slartibartfast

Thanks Darren. Was great to catch up with you and your lovely wife Emma and the kids (and the rest of the Oaks crew). I did enjoy going up with Sunny too.

Talk more later - got to get to bed and catch a Z or 2 before getting up at 4am to go to Tumut for my XC solo nav. I'll let you know tomorrow night how it went.

Ross

I think your buddy from HK, Simon, gave it away and then you signed your reply.

Quote:Originally Posted by nomis

Chris,

 

Hello from Hong Kong. Good to hear the Gazelle is back in the air. Will have a fly when back in May. Hope Kirsty and the boys are well.

 

Simon

 

Hey! Simon! Fancy seeing you here! I just found this place the other day!

 

I see you just have 1 post too, so you must have just found it too! Great minds think alike eh!

 

I'm going up again at 8 in the morning, weather permitting of course, but looks promising at the moment.

 

What a buzz to see you here!

 

(Still trying to figure out how you knew Crash Lander was me!)

 

Say hi to Erika and the boys for us!

 

Chris

 

________

By an amazing coincidence, Simon's username is exactly the same as his real name but backwards. The world's a funny place.

If you don't want us to know your name I'm sure we can all forget it. We can call you Bruce.

Ross

Hey Matt. Sorry to hear about the damage.

Very unlucky. If you had gone the full cover would it have protected it from the huge hailstones?

Hope it gets sorted soon. At least you can still fly it.

Ross

What a great trip. Nearly 2000Nm?

Enjoy the newish Jab and the journey. Look forward to the photos.

I reckon red suits her. You do have to put the name on though. Did you settle on one? I am now leaning toward "Vlad the Impala" - a pun referring to her speed. Although I'm sure I didn't need to explain that.

It does look great too. I'm looking forward to seeing you and the vampire at Narrandera.

Ross

those photos would make great educational tools in highlighting how difficult it is to see powerlines until its too late, even when the conditions are favourable as they are in the pics, the light behind the pilot and the lines cant be seen until your pretty much on top of them.... can these photos be used and shared to highlight this danger???

Peter took off on 17 and flew the same path Tony would have on the go-around (only higher), so it gives a great progressive look at the options. Personally I would expect power lines along a road like that - they would almost always be there. The poles are fairly visible too.

In no way do I mean to be critical of Tony - he would have been very busy. I merely offer that opinion for further comment and education. I doubt the sun in the eyes was an issue, as the path is due south and the shadows are almost west and long. It must have been fairly early morning.

As I said, I'm glad he survived and we can learn from this without emotion.

Short version: feel free to use the photos. I have 1600x1200 pixel versions.

Ross

Yet another wire strike occurred on Sunday. Thankfully, this time the pilot walked away with nothing more than a scratch on the noggin. I heard about this Monday, and saw a photo of him standing in front of the wreck.

I don't have that photo, but I asked the CFI at Tumut (Peter Wilson) for some snaps and to confirm some details. He sent me the following photos.

He couldn't remember the plane type (nor can I) but it was wooden and homebuilt. What was it Jack?

The wood probably saved him, as it went in wing over wing and absorbed a lot of energy crumpling them.

He missed an approach and tried to go around, but he could only get half power (don't know why). He tried for a paddock (as you will see in the photos - there are heaps to the south of the runway 17). He seems to have picked the wrong one and clipped the power line.

Peter took these photos from his trike a bit later.

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Not the sort of wreck you expect the pilot to be posing for photos in front of. I'm very glad we weren't mourning another loss.

Ross

Edit: Just found this report which confirms it was Tony Urbancik's plane. He is from Canberra and the guys were thinking it was probably his - especially when we saw the rego - VH-URB.

Or this. It appears to have happened, although not quite the way it was reported in this thread.

To save you having to sign up, here's the article:

The NTSB's investigation of a King Air B200 that landed safely last Friday after suffering serious structural damage is likely to focus on cockpit checklists and procedures, along with radar data collection. N777AJ was headed from Rogers, Ark., for Stanton, Va., when it encountered complications after suffering a shattered (but not blown out) windshield at 27,000 feet and ultimately rained parts down on an aeromedical helicopter flying below. The helicopter was not struck by debris, and the King Air landed at Cape Giraradeau, Mo., with buckled wing skins and empennage and much of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator missing. The King Air's pilot, Sheldon Stone, said in early reports that the aircraft suffered a shattered left windshield at altitude and he then depressurized the cabin to prevent a blowout. According to the King Air pilot operating manual, the "abnormal checklist" for a cracked windshield specifies a descent to 10,000 feet or other methods to reduce the pressure differential to less than 3 PSI within 10 minutes. After depressurizing the cabin, Stone and his copilot then donned their oxygen masks and turned on the valve, but no oxygen appeared to be forthcoming. The sole-occupant pilots then passed out. Stone, a 4,200 hour ATP-rated pilot, said he awoke at 7,000 feet and recovered the aircraft.

According to the aircraft's flight track as provided by FlightAware, the aircraft reached 27,000 feet just after 7:00 a.m. It cruised at that altitude until 7:17 when it went to 25,900. At 7:18 the aircraft was at 25,400 but a minute later was back at 27,000 and had slowed from 417 to 104 knots ground speed, further slowing to 44 knots at 7:20, according to FlightAware. At 7:22, the position report showed holding 27,000 feet and 102 knots. One minute later, the radar indicates 125 knots at 7,800. Aberrations earlier in the minute-by-minute reporting (from 6:49 to 6:50, the aircraft is shown to jump from 17,000 to 27,000 then back down) suggest the data may not be entirely accurate. But the data seem to follow roughly with the pilot's initial comments and damage suffered by the aircraft.

You thought there was too much religion in that, read this article about the same incident. Even the rego had religious significance apparently.

There's a shot of the windscreen too.

Ross

Did it signal the end of a drought for you Chris?

Hi CL.

Welcome. Hope you enjoy your stay.

Ross

"intersexual departure"? Hey - I told the wife I'm just going for the flying.

I'll be leaving Tumut Friday and returning Saturday. I'd suggest Tumut as a very hospitable place Mike. Probably a tad off track though.

Non-ASIC. I'm not sure mine will arrive in time either, but RAA assured me it will. Lee Ungermann signed everything for me. The advantage of living in Canberra.

Ross

That's what I was going to ask Peter.

But after revealing myself to be barely above idiot speed on the last hypothetical, I thought I'd shut up on this one.

Ross

Hey BigPete. Let's see. Town on a river, 1 hour from Echuca, distinctive runway configuration, Corowa?

I am doing my solo navex to there on Sunday and was drawing that runway into my notes last night.

Edit: I take it back. I just checked ERSA and the runways aren't quite right.

Can't be too far off though.

Ross

Thanks Pete.

Actually I had time for 2 snaps at Narrandera.

They show what kind of day it was at least.

I also forgot to mention that the ASI had turned itself into an altimeter.

On 1st roll I noticed it wasn't working, but we went anyway.

Above 4000' it was hard against the stops. VSI and altimeter were fine.

[ATTACH]1502[/ATTACH][ATTACH]1503[/ATTACH]

Great trip indeed.

Today I did my dual-nav. Had to choose 3 legs over 300nm.

Went with Tumut - Narrandera - Tocumwal - Tumut.

The weather was amazingly good. Best day in weeks. On the ground many places we flew over were up to 38C. But at 4500 for the 1st two (morning) and 7500 for the last leg, I kept above it all and flew in laminar smooth air. Total magic.

This was my 1st XC where I planned and executed it myself, and I did really well apparently. Always knew where I was, and when I would get to the next waypoint and dest. The secret hidden GPS track was pretty good.

I found the whole experience bloody amazing.

Still heaps to learn obviously, but practice makes Queensland.

Next Sunday, solo nav-ex to Corowa and back to Tumut. After that, the sky's the limit. Or at least the performance envelope of a J160 is.

See you all at Narromine.

Ross

PS - no photos. I was a bit busy.

Here's a few I took this morning.

And here's some a friend gave me - taken last night.

Well Darren, got into town this morning and was amazed.

At 00am there was still piles of hail 12 inches deep in lots of places, with occasional mounds 3 feet high.

Many buildings are damaged and closed, streets are closed, people sent home - including in my building - the top couple of floors are nearly destroyed. My floor is fine for now, but they expect the cascade to work its way down later.

Here's my car in the car park when I got in (snapped with my phone so excuse the quality).

[ATTACH]2155.vB[/ATTACH]

I'll post some more later. Still emailing them to myself from my phone (no cables for it at work).

Ross

I'm in Tuggeranong, so south of the heaviest, but we had an excellent display in 360 degrees for hours. Some really heavy rain too.

I'll see what the city is like in the morning. It must have been hammered.

I was watching the radar too.

Well that was fun.

Glad I could play Devil's advocate so completely.

Thanks for the explanation too Doug. It makes sense in a way, but I'm still not completely convinced. I want to try my model on a treadmill test. I'll get back to you. "logical absurdity" is my middle name.

But yeah - I can see that you can try to speed up the treadmill, but there's nothing for it to act on. The wheels just spin faster. Funny how the brain works. I thought I could see exactly what was going on.

Next!

This is getting a little frustrating.

How about if we scale it down.

Picture a model plane sitting on an exercise treadmill. We can control the speed of the treadmill.

Now fire up the model plane. As you see it move forward, increase the treadmill speed so it can't. Pretend you can control the treadmill so well, that you can keep the model plane exactly in the middle of the treadmill length, no matter what it tries to do. Now imagine the air it is sitting in. You are in a room, so there's no wind. Is the air moving over the wings any faster? Remember the air is not affected by the treadmill, except for a little surface friction. The wings are not moving through the air in the room, they remain still in relation to it.

What do you think now?

I reckon that unless the surface friction moves the air enough to pass over the wings more than min flying speed, it ain't going anywhere.

That's the problem with the "earth is one big conveyor belt" theory. The air is moving with the earth also at 900 knots more or less. With our runway conveyor, the air isn't moving with it.

Ross' last effort.

yes. it will take off at normal speed, as the prop drives it through the air...just as a seaplane does on floats. the prop and wing dont care about whats under the wheels..

do we have an emoticon for "my brain hurts"?

The original question says that the belt is controlled so that it automatically runs at the same speed as the plane - not the same speed as the plane's wheels. I read that as being the same as the tether.

That's what I meant about the plane being the same as a brick with lots of potential. If you suddenly stop the conveyor, it would react even more than your tethered example - it would rocket away because the wheels would suddenly stop free-wheeling and provide initial thrust forward as they bite (or explode). With a tether, the energy is being stored by stretching the tether. When cut, there would be a catapult effect by the release of that stored energy. I suspect the spinning wheels would store energy more efficiently.

Because it is tethered, it isn't getting air moving over the wings (except prop-wash) so it can't fly.

The engine doesn't provide lift, only thrust. So your tethered plane on the scales would only be lighter by the small amount of lift generated by prop-wash.

It all comes down to interpretation of the question - as usual.

Ross

But if the prop is spinning, the plane would gain groundspeed if the conveyor didn't move backwards to prevent it. The propellor adds energy to the system. It is an action for which there must be an equal and opposite reaction. If there were no conveyor, the reaction would be for the plane to start accelerating forward and build groundspeed. The conveyor cannot remain still, for that would mean there is no reaction to the propellor's action - which is against the law.

FYC,

Ross

This is a great hypothetical (what if there were no such thing as a hypothetical question?).

David, the original question does say that "The belt is controlled so that it automatically runs at the same speed as the plane, but in the opposite direction"

Therefore the plane will remain stationary in relation to the ground, therefore will never get an increase in air over the wings, therefore won't fly.

Just to clarify my thinking. Could still be wildy wrong of course.

Ross