J170 Owner

Oh, I heard 'low' and 'fat' so thought somebody was talking about me! Never mind, back to work.....

Wot is so scery is that it will beum fact as we dum down edukation....

Congratulations on the purchase. I flew my new plane all the way from Bundaberg to Gawler, South Australia in Oct 2009. Took two days with a stop over at Bourke. I notice your plane has not had the JSB 029-1 mods done to it (handling upgrade). This mod involves the rudder springs, flaps and a ugly ventral fin. I guess you are aware of this? Anyway, happy flying, I have no regrets with the purchase of my J170, it has never missed a beat.

When I landed at Bourke, Oct 2009 the fuel pump was accessible without having to pass through any gates and thus no ASIC bullshite was needed. It should be even easier now as I believe the pump has visa card access (before it was the BP card only).

Check the seat loading. You might find 110 kilos is a max for some aircraft (Jabiru). The J170 is nice and wide and the throttle is where a throttle should be. The Adelaide Soaring Club at Gawler have three Jabiru J170 aircraft for learning in.

Yabbies or Prawns - they are huge, they leave a wake like a speedboat as they tear about...

Motorcycles were also buried. I have spoken to a few old timers who had brand new WLA Harleys and similar bikes that were 'stored' when the war ended.

I use a simple 'dive watch'. I set the outer bevel marker to the minute hand when overhead way points so it is easy to how long since your last fix. Watches that have all the gizmos and a band that plays requests is just plain silly to me.

If it is out of the plane and reading okay, then would not that suggest that something in the plane is causing the problem or am I being a silly person?

Well, that is weird. I simply do not understand that. My Garmin car GPS does a fine job when flying (in off-road mode) and has no effect on my compass, about 350mm away. (GPS is ONLY for backup). I suggest you remove the compass and place it in the middle of the field and with another compass and the runway, check its reading.

Hi. I'm surprised that there is a lack of LAMES in Darwin. Where does the club get their planes serviced, or the Batchelor Gliding/Skydiving mob get their planes serviced? If I remember correctly, there was a recreational flying mob down near Humpty Doo. I am not sure of your age, I went to Nightcliffe High in 1972 albeit briefly, I returned a slap a teacher gave me, much to the delight of the class and thus ended that schooling. So, what have you been flying?

I have never found PC flight simulators of any kind to be realistic. I have flown a F18 simulator at Williamtown RAAF base and a huge simulator in the UK 32 years ago! That was awesome...

I have a Panasonic full HD video camera. It hardly sees the prop but a horrible 'wavy' distortion makes it useless for flying video. My Contour HD takes goood full HD video without distortion and although you see the prop, it is not that bad. The prop distortion is a function of the way the sensor scans rather than the lens.

Can you re-submit your 'test' but type slower as I cannot read very fast these days.....

I saw/heard nothing on the television this evening.

Make a good calendar picture!

When I first went solo (1980) I couldn't work out what the strange noise was until I realised it was my knees knocking together! After I landed it took two people half an hour to get the smile of my face. You'll be fine.

The few episodes I have watched have been dismal. Making statements like "A pilot cannot fly or land without knowing the planes airspeed". What sort of crap is that? Or the aerobatic pilot who crashed because his altimeter was set incorrectly, I hardly think so. Like a lot of the cheap rubbish on TV these days, it does more harm than good. (If my comments offend, then it was somebody else, not me that posted them).

Is there not a wiring diagram for the plane? Either with the plane or on the manufacturers website?

My insurance is for a new Jabiru J170 costs about $2500. I'm with QBE. The more hours you have the less the insurance (within reason).

I joined face book, ended up with 500 friends but none came to my birthday party.

I swapped her for a GPS unit zonks ago.

Yes, divide by 1000 is correct. I downloaded the manual because my copy is (where else) in the plane.

My plane has a basic empty weight of 320kg and a empty arm of 240mm giving a moment of 76800. The load sheets in the POH use the term aircraft index units and these are (on the chart) 40 to 180. I cannot see what the connection is, what am I missing here? what index units would correspond to my aircraft and how is that determined?

Just be sure your legs are not too long. In my younger days I could fly three hours or more between landings but I now find I have to keep each leg to a max of (say) two hours. Easy enough to pull over in a car if the eyelids get heavy (pity more folks don't) but when you're in the air, it's not so easy. How hard would it be to stick a small CB in the plane? Might help pass the time as well as be a useful aid. Just a suggestion.