sain

I ended up waiting for a warmish, bright sunny day before taking her up. I also loaded her up with the gel handwarmers, which worked really well. They are re-usable (just stick them in boiling water to recharge em). They wouldn't be as useful for a pilot, unless you could stick them between a couple of layers of clothing and not have them come loose. Thanks for the advice everybody - keep it coming please.

Its the pilot certificate I believe. Can't remeber the exact wording (and can't be stuffed looking it up right now), but you are only allowed above 5000ft AMSL if its required for flight saftey (ground clearance etc).

You can use high brightness LEDs as strobes - I believe there are a number of these units available - maybe Ian can do you a deal. Jim Wier wrote a couple of articles for kitplanes (aero'lectrics column) on LED powered Nav lights. (Aug-Oct 2008). If your inclined to "roll your own" you might find them helpful. LED lighting is much lower powered than conventional lighting, and should be lower maintenance in the long run too. Personally I've found standard strobes show up pretty well in daylight, and certainly help when trying to locate another plane visually.

when and where were the aus crashes?

Deskpilot, the skyranger reference was more along the lines of a suggestion as to how the plane could go together to fullfill your "3. Only a few hand tools and no specialist skills needed to assemble the final design." requirement. Your design seems to support the "bolt it all together" concept quite well, at least to my eye. It was not intended as a build-this-instead suggestion. Sorry about that.

Hmm.. interesting location on the prop - any thoughts on how to implement that? It looks like you've got it spinning around the tailboom, or did I misinterperet that? or is it just a very-early-concept-how-the-heck-do-i-work-this-software thing? Here are some links to some helpful-for-aircraft design software: http://aerodynamix.altervista.org/soft.htm list of a whole bunch of software http://gforge.katix.org/gf/project/zdesigner/ in-development aircraft design software http://xflr5.sourceforge.net/xflr5.htm free (open source) airfoil + wing analysis http://openfvm.sourceforge.net/ free (open source) CFD (fluid dynamics) sim http://http://www.calculix.de/ free FEM (finate element model) analysis (structural analysis tool) Hope some of that is helpful.

For a simple build process I've always been a fan of the skyranger aircraft. The whole "bolt everything together" concept is fantastic for fast build time with low-skill (no offense intended) workers.

yah, UHF CB would be the way to go. Most of those uniden walky talky things are UHF CBs. Ideally you want one that can take an external headset & microphone - so you don't have to rip it apart to wire it to your headset. Other than that go for one that can do duplex, so you can use a repeater if one is available. For a permament installation a car model may be better than the hand held. repeater list for australia: http://www.tropinet.com/uhf-repeaters/search.html

RE: Shark Skin - isn't it only rough in one direction (backwards), and very smooth in the other. I'd suggest playing around with some CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation software to get a feel for whats really (well, probably really) happening. try OpenFVM, its free so it wont cost you anything but time to play with: http://openfvm.sourceforge.net/ Check the gallery on that site for some idea of what it can do.

Wow, that section entitled The importation, usage, maintenance and sale of aircraft by ... is pretty damning. pity he was given a certificate of privilege for some of it.

There is also the Morgan Aeroworks Cheetahs and Sierras - I believe both models would come out cheaper than that. 2nd hand one for sale in the members market - see the back of the RA-AUS rag, or: Members' market There are a lot of 2 seater aircraft for sale in the members market, almost all of them well under your price range. There is also a Sabre for sale, complete with in flight adjustable prop, retractable landing gear etc etc for around that Jab's price.

Closest I've gotten is on a solo flight after some forced landing practice. The forced landing practice had not gone well - among other things I picked a particularly bad field, with lots of rocks, fences, power lines, livestock, trees, etc etc. right next to a perfectly good and deserted road. Anyway, because of that I decided I needed more practice before the next instructor lesson, so I was tooling around in the training area "suprising" myself occasionally by pulling the throttle off at sort-of random times. On the 5th attempt as I was putting the power back on at 500ft AGL (after managing to get really well lined up for landing in a paddock) the engine coughed, spluttered and mostly died. Naturally enough I freaked a bit, but the checks came through and I found the carby heat off straight away. As soon as it was applied the engine ran fine (it hadn't quite died). I left it on for a couple of minutes as I headed back to the airfield, where I did a couple of touch and gos and a couple more "engine failures", all without incident.

wow that site is awful. tip for web design beginners - blink tags are not a good thing.

Do the sensors have the same resistance for a given amount of fuel every time, or does it tend to wander all over the place? If its reasonably stable then the engine monitor circuit here: KP0000 might be of use.... It uses an op-amp to do a resistance to voltage conversion, which then drives a digital meter. If you want to do it cheaper you could probably just use a panel meter from Dick Smith or Jaycar. If you'd like a hand with a circuit design feel free to PM me..

Capacitative sensors are probably pretty good, though you'd have to make and install them yourself. Jim Weir (he writes for kitplanes) has articles about them here: KP0000 and KP0000

Just read your way through the bak book, doing the practice tests at the end of each chapter. If you have trouble with them, or have to stop and think about any of the questions, go back and read that chapter again. If your worried about it after you've done that then you might want to hit your instructor up for some practice tests - these can highlight what areas your weak on, and need to revise/learn some more. good luck!

actually there are a fair few reports out there of LED strobes still generating interferrence on the radio, and also some of the other LED lighting packs (NAV, landing etc). These devices seem to be using switching power supplies (much more efficient than the normal ones), which are unfortunately a touch noisy. The most effective option seem to be to install a simple filter inline with the device. I'll poke around and see if I can find some links.

Is it just a bnc connector? you can pick them up at jaycar...

Guys, stay away from the do it yourself will kits, they are dodgy as an extremely dodgy thing. Hire a lawyer and get it done properly. Make sure people know where your will is kept.

The MCP619s arrived a couple of days ago (microchip is pretty quick about shipping) and I got around to connecting one up last night, though I've yet to do any testing on it. Hopefully tonight if other projects don't get in the way.

you could try adding a voice activated switch to trigger the ptt for the intercom. Might be a little complicated though, unless you know some electronics.

I'm thinking of writing an article for the local newspapers, as well as for some of the aviation rags - I think its time attention was spread a little wider on this one. I should point out that I'm not a journalist and have no experience whatsoever with writing for magazines/newspapers. Also I'm biased as hell, being a user of the airport and a member of the Southern Highland Aeroclub. That said it'll be fun asking questions. :big_grin: Speaking of which, does anybody have any they particularly want answered? I may not get much of a chance, but i'll try.

Its been a while since I posted about this project, mostly because I got a tad frustrated with it. As it turns out the TL074 op amp was a bad choice for this project - it just can't handle the small signal levels well, not even when used in stages. I've taken jcamps advice (thanks) and switched to using an amplifier designed for this sort of stuff. Once again i've gone with a microchip device - a MCP619 quad op amp - and i'll be using two op-amps for each thermocouple (i.e i need 2 MCP619s to run the 4 thermocouples). MCP619s run at $1.58 a chip, so thats still a pretty reasonable price. I decided to use the microchip device to ease the ordering process for anybody who wants to build one of these - basically it now uses 4 parts (the microprocessor, the cold junction sensor, the voltage reference and now the op-amps) that arn't that easy to get in Aus. As microchip makes all of these, and has a very easy to use online ordering system and ships fairly quickly I figured its a good bet. Also as a handy guide I came across this application note AN844 - Simplified Thermocouple Interfaces and PICmicro MCUs. AN844 - Simplified Thermocouple Interfaces and PICmicro® MCUs - Application Notes - Details Conveniently enough it has a schematic on page 8 for a Exhaust gas and Cylinder Head Temperature Monitoring Device....

wow... thats fricken amazing. To have that happen and still be not crapping himself enough to figure out how to fly it fairly well...

Congratulations Morgan :big_grin: