Runway

As an update, neither Ralph, the co-owner, nor the plane have been located. Police suspended the search yesterday and will re-access the situation next week. It is possible neither will be found, although I believe a group of local divers are keen to resume a search should the official search not succeed. Without finding the wreckage, I guess finding a cause is unlikely. We can only dismiss some causes, such as power failure etc. The plane was meticulously built. Also, recovery from stall was not a problem (and apparently it hit the water nose down). Ralph was an experienced pilot and Graham White (who was conduction a BFR at the time), was an extremely experienced instructor. I last flew the plane three days before the accident (with Ralph in the right hand seat), and we both commented on how well it flew. Both Ralph and Graham were great blokes. I have known Graham for about 5 years, and I was best mates with Ralph for nearly 40 years (when as a young uni student, I bought my first Ducati from him). A funeral will be held for Graham next Friday (18th) in Wollongong. Enjoy your flying guys, because I hope to continue to do so in the near future, but just not in our own plane. Jeff

Yep, got a bike and a plane. My first bike at 17, and started flying in my mid 20's (so a few years ago now). I have always found that it seems a majority of pilots either do, or used to have a bike. I've also noticed when browsing web sites of people building a plane (mostly US), there is usually a bike or something associated with bikes in the background of pictures. Maybe we just like to bank things into a turn.

Hi Gareth We used Aveo "Powerburst" wing tip lights (3 in 1). The whole kit was a little under $400. I was watching our plane on the ground from the other side of the field yesterday, and even though it was very sunny, they looked quite bright. Cheers Jeff

Well, we've fitted a Bolly since that pic was taken, which is black, and looks quite good.

................ and successfully lands back on the ground too! Our Sierra, which we have been working on for around two years, finally took to the sky today. We were going to test fly it ourselves, but after our main instructor at Moruya offered to do it, we decided that wasn't such a bad idea. After some high speed taxi trials, a few lift-off, fly 100 metres and land, a slight adjustment to the stabilator, he did one quick circuit. The only problem was the stick had limited right travel because it was hitting his leg. Otherwise, he said it felt great to fly. We will rectify the stick, and off we go again. This may not be until after xmas however. We have been plagued by a series of delays on this project for several months now (eg, Jab had an engine recall on a batch of engines), so a little more time won't matter. Here are a couple of photos. We still plan to add some sort of red stripe/s to the side of the fuselage and tail. At the moment with just the red winglets, it looks a a bit like a certain airline fleet, and we briefly considered painting a upturned road kill wombat on the tail just to set it apart. Jeff

Thanks for sharing this John, great stuff. I went to quite a few of these areas last year on a two month motorbike trip around western US/Canada, and loved it. It's good to see it from a flying perspective. I've come across some of your other stories of flying within Australia, and love them too. Cheers Jeff

Hi Gareth The plane is looking good. Was there a reason for going for metal wing tanks over Garry's fiberglass tanks, and did you make them? Also, did you have trouble routing the aileron cables around the tanks? We did, but perhaps your cable was longer. Jeff

Hi Dave. We're installing the same engine, so this useful to know. I guessed you cruised at around 100kts, and was wondering if your revs were near the range were the engine starts to run a bit warm, but at 2500 you were above that. Cheers Jeff

Your fuel consumption is impressive Dave. What engine do you have, and what speed did you cruise on to get 15lt/hr? Jeff

Yes John, the EFIS can be set up to have 9 pre-programed screen options, which can all be custom made to what you want. The engine management displays can be designed into these, and individually configured, eg, various options for tacho placement, size, analog/digital display etc, and different for each screen if desired. The various screens are selected using the buttons on the right. As noted, we used the original centre fibreglass piece, but modified it to suit the different panel. Jeff

I think I can finally upload a photo of the panel for our Sierra. When the front top deck is on, the panel sits a few inches under its cover. Jeff

Even though the large EFIS screen allows both nav and engine data to be shown, two smaller screens could be a good option too, which as you say, gives you a back-up. I have seen a few cases in Flight Safety where a 737s etc have lost one of their screens. As for the long range tanks vs bladder, we have installed wing tank. Many people have asked what the range of the Sierra will be. My reply is generally "the plane's tanks will last a lot longer than mine". Likewise, we expect the main advantage for long range tanks will be when fuel is not readily available, or where it is too expensive (eg, like in your part of the country Aaron)

I have a problem with my firewall (on my computer that is, not the plane), but will post a photo of the panel when I sort it out. Jeff

I don’t know if you’re still wondering about a glass cockpit, but my mate and I recently installed one in our Sierra 100 we are building. It is the MGL Odyssey EFIS (http://www.lightflying.com.au/Stratomaster%20Pages/Odyssey.htm). We recently fired up the system, and although we have not properly set it up yet, it seems to work OK (it showed us were the shed we are building the plane is, and we were pleased to see that we were only subject to 1G). The only back-up instruments we have installed are an altimeter and ASI. It does all sorts of fancy things, such as linking with the radio etc. Learning how to operate it successfully may take a little time, but it seems fairly logical. We have the engine on order, so haven’t wired up the sensors yet. But what happens is that they go into a sender forward of the firewall, and then one cable goes back to the EFIS. With six CHT sensors, six EGT sensors etc, glad all those wires don’t need to go through the firewall. Apparently it can easily be linked to an auto pilot, which at this stage, we are not installing, but this may be a project for the future after we get the plane in the air. Because of the size of the EFIS panel (which has a 10.4” screen) we got Garry to supply a 2mm aluminum sheet for the instrument panel instead of the standard fiberglass panel. We then cut it to shape. I took a photo of the instrument panel today, but how do I insert it here? Cheers Jeff