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sfGnome

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  1. sfGnome
    That’s possibly where my confusion arose. I read Kitplanes a lot, and they tend to be Ly/Cons focussed. I’ll admit to being a bit worried about that before I asked the question. 🤨 Yep, you’re right. I should have said Rotax. Perhaps I should have just looked at what Rotax say about it…
  2. sfGnome
    I was under the impression from previous reading (that I can’t lay my hands on readily) that engine run-in should be done in the air so that temperatures can be kept within limits wile running at the required speeds for the required period. This, of course, implies little engine running before an aircraft’s first flight. However, I was just reading the Europa owners handbook and found the following statement. “Before first flight, you will have needed to run the engine for a minimum of 2 hours without any problems”. Am I mixing up different requirements for air and water cooled engines (the Europa is water cooled), or am I mistaken about running in in the air, or what? Can anyone shed light on this issue?
  3. sfGnome
    I created an equivalent (presumably) to the W&B calculators in the EFBs (they didn’t have them back then as far as we knew) for the Tecnam so that every flight was automatically checked (and printed complete with calculations in case we were ramp-checked). We also checked that all extremes of us 3 pilots, passenger, fuel and load stayed within the envelope, so it wasn’t a major concern. Then again, as we were only RA, we apparently weren’t taught well enough to know what we were doing… 🤨
  4. sfGnome
    I created a PDF of our checklists and added them to the ‘documents’ section of OzRunways so they were always one tap away, and I made it a habit to always consult them at each phase of flight (this after I once forgot to set flaps prior to take-off fully loaded from Polo Flats (Cooma) on a warm day - could have been a disaster if I’d pushed the initial climb).
  5. sfGnome
    What they all said. I learned on a Jab with a centre stick, and it became a problem when I got to cross country because I wanted to write with my right hand, and had to fly with it too. Getting into the Tecnam with dual sticks was such a relief because I could fly either hand depending on the requirements.
  6. sfGnome
    I have thought about this so many times (though never enough to actually do anything about it). 360 deg cameras mounted above and below, with video interpretation by computer that is looking for anything moving against the fixed background. Yes, the background is moving, but it is (relatively) easy for the computer to correlate the image from one frame to the next so that any variation is obvious (to the computer). The point of this is to be alerted to the non-ADSB, non-radio (or choose to non-broadcast) aircraft in circuit, or (as has happened to me) the very rare coincidence of flight paths in the wide blue yonder. I should note that obviously an aircraft on exact collision course will not move against the background, but it will at least increase in size. If that is enough to give enough warning, I don’t know - I guess that depends on the camera resolution - but it’s still an intriguing thought project to play with in the wee small hours when sleep alludes me. 🙄
  7. sfGnome
    I recall reading somewhere about how the seat must be made from different densities of foam to protect your spine in the case of a very hard landing or, worse still, crash. I recall any details (on account of me not thinking that I’d be making my own seats), but is that what all the various colours are in your picture?
  8. sfGnome
    That is really neat. I’ll have to remember that.
  9. sfGnome
    Ok, definitely not differential drive, so it’s not that. I’ll apologise in advance for asking, but the squelch isn’t turned up, is it? Failing that, the next steps I’d take (and it all gets a bit painful from here) is to buzz not just that the right things are connected, but also that nothing wrong is connected (ie no shorts to other signals). That takes a while because a) there a lot of possible combinations, and b) because you aren’t expecting to get a buzz, you have to be really careful that you’re actually making connection with your tester to the signals that you’re buzzing. take the switch out of the circuit again - ie take it back to exactly as per the schematic with only one radio and see what happens then. If none of that shows up anything, then we’re into poltergeist territory… 😳
  10. sfGnome
    Ok. As RFguy said, time for a mud map (the less muddy, the better 🙂).
  11. sfGnome
    Is the switch switching both lines of the speaker, or only one? The speaker outputs will typically be differential, so you can’t have a switch in just one line.
  12. sfGnome
    Are the two radios both wired in at the same time, or are you swapping them in and out and getting the same result for both of them? If it’s the latter, then there a problem with the wiring because both radios won’t have both failed in the same way. If it the former, then perhaps one is loading down (shorting) the other? What happen if only one is plugged into the harness?
  13. sfGnome
    That’s a really important point. I stopped paying insurance premiums when the kids had left home and we had enough assets to support my beloved (without me there to spend it all on crazy dreams). I have a feeling that there’s not too many of us here who are still in the “I better be covered” age group (BrendAn being a notable exception, I’d guess).
  14. sfGnome
    Guilty as charged! 😛 I’m a bit of a metric nazi, railing against the use of imperial measurements. So your baby is 8lbs? How heavy is that? About 3.5kg? Ah, now I understand. But pull up at a servo for air, and it’s 42psi thanks. I really should repent and learn a new number.
  15. sfGnome
    I may be wrong, but it think it died out here when compulsory superannuation came in. Life assurance is essentially the same as superannuation with insurance. I had life assurance when the kids were little, but then let it sit so it still provided insurance but put the dues into better investments.
  16. sfGnome
    The classic was the Mars probe that crashed because the European part was giving its altitude in metres, and the American part was interpreting it as feet. Oops. In commercial software, we commonly put the units into the variable name, so instead of a variable called ‘height’, it would be ‘height_ft’ or ‘height_m’. Saves a hellava lot of problems. I lived in Ireland for a few years, and while everything was officially metric, everyone talked imperial. Confusing. Drive over the border into Norther Ireland, and it was all imperial. I got caught behind a tourist (I assume) one day who, when crossing the border and seeing a ‘60’ sign on the highway, immediately slowed down to 60kph… 🙄
  17. sfGnome
    Ah, but then I won’t be around to advise the readers of my demise… 😯 We’ll try to avoid having to deal with that case.
  18. sfGnome
    Hey, I resemble that! 😝
  19. sfGnome
    Yep. I had re-do two sets of sill bricks a little while back. In the time it took me, a real brickie could have done the whole side of a house! The plumbing might be not too difficult, but it had to get council approval for the build (back in the day when councils cared about that).
  20. sfGnome
    “CATL's condensed battery leverages highly conductive biomimetic condensed state electrolytes to construct a micron-level self-adaptive net structure that can adjust the interactive forces among the chains, thus improving the conductive performance of the cells.” How’s that for a marketing manager’s wet dream. Absolutely no idea what that means… 🤷‍♂️ As always though, I remain hopeful of progress.
  21. sfGnome
    It’s interesting watching this discussion. For years I worked for a company that was trying to do something very commonplace in a completely new, vastly better way - something that all the large established companies had spent literally billions trying to achieve (and failed). The fun part was when we first put a demo video on line, reading all the comments from the experts about how it had to be fake because we were a little, unknown company and couldn’t possibly have done it, and if it was true, then it would never get into production. Guess what? We did, and it did. Just occasionally - though not very often - the online experts are wrong.
  22. sfGnome
    Definitely in the frame, but (ignoring the never ending and unresolvable arguments about Jab engine reliability), haven’t you just bought a new plane because you decided that there was a problem with the attitude of the Jab company? The other thing that concerns me is that Jab specify that it must be run on Avgas. I know that lots of people use ULP98 on them, but what happens of you want to make a warranty claim?
  23. sfGnome
    Yep. I’ve built two houses on my own - brickies and plumber the only subbies - so I’m a bit of a sucker for big, long term projects. Last house took 5 years despite me confidently reassuring my beloved that it would take one. Making no promises about this task. 🫣 I will admit that the thought of the family having to dispose of a half-built project if I carked it does bother me, but I guess the solution to that problem is to just not die. So far, so good… 😛
  24. sfGnome
    This may seem odd, but I’m not looking for quick build. It’s the act of building that I’m looking forward to, even more than the flying (though that’s a pretty good bonus). Having said that, I know my limitations so I’ll be restricting myself to full kits; no plans and raw materials for this little black duck! 😯
  25. sfGnome
    What load can you take with full fuel and 2 POB? The Tecnam was limited to about 20kg, which is fine for overnighters, but a bit of a problem for a week-long trip.
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