kgwilson

The real problem is that the design of the Rotax has put 2 carburettors in virtually the hottest place they could have chosen.

The only aircraft ever to be able to keep up with the Concorde, catch it up and overtake it was the English Electric Lightning. The same lightning proved to the Americans that their U2 spyplane was easily caught.

The Concord was a product of genious engineering out of the 60s that has yet to be surpassed. It is such a shame that its flying days ended the way they did.

I have only ever used Avgas in my Jab 3300 engine when I couldn't get automotive petrol. I noted from another thread that 83% of all piston engined aircraft in the US do not need Avgas. There may be a lower %age in Australia as the GA fleet could be older, I don't know. Quality is not an issue except maybe at outback servos where the usage is low & storage tanks are old. Anyone using Avgas when they don't have to is nuts IMO.

Jabiru engines do not need a fuel return. The carb is at the bottom of the engine and there is a heat shield protecting the whole induction system from the exhaust system. The air that passes the carb is warm as it is heated from the heat transfer from the heads and cylinders. The mechanical pump obviously has to be part of the engine as that is how it is driven but it does not get specifically very hot. A high wing aircraft like the jabiru has the fuel gravity fed from the wing tanks into a header & then to the engine so the engine is not sucking fuel and vapour lock is highly unlikely unless after the aircraft has been sitting on the ground and fuel in the lines overheats. All fuel lines under the canopy are shielded and insulated. The standard Jabiru engine start up procedure is to use the electric fuel pump for 10 seconds to push fresh fuel in to the float bowl both in a cold and hot start situation. Gravity fed fuel and an electric boost pump in the fuselage virtually eliminates the possibility of vapour lock in flight. I have 2 wing tanks and a main fuselage tank. All the fuel to the engine flows from the fuselage tank which is higher than the engine fuel pump & obviously the carb at the bottom & I have an electric boost pump in the fuselage. I have an auxiliary higher pressure fuel pump and a L/R tank selector to pump wing tank fuel in to the main fuselage tank. I know exactly how long it takes to pump the 35 litres in each tank into the main tank & usually change it 4 times to empty. This takes the fuel gauge (main tank only) from 1/4 to full once I have emptied both wing tanks. My total fuel capacity is 170 litres. The problem is only a Rotax one with the carbs sitting at the rear on top of a hot engine.

The Hawker Siddeley Trident was originally designed by Geoffrey De Havilland as the DH-121 in the mid 1950s. It was designed from the outset to autoland so that fog which was very common then due to a lot of coal fires etc would not prevent landings. It was the first by a country mile and 70 years. De Havilland was a genius ahead of his time having designed the most versatile aircraft in WW2 the Mosquito and out of wood to boot as well as the first ever Jet airliner, the Comet.

An aviation medical is only good at the you get it. You can walk out the examiners door & drop dead even after all the checks. In the UK they surveyed all GA pilots and then went through the statistics of over 45 years of GA fatalities & were only able to identify 4 fatalities that had medical issues that may have contributed to the crash but none, not one in 45 years was found to be 100% due to a medical issue. This plus the survey was the simple pathway to self certification for GA pilots in the UK & it has been there since 2015. The Europeans wouldn't budge though so if you hold an EASA licence you still need a medical. Now that the UK is no longer part of the EU I don't know what the requirements are if you want to cross the channel. Medicals are a crock & always have been.

I painted my aircraft myself. I'd never spray painted anything before. Preparation is the most time consuming. I watched several you tube spray painting clips & practiced on my hangar doors. The aluminium & fibreglass surfaces were treated with Prekote, then primed with HiChem super etch. I used a high quality 2 pack gloss paint, Dulux Luxathane for the white & Dulux Quantum FX medium fleck metallic blue. The paint cost was about $600.00. I bought a HVLP spray set on Ebay for $35.00, an in line dehumidifier & I already owned a 2.5HP compressor. I painted the aircraft in the hangar on still days without any booth but I had the front door open & an extractor fan in the back wall. Never got any dust or bugs on anything. Practice and paint consistency is the key. Several light mist coats is always better than 1 solid coat as you avoid runs & the final gloss is free from orange peel. Total cost for everything including sandpaper, mixing cups, masking tape etc was less that $1,000.00. A cheap professional job will cost about 10k but you will need to do all the prep & priming. 20k is probably about right if you do nothing.

Signing a waiver before carrying out an activity considered to include risk of injury or death does not prevent the estate or relatives suing. The law should be amended to stop this so long as the waiver is not signed under duress. The Kiwis can't sue when an accident causes injury or death. This was enshrined in law nearly 50 years ago when they set up their Accident Compensation Commission. Of course lawyers & the insurance industry hates it as it derives them of easy income. The commission is funded by employer levies & motor vehicle CTP but covers all accidents. There was so much money in the coffers that they reduced the CTP on car registration dramatically that it cost only $80.00 a year to register a car inclusive of the ACC levy. A similar system needs to be set up here. Australia is the second most litigious country on earth after the USA.

You don't need any aerofoil to fly. A flat board will provide the lift when the angle of attack and thrust provides enough downward force to overcome the gravity of the mass of the machine. It will just be hopelessly inefficient.

The flying Bum (Airlander 10) has been around for a few years as a prototype & now they have a production version which is currently undergoing certification. It has a 10 ton payload 4000nm range, can remain airborne for 5 days at up to 20,000 feet. The current version is turbine powered but they plan to electrify it fully by 2030. Their next model has a 50 tonne payload & can carry 6 ISO 20 foot containers plus 40 passengers or 200 passengers.

How about the flying BUM. https://www.hybridairvehicles.com/news-and-media/overview/news/new-aircraft-shape-revealed/

Drones can do anything a manned aircraft can do and more these days. But even in 1965 the Hawker Siddeley Trident was the first commercial aircraft that could land itself. Originally designed by de Havilland it was capable of landing in complete whiteout conditions & it was only due to the fear of failure from Aviation Authorities and the public that it was eventually not allowed to do so. It was the most advanced and first trijet built, originally designed in 1957.

Nope, Bluetooth is complex but entirely explainable with zeros and ones, algorithms using packet data and spread spectrum technology over very short range in the 2.4ghz spectrum & so I imagine drones use similar technology but over a different radio spectrum and have physical interfaces via electric motors controlled by the software.

So long as the aircraft is factory built, with a current maintenance release and has dual controls an authorised Instructor GA or RA can train you in it. If you have built your own aircraft you can be trained in it as well.

All the aerodynamic theories of Bernoulli, mathematicians, physicists, scientists, aeronautical engineers etc is BS. I know what it is, IT IS MAGIC. Proof below.

The difference between turning back and not turning back for most pilots and aircraft is you are more likely to have a controlled crash or even a lucky out landing escape by not turning back.

Upwind, downwind, crosswind doesn't matter. You fly at the same speed relative to the air. The speed and direction across the ground, well, that is a different matter.

New battery technologies will probably render current Lithium ion batteries obsolete within 10 years. LiFePO4 batteries have already been able to get rid of cobalt but at the expense of energy density. Another new cobalt free battery technology using nickel, aluminium & manganese for the cathode in Li-ion batteries claims higher energy density giving up to 800km of range. Some of the new technologies will have a flow on effect for Aviation. Some of the major technologies are specified in the Green Cars publication at https://www.greencars.com/guides/the-future-of-ev-batteries

The BYD blade battery is not a good shape to power aircraft. It is 905mm long x 118 wide & 13.5 high (thick), 3.2 volts with a capacity of 202 Ah. The Tesla type of battery of multiple cells in 18650 (18mm x 650mm), 21700 & 46800 sizes can easily be configured in to shapes that fit a given volume. 18650 Li-ion batteries have been around for a fair while now but the improved LiFeP04 type it is safer as it won't explode or catch fire like standard Li-ion, it is cobalt free, can be discharged fully without degradation & recharged 3-5000 times. but has lower energy density that Li-ion. In any aircraft application weight is the main problem.

2030 is the year that the sale of new ICE cars will be banned in the UK. Existing ICE cars will continue till they disappear naturally. As petrol is getting very expensive that may be sooner than we think. Some car manufacturers have already announced they will cease producing ICE cars by 2030. BYD, Ford, GM, Jaguar Landrover, Mercedes Benz, VW, BMW, Volvo, Jeep, Peugeot, Fiat, Citroen & Opel have pledged to cease ICE production by 2040. Toyota plans to only produce only 10% pure ICE vehicles by 2025, the rest being Hybrid or pure EV. BYD has already ceased production of pure ICE vehicles. Battery technology has been improving at an astonishing rate in the last couple of years and will continue to improve dramatically over the next 8-10 years. Energy density of batteries continues to improve as well. New high end EVs have already cracked the 1000 km range barrier. BYDs blade battery is so safe you can hammer a nail through it & it won't explode or catch fire. There are 170 manufacturers of Electric vehicles in China producing more than 300 different models from Mopeds to super luxury limousines. The cheapest BYD EA1 or Dolphin is a small hatch EV the size of a Corolla that sells for $AUD20,200.00 in China. These go on sale in Australia later this year. This is the future like it or not. Hang on to that ICE car for as long as you can if you don't like electric. The price of petrol though will eventually have all the dyed in the wool ICE forever people rethink their commitment.

It was in the NTSB interim report.

You obviously missed Octaves post with information from the US ATSB. EV car fires 25.1 per 100,000. ICE car fires 1530 per 100,000. No contest, ICE cars are 61 times more likely to catch fire than EVs.

The design patents would have expired years ago. This is not a modern engine design by any means.

Conclusion. Don't turn back. These were all highly skilled and trained pilots. A good comparison would have been to find 3 pilots with normal flying skills who have never tried or practiced turnbacks & checked the results. The risk though would have been a stall/turn & crash. If not I doubt that any except the cub would have made it & they were all from 1000 feet. The cub was from 300 feet twice & 500 feet once & the stall warning was going off most of the time. He made it due to his expertise but the stall warning should have invalidated the test IMO.