sain

I second the string idea - cheap and effective. on the other hand you could try here, though $515 seems a little expensive. If you just want a slip indicator its a more reasonable $46: http://www.wadeair.com.au/content/fltinst.asp also ebay: http://cars.listings.ebay.com.au/Aircraft_Parts-Accessories_W0QQfclZ3QQfromZR11QQsacatZ102702QQsocmdZListingItemList has one a bit cheaper.. Ian may be able to get you one from Wicks Aircraft, but theirs is listed at $697(US - ouch) Aircraft Spruce has one for sale at $382 (again, US). http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/falconturncoord.php And to think I used to wonder why the glider guys all used a piece of string and bluetak instead of a proper instrument.

the above program will resume the download when it can, so you don't end up downloading the same 19.9MB of 20MB over and over.

thats sweet. Hows the LR-2 coming along Arthur?

I've been busy with work for the last few weeks, so there hasn't been much in the way of progress. I have been gradually sorting out the microcontrollers program, and while going over the "preset calibrations" portion of the code I finally figured out that the +-2 degrees accuracy of my diode temp sensor doesn't really cut the mustard, as the operating range of some of the engines (rotax in particular) isn't all that large. In order to have better accuracy, i'll use a lm335 ($3.30 at DSE or Jaycar) temp sensor. Fortunately the circuit doesn't change all that much from the diode temp sensor (I think, anyway), it'll just require one additional trimpot (for the initial calibration). Hopefully I'll have some progress tonight.

Congratulations smenkhare. Enjoy the journey!

Interesting read that article. Personally I don't think my instructor would have let me go solo if I couldn't taxi in a straight line, but maybe he did manage that on day 4. The hours he completed were about the same as what you'd go through to get an RA-Aus license, just all squeezed into a week. Personally my physical limits for what I could do in a day were a lot lower - about 2 hours max - 1 in the morning, 1 in the arvo. Mind you I was getting airsick most of the time so others may find it easieri_dunno

Congratulations on restarting your training Decca - looking forward to updates on your training. Sorry to hear about your Mum Ross, and your wife Deskpilot.

Its certainly an interesting engine. I was thinking that it was a bit on the heavy side until I went and added up the weights for a rotax 582 with all the "options" listed at http://www.ultralightnews.ca/rotax582/rotax582specs.htm and came up with 50kg. Mind you I'm not sure if the aerotwin's 45kg includes exhaust etc..

I spent the last week and a bit trialling different methods of PCB (printed circit board) manufacturing, without much success, right up until I caved and tried the very expensive (at least if you buy it from jaycar) press-n-peel method. This worked fantastically, with the resist-coated board only needing a touch up in one corner where I didn't get the iron onto it well. After being etched the finished board was very high quality (at least until I picked it up with the circuit board laquer still wet and left a finger print on it). If anybody else is making some prototype boards then I recommend this method - soooo much easier than anything I've done before, and far less mucking around with nasty chemicals. Anyway, with the feng3 programmer now on a PCB and working properly (first go - woo!) I'll be moving on to getting the code portion of the thermocouple reader sorted out, as well as designing the PCBs for the display and main boards. The display board is looking like a dual layer board (because its easier that way and i'm lazy), and the main board a single layer. Hopefully this week I'll also be putting in an order for 4 CHT senders. Anybody got any recommendations for a cheap supplier? *edit* oh yeah, if your going to use the press n peel stuff buy online direct from the manufacturer - much cheeper.

Hi Maynard, I don't know if its of use to you, but Lowrance's GPS Data Manager software is downloadable from http://www.lowrance.com/en/Downloads/GPS-Data-Manager-GDM/ Cheers Greg

A simple power filter/suppressor may not help if the RFI is entering through your headset leads, or if bad antenna connectors (or a badly tuned antenna) are the source of the problem. The "silk purse from a sows ear" thread may be of assistance if you can't find the guy your looking for: A silk purse from a sow's ear? - Recreational Flying Its got some useful info on treating some RFI problems, including a power filter.

Arn't the majority of articles in our rag written either by members or as commercials (right next to the full page colour ad - so subtle!)? Didn't they put out a call for articles a few months back? If you want more articles on Rag and Tube flying, i'd suggest you write some. They may even pay you for it. Personally I'd love to read them, but have little experience in rag and tube aircraft (unless you count Gazelles). I think Rag and Tubes are alive and well, with plenty of examples being currently marketed - x-airs, quicksilvers, skyrangers, fishers, some rans, aeropups and superpups, bantams and (stretching the "tube" definition a bit) arn't the morgan aeroworks super diamonds and cheetahs fabric covered too? Many of these aircraft represent relatively cheap options to fly, compared to the $100k+ plastic fantastics. Apologies if I've missed your favourite rag and tube.

To be honest I don't think they would care about multiple schools in the same area. You certainly get that happening in GA (look at bankstown). Personally I'd be a little hesitant about setting up right next door to an existing flying school.

I admit i'm not a particularly difficult user of RA-AUS's services, but most times I've needed something I could just call and ask, or roll up at their shopfront (its close to work) and get what I needed straight away. Your situation is a bit different though - your effectively asking them to admit fault, which nobody ever likes to do, and by using email your giving them an easy way to leave it in the too hard basket until it scrolls off the bottom of their inbox and they can forget about it. I think your best bet is to try again, but keep a positive attitude while dealing with them. Try calling the office and asking to speak to the ops manager (i think he would be the one who deals with that stuff). When you get him on the line, explain the problem (avoiding blaming them for anything) and ask him about what needs to happen to get the school started. Offer suggestions like getting the schools equipment (if i remeber rightly the plane was a shocker) and facilities inspected by a party nominated by RA-AUS. Highlight the fact that you are completely seperate from the old owner, and he has no stake in the business. Be as professional and unemotional as you can manage. Your just a nice guy who wants to run a flying school and help RA-Aus gather some more members.... If he says something like "i'll get back to you" give him a couple of days and call again. Keep calling. Don't let long delays happen, but remeber that your going to need to work with them to get a school going. If he says its a board decision then ask if it can added to the agenda for the next meeting for it to be reviewed (even if he claims its final). Remeber that they do have certain requirements for a school (such as having a training room for ground school etc) and a mobile school may not meet them. Best of luck getting the school running again.

I'm back from the trips away for work (at least for a couple of weeks) and so I'm back into it. The power supply portion is now done, but I need to do a quick calculation on load (in case I picked the wrong regulator) before I post the pricing. The power supply is just 4 1n4001 diodes (configured as a bridge rectifier), a couple of electrolytic capacitors and a LM7805 (TO92 package, 100mA max) regulator. Current draw should be fine, i'm just not entirely sure about the how much current the thermocouple op-amp is drawing. Next step will be to put it all the portions together and test that, followed by the circuit board design and build, then the final step of putting it in a case. I've been meaning to make a circuit board for the feng3 pic programmer for a while (its on a prototyping breadboard like everything else at the moment) so I spent the last couple of nights stuffing around with that. Unfortunately its been quite a while since i've done this stuff, and my old favourite method is causing some problems. I print the circuit board pattern onto an overhead transparency, then coat a blank copper board with positive photoresist spray and stick them both under a UV lamp for a while, develop and then etch. However the photoresist spray that I have expired in 1999 (it really has been a while) and is not giving usable results. None of the local electronics stores seem to stock photoresist spray either, so i may have to find a different method.

Gotta love the news this morning - the prince has borrowed a chopper and landed in his girlfriend's parents back paddock. Apparantly he has also picked up his brother in london for a bucks night... Its all about having strippers as your inflight entertainment...

I'm also in Canberra, and head up to Goulburn for RA-Aus flying fairly regularly. I didn't know about the monday drinkies - things you learn. I'll try and make it along sometime (unfortunatly I'm otherwise accounted for tonight). Goulburn's next BBQ is on the 3rd of May if you'd like to join us there - I'll even give you a lift up, assuming you don't mind travelling in a dodgy old ford laser and hanging around for most of the day (I've got a flight booked and there will probably be a flying club meeting too). Everybody else is welcome too, though it might end up being a bit of a squash in the laser... I believe there is a fair bit of recreational flying happening out of polo flat in cooma too, though I don't know anybody who flys there. Tumut and Moruya also seem to be fairly popular, though they are a little further out.

ARDU is RAAF's Aircraft Research & Development Unit. http://www.defence.gov.au/RAAF/raafmuseum/research/units/ardu.htm

The thermocouple interface to the PIC went very well last night. It was about the first time i've managed to design what I thought the circuit should look like, build it, and have it work straight off. Got to be happy with that. The thermocouples connect to a quad op-amp, in this case a tl074, configured as a non-inverting amplifier with 100x gain. or in other words you hook the thermocouple to an input on the op amp, and two resistors (100k and 1k) between the other input, ouput and gnd. Each output of the op-amp will then be connected to an A/D (analog to digital converter) port on the pic. Next stage is to write the software to handle the conversion to degC, cold junction compensation (from the diode sensor) and display the output. Unfortunately i'll be very busy due to work for the next week or so and wont get a chance to do so.

well, if you go 2 or even 3 cameras mounted on the cockpit (as far apart as possible) you could do some triangulation and pinpoint where it was coming from. Kinda hard to get right, but http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~twd25/webcam_laser_ranger.html should give some hints on where to start. Unless the problem becomes more widely discussed I don't think this would get built. Expensive to mount 2 cameras and a chunky enough computer to do the processing - especially on an airliner.

You might find the forums here: http://www.lonesomebuzzards.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl useful, as they are mostly about mini-max (and other aircraft in that fleet) construction. also this build log might be handy: http://community-2.webtv.net/flydon/DonsMiniMaxSport/ and the homebuiltaircraft forums are a good resource too - they have a wood aircraft section which has some useful info: http://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/ Bob Hoover's blog also has some useful info, though his info tends to be more about experimental construction methods: http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/

Personally I'd follow the RA-Aus rules - after all, the plane is registered with them, and your flying under the conditions set by their rules.

Some progress over the weekend. The diode temp sensor is now working quite well, and I think is "close enough" to be useable for the thermocouple temp offset. The new 16F887 processor also worked very well, though I did need to upgrade my programmer sofware (from ic-prog to picpgm). The new software is much faster, as it only writes and verifies the data you actually use, instead of the full memory range. Certainly cuts down the time spent waiting for the chip to be programmed to a couple of seconds. The processor is pretty much compatible with the old 16f877a, so hopefully only minimal changes will be required if people don't want to use the new processor. Certainly the code i've written so far runs fine on both. From here I move on to the thermocouple to pic interface, which will be the therd last part of the project (the second being the power supply and final will be the circuit board and caseing). At this stage I'm looking at using a quad op-amp (tl074 - cost $2), with one portion of the op-amp in use per thermocouple. Each ouput will feed directly to a ADC port on the PIC microcontroller. Initial simulations last night looked promising, so I'll move on to tests tonight. Power supply should be fairly simple too, basically it'll just be a simple rectifier+capacitors+regulator and should run to about $5-10.

$160 is a pretty cheap price to pay when you consider all the services we get from the RA-AUS. Not the least service is keeping CASA the hell off our backs, and ensuring that future aviation rules leave us room to go flying. Cheap aviation is certainly still possible, it just comes down to choices. You can choose to operate under RA-Aus's rules and conditions, or you can choose another organisation, or you can choose to start your own organisation, or you can choose to be administered directly by CASA - thats hardly a dictatorship. Saving $160 on your memebership doesn't seem like a wise choice here, given the cost of the other choices. I think that as long as RA-AUS coninues to provide for the drifter, thruster, hummelbird, volksplane etc end of the market then we don't have an issue. Its up to us to ensure that our board members are aware that we expect them to keep membership cost down and keep the rules that enable us to fly such wonderful aircraft.

Actually I think that might have been the coporate air guys - I think they have their bbqs on fridays.. Ours was saturday, and you'd be most welcome next time - we normally hold them on the first saturday of the month. It was good to see everybody there, and have a look at Airsick's pipstrel (though I didn't realise it was airsick at the time..). Interesting aircraft that.