Moneybox

I'm not and electronics person, good old electrics for me, that I understand however I've experienced poor earthing and inductance as the most common faults I've had to deal with. You have a plastic plane therefore everything must be return earth because the mounting points for many things are not necessarily to metal. You only need one loose earth to cause fluctuations in current flow. If you have two cables running parallel the current draw from one can upset the other. Amateur opinion here but I have delved into a few sticky little issues from time to time.

Skippy, where is your fuel flow measurement coming from? It sounds like there is an intermittent bypass there allowing more fuel to return to the tank. What in the system would usually limit that return flow?

Similar to my result. When there is a clear ruling from CASA I'm happy to accept that. I too felt like I'd received information that was more somebody's opinion than a directive from above but once they quoted the ruling I was satisfied.

I asked them. I was told by my previous trainer to go home and get my plane in the air so that I could do my solos in it. RAAus looked into it because the MARAP document on their website says that in most cases it can be used for training. The came back with an old CASA ruling that states that my out of life engine was not allowed to be used in training however it can be used for any endorsements. It's worth making a call or send an email if you want the reply in writing. At least it sets you're mind to rest. My new trainer doesn't have his Sportstar endorsement so we plan to do a navigation circuit lasting several hours him as PIC and me doing the navigation. If you never hear from me again it most likely means I've got us lost somewhere a long way from nowhere.

I find the Jabiru needs very little trim while in the circuits. It doesn't seem to load the joystick up near as much as the Harmony. If you fail to trim the Harmony stick can be very heavy. I'm happy that my Sportstar has manual Trim and Flaps.

Yes, I'm not looking for a career in flying. I already have an aircraft that I expect to keep for some time and considering I'm already on the wrong side of 70 I'm not likely to own many more (unless I break this one). So far I've had the Evektor Harmony that I enjoyed flying, then the Bristell for a few days while the Harmony engine was replaced, then the dramatic change to the high wing Jabiru J160 and then the J170 once its engine overhaul was done and after all that I'll be into my Evektor Sportstar for my Xcountry navigation and prop endorsement. I don't want any more variety. If I end up with a different plane then I'll pay for a few familiarization flights.

I ended up swapping planes from the Jabiru J160 to the J170. It's a nicer plane but I'm not wishing to change planes, I just want to get consistency in my handling of the aircraft and these changes don't help. I'm told I must keep hold of the joystick at all times during the flight but with all other controls apart from the throttle in the centre I find it difficult. The yellow arrow indicates the position of the Flap control that I must operate with my left hand while scooting down the runway between Touch and Go. Anyway I'm finished with 2.4hs solo now until possibly June sometime.

I'm just disappointed that I never reached my goal. I wanted to leave here tomorrow with my RPC but the change of planes held me back. Of course the weather doesn't help a lot either. Tomorrow is my last day and it's not looking good. My plane is sitting out in the weather at Northam airport and I won't get back there until mid June. The main trouble with retirement is that you don't get time to scratch yourself. I think I need to go back to work so that I can have some time off.

I was practising engine out and forced landings. It was good see how to set up and perform the landing. He said lets go an have a look at the beach but on the pointy bit, lower right he cut my throttle back to idle and said "You've just blown the engine. What are you going to do"? I chose to turn back while I had plenty of height and set up for a landing on the edge of the lake. He expected me to head for the beach but it could be quite steep and soft.

The green track was yesterday practising circuits and forced landings with a but of dodging the rain and low clouds. The pink was my solo this morning. Fortunately the GPS doesn't show the vertical oscillations upon landing 😉. After the second bounce the full burst of throttle did the job 😅. The engine cut out twice after landing, it appears the idle is too slow and when the windmilling has ceased the engine stalls if no power is applied. I'm a bit slow getting back on the power because the stupid electric flap control is setup for the right hand but I must use my left because the Jabiru only has one centrally mounted joystick. I find it quite challenging to reach the left hand to the centre of the plane for several seconds while in the middle of a touch-and-go.

I realise now these are poured just for the purpose. Each taxi way has a runup pad like this.

I was considering laying a bit of concrete or laying a area of artificial grass that is pegged down with sand laid in it. Here at Myrup, Esperance they have a circular patch of concrete, about 30m from the gravel airstrip, that looks like the top of a tank of some kind. It's about 3m across and does the job nicely.

My mining lease where I'm doing rehab good enough to land a plane on already has two badly weathered wind socks that just need a new sock. They are there so that anybody mining can prevent dust producing work when the wind is blowing towards town.

I doubt it but if it has an automotive type of pressure cap then and automotive coolant pressure tester would be an easy option. You only have to pressurise the system to the pressure stated on the cap. Anywhere beyond the electric pump if you have one would be tested as soon as the pump is activated otherwise you could temporarily install an electric pump near the tank end so that all plumbing is tested.

Maybe https://youtu.be/exD-ZrG1XTA?si=IqkT5eAUhZtfewUB

Yes I was hoping to leave here with my RPC but I can' see that happening now. As soon as I'm home we're off to the goldfields prospecting until late may, then off to China until the end of the first week in June. Perhaps I'll get another go then.

I can go back to Cloud Dancer where the Harmony is fully booked a lot of the time. Times like this when the weather is bad and it strikes right on my flight time then I sit in my camper and wait to see what tomorrow brings. I just don't get enough time in the air to cover the cost of days sitting around. Here in Esperance it's fully overcast with showers coming through. We went up this morning between showers, had to remain at 600' maximum height to avoid the clouds but we were the only plane in the sky so performed low level circuits with touch and go for 0.8 hr in dead calm conditions before the next shower sent us back for the hanger. Now it's too gusty to go out but it could have blown over before my next booking at 12:00. Yesterday was a wipeout with thunder, lightening and rain but I sat all the theory tests and passed BAK, Air Legislation and Human Factors. I've already done Radio so for now all my theory is out of the way.

Undoubtedly practice at recovery gives you a better chance but are you going to have the time to implement that procedure? My concern is that you are unlikely to stall at 3000'. It's going to happen at a time when you're distracted or there's an engine failure and somewhere near the ground where there is no time to recover. It's not a steady "whoops the right wing is dropping", by the time you sense the stall it's all over.

I looked at the weather on Wednesday and nearly stayed home but in the end decided to bite the bullet and head the 1250km to Esperance to do some flight training. I had to be here to commence training on Saturday. The rain came down as expected but we had some gaps between showers on Saturday so we managed three sessions totaling 2.6hrs but by then my fatigue was showing through with some sloppy landings. The aircraft is a Jabiru J160, not what I wanted to fly but I don't have a lot of choice. This is a scary little plane especially when it comes to practising stalls. When we did our stall training in the Evektor Harmony it was quite sedate sinking slowly after a slight warning vibration. In one case I had to see the vertical speed indicator to believe we'd already stalled. The little Jabiru doesn't leave you wondering. Within a second or two of the stall you are fully inverted and diving towards mother earth at a massive rate. If I hadn't experienced it I'd never have believed an aircraft could tumble upside down so rapidly. I had to try it another couple of times to see if I could catch the stall before it was out of control, I had no chance. He wants me to practise that until I no longer find it scary. The idea of that is scary on it's own. If this aircraft was to stall at perhaps 200' you'd be done for with little chance of survival.

You might have missed an opportunity to have your last swim 🤪

The guy could have been flying cross country for many years but just decided it was time to make it legal. He could have very well had hundreds of hours in the air before commencing lessons.

Yes my brother is due to arrive here on Thursday for our annual prospecting trip, I'm heading the other way to Esperance but I was telling him this time last week we had 30.5°C at 11.35pm. We ran the AC right through the night so not good camping weather but shortly we'll have 0°C some nights.

Yes, fortunately English is my first language, I managed 3% in German but I did a bit better in Urdu.

At present we're watching Spotlight on channel 7. The Chinese have set up Nichol processing plants that are predominately supplying batteries for the EV industry. It's an environmental disaster.

Definitely go self inflating, not because of the inflating but because they insulate you from the cold ground. The ordinary blow-up ones are very cold to sleep on. Even if the self inflating one gets punctured it still gives you some support.