Old Koreelah

Welcome to the forum, TangoDelta. I looked up your home city on Google Earth. Looks nice. Are you permitted to fly out of the International Airport? I can’t see any other airstrips near your city. I fitted a BRS to my small single-seater and it required quite a bit of engineering. Do the laws in your country permit you to modify your Savannah? There are a several Savannah owners on this forum, so they may be able to advise.

Green tea is good for you, but not before takeoff: it goes right through in about twenty minutes!

A couple of old WWII pilots arrived at Natfly one year in a Longeze. They told us that high over Bass Strait, the front bloke had tried to use the bottle, but the laid-back seating contributed to him making a right old mess of it. After finding a hole in the clouds, they landed on an island for a change of clothes.

There are plenty of stories about how a new racing engine has been gradually developed, with weight being shaved off and yet more power squeezed out. Aircraft engines are developed for a very different job, but I suspect the much smaller market and strict regulatory regime has stymied progress.

Quite a few Pawnees are used by gliding clubs as tugs- a job once offered to me. Who knows what previous damage has been done to such an old airframe?

All my researching of engines led me to direct drive. I was keen on Suzuki’s bulletproof G10 triple, but a gearbox made it too heavy. A good multiple belt drive should be okey- after all, lots of helicopters depend on belts.

Oz has a local market of less than 30 million if you include NZ, with which we have fairly open trade. Ukraine is larger and when you join Europe it’s boomtime; your neighbours to the east will be a closed, shunned, backwater.

Costs of manufacturing is expensive in Australia, especially anything that’s certified for aviation.

Pricey, but perhaps Meglin is thinking US dollars. Converting those 2,500 Aussie dollars is about $US1,650.

So far, Extra hasn’t stirred up much debate, but there’s been plenty on here over the years. Pilots of “real” aeroplanes usually have little trouble converting to one with a trainer wheel, but those trained on nosewheels sometime have a hard time taming the tailwheel beast. I started with Thrusters and will admit to having never been able to keep one straight after landing. Bluddy horrible things! It isn’t just the weight behind the mainwheels, it’s how high that engine is above the ground. My further training in Jabirus was a doddle, which didn’t prepare me for my Jodel. After a couple of ground loops I got the hang of it and much later discovered the advantages of wheel toe-out. This bloke doesn’t mind flying either type into difficult strips:

For a moment there it looked like the prop was rotating the opposite direction to the engine- that might almost cancel the torque effect, like the Honda Gold Wing’s counter-rotating clutch.

They might have decided that sticking with a single engine mount and cowl design is cheaper.

Perhaps they designed it for the heaviest, highest-spec engine available- constant speed prop, turbo, dual battery EFI, etc.

Off topic perhaps, but have you finalised your engine offset to counteract prop torque? If not, it’s prudent to have a bit of adjustment space.

Some extreme examples allow no leeway. On some Pushers, the prop is only missing the fuselage spar by a poofteenth. Some amphibians have the prop just above the wing.

Instead of adding lead to correct an imbalance, perhaps you could use something that could some day be useful: extra emergency gear, bottles of water, more tools, a spare tube, etc.

An easier way is to install a temporary cardboard “quadrant” next to the stick. With a helper, mark elevator positions on it so you can see where it’s at during level flight.

I believe the Chinook has a similar arrangement.

Amazing anyone survived!

My nephew has been training in an old 172 in a remote area (so it may have escaped the upgrade) and I warned him about that seat rail danger. He has long arms like me, so might be able to grab something other than the plurry steering wheel. Why don’t they fit grab handles like cars and trucks?

Beats me why the US didn’t resurrect and develop a far simpler (and probably safer) design: the Fairy Rotordyne. Its main disadvantage, the loud noise generated by the tip jets, could surely be greatly reduced with a bit of development. Fairey Rotodyne - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Too much of my life has been spent adjusting to the stupidity of others. Yes, I’m totally aware of these things- and quite a few others that you may not be aware of. That does not excuse the insult of being expected to adjust to the outdate standards of a country in decline- which is dragging much of the world-and Australia in particular- backwards. We metricated decades ago, but are now are being expected to go backwards to accomodate one country’s refusal to adapt to the rest of the world. Not the first time I’ve encountered such arrogance (or maybe ignorance) from an American firm, insisting that we adapt to their measures. If they want to sell in our country, use our language. Who in Australia uses US gallons? Sq ft? lbs? As we saw in the staff photo, RAA employs many more people than a decade ago. Tomorrow I’ll be renewing my membership (at a much increased price) so would expect their publication to at least speak my language. If I was visiting America I wouldn’t mind converting, but this outrage is happening in Australia, which metricated decades ago! The cost of American refusal to metricate has been enormous.

Nev that should NOT give them CONTROL! We already have to put up with feet for altitude and pilots all over the world being required to speak English (learning our language is one reason Ukraine’s pilots are taking so long to adapt to the F-16). My major beef is with Australians who dump on us products that were designed for the American market. That includes Bunnings, where it’s often hard to find a metric measurement on a label, and journos who paste whole articles from the US, expecting us to somehow adapt to their strange, parochial measurements.

The article about the Risen has me steamed up; on page 26 is a table of the aeroplane’s specs- who uses lbs, sq ft and US gallons? An insult to Australian members who’ve paid good money for a publication taylored to our needs, not those of the one country where people refuse to join the modern world! Lazy journalism to just plonk in a resource designed for the American market.

Rusty one if those owners is in our club and I’m sure he’d tell you about his. I’ll rattle his cage.