AVOCET

I

Series one. That's the antichrist model!

Oiling no 1 spark plug , think its a valve stem seal !

Your 2nd last paragraph should have come first. The rest of your sentiments are well on the money. Some owners of machinery are fit only to be escorted to the machine strapped in and instructed to touch nothing, then you take the keys away from them.

Mentality that was coined to sell more aircraft , worked well for sales but introduced a class of pilot that in some cases dont have the "ear" to pick up on subtle changes in engine performance ect.

I lent my series 1 landrover to some one who took off with the choke left on and proceeded to drive away , needless to say when i caught up with him did not notice it was running rough , even though the day before drove it around

With the engine running great .

Mike

Me too, I learnt to drive a Willies jeep on our farm when I was about 9 or 10.

Couple of paddock boms that they leave here on the property .

This year theres been long grass growing on the airstrip , so i let them go and try to " cut the grass " ,

Well they had a ball doing donuts and power slides ,

Didnt do any damage to the strip , did the job of keeping the grass down though !

Better get it out of your system on the paddock than public roads

I learnt to drive like this as well .

Mike

Ditto

I'd not tackle anything major on a Jab OR a 912; though I've fully rebuilt many a car or light truck engine; there are too many subtle little tricks and special tools involved.

Mike

Thanks Mike,It does make a lot of sense to do a complete strip down and I had intended to do that with the airframe. Does a strip down of the motor essentially mean a rebuild irrespective of engine wear condition.

In other words......can an inspection of all engine parts determine the approx life left in a motor and be used as a base for starting a new maintenance log?

and i would imagine an internal inspection will reveal any nasties , and if all seems ok the engine , i guess ( not sure of the regs )

can be flown on condition .

Mike

I like the look of those winglets too. And I reckon its a good idea to make them easy to adjust. On a glider I know ( an ASW27) the winglets plug-in vertically to the wingtip, and you can see a joggle where they adjusted the winglet toe-out by a few degrees.Now you guys have got me wondering about winglets on my SK. 4 knots would sure be a worthwhile increase, Maj is right about that.

But my understanding was that winglets improved the low-speed handling at the expense of high-speed performance. This is true I think with gliders, where the term"cross-over speed" has been used to describe the speed at which winglets begin to detract from the performance.

 

Now a Jabiru wing sure differs from a glider wing, and maybe the cross-over speed is above the cruise speed... How would an ordinary person determine this? I guess you can only do your best with the design, especially that toe-out angle, then put them on and see if you like them.

 

... Bruce

Joelle lost her vioce on friday ,

I mentioned it was unusually quiet this weekend , then she pointed out the tv wasnt on .

Any way , when the 3d printers up and running , i plan to experiment , as one does , with wing shapes and different tip sections ,

I havnt noticed any decrease in cruise , if anything its seems to get to 95 knt at lower revs , still early days yet and i still haven't wound the Avocet out ,

I went to go for a fly yesterday , after replacing a couple of coolant lines ,

Taxied out and green coolant ran off the turret and through the door-seal on to my shoulder .

I figured that it was some residue spillidge , which is was ,( after taxiing back to the hanger )

To windy again to day ,

Cheers Mike .

I must have missed an episode ,

Who's bagin the PIC ?

Emotional rant after loosing a close friend ,

Flight testing is dangerous .

Mike

The weathers been gusty here in SA yesterday , not to bad today ,

Vic . Would have that today looking at the weather map ,

I Chose not to fly yesterday and go to the Clare

Valey airstrip opening .

30 knt headwind , no thanks .

It really is to easy to loose it on the landing roll in gusty conditions , more so in a tail dragger i would think ,

Glad the pilots ok , planes can be fixed .

Mike

Sounds like a nice buy , you'll have to have a good inspection by someone who is familiar with type , l2 or lame .

Once everythings up to scratch and signed off rego forms can be downloaded of raa web site .

You'll have to raise a mew maintanance log .

Getting the right bolts is critical for safe flight , if as you say its been through a couple of hands without being flown it might have had bolts replaced just to look good for the sale .

If it were mine i would do a complete strip every thing inc. the engine . In essence , it would be similar to a rebuild and or zero hr starting again

Some one out there must have a manual you could copy ?

Good luck .

Mike .

The left and right hand winglets arnt exactly mirror image , sculpting plugs by eye and a blunt sharpie pen.

When the 3 d printers up and running i plan to experiment with a few winglet shapes.

notice ive made these winglets removable .

Its amazing the difference in slow speed aileron control , which if you remember was a contributing factor in my prang .

Mike

Ill wait for the space elevator .

Sad but true. Owners can't give them away:(

Definably a buyersmarket ,

Theres a few around these parts that just sit in the hanger as pilots are to scared to fly or to broke to have the mods done .

And not flying them doesn't help the engine .

It

Maj, Yes a Jab problem, if the ailerons are reflexes there is more movement in one than the other, if you place aileron in neutral level position or down there is little play in cable, put the aileron in up position and there is play in the cable due to angle, so if one is level and other up the up one will vibrate due to play in cable.Avocet, how far did you adjust them up and find vibration ?

Ive found that the ailerons feel firmer if there set slightly down , a mm or 2 .

Not reflexed .

What i have found is that winglets on the j250 wing has given me 4/5 knts increase .

Im running glycol 50/50 water in LCH in a 3300 Coolant temp 102 to 120.

Head temp , seperate sensors , 90/100 c.

Oil temp 90/110 , the oil temp thermostat warms the oil on a cold day to 80 deg .

Takes 10 mins to warm to 50 c

Radiator is aluminium ,

Davies craig water pump 80 lts min ,

( over kill at 7 amp draw )

Realy only needs about 40 lts min ,

Carnt seem to sorce a smaller one,

But did you get any rain, Mike?It looks like we are heading into a real dry spell here.

 

Kaz

However most of ran down my arm ( cold ) while trying , to reattach the pipes ,

Its dry here to , big fire risk with dry lightning strikes .

Mike

Loo

Haven't had a chance to get back to the one we are making at work....looks like we are changing from the belt drive to ball screws on X & Y. The belts work ok but the tensioning is a pain over the distance of each axis. This one is 750mm cubed

 

 

 

 

 

[ATTACH=full]32686[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]32687[/ATTACH]

Bit of bad luck.Got your 3d printer working yet?

Nics also building one thats One metre cubed . The plan is to build the prototype and get crowed sourcing to fund first batch of orders .

No photos yet , he wont even let the dog into his new office !

Cheers mike

Was going to fly down to the opening of the Clare valley strip YCVA TODAY , 110 nm from our place ,but awoke to a blustery 30knt wind and low cloud .

Just wondering how it went ?

Last night :

Big storm with huge gust front !

A tree fell in the back yard and took out the above ground gutter pipes to our water tanks , looks like a buisy Sunday.

Mike

We tried reflex on jabs years ago .

What i noticed when the ailerons were reflexed was that in turbulence it would make the control colum shudder with gusts , pretty obvious what was going on . Jabs have a bit of slack in the comtrol cables ( push pull )

Seems to be one set back after another .

Lots of ticket holders hoping they dont die of old age before their turn .

Mike

This just accross the news 24

Co pilot killed in V/ G accident .

Thats all i know ,

Bad luck to the program and condolances to pilot and family ,

Mike

I

I too have recently developed a slow fuel leak in right wing. I have not started any physical investigation yet, was wondering if anyone else experienced same. An interesting note, 12 months ago switched from Avgas to Mogas, no ethanol. Any comments or suggestions appreciated.

Or is it a strong fume smell ,?

Most flexible fuel line seep the aromatics in the premium 95/98

Its worse in hot weather , as weve just had temp drop of 36 down to 20 today .

I was beginning to worry as i thourght i had a fuel leek as well .

Im currently looking at options to replace fuel lines , i think the race car scene uses teflon fuel lines .

The ethanol proof lines "plastisize "

when exposed to toluene .

Cheers Mike

Hi , nice posting name . Are you a modle maker ?

Welcome , regards mike.

This forum is the only social contact i have ,aviation wise on a regular basis .

Its been a valuble resorce on the avocet project , and has for me been better value than a Shrinks 2 bobs worth !

I think this site is.....

( stuffed up ) ( i phone).

unique in the forum world ,and not so buisy that its hard to keep up with , more options ? I guesse some need more , im hapy just to plod away on the i phone .

Mike