eastmeg2

Hi Airsick, If you check your ERSA you will notice that Canberra airspace reverts to G-Class outside tower hours. In summer with enough daylight early enough or late enough it would actually be legal to fly in this airspace, excepting any "D" and "R" areas of course though I'm not too sure of the legalities of actually landing at Canberra airport. Cheers, Glen

Back about 5 years ago I saw a strip marked on the VNC, probably the same one. So on the way from Nerriga to Nowra and with the aid of a GPS and the said VNC in a Vitara soft-top I had at the time I took to the tracks between the Nowra-Braidwood Rd and somewhere just west of Huskison. I found what could have been a short airstrip in the past, by the side of the road. But even back then (Sept 2003) you'd have to be in a desparate situation to use it. It was not exactly smooth but could probably get a trike in and out of there ok if one was game but the undercarriage would take a beating.:yuk: Cheers, Glen

That's an interesting story Ozzie. It's a bit difficult to imagine how the control bar could get behind the pilot, but strange things can and do happen. One of the main reason I am looking for a compact digital is to be able to operate the camera with one hand only while keeping the other hand on the control bar. It takes some practise but after a while I think I'm getting the hang of it and my photo's are improving.:thumb_up: I take an extra look around to check for other aircraft in the area when a photo opportunity approaches, to make up for the following moments when my attention may be focussed on one spot.

Personally I'd go for a camera that's fairly compact and yet has most of the goodies found on larger cameras. I'm looking at updating my 5 year old Fuji Finepix S304 3MP camera to a Panasonic TZ15 which has 9MP, 10x optical zoom (28-280mm equivalent) and image stabilisation. Also probably depends on your aircraft (open versus enclosed cockpit) and how comfortable you are flying with one hand while taking photo's and always remember that "flying the plane first" always takes priority over any photo opportunity. On this last point I've missed taking some great photo's due to needing both hands to fly in turbulence but have lived to fly and shoot another day. Might also be more difficult to do in a 3 axis machine (I fly a trike) where problems might arise if you stop paying attention to airspeed. Cheers, Glen

Once you have enough PIC time under your belt to tolerate the bumpy ride (likely more than 50 or even 100hrs) for the time it takes to fly to the coast from Bunbury airport you may find that you can fly more often during the day. It seems quite common for students to be limited to the much smoother times of the day and your instructor might start introducing you to rougher conditions, depending on the instructor and your own progress.

Ahh . . . found what I was looking for earlier. Try one of these if you want to soar with a trike . . . http://www.ravensoaringtrikes.com/ Will probably come in under 70kg empty, not having an engine. Though could be tricky to land since it seems the nosewheel would touch down first. Cheers, Glen

Hi Brett, Flying the XT with the Streak-III wing I find it tolerable to fly in the middle of the day in Summer even when inland and tend to head above the inversion layer to smooth air if going more than 20Nm x-country. With a Streak-1 wing on a Edge-X 582 the midday bumps are ather more unnerving and tiresome. Have only ever flown a Wizard wing twice, once on my TIF and again at Bunbury with Brendan Watts about 5 years ago , so cannot really comment much about flyng a Wizard wing around midday away from the coast but suspect it would be worse. Hope that helps. Cheers, Glen

Have experienced climb rates and sink rates in excess of 1000ft/min at trim and on cruise power in the middle of the day. So, if you can find a strong enough thermal / wave or roll cloud (a-la Morning Glory) that has enough lift to overcome your trikes power-off sink rate, then yes you can thermal in a trike. But with sink rates in excess of 500ft/min it'd be pretty challenging to stay up for any length of time other than in well known phenomena like the morning glory where an Airborne XTC-582 has apparently flown without power for more than 50km. On the other hand, you might wan to look at a trike model specifically designed for soaring and can have a motor fitted as an option. Under 70kg empty weight there are no rego or certification hassles. From there up to 112kg (254lbs) empty weight is the overlap of USA FAA part103 and our CAO-95.10.

Not sure about the last 12 month rolling, but did about 80hrs at my last annual certificate renewal, which was up from the 50 odd hours per annum I'd been doing before getting a 4 stroke trike. Feels kind of good to see I'm on the high side of the middle of the "Bell-Curve".:thumb_up:

What would we do without Pets . . .

Hi Andrew, Air Creation also offer one or two HKS powered 2 seater trikes and there is an Australian dealer. However looking at the Oz dealer website they may be around the $40k mark. Rgds, Glen

Most likely the best way to go would be to lobby RAAus to get the Part 103 aircraft category currently allowed in USA & UK introduced here is Oz. That would literalyy open the floodgates to a lot of single seat trikes now being flown in those countries. Although they could be registered as 95.10 here in Oz they were designed around the USA's FAA Part103 rule. I agree there's an opportunity for a dealership for someone who's prepared to do the legwork to get the aircraft approved with RAAus here. Cheers, Glen

Hi Scotty, Have a look on the Airborne website, they have a list of dealers, all of whom are usually instructors as well. Just looked and the list seems to be a bit shorter than it used to be. Am pretty sure there's a good trike school at Rutherford near Maitland which should be about an hour closer than Somersby for you. (Sorry Len:hittinghead:). Cheers, Glen

Sunny, I have to say that the little single seater you provided the link for looks like a great little Sunday runabout. If they ever see our shores at USD10k + GST I'll be one of the first to line up for one. Topless wing would be even better. Bill, sounds like you want to update your Peggy to a QuikR. Cheers, Glen

Ken, I'd be wary of trusting navigation information to one of these very basic netbooks which are just coming onto the market. My own observation of an eee PC901 I saw in Singapore airport last month was that it was really built down to a price as the keyboard did not seem well built - I pressed one key and other keys moved too.:confused: Processing power and memory - would not count on it not to hang at a critical moment running real time GPS software. However someone here might get one of these babies and prove me wrong:helmet: and I hope they do 'cause I've had my eye on them for other purposes. But for now I already have a 296 to play with.:thumb_up: Of the Netbooks (as the baby laptops are now being called) the Acer Aspire One personally impresses me most in terms of build quality and a certain office supplies store is currently selling them pretty cheap although a bit low-spec for SSD space, RAM and Battery (all upgradeable).;) Cheers, Glen

With the 296 for me it's mostly the terrain awareness given by the screen colours, similar to a topographic map and the ability to set your own height alert preferences to alert me when I'm getting below the 500ft AGL minimum legal height. The 296 is also much lighter. The one attribute of the 196 I would prefer is that it takes 4 x AA cells, making them interchangeable with my camera which could be useful in some situations and I'm not talking about taking more photo's.;)

Approved anti-theft device ??? :confused: Can somebody show me the list of such devices for Airborne Trikes ??? Airborne trikes do have an ignition key. Also tend to lock the prop to the gearbox on occasions when I have to park it outside on an airfield. Have heard the statement about approved anti-theft devices before. But until a list of approved devices is published I refuse to take it seriously and take what reasonable steps I can with what can be readily carried in the trike. Cheers, Glen

Hi Alf, No change in trim speed, just a change in the range of pitch control available and the top of the screen seemed a bit higher on the horizon. No problems with mounting 1.5kg on either side of the crossbar as it's mounted on the base bar at its center and the weights tend mostly to balance each other.;)

Hi Alf, 4 years ago I bought a ballistic chute and fitted it to the Edge-X I had at the time. When it came time to upgrade to an XT-912 the chute was re-fitted to the new trike. It was nice of Airborne to fit a chute handle bracket to the left side of the seat frame. I found that the weight of the chute mounted on the rear end of the base tube raised the nose of the trike in flight - bringing the trim position of the control bar 2-3 inches closer to my chest. Or rather my chest was closer to the bar. After thinking about that for a while I spotted some aerobics ankle weights in KMART (2 x 1.5kg) which I bought for $30 and mounted on the cross bar which supports the pod at the front of the base tube. I'm happy to say that this brought the control bar at least half way back to its normal trim position. Hope you find this useful. Cheers, Glen

Quote "the 410 will give SAR a 5 km radius to work within whereas the 410G will give them a location down to 120m to search for you". Thanks Mark, That's just the kind of information I was looking for. Cheers, Glen

Heon, Is your EPRIB the type fitted with the GPS location transmitter? If so or not so do you think it make any difference to the time it took to locate you? (Ignoring any differences your satellite phone may have made). Just trying to see if it's worth spending the extra bucks for a GPS equipped 406MHz EPIRB. Rgds, Glen

Your photo is looking at the sunny side of the towers and they're difficult to see. I can vouch for the fact that they are virtually impossible to see from the shaded side. No close calls, just an observation. Quote from a 13th May 2008 email:(Editted to remove irrelevant information) "There are currently 6 x 80m steel lattice towers supported by guy wires on site, all of which are on the west side of the project (about 1000m from the eastern shore of Lake George). Three of these are permanent, whilst the other three are likely to be removed within 3 months, prior to being replaced with wind turbine generators." Cheers, Glen

Another great story . . . I usually try to do a couple of flights to Moruya each year when the sun is shining as it obviously was for you on this occasion. I've been taking some aerial photo's of the Lake George Wind Farm Developments in early May and again earlier this month. Have even been in email contact with the engineers who are building it and sending them some photo's, as our strip is less than 10Nm away. Towers are supposed to be arriving during Aug/Sept time frame so I'll be keeping a close eye on that and will likely start a thread here for it. It's worth noting that the tops of the arc the blades will swing through is about 400ft AGL. So given that we're supposed to stay above 500ft AGL there should be no problems. Note of caution - there are some weather measurment towers in the area which are rather difficult to see from the air and have lots of invisible support wires around them. So if you are taking off from the eastern side Lake George for some reason, or from Currandooley, be wary of these towers although they are only about 200ft high. Cheers, Glen

Ross, It sounds like you will need to build yourself a trolley to wheel your trike onto and fold the mast down so the control bar sits in a frame on the front of your trolley. Use trailer jockey wheels to support the trolley at the rear undercarriage position and a simple castoring wheel under the nose wheel position. Weld on some small tubes as needed to use steel rods thru them to lock jockey wheels at a desired steering angle and to steer the whole show which otherwise needs at least 2 people to guide it. I'm sure you can figure out the details once you have the idea if this is the way for you . . . have tried attaching an old photo with our trike trolley in the back ground - sorry I couldn't seem to find a better photo of the trolley. Cheers, Glen

Hi Ross, Could you give some more details of the shed(s) available on your farm? There are various options available, though the long keel tube extension of the Edge wing may become a limiting factor. Cheers, Glen