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marshallarts

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Everything posted by marshallarts

  1. And I also note that the aircraft is now for sale on planesales.com.au
  2. Just been hearing on the radio that the record attempt happened yesterday, and was successful - he made 145 takeoff/landing cycles during daylight. I didn't hear how much was actually raised for the RFDS, but good for him.
  3. O Ooooh such cynicism. You must be nearly as old as me! 😄
  4. Very like VH-ZND, the 787 Dreamliner with the "Yam Dreaming" decoration. That one retains the red tail, but the red fits in with the painting anyway, as the green does with this one. I like them both a lot. VH-ZND pic
  5. Whenever I see a discussion like this, I am prompted to wonder (again) what the missing ingredient is. Example: Pilatus is a Swiss company, producing some of the world's finest aircraft of their type, like the PC-12 turboprop and the PC-24 jet, both used extensively by our very own RFDS. Heaven knows how many hundreds of millions the RFDS must have paid to Pilatus over the years. And it's not just the RFDS - Pilatus sells aircraft all over the world. Switzerland is a very small country - population only about a third of ours, tiny area, and probably far from ideal flying conditions compared to ours. If Pilatus can do that in Switzerland, why can't someone in Oz be producing top-level aircraft of some sort? What is the missing factor?
  6. I've was told some years back by an ex-A380 captain that the ejection seats have all sorts of (very expensive) implications for private use of these things. I think he said it was best to have them removed, but I imagine even that would be eye-watering in the dollars department. I'm sure they would gobble up a LOT of jet fuel too, but that's partly offset by how quickly you get to your destination! It would be a huge buzz to fly one, or even IN one.
  7. Very entertaining thead! Only just came across it, and a few things definitely caught my eye. That OMA SUD aircraft has a fuselage that is eerily similar in shape to the Flaris light jet which has been under development for the last few years. And the Lear Fan - I remember buying a magazine way back in the 1980s which had an article about that sad tale. I recall a story that the project had missed a deadline that was the last day of a calendar year, so to try and help out, the potential customer declared that the following day was the 32nd of December! But sadly it wasn't enough to save the project. Not unlike the Beech Starship I guess - both somewhat ahead of their time. At least Beech did build a few of the Starships - I think 1 or 2 are still flying. Sorry if this has all been mentioned already, I haven't been through the whole thread.
  8. Good luck with it, it would be good to see something like this happen in Oz. Immediately made me think of the DarkAero 1 - I'm sure you've seen that one.
  9. Hi Natalia. The first step here in Australia used to be a thing called a Trial Instructional Flight, or TIF. It was just a short (20-30 min) flight in a small plane, and you got to put your hands on the controls and even manipulate them (very gingerly). That was my first step anyway, but that was in about 1980, so things could be different now. And because I went ahead and signed up for training, my TIF even went into my log book as my first-ever 0.6 hours of flight! Don't know if it would still work that way, and the USA would probably be different from here anyway. I've been out of flying for quite a few decades, but I'd be a bit surprised if TIFs were not still offered at most flight training organisations. Good luck with it. Cheers, Steve.
  10. One of the great experiences of my life was owning and flying a 1967 Debonair, back in the early 1990s. I concur with all comments about it being a delight to fly, very comfortable and roomy, and it could carry almost anything you could get through the luggage door. It was like sitting back and driving a big old Cadillac around, fabulous. And with those big fat wings it almost landed itself. I was not aware of the aileron/rudder connection, but I certainly made quite a few crosswind landings with no feeling of being interfered with. It did seem to require very little rudder in most turns, so maybe that was the reason. Two of the highlights of those times were getting my Night VFR rating in her, and making our biggest-ever trip, from Perth to Broome and back in 1992 - pretty heady stuff for a low-time pilot, with no autopilot or even GPS in those olden days. Great memories.
  11. Yes. For anyone interested in this sort of history I recommend a book called "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer. It's the story of the ill-fated US intervention in Iran to depose President Mossadegh in 1953 and re-install the Shah. The background to this was the British takeover of the Iranian oil industry early in the 20th century, from which enormous profits were made for many decades, almost none of which went to Iran. When Mossadegh was elected with a plan to nationalise their oil industry (i.e. take it back, heaven forbid), the Brits were ready to send in the warships! The US president of the time managed to convince them that wasn't a good idea, instead attempting a clandestine coup by political manipulation. A very sorry saga indeed, with both the US and the Brits involved. They did depose Mossadegh and put the Shah's dictatorship in place, but it was a catastrophe for Iran and undoubtedly a contributor to a lot of the middle east instability since then. Pretty much every time the US has intervened in some foreign regime the result has been disastrous, often the exact opposite of what they intended. I wonder why they never learn.
  12. Great to see that DAF Daffodil - my first car had an engine very similar to that. It was a Toyota 700, and the engine was like half a VW engine - 2 cylinders, air cooled, horizontally-opposed and 697cc. I can see by searching that it was called the Publica in some countries. Mine had 4-on-the-column manual gears, 2 doors, and not much else! It would do 52mph flat out, and sipped fuel at about the same number of mpgs if I remember rightly. This was around 1968-69. Because the spark plugs more or less poked out into the front wheel arches, it had a habit of stopping when I went through a puddle or in rainy weather. Fun days! The amazing thing was that Toyota actually produced a "hot" sports version of it - the Toyota 800 Sports. That was a targa-roof 2-seater which looked a bit like a baby 2000GT, a "proper" sportscar that came along a few years later.
  13. Came out of the same moulds as the Tecnam P2008 I reckon.
  14. Wow, this is a very impressive project. I've been following it on and off but had not realised that a turbo was going to be part of it. Will you be changing to fuel injection too? That would seem to me to complete the package. I'll be very interested to see the performance figures when you are in the air.
  15. This is interesting. I recall way back in the 1990s when I was flying my old Debonair, that during a landing at Jandakot in very benign conditions the right wing lifted and I couldn't get it to go down again despite large aileron deflection. The Deb was starting to aim for the runway edge so I hit the power and went around, and landed without further incident. I recalled after this that a chopper had been operating at low level on the grassed area adjacent to the runway, and I wondered if that was a factor. I believed this incident may have led to the breakage of the left landing gear pushrod that I described in a recent post. In fact I seem to remember making that case in an insurance claim, and the insurer paid for the repair, bless 'em. Them wuz the days.
  16. Yes, sadly I'm very well aware of that. I was the last owner of our Debonair - when we decided to sell her after about 4 years, she was found to have corrosion in some places where corrosion is NOT allowed, and repairs would have involved taking wings off, etc etc etc. Nobody would give quoted prices for that sort of thing, and I could not sign an open cheque, so the only option was to sell her for salvage and scrap. We lost a fairly large heap of money on that, needless to say, and that was me out of aviation, overnight. That was in the days before the internet was huge like now, so I guess if it had happened these days I could have sold her as a "restoration project" and maybe done somewhat better. At least I could have reached a much bigger potential market than I could then. Anyway, at least there was no loan to pay out, and nobody got hurt. And owning our "Debbie" was still one of the greatest experiences in my life, for sure. It gave me some of the highest highs (and the lowest lows) I've ever had.
  17. Yes, in my dear old Debonair in a past life, the pushrod/tube cracked and bent in the tunnel leading out the wing. I had wondered why I'd been hearing a "clunk" when I lowered the gear - it was the pushrod near the kink point, banging into the wing structure. See pic below. Fortunately it never led to a failure to be able to lower the gear - it was found at the next 100-hourly. And fortunately the hole in the rib it passed through was small enough that the bend in the pushrod didn't shorten it enough to prevent full gear extension. Very lucky there, it certainly would have failed completely, in the not too distant. I was always very impressed with the design of the gear mechanism on the Deb (same as Bonanza and Baron too I believe) - just one motor, with several gears/arms etc and the pushrods, which opened the gear doors and extended the gear, and then closed the small inner doors as well (I think), with just one spin of the motor shaft. Then the reverse to retract. A very clever piece of engineering. But everything with moving parts can/will fail eventually!
  18. If you mean landing timeslots - I thought the landing fees at LHR were per-passenger, which would mean higher passenger counts have no advantage. Are there maybe other charging components that give bigger aircraft some advantage? I'm sure there are LOTS of charges, for everything imaginable!
  19. I remember once watching a crayboat at Kalbarri filling up with diesel at the jetty. The numbers on the bowser were whizzing around so fast that it was impossible to read the last 2 digits, and it was showing whole litres, not tenths. It was up to several thousand in what seemed like no time at all. Paying for that would focus the attention!
  20. Amen to that. I will NEVER forget my first attempt at my NVFR test, even though it was nearly 30 years ago. I'd had an awful week at work and came home on the Friday night feeling stressed and short of sleep. I thought about cancelling the test, but it was a beautiful summer day and after a cup of tea and a bite I felt a bit better, so decided to go. Went out to Jandakot and cleaned the windows of my pride and joy, our old Beech Debonair. Light winds, CAVOK - what could possibly go wrong? Well, plenty. Fronted up for the test as the sun was setting and did poorly on the oral questions - just hadn't done enough ground study. The instructor almost cancelled it there and then, but thought he might as well have a look at me in the air. I drew up the flight plan, which was as expected - navigate to Narrogin for some night circuits initially. (Narrogin was picked in those days because it's not far to go, the strip is some way from the town and there were no other lights around). Smooth takeoff, and first waypoint at Boddington came up under the nose. I was feeling more positive. Adjusted heading for Narrogin, and at the expected time switched on its lights with the radio. There they were, right under the nose. More positive! But when we joined the circuit and headed down final approach, things started to unravel. Down near the ground it was like riding a bucking horse, it was so rough. There must have been huge thermal activity happening down there. I wrestled the Deb onto the ground, and as we accelerated away for the next try, I snatched a glance at the windsock - it was standing out horizontal from the mast, at almost 90° to the runway! Climb-out was terrible - my airspeed was all over the place, but I managed to get up to circuit height, where it was quite a bit smoother. Second attempt, and all the same only worse. On climb-out I was chasing the airspeed again, porpoising up and down, and was almost starting to feel disorientated. I can still remember the instructor's voice in my headphones, almost shouting "Keep the wings level!!". It felt like I was getting near the edge, so I asked the instructor to take control. It was incredible, like oil on water - the airspeed stabilised and everything immediately felt normal and fully under control. I knew it was all over at that point, so we just climbed to a few thousand feet and I took control back and navigated us back to Jandakot in gloomy silence. Conditions at Jandakot were just as they were when we left - smooth and balmy light winds - so the landing was perfectly fine and easy. Needless to say, I did a few more night hours with my regular instructor, then did the test again a few weeks later when I was in a much better place mentally - and passed. That was one of the lowest points of my time flying. It was especially shocking because the training for the NVFR had given me some of the best experiences I'd ever had. But it taught me never to go flying (at any time of day) if not 100% mentally fit. It might be over-dramatic, but I have wondered many times what might have happened if I had been solo that night. Thank goodness I wasn't.
  21. Yes I agree, although if the doors are forward-hinged I don't see too much of an issue really. And I get all the structure-related comments too, just expressing a personal preference, one which does appear on some aircraft.
  22. Hmmm, not a good look... that could spoil your whole day!
  23. Why is that? I'm aware that many had issues with the Cardinal (i.e. flying them, or mostly landing them), but I haven't heard any bad things about the 210 (not that that means anything!).
  24. Disappointing (for me) to see that the wing strut goes down to a point at the front of the entry door, not the back. That means the strut basically bisects the field of view for both occupants. I like high-wings for the view downwards, but this is a spoiler in Cessnas and a lot of others. It would be nice to have no struts, but if they must - quite a few modern high-wings attach the strut behind the doors, which is a lot better. So yes, very Cessna-like, albeit undoubtedly much better performance. But it's completely irrelevant for me, I'm not a potential builder, or buyer, of anything. And yes rgmwa, I'm sure Vans have said that a tri-gear will happen at some stage - a competitor for the Glasair Sportsman maybe.
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