F10

I thought unleaded 100 Octane AVGAS was imminent? Seems not. It’s th one pain about a Rotax, they don’t seem to like it. Deposited of lead on the gearbox slipper clutch and I’ve seen a UTube clip about an oil change and the guy decided to clean out his oil tank. There was a lot of lead deposit sludge at the bottom of the tank. During the war, the Germans made up for their poor fuels running on as low as 87 octane as I recall, by adding to piston size. The Fw190 BMW radial, was over 40 litres in capacity. Could Lycoming/Continental drop compression and do the same? No doubt a weight and cost problem! But it would be nice to fill up on AVGAS with no worries.

Wow interesting story, no doubt this played a part in the demise of Wingnut Wings model kits, by far the best 1/32 scale kits of WW1 aircraft. The most amazing detail. They were in fact shortly to bring out a 1/32 scale Avro Lancaster, which had astounding detail and even had wrinkled skinning on the surface detailing, amazing. Needless to say however, they were not cheap models, but you got museum display type detail for your $. deMarco was pretty matey with Kermit Weeks, who flew at some of the NZ airshows. I had some exposure in a way to the uber rich crowd when I was posted to the SAAF Museum historic flight. There’s a reason there’re wealthy….wouldn’t give you ice in winter, and will fight over 2 cents. This is not meant as a character assassination, just a business fact. Be very wary…friendship is generally based on the thickness of your wallet. I’m always amused at all the articles about aircrew who fly warbirds, as the only reason 90% of them fly warbirds has nothing to do with some magical flying ability, or some unique “burning love of aviation” (who doesn’t have that!). It’s the mighty $. There are rare exceptions. A few ex BBM pilots have built up connections and have managed to wrangle a seat, plus they have of course valuable government sponsored hours on type…plus some personalities from the maintenance world who to their credit, got a bit lucky and a pilots licence. Despite this somewhat murky world of where the bucks stop,I for one are happy to see it has meant a lot of this awesome flying machinery, in which young men from all sorts of backgrounds, put their life on the line in deadly combat in defence of their country and Judeo-Christian civilisation ideals…..and it was horribly close….

Nice! Like Colts, I have often thought it would be nice to buy an Aerolite 103, to “scratch the itch”, whilst I re-built my Gazelle…that would be fun!

Yep it’s a pity we don’t have a FAR 103 system, and if we did, somthing which gets you out to 50 miles from your ‘drome. Legally you can go to 50 miles without getting a met forecast…so should be good for 103. Aircraft like the Aerolite 103, which to me looks like a very nice piece of kit, would be great for a swing around the patch on a lovely late afternoon when it’s cooling off and the wind has dropped. To do this without all sorts of legislation tie down straps would be good. In a single seater….you only have yourself to blame, it seems being able to take your own responsibility is almost a privilege these “safe” days.

Local “government” seems more of a problem from recent experience. Town councils or Shires seem to always have some officious obstructionist on the council who has some chip about aviation. I’ve heard lots of complaints about obstructionist councils, although I’m hearing only one side. But for example, very few councils seem to want to listen to, or ask for advice or suggestions from their town airfield users. We’ve had a very smart security fence put around our “terminal building” (more of a shack really). Walk two yards past the dance on the access road, and you can climb through a three strand barbed wire fence, no code required. Not complaining about the fence….but it certainly wasn’t a big priority…surely a cement hardstand at the nice new re-fueling bowser be a higher priority? Or instead of a promise to tar the car park, how about the dispersal area, cars have a nice grass lawn. Organising new hangar plots, instead of first waiting for interest to be shown?

Yeah, which is strange as it seems to make sense on paper. I have 50 odd hours on my mystery aircraft, some years back. Flying with the side doors slid back, the view is tremendous, very helicopter like. Had the worst control harmony I’ve experienced, very heavy ailerons, not bad elevator control and a feather light rudder, almost the exact reverse of what you kind of want!

Was fun! Very sorry, I took no pics….I’m old school so unless I’m lugging a 35mm Pentax or Olympus, it sometimes just doesn’t occur to me that my phone can take pics….! Maybe someone did? Some interesting aircraft. A very nice Auster, and a heritage Cessna 180, fitted with a nose wheel by Cessna as a first test of the tri gear market potential apparently.

The idea was: Cheap power line inspection and traffic reporting, compared to a fling wing operating costs. Like the later Brit designed Optica.

Add one can of baked beans, for JATO assisted take off!

Try this one…

Yes, nice machine. Not the most characterful or engaging aircraft as such, but very comfortable. You have very few distractions because of the comfort, you can spend long hours in that reclined seat and airconditioned cabin. Panel and kit, is like a scaled down version of an Airbus A320.

Yes, social. Apologies for rant, had just watched the news, frame of mind was uncaged.

Whatever you prefer! In a stroke of genius….I didn’t mention the date. 🤓 Scheduled for 31 Oct, so this coming Sunday.

For those in the area, FYI. Yarram FC will be doing a fly away for a BBQ lunch at Bairnsdale with GFC. Meeting and chat at 11:00, lunch at 12:00 AEST. Wx is looking promising. Marxist Dan has relaxed his draconian world record lockdown and he hasn’t yet forced through the non sitting parliament his North Korean total control of calling lockdowns and curfews. So let’s make hay…A few months ago, we hosted them at Yarram. It was a fun day, chats to mates and some nice eye candy (aircraft I mean!) to look at. Hopefully this will be the same!

If old mate Snow has anything to do with it, you can bet it will be $$$$$$$$….

Yes I’ve always thought this Cessna type to be a very effective yet simple stall warning. Paul’s UTube clip was interesting. One of the big dangers to the base leg stall is the fact that the stall symptoms are masked by the fact you are descending, so the wing loading is reduced. With reduced wing loading, stall speed is lower. for example, If you fly a bunt type manoeuvre, you can fly the aircraft, under control at well below the basic stall speed. Just don’t pull back and load the wings, it will seem to stall immediately. So in the descending base turn, with low wing loading, you will feel no buffet, indeed, flaps may have altered downwash so root stall buffet now misses the tail plane. You will not see a high nose attitude, controls will feel sloppy, but at base and final approach speeds, the do anyway. So, it all looks ok….but just apply a bit of back pressure (wing loading) to tighten that base turn, to avoid flying through centreline…and all hell breaks loose! If you do stall, “go for the ground”, on recovery, what I mean is, give the aircraft a chance to recover. Being too enthusiastic to get that nose up and getting into a secondary stall….and you are in deep trouble.

Very nice. The new 170D looks like a nice machine. Jabiru 170 and 230 models are hard to beat for overall bang for your buck.

Oooh, pain! Really got to throw some moth balls around the hangar! 🙃 Wow, guess that decision to re-bag has become a lot easier on. Seriously, my sympathies, worst luck. Hope insurance will help.

Nice Stefan, KFA make a nice aircraft! I’ve got into the recreation or sport flying a bit late, better late than never! I spent 23 years in the SAAF. Because I was flying professionally, I guess going flying on weekends too, was not a big priority! However, now I fly for fun….on weekends! I bought a Skyfox Gazelle, in partnership with a good mate, also originally from SA, he manages a leaf veggie farm nearby, 1000 acres under irrigation. The Skyfox and Skyfox Gazelles (tri gear version) were built here in Australia and were a very similar design to KFA products. Sadly, it didn’t last. They were safe, and easy machines to fly. Watching U Tube, it seems you guys are going well! Have attached pic of our Gazelle.

An old post I know, but any news on how it’s been going? I’ve actually always liked the look of the Supercat, as I’ve always liked the utility and WW2 fighter type look of Ag aircraft. Yes short coupled, but one thing I think could be a problem, is the large upright canopy, disrupting airflow over the vertical fin, indeed almost blanking it off! The fact you have an open cockpit, is interesting because it has probably improved airflow over the tail? I remember reading about a Fisher Flying Products FP303, a very nice looking 3 axis micro lite, to which a builder had fitted a large enclosed canopy, over the normally open cockpit. This caused buffeting on the rudder in flight as I recall.

Apart from the electric one, interesting yes, but the traditionally powered Aerolite 103 seems a very nice ultralite to me. I really like the yoke control wheel and the proportions of the aircraft look good. Do I understand correctly that you could import and build a kit here in Aus, it seems the electric motor one could be problematic? As far as Methusala’s comments are concerned, I do think politics should be avoided on the forum…but. As he seems to have assumed we all think like he does, let me just say to describe the Gillard Rudd bloodbath and total fiasco government as a “functioning government” is like claiming my Skyfox has a cruise speed of 180 Kts. As to the planet is about to collapse, I guess proved beyond doubt, by the “fact” the Northern Polar ice cap “totally disappeared by 2008”, as promised by Al “Bore” and “Flatulence” who claimed about two years ago, our dams and rivers will never be full again nor will soil moisture content ever recover. Two name but just two examples of “fact” (many more out there), very good reasons no doubt to destroy manufacturing industry in Australia along with the economy and solve all our insomnia problems as we will all be asleep by 1900, when it gets dark. Be that as it may, I would love to buy a 103, I think it would be a blast to fly on a lovely cool summer afternoon!

No…but use some other ones!😸 Here are some pics some may find interesting. The classic little Austin Healy “Frogeye” Sprite Mk1 and the Harvard. This Harvard was interesting because as they were approaching retirement, the techs built this aircraft up out of the stock of spares, of which Logistics Command had a lot. Spare mainplanes, centre section, etc, so essentially this was like a brand new Harvard. It was Painted up in a non standard racy colour scheme by the techos. It now flies with the SAAF Museum historic flight. It’s called “Inkwazi”, the African name for an African Fish Eagle, the raptor that the SAAF eagle symbol, or badge, depicts. Pics taken by the base photographer, Patrick Vermaak, who also often took photos for a motoring magazine.

An interesting fact is, during the Second World War, probably due to shortages of strategic materials, aluminium alloy in this case, most British fighters had wooden propellers. The bombers tended to have metal ones, maybe due to the blade size, but Hurricanes and Spitfires, in fact all models of Spitfire, had wooden prop blades. An early composite you could say. Because yes, they had brass leading edge abrasion strips. I think the Typhoon and Tempests also had metal blades. But interesting. Maybe it was also a contract thing with prop manufactures?

Yes I mentioned at one stage Mooneys having this 90 deg bend to the prop tips. I think it was a “winglet” concept, to reduce the prop tip vortices. This would reduce rotational drag and noise. But yes, they didn’t seem popular, I agree, this will put a lot of centrifugal stress on the tip area. Also agree with Ol Emu about age old centripetal/centrifugal force debate. To me what you are feeling is the change of direction. Your body wants to keep going straight, as per Newton 1, centripetal force is forcing it to turn and you feel the opposite and equal reaction, Newton 3.

I agree with Nev, some basics never change, glider wings, short span fighter type wings. You will get some interesting variables. Swept or crescent prop blades and tips I understand, are mostly to reduce tip vortices and shockwave formation at the tip area. Sweeping the leading edge back, creates a series of weak spanwise shockwaves ahead of the leading edge, which slow the airflow down ahead of the wing or blade, so at very high Mach number speeds, the wing will behave like a in subsonic airflow, this means aerofoil shapes good for subsonic flight, will still perform very well at high speed. Bearing in mind, the dilemma designers have, is Supersonic aerofoils do not fly well at all, at low speeds but you need to fly slow to land! very close to Mach 1, when normally, shockwaves would be shock stalling the wing. Considering, as Mach numbers get up to around M .8, initially a “normal” or 90 deg shock wave will form, behind this shockwave, boundary layer airflow separates from the wing surface, in effect stalling the wing behind the shock and leading to high drag. This is why the Handley Page Victor bomber had a crescent wing, so airflow slowed through the shockwaves on the outer wing section. So I think as prop tips start compressing, shock waves form, which stalls the tip, leads to high drag at the tip and creates a lot of noise, so holding off shock wave formation is important. Prop design will be making the root area strong enough to handle blade and centrifugal loads, twist and spanwise taper, will make sure lift is equally generated along the blade span. Rounded tips will reduce tip vortices and drag. Remember some Mooneys had 90 deg Winglets on their prop tips? They didn’t seem to last long…Prop blade length will be a clearance and strength compromise. The only reason the F4 Corsair had gull or cranked wings, was so the biggest possible propeller could be used without very long gear legs. To me that’s the key, a lot of prop blade shape will be a compromise, to get the best performance possible, within constraints of engine power, prop clearance and rotational speed (Mach. number), Prop mass. As airspeed increases, reducing blade angle of attack.That’s why coarse pitch works well at high or cruise speeds. Taking off in coarse pitch, results in high angle of attack on the blade, due the low forward speed. leading to a stalling of the blade in the blade root area, only the outer span of the blade will be installed. Thrust is lost and the aircraft accelerates very slowly. Watch movie clips of the Supermarine S6 seaplane taking off….it took forever! Simple force vector diagram below shows speed change on angle of attack of blade. That’s why a fixed pitch prop is so restrictive. But cheap!