Old Koreelah

There’s a story of how he navigated across the Tasman in his little moth. He deliberately aimed well south of Lord Howe Island and when he figured he was approximately on its longitude, he turned north. Brave man.

I’d love a dollar for ever home garage I’ve seen which is full of junk, with the car sitting in the driveway.

But protect it from frosts- our pump engine sat on the creek bank for decades and finally suffered a cracked head, which was easily brazed up.

Five crew in the bomber; in wartime, most would be keeping a keen lookout- in all directions- for danger. Something they should also be doing at airshows.

Surely many traffic management lessons were learned during the war, when hundreds of aircraft were marshalled into close proximity and often collided or even dropped bombs on each other. Today, with good communication gear, nobody shooting at them and perfect daylight weather, these people have ideal conditions to recreate WWII action. Perhaps one problem is the concentrated audience, which demands low and close passes by these precious warbirds?

Bushy Glad to hear you are one of those Old Farts keeping our heritage alive. When I visit my home town every few years, my brother takes me into his garage and challenges me to start the old Lister pump engine from our farm. In the early 50s our dad bought it at Casino Show, after seeing a demonstration of it running while sitting on four beer bottles. I have memories of starting it at quite a young age, my little hand could barely cover the air intake to richen the mixture.

Our local Rural Heritage Village preserves and restores all sorts of old machinery. Their annual swap meet attracts enthusiasts from far and wide. There’s nostalgia hearing old Listers like the ones I battled in my childhood, but it gets bizarre when dozen of old farts sit proudly running their restored engines: noisy, fumes and smoke and these old blokes couldn’t look happier!

They have done for decades.

All true Turbs, which is why I suggested making it easier to graze low-traffic rural roadsides. Most local motorists will slow down for cattle. A short 60 zone for a day shouldn’t be much of an inconvenience. If insurance companies crunched the numbers they might find it more attractive to cover the low risk of a car bumping a cow than pay for a firestorm.

I totally realise that, which is why I tried to make it easier for local graziers to do it for them.

Interesting. My Croatian brother-in-law expressed amazement at the width of Australia’s road corridors. Too much wasted land for him. Most of our local airport environs are less than 50m wide, but are cropped by Farming for Kids, a group of local farmers and contractors. Not a huge amount of land, but they sure help local schools. Back in the Old World, many roads are too narrow. I believe our pioneering road builders allowed enough width for a vehicle pulled by a team of horses to do a U-turn. There’s lots of room for road-widening, but most roadsides are a mess of weeds, shredded tyre retreads and coke cans. I have wasted some effort trying to get the authorities to streamline the process of permitting grazing of the long paddock to reduce fire risk. I suspect the well-funded fire organisations are not as interested in prevention as they are in shiny new tools to fight fires.

Kev you might edit that bit; ICE or EV?

Standardisation is a great idea, but it too often stops innovation dead in its tracks- the QWERTY keyboard is a classic example. I’m no fan of the Li batteries used in current (a pun!) EVs. Too many fires. With so many promising battery technologies being developed I’ll sit on the fence a bit longer and stick to my diesels The higher price of diesel fuel has negated their economy advantage, but they don’t burn as easily.

The P-63 and its parent P-39 should have heaps better forward visibility than fighters with engine in the nose. The cockpit video shows how limited the view is with the high panel. Lessons for all of us to be supervigilant before going into a turn.

I realise their airshows often include impressive pyrotecnics, but most of us still have some grip on What’s real and what isn’t. I was disturbed to hear, after that horricic crash, a voice ask “was that supposed to happen?”

A huge proportion of aircrew deaths during WWII happened in training accidents. As Turbs said, it’s easy for even a big plane to be obscured under you during a turn. More than one Spitfire collided with allied aircraft they couldn’t see under their long, flat nose.

At the end of WWII America had 100 flat-tops of various types. These days, as well as their 13 nuclear super carriers, they also have heaps of smaller carriers. Japan also has a several.

Spacey just grab a corner with a vice grip and bend it. Polycarb will bend, acrylic will break.

Silvo/Brasso sound a bit harsh for soft plastic; has anyone tried toothpaste?

I’ve often used a Bunnings Aerospace ratchet strap to anchor my tailwheel to a post. Testing the engine system under full power is sure safer on the ground. I seriously doubt the puny and gentle pull of Jab 2.2 prop would harm the structure I built. (In a separate test, a mate had no difficulty holding the tailplane while I hit max revs.)

Nev you are a brave man to predict never. Whole books could be filled with confidant predictions that were proven wrong. Progress in materials, energy storage and AI could make man-carrying ornithopters viable in my lifetime. If the military started throwing money at it, almost a certainty.

That was a selling point of the Foxcon 200- the seat was flat and laid back to become a bed. There was a trade-off- less comfort in flight, more while sleeping.

Jack this was duscussed recently:

https://snowbrains.com/mountaineers-land-plane-mont-blanc/

When I first installed my Jab engine I cleverly crafted an air filter that sat on top of the engine, drawing air from below the spinner. It was a waste of time- wouldn’t rev out, so I consulted the factory. Don Richter said it would never work; they’d tried all sorts of intake locations and the best was a flush inlet way back on the left side. Works for me.