sfGnome

I just went straight to work. Borrrrrring...

Two solos in one day - bet it was nice to know that the first one wasn't a fluke!

I'm with you Nev. I'd love to be building, but I like doing things like that with other people. So far I've built 2 houses and assisted on two others, and I built 2 Minis from wrecks in my younger days (yep, Darky - real Minis, none of this pretend stuff ). Yep, I reckon if I wasn't flying then I'd be building - well, if someone would deposit large sums of moolah in my bank account that is!

Can't see why not. From the evidence in your picture it's a single prop A/C, so unless it exceeds the RA weight limits you should be fine...

Hey, forget the auto pilot! I want details on the porta-potty

Good on ya Stewy. My eldest loves it, my middle kid can take it or leave it, and my youngest won't go near the thing. Mind you, they're all adults...

Thanks very much for all the help & ideas. I particularly like the idea of Chird's temporary garage - I could put something like that up in the back yard without having to worry about council permission, and affecting eventual resale on the house. Yes, you and I might like a house with a whacking big shed taking up most of the back yard, but we're probably few and far between. Besides, I'd be able to explain to the bride that it's only temporary (for about 5 years... ). Might be a bit cold in winter and stinking hot in midsummer, and I'd have to sort out a reliable electricity supply, but that's all possible. Yes! The dream lives on to fight another day.

Just how much space do you need to construct a home-built? Some of the photos that I've seen lately are in sheds bigger than my home (lucky sods!). Clearly, there's not much use in starting to follow the dream if step #1 requires moving house first! I presume that the initial phases (fuse, wings, tailfeathers, etc) don't require as much space as when it all starts to come together, so what do you think are the minimums you'd require (ie X metres x Y metres) for both the early and later phases?

Could the difference be just that a droop down is more likely to suffer tip drag during landing, but provides a slightly better view either side the rest of the time?

I heard a bloke talking about time he spent in Mongolia. He said even out on the steppe, everyone had mobile phones, even though the network was a bit iffy. Apparently the recommended technique for getting an SMS out was to throw the phone as high in the air as possible, and by the time it came down, the message was sent...

Thanks JG. Well written and informative - that one's going in the hope chest.

...and now you can truly say you're one in a million! :big_grin:

It doesn't have to be either/or. She can sit on the wing...

The thing that struck me about the video was the proximity of photographers to the strip. Given that the plane skewing and spearing off the runway to one side was a strong possibility, I wonder how fast they thought they could run??

Razza, As a reasonably low-hours pilot I noticed that my pre-landing checks were getting a bit sloppy, but that all cleared up when I started saying them out loud again. It seems that the act of talking kept me focussed on what I was doing, so now I always speak 'em out, regardless of who is with me. I had a funny reaction from a mate who I took on a quick trip to Goulburn and back. I guess he was expecting it to me like a car on a freeway - press the cruise control, point the nose and sit back - and he said afterwards "It didn't seem very relaxed; you were pretty busy". The constant scan, scan, scan, check inside, navigate, pause conversation to listen to radio calls, etc wasn't at all what he expected a flight to be.

Stagger me!

Youth is wasted on the young! Sometimes you just have to get to a certain age before you get on and do the stuff you always wanted to. Don't think that I've quite reached the "I can afford ownership" stage yet though

I've just seen a flyer for the MAF Discovery Day at Camden on 19th Feb. More details here if you're interested.

Amusing to note that two of the labels on Ian's sheet are "Lighter" and "Ash Tray". Wonder where we'd use those??

Ah, dopey me! Gotcha now...

cfi, could you expand on that a bit? I was taught to increase the revs and then apply heat and listen (or look) for the revs to drop. How does the check work if you're increasing the revs as you apply heat?

Fly by Wire can open up all sorts of interesting possibilities - mixing control inputs across multiple control surfaces, exponential rate contouring - all sorts of stuff. However (and I write real-time control software for a living), I'm not sure that I'd like to be in an experimental plane with experimental software - not without a good solid direct control backup option. I spend too much time hunting glitches that no one ever thought of to bet my life on it.

Kaz, David, Thanks for the info. I'll stop hunting for where it's "set out in the AIP" :) As for the changing rules, my wife and I got our bike licenses about 10 years ago, and we were staggered buy the number of changes to the road rules in the previous 25 years that we had no idea about. To give them their due, compared to the RTA/TAC/etc, Air Services and CASA seem pretty good at communicating the changes they're introducing.

Time for a dumb question. I've gone looking a few times for these 'expected broadcasts as set out in the AIP', but all I can find is reference to the broadcasts around airfields. Can someone please point me to the section in the AIP that deals with broadcasts required above 5000?