nathanc

Altocap

This is taken from Darrol Stinton's book "The Design of the Aeroplane" which might be of relevance or interest. Furthermore Stinton notes that spin damping is better when there is a deep rear fuselage and when there is rudder area beneath the tailplane and elevator. None of these are designed into many modern aircraft including the above as so many LSA type aircraft become very thin towards the real fuselage including this aircraft. Interestingly Stinton (perhaps controversially) writes in relation to the above quote "much of this design wisdom is being lost".

With respect, I think there is certainly a difference between looking at the rear view mirror. Landing a directionally unstable tailwheel aircraft with a very high landing speed due to a heavy wing loading would require many pilots to keep their head rather still in the cockpit to keep a consistent sight picture. Even shiftting one's gaze from the left hand side visible sliver of runway to the right side sliver of runway is done with caution. It would seem that looking down camera might be useful for taxying slowly but at the high touchdown speed of a heavily wing-loaded aircraft one mightn't even be game to glance down at any cockpit instrument.

Another factor determining safety in a given wind speed would be the nature of the terrain. Do you live in a very flat area Tomo? Wings of 30 knots at a place like the Oaks would always be accompanied by severe turbulence. For example hang gliders can fly at a place like Forbes in quite high winds compared to more hilly places like Rylstone where the safe threshold for wind speed is much lower. Nathan

I think the Oaks has a good variety of training aircraft considering the volume of students. Lightwing, Jabiru LSA55, Quicksilver, Foxbat... Also, the older LSA55 Jabirus make good training aircraft, according to the instructors, giving a good challenge to students. I recently enjoyed doing a tailwheel endorsement in the Lightwing. I would certainly recommend it. Even though it is not new, it does its job as a training aircraft magnificently. Regards Nathan

A room had 10 people in it. 9 were 1 year olds and the remaining person was 100 years old. I think most of them were below average in age.