Old Koreelah

Can’t see the advantage of a personal ‘chute in our little planes; I’d rather stay in my safe cockpit while my parachute carries me down. I can understand that sailplane pilots wear one because of the higher chance of collision with lots of gliders in a thermal, but they’re usually up pretty high, with plenty of time to get out. Hang around your airstrip and watch people struggling to get out of their little aeroplanes; what hope do we have of getting clear at circuit height?

KG did you need to change the gap on all plugs, or just one from each cylinder? With two plugs in each head, it might be possible to have one set for summer and the other for winter.

Anderson plugs are great design and they even come in different sizes. I have one hidden under my cooling cowl flap and another attached to my old jump starter pack (which now has a four LiFePO4 cells in it). When my battery has let me down, I’ve sat the starter pack on the ground and attached the Anderson plug. After starting, it’s just within reach to disconnect and drop the cable onto the ground as I taxi away. A recent incident has diminished my trust of LiFePO4 batteries; they won’t explode or burn, but can overheat and swell enough to be a hazard. I’m relocating mine, similar what I’ve done with my camper trailer battery, which is now mounted under the back in an automatic ejector; if it overheats, three poly straps quickly melt, allowing gravity to swing its cradle down, where a pair of slides let it drop onto the road, away from the camper. If I do something similar for my aircraft, it won’t land on someone’s head- will still be attached by a thin steel cable, but well below my plane.

Looking good Marty. Bluddy cowl is the most finicky part of a build and a bit like putting skin tight jeans on a supermodel (not that I’ve had that pleasure). I leaned the hard way to allow a bit of clearance for future additions.

It should be possible to modify a Jab to allow hand starting- if it has a cold start kit. I fitted a standard Jab CS kit to my baby. While the starter solenoid is energised, spark timing is retarded and (if I recall correctly) the spark is available at much lower revs.

Yes, I’ve had good experiences at Warwick (I was born there). I once flew there for a family reunion after phoning around for hangarage. Some nice strangers went away that same weekend and let me park in their empty hangar. I’ll try for a spot a bit closer to Toowoomba.

Our borders are regularly breached by migrating birds, which could bring in all sorts of baddies. My drinking water tank has a diverter, so it only gets rain after the roof’s been rinsed. Despite these precautions, plenty of crap gets in. A few years ago I drained that tank, climbed in and cleaned it thoroughly. Couldn’t believe the amount of sludge on the bottom; presumably mostly dust and ash from our chimney. After that cleanup, the water never tasted as good. Interesting to find that those of us raised on rainwater had lots of dental cavities and I know blokes who grew up drinking ground water didn’t.

-which is what I’ve been drinking for seven decades. No wonder I’m like this.

Thanks Garfly, forgot to add that I’m RAA and have to stay out of controlled airspace and also that I long ago let my ASIC lapse due to lack of use.

In the spirit of inquiry I endured half of Onetrack’s video, then gave up before my head exploded. With mistrust by US citizens of their government and national institutions at an incredible low, there must be something in the water. Or their food. Or air. There is; so many municipal water supplies are polluted, food standards are crappy and many grew up when lead polluted the air. They also have a long history of governments misleading the people; this has been a central theme of their TV and movies for so long, no wonder ill-educated Americans fall for conmen.

A long shot: does anyone know a good place near Toowoomba to land and park my 19-reg for the weekend of July 14-15? Meeting up with old mates in Toowoomba before going to the Superbikes in Warwick.

Thanks for remembering, Garfly. Our club’s building is a bolthole to wait for the weather to improve. This might help south-bound pilots, but is not much help for anyone south of the range. I hope one day to install weather cams to make it easier for flyers to look far ahead to see the clouds, but have too many projects at present. Maybe this is a good opportunity for anyone with more experience to tell us how to set up weather cams; the more of them, the better.

It would take a strong leader to get Australia weaned off some of the crippling habits that stunt our nation: gambling, negative gearing and investing too much of our national capital in the family home.

Another reason to reform the tax system, which has become totally corrupted in favour of the rich. If this inequity continues, we may end up with blood on the wattle.

Interesting. A couple of years back I had a call from a fellow aviator, who’d heard a strange-sounding plane overhead. It had a similar design. A few weeks ago we farewelled a club member who’d been a regularly Saturday morning feature as he flew his Rans Airale (sp?) around the district. Noisy thing because the prop was cutting air made turbulent by both the wing and the exhaust pipe.

Apalling!

Many people don’t realise that over a century later, the battlefields of The Great War are still dangerous:

I want one.

Wasn’t there an amphibious version?

After the impressive performance of your country, I have no doubts that after this war, Ukraine will rebuild into a strong industrial nation.

If the aim was to get into the Guiness Book, then I guess it was a success.

Glen do the SE’s electrical innards affect the compass?

A long range bomber is a weapon for aggressors. Can you imagine how our neighbours would react?

Well done fellas! I once discovered a Sabre in a hangar at Narromine, half buried under hay bales and crap.