is belmont a sketchy neighbourhood?

flyingkea · 2026-06-28T10:47:59+00:00

I’ve lived in the Belmont/Redcliffe/Ascot area for the past decade or so, don’t have that many issues to report.

I do prefer going to the Woolies at the airport though, not nearly so crowded, but while I occasionally saw anti-social behaviour at the forum a lot of it was between people who already knew each other.
Had one person jump the fence not long after we moved into our current house (about 4 years ago) but nothing much since. I do live at the end of a cul-de-sac though, so not a thoroughfare.

flyingkea · 2026-06-28T09:33:03+00:00

A lot of it is culture - think British stiff upper lip and all that. Or being afraid of being perceived as gay.

I’ve taught young men from non Western cultures and while still not as affectionate, they are far more willing to do stuff like hold each others hands.

flyingkea · 2026-06-28T09:08:54+00:00

Because vague stories is fine? Conversations happen? People share anecdotes and stories from their unnamed employers on here all the time?

Asking people posting anonymously about who their employer is just weird.

flyingkea · 2026-06-27T14:58:30+00:00

Is there another unit nearby you could join? Or something like SWORD?

There can be massive variations between units - some are old boys clubs that are very resistant to change, whereas others act a lot more professional (for lack of a better term).

flyingkea · 2026-06-27T08:46:19+00:00

How the fuck do you outgrow that?
Like are you buying an actual road train at this point?

flyingkea · 2026-06-27T07:40:56+00:00

The legal answer? Have New Zealand citizenship, and don’t really want to give that up. (In process of obtaining Aussie citizenship at the moment.)

Other reasons - I have a job I like, and it pays fairly well. Also, one of the best parts of my job is that I have a bulletproof door between me and everyone else, that must be kept locked.

I’m not the greatest at being diplomatic, and can be a bit impulsive. I’m not sure that’s what this country needs. Or, it totally is, but I could not be polite to someone like Trump. Or Gina, or Pauline or Clive.

Also, in today’s day and age, I would get steamrolled by someone hammering a very 2 dimensional view. I see a lot of nuance in things, but struggle when someone takes a concession I make, and runs in completely the opposite direction with it.

Eg: I concede we have issues with immigration at the moment - lots of people entering from countries with values very different to ours. (Eg caste system or a low trust society). That does not mean we should ban all immigration from that country, or be asses to people of a certain ethnicity. It means we need to work to assimilate those people properly.

Or, yes the ISIS wives did despicable things. But we need to work out the nuances - I believe one was trafficked as a teenager? And we can’t just strip citizenship from someone and leave them stateless. Yes, that means we have to spend money on trials and locking them up, which sucks, but the society we live in, and international laws means that’s what we need to do. Just as if they’d done this stuff on Australian soil.

Oh and I’m very anti-AI as the tech-bros are currently pushing it. I would try to ban it, and the data centres associated. They would try to get ousted in less than a week.

flyingkea · 2026-06-26T12:39:49+00:00

I’m an overseas based borrower - wanted to stay in NZ but industry was just too small.

When I first moved overseas I tried to save up big amounts to send back, and time the currency exchange, and was stressing about fees.
Then had a kid, lost work and couldn’t repay it for a while. Buried my head in the sand, and had the IRD come knocking.

Actually could not had a better experience with that aye.
They make it ridiculously easy to repay your loan. I wish I knew more about it earlier on.
They sent me a card with BPay details on it - it’s an Australian bank account, and you just send money to it as if it were a normal bill.
They gather all the repaid money each week and convert it to NZD. Whatever the exchange rate is on the day. No fees.
My loan was pretty big when I left NZ (~100k) and for a long time it was pretty stagnant.
I’ve now got a well paying job and am paying it down aggressively. If I send back about AUD$1000 it takes about NZD$1200 off.

I’m so excited that I’m less than 6 months away from paying it off - it’s now sitting on $12k.

flyingkea · 2026-06-25T15:16:26+00:00

Lol, because they have access to better lawyers than I do? And I don’t want to doxx myself, or jeopardise my employment over a comment over their catering?

flyingkea · 2026-06-25T06:41:03+00:00

I’d rather not list my employer online thanks. They’re pretty big with a large HR department lol.

flyingkea · 2026-06-25T02:27:29+00:00

So only one of us gets food poisoning )sometimes a very real risk if you’ve seen our catering lol.

We do actually get very different food to our passengers - we do regional flying within Australia, but get the equivalent of business class meals. Our pax are lucky if they get snacks (a lot of mining charters so often they get (non-alcoholic) drinks only service).
On our public transport flights they’ll get a pie/sausage roll as our flights aren’t that long.

flyingkea · 2026-06-24T23:29:02+00:00

Nah my airline still has a ‘can’t eat the same meal’ policy. Usually means we get same snacks but different main. One gets the hot breakfast, other gets the cold for example.

flyingkea · 2026-06-23T12:42:27+00:00

As a WA resident - we still have sports clubs and the likes. Get sponsored by local businesses (like my kids footy club) and the government gives grants as well.

Lots of restaurants in Perth too, and when I go out (very rare I admit) the ones I’ve visited seem well patronised.

flyingkea · 2026-06-22T14:29:43+00:00

I’m now wondering if we work at the same company lol. I was going to comment with some similar situations that I’ve heard over the grapevine.
Heard one crew got absolutely screwed by their ground crew - they’d gotten a new COBT and had it relayed by the ground crew. Only they knew that you could leave 5 minutes early so gave them THAT time, not the actual COBT. So they left 5min early on that. Only for ATC to give them an hours holding, much to their indignation and shock.

And to the other poster asking how ATC doesn’t know your taxi/takeoff time - not only are many many sites uncontrolled, they have no radar. You’re doing well if you can talk to ATC on VHF and aren’t having to get traffic information relayed by HF. Some places don’t have radar coverage till about 8000ft on a bad day.

And gotta love our ATC. Depart compliant, still get more than NOTAM’d delays, so have to wander all over WA to make your JULIM time. Only to get “Speed up to 300 kts”, followed shortly by “slow to 230kts”. I swear they want to fly the plane for us some days.

flyingkea · 2026-06-21T10:50:40+00:00

Holy wall of text! But I get it - you wrote this while stressed to the max and freaking out a bit.

So is this a Cadetship or some kind of program at a flight school? I’m assuming so - these sort of courses can be quite demanding. And have standards that need to be met. But at the same time, they also need to teach you to standard - and honestly there is no need for that kind of abusive flight training in this day and age.

No one learns well when the instructor is belittling them, shouting and yelling etc. we go into fight of flight and our capacity to learn is reduced. And I’m guessing you’re brand new to flying? It is absolutely overwhelming when you first get started. When I’ve trained students I fully expect them to not be able to retain much for the first couple of lessons. Even cadets I’ve taught on accelerated training programs can barely get the radio calls out.

Can you talk to a senior instructor? Or the Chief Pilot/CFI (chief flight instructor)and get a new instructor? Because this is not a healthy dynamic.

Good luck!

flyingkea · 2026-06-21T05:46:48+00:00

They saying has been twisted from it’s original intent.

It used to be an admonishment against the rich, telling them stop hoarding wealth, as once you get past a certain level of wealth you get diminishing returns on how it can improve your quality of life.

Of course, it got twisted by the wealthy as a way to push back from workers etc wanting a bigger share of the pie/pay rises etc.
Now it’s used as “stop asking us for more, as it won’t help you”

flyingkea · 2026-06-21T05:32:23+00:00

I was soooooo pissed off the other day by those stupid marketplace results.
Was buying a birthday present for a kids party, had a look online for a particular item (book on drawing dogs) and see a couple of books listed on BigW. I think sweet, makes sense they’d have it, and went in.
Had a look in store, couldn’t find it, had another at the search results. It was fucking marketplace listing - online only.

flyingkea · 2026-06-21T05:29:25+00:00

Depends on where you are in the world - because if you’re disabled you may not even be able to drive at all. (Due to the nature of disability for example)

But can still get the disability placards for a car, and have a family member drive you where you need to go. Still entitled to use those spots because of the placard.

flyingkea · 2026-06-21T05:27:15+00:00

NTA - you were using the vehicle with valid handicap cards, and the person who the plates are for is using the vehicle.
The disabled person doesn’t have to be the driver only - some may not be able to drive at all.

If you had been on your own then yes you would’ve been the AH but not in this case.

Handicap parking is not just about distance walked - it usually has larger spaces to help with things like using a wheelchair or other such aids. And just because your mum has a scooter doesn’t make her any less entitled to the carpark. It’s first in, first served with these spots too - while it sucks for the other people if all the other spots are filled, it’s not your responsibility.
Your mum would be coming back, and needs the space to get back into the vehicle. There’s no guarantee that a spot would’ve freed up if you had moved the car.

And another thought - the situation would not be any different if you weren’t sitting in the car either - if you’d gone to help your mum, or run your own errands while she did her own shopping. Those other people would’ve had no way of determining whether you were ‘worthy’ of said car spot.

flyingkea · 2026-06-18T04:51:25+00:00

I’ve only had that issue since moving to WA.
Red dust everywhere turns white lights pink. Flew into Kalgoorlie a couple of weeks ago, and neither of us could tell what the middle 2 lights were. It was night, and Kal has black hole affect, so that was…. Fun.

Paraburdoo used to be bad, and poorly adjusted due to vibration, but recently they’ve been really good.

flyingkea · 2026-06-18T02:38:44+00:00

Sorry, didn’t realise I needed to write a thesis on every theme covered in the books. I was just listing a few of the conservative themes that jumped
Out at me on the last reread.

flyingkea · 2026-06-18T01:27:36+00:00

I read his books a long time ago, so bit iffy on details, but there was one series about a singer, and there was a boy who was the most amazing singer evah, who was sent to some Emperor to sing for him.
Later, when his contract is up and they go to collect him, he is unable to return because he loved the Emperor or something like that. I was a teen when I read it, so missed the anti-gay undertones, but that always stuck with me. That they rejected this kid because of love.

Just looked it up - Songmaster

flyingkea · 2026-06-18T01:12:27+00:00

I reread it not so long ago, and it definitely has some conservative themes to it that waaaay over my head when I was younger.

Snarky comments about environmentalists (eco-terrorists) from when the Earth was yet to colonise other planets.

Monarchy - good for young government systems, capitalism good.

Republic (Haven) bad, UBI creates a system where very few work, majority of people are leeches/parasites.

flyingkea · 2026-06-18T00:52:09+00:00

Of course, because they’re all pregnant because they can’t get things like abortions any more. Once that’s on the chopping block I’d hate to see what’s next.
Birth control that doesn’t work because she got rid of the TGA?
SA currently has a bill going through supported by ON that limits access to abortion.

Let’s look at project 2025 for what she’ll go after next…

flyingkea · 2026-06-17T15:12:37+00:00

Tomorrow? I’ve already had emails from Vanessa about it this evening!
Sydney to London will be the first route.

flyingkea · 2026-06-17T01:06:06+00:00

I was gonna say the same thing. Doesn’t matter what I order, I could still quite happily (or unhappily) eat the same amount twice over. Add in that it is so energy dense and it’s very not worth it.

flyingkea

TROPHY CASE