onetrack

Here's an interesting site where official tests of fuel consumption and EV battery range are measured accurately, and checked against the manufacturers claims. Unsurprisingly, many of the ICE models used more fuel than advertised, and a lot of the EV's battery range claims fell well short of the manufacturers claimed range. The worst offender amongst the EV's was the MG4, which recorded a shortfall of 31% in battery range, against the manufacturers claimed range. The MG company claimed a range of 405kms, but accurate/real life testing revealed a range of only 281kms. That's a world of difference, and I can't understand how MG hasn't been hauled over the coals for making false claims. https://realworld.org.au/

I just found out Katherine has a "River Cam", pointing at the old rail bridge. The river is lapping the underside of both road and rail bridges at present. https://www.katherine.nt.gov.au/about-katherine/living-in-katherine/river-cam.aspx Some of the lower Katherine suburbs are getting wet feet, right about now. The main bridge is now closed to all traffic. It appears that they have a levee bank with removable gates. The "dry side" of the gates doesn't look too dry, to me!

Katherine is suffering from major flooding, with the Katherine River expected to exceed 19.2M depth tonight - with more rain coming. This flood event is expected to exceed the 2006 flood river height, at 19M. This photo was taken when the Katherine river was at 17.6M. At 19.2M the water is close to lapping the underside of the rail bridge. However, even at 19.2M, the river level is still well below the disastrous 1998 Katherine flood, where the Katherine River reached 20.4 metres and flooded the entire town, including the main street (the Stuart Hwy) with chest-deep floodwaters. Here's a photo of the river level gauge. This was the scene yesterday afternoon (6th Mar). This is the current Flood Watch Area for the NT. It's interesting that the area extends well into W.A. and encompasses a sizeable area S and W of Kununnura.

The media are having a wonderful time spreading fear and anxiety, claiming that petrol will be $2.50 a litre within a couple of days. There is zero reason why petrol should go from around $1.50 on Monday to $2.50 next week, we live in a global economy with oil sourced from dozens of sources, and a small jump in the price of oil per barrel, doesn't translate to a $1 a litre increase within 10 days. It's simply motorist-gouging at its finest, and I hope it sends EV sales through the roof.

O.K., that's good info - but if you don't have a flight number, tail number, airline, or any of those details, how do you just find a mystery aircraft that flew overhead last night?

The Welsh wording actually says, "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work for translation".

I can't see where to acquire that free search for past flights on FlightAware. I can only find a button that says "buy data" (for big $$$).

Your not correct on Toyota's position, they are still going gangbusters, and it's largely due to hybrids. They picked that EV's uptake would be slow, and that hybrids could fill in in the meantime, and that's where they're winning. https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-breaks-global-sales-record-tops-2025-charts-for-sixth-year-running/

But no flight tracking website give you historical data without you paying for it, anyway? So it's a waste of time trying to find out what flew overhead last night, as I'd still have to pay, to acquire the info. I can see flights moving on the site, but it's only current information. If I click off the ad-blocker warning overlay, the site defaults to the paid subscription page that rgmwa just gave a screenshot of.

But the site hates me! I can't even register! And it continues to warn me in big overlays, that I'm using an ad-blocker - when I've already turned it off!! Even when I try to go to just www.flightradar.com as the URL, it redirects me to FR24 lodged on Perth airport in the URL.

Oh, they've got a plan, alright - and it all centres around our ol' mate Donny, and the ever-increasing level of his personal financial gains - from any worldly conquests, Presidential decisions, and trade deals jockeying. I must say, I'm surprised he hasn't managed to score a deal with the U.S. military, to use Trump-branded armaments. I bet he's seen the profits of the U.S. military-industrial complex, and is itching to get his major share of them.

I can't even register for a free account on the site. I click the "register an account" button and nothing happens - even though I turned my ad blocker off and refreshed the page. I can only register for a "free 7 day trial" involving a subscription. It looks like you guys got in on the ground floor - I get the FR24 concierge who tells me I can't get in, unless I pay! Is it something to do with my looks, or something I said about them somewhere on social media?? Is the TCA running FR24, and checking my Social Australia postings as I type??? 🥹

Yeah, I was surprised to find out recently that diesel use has gone up substantially in recent years, primarily due to diesel delivery van sales booming - primarily due to the boom in online shopping. I'd have to opine that petrol sales have dropped, largely because many petrol cars are being traded on EV's. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-02/diesel-sales-surge-but-lpg-and-e10-plunge-fuel-prices/106367856

Yeah Willie, I've always been puzzled why QLD has high fuel prices, bit of an oil company rort, I would think. I can recall when QLD had the cheapest fuel in Australia, about 5c or 6c L cheaper than anywhere else, when fuel was less than a $1 L. I think it was because QLD had no state tax on fuel, unlike the other States?

FR24 tells me I have to register to get free use, for just 7 days, then I have to pay a regular monthly fee??

Yeah Willie, I've always been puzzled why QLD has high fuel prices, bit of an oil company rort, I would think. I can recall when QLD had the cheapest fuel in Australia, about 5c or 6c a L cheaper than anywhere else, when fuel was less than a $1 a L. I think it was because QLD had no state tax on fuel, unlike the other States?

I filled the Camry and a couple of jerrycans up on Monday - Costco at Perth Airport was a veritable madhouse with queues for a couple of hundred metres and more - and a heap of empty bowsers. They were charging $1.48 for ULP and people were filling six or eight jerrycans, and every container they could lay their hands on, by the look of it. I left without filling up, and went to Atlas Fuels nearby, and paid $1.52 to fill up. Even at that, numerous Atlas pumps were dry. It was a long weekend here last weekend, so possibly made worse by that. I fueled the Hilux on Tuesday morning at SOLO and paid $1.60 for diesel - but since then, I've seen both ULP and diesel selling at close on $2 a litre. Costco is up about 5c L today for ULP, and still the cheapest by far - but I'd expect next week, the price will be up another 10c. https://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/ I'm fortunate, in that I've got about 300-400 litres of diesel stored in my yard in the wheatbelt, I might be digging into that reserve for the next few weeks, I think.

Yeah, Marty - but FR24 wants money out of me on a regular basis, just to see what flew overhead. Plus, they hate my adblocker and won't let me see very much at all.

My father lived and worked on Doolgunna Station, about 120kms N of Meekatharra, during the Great Depression, from early 1930 to sometime in 1934. Doolgunna is in the upper catchment area of the Gascoyne River. He would also spend time working as a fencer on numerous other stations in the Gascoyne region. He then spent a further 3 years doing water-boring in the same region and further afield, right down to the Northern Wheatbelt of W.A. In March 1934, a big cyclone cut across the Gascoyne region, bringing huge falls of rain with it. Dad and two other blokes were fencing on station further West from Doolgunna, I think it may have been Three Rivers Station, but I'm not sure now. Three Rivers has frontage to the massive Gascoyne River. Anyway, where they were working was in the Gascoyne flood plain. They each had horses and a camel-drawn dray with supplies on it, designed to last about three weeks at a minimum. Dad said it started raining, and rained heavily, non-stop for 3 days. They got around 15 inches (380mm) of rain in that three days. He said the curious thing about the whole episode was, just before the rain started, the three camels they had on the dray, laid down, turned their heads against their flanks - and died! He reckoned they somehow knew a big flood was coming, and camels can't handle wet muddy conditions, their legs splay out in greasy mud, and they bellow out in pain. So, they stopped working for three days - and next thing, the floodwaters from the rising Gascoyne started surrounding them! Their swags and tents were getting wet, so they built a platform in a nearby windmill tower, about 3M off the ground, and set up camp up there to wait out the flood. It was too risky to return to the station, because they had to cross the Gascoyne to get there. They sat it out on that windmill tower platform for THREE weeks! The water around them rose to top-of-fencepost height, and just stayed there for all that time. Dad said nearly every fencepost top they could see, was covered in scorpions, snakes or other creepy crawlies, all trying to survive the flood! He said there was water as far as the eye could see, from the top of the windmill tower. Finally, the floodwaters started to recede, and one of the blokes decided he'd try to return to the station to let the owners know they were still alive, and not washed away, and to get some fresh tucker. But he tried to swim the Gascoyne, which was still flowing well, and he ended up losing his horse (and a good saddle, too! - according to Dad) - and he nearly lost his own life, getting swept well downstream, before he could grab a tree and climb out. The other blokes were surprised, when he walked back into camp, with no horse! So they had to wait several more days before they could get out and cross the Gascoyne safelys and return to the homestead. Here's some of the storm reports from the end of March 1934, that show the vast area flooded by that cyclone. Only a fortnight before, the SW of W.A. received huge amounts of rain as well, from a different cyclonic event. Some places in W.A.'s wheatbelt received 5 inches (125mm) of rain in one day, around 9th-10th March 1934. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/67262087 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/67264963

Can't help but applaud that move, it's long overdue, and obviously the previous "bar" was set too low. And now they can start banning and deporting Imams who promote murder and hatred and division in their religious lectures, as well. We have imported way too many carriers of Middle Eastern hatreds, and outright lawless criminality. It's time to really start hammering them.

We were woken at 1:30AM this morning by a huge heavy aircraft directly overhead, making a vast amount of noise. We're not on a regular RPT aircraft flight path, and only occasionally get a twin piston aircraft overhead, mostly doing training, I'd say. Occasionally, someones private Hawker-Siddeley jet with its screaming little engines will fly overhead on descent into Perth - but that's usually in the early evening. I think it might be Gina's or Twiggy Forrests bizjet. But this flight this morning was a very big aircraft and exceptionally low, and I'm really surprised it was allowed to follow the flight path it did, and so low, at that time of morning. I have no idea what it was, maybe an extraordinary flight for an aircraft leaving the Middle East mess at an odd time, outside normal flight times. I regularly used to watch the Emirates A380 arrive just on sundown every day, over the Northern suburbs, as I came down the highway from the North. It would come in from the West, do a 90° RH bank and fly a direct line to the airport, landing from the N. It would do that like clockwork, but since Iran was bombed, I haven't sighted it since.

Woo-Hoo! Christi Noem has gone! - replaced by a rabid MAGA warrior, an MMA fighter who wears cowboy boots and hat in the Senate! That reflects your regime admirably! Onya Donny! - get that new guy to kick the crap out of those illegal immigrants and ICE protestors, and make sure you crank up some ads, showing him doing it! 😄 I'm sure that'll go down with the American public much better, than Noem just instructing to shoot them! 😞 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-06/kirsti-noem-fired-by-donald-trump/106422694

Our current roads and railways only fail because they're built to meet one-in-50 year floods. If they were built to meet one-in-100 year floods, we would not be able to afford them. Roads need rebuilding after 50 years anyway, due to massive levels of traffic hammering and increasing traffic levels.

Never sweat, it's all sweet. Hegseth and Trump claim they know exactly what they're doing, their great plan is precisely on track, and they're going to pick the next Leader of Iran. 🤣 The war will be over in a couple of weeks, the Iranians will buckle like a house of cards, and become totally compliant, once they see Trumps and Hegseths military might. So, you can look forward to one of Donnys offspring (Donny Jnr?) getting this plum President of Iran job (it comes with massive renumeration, and plenty of bonuses in gold, from Iran's central bank, for "targets met") - and Iran will turn into a thriving democracy under the Trump dynastys iron worldwide rule - with cryptocurrency, resorts and hotels, all bearing the Trump brand, providing a massive boost to Irans GDP! Onya Donny!! 🤣

I don't think anything has changed in hundreds of years, Nev. This is Australia, land of extremes. Look up the old newspapers from the 1800's on Trove and read about the unbelievable floods in the Northern NSW rivers in the 1800's. Pull out S.A. rail history and get a look at the massive washouts on the Ghan line, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 years ago. Miles of track and embankments washed away - regularly. Ron Fitchs book on the S.A. and Commonwealth Railways ("Australian Railwayman") is full of railway flooding disasters that would make you weep. Ron Fitch lived to 105, and saw it all. The Murray River massive flood of 2022/2023, still didn't reach the major flood level of the Murray River in the 1870 flood! So much for "weather events getting worse"! It's a beat-up of major proportions. I've seen major floods in the early 1960's in W.A. that I have never seen since. And Global Warming wasn't a buzzword, back then.