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Old Koreelah

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Everything posted by Old Koreelah

  1. Old Koreelah
    Red the old 95:10 category has been largely forgotten, but allows multiple engines. One year at NatFly a bloke had a four engine unit a bit like this one; it even had Lancaster-type spinners off model aircraft!
  2. Old Koreelah
    I wouldn’t be surprised if the worst noise is from a minority of aircraft; addressing that might be a good fall-back position to have. Maybe they could be satisfied with a medium-term plan to replace a noisy aircraft I suspect the worst offenders are GA aircraft with metal props, and not easily modified. Perhaps they are nearing their replacement date. I’ve seen footage of a Cessna flying in Europe with an ugly car-type muffler slung under the belly.
  3. Old Koreelah

    Saab 37 Viggen

    Old Koreelah commented on red750's aircraft in Military

    Sweden can do it, with a fraction of Australia’s population. Why can’t we?
  4. Old Koreelah
    A powerful argument against electric flaps.
  5. Old Koreelah
    Detached eddies? That’s all we need out here on the flat country! As others have mentioned, the air can sneak up and smack you. At least during droughts we might get visual warning of a Willy-willy by the dust and crap they carry up.
  6. Old Koreelah
    As you say Glen, it’s not so much their height as the shape of the hills. I’ve met glider pilots who could ride waves up to 19,000’. Those waves were generated by the relatively low Snowy Mts and the ranges east of Warwick. Yesterday I flew for an hour and was surprised by the turbulence generated by the low ridges around our flat Liverpool Plains. Sure diminishes the fun factor. Pre-Covid when flying longer trips I liked to get up above 7,500’ into smooth air. Trouble is, getting down again thru the washing machine is damned uncomfortable, even scary at times. That’s bad enough in a well-tested 24-reg aeroplane, but a home-built might require a bigger margin for error. Luckily, we Rec. Flyers can stay home when its a bit rough.
  7. Old Koreelah
    The KISS principle is important, but simplicity can catch you out. I have a one litre collector tank mounted a poofteenth below the two wing tanks that supply it. Years ago I decided to test the changeover time if one tank was to run dry. I circled our quiet strip until the first sign of fuel starvation (the fuel pressure gauge starts to flicker wildly a few seconds before the engine sound changes). After changing tanks, it took 11 seconds for the engine to recover. I discovered this delay was due to my small collector tank not having a breather line of its own. After installing a separate breather line, all went well for years, until I stupidly started up with the main tank valves closed. The one litre collector, plus a couple of meters of fuel line and the carby bowl, contained enough juice for me to warm up, taxi out and take off. When about 200’ off the ground the engine noise changed and I realized my mistake. This time, the recovery was almost instantaneous.
  8. Old Koreelah
    The only Warrior I’ve been in impressed me. A Kiwi farmer took me into some short, rough paddocks without a worry.
  9. Old Koreelah
    Good point, Flighty. I almost never do, but sometimes we need some practice in case things go quiet. On Wednesday I did a few approaches on full flap and managed some nice short landings. While focussed on nailing the aiming point, the ASI slipped way back to Vs1.2. Luckily there was no winds shear or turbulence.
  10. Old Koreelah
    Alan I’ve done a lot of mucking about with fuel vent locations and have learned that the tank must have positive pressure. Rearward-facing vents may result in air being sucked out, leading to fuel starvation. Besides the direction it faces, the location of the vent is also important. I once took off without properly securing the cap on one wing tank. The low pressure around the cap sucked out some fuel and when I switched to that tank the engine spluttered. Even my wingtip vents have been affected by vortex currents; I had to find the best spot and align the vent into the airflow. Another aspect to allow for is fuel flow if you end upside down, which is why my vent are as far from me as possible. Despite all that experience, some designers seem to get it right. I was amazed to see one European aircraft has a pinhole vent on the trailing edge of each wing
  11. Old Koreelah
    The Provost looks almost identical to Australia’s Winjeel, but I can find nothing written about this. Even more interesting, the Provost’s designer, Henry Milicent, migrated to Oz after working on the Provost, but his Wikipedia profile contains no mention of him being involved in the design of the Winjeel.
  12. Old Koreelah
    This discussion belongs on the Off Topic site.
  13. Old Koreelah
    APenName… is right about recent aggression by China, which is perhaps understandable given the couple of centuries of humiliation they are emerging from. I believe China claims they are just reclaiming territory taken from them in the past by aggressive colonizing European powers.
  14. Old Koreelah
  15. Old Koreelah
    Mostly because Australia lacks the forward-thinking of the Nordic nations. Norway owns it’s mineral wealth and now has over a trillion dollars in national savings. Australia has a national debt of around a trillion dollars, despite having massive mineral wealth. The difference: Whitlam’s government was crucified for trying to get control of our mineral wealth, while Norway’s government managed it.
  16. Old Koreelah
    Thanks for injecting some realism into the discussion, KG. We have been raised in an ocean of US propaganda about the “Soviet threat” with outrage that a few “Russian Trawlers” might be eavesdropping on western military exercises, while our side conducts massive surveillance on them.
  17. Old Koreelah
    Lots of alpacas are employed around here to guard sheep.
  18. Old Koreelah
    Yep. All the Way with LBJ is the basis of our defense strategy. Spacey China hasn’t invaded distant lands like other great powers have done, but plenty of countries on their borders have been subjugated and flooded with Han Chinese immigrants: Tibet, Mongolia, Sinkiang… Despite the claims by the CCP that they respect and protect minorities, there are some disturbing stories leaking out that don’t. Their neighbour are pretty nervous about massive miliarisation of the South China Sea. China can claim some historic connection with these territories, but that also applies to Vietnam and other lands on its borders. What future claims will the new emperor make?
  19. Old Koreelah
    I’ve been searching for some evidence that John Thorpe was influenced by the Jodel wing. Couldn’t find any, but discovered that he designed the Fletcher as a light attack aircraft. Another of those designs that adapted well to another function. I love the bent wings for a number of reasons, one of which is that you can side slip until almost on the plurry deck!
  20. Old Koreelah
    I totally agree, Spacey. But we are not just dealing with the Chinese people. The Chinese Communist Party is quite nervous of any threat to its control; 1.3 billion people can be a handful if they get riled up, so the CCP wants to keep the economy stable. At the same time, like any government, they like to build up the perception of an external threat to unite the people behind them. (America has been doing this for generations: remember all those movies about the Russians invading USA? Ridiculous.) In China’s case, it has happened too often. China has a long history of being exploited and humiliated by the west (Australian volunteers flocked to fight the Chinese during the Boxer rebellion) and the communist government loves to remind their people of this. Interesting times ahead.
  21. Old Koreelah
    Bent wings are best!
  22. Old Koreelah
    …or that the ensuring Japanese vengeance cost a couple of hundred thousand innocent Chinese their lives.
  23. Old Koreelah
    My question for that pilot (spoken in an Aussie accent): “With such a mundane day job, what do you do at the weekends to give yourself a bit of a challenge?”
  24. Old Koreelah
    Jabiru did oodles of spin tests on their various models, probably more than any other rec. aircraft maker. An ex-RAAF test pilot gave a talk about having to take sick breaks while doing 80 separate spins tests in various configurations. That probably means the manufacturer’s handbook is worth following.
  25. Old Koreelah
    Dafydd Llewellyn has built some impressive instrumentation to do this sort of testing. Inspired by this I built an articulated pitot extension to correct for AoA and slipping; it was much simpler than the one above, but used the same principle. It worked well for years until it got broken by ground vegetation.
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