cscotthendry

Sorry to hear about your eye troubles Ian. They sound serious. I have had a few issues with my eyes, but they have all been treated successfully. It was only when I started having these issues (torn retina and wet Macular Degeneration) that I really started to value my sight. Fortunately for me, laser treatment welded my retinas back and I'm currently having injections in the eyeball for the MD. When we were kids, we had an oath to swear that what we were saying was true; "Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye." Having a needle stuck in my eye was about the worst thing I could ever imagine. It turns out that I'll tolerate some unimaginable stuff to keep my sight. And it turns out having an injection in your eyeball is not quite as bad as it sounds. The laser treatment though, is another matter entirely. One of the worst experiences in my life. Again, sorry to hear about your troubles.

You never know what is going on in other peoples' cockpits. We went to a popular fly in brekky a couple of weeks ago and arrived about 8:30 am. The airfield has parallel runways, 12-30. All the traffic were using 12 and there was lots of activity. We were number 3 on 12L and there was another aircraft behind us. On 12R I saw atleast two aircraft in circuit, one of which was on final when we were. As we wererolling out on 12L, I saw an aircraft taking off on 30L against the traffic flow! The radio burst into life with pilots calling the offending aircraft but no response. As I was taxying to the parking area, the miscreant FINALLY made a radio call to turn base on 30L again. I got on the radio and blasted out a “You're going the wrong way!” To try and headoff a disaster. I never figured out how this moron didn't see all the airplanes landing on two runways in the other direction, nor how he managed to taxypast all the traffic on the taxiways going the other way, nor how he didn't hear all the radio calls announcing everyone's activity. This guy had no business being in the air that morning.

I started on this site when I was building the Nynja kit plane. I found it very valuable for info about how aircraft work and about aviation regs etc. Since I finished and sold the Nynja, my interest in the site has waned a bit, but I still visit regularly. The guy who was the Skyranger dealer told me that interest in kit building had dropped so low that he effectively stopped the dealership. It was costing him a lot of money for advertising and insurance and the kits weren't selling. I wonder if the drop in interest in building is related to increasing regulation of recreational aircraft and that in turn is related to a drop in interest in the forums. BTW, I have noticed an increase in discussions about regulations in a lot of the threads I read, but that is just anecdotal evidence not backed by any statistical analysis.

I tried one of t hose cables that charges the gopro and taps off the audio. The gopro has an avc function on the audio that (at leaston my old gopros) can't be turned off. That automatic volume control would crank the volume up when there wasn't any talky-talk going on and all it did was to amplify the electrical noise to nuisance levels. Sooooo... I reverted back to my digital voice recorder. I have to sync the audio to the video when I'm editing, but my video editor software makes that pretty easy.

The cruise speed of a given engine has as much to do with the dragginess of the airframe and the pitch of the prop as horse power. You say the 100hp Rotax cruises at 80kt? It must be towing a fairly draggy airframe. Mine cruises at 110kt in my aircraft. In any case, I don't see comparing two completely different engines as likely to give meaningful answers.

I know quite a number of aussies that pronounce “nuclear” as “ nuke you lar” Hmmm, so you lot aren't perfect either. Enough with the grammar policing eh?

$260 is too expensive? What's your life worth? I just spent $1700 on a five year rubber replacement kit from Rotax, fuel pump included. Even though the rubber bits all look OK to me, that is what the manufacturer specified and they spent a lot of money and time figuring that out. It's part of the reason Rotax engines have a reputation for reliability.

That's not Harry, that's Dicky!

Skippy: I think you need a lot more info than that. 1) How has it been maintained? Sure, training aircraft have to be L2 maintained, but there are L2s and there are L2s, if you know what I mean. The appearance of the aircraft, especially under the cowlings will tell you something about this. 2) Was it hangared or left outside? What shape is the paintwork and the glareshield top in? Is there any evidence of corrosion? How do the windows, especially the windscreen look? Scratches? Discoloration? Cracks etc? 3) What is the general condition of the interior? 4) How does the engine run? Does it use oil? What condition is the prop in WRT scratches, chips etc. Has the prop been repaired for stone chips? Has the aircraft ever had a prop strike? I could go on pretty much all day with this, but I think you get the drift by now. If you know a good L2 who hasn't been involved with the maintenance of the aircraft, get them to do a pre-purchase inspection and report. Then if it's a common aircraft like a Jab or a Tecnam (which most school aircraft are) have a look online to get a feel for the value of the aircraft. Then armed with the report, start negotiating with the seller. The short answer is: there's no formula for discounting a used aircraft. The right price is what the seller and the buyer agree on.

Yenn: Something looks screwy with your math. Are you saying that 1026hPa is 2 higher than 1028 hPa? That doesn't seem to add up to me! [Edit] OK, I think the penny just dropped for me so I'll add my 2 cents worth for an explanation: 1) Air pressure rises as we descend and decreases as we go up. 2) As Yenn said, if the current pressure at MSL is 1028 and we are sitting at sea level and the altimeter is set at 1028, it will show 0 feet. 3) If we set the subscale for 1026, we are telling the altimeter that the current atmospheric pressure at MSL is 1026, but it is seeing 1028. 4) Since the altimeter 'knows' that pressure increases as you go lower, it is going to see the current 1028 (higher pressure) as being below sea level. Riles: Thanks for posting that question. It has helped get my brain in gear on this.

Gary: I still don't het that. If I tell my altimeter that it is 60 feet higher than it really is, shouldn't it report that I am 60 feet higher than I really am?

That HDD space is just the start from what I saw of the reviews. It requires a fast internet connection to download the GBs of scenery which it apparently will do 'on the fly'. Microsoft have a long history of getting Flight Sim out ahead of the technology. When I was building my 'pit, I used FSX which would only barely run on the equipment of the day. It had things like animated ripples and waves on the water surfaces and complex weather generators and traffic. You couldn't run it with more than one or two of these whizz bangs enabled. The new FS looks like it will be another weapon to drive hardware sales (again!). Out of curiosity, does anyone know what the inteface will be for connecting sim hardware? FSX had Simconnect which was a jump in the right direction.

Not exactly our last flight, more like a lockdown project to remind myself what flying is like. Just some pretty bits from our adventures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utUBgEASzaI

How is the linkage connected to the throttle lever. In the video it looks like a rod linkage. How did you solve the movement between the engine and the airframe with respect to the throttle linkage. That is, as the engine moves, it would change the throttle setting slightly (and continuously) and with the vibration, it might cause increased wear in the carbie mechanisms. Secondly, do you have a failsafe setup as with the stock setup so that if the linkage separates in flight from the control the engine will still go to full throttle?

Hi Danny: Yes, I like the Aviasport gauges. They are designed for the Rotax and color coded to make for 'at a glance' reading. The one drawback I had with those gauges was that the tacho had a very high impedance input and was sensitive to over-voltage input signals. The effect of that was to make the tacho jump around at certain RPM. The fix was a 200 ohm resistor between the signal input and ground. The RPM pickup in the Rotax is an inductive coil and when lightly loaded (as with a high impedance tacho input) can produce voltage signals of quite high amplitude. These voltage pulses can cause the junction of the input transistors to break over and give erratic triggering. The resistor loads the tacho coil enough to bring the signal spikes down to safer levels for the tacho. Since that tacho coil is not used to drive anything else, it's totally safe to do this.

Mike: This is amply backed up in our current situation vis a vis the pandemic, where people are deliberately flouting guidelines and rules that are intended to help a)control the outbreak and b)keep us safe and healthy. Witness the number of people wanting to get on TV to rail against the lockdowns, and see what happens when these idiots are allowed free rein as in the US.

Here's my two panels worth The first is from the Skyranger Nynja I built. The layout is patterned after the Beechcraft Baron. I figured that if Beechcraft spent a lot of money setting up their panels, that was a good hint for me. In the end, it worked very well. The flight gauges are directly in front of the left seat driver, the engine gauges in a vertical line in the middle, and the "not so essentials" on the pax side of the panel. The second one is from my Aeropilot Legend. Aeropilot mostly determined the layout, with a bit of input from me as to placement of the gauges.

AND... Don't keep us in suspense Mike. What sort of draws are you seeing?

If you have a variety of shapes and holes to cut out of a panel, I would suggest you plan it all out carefully with a sheet of cardboard and then take it to someone that does laser cutting.

And it's not just forign pilots who can't do radio. There's a heli pilot that flies around the Watts Bridge area who doesn't know the difference between heading and bearing.

For those who aren't aware of it, RA Aus is running a photo competition over 4 weeks. The comp is already into the voting for the second week. I couldn't find a thread on the forums so I thought I'd give you all a heads up. The comp is for pictures taken of or from an RA Aus registered aircraft. The comp is being run on their Facebook page and the winners are decided by "Likes". So head on over and share your best pics and vote for your favorites. Full disclosure: I won week 1 with this pic. The fact that I don't understand what about the photo clicked with people shows just how little I know about what I'm doing with the photography. If I won it, anyone can.

I went flying yesterday. No one bothered me (police) and I saw no one except other people on the road there. As yet, they haven't outlawed Ga and rec flying as far as I know . WRT to flying overseas, we go to the US for three months every year and travel with our truck and caravan there. I have zero confidence in the Trump administration to do what is in the interests of the general population there. trump is only interested in his own pockets and his reelection chances. I think he will demand the restrictions be lifted long before they should. We will not be travelling internationally until there is a vaccine for this bug and we have had the shots. The way this thing kills you is horrendous; you drown in the pus in your lungs.

If it was me, I'd cancel and think about going next year. Given the pandemic, Quaintass is being very forgiving with their ticket credits. Also, given how abysmally the Trump administration is handling the pandemic,, I wouldn't be going to the US in July. We have a pickup truck and caravan that we keep in Dallas and we go over for 3 months each year. This year, we're waiting to see how the mess turns out. I have zero confidence in Trump to do anything useful and expect him to make matters worse as he looks out only for his own interests. Last year while in the US I had to visit a doctor on a couple of occasions. It's not as bad as I expected. They will tell you up front what the charge will be (if it's knowable before hand like mine was) and you can prepay it.

Hi Danny: As Mike Saunders and others have said, I just concentrated on one little thing at a time and concentrated on doing it the best I could. When I finished one little job, I would take time to decide what to do next. I'd think about what interested me to work on. Yes, there were times when the motivation to work on it would flag or I'd be up against something that I was intimidated by. Usually, I'd call the kit supplier and have a chat and he'd tell me how easy it was and explain the process of doing it, or better yet, come over and show me how. If you're working on it alone, you need someone to bounce ideas with, either on the phone or in person. It's better if they're familiar with the kit, but someone who's generally knowlegable about aircraft construction can be useful. I think the worst thing you can do is sweat about how much is left to do to get it flying. I think it's better just to treat it as a collection of little tasks and forget about when it's going to be done.

I regularly fly with a group. I thought of (what I thought was) a simple way to identify members of a group from other OR traffic by colouring the little bubbles. I suggested this to the OR people. Their answer? "Too hard". I'm a retired software engineer, so I have a bit of an idea how hard things would be to implement. This wasn't the first time I got that response from them either. But it will be the last time I suggest anything to them.