Old Koreelah

Beats me why engines don’t have an electric pump to get oil flowing before startup.

Brendan, I presume being hot ensures more of the oil drains out and carries more of the gunk with it. Thinking outside the box: who says running the engine is the only way to warm up the oil? During WWII the Swedes kept the oil hot and added it to their fighter planes just before they scrambled.

It’s wise to read the fine print. I believe Express Post only applies between major cities. For those of us in rural areas, paying the extra might make it actually take longer.

Loyalty of staff and travelling public squandered. Surely the plane’s crew could have done more for their passengers- or is their own morale at rock bottom?

Fuel used in lifetime so far: Motorcycles: Average 20km/litre c.200,000km/20= 10 tonnes fuel. Petrol & diesel Cars: Average 9km/litre c.400,000 km /9= 44 tonnes fuel. Jodel: Average 11 litres/hr 350hrs X 11= 3.8 tonnes. Total about 58 tonnes fuel over fifty+ years. Maybe offset somewhat by the hundreds of trees I’ve nurtured to maturity, each one a few tonnes. But then add fuel used on trains, ferries, buses and big aeroplanes and I’ve been a very greedy boy!

I presume this post in in jest, but anyone serious about claiming insurance for damage done at a Fly-In needs patience. They could be stranded far from home for weeks awaiting repairs. I once had a quite aged pilot try to sit on my flimsy wing; disappointing from someone who should’ve known better.

Coonabarabran Aero Club is doing some good things with local school kids.

Flying to a place far from home is always a risk; lots of things could stop you flying home. A thoughtless cretin buggering up your plane should not be on that list. A local computer tech visited our Aero Club, trying to drum up business, so I spoke to him about a possible job setting up a PTT switch. Without warning, he suddenly scrambled over my fabric wing on hands and knees to get a look into the cockpit. Totally ignored clear red warning signs: NO STEP KEEP OFF.

Might work if there was no traffic until it sets hard.

Surely it’s worth a re-enactment?

Welcome Garry, you’ll find lots of very experienced aeroplane people on this forum. At the moment you must be one of the few Brits thinking ahead to cold weather! Our local Aero Club has two Savannas, but both are pulled thru the sky by 912s. This liquid-cooled engine has more scope for fitting a safe cabin heater than an air-cooled Jabiru. I guess a Jab engine could accomodate a cabin heating cuff around an exhaust pipe, but they’re pretty short and there’s not much room there. It would need to be absolutely gas-tight. You could fit one around the muffler, but it has several leak points; the risk of getting some CO into the cabin is too much for me. A couple of years ago I installed a cabin heater fed by relocated the oil cooler to the side of the cowling (with an air supply separate from my Jab engine) and set up a flap duct to divert warmed air from that directly into the cockpit. It worked okay, but it could never get enough air to keep the oil cool enough, so I went back to the previous arrangement. My cockpit gets quite a bit of heat from the firewall; in zero-degree air it reads about 6C inside; bearable for a short trip if I wear a couple of wooly layers. The Savanna cowling probably has more scope for doing something with the oil cooler outlet, as long as you can securely separate it’s air from exhaust gases.

He might only have a few years to wait; there’s so much meltwater pouring off Greenland that the Gulf Stream is already weakening. It’s the main reason Britain isn’t a freezing tundra.

I believe firefighters have a special nozzle setting on their hoses to break up the water jet enough to prevent getting jolted.

Turbo when does the video come out on YouTube?

One thing I got from the AOPA presentation: the Cessna can lift a wing to see if anyone is there, but I doubt the low-wing aircraft can manoeuvre enough to match that visibility.

Plenty of stories there. We never had a testing device; you simply got younger brother to touch it. After he wised up, we’d use a green bit of grass.

Just came across this local flight:

We feared the flight control computer was at fault but once again, it was the humans in error.

Many rural power lines have very long spans, with wires sagging dangerously low on hot days. Even worse, if one pole has a rotten cross member, the wire can be lower still. We were once called to a grain truck that caught one of these. The driver was sensible enough to stay in his cab, but some of his tyres were cooked.

After hand-tightening a new filter I always fitted a hose clamp around the filter body, then lock-wired it to a sump stud. After a well-qualified person called that overkill, I stopped doing it. Maybe I should go back to my old habit.

The finer the texture of the surface you plant it on, the further it will slide, washing off energy that could otherwise cause you harm. Plenty of smooth-looking grass strips are ruff-as-gutz when you actually plant your wheels on them. Black soil paddocks can shake hell out of your undercarriage; belly landing on one might be a very short, uncomfortable arrival.

Sad to see Mike Arnold passed away. He sure influenced a lot of builders. Reading about how fast he went with 50hp must have made an impression: after several phases of modifying my Jodel Babe it started looking a little like his amazing AR-5…if you squint your eyes and ignore the ruff-as-gutz finish.

Jim a couple of our club members have Savannas with nose wheels and are happy with them. Given their draggy appearance I have been surprised that they can cruise near 100kt, if enough petrol is poured into them.

Drilling a few self-tapping screws thru the rim will stop tyre creep.