eastmeg2

Hi Alf, Congrats on ordering your new wing. I've not flown an SST yet and maybe I shouldn't since my S3 has only 180hrs on it and for the time being I'm happy to "chug" along at 60-65kts or fly my Wizard-3 Tundra Outback Buzzard 503 at 35kts. I've just upgraded my XT to a Mark-2 on the weekend by fitting a disk brake upgrade kit from Airborne. You might want to do the same. It does cost a few $k's but includes all the new rear undercarriage struts to replace the Mark-1 items and other up to date goodies. Cheers, Glen

I'm in a syndicate in a 2 seater and own my own single seater.

In this Americas Cup it was much more about the design of the boats, or rather the sails. Alinghi never stood much of a chance with its conventional sails against the Wing Sail of it competitor. Winged keel ain't nothin compared to that.

Hi Bill, My HGFA Rego sticker must have been written up by HGFA with a whiteboard marker. As soon as I touched it the writing came off on my fingers. With that in mind I couldn't see the point sticking it on the trike and I haven't seen any directive from HGFA making it mandatory, yet. For the other trike the writing didn't come off when touched so I have attached it to the trike. I suppose I could re-write the first one with permanent marker, though it's hardly fool-proof as one could write whatever date one wants . . . :kboom: Cheers, Glen

Hi John, Terry, I moved the hangpoint forward along the keel of the Streak-3 wing on my XT-912 just before Xmas, as many others have done to get the trim speed up from 56knots IAS to 62knots. What I've found is that when taking off and climbing out with a Passenger on board a glance at the ASI often reveales we're doing 65knots with a shallower climb than I'm used to. This was particularly obvious in one take off where we had to clear a ridge through sinking air and found ourselves much closer to the ridge than usual. On the next time around we used a little bar forward to bring IAS back down to 55knots and the result was obvious, achieving the same steeper climb angle we were used to in the slower trim position. It may seem obvious but I think a lot of trike pilots have it in their minds that they need to climb out at trim, or with some bar pulled in for more speed. But then it depends on each airstrip which has it's own unique quirks. Cheers, Glen

Getting back to my post #191, the replacement (for the one I corrupted) automotive SD card arrive last week and I'm now easily switching back and forth between Road and Aviation modes by switching cards and changing the target GPS .exe file , which is an extremely simple matter.:thumb_up: I placed a link to the eBay item in post #181 for the GPS I bought. Pud, if that spray on film works, we might all be queueing up for a bit to enhance our littler ones too. Cheers, Glen

If your engine's at 25hrs, make sure you nip up all your coolant hose clamps as part of your 25hr service. I was really suprised how loose mine had become when I did mine.

Hi Andy, The spec-an had a frequency sweeping signal generator in it, able to sweep from about 500kHz to 1.2GHz. The spec-an was being used as a scalar network analyzer to measure the absorption spectrum of the antenna, which we tuned for maximum absorption at approx 125MHz (Middle of the air band). It was a rather old spec-an (late 70's I think), hence its recent passing away. 2nd hand it cost a few thousand in the late 90's. Cheers, Glen, BE

Hi Andy, Structural integrity and certification were the reasons or choosing the rear keel extension to try mounting the aerial on. The was and is no way in I would ever drill a hole in the main keel section of a trike wing. The keel extension I'm using for the aerial mount for now is a shortened spare which I bought a full length replacement for last year. In the past we've used a spec-an to retune CB aerials for airband, but that spec-an recently died. Also the SWR meter we use is a 27MHz unit, though still gives some indication. Any idea where an air-band SWR meter can be got? Was just told yesterday that I can have 6m of RG58 from a friend's stash of known high-quality, with crimped male BNC connectors both ends. Unfortunately I'll still have to cut it and put some solder-on BNC connectors on - if I ever want to pack up my trike again which happens every time I fly the Buzzard since there's not enough hangar space for it fully rigged. Cheers, Glen

I was told not to buy my coax from DSE since what they sell has such an open and leaky braid that the coax will transmit (and presumably receive) almost as much as the antenna. That's an exaggeration I'm sure but the message is clear. Was also told that a well terminated BNC connector should only lose about 0.1dB of the signal, so provided that the care is taken to terminate the BNC connectors properly the losses shouldn't be noticeable.

Hi Peter, I'm not sure if yours is the same as mine, but with the millivolts generated by the thermocouple sensors I was told trial and error is the way to go as it won't do any damage, not to the ones I had anyway. Even before you mount them in the aircraft you can test your wiring by dipping your sensor tips into a pot of boiling water on the stove. 100c or 220F is just enough to get a positive reading on the lower end of the scale to confirm the wiring. Cheers, Glen

But Slarti, it will work . . . if you fly at a constant (ground) speed and only do flat turns. I'll let you know when I've figured out how to do flat turns in a trike . . . I do confess though, that work bought me an iPhone on Friday and I blame it on this thread that I went and bought the iHUD app. Now where's the iPhone GPS app with Airservice's maps. Cheers, Glen

Hi Guys, I've decided to try mounting the aerial on the keel extension of my Buzzard. Depending on how it goes I might do the same for the XT later on, though I have some reservations about whether the top wires might reduce the amount of signal going forwards. I've yet to buy the coax cable and mount the radio. Maybe I'll try it on the XT first since it already has a radio and coax to the hang point. We'll see . . . :ne_nau: Cheers, Glen

And this is what it looks like . . . Cheers, Glen

Two Rods in the front seat of VH-EVC at Cooloola Cove, Sept 2004.

Besides covering my mike, yelling out the proverbial "CLEAR PROP", stretching my neck left & right to check the area around the prop at the back, . . . the practice of a short (less than 1 second) initial crank-over with the ignitions off to prime the engine with oil, greatly reduces the likely worst outcome if someone was hiding underneath your prop hub. Having only the force of the starter motor behind it the prop/gearbox engine may not even get damaged. Oh and the victim probably won't lose any limbs/head either and bruises can heal. And if someone was about to approach, regardless of whether or not they hear your "CLEAR PROP", they're unlikely to continue their approach once they've seen or heard the motor turning over. Well, for U/L's anyway, GA and up may be a different story and just slice & dice regardless.:ne_nau:

Hey Darky, Have you tried flying a J120? (does your flying school have one?) I remember sitting in a J120, then a J160 at Narromine a couple of years back and had no headroom in the J120 and about 2-3 inches headroom in the J160. Maybe the J120 is the answer for the less vertically endowed . . .

Crikey, That report reads like a list of everything we were taught to avoid, if we wanted to live when flying a trike. And not having a pilot certificate!!!:hittinghead: Words fail . . .

Besides making LCD's hard to read, they can create images when used under a helmet visor which has it's own non-uniform polarisation and I expect the same applies with windows on fully enclosed aircraft. Also, especially if your flying an open cockpit aircraft, or even if you're not, go for plastic lenses as they won't shatter into your eyeball like a glass lense could upon impact with a rock, or the inside of your cockpit. Cheers, Glen

Hi Rod, I trust Peter will get you through your Nav and Pax endorsements the sooenst you'er able. Hope you're having a great time at Yarrawonga. I helped lift your wing off the top of your motorhome there a couple of weeks back. There's another triker on this forum who's at or near Stanley, not that far from Devonport (I think). Maybe you already know each other. Cheers, Glen

Well done Darky, Get back in for your 2nd solo as quickly as you can. In my case I left it for several weeks or a month or so and my landing on my 2nd solo was . . . well lets just say I got quantity and not quality, all in the one circuit. :black_eye:

Hi Slarti, Never mind I think I've figured it out. There is an option for "Import waypoint from file" which can be used if the waypoint isn't reappearing after a restart. Since the waypoint was being saved to a new file with the date it was created if was fairly straightforward. Cheers, Glen

Ok, there's still the much loved R582, but they're a fair bit more $$$'s than a 503 partly due to the liquid cooling system that must also be installed.

I was rather concerned a couple of years back when Rotax announced they were going to discontinue the 503. Without any of the simple to install engines like the 503 remaining what would happen to the simpler recreational end of Rec Flying - that's the single seaters and low performance 2 seaters. We'd then just have 912's and nothing below that in the much loved reliability and support of the Rotax range.:vis: Happily I was still able to purchase a new DCDI R503 last year to replace an ancient DCSI R532. Cheers, Glen

Hi All, My generic brand Chinese GPS has been working great with OziExplorerCE since the end of last month when I caught up with Slarti. The only problems I have encountered are with the original SD card that came with the GPS after we tried to put OziexplorerCE onto it alongside the "IGO8" GPS application. I've given that SD card to an IT friend to try to recover any lost files to try toget that card workable for automotive use again, other than that I can buy a replacement SD card with IGO8 for $35. It seems that some copyright protection software on that original SD card foiled my attempts to have both IGO and OziExplorerCE on the same 4GB SD card with the aim being to be able to switch between aviation and automotive modes without changing cards. Oh, and one other thing. when I tried to create a new waypoint, it did not appear to save it properly. I'm guessing I need to use the correct waypoint file name when saving it - which one would that be and how do you select which one the GPS/OziExplorerCE uses, there seems to be a few? Cheers, Glen