spenaroo

it happens all the time to our motorcycles. parents lifting kids on, or the young foreign student wanting a photo for his friends. no asking, no caring just sit on. used to work for a Harley dealership... remember having a nice conversation with a patched member (nicest customers for me to deal with. mutual interest for the bikes and often on a first name basis. polite and well mannered with me at the counter) anyway this day an exchange student was out and sat on his Harley to take a selfie... wonder if it captured the punch that took him to ground. that was the first of a few punches I saw fly for that. (wasn't often done out the front of our store - respect for the place of business) people just don't care any more, people with young kids are the worst "he's just curious, he's just playing" no cares. used to work at motorcycle dealerships and we hated the grandparents taking the kids out for the day, and the young dad taking the kids out. so many close calls. suddenly see they wake up to fact they need to keep them close, when we tell them that its a 100k bike that their little gremlin is about to try and climb on.

classic example of the difference between campaign, and the actual governance. they were smart - shut up during the campaign and sold themselves as the moderate party focused on climate change. think they had a real shot at offering a third party - but there members are too used to acting like an independent when given the soap box. be interesting to see if they can get the extremism out before the next election.

Nah, the greens have stuffed themselves at the moment. with the whole not standing in front of the flag, and declaring the parliament invalid. don't think the government wants to be seen as working with them

There is a great section in eric winkle brown's auto biography about his test flight in it. having prisoners of war as the ground crew, that had to have signed statements that they wouldn't be punished if things went wrong before they would touch it. sounds like an awesome experience but a short range, and limited tactic - basically rocket up - dive down at a bomber, ignite again to climb. then dive once more and land

yeah, I think any serious change will come from re-imagined production methods. we started with rag and tube, and went to composites. frames to monocoque. the next method will need to incorporate batteries into the structure, instead of thinking of it as a fuel cell to bolt in. interesting to think of weight and balance, your take off and landing will be the same.

https://www.motorcycle.com/features/world-exclusive-ducati-v21l-motoe-prototype-first-look.html is the article I quoted from, worth a read to see just what the obsession with weight entails. and better specs, and how its all designed together to achieve it. I misread, your right it is 110kg is for the battery (I only skimmed the article before work) the total bike weight is 220kg, a Panigale V2 is 200kg kerb weight (closest performance specs). probably take 20kg out for a race bike for around 180kg (no lights, weight fairings and exhaust)

I'm wondering if the technology is being pulled from the wrong places. there is a large growing market for electric motorcycles. Ducati release their new electric race bike today. all the emphasis on a motorcycle is weight - not really a concern with cars and trucks "According to Ducati, the MotoE racer has an output of 110kW (roughly 150 horsepower) and 140Nm of torque. As for the battery pack, it’s comprised of 1,152 cylindrical 21700 type cells – the same cells you’ll find in a Tesla. It weighs 242.4 lbs. (110 kg) and has a capacity of 18 kWh. What’s interesting about the pack is its orientation – tilted back within the chassis – and the fact it’s not a purely rectangular shape but rather a complex shape meant to fill the void within the middle of the bike. Naturally, it’s housed in carbon fiber, and like the Panigale V4 production bike, it’s attached to a front subframe, making it a stressed member of the chassis." probably take 30-40kg off for wheels, tires, frames. makes it look alot better to strap in an aircraft. plus its built with air cooling in mind. the idea of using the battery as a stressed member also helps lighten the complete package. my take away from this is that the best possible way to make it viable is a ground up build. not a conversion of existing aircraft.

funnily enough I just had a chat about this over the weekend with a mate, who used to work for a defense contractor was out golfing with him and checked flightradar24 to see what the helicopter we could hear was. showed him and he was laughing as he told me they had it running on a big screen main screen in the operations rooms. he reckons it takes care of everything with a transponder, so they use it to eliminate them as knowns on other sensors.

Looks like I misunderstood, read those same comments from a different article. Seems like it was just his personal favourite. I originally interpreted it as having been something more special then a regular lightning. (Which I why I put those bits that lead me down that path in bold) "The Lightning was an exceptional aircraft in every respect, but XR749 was one of the best of the best. It is probably the best aircraft that I will ever have had the privilege to fly. Because of her tail code BM, she was known as 'Big Mother', although the tail code changed to BO for her last few months on 11 before joining the LTF in January 1985. She was a very hot ship, even for a Lightning. She remained my aircraft for all her time on 11 Sqn despite my being entitled to an F6 as I moved up the squadron pecking order. I invariably asked for her to be allocated to me for the major exercises such as MALLET BLOW, OSEX, and ELDER FOREST despite her being a short range F3 - there were invariably plenty of tankers about!" "Mike and his team spent the night before in the hangar polishing XR749 which he borrowed from the LTF for the occasion"

Yeah but the idea was you could be 75kt on final. 65kts over the fence. And still touchdown without floating the whole runway. I'd have to check my notes though. Havent flown it in a while

True, but like the op posted I find most people avoid refer to the A32 as a Foxbat anyway. Yeah, they also put in thicker windscreens. And I thought the tyres might have been bigger too. Matches what I was told about making them more draggy to better match speeds on final closer to the warriors, so circuit seperation was maintained

the information I was reading, is that they couldn't pass the Concorde from the rear. and the lightning was hotted up just for the exercise.

I know several of the SOAR bats ended up at Lillydale with some modifications to make them more suitable for the grass fields.

What about the mig 25 or 31, it has the speed, and the altitude to out run and out climb the Concorde the Lightning was just the only fighter with the opportunity to intercept one... Though a Tornado was the one to take this picture - apparently they throttled the Concorde back to get the shot though (quick google shows the F15 specs as being possible to intercept at altitude too)

yep, just did my first flight in their champ, very nice aircraft. great atmosphere too, recommend the egg and bacon sandwich from the café after your flight. they also have a sport cub, but its getting re-skinned in a few weeks, and will be out of action for a bit

my last flight was the RPC test, was nervous, bit of wind and had some traffic in the circuit. but I passed, not my best performance - in fact the worse ive flown in a while. but it was a relief to hear those words and have it signed off

can we all just agree that the jabiru brakes is a poor design. I disliked them when I trained in a J160. get to choose if you want a hand on the throttle or a hand on the stick - because you cant activate the brakes with a hand on both. the work around was putting your wrist through the middle of the split stick.... okay taxing but would hate to try and pull up fast on a landing like that. the alternative is no hand on the throttle - which is fine until the need to go around

most flight schools list the per hour cost on their website, this is what you have to be able to afford. think I worked out my RPC (achieved it a few days ago) was 18k your probably wondering why so much. I was about 60 hours dual, 8 hours solo. (ill have to check but think me first solo was around the 30 hour mark) its a lot of time when you say it like that.... I started in 2019, and flying is a hobby. originally I could only fly once every two weeks due to work and other commitments. made it affordable but slow to learn as you don't develop muscle memory. I also flew with different instructors because I had to fit it around my schedule - so would take whoever was free at the time. on top of this I went through several lockdowns that wiped out my progress. I also I opted to change aircraft when the flight school updated its fleet, also adding to my cost and time. plus a few flights for the sake of flying, too stressed or exhausted so played in the training area instead of a lesson of PFL's etc... Sure I did lots of flying I probably didn't have to, but its added to my experience. If you want to get it in a decent amount of time and for less money.... its going to cost you upfront. I recently moved interstate so spent the last week treating it as my fulltime job to get the certification, flew 13 hours in 8 days. and spent the rest of the time studying. it was intense but the growth reflected it. It also wasn't enjoyable, it had its moments (really loved slipping it in with crosswinds that were on the limit). but having that deadline added so much stress and anxiety.

lets not get into those details.... it upsets me that every dirt motorcycle in Hollywood is a 2-stroke. (most noticeable is terminator 2 - high pitch 2 stroke sound, over the low revving 4 stroke Honda XR) or magically changing tyres as they go from road to dirt and back (mission impossible 2, special mention to Torque for swapping bikes completely)

Movie with the longest running joke - using propeller sounds in a jet aircraft

thats like 12 minutes worth of fuel?

and thats the issue they are working around, they already have systems that will sacrifice itself for a kill - its called a missile. they are working up self preservation programing, and the controls to be able to change it mid mission. The idea is its a wing-man system where one manned aircraft can control a couple of unmanned as a force multiplier and increase survivability. being able to switch them from defensive and offensive depending on the circumstances. and at what level they are willing to endanger the asset

was actually listening to a podcast with the DARPA team leader for this project. he was saying its not accurate yet, the AI is taking risks that no fighter pilot would. they learned to go for a frontal shot - something that is high risk, and low probability of success. so advised against in the fighter doctrine. so basically the simulations learn to cheat. - which is part of why they run them, to see how it responds and adjust tactics accordingly. chance to see things that humans don't normally think of, or dismiss. next stage is building two F16's and two L39? to upload these programs to and dogfight. but the rules will be much stricter for safety and will eliminate the head on shots they previously were winning with

Correct, We just acquired one of those boats in the family. (and most I know of are owned by the parents - like ours, or through family syndicates) ignore the tow vehicle, these are normally work cars with businesses plastered on the side. its so we can fit more people on the boat, current capacity is 12 people. (find me a 12 seat plane for 150K) you rarely see those boats go out with less then 6. and they offer the ability to stay away from the shore for longer (lets you get to clear spots in the river, and rotate through skiers without the need to come in and swap people in the boat) like planes the old 70's ski boats are still around and popular as an accessible entry point and make up the majority of users. of the 10 main boats we go out with, only 3 are the big wake boats. and there is an additional 3 jet-skis because they cant justify a boat and there will also be young guys who have their own business and mortgage everything with a lavish lifestyle - it all gets sold as it eventually collapses, and we get a reasonably priced used boat from it.

seems one of the themes here is that the vocal majority are older flyers, makes sense that they would want the benefits of GA, without the risks of medicals revoking their status (arguably the medicals is less of a risk to younger flyers) I wonder what the shift of direction would be if RAA had the same medical requirements as GA?