Dieselten

The Wollongong Coroner has requested a report on the fire following Police investigations. With deep regret and profound sadness I have to advise that Paul Haines passed away on the morning of Friday 28th March 2008, peacefully, at his home in Stanwell Park. His funeral will be held at Parsons Funeral Home, Bulli, starting 12 noon on Monday 7th April. Afterwards a celebration of his life will be held at The Kiosk, Stanwell Park. Apologies for the late notice, I have been away for a fortnight and just got back.

Looks like the Icom A210 competes head-to-head with the Garmin SL40. I'll do a review of the SL40 as soon as I can go to Bundy and bring my J160C back!

Capital Aircraft Services at Albion Park Regional Airport, just south of Wollongong. Do they need to have the txpndr/encoder actually in the a/c to calibrate? If not, haul the units out, post them off and job's done.

No idea how well this intercom works, but I may be finding out quite soon. My J160C has a PM501 intercom and a SL40...and Jabiru don't know how to wire the two up so they work together! They've been test-flying it with a temporary radio. 80K worth of aeroplane, avionics supplied, and they still haven't got the radio interfaced with the intercom!? I'm throwing the whole mess back to the avionics supplier who sold me the SL40 , and the Garmin 327 txpndr. He can liaise with Jabiru about the pinouts on the PM501 and build a harness to connect my SL40 to the PM501. I only have to pay for it once...provided it works. The encoder and transponder connect with a cable which was supplied with the encoder. I'm not sure whether Jabiru have managed to fathom this out yet. The problem is my gear isn't Microair and Microair...for a very good reason. Basically, Jabiru want a wiring harness they can just plug in and it works. They know how to build these for Microair but nothing else. If my avionics supplier can't build it then maybe I'll see how good the SL40 intercom really is...and I'll be taking my soldering-iron up to Jabiru when I go to collect the little aeroplane. The SL40 is a good radio, and significantly more capable than the Icom A200 which it resembles in no small manner.

The J120 looks set to become the de rigueur training-school Jabiru, leaving the J160 as the touring Jabiru. Look for more good used LSA55s on the second-hand market soon!

Binford make compressors in Qld using Fu Sheng compressors (high-grade Taiwanese units, cast-iron with massive roller-bearings etc, Fu Sheng pumps are good units) and Aussie-made receivers, Fachiotti valves etc. I bought one of their V27P Honda-powered 17cfm (free air delivery) units for the workshop and it really works a treat. Their website is http://www.binford.com.au. The V27P is now discontinued, the website has current models. Pilot are another good brand with cast-iron compressor pumps. Cast-iron works better than aluminium for seriously compressing air, also the volume of the air-receiver is important. My compressor has a 100-litre receiver and works 3/4" drive air impact-wrenches nicely. I suggest getitng an electric powered unit that runs of a normal domestic 10-amp socket unless you have a 15-amp socket around, in which case a compressor running from a 15-amp outlet is a real gem. Binford and Pilot make both. Get a decent regulator/drier, and good quality hoses with high-volume fittings (Ryco or Nitto rather than JAMEC) so your tools can get all the air they need. In-line oilers for your tools are a good idea, I have my oilers a foot or so below the tool on a short hose with a swivelling quick-disconnect fitting (Nitto). If you don't use inline oilers, remember to put a few drops of oil into the air intake of your tools each day, and every couple of hours if you are using some tools continuously. Cheap compressors are a waste of time and money. They'll just deliver hot, wet air and wear out quickly.

Given the "right" conditions, even the humble Rotax 2-strokes (582 and 503), whether oil-injected or not, can suffer moderate to severe carburettor-icing. The oil-injected varieties suffer greater temperature depression on vapourisation/atomisation of the fuel in the carburettor throat than the pre-mix ones, but no carburetted engine is immune, especially if it lacks an efficient form of carb-heat. Rotax 2-strokes usually have none fitted, relying on a very short induction-tract for some measure of protection. Be assured this affords little or no real protection. To be effective, a carb-heater must raise the temperature of incoming air by 50 degrees C - which explains why using hot water from the radiator via a heat-exchanger somewhere in the induction-tract is inefficient for such a purpose. The incoming air must be rapidly heated by a considerable amount, and the only way to do this in most aircraft engine appplications is via direct convective and radiant transfer heating in a chamber fitted closely around the hot engine exhaust-pipe. Remember, this air must be raised by 50 degrees C prior to the carburettor, because it can lose 35 degrees or more as the fuel vapourises/atomises. If enough moisture is present and the fuel-air mixture drops significantly below dew-point, icing is almost a Don Chipp "rolled gold" certainty. With high levels of relative humidity, and a throttle setting for cruise power, I have recently experienced two occurrences of severe carby icing on a Rotax 582 oil-injected engine whilst flying in coastal air. Random variations of 600RPM, poor or non-existent response to varying thrtottle settings, and the feeling of the engine "surging" or "choking" were the symptoms. Maintaining altitude was problematical, but the aircraft was safely brought back to the airfield and the symptoms vanished as the warmer air of lower levels was encountered during descent for the circuit. Thorough checks of the carburettor needles, jets, floats, fuel-pump and fuel-filter disclosed no anomalies or technical maladjustments to which the symptoms Another possibility, cracking in the carburettor-sockets between the output side of the carby and the intake side of the engine, disclosed no cracking, and the intermittent nature of the loss of power seemed to rule out variations in fuel-air mixture from that cause in any event. EGTs remained normal during this behaviour. So by process of elimination, it would appear that carburettor-icing was the cause, and the lesson is salutary. If flying in very moist air, expect icing in any carburetted engine. If you have an engine fitted with an effective carburettor-heat system, be prepared to use it during cruise, but not during high power flight such as during takeoff or climb as it can cause detonation and engine-damage. If, on the other hand, you fly a Rotax 2-stroke which is devoid of any form of carby heat, be prepared to deal with carburettor icing by avoiding cruising at altitudes where the temperature and moisture content make the engine predisposed to carby-icing or, regularly vary the throttle setting to shear off any ice that is forming or, climb above the level of condensing cloud where the moisture content is significantly lower which may greatly reduce the chance of ice forming in the first place. The problems described relating to the 503 engine in the first post would therefore appear to be carburettor-ice related. The chart on carby-ice formation is much appreciated and very useful.

98 Octane unleaded solely. It has more megajoules per unit of mass (pound, kilo, tonne etc) than other fuels and I have had no issues at all. Shell V-Power, BP Ultimate (preferred) or Vortex 98 are all good. They contain no ethanol or methanol, or MTBE or ETBE for that matter (i. e. methyl tertiary butyl ether or ethyl tertiary butyl ether, also used to bump octane-ratings). Remember, we really should be buying fuel in units of mass instead of volume because the density of fuel varies with temperature whereas one unit of mass of a given fuel contains a fixed number of megajoules and it is megajoules which propel us via combustion-energy imparting a rotary motion to propellers. DO NOT USE 100-octane unleaded, or any unleaded with an octane-rating below 95! The additional octane rating is achieved by the addition of alcohol. Ethanol and methanol are not good for your 582. Lower octane fuels are now being adulterated with ethanol or methanol as well. When in doubt, test the fuel with a fuel-alcohol tester available at pilot-shops or motor-mower stores (a Briggs & Stratton fuel-tester from a motor-mower shop costs about $50 and will last forever with care) Look carefully at the fuel-bowser when you buy fuel! Any fuel containing alcohol must be marked on the bowser by law. Read the fine print...the fuel companies don't want you to know what you are putting in your tank. AVGAS 100LL is also not recommended for the 582. It will work but you will get accelerated upper-cylinder wear and rapid lead-fouling of your spark-plugs. 98-octane unleaded exclusively is the best 582 fuel in my experience.

Re the ASI indicated speed thing: the ASI in a trike should have a proper static and dynamic air connection, and on most trikes there is absolutely no static port or plumbing from it to the instrument except the actual static-port input-hole on the back of the instrument itself, which reads pod air-pressure behind the panel. This is not necessarily static air pressure at all, and the dynamic pressure sampled by the port in the nose of the Edge-X pod isn't necessarily the correct dynamic pressure either. It is sampling air from the relatively stangant boundary layer at the nose instead of the moving air a few feet ahead of the aircraft before it is disturbed by aircraft structure. Correct static and dynamic air pressures are measured with an air-data boom, which is usually situated several feet in front of the rest of the aircraft, and able to adjust itself to the angle-of-attack so as to correctly sample the air without errors induced by asymmetrical flow at the pickup-points. Trikes don't have such sophistication, so regard any changes in airspeed on your ASI after adding a windscreen different to that you were using previously with a good deal of suspicion. The best place to read dynamic and static air pressure on your trike is about 20 feet in front of the nose of the pod. However, a 20-foot long pitot-static probe presents certain problems on the ground during rigging and de-rigging, as well as general ground-handling exercises. People tend to trip over it or bend it. In an ideal world, we'd have a calibration chart for our trike ASI, compensated for "position-error". However, we fly trikes in a far from ideal world, and thus we should be thankful for what we have and that it works reasonably well at the relatively low level of sophistication necessary to keep price and complexity down to a level which is acceptable to the marketplace. I'd also bet your Wizard is still actually cruising at 38-40Kts, irrespective of what your ASI reads.

Poor Airmanship isn't just confined to one particular airport, it's everywhere,and occasionally its practitioners insist on demonstrating their lack of skill to a wider audience. A few weeks ago at YWOL I was on short final in the microlight, with a C182 on final, behind and higher than I was. In short, I was the low aircraft and conventional wisdom says I have right of way; he should give way to me. I was therefore somewhat taken aback when the pilot of the C182 radioed to me to go around immediately. Not wishing to be cleaned up by an aicraft weighing perhaps four times my weight and doing at least twice my speed, I abandoned my short final, initiated a climb and proceeded to the dead side to give him a clear runway. As he landed I observed to my student that sometimes it is wisest to allow the bigger, heavier aircraft to have first crack at the runway, especially when they are flown by pilots with little understanding of the performance characteristics of lighter machines. I also pointed out that the pilot concerned had just demonstrated his lack of airmanship to several other aircraft in the circuit at the time, at least one of which had a GA instructor in it. Perhaps that instructor took the C182 pilot aside for a few carefully-chosen words afterwards, perhaps not. I haven't followed it up because I am not a GA instructor and furthermore I have no desire to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man! The main thing is I did all I could to avoid becoming a statistic. In theory I could have insisted on my right of way, but I'd rather be alive and getting a bollicking from someone because I refused to stand up for my rights than insist on my right of way and end up being stone-cold, motherless, dead.

If you can get a copy, a recent edition of the HGFA/GFA magazine "Soaring Australia" had an article called (I think) "The Good Oil" which covered this subject. I can't recall which month it was but doubtless someone else will know.

Lux flakes dissolved in a bucket of warmish water, and a hose with a soft-bristle broom. Terrific for wings and softsides. For seats use carpet-cleaner or upholstery cleaner in aerosol packs. For the fibreglass pod, spats use any good automotive wash but if at all possible avoid anything with silicone in it because it does make composite surfaces very difficult to repair. Polish with Kitten No. 1 Car Polish (what the factory use). For degreasing engines etc, try a 50:50 emulsified mixture of Handy Andy and Kerosene. World's cheapest degreaser and you can buy both at the nearest supermarket (pour equal measures of both, add one to the other, shake well and ready for use). Apply with stiff-bristle brush, work vigorously, then hose off. Be sure to get it all off any Aluminium because the Handy Andy has a mild caustic salt which can cause corrosion on Aluminium if left for a long period of time.

blueshed, "Dieselten" is the nickname (affectionately) given to the DC-10 in all its various series. An airframe chiselled out of solid granite, it went where it was pointed and was a real pilot's airplane, and the CF6 was the most tractable of all the hy-bypass turbofan engines too. Anecdotally, you could slam the power-levers from flight-idle to TOGA and back again and the CF6 wouldn't so much as hiccup, let alone suffer a compressor-stall or something even nastier. Douglas and GE got it right. Talk to the (now ageing) crews that drove it and they'll get misty eyed about the old girl, like the guys who drove the 727s and Diesel Nines do. They just don't make 'em like those good old hulls any more. I'm sorry I only ever pax'd in 'em.

browng is right on the money! "Metal in the air" is what it's all about. All the factors he lists are critically important and that's why the now ancient Lycoming and Continental horizontally-opposed engines are the winners. Bear in mind an aero engine is designed to produce continuous high output power for a specific number of hours, driving the load (propeller) directly off the end of the crankshaft (although geared engines have had some notable sucess, e.g. the Merlin and Griffon) and to be as light as possible to achieve the highest power-to-weight ratio consistent with reliability and longevity. I do not resile from anything in my previous post. When it comes to masses of metal turning propellers and flying through the air, the old designs are still the best designs for this specific task. This may be an unpalatable truth in this day of computer-controlled automotive engines with phenomenal reliability producing varying levels of output power and driving through gearboxes and torque-converters, but in an aircraft the application is totally different. Trying to compare an automotive engine to an aero engine is like ploughing the sea, or nailing jelly to a tree - an exercise in futility.

I have a feeling it is a pretty safe bet this engine will not find much application in aviation. The depressing truth is that no radically new engine has ever made any significant inroads into mainstream aviation, in spite of a plethora of innovative and clever designs. Notable failures are:- the Wankel Rotary engine,the Sarich Orbital Engine, most double-action diesel engines (except the Junkers 205) and the Dynacam engine. For the foreseeable future small aircraft will continue to be powered by horizontally-opposed, air/fuel/oil cooled engines of the reciprocating type, larger aircraft will continue to be powered by turbo-prop or gas-turbine engines and the great majority of those gas-turbine engines will be medium to high-bypass turbofan engines, even on very small executive jets. About the only glimmer of innovation on the horizon is the use of compression-ignition engines using jet fuel. We are still waiting for these to become accepted, although Thielert in particular appear to be making some progress. As for the SMA, DAIR, Wilksch and Zoche aero-diesels...well, we are still waiting! Zoche in particular appear to be little more than a long-running practical joke, and one in rather poor taste at that. No production engines and well after a decade of design and development work! One of the better examples of a "vapourware" engine! It is very hard to work up any enthusiasm for radically different engine designs when the road to Hell is paved with failed examples stretching as far as the eye can see. Trying to buck the corporate muscle of Pratt & Whitney, GE, Rolls-Royce, SNECMA, Textron-Lycoming and Teledyne-Continental is a pastime with little to show and less to recommend it. We are not going to see any really innovative engines in aviation whilst our fundamental orifices point towards the centre-of-mass of this - or any other - planet! We'd just better get used to it.

I'd just ask them straight up and see what they say. Believe it nor not, the manufacturer of the engine usually does know a lot about it, and if there is a problem then Jabiru will be right on it. After all, they have their corporate future hanging on the success of their engines just as much as their airframes, so they will be investigating the issue most thoroughly. I'd also ask for any advice about torque values for engine bolts throughout the installation. Sometimes manufacturers change torque values after in-service experience shows that such a change is justified and advantageous to the engine/aircraft operator.

There is no tracking adjustment possible on the Brolga props as the blades are held in by pitch-blocks which establish tracking and pitch simultaneously. No mention of shimming pitch-blocks in the hub for tracking adjustment is made in the manufacturer's documentation, therefore it is not necessary. The blade-bolts are to be torqued to 120 inch-pounds, the bolts securing the propeller-hub to the engine pro-flange are to be torqued to 168 inch-pounds (14 ft-pounds). My documentation of the prop (Assembly & Care Of Your Brolga Propeller) makes no mention at all of any tracking tolerances or adjustments of any kind. Most maintenance required is filling in the dings in the leading edge in the last foot or so towards the tips caused by stones, gravel etc hitting the prop. This is especially so in trikes where the low-point of the prop-disc is quite close to the ground. A badly-dinged propeller runs out of balance and feels "rough" when you fly it. To repair a ding, the affected area is first cleaned with a good solvent such as MEK or isopropyl alcohol and allowed to dry. Then high-strength Araldite (NOT the 5-min stuff) is mixed and a small amount applied to the dinged area. Immediately place adhesive-tape over this to make the epoxy resin conform to the propeller profile and leave for 24 hours. Remove the adhesive tape and carefully dress the repair if required. Brolga recommend high-strength Araldite for repairs. The alternative, bicarbonate of soda wetted with Superglue (which cures in seconds to form a very hard and strong material) is something I haven't tried, but might be useful for a speedy repair if you haven't got 24 hours to wait for full bond-strength to be obtained with Araldite. This trick with bicarb and Superglue is also very useful on dinged wooden props because the material has a density close to that of the sort of wood used for props and it adheres to wood very well. About the only other thing I have had to do is clean off the two-stroke oil from each blade where it sweeps past the trike exhaust, and re-paint the yellow tips. When doing this, I find a base-coat of brilliant white first helps the yellow to really shine through. Brolga state the prop has no definite life, and I have done 1100 hours on one which is still emiently serviceable. They recommend re-torquing blade-bolts and hub-bolts every 20 hours. When re-torquing, loosen the nuts first and bring them back up to the rated torque slowly and evenly, then double-check each nut again. Every 200 hours dismantle the propeller and inspect the blades, pitch-blocks hub-halves and steel hub reinforcement plate for cracks and obvious damage such as delamination or elongation of the holes. Any prop-strike is cause for a complete disassembly and inspection and replacement of any components displaying stress-fractures of cracking of any kind. Also, surface corrosion on any prop-bolts or nuts is cause for immediate replacement of the hardware affected. Every 1000 hours the entire set of hub and blade bolts is to be replaced. The Brolga is a very durable propeller and will last one heck of a long time with proper maintenance and care. FWIW, the only Brolga prop-blade I ever saw delaminated was on a prop that suffered contact with the runway whilst under power. The blade(s) were decommissioned, and I think the entire prop was replaced. Hope this helps.

Craftics Plasti-Polish is an excellent product but you may have to search for it on the net and buy via the net. Also, Meguiars make some very good plastic cleaning/polishing compounds. I use their no 17 plastic polish on Lexan helmet-visors and it is very good although in my experience any deep scratch in Lexan is there for good.

The engines that are most reliable and make TBO time are the engines that work hard and run often. 2-stroke or 4-stroke, this seems to hold true. A 582 that does more than 5 hours a week will likely go 800 hours before you tear it down and rebuild it. A hard-worked Jabiru 2200 will easily make the 1200 hours for the top-end overhaul. A 503 that runs regularly will see about the same service as the 582 before a rebuild. Engines that run often are getting oil through them all the time, and oil is the life-blood of your engine. Oils helps keep crankshaft seals lubricated and plaible, porevents areas of corrosion forming and above all, regular use prevents bacterial buildup which causes corrosion on bearing surfaces etc due to waste products from microbial activity. Engines that are run only a few times a year are the ones that corrode and fail prematurely, simply because when they don't run they aren't getting any oil through them at all, and oil-films break down over time. Avgas is a good fuel; very uniform, very repeatable and of consistently high quality. The problem is it has tetraethyl lead in it and this causes plugs to foul rapidly in 2-strokes as well as accelerating upper-cylinder wear. In Jabiru engines Avgas is the way to go, as it is for Lycomings and Continentals. But for Rotax 2-strokes 98-Octane Mogas is my preferred fuel, being very clean-burning and energy-efficient as well as readlily available. I have the first set of pistons and crankshaft from my 582 and I use these as training aids for students who wonder whats inside the "blue-Top" 582. Running on 98-OCtane mogas, there is hardly any carbon at all on the piston-crowns, and in fact certain areas of the crown are bare aluminium. This is "as-removed", with no cleaning for effect. I used Penrite TS40C exclusively in my 582...a very good oil but now discontinued. There are quite a few 2-stroke oils that are suitable for the Rotax 2-strokes. Choose one and stick with it. The right oil for your engine is critical! If your engine runs more than 6-8 hours a week, then by all means use synthetics. Regular use will boil off any absorbed moisture in your oil, and the lubrication properties of synthetics are very high, far superior to mineral oils. However, if your engine does fewer than 5 hours a week, stick to standard mineral oils which don't absorb moisture. Just use a good oil and make sure it is rated for your engine, be it 2-stroke of 4-stroke. Believe it or not, but the engine manufacturer actually does know best what works in his engine! For example if Jabiru say to use a non-compounded oil for the running-in period, then change to a compounded aircraft engine oil when the engine is fully run-in, believe them! They tear down enough engines to see what happens when someone decides he knows more about engines that the manufacturer and uses an oil that is unsuitable. Engines need to run! If you are unable to fly for any extended period, a regime of regular ground-running to heat up the engine and circulate the oil won't do any harm. Remember, oil sitting in the sump isn't lubricating anything, nor is oil sitting dissolved in fuel in the fuel tank. To lubricate, the oil needs to be circulating around in a running engine, irrespective of how it actually gets there! Engines, like most other mechanical things, as only as reliable as the way they are run and the maintenance they receive. Another point to remember is your engine is a consumable device. It has a finite lifetime, is designed to work and work hard for that rated time, and in fact needs to work hard to obtain best performance and longevity in service. When its time has come, it is overhauled and the clock begins again. No engine is designed or built to last forever, but with due care most engines can be made to last to their TBO time, by which time they owe you very little.

I'll add my vote for John Reynoldson's Ultranav, and it's well worth becoming a registered user for the ERSA updates. I send a payment for the updates because a good product deserves support. It's straightforward, works well and you can have several different aircraft performance data sets with which to plan. Being the cautious type I also check the output against a calculator/chart just to be sure. I also like the ability to add user-defined waypoints to some of the databases.

Air-cooling a trike engine is a nightmare, and the only air-cooled engine that ever worked was the Rotax 503, which had fan-forced air-cooling. The problem is the airflow around any trike engine is chaotic after the air molecules have buffetted their way past the front of the pod, at least one occupant and then over, around or under an engine and into a propeller which is operating in some fairly disturbed air to begin with - hardly conducive to propeller efficiency. BTW, attempts to free-air cool the 503 usually result in a seized engine. The Rotax factory forced-cooling via the fan and the cowling on the cylinder-heads actually works better than anything anybody else has come up with. The moral of this is "if you are going to re-invent the wheel, be sure you know what colour it has to be before starting work". The 582 works on trikes because it is liquid-cooled, and once the single radiator was replaced by the twin radiator the cooling in Australian summer heat was much improved. The 912 also works because the troublesome cylinder-head area (where the exhaust valve is located) is liquid-cooled whilst the cylinder barrel is air-cooled. Once again, a decent radiator is required for cooling the fluid coolant (now Evans NPG+ instead of water and the usual ethylene glycol-based additive). Heat is rapidly conducted away from the head by the coolant, and the airflow around the barrels is sufficient, even without a plenum-chamber or ducts, to cool the cylinders. The HKS will have siginificant cooling issues, as will the Jabiru engine, and the Verner, if it comes to that. Any free-air cooled engine will have issues, and they will be very difficult to completely overcome. Trikes are inherently prone to engine cooling issues by virtue of where the engine has to be located. I think the trike manufacturers have shown us where the future of trikes lies; the Rotax 912, a well-matched propeller, and a well-designed base and wing. Ten years from now, that's where all trikes will be. Heavier (slightly), considerably more expensive, and with performance to dream of...and then someone will dig up some old plans and build a 95.10 trike and the whole evolutionary cycle will probably repeat itself. It is quite possible the next generation of trike pilots will yet again re-invent the wheel - and have the usual furious argument over what colour it should be.

Heights quoted in metres...Boeing got this heads-up from some European operator methinks. Anyway, I'll check all the 737's in my fleet this coming weekend.

I suspect you will have trouble finding any sort of turboprop or turboshaft engine with such low output power, even if de-rated. Even the APU engines made by Garrett and Allied Signal are likely to produce way too much power for conversion, bearing in mind that most of the useable power in a gas-turbine engine in in the last 20% of N1 speed. Operating turbojets at lower RPM than they are designed to work at just result in their thermodynamic efficiency taking a nosedive, which doesn't do much for their meeting TBO etc. Also, the moment you put any sort of gas-turbine engine on an ultralight it ceases to be an ultralight and becomes Experimental. If your question is purely hypothetical then perhaps the Model Gas Turbine Builders Association (in the UK) may be able to assist. If you are seriously thinking of powering an ultralight with a gas-turbine, I'd suggest thinking again. The amount of fuel you would need to carry for any practical flying would just about equal the zero-fuel weight of the aircraft.

The HKS700E is a fine engine but it is not a 583 Rotax replacement, it is more of a replacement for the Rotax 503. The best 4-stroke engine to replace a 582 Rotax is the Jabiru 2200 4-cyl 4-stroke, which is designed to weigh about the same installed. The biggest problem with any four-stroke air/fuel/oil-cooled aircraft engine on a trike is getting sufficient airflow to cool the cylinder hads, especially around the exhaust valve area. I saw an HKS700E on a Pegasus trike and they had fitted little shrouds over the exhaust-valve area to try and capture air and direct it onto the fins for better cooling. That may work in British temperatures, but in mid-summer in Australia or India I very much doubt it. The Czech Verner 2-cyl horizontally-opposed 4-strike engine is an 80hp unit, but likely to be a shade too heavy for trike installations. It is a very rugged and reliable engine..."built like a brick outhouse" I think sums it up pretty well.

I would suggest to any student - or qualified trike pilot - they should buy the combination of base and wing they can afford to purchase, operate and maintain, based on their realistic evaluation of how many hours they are likely to fly per year and what sort of flying they wish to do. I would endeavour to ascertain these basics before recommending any wing and base, and I would point out the advantages and disadvantages of each combination. I would also strongly advise the prospective purchaser to consider carefully the "cycle of ownership", because the very act of purchasing anything automatically also brings the problem of what to do with it when it is no longer suitable or needed. Once I had a better idea of the pilot's expectations and his approximate budget, and having considered his level of experience and currency, only then would I venture to suggest one particular wing may suit him better than another. However, I would also make him aware he is perfectly at liberty to buy whichever wing he feels will reward him most in his flying, and if it was a wing on which he had little or no experience then I would earnestly suggest some dual conversion training before he attempted to fly it solo. This applies equally to someone who trained on a "fast" wing who then buys a "slow" wing and vice versa. A significant part of an instructor's job is to produce competent, safe and confident pilots who will go on to be good ambassadors for our sport and it is therefore my pleasure to invest my time in doing so. All other things being equal, I would point out that the future of trikes in the long-term lies in the four-stroke engined models (with wing options as available from the manufacturers), and that the additional cost premium is well-recompensed by the reduced maintenance, lower fuel-burn and superior performance of such machines compared to their 2-stroke kin. However, I would fully understand a first-time buyer being on a necessarily limited budget and would give them the best and most impartial advice I could. I would also brief them on what to look for in second-hand machines that might reveal a hard and stressful life and hope this would at least forewarn them against a machine which might be mis-represented, whether by intent or ignorance. So, the decision very much depends on each individual's budget, experience and expectation. My task would be to mentor the student to see him safely through any conversion training required and able to fly his chosen wing safely and competently.