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kgwilson

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Everything posted by kgwilson

  1. Thanks. I didn't watch the video as i have no interest in it. Just what I'd require if I was.
  2. What sort of warranty do they come with? If I was going to be first cab off the rank I'd want a water tight warranty and at least 1/2 price of a 912 ULS or less. Too much at stake here for me to even think about it for more than 5 seconds.
  3. I was at the last Airventure at Parkes in 2019. It was a pretty big event with multiple workshops and seminars in numerous Marquees and one huge long marquee for all of the exhibitors. There were probably over a hundred underwing camper aircraft, plenty of portaloos & hot showers. A lot more pilots had accommodation in town. It was very well organised and there was a big airshow on the Sunday. Lots of new aircraft on show & other things like vintage cars, plenty of food stalls etc. Buses went in to town every 1/2 hour or so. There was a mobile Avgas truck that did the rounds on Saturday before the dust storm happened. I hadn't used much of the fuel in my wing tanks but topped up the fuselage tank with 50 litres of Avgas which gave me a 50-50 shandy with the 50 litres of 98 petrol I had in the tank. The wind got up to 40-50 knots and you could not see anything. I dropped the tent & used all the spare guy ropes as extra tie downs. There was rain after the dust & it turned all the dust on aircraft to mud. The site was closed & everyone had to leave so we spent the afternoon in the aero clubhouse. By some miracle there was no damage to aircraft AFAIK. Sunday was fine & Old Korelah decided to head home but struck some pretty bad weather on the way. I think he had to stay somewhere overnight. Monday dawned with ice on the aircraft & the flight home was memorable with my highest ground speed at 177 knots & up to 10,000 feet with OAT showing minus 10-15 deg & me with no heater. Still I got home in 2 1/2 hours, took 3 1/2 hours to get there from South Grafton. Fly'n for fun is not the same but RA-Aus know the venue and requirements. ASICS were not required & the public were not allowed near the parking/camping area in 2019.
  4. That must be without compulsory insurance that Yanks have to pay. The cheapest in the US is over 500k US including lifetime insurance.
  5. Chutes to bring aircraft and pilot down have been around for a long time. I wore a chute for 20 years when I was Hang Gliding. It was never used in anger but it was used to test if it worked given I was the one who repacked it every 6 months. It was manually deployed but there were ballistic options around since the 80s. Most Hang Glider pilots have them. The chute is part of the harness and a pull handle on your chest. Pull the handle and throw in to clear air. The bridle cord is attached to the CofG (heartbolt) & you come down about the same speed as a normal round chute. Only used if the glider has a structural failure.
  6. Watched the whole video & my comments still stand. I note that some deployments when the pilot lost control & then eventually regained control landed successfully pulling partial deployed CAPS & survived without injury also.
  7. There have been deployments when the engine is still running, just not developing full power. That is going from a position of some control to one of no control. I haven't watched the video. May get to it when i have time but in most cases unless the aircraft is unable to glide due to some catastrophic failure I'd sooner fly it in to the crash as far as possible.
  8. The ergonomics of most GA & RA factory built aircraft is terrible although the panel in modern aircraft is much tidier with all glass customisable displays. As I built my own aircraft with everything at hand and instruments set out as I wanted them my aircraft has the best ergonomics of any I have ever flown. From a comfort perspective many RA aircraft have wider cockpits than larger GA aircraft of 50 years ago but high wing is always easier to access. That said I prefer the seating position in most low wing aircraft as it is more reclining sports car like than the upright seating in a high wing. Noise is related to comfort as a very noisy aircraft is more stressful on the body than a quite one. Construction is debatable. Aluminium and alloys are easy to repair/ replace as is fibreglass. Carbon fibre and high end composites not so. Soundproofing & sealing is pretty hard in rag & tube but whatever is chose weight is a deciding factor. Economy is also related to drag plus speed requirements. Mission or purpose dictates to a degree aspects of performance. If an aircraft is slow, a low fuel burn my end up costing as much as a fast aircraft & it is pretty hard to have genuine STOL & high speed racer in the same aircraft. Horses for courses. Ease and simplicity of maintenance is a key aspect. Rotax engines may be reliable but are too complex. The Jab is simple and easy to maintain. As I drive an EV I am really looking forward to the fully electric aircraft. Noise, power, and maintenance can't be beaten here. Battery tech is the only obstacle but this is improving at an astonishing rate. The latest solid state battery from Talent New Energy has a battery with more than double the energy density of the very best Lithium batteries at 720 kW/kg providing EV range of over 2000km. This means a 100kg battery would store 72 kWh of power. This with the weight of the electric motor would be less than a 120hp jab & 150 litres of fuel.
  9. Just as there are pilots and aircraft owners, there are pilots and pilot fiddlers. If it ain't broke don't fix it. This has nothing to do with maintenance. One bloke at our airfield fixed his aircraft every week. Initially I took some interest and asked about the problem and the result was usually some vague response about a strange noise or something not feeling right. Once he reckoned the engine had a miss that only he could detect. Several others including me couldn't detect anything. The odd thing was that he ended up having a forced landing (while on a BFR with an instructor) as the glass delaminated from the timber prop. Preflight checks will often detect the beginnings of delamination (it did for me) so the fiddling did not seem to be related to preventative maintenance anyway.
  10. That would cost $5-600.00 today in a 50 year old C172. The median gross salary last year was $65,000 which translates into a monthly net income of $4,344.00 so more than half of your net income would go on flying training every week. In the 70s a fairly modern 172 cost I think $22.00 an hour. I can't remember what my take home pay was but I think it was less than $100.00 a week
  11. Currently on show at the Bangkok Motor Show.
  12. It is a pretty simple looking aircraft. It is just a huge tube which won't be pressurised with a straight wing and 2 tip mounted vertical stabilisers. The only pressurised part will be the cockpit. 4 standard engines off something like an A320 and a 72 tonne payload means it doesn't need all the wheels of the Antonov with only 4 x 4 wheel main bogeys & 2 x 2 wheel steerables up front. It's a modern day Bristol freighter on steroids.
  13. I note that Malcolm Turnbull is one of Radias advisors. Wind energy capture is by far the cheapest of any form of renewable energy and the huge number of installations and turbines far outweigh a few failures here and there are more than 341,000 wind turbines installed around the globe with over 900 GW produced in 2022.
  14. The Dynon D6 I installed in 2014 has a voltmeter built in. I only wanted a turn co-ordinator & balance ball but got a VSI, ASI, ALT, AoA, Compass, AH, & rate indicators for everything as well. Duplicates all my steam gauges.
  15. I can't think of a single good reason to change but several not to.
  16. Ah Ha, the plot thickens. Just find the flight attendant who was on the ceiling in the cockpit. Simples.
  17. It certainly does move slowly. I guess the issue is what position it was in when the switch was activated. If it was right back there would be plenty of time to sort it out.. Then there is the Captains original explanation to sort out that there was an instrument screen momentary blackout. The final sequence of events will be very interesting and whether Boeing is implicated or not.
  18. If what Juan Browne explains is correct then there are a few questions to answer here, including the design of the system, whether there is a switch the pilot is able to activate quickly to stop the seat moving forward if as appears to be the case it was inadvertently activated or just poor maintenance.
  19. Along with a wheel falling off and a sudden loss of altitude with 100 passengers on the ceiling.
  20. Hmm and pulling the stick back apparently makes the houses get smaller but pulling it right back makes them get smaller quicker, then really big really fast.
  21. The instructor got the ATIS and would have set the altimeter. On first contact with the tower you must specify being in receipt the latest ATIS code (A,B,C,D etc). The pilot is assumed to have set the altimeter to the QNH for that code. This process has been around forever, is unambiguous and works.
  22. Momentary power loss to the instrument panel should not cause a sudden inexplicable change to control surfaces to make the aircraft instantly lose altitude with enough force to cause injury given multiple system redundancy. If it did so then there are some software changes required to prevent this in future. Boeing had to do this with the MCAS system in the 737 Max but in that case pilots didn't even know what the MCAS system was.
  23. A "Technical Event" isn't clear air turbulence or jet stream related turbulence so I wonder if the cause will be published. Based on comments from Boeing employees recently when 7 out of 10 said they wouldn't fly in a 787, I hope it is not glossed over or covered up, but based on recent events and Boeings nose diving reputation, they are likely to put as much sugar coating in the report that they can get away with.
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