eastmeg2

Very sad indeed, Condolences to the piltos family & friends.

I've met at least some of the trikers that operate out of Goulburn airport but am yet to learn whether it was one of those fine gentlemen, a new addition or a visiting pilot.

Maynard, Can you shed any more light on this perspective?

Glen

Mt Beauty, Gathering of the Moths - Tomorrow.

For want of its own thread, I'll post here . . .

The Gathering of the Moths at Mt Beauty in the Victorian Alps one hour drive south of Albury starts tomorrow.

I'd thought about which trike to take, whether to fly or drive etc . . .

I've just bought an old single seat trike from another member of the forum here and was initially thinking of taking that . . . but I've decided it needs some work so I've sidelined it until that work gets done.

Flying the XT-912 from Goulburn instead of driving, I would get to Mt Beauty ok via Tumut and Corryong but the weather looks to be starting to turn for the worse on Sunday which would mean having to leave early Sunday morning instead of being able to spend Monday travelling home.

Towing the XT-912. It's an option, but I haven't shown off the 503 Tundra Buzzard with a Wizard-3 wing that I rebuilt last year to my Victorian friends yet and the flights done during the Mt Beauty Moths gathering usually aren't very far and I could probably beg a back seat on any longer flights anyway.

So I'll be towing the Buzzard and taking in the mountain scenery at 35kts.

Cheers,

Glen

I've not been there but have a vague recollection that Seletar airport would be where GA operate at in Singapore, but doubt there would be any UL operations permitted in Singapore.

The nearest would be at Johor Bahru on the southern tip of Malaysia, not far away over the causeway.

Hi ET,

Welcome to the Forums. I see that Scooby has beaten me to being the first Triker to welcome you here.

There haven't been any other mentions of trikes being built to plans that I can think of on this forum so you're already achieving a first here.

Just make sure you use all the correct aircraft grade hardware in the build. Garden variety will only see you digging holes in the ground.

I'm sure many others on this forum will be keen to read about your trike being built to plans as I am.

Cheers,

Glen

What we're taught is to remain over the runway centreline and then the extended runway centreline as we take off and climb out.

On occasions when I have taken off from airstrips where there are no or limited outlanding opportunities straight ahead for the first several hundred metres after the end of the runway, I have thought it may be better to move off to one side of the runway centreline during climb out (the downwind side if there's a cross wind component), not so far that I couldn't land ahead on the runway if there's still enough ahead, but far enough as I get higher that it would reduce the amount of turning needed to turn back if the noise stopped at 500ft AGL, ie, might only have to turn 160 degrees instead of 200 . . . to get back onto the runway.

This would typically be at private strips.

Thoughts?i_dunno

Are you sure cost was the overriding factor and not a desire to avoid head butting the tree?

As a % of cost theres a lot in the wing and not much is required to damage it

I disagree. While $11k for a trike wing isn't exactly loose change, it's not that big a part of the $70k price tag of a new trike.

If, for example, it really comes down to it and I am forced to put a trike down into a small clearing surrounded by trees I'd be doing my best to aim the trike base between the trees and get the wing to absorb the impact.:black_eye:

Hi Scoob,

You could usually find a CFI at or near the area you want to fly to take you up for a training flight ($$$) in their trike from their training field and they'll usually let you fly from the front (command) seat after you present your trike pilot certificate and log book, talk the talk, walk the walk, name the CFI who trained you, etc, while the CFI sits in the back seat with his full dual controls (For liability mitigation and in case you do something silly).

Contacting them at least a a few weeks in advance helps a lot, so you don't look like a blow-in from the street when you show up to go flying.

Cheers,

Glen

I didn't sing, but I did max out the volume on the intercom, compensated with the radio volume, just for a bit of "comfort noise".

Well lets hope I can make it a trifecta of tri-annuals at Mt Beauty.

Landed at Mt Beauty during the X-Country loop of the 2004 Wangaratta Trike Gathering.

Flew out of Mt Beauty during the 2007 Gathering of the Moths.

2010 . . . TBA . . . i_dunno

It's been 3 years now since I last flew at Mt Beauty & Porepunka.

Really hoping for good conditions 19/20 Nov, to fly there again.

Anyone with a spare seat at Mt Beauty that weekend? (Have flight-suit & helmet & will travel).

...bring your knees in tiiiight...

Hi Matt,

Is the DFS trike base with the 15m North Wing a factory supplied wing + trike base combination?

The only time you should adjust your control frame forwards or backwards WRT the wing is if you are using the wing on a different trike base with different geometry.

That is, in flight, the range of angles about the hang point from horizontal (or vertical) from pilots chest to front brace tube in the arc your control bar will move in is different to the trike base the wing was designed to be used with. I would normally measure these angles with the trike base suspended from the hang point.

If at all possible, you should always consult the wing manufacturer before making any changes and be extremely cautious with the first flight, eg, Whenever I put a wing back in service after any repair the first flights consist of getting the trike almost up to stall speed so that only the nose wheel will lift and checking there are no adverse roll characteristics in the wing while the back wheels are still on the ground, 2nd run no higher than 10ft AGL progressively testing pitch control only and landing again before the end of the runway. The longer the runway the better, 2,500ft or more recommended. Runway length should not be a problem in the USA.

I think I would have touched on this subject in this thread.

http://www.recreationalflying.com/forum/microlight-trikes-aircraft/25428-buzzard-trike-restoration.html

Finally the disclaimer. The above is only how I do it. I am not an instructor. I am not an Aeronautical Engineer, I am not a licensed aircraft mechanic. The regulations in your location may or may not allow you to do this yourself and it is your responsibility to check.

Cheers,

Glen

Thanks Ian for a Great Site

Thanks YFT for the great experiences over the years

Thanks Slarti

Thanks to the guys at Loxton who helped with the running repairs on my brakes

Thanks to the local pilot at Kadina who managed to dig up a can of water dispersant spray

For those who can't wait, Arnold has submitted a taster (short version) on the Airborne website.

My excuse is that I've been out flying for the past 2 weeks and just got home last Sunday afternoon. Seriously.

:big_grin:

Alf, you're right that the weather was not the best. There were about 3 or 4 nice flying days of the 13 days we flew on, logging about 40 hours each amongst the 3 trikes on the trip.

We're collaborating on a story for the RAAus mag and I may post the condensed version on here when it's ready if there are no objections from the others.

I could go on about the highlights etc, but that would spoil it.

Cheers,

Glen

Has anyone done any research on how the torque/power is deliered by a (turbo) diesel engine to a propeller, especially in direct drive applications.

It's just that in some other threads there have been problems mentioned with a certain direct drive aero engine when using certain composite props rather than the standard wooden prop. A diesel I would guess would deliver its torque in a rather pulsey fashion with its low revs and high compression ratio unless it has a very heavy flywheel.

Any thoughts?

I bought a new Hyundia i30 turbo diesel at the end of July, leased through work as a salary sacrifice actually. It replaces the 2.5L petrol subaru forester I had for 8 years since new.

The 2.5L petrol forester towed the trike ok at 100km/h and fuel economy would change from 8L/100km to 12 or 13L/100km. Any headwinds would drop its speed to 90km/h unless I got behind a big truck.

I've yet to tow anything with the i30 except my pushbike on its rack. Fuel usage for just the car is 5L/100km at 110km/h. The i30 weighs the same as my 2002 forester did due to the heavier deisel engine and pulls better up hills in 5th gear than the forester did, so I'm hopeful about how well it will tow a trike. I'm keeping in mind that it's "only" a 1.6L turbo diesel, so I bought a "Scan Guage" for $200 so I can watch how much the engine is working or suffering at any given moment and hopefully avoid blowing it up.

Cheers,

Glen

So long as it's a reasonably accurate barometric altimeter with adjustable QNH setting it's hard to see why it couldn't be used in CAO-95.XX aircraft, though I expect Steve Bell would have the final word.

It's my understanding that CAO-95.XX aircraft are not required to use TSO'd altimeters and that the Chinese made altimeters that exist in many of our recreational aircraft (factory and ametuer built) are not TSO'd.

As for GPS altitude readouts, don't put any faith in any instantaneous readings. I've seen my Garmin 296 (version 5.7 firmware) giving sporadic altitudes with wildly changing errors exceeding 500ft above and below my aircraft altimeter reading - in smooth air I might add. I have had instances of being 500ft below CLL and my Garmin 296 briefly telling me I'm VCA.

On most occasions the Garmin 296 is fairly stable and accurate but sometimes it's not. Just yesterday when I saw it changing wildly I checked the satellite reception page and I had between 4 to 7 strong satellite signals. Maybe the satellites were having a bad day.

Cheers,

Glen

Love the concept . . . It's a great one.

Hard to see any reason why it could not be increased to the same size we currently see on single piston motorcycle up to about 600cc & 40-50hp. That has the potential to make it a serious rival for the Rotax 503 in our 95.10 category if it can tick the boxes for efficiency, reliability & lightweight.

Cheers,

Glen

MRX Audio output

Looking at the MRX in the Clear Prop shop I noticed it has an audio output socket.

Is this a standard audio socket as per walkman, MP3 players etc?

I ask as I already have the cable and intercom input socket for my MP3 player which I have velcroed onto my panel in the past, but don't tend to use it due to poor sound quality and operational concerns rightly expressed on this forum about not hearing others radio calls over the music.

But if I can use the same cable and intercom input to connect a traffic alert device like the MRX that has to be a good use for it. But I just don't fly in busy area's very often, the busiest being when transiting east/west to the North of Canberra listening into the approach frequency in case any GA/RPT/Freight birds are coming or going.

A lot of water must have gone into Lake Boga since I flew over it in March this year . . .

I could see the tufts of grass coming out of the water in the middle of the lake. Looks much nicer in your more recent film clip.

[ATTACH]11690.vB[/ATTACH]

I didn't see the old Cat though, as I did the previous time I overflew the lake in May 2006. I was later told it had been relocated and had a hangar built over it.

Cheers,

Glen

I do believe I saw the Concorde doing exactly that in Ch 7 last night. did you see it too?

If you can get a copy of Brian Milton's video doco from when he flew a trike around the world in 1998, you'll see he was made to pay USD 5k per landing in Japan and had to carry a Russian Navigator through the USSR.

Perhaps not so relevant in this case:

Also had to pay USD10k for SAR insurance before he was allowed to set off across the Greenland (or was it Iceland) ice cap, otherwise they were going to "detain" him.

Hi Tomo,

Being electric, the motor can run both ways. Forwards and Backwards. Obviously has the motor controller required to do that. Much simpler and quicker than reversing pitch on the prop.