rgmwa

The struts are not very long which is good, but I'd suggest "When in doubt, make it stout!"... especially when your life depends on it and you're not sure what the loads are. There's a big difference in strength and stiffness between 20 and 25mm tube for the same wall thickness, and steel is a lot stronger than aluminium (obviously). Also if you're putting bolts through it, the bigger tube will lose relatively less cross-sectional area.

How long is the strut?

I agree with Yenn. You need to have a pretty good idea of the tension and compression forces in the strut and its fittings under all loading conditions, and also how to design in timber if you're not building from a plan.

The highest grade I found for seasoned hoop pine after a quick search was F17. It's a softwood and AS1720 (Timber Structures: Part 1 - Design Methods) - gives a characteristic bending strength of 42 MPa and tensile strength parallel to the grain of 22 MPa for F17. However, these basic values need to be modified by a whole lot of factors if you want to design something.

I don’t think it’s racist to notice difference. It’s obvious that people from different places and cultures have different characteristics. The problems start when those differences result in differentiation and discrimination. We have many different races and cultures here in Australia, but compared to many other countries like the US, we do remarkably well in creating a pretty homogeneous society. I’ve always thought the Australian accent is a great unifying factor in smoothing out cultural differences over time.

I wonder about the Wandering Albatross. They spend many weeks flying day and night over water and you would think they might get caught in IMC. Even night flying would be tricky. I suppose they could land but taking off from rough water wouldn’t be easy. Interesting question.

Good news! Looks like overseas travel is back.

He makes it look easy. I spent some time watching one of these in action on the North Island a few years ago. It takes a lot of skill fly one of these in that hilly country.

Looks like those South Africans are in business for the long term. Good to see. Anyone know what a Sling 2 kit costs in Australian dollars?

Can't vouch for the Sling from personal experience, but it was designed to the EASA VLA standard with an MTOW of 700kg, so when it's sold as a 600 kg LSA, something has to give. However, I have an RV-12 and it does everything that Vans say it will do. My only complaint is that the standard 20 US gal /75 litre tank with a 912ULS is marginal for Australian distances on long trips. I've increased mine to 25 gal which works well, but the trade-off is that I can carry less weight in the baggage compartment with full fuel. A couple of other RV-12's over here have been modified in the same way. However, the 912iS is now the standard RV12 engine. It's significantly more fuel efficient than the ULS according to Vans own testing, so their 20 gal tank even goes a bit further than my 25 gal tank according to the POH.

Scratching your nose or waving to a friend is probably not recommended either.

My mistake. Twenty seven gals is a lot better and would give it good range. If they can increase MTOW then the plane is starting to look pretty good in terms of performance, although maybe not aesthetics. We’ll have to wait and see whether they get serious about Rotax. These engines are probably gaining more acceptance in the US through the LSA market with aircraft like the RV12 and Sling, but no doubt the traditional engines are still well ahead in market acceptance. Time will tell.

It wii be interesting to see if they end up offering a Rotax alternative as Ken Krueger suggested in the video. A 912iS would with reduced weight and better fuel efficiency could make a significant difference to payload and endurance. A 16 gal tank is not much for a plane that looks like it should be a pretty rugged back country tourer. Less of an issue if their main market is flight training.

Ken Kreuger was Vans chief aeronautical engineer up until a few years ago, and designed a number of the current range of RV's, so he knows a thing or two about aircraft design. I'm not particularly sold on the Vashon though, although I guess they've done their market homework.

I don’t know the legalities of building from a secondhand set of numbered plans that are not in the public domain, but if you’re willing to wear the cost of building a plane then surely you can afford to buy a new set of plans to make sure you’ve got the latest version. If it also buys you factory support then it makes even more sense to not try to cut corners.

I remember when my boss and I were invited to another consultant's office to have a look at the owner's brand new fax machine. It was very new technology then. You had to hook it up to a telephone handset and dial up. The owner enthusiastically described what it could do. My boss was suitably impressed and said, "That's great!", and then added, "... but who else has got one?" It was a few years ago now.

Probably old news, but I only came across this recently. Quite a few aircraft sitting out there in the desert. https://www.escape.com.au/news/incredible-images-of-plane-graveyard-near-alice-springs/news-story/186572ec9da57bb6e6248f915effe876

Yes, with Trump it's always somebody else's fault.

Churchill didn’t then promptly claim he was treated very unfairly and try to overturn the election. Go figure.

If he was such a good president he wouldn’t have lost the election to Sleepy Joe and destroyed his own party. Good riddance.

You're right! Takes me back to my days of reading science fiction, but what I meant was any tablet or phone that is not made by Apple. in other words Samsung, Google, OnePlus, Moto - take your pick. Don't know if this is breaking any website rules but here are the links. I have no connection to the developer or any interest in the software since I'm an Apple user, although I know the developer is based in WA, so it's a home-grown product. From the last email I received: Version 6.0 is a major release which brings a few new goodies: * Implement OpenWeatherMap precipitation overlay on maps * Improved ADS-B traffic display * Generic aircraft instead of individual * Performance enhancements Homepage: http://ninelima.org/efis/download.html FDroid: https://search.f-droid.org/?q=kwik&lang=en

Sure, there are more basic systems out there. It just depends what you’re looking for. If you have an Android device there’s even free glass panel software available you can download and try out. I haven’t got the link handy but can get you the details if you like.

In my case the Dynon was standard equipment for the RV12 so it’s not a case of trying to convince myself that the cost was worthwhile. I use OzRunways on an iPad mini for navigation and flight planning so the Dynon’s map display is more of a backup anyway. As you say, you don’t need any of that since you can find your way around with a map, compass and watch. But I know which system I’d rather use when flying across the Outback. Arriving at a remote strip with no windsock and being able to see the wind speed and direction at a glance is great. Knowing TAS removes another uncertainty. Still, you don’t need those things for a local flight in familiar surroundings, or even for long distance flights for that matter, but I like having all those features and the other information the system provides. I’d also agree that I don’t use the system to its full capability, but that doesn’t matter. I can always learn more if I want to. Nor do I spend more time with my head inside the cockpit. For me at least, a glass panel seems a good choice these days, even for VFR pilots with RAA type aircraft.

Each to his own, but for me: Cost - yes, not cheap but you get what you pay for and you get a lot for the money. You can certainly get by with less for day VFR and local flying, but the extra capabilities come into their own for longer trips. Reliability - the Dynon has a backup battery. The complexity amounts to plugging it in and running an annual test. No big deal. Redundancy - My system was delivered around 2013 with software version 3 as I recall. Version 16 has just been released and the system's capabilities get better with each update. At this stage the tweaks are pretty minor.

I trained in Cessnas and had some concerns about the much more complex looking Dynon Skyview when I built my RV12, so I installed a backup ALT and ASI and thought I’d probably go with the analogue display on the Dynon. However, I didn’t and very quickly got used to the ribbon displays and having the wealth of other information available that the Dynon shows, including synthetic vision, maps, wind information, TAS, etc. Never had any problems with readability or reliability. I don’t regret installing the analogue gauges but the Dynon gives you a lot more information. A needle is very quick to read but the ribbon displays are easy once you’re used to them.