Head in the clouds

True Nev, but how many people remove the spinner to look at the hub as part of a pre-flight? In fact most folk aren't allowed to do so unless they're an L2 or the owner/builder, are they?

I don't quite agree. There seems to be some misconception that the Doctor bought the plane from O'Sullivan. He didn't, he bought the kit from Supermarine way back in 2001, assembly of it wasn't completed until 2003. It was agreed that O'Sullivan would register it in his name so he could conduct the test flying and make modifications as required etc - remember that this was one of the first, if not the very first of the Mk26 type with the Isuzu V6 truck engine, 2 seats (sort of), it certainly wasn't one of the much smaller earlier versions which had the Jab engine. The test flying took place in 2004/2005 and in 2009 the registration was transferred to the Doctor by Notice of Disposal to RAAus. Unless I've missed something there's no suggestion that any money exchanged hands when the rego was transferred, I understood full payment was made at the time of the kit purchase in 2001. That was not a one off event - I know of two other Mk26s which were purchased sometime around 2001/2 and which weren't actually delivered until around 2010 or shortly before O'Sullivan moved the manufacturing to Texas, whenever that was exactly. This arrangement was by agreement between the parties and considered something of an investment by the purchasers. Those aircraft were never intended for the RAAus register, instead being built for the GA Experimental category. I still think this whole 'blame someone else if possible thing' is a nonsense and thoroughly undesirable. If we want many of the freedoms we have, we need to be willing to be responsible for own actions, and that is and always has been the spirit of intent of the CAO. If we want to be able to shed the personal responsibility then get a licence and fly GA.

Maybe, maybe not, that would have to be decided by the court. Unfortunately though, since you suggest that the good Doctor chose to accept the word of others instead of being certain by determination by more guaranteed means, he won't get his day in court to find out. The requirements of the CAO are clear, it's his responsibility to be certain that he's complying with the Regulations, not to 'believe' or 'think' he's doing so. And frankly, this is nonsense. The aircraft actually weighed about 600kg empty, more like the weight of the Yak he had been flying. He'd also been flying a Lightwing which was about 350kg empty - are you seriously suggesting he couldn't tell the weight difference between them without having to weigh them? If he couldn't he certainly shouldn't have been flying anything at all. Have you actually had a look at the V6 Isuzu truck engine the Spit is equipped with? It's a bloody monster! To suggest he couldn't tell the weight difference is like suggesting someone wouldn't notice the difference if someone added 5kg to the weight of your 3kg boogie board bag ... Yes, we've been through this - you don't think the Doctor was part of the conspiracy to suggest he was supposed to be seen as an owner/builder? The coroners report rubbishes that suggestion on page 10, certainly, but the practice was not uncommon. We'll never know the actual truth of that one. No, the coroners report says that O'Sullivan wrote on the registration application that he was the builder, that's a slightly different matter when the other discrepancies are taken into account. It's your organisation too I imagine, if you're a member as you should be to be training in 95.55 aircraft. The organisation is far from perfect that's for sure, but you may be judging it based solely on what was then rather than what is now, and what is in motion for the future. The organisation went through a very black period but appears to be emerging from the gloom due to the tireless efforts of the few. The elections are on at the moment and I'm sure a person of your perspicacity could provide valuable assistance, why don't you put your hand up for a position on the Board?

That's just the point, he didn't buy a Certificated (you can call it Certified if you like) aircraft, he chose to buy an Experimental aircraft. When you fly Experimental YOU are responsible for it being airworthy, not anyone else. It's time people stopped looking for someone else to blame all the time. If you want Certificated, get out of RAAus and go to GA ... In which case, see above, you're responsible, it's an Experimental category aircraft. A LAME or L2 might do the work but it's your responsibility to comply with the Operations Manual, and that includes flying the aircraft within the CG limits and at or under the legal weight. What the coroner missed, IMHO, is that the pilot was conducting an illegal operation by flying the aircraft. He can't say he wasn't aware of the weight because that very admission means he was flying illegally because he's required to be aware of the weight ... He wasn't flying GA, he was advised of the differences and the proper way to operate the type - and lower inertia aircraft in general. He didn't agree, that was his choice. It may be a largely nanny State but some decisions are still left up to the individual and he exercised his right. Unfortunately it appears he paid dearly for that, IMHO, but there's no point in trying to lay the blame on others, if the weight/CG was right then he crashed due to his own error, if the weight/CG was wrong then he was at fault flying it because it was his responsibility to be sure it was right. Experimental aircraft, by definition, are for the 'education and recreation' of the participant - see CAO 95.55 It's not a requirement that the aircraft be registered to the owner/builder. There are often reasons why that doesn't happen, both in GA experimental and RAAus experimental. Reasons can be partnership agreements with the factory in the case of builder-assist, especially where full payment may not have been made, or in the case of lease-back to the factory where the factory puts the aircraft on-line for hire. I know of several examples where that took place quite legally. Then there is the case of syndication where it may be registered to one, some or all of the parties. Owners overseas, as was the case here, sometimes have an agent register their craft here. The point is that the claim was that the Doctor was the owner/builder and it is my opinion that he probably didn't do much of the construction but was probably a party to the deception that he did do so. That would be far from an unique case ... and if my surmise is correct do you think his complicity in the deception should somehow transfer responsibility for what ultimately happened? If you buy a 19 aircraft the onus is on you to be sure what you are buying - Emptor Caveat. See above, the onus is on the buyer to ensure they know what they are buying and that they know all about it when they fly it. There is no responsibility on anyone else for how YOU operate a 95.55 aircraft, YOU must ensure that YOU comply with the Ops Manual and the Regulations. I also believe everything I read on pprune. It's one of those things though - if you're not willing to be responsible for your own actions, if you want to find someone else to blame when you stuff up, you'd be better off leaving RAAus to its own and finding a category that better suits your litigious needs.

Crack propagation is an interesting subject and via the study and experiences of cracks in rotor blades, my LAME taught me quite a bit about them. The nice thing about them is that they propagate in a fairly linear fashion, so if you 'map' them by noting/marking the extent of a crack, and the date/hours in service, and then compare that a bit later, you can predict quite accurately where it will have extended to in a given number of operating hours ahead. The cracks you show Maj, are quite a bit different from the norm, in that they have formed from the bolt side, whereas I would have expected any load cracking to have come from the forces applied by the blade itself, and so to have formed near the axis of the blade. My guess, therefore, is that the crack would have developed very soon after the re-torquing last 100hrly, since that's probably when the increased load/force was applied. If that's correct then it's a fine testament to the design of the hub that it held onto the blade through the last 100hrs and so many cycles. Thanks for posting Maj, very valuable info for sure! And in future I'll be having a look under the spinner perhaps an operating hour or two after any re-torquing of the hub/blades.

Disclaimer - the comments below are my opinion only, I am not in possession of any facts other than the descriptions provided in the coroners findings - As I understood it, the ballast was moved at Gympie to improve the CG condition rather than make it worse. IIRC they asked O'Sullivan for W&B info and were told to set it up in flight attitude and ballast it so that there was 8kg on the tailwheel. Ultimately they set it up for 8.5kg on the tailwheel (so they (Kerr) said) which is very close and certainly would have been well within limits. In any case this was performed by Gympie not by the Supermarine factory, so whatever you might be suggesting about it being 'unflyable' would have been due to Gympie rather than Supermarine I would have thought. Or are you saying the advice to use 8kg tailwheel weight was incorrect? In any case, how could it be suggested that it was unflyable when the good Doctor had been flying it for 16 mins that day, first at height and then conducting 4 circuits before crashing while perhaps distracted? Since he had an interest in the aircraft not being deemed to be at fault, it might be suggested that Kerr might have been biased in his reported observations of the pre-crash circuits, however Raffels was the Doctor's close friend and he concurred that in each prior case the aircraft was seen to significantly overshoot the runway during the turn onto final approach. They both also talk about the wings being almost level just prior to the wing-drop and spin. I think we all know that the combination of those factors are the classic recipe which encourages generally lower time pilots to stand on the rudder in an effort to tighten the turn and get lined up, and which all-too-frequently culminates in a stall-spin crash. Add to that, that more than one instructor found the Doctor's technique on final approach to be questionable, notably too slow and shallow an approach angle, which the Doctor wouldn't agree with, and I'm sure you could draw your own conclusions. Whilst the full-scale and replica Spittys are described by all who have flown them as a delight and a dream, it certainly isn't known for being forgiving of mishandling errors. Regarding the build and sale/purchase of the aircraft, the information provided suggests that it was built over a long period under the factory 'builder-assist' program. Whether or not the Doctor spent as much time on the build as was suggested is perhaps a matter for conjecture however I doubt it could be said that he wasn't aware of the requirements of the 51% rule. Similarly I would think that since he did have experience with a number of aircraft types and held various licences, I would think he was well aware of both the weight and stall-speed limitations of 95.55 (at least he was legally required to be, since he held a Pilot Certificate to operate those types) and I'm sure he would have also been aware of the actual weight and stall speed of the aircraft. If my surmise is correct it might be said that the good Doctor made the purchase while being fully aware of what he was doing, a case of 'Eyes Wide Shut' perhaps?

I rather doubt that you truly wish to have your question considered as 'stupid'. It might seem less so if you mentioned the aircraft type ... of course if you get the nose high by whatever means and then un-power it, it will stall. Isn't that obvious? And after three or so years of flying and thinking about it in your detailed manner, are you still not aware of the differences between progressive, power on, and accelerated stalls? Fuselage shadowing the elevator? How would this occur? There's no such thing as a "pitch dependent stall" stalls are solely dependent on the angle of attack.

No Maj, I wrote less than 1000hrs. IIRC his total time was a bit over 1000hrs, with about 850 as PIC. Of that he had about 37 on the Spit IIRC, and only 2.7 in the last two years ...

Good point GAFA, I'd forgotten that. Regardless though, the concept of using flap to modify the stall characteristics to make the inboard stall first still doesn't work on the full-scale or Supermarine's replica Spits, to which many of their owners will attest, having found out the hard way. I've also read a number of fascinating authentic WW2 accounts written by instructors and students converting onto the Spit from Harvard's and Hurricanes. Learning to avoid the tip stalling vice during takeoff and landing management was a major part of the conversion training, as was the torque roll due to rapid throttle advancement combined with the narrow wheel track.

That's right it doesn't, and though I'm not defending him in the slightest, what he said about being encouraged from within the organization is probably not all fabricated, based on others' anecdotal evidence of what went on in RAA at the time. It's been the subject of considerable discussion and angst over the last few years ... Regardless of that, though, and purely my opinion, is that the coroner seemed determined to find any reason at all that he crashed, except that he didn't fly the plane. She describes him as an extremely experienced and talented pilot when other respected instructors werent altogether impressed with his handling even in much simpler aircraft. As for his level of experience, he had less than 1000hrs as PIC, I'd call that novice level in terms of a Spit, with its known vices ... and less than 3 hrs on the Spitty in the previous 2 yrs IIRC. The coroner's finding was that he crashed because of an engine problem or a landing gear problem, or both, whereas in my humble opinion he crashed because while he may or may not have had some airborne problem he forgot to fly the aircraft, stalled and spun in. O'Sullivan's dishonesty regarding the aircraft weight on the registration documents really had nothing to do with the crash as far as I can see.

Good concept but they're split flaps so they introduce a lot of drag which isn't a good idea for take-off, especially not using more than about 5 degrees flap which would only change the chord line angle by about 1 to 1.5 degrees. Even then, unfortunately it doesn't seem to work for the elliptical wing of the Spit because even with 40 degrees used for landing, if you get too slow the tips still stall first causing a vicious wing-drop. I've heard brown trousers stories from several folk who have allowed the speed to bleed off while still 10 ft off the deck.

By means of a protractor and the first image in post #23 you can verify that the angle of incidence with the tailwheel on the ground is 15 degrees. Consequently, at rest the Spit's wing is at the critical angle. I also know this from extensive discussions I had with Mike O'Sullivan of Supermarine. Also, there is no geometric or aerodynamic washout (or on some of them only 1 degree) toward the tips and the wing is elliptical which means that the wing chord effectively reduces to zero at the tips. The shorter the wing chord, the lower the Reynolds number that part of it is operating under, and the lower the Re, the lower the stall angle, consequently the Spit's tips stall before the root of the wing. That is quite the opposite to what you generally want from a 'friendly' sport plane but the Spit was designed as a fighter and the 'snappy' characteristics were seen as an advantage in dogfighting and for evasive manoeuvring. The Supermarine replicas are well known for their tip-stalling tendencies, several people have come unstuck (and nearly unstuck) on landing and take-off. At one stage I spoke with Mike about it and asked whether he might consider changing the wing significantly to change its characteristics so that the stall would propagate from the root instead. The most efficient way to do that would be by progressively changing the airfoil section toward the tip, rather than by introducing the significant amount of geometric twist that would be required to achieve the same effect. When I flew with Mike in one of the first two-seaters it was very evident how extra careful he was during the take-off and landing phases. Having such a very small tip chord it would require having a very thick section at the tip to achieve sufficient aerodynamic washout and that would be very noticeably un-Spitty. Mike said his intention was to build true replicas, not stand-off lookalikes, so those who flew them would have to respect their characteristics and learn to fly them accordingly. Given that the angle of incidence is 15 degrees with the tailwheel on the ground, and given that the video shows the takeoff was conducted in such a way that the last thing to leave the ground was the tailwheel while the flightpath was still horizontal (i.e. climb had not been established), it indicates that both tips had to have been stalled at the moment of lift-off. These planes do have plenty of power, quite sufficient to get airborne with the wing partly stalled. I would suggest that the pilot's mention of 'environmental' meant a gust of some kind and his reaction of applying left stick would then have unstalled the left tip rather than stalling the right tip, since it was already stalled. This un-stalling caused the left wing to immediately produce a lot more lift and hence produce a strong roll to the right. Had he used rudder instead, or centralised the stick again (re-stalling the left wing) he would probably have got away with it. It's also possible that his 'environmental gust' might well have actually been an increase of P factor as the tail dipped just after the first lift-off. Big props and big horses cause big off-axis forces ...

24-30 Sept 2015. Another busy week. Last post I mentioned there was still another day of welding to weld out the cabin frame, it seemed like it was almost done and I thought I had completed all the most difficulty clusters. Actually it took another 14 hours to finish off that part. Next I added the parts that form the truss behind the instrument panel and which stiffens up that zone which has to resolve the forces from the landing gear oleo struts. It's just a few small members and easy to get at for the welding on the inside i.e. from the side where the crew will sit, but very hard to reach from the other side i.e. the foot-well side. I ended up trying to weld while curled up in a ball, all entangled in the frame members. And of course every time I thought I was ready to weld I'd find that I had forgotten a glove or filler rod or something and have to extricate myself and start all over again. All part of the rich tapestry and all that, but those few members took another 7 hours to fit and weld. Following that I went back to the CAD work to check the actual dimensions that the frame would be when it is on its wheels. I needed to know this because when I add the rear fuselage the frame will become too heavy to easily manhandle on and off the bench every day, to make room to put the car away overnight. The plan was to get the frame onto its wheels as soon as possible so that I could wheel it into one of the parking bays under the house for storage when it wasn't being worked on. I can't put the car under the house instead because the car is just a little too high. Typically when I measured it the plane would be about 100mm too high also, and that is even if I put some small wheels on, with the real wheels and tundra tyres it would be way too high. I thought about using really tiny wheels, maybe just solid plastic wheels 100mm or so in diameter but then discovered the track is also too wide so I realised I would just have to make another set of gear legs much shorter than the real ones. I bought some cheap 20x1.6SHS and fabricated a set of temporary legs using a pair of barrow wheels that I've had lying around. I stencilled and cut out the bracket hardware for the gear leg attachment points and jigged them up onto the central gear support member using the real gear legs to set everything up in alignment on the bench. Tacked then welded those brackets and re-assembled it all to make sure it hadn't pulled out of shape while welding and that the legs still hinged freely throughout the whole suspension motion. Before the weekend was over again I then just had time to tack enough of the gear support members to the cabin to be able to install the wheels and move it all under the house. A busy few weeks of real work ahead means I won't have so much time to spend on the plane, but the next stage will be adding the rest of the gear support members then welding them out before being able to start on attaching the rear fuselage. Another 39 hours in the build log, a total of 364 hours, some more pics tell the story so far -

I am very sad to hear this. Though I've never met him I've enjoyed his posts on the forum and he comes across as an all-round good bloke. Thank you for telling us the situation Riley, and I'm sure I would be speaking for many on the forum in asking you to let him know that our thoughts are with him at this time. Blue skies and fair winds Pud.

I couldn't agree more. My wife loves flying with me and although she learnt enough to maintain straight and level it isn't likely she would be able to land the plane if anything happened to me in the air. I think that is one good reason for installing a ballistic parachute system. I'd hate to think that a pax died because an ageing pilot had an 'event' during a flight, it would be a terrifying thing for them with a rather inevitably bad final outcome.

Once some of the cross-members, the vertical and some of the horizontal bracing was in place I could release the chains which had been holding everything in position on the bench and roll the structure over to add the lower cross-members and bracing which form the floor of the cabin. All those parts had to be fitted and tacked as well of course, so it was a couple more days before I could start the welding out. It was a good feeling to get past the constant fit-ups which I find rather tiresome after a while. Since then it's been a case of welding, welding, welding. Some of the very tight clusters where several members come together in a a cone shape were quite difficult and required moving the whole frame several times, gaining just ten or fifteen millimetres of weld each time. In fact setting up for each weld is what takes the majority of the time, each setup can take 10-20 minutes and the weld is then completed in a minute or two. It was a long week burning the candle at both ends with a fair bit of new 'real work' coming in again and working early and late to keep the plane build progressing. I haven't quite finished welding it out yet, there's still another day to go, and then I have to add the lower chord and web members that form the truss behind the instrument panel that resolves the landing loads. Then there's also the underfloor members that support the top of the gear legs. So it'll be another week at least before I get to start attaching the rear fuselage but plenty to look forward to. So, another 39hrs in the build log this week, a total of 325hrs. The pics show the frame off the bench and the rest of the cross-members and bracing added, and the welding underway. The last pic is how I have to wrap it up every night, otherwise with our coastal weather it'd be covered in rust by the next morning. Covering it, and the primer paint I did earlier is doing it's job well so far and it won't be long before I can prime all the welded areas too.

Bugatti has flown! Sadly the Livestream video didn't show live as they lost internet connection, but they will post the video shortly. The Blue Dream flew "beautifully", as expected with good control response but they had a slight mishap after landing when a brake failure caused a run off the runway into soft ground following the rain and the result is damage to both props and the spinner. Hopefully it's minor and can be rectified quickly, and fingers crossed there's no damage to the gearbox or drivetrain. Scotty posted the following on the Blue Dream Facebook page - "Bugatti 100P First Flight In keeping with our Full-Disclosure policy, here is my summation of our first flight experience: We intended this flight to be limited to a short hop down the runway to check power required/power available and to check control responsiveness in all three axes. Preflight preparation and before-takeoff checks were normal. Takeoff was normal and at a predetermined reduced power (80%) setting; takeoff roll was 3000 feet and I became airborne at 90 knots. I climbed to 100 AGL to check power and control responsiveness. The plane responded as expected to all power changes and control inputs. Maximum airspeed was 110 knots. I reduced power for landing but the airplane floated much more than we anticipated. I landed further down the runway than planned but with sufficient distance to stop the plane. Unfortunately, I lost the right brake and the airplane departed the left side of the runway at slow speed. Due to heavy rains the night before, the ground was soft and the airplane tipped upward on its nose, damaging the spinner and both props. Such is the nature of flight testing a new design. The relevant news is we successfully flew the Bugatti 100P for the first time. The plane flew beautifully. We’ll share more photos, video, and data with you in the coming days." Here is the first airborne photo, shamelessly ripped off their Facebook page - [ATTACH=full]37421[/ATTACH]

Bugatti has flown! Sadly the Livestream video didn't show live as they lost internet connection, but they will post the video shortly. The Blue Dream flew "beautifully", as expected with good control response but they had a slight mishap after landing when a brake failure caused a run off the runway into soft ground following the rain and the result is damage to both props and the spinner. Hopefully it's minor and can be rectified quickly, and fingers crossed there's no damage to the gearbox or drivetrain. Scotty posted the following on the Blue Dream Facebook page - "Bugatti 100P First Flight In keeping with our Full-Disclosure policy, here is my summation of our first flight experience: We intended this flight to be limited to a short hop down the runway to check power required/power available and to check control responsiveness in all three axes. Preflight preparation and before-takeoff checks were normal. Takeoff was normal and at a predetermined reduced power (80%) setting; takeoff roll was 3000 feet and I became airborne at 90 knots. I climbed to 100 AGL to check power and control responsiveness. The plane responded as expected to all power changes and control inputs. Maximum airspeed was 110 knots. I reduced power for landing but the airplane floated much more than we anticipated. I landed further down the runway than planned but with sufficient distance to stop the plane. Unfortunately, I lost the right brake and the airplane departed the left side of the runway at slow speed. Due to heavy rains the night before, the ground was soft and the airplane tipped upward on its nose, damaging the spinner and both props. Such is the nature of flight testing a new design. The relevant news is we successfully flew the Bugatti 100P for the first time. The plane flew beautifully. We’ll share more photos, video, and data with you in the coming days." Here is the first airborne photo, shamelessly ripped off their Facebook page -

The live broadcast of the first flight 'hop' is running right now on Livestream. They were due to move the Blue dream out of the hangar about half an hour ago but the weather gods aren't being kind. The weather is expected to clear soon. Those who have set up their free Livestream account can watch the event live, and while waiting can post a good luck comment to Scotty if you wish. Go the Bugatti, what a wonderful project and great achievement! Old K - I agree with your comment about it looking as if it lacks inherent stability but I doubt Scotty will have too many issues with that, he's a former USAF fighter pilot so probably a pretty good stick man. I doubt they'll be exploring the spin characteristics yet a while, if at all. I wonder whether they've done any flight sim handling analysis on X-plane or similar. Fingers crossed for a singularly uneventful event.

The live broadcast of the first flight 'hop' is running right now on Livestream. They were due to move the Blue dream out of the hangar about half an hour ago but the weather gods aren't being kind. The weather is expected to clear soon. Those who have set up their free Livestream account can watch the event live, and while waiting can post a good luck comment to Scotty if you wish. Go the Bugatti, what a wonderful project and great achievement! Old K - I agree with your comment about it looking as if it lacks inherent stability but I doubt Scotty will have too many issues with that, he's a former USAF fighter pilot so probably a pretty good stick man. I doubt they'll be exploring the spin characteristics yet a while, if at all. I wonder whether they've done any flight sim handling analysis on X-plane or similar. Fingers crossed for a singularly uneventful event.

Nice progress this week, starting the assembly of the two sides. It's good to see the shape coming together but the welding gets a lot harder, getting access to the insides of the frame to tack it all together when you can't rotate it into position is hard on the ageing back but probably good for personal mobility in the long run, certainly a lot better than sitting at a desk a lot of the time like my 'real' job. The rest of the stencilling took a couple more hours then 15 hours to notch all the ends. Next I had to make a very accurate jig for the top frame so that the carry-through members that the wings connect to are perfectly aligned each side. It involved a bit of machining, clamping, welding and gladly turned out very well. That allowed me to assemble and fully weld the top frame with its cross-bracing in the jig so that ensures that the wing rigging will be accurate and was also a lot easier way to weld it than as part of the main cabin frame. Following that I checked and re-adjusted the levelling of the bench - the earth around here moves a fair bit according to moisture content and the laser showed it had moved 3mm across the feet of the bench which is magnified to 6mm across the full length of the bench. Easy to adjust with the threaded feet on the bench, then I could start to mark the positions for the wood blocking that holds the bottom of the side frames parallel. Installed the blocks and packers to keep the bottom rails off the timber so that the larger cross-members could fit under them and then had to devise a means of holding the side frames vertical. I used small chains and turnbuckles a bit like rigging a yacht mast and had to add some chains under the bench as well to balance the load on the top edges of the bench. With that in place I could set the laser up on top of the bench and set the side frames level and vertical, now it was nice and easy to adjust with the turnbuckles opposing each other. Then I could drop the top frame on and was delighted to see it fitted almost perfectly, a light touch of the grinder and it dropped into place with barely a visible gap anywhere. That meant I could then remove the external jigging frame and add the side fore and aft members. None of those are welded in yet, I need to get all the vertical bracing in place before doing that. With the top frame sorted I could turn to the front and rear cross-members, final fitted them and tacked them in and then added the vertical bracing. I used a couple of extra chains and turnbuckles to fine adjust the alignments where the complete welding of the sides had pulled them out of flat by a few millimetres. Then I added the front horizontal bracing behind the instrument panel and the whole assembly is locked up and rigid so I could move the bench aside to put the car away for the night. There was 41 hours in that lot, so the log shows 286 hours so far. Some pics - [ATTACH]37355[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]37356[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]37357[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]37358[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]37359[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]37360[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]37361[/ATTACH]

Nice progress this week, starting the assembly of the two sides. It's good to see the shape coming together but the welding gets a lot harder, getting access to the insides of the frame to tack it all together when you can't rotate it into position is hard on the ageing back but probably good for personal mobility in the long run, certainly a lot better than sitting at a desk a lot of the time like my 'real' job. The rest of the stencilling took a couple more hours then 15 hours to notch all the ends. Next I had to make a very accurate jig for the top frame so that the carry-through members that the wings connect to are perfectly aligned each side. It involved a bit of machining, clamping, welding and gladly turned out very well. That allowed me to assemble and fully weld the top frame with its cross-bracing in the jig so that ensures that the wing rigging will be accurate and was also a lot easier way to weld it than as part of the main cabin frame. Following that I checked and re-adjusted the levelling of the bench - the earth around here moves a fair bit according to moisture content and the laser showed it had moved 3mm across the feet of the bench which is magnified to 6mm across the full length of the bench. Easy to adjust with the threaded feet on the bench, then I could start to mark the positions for the wood blocking that holds the bottom of the side frames parallel. Installed the blocks and packers to keep the bottom rails off the timber so that the larger cross-members could fit under them and then had to devise a means of holding the side frames vertical. I used small chains and turnbuckles a bit like rigging a yacht mast and had to add some chains under the bench as well to balance the load on the top edges of the bench. With that in place I could set the laser up on top of the bench and set the side frames level and vertical, now it was nice and easy to adjust with the turnbuckles opposing each other. Then I could drop the top frame on and was delighted to see it fitted almost perfectly, a light touch of the grinder and it dropped into place with barely a visible gap anywhere. That meant I could then remove the external jigging frame and add the side fore and aft members. None of those are welded in yet, I need to get all the vertical bracing in place before doing that. With the top frame sorted I could turn to the front and rear cross-members, final fitted them and tacked them in and then added the vertical bracing. I used a couple of extra chains and turnbuckles to fine adjust the alignments where the complete welding of the sides had pulled them out of flat by a few millimetres. Then I added the front horizontal bracing behind the instrument panel and the whole assembly is locked up and rigid so I could move the bench aside to put the car away for the night. There was 41 hours in that lot, so the log shows 286 hours so far. Some pics -

Flight tests are imminent! And you can watch it live if you like. This morning Scotty Wilson posted the following on Kickstarter - "We will be conducting tests today to include high-speed taxi and possibly a short hop. To view these tests online you need to create a livestream account by going to www.livestream.com. Once you've created an account you can access the tests by accessing the "Reve Bleu" profile. Note there are two "Reve Bleu" profiles (we do not know the other account owner). Our account is the one with the top-down airplane silhouette in blue. There is a mobile app for both iOS and Android." Note that when you first go to sign up on Livestream it appears that you have to pay a subscription fee, but you don't have to for viewing others' vids as a visitor, so scroll down to below the paid options for the free sign-up.

Flight tests are imminent! And you can watch it live if you like. This morning Scotty Wilson posted the following on Kickstarter - "We will be conducting tests today to include high-speed taxi and possibly a short hop. To view these tests online you need to create a livestream account by going to www.livestream.com. Once you've created an account you can access the tests by accessing the "Reve Bleu" profile. Note there are two "Reve Bleu" profiles (we do not know the other account owner). Our account is the one with the top-down airplane silhouette in blue. There is a mobile app for both iOS and Android." Note that when you first go to sign up on Livestream it appears that you have to pay a subscription fee, but you don't have to for viewing others' vids as a visitor, so scroll down to below the paid options for the free sign-up.

I don't think overheating was Russ's concern, I think he is asking about shock cooling of the engine caused by reducing power to flight idle. Certainly air-cooled engines don't like rapid power reduction and it can have bad consequences for the cylinder heads in particular. Lycomings and Continentals tend to have cracking issues between the valve seat inserts when those engines are frequently reduced to low power, skydiving ops without CS props comes to mind. That is one of the benefits of liquid cooled heads such as Subaru and Rotax 912/4, it prevents shock cooling and the engines can be idled for long periods even in a cool climate. I think the best idea might be to ask Jabiru themselves for their opinion. If there's nothing forthcoming from them I would suggest cooling the engine down gradually by reducing power progressively and keeping an eye on the CHT to see that it doesn't drop off too quickly. Once you're established idle gliding and temps have stabilised again it should be OK to idle for an extended period while you conduct your exercise. Bringing the power up again should be done progressively too.