simple strategy, but finding one was difficult, to impossible.

Early that afternoon, his girlfriend IM’d him, and said that some were available from Nextbyte Broadway, so I rang them and confirmed that they were indeed in stock. Fifteen minutes later, my colleague and I were handing over money, and I’d finally laid my hands on a new 32Gb 3G iPad.

I was getting a bit desperate, you see, as I was due to head off to the Sydney Bears v Gold Coast Bluetongues game being held that weekend at Penrith - a night of tweeting for the Bears beckoned, and I was keen to see how the 3G iPad would handle.

It took me about an hour or so to unbox, do the initial sync, and refresh apps. It took me longer to unlock the micro-sim card. When I saw the sim activate and show the “Telstra Mobile” with signal strength, I thought that was it, right?

Wrong!

I turn up to the ice arena, whip out the iPad, have everyone nearby drool over it for a while, and then fired up Twitterific.

“No connection to the Internet”, it replied. What!?

I settled down when the game began, pulled out the iPhone, and started tweeting. A thought crossed my mind about the APN settings on the iPad, as they were blank. Recalling how we set up 3G at work, I typed in “telstra.internet” into the APN field, and voilà! The iPad was connected to the Internet at last.

Tweeting from the iPad was chalk and cheese comparable to the iPhone. It’s so much faster to type on, as the keypad in landscape mode is just the right size for touch typing. I enjoyed interacting with the iPad, and as a result, spammed Twitter with game updates. I had 5 bars of Telstra NextG coverage inside of the ice arena, so connectivity to the Internet (and twitter) was surprisingly fast.

I use Twitterific HD, by the way.

Just yesterday, I worked out how to get my DVDs onto the iPad. I already have Handbrake, but it’s currently not aware of the iPad (but an update is in development, apparently). Some more searching led me to a page with some iPad presets for Handbrake, so using those, I’m now able to rip my DVDs with Handbrake, import them into iTunes, and sync them across to the iPad, and watch them in fullscreen landscape mode. The video is quit good, but not pristine. It’s likely that the presets aren’t quite right, but I don’t mind.

It’s great to curl up in a warm bed, prop the iPad up, and watch shows and movies. The screen is big, but not too big, and with the great battery life, its possible to watch lots of shows (awesome when confined to bed sick these past few days…).

Anyway, its time to finish this update, which I’ve typed on the iPad, and used the Wordpress app to upload and publish.

Life is good!

July 3rd, 2010 | Tags: apple, iPad | Category: General News | Leave a comment

Well, what a fortnight it was!  I attended a Prize Shoot, and won, attended Jerilderie LSF flying event, and came near last, and was witness to the Canley Vale plane crash a few days ago.

North Rocks Prize Shoot (Benchrest)

I’ve not mentioned on Becsta.COM yet that I’m a sports shooter, but the past fortnight has been so exciting in my world of sports shooting that I’m bursting to tell you all!

I started target shooting back in October last year, and initially began this sport shooting a discipline called Rimfire Benchrest. We use (mostly) customised .22LR rimfire rifles, and shoot off the bench using a scope at a target 50m away.  In late November last year, I bought a beautiful custom Feinwerkbau rifle with a Lilja barrel and specialist benchrest stock.

In April 2010, I attended the TRA Nationals, and shot a 598 (out of 600), with 46 centres, to place 5th overall in Benchrest.  A guy from Queensland scored 599 (also 46 centres) to come 1st and be crowned the National Champion.

In May 2010, I attended the Springwood Prize Shoot, and shot a 597 with 44 centres, to place 2nd overall in A Grade.  The winner shot a  598 w/ 50 centres.

A few weeks ago, I attended the North Rocks Prize Shoot, and did rather well!  I shot a 599, with 53 centres, to win A Grade. Second was 598 w/ 46 centres, and third was 595 w/ 40 centres.

What was remarkable about this victory was that I managed to pick the wind, and shoot to the conditions, whereas a lot of people shot poorly because the wind was flukey, messy, and sometimes downright despicable.  It wasn’t, however, blowey, so timing and reading the conditions were paramount.  A truly sweet victory indeed.

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June 17th, 2010 | Tags: Benchrest, Jerilderie, Prize Shoot, Prone TR, RBA | Category: Competitions, General News, Gliding Events, Shooting | Leave a comment

Modern Warfare 2 has Major Reputational Problems!

Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 was released in early November last year.  In the intervening period, Infinity Ward have released two patches to fix some major bugs and exploits, but have refused to say anything about DLC or its contents apart from it being released in Spring. Just this week, however, Robert Bowling tweeted that DLC news will be released this week, and in one tweet, mentioned a weird website.

They have to announce some DLC, because there’s a heap of bad press about Infinity Ward and Activision at the moment, surrounding the inglorious removal of the two lead developers, supposedly for insubordination.  There’s talk that the DLC can’t be released without these two guys permission, so it’s off to the courts to decide.  In the meantime, us gamers all lose faith in MW2, and both Infinity Ward and Activision lose credibility and what little support they have left…

The only way I’m going to return to MW2 is if the DLC is way-out-there awesome!

Introducing Battlefield Bad Company 2

In the meantime, I’ve been playing the new Battlefield release, the second iteration of Bad Company.  The same four characters return in a battle against the Russians to stop the deployment of a terrifying weapon on US soil.

The game has a deep (and long) single player campaign, and the usual online multiplayer component.

In short, I love it!

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March 10th, 2010 | Tags: BF:BC2, Games, State of Gaming, Xbox360 | Category: Games, Rant | Comments (1)