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It is often difficult to get a good contact between aluminium and other metals because of the oxide film on the ally. It is almost impossible to get a contact with aluminium if it has been anodised. David

If you read Brent's post, Para 6c says that you have to be in the process of either taking off or landing. If you are doing a beat up, neither applies, so you are only legal if you have the permission of the owner. David

The earth connection to the regulator should also be included in the heavy wiring. If the earth to the regulator is poor, the regulator will not function correctly. David

I had a similar problem a few years ago with the voltage regulator on a 503 powered Gemini. The battery case was transparent and you could see that the cell at each end was kaput. It was receiving raw AC from the alternator. David

If you have an indicated stall speed of 53 knots, one would expect that either you have a very heavy aircraft or an erroneously reading ASI. I would suggest that you check both for a start. P.S. Don't take any of the personal comments on this page too seriously, some us tend to have a rather warped sense of humour at times, and no malice is ever intended. David

Amateur radio is probaby the most viable way to go as there is already a fairly well advanced system in place. Because of the introduction of a Foundation Amateur Radio Licence it is not very hard to get an Amateur radio Licence. Go to http://www.wia.org.au/ for details David

Get in touch with Daryl Hooke at [email protected] and have a look at http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/near.cgi?call=VK3AWA. David

Seeing as how the Sapphire is a taildragger, you would probably be better off learning in a taildragger as well. What you pick probably is governed by what is locally available. The sapphire is a fairly slippery beast so you will need to have a reasonably long strip, much longer than a Drifter or Thruster requires. David

Sounds like it might benefit from fitting some Vortex generators to the top of the wings to get the stall speed down to some more manageable level. Mosy small aeroplanes seem to suffer from high sink rates well before the onset of a stall. David

If you switch to the CTAF (or whatever it is currently called) frequency at 10 miles and give an inbound call and then listen, you should have a pretty good idea of what is going on by the time you get to the circuit. If there are other aircraft in the circuit, you can always ask what they believe is the active runway if the wind is light and/or variable. With regard to the language problem, it pays to give those airports (such as Tocumwal) a wide berth if you are going past. David

I believe that you can extract that sort of information from the RaAus data base. David

Good luck Andrew, David

Your best bet is a discone antenna. Try www.benelec.com.au/pdf/02675.pdf David

Just make sure that you check the octane rating of the fuel required and run it accordingly. Also make sure that it is one of the latest versions of the HK700, the early ones were a bit sus. David

An elderly Darwin man had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back. It was properly shaped for swimming, so he fixed it up nice - picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and looks it over. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end. One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!" The old man frowned, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked." Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the crocodile." Some old men can still think fast David

It would be funny if ATC wouldn't let them land because they didn't have the right clearance. I wish. David

A Citation might have trouble forcing an Airship down. David:clown:

Gee they don't make them like they used to. These modern Thruster pilots are getting spoilt with all these doors and closed in cockpits. David

Tom is the bloke who runs Cobra Aviation 0397206966. David

There are a couple of traps that some people fall into with the cooling of the Subaru. There is a small pipe which comes from the centre of the top of the engine which must be connected into the plumbing somewhere ahead of the thermostat and the pipe which goes to the heater should also be connected and not blanked off. If the little bleed pipe is not connected, the block will fill up with air and the water left in there will boil. Tom Wickers in Bayswater, a suburb of Eastern Melbourne seems to have all the clues about Subarus. David

I understood that in a democracy you have a right to dissent, so who is going to be the one to exercise that right and challenge the "no fly" zone. I live too far away. David

Hi Jim, Others might have different opinions, but I would think the Subaru and Corvair engines are too heavy for a Karatoo, even if they are cheaper than a Rotax912. Nice airoplane though. Good luck with the building. David

Methusela, you obviously know more about VW engines than the average Joe. I don't know what revs my friend was getting or what fuel consumption. I suspect that his major problem was one of gross weight more than anything else. He was a retired Judge, so probably not that mechanically adept. I met a bloke over in England a few years ago, can't remember his name, might have been Mike Smith. He was one of the heads in the PFA. He had a nice little single seater aerobatic aeroplane with a symmetrical wing that had a fuel injected VW that went pretty well. There were a couple of blokes at Narromine two years ago that had a VW with a 2 to 1 gearbox. I haven't seen anyone using that version. I know it was supposed to rev to 4000. The formula V racing cars seem to be able to extract a bit of grunt without destroying them. I would think that longevity depends much on adequate lubrication and cooling as well as getting the mixture right. A lot of flyers seem to have a fixation about getting fuel consumption down by leaning the mixture too much, but what they save in fuel is made up for in mechanical repairs. I wonder if you have tried piezo injectors, like they use in the modern diesels. I drive a 400000 Km VB Commodore, that's about where my hands on experience is at. My wife's 2 litre Lancer goes to the servo when it needs anything. I will be interested to see how the Karatoo goes. David

I have a friend in the States who flys a Zenair CH701, quite an old one. In the beginning he has a VW derivative, I forget which one, but he has plenty of money so it was undoubtedly a good one. His plane had all the goodies imaginable so was quite heavy and he never got to fly it two up. Incidentally, he also played around with all sorts of propellors of various diameters. The problem seems to be that the cowl is just a tad too big so that if you have a small prop, the engine develops the revs, but the prop is inefficient. If you have a larger prop, the engine doesn't develop the power even though the prop is more efficient. One day he ran into a heap of rubble when he landed short so he took the VW out. His ultimate aim was to put in a Subaru, but while it was getting prepared, he put in a Rotax 503. Because it was a fair bit lighter than the VW, he had to put about 8 pounds of lead in the front to preserve the C of G. Guess what? The aircraft flew much better with the 503 than it did with the VW. Not quite end of story. At about this time last year I had a chance to fly a Subaru powered Zenair CH701, similar to mine. Because it was so heavy it didn't want to lift off until I got to over 50 knots. Mine with a 80 hp 912UL can lift off at just over 35 knots in the same configuration. I don't know how my friend's '701 performs with the Soob, but I suspect its pretty ordinary. Most of the VW figures I have seen quote fuel consumptions of around 12 litres per hour. This equates to around 40 HP which might be OK for Corby Starlets, but is probably a bit on the light side for a Karatoo. I supect that a Jabiru engine would also have the same problem as a VW in front of a cowl the size of a Karatoo, whereas the 912 has a gearbox, so you can put a decent size prop in front to it. I had a good look at the Karatoo about 15 years ago, but at that time, there were no suitable 4 stroke engines available. Nice aeroplane though. Andy Shea down at Yarram has a Karaone. First flight was with a half VW. Not good, rate of climb very slow, looked for gap in hedge about half mile upwind. Now has 1600 Jabiru, much better. Happy flying, David

If your aircraft has a 25 rego, you may need to get another prop signed off by a reg35 Engineer. You had better ask Techman for the right answer. If the prop only does 5100 flat out, it probably has a bit too coarse pitch. OK for cruise perhaps but not so good for climb. Theoretically, a 2 blade prop will be slightly more efficient, but the lower frequency vibration of the air against the windscreen is a bit more irksome. David