Sometimes in our hobby you get hit by something completely unexpected which comes out of left field.

The first of these happend in the 80's when the only Privately Owned Flying Field in NSW was stollen from me and the other ligitimate shareholders ( Alan Gleeson ) of the "SMAF...Sydney Model Air Field" at Pitt-Town-Bottoms.....so it turned out that owning your own flying field was no gaurentee of having somewhere to fly. The resident club RCMC - Radio Control Models Club which was founded by John Marquette in 1950 was then force to look for a new field. We probably moved to half a dozen diffent fields untill the few flyers who were left in the Sydney basin found a good fit by co-habating with the HMAS - Hawksburry Model Air Sports on the Yarramundi Paddocks of the UWS - University of Western Sydney at Richmond. I have flown there on Sundays for over a decade. The tenure there has always been by a green thread and a prayer as the University had to dance a nimble ballet with its accademic and political masters who could be asked to carry out essoteric research on its valuable land holding at short notice.

Well it isn't just Carbon Tax but now the UWS is dancing the Climate Change Drama.

A $47million dollar grant has a lot of sway over twenty of 30 old guys wanting to fly their toy aeroz on 10acres without any sort of formal lease......

And when the helli boys want show off next weekend then you have to take to the air!

...this is what you get in the mail:


No flying allowed next weekend 30th & 31st July ( at HMAS )

We have been advised by UWS that there will be construction works of cranes being carried out on the Yarramundi paddocks and that only authorised personnel will be allowed on the Paddocks whilst the tower cranes for the Free Air CO2 Experiment, (FACE), are being erected. I understand this will be done by helicopter

The Project Manager is aware that HMAS do have weekend access to the area, but for security reasons and the safety of our members and their planes the paddock is not accessible during the weekend of July 30th and 31st for any flying activity.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Regards,
.................
Secretary
HMAS Inc

Ok, so what does Google think that "Free Air CO2 Experiment, (FACE), " is?

Ok, so what does Google think that "Free Air CO2 Experiment, (FACE), " is?

Sounds like an interesting and extensive project.

Is there an overview of what they are doing somewhere. I like big jobs!

here it is:http://www.hansenyuncken.com.au/our-projects/current-projects?sid=1506&id=44525
g
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Client
University Of Western Sydney
Location
Richmond, NSW
Value
$9.2m
Aged Care
BUPA Aged Care Services, VIC
John Paul Village West Wing, NSW
Warriewood Brook Retirement Village, NSW
Commercial and Fitout
Adelaide Airport Control Tower, SA
Melbourne Airport Control Tower, VIC
Community Infrastructure
223 William Street (Old County Court), VIC
Bengalla Mine, NSW
Sydney Wharf Upgrade, NSW
Villawood Immigration Detention Facility, NSW
Youth Training Centre, SA
Defence and Research
BAE Shipyards - Victorian Facilities Upgrade, VIC
ELF Stage 2, Works Package C, Combat Training Centre, Lavarack Barracks, QLD
HMAS Creswell, NSW
HMAS Penguin, NSW
SIAD Queenscliff (Stage 1), VIC
Education
BER Schools (North & FNQ), QLD
BER Schools, SA
BER Schools, VIC
Charles Sturt University Bathurst (CSC & MDLM), NSW
Education Works New Schools PPP, SA
La Trobe University - Shepparton, VIC
Montrose Bay High School, TAS
Tagai State College Mer Island Campus Replacement School, QLD
UniSA M2 Mawson Lakes, SA
UWS FACE Experiment, NSW
Victoria University Learning Commons & Exercise Science Precinct, VIC
Wangaratta High School - Stage 2, VIC
Wodonga TAFE - Centre for Sustainable Skills, VIC
Yackandandah Primary School, VIC
Health
CareWest Lodge Orange, NSW
Glenside Campus Health Facility, SA
Launceston General Hospital Neo Natal Unit, TAS
Launceston General Hospital, TAS
Lyell McEwin Stage C, SA
MPS Hospital Program, NSW
Noarlunga GP Plus Health Centre, SA
Royal Hobart Hospital PET/CT Scanner, TAS
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Redevelopment Stage 2, SA
Women's & Children's Hospital Cancer Centre, SA
Industrial
Costco, NSW
Dux Factory Upgrade, NSW
ING Goodyear Facility, NSW
Ingram Micro Distribution Centre, NSW
Metcash Distribution Facility, NSW
Residential and Hotel
Aerial Apartments, VIC
Retail and Entertainment
Adelaide Film & Screen Centre, SA
Cairns Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre, QLD
Coles Greenacre, NSW
Coles Gungahlin, ACT
Coles Port Macquarie, NSW
Glen Eira Sports and Aquatic Centre, VIC
Moorilla Library, TAS
Moorilla Winery, TAS
Rundle Place, SA
Stokes Street Pavilion, Townsville
Twin Ovals Pavillion, TAS
UWS FACE Experiment, NSW
Hansen Yuncken has been awarded a key role in a global climate change scientific initiative. Commonwealth funding of $47 million has been allocated to University of Western Sydney (UWS) for the Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) Experiment. $17 million of infrastructure for the experiment is to be constructed in oldgrowth
Cumberland Forest at the UWS campus at Richmond NSW. Our lump sum contract is for $9.2 million plus GST and includes attendance on all the works.


In December 2009 24 of the world’s top universities published a series of challenges and recommendations for the next generation of FACE experiments. This experiment addresses every one of these challenges. It will run for 15 years to test the long-term effects on the flora and fauna in an old-growth eucalypt forest, of
a green-house gas enriched environment, simulating predicted atmospheric green-house gas levels in the future.


The experiment is overseen by Brookhaven National Laboratories (BNL) for the US Dept of Energy which has managed FACE experiments on a variety of crops in USA, Canada, Europe and Asia since 1994. The new experiment at UWS is considered 3rd generation and is the first conducted in natural forest. It will attract
global scientific interest. Approx 500 scientific visitors per year are anticipated.
Our role during the six months of construction includes providing daily evidence that we are maintaining the scientific integrity of the experimental zones in the forest.
The infrastructure comprises six identical experimental ‘arrays’ inside the forest. Each array is served by a permanent tower crane (erected by helicopter) and comprises 32 CO2 vent masts 28m high in a 25m circle, surrounding a group of old-growth trees. The vent structure is fabricated from carbon-fibre composite material.


All aspects of the soil, microbes, undergrowth, trees, insect life etc within each experimental zone will be monitored and measured. Each array has a central tower 28m high to mount equipment. Over the life of the experiment all areas within each array will be accessed by a man box suspended from the tower crane.
Our role includes construction of research buildings, vent structures, civil works, liquid CO2 storage and vaporisers, power, telemetry, CO2 and fire services reticulation through the forest. It is envisaged the experiment will consume approx 7000 tonnes of CO2 per year.


The preconstruction phase is being managed by Chris Bellemore, Adam Towner, Mike Stokes, Adnan Diab, Emmet Brown and Brent Maishman, and includes further development of the design and work methods for every aspect of access within the forest and for implementation of each trade.


The WMS will be reviewed and signed off by the lead scientist who has been involved in FACE experiments since 1994. Emmet Brown and Brent Maishman will then be responsible for implementation of identical construction method at each of the six sites and all environmental management through to international signoff
that the experiment may begin



====================================

Just a thought that after all our coal burning power stations and all the dirty smelting process plants have gone broke and all the cow and sheep bums have a cork placed in them Oh and i will not forget mine and the general public has been paying through the nose for power.
When the amount of carbon dioxide that Australia produces has been reduced to a zero guess how much it will reduce the earths temperature.
One one thousands of a degree.
Did you know that 10,000 years ago there was a large land mass between England and Europe. England and Europe were one continent.
When the last ice age melted 10,000 years ago the sea rose to the point that England became an Island, and the North sea was created.
I ask myself why did the last ice age finish and the sea rise,as i don,t think there was to much in the way of man made pollution around then maybe it was natural world evolution.
Did you know over the last 10,000 years the Earth has gone through an unprecedented stable climate, very rare in its past history.
Maybe now the Earth is undergoing a natural change some say a new ice age is starting.
Weather the pollution that man is pumping into the atmosphere has any significant effect on the earths natural cycle of climate change is a matter for contention.
The best way for Australia to help with reducing the worlds pollution is to stop exporting coal, but that is not going to happen anytime soon.
.

I guess ignoring science is very common.

Religions and human ego centrism have done it since man started walking straight , just before the last Ice Age mentioned above.
You'll probably also remember those days well, Dave!

It is interesting though that per head of population , it turns out that Australians are the largest polluters in the World.

If we set aside the environmental and preserving the earth for future generations aspect,( the greenie reasons) and look at it from a long term economical and standard of life perspective, the project above and the carbon tax start to make good sense.

Of course, Countries like for example China pollute more in tonnage, but their population is about a 100 times larger then ours,
but even they have now started taking steps to reduce carbon pollution.

And lets not forget that economically fast developing counties like China only have become serious polluters in relative recent times, while the "western" developed counties like Europe, U.S and even Australia have been at it for more than a century, and we are therefor more responsible for the current changes in climate.

We also will be one of the nations that will be negatively effected by a higher global temperature, with agriculture (drought) and the disappearance of the great Barrier reef as just a couple of examples.

By not acting now, and by not being one of the first nations in the World to put a price on carbon pollution, we would "miss the boat", as this certainly will happen globally in the near future , and by being the biggest per head polluters we would pay for it many times more then.
(never mind the moral obligation!)

Not only can we(we Aussies are great inventors) become a leader in innovative renewable energy technology (the Chinese and others already have a head start on us in this), and reap the economical benefits from that, as well as from trading carbon pollution rights if we can become below average polluters per ca pita compared to the rest of the world when global carbon trading starts.

Exporting the coal doesn't cause the pollution (well only a fraction to be honest),but burning it does, so we are not the ones that will pay for it.
They would actually pay us for polluting the air with the coal they bought from us, a beautiful case of having cake and eating it!

We almost missed a golden opportunity in the last decade or so, when our economy has been booming, and we could and still can afford the cost of changing our ways and become a "clean" nation, while the rest of the world (except maybe China, but they are the main reason for our fortune) was and is economically struggling ,and don't have the financial resources to do this.

F.D man

P.S: Of all model aircraft , flying gliders produces the least carbon pollution!