Old Koreelah

I see, they’re talking about the speed at which your wing no longer lifts, not the speed at which you risk structural damage.

That doesn’t make sense; surely with higher weights, you’d need to reduce the speed in bumpy air?

Will do!

Never seen a simpler pump than a facet; vibration and noise a bit high, but that also is useful.

This is a good reminder to test the flow of the boost pump, in case it’s no longer able to supply enough to the engine. I plan to do that next month.

I turned spell check, etc. off to stop it Americanising my writing. Also to give my aging brain some useful work to do.

Old-fashioned cars next to a sleek jet; it’s striking how far ahead of road vehicles aircraft have been. No wonder so many little kids got hooked on planes. There are plenty of pictures from WWII of sleek fighter planes being serviced by T-model era trucks.

Another Boeing causing plenty of nostalgia about Cyclone Tracey (and note the journo at the end of the story): https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-26/cyclone-tracy-evacuation-plane-becomes-danish-conference-centre/102120960

Nev could you explain tne need for extra strong springs. When he had my hydraulic Jab 2.2 heads off about 100 hours ago, my LAME insisted on fitting only the new outer springs, leaving out the smaller, inner ones because he believes there would be too much spring pressure. Seemed like a good idea at the time and no problems so far. Your thoughts?

Too plurry right, Glen! Every little bit helps. I put lots of work into streamlining my Jodel, mostly to increase the distance it would glide if the noise stops. Not much you can do about the friction on fabric, but easy to reduce the form drag of wheels, etc. My tests showed up to 13% reduction in fuel burn from my wheel spats.

Another aspect is how high you are if fire breaks out. I like to go above the bumpy stuff, which means minutes to get down. A farmer mate loves to stay low, presumably to check out the farmland. He might get nose-bleed above circuit height, but at least he can put it on the ground quickly.

Nasty stutter you’ve got there Jack. My Brother in Law was suffering family distress and said he was thinking of becoming a recluse. I replied, “can I come too?”

Skip my installation is pretty rough, but covers the rubber. What else should we do?

Besides the initial outlay and cost (and hassle) of freighting the BRS and its rocket to you, there is maintenance: chute repacked every six years, rocket motor replaced every 12.

Years ago a country copper got a rude shock when dragging a pranged ultralight off the road. The cable to the rocket release received sufficient tug to fire, launching a plurry great orange nylon canopy.

Pictures please!

As bluey says, get the larger size, because it has to fit over your hose clamps. You’ll need to pull the fire shield back to install and tighten the clamps.

Mike did you blow the horn to scare away those plurry big projectiles? I fitted a small plastic boat’s horn, weighs three fifths of bugger all and is loud enough to scare birds.

Wing root fairings make a big difference to drag on low wings, but they must be done right. (NACA published lots of research on this.) I suspect it’s one reason mid-mounted wings have been popular. The Voight F4U wings didn’t seem to need that fairing, because they came out of the fuselage at pretty much right angles.

Nev’s right about that. My BRS adds about 10kg to my MTOW. As well as reducing my carrying capacity, it increases the stall speed by two or three knots; enough to do more damage in a bad landing.

I see V-belts (several at a time) driving tail rotors on helicopters. Must be reliable.

Not many drive belts under the bonnet of Hybrids and EVs. Water pumps, AC, power steering etc. tend to each have their own super-reliable electric motor. Cabbies are getting years of trouble-free motoring in these cars. Mechanics rarely see them.

Those breakthroughs are coming thick and fast: Car builders like Toyota have been developing their EVs for years, so electric aircraft could learn from them. Given the speed of our little planes, natural air flow should be enough. Toyota uses forced air cooling in it’s hybids and liquid cooling in larger battery packs.

Couldn’t find a thread on this topic, so here goes: This bloke is sure worth watching. Very positive story, makes me optimistic about the future. Australia had better get it’s finger out before we’re left behind by Africa! To see an amazingly quiet new propeller design, FF to 15m.