RFguy

Master isolation relays should be required mandatory on all aircraft. But its not. although in VH world (non experimental) , for a certified aircraft you will not get cert if it doesnt have one because it will not be able to meet the criteria of being able to isolate the battery. I suspect many Jabiru fires are due to no battery isolator, and watch out for Sling also, no battery isolator in at least one aircraft I have seen. The other Jab fires are probably overflowing carbs. cheap https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/masterrelay.php although that one is marginal on starter current if a 3300 jab, but OK for a 4 cyl rotax/jab otherwise : https://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/el/relays/sts-12a24a.php

mmmmmm some extra here 1) The capacitor is required to provide smoothing of the pulses of current that come out of the alternator. The alternator produces current pulses, and if the alternator output is not connected direct to the battery (to do the pulse smoothing) it will put alot fo noise into the harness. The capacitor is always recommended (by me) . 2) It does not put a small load on the alternator. It does NOT prevent overvoltage, what it does is smooth out the current pulses and makes the alternator output look more like DC by being a reserviour between pulses. The alternator output shoudl always go direct to the battery via a circuit breaker. The alternator regulator voltage sense wire should go to the battery or the master bus. some regulators draw a little bit of current all the time that might flatten a battery in 3 months. if you fly every 2 weeks this is no problem. if you fly every 6 months, then connect it to the master bus but you will die anyway because you are not current, so the alternator is moot.

I wonder if that was post the service bulletin. . interesting. I think the big drag flap might assist a short fielder. but maybe it screws up other aspects. Wasnt just the J170 it applied to, think also applied to J200 , early J230 JSB029 1,2 "Reducing maximum flap deflection. Testing showed that the final stages of the flap movement produced no significant effect on the aircraft’s stall speed but had a slight negative effect on the aircraft’s handling at low speeds."

Jabirus once had more flap but they , with an SB , reduced it (from 40 back to 30 etc) because it was said to "increase drag and not generate any more lift" I argue that sometimes you might want that

Recovering from a go around from flare or partial touchdown with 40 deg flap in the PA28 requires a sequenced staged operation. 1) full power, control the slight pitch up , get aircraft stable and flying in ground effect,. You'll quickly find she wont get much over T.O.S.S. like that........ That you struggle to accelerate at all .......and that it wont make more than 70 kts should be the wakeup call ... 2) once you have the thing flying again, get rid of one stage flap back to 25. now it will climb, needs another nose / trim adjustment , and so on. The lack of acceleration , let alone any climb at full throttle should be an INSTANT alarm bell. NOT something you have to think about, needs to be INSTANT alarm bell in your head. And curency drives that. You know how it 'usually feels'. There's a bunch of things I can list that MUST be instant reaction without having to think.

"However, prior to the accident flight, it had been 121 days since the pilot’s last flight." currency currency currency

Per my post about 5 posts back.... I thought my flying would be all over the shop with the bumps but wasnt so bad. left hand circuits on 33.. (red arrow) I flew right over the same course on those two normal approaches. I did that just by looking over my shoulder and judging where base and final should be , didnt look at the ground, too busy looking for the other two aircraft in circuit. no GPS or tablet.... just a good compass. quite surprising how precise you get at your home AD. 200+ hours now. 65+ in the piper I think. not much wind though.. 5-10 kts down the runway. My downwind altitude hold was awful ....

I nose over, (end climb) then let the plane accelerate to desired cruise speed, reduce throttle as necessary, and then trim for zero stick forces.

PA28 : I'd shot a few approaches after lunch yesterday on a warm 32degC day. Late summer, the ground is warm now even at 5am. There's not much more ' un stabilized approach ' then the glide in the bumps over bare paddocks in the summer afternoon. I think its a good challenge. Last approach was a glide approach in the sinks and the bumps. I flew low over a big freshly burned/tilled?/ cleaned brown patch , hoping to get a bit of assistance, as I was a bit low..... and got a sink. Was flapless at the time since flaps only would have hastened my descent, so getting a bit slow, put power on a bit, then resumed glide the last 100m to the runway midfield, over runway, all the flaps out in one go, decending turn to line it up, as long as I keep my airspeed up, all is good. . and plonk. geez I know this girl now. But glides in the bumps are challenging. The biggest driver of my landing performance is currency. More so than fatigue I think. At least Weekly flying drives competence/currency/ confidence. And I mean not going out at 7am, but going out when its a little challenging... (if that's what you want)

for these sort of flow velocities and volumes and viscosities of the fluid and size of pipes, 30 maybe even 50 % of pipe dia change over a few inches is not going to be measurable.

at least 10. most 10-25h. .... I can entirely beleive he was signed off as competent and met all requirements to acheive a RAAus PC, and then made up his own adventure, but that's probably what we should not discuss now, IE personality / poor decisions unless we discuss in general terms.

not necessarily. part of XC training is to experience changes in weather, scene, understand GAFs TAFs GPWTs etc That's why it takes a while to do and why there are several components to it. If he had not met that syllabus min XC hours- and not passed the XC-nav written exam, then he could have not possibly held the qual, so could only have flown when not permitted to fly if was more than 25nm from the departure AD. Was the crash more than 25nm beyond the AD ? I'm *guessing because its the only thing that makes sense * - is that he met pilot certificate requirements (conversion- which is straightforward) and got signed off on that.... And that the student had met all RAAUS requirements to fly within 25nm from the AD.

Mark, do you have Borg implants ?

Turbs, if that is all true, not sure how that passes muster at all, rather shocking- with the obvious consequences. I'd expect to see a lawsuit here . No doubt this is partially on the head of the instructor - he signed him off. I can't really beleive that RAAus would have approved this signoff. There's some missing information.

thanks, that's quite useful for people to know. I know of a few. a couple of tecnams.

Nev, there is a crankcase calendar time limit. larger tyres, prop change- they're all changes with flying characteristic effects, that's why they need signoffs. on conditon engine doesnt affect flying characteristics, - that one is a bit easier to get.

but as I understand it, 24-experimental is NOT carte blanche. TMK it is for a specific item to be waived, like say, (stupid) calendar limit on the Rotax engine , and is not perpetual ?? Neil, please let us know your experience.

given that you dont have a tough fibreglass shell around you a-la Jabiru , I'd be only flying an Xair with gliding distance to a 300m straight clearing or road without power lines . Brendan, I thought you'd bought a little rotax poiwered 55 Jab ?

But the Tigers should bother you. why ? because the weather can be benign over the ocean, and you can ditch the plane with a low prob of killing yourself. and people can get to you quickly and find you easily. But in the hills and the mountains- you get all sorts of bad weather actors , turbulence, cloud out of nowhere, air forced to rise, oh it goes on and on, let alone where you might land if you have to ? and it will be weeks before you are found and by then you have died of exposure and bled to death trapped in your tin can coffin. I do fly over tiger country, but I have my route divided up into sectors and I have a LZ in mind for every sector, and I dont fly over it unless I can get high, and if there's any cloud base above or below, or any PROB30 with descent the other end, I take the long way.

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I was gung ho when learning to fly about some of the routes and places I would go. But what I've found is some of these routes can be very uncomfortable and unpleasant to fly over with any wind around, without being up in the stratosphere. so now constraints are < wind? cloud ? after lunch weather ? fatigue ? > Alot of prerequisites to tick before I go anywhere.

Jack, and mine is too. my feeling is that modifications to RAAUS aircraft in a practical sense really only affect resale pain. (assuming they're 'good'). My J230 will be sold stock with the Gen3 or a Gen4 . Not with the rotax (which has been interfaced) and NOT with an LCH Gen3, because.... of the headaches for the next owner- that there has to be a condition report generates a paperwork trail trigger on changes........IE as a result the radical change to the engine IE a visible difference that could not plausibly missed by the L2 providing a 'condition report'.

Sometimes there is no obvious reason for less than stellar air performance... For me, it usually depends how much is on my mind multiplied by how many days since I last flew.. On Friday I was going to fly, but I felt a little off, slept very poorly had a bit of a stomach bug, so flew saturday morning instead. Always ask yourself. Is it absolutely necessary that I fly today ? Not flying won't kill you.

Jack, If I was keeping my J230, I would move the flaps switch to above the throttle. (and have another set on the other side)

KG he meant he went to full throttle on the go around. I would not be advocating to a student what you are at this point,, I think advice for the young lad is best come from the instructor at this point. @Brendan . did the nose pitch up when you applied full throttle ? How'd did you go managing putting the flaps away etc on the go around ! there is alot to do. flying the plane comes first. good work.