Student Pilot

I have run Lyc's, Continentals and PW engines on mogas, I dislike it intensely. It was a few years ago now, the fuel was always variable and not consistent from lots of suppliers. Hot weather made for problems, there was always a stink from the fuel. At one stage I was using 1000 litres a day and I still used avgas, I was prepared to pay more for decent fuel.

That last sentence is the truth of CASA Ian......................things will never change until CASA makes flying safe, that is no aircraft flying.

Agreed unless it's a Napier Sabre diesel 😜

Yes but no soul.........☹️

Has the rest of the world changed hemispherical cruising levels?

It makes too much sense for everybody to use the same system. In reality it makes no difference if your speed is knots, MPH or K's. The Yanks have a hatred for anything metric, using furlongs, bushels, rods, ounces, acres, chains makes so much more sense 😁 Makes hard work and room for error in the likes of Canada where they are supposed to work with the metric system but the rednecks want to be Amerrycarn and have a mixture of US and imperial measurements and the products like fuel and chemical are supplied as metric recommendations. I wouldn't have any problem with using K's for speed, metres for height.

What a great machine, a true minimum aircraft. A delight to fly.......

Colt for under 20K? Surely you jest?

A -67 PT 6 is worth a lot just for the core.

VERY expensive toy!!!!

Agreed Nev, I have never heard anybody call an Airtuck handsome. An Ag Cat with a 985 and the hopper converted to a couple of seats would make a good Sunday afternoon cruiser. Except maintenance and the 100 litres an hour fuel flow might be a bit spensive!

A bloke called Neil (ex navy pilot with a grey beard,) used to fly for Transavia and demonstrate the Airtruck, his party piece was to put 2 passengers in the rear seat and do aerobatics. The Airtruck was a nice machine to fly, light harmonised controls and pretty efficient with a 300 HP. They came with all sorts of engines from Continental 250ish HP, also 540 Lyc's. There are a few still flying I think they are 720's.

They used to fly the Airtruks from there

A design from the 80's was the Kitten, Jessie Anglin designed it as an ultralight. There are a few flying in Oz, the design was copied given a turtle deck then called the Pup. Both of those originally had triangulated undercarriage and reasonably small wheels that worked well.

Light aircraft have been using triangulated steel tube for undercarriages since the 1920's. Depends on the welding process and the welders skill as to any need for heat treating/stress relieving after welding. Chromemoly tube is very strong 1.2 mm would be ok, what thickness do the plans call for?

Everything said is spot on. That's the reason why nobody bothers to make submissions, CASA will not listen.

You blokes think too much 😬

It's easy to get discouraged with CASA, they won't listen to experienced people. You only have to look at what they have done to businesses over the last 40 years. Doesn't matter who you are or what you say, they will not listen they know better. That's why people will not make submissions, waste of time. Admittedly CASA are just part of the problem, Federal gov, local councils, sacred military airspace have all contributed to the elimination of GA. It's just getting too hard, too expensive.

Wasn't a big fan of mogas in Beavers, fuel used to have trouble feeding the carb. Mainly ground handling and part throttle, in hot weather there would be vaporisation pulling the fuel up from the low tanks. Mogas stinking stuff compared to avgas. 985 in a Stearman is a wonderful thing Nev 😁 Admittedly I have only flown a Stearman with a 985 but is was a very nice machine to fly, fast at around 110 in cruise. Docile yet responsive, ground handling a delight, aero's gentle. The stories about how hard a Stearman is to fly are wildly exaggerated. The machine I flew was a rebuilt Ag aircraft, in the hot weather you could still smell malathion wafting 🤓

Nev the 985 wazza good engine, yes some would use a bit of oil. The main reason for that was maintenance and running over time. It was considered normal practice to run over 2000 hours on AG aircraft when the TBO was initially 1200 then 1400. On Ag use it was mainly topdressing or super, a load every 6 minutes or so, that's full power (36" and 2300 revs) back to max continuous a touch of cruise then landing, every 6 minutes for 2000 hours. I have seen 985's run to 3000 hours, it wasn't much good for overhaul just throw it away. At the time you could get an overhauled 985 for under 20K so some treated them as a throwaway engine which was a shame. I used to pull mine at 1400, most were burning less than a litre an hour. The worst I have flown was working for a particularly dodgy operator I had to top up the oil during flight, the oil was running very low before the the 2 hour fueling. Used to have a watering can of oil on the passenger floor. Oil tank used to hold 20 litres. The only aircraft with a worse oil burn was a Dromader, all of those used to burn/leak/throw lots of oil. The oil tank on a Beaver was inside the cabin for arctic operations you could refill the oil from the cabin after using the oil dilation function to get a quicker spinning engine in the cold temps.

The one's I saw operating used to leak less oil than 985's, Alvis were a geared engine and swung a huge prop. They were around 600 HP. The engine was considered for powering the Beaver when they were designing it. There was one that flew with an AL powerplant.

They had tappet covers Nev. A high power machine for the size, I vaguely remember they were similar capacity to a 985 PW but more power. They were a fuel injected engine as well.

Self declaring 🤣 what a waste of time and money. How many layers of security are required? The old days everybody who help a private licence and up had an ASIO file, is it the same now with an RAA licence? Anybody with a powder ticket or firearms licence also had an ASIO file along with all number of triggers, anybody on the fringes of left politics being one. I wonder now do they monitor far right and conspiracy theory mobs now? They are by far a greater risk to Australia than international terrorism. Look at other countries for what can happen, US for instance. Red neck conspiracy theorists are the biggest threat to democracy.

Sy used to be an engineer at Aerial Agriculture before he started the bike shop. He bought a Beaver wreck and repaired it over the years. A true aviation enthusiast.