boleropilot

me too !

not meaning to trivialise any person with an 'ability problem', - but - I always seem to get an attack of Tourette's when I get the flare wrong.......I'm just sayin'

wow they were lucky it never got far off the ground - I remember a video I saw of an aircraft, Buffalo I think, took off, climbed straight up to about 200 feet then rolled into a steep dive - all onboard killed, tail gust lock found still attached on aircraft. my CFI (Trevor Bange) would have skinned me alive if I took off without doing out a controls check - out loud it was "controls free and correct" - every now and then he would put his knee in the way of the joystick or one foot near a rudder pedal, and you had better pick up the difference in movement - or else! it's called Airmanship !!!

hey guys, I will be going out to the airfield this morning to take some photos of how 0455 looks at the moment - I'll email them to anyone who has registered an interest when I get home I will be placing an ad in Sport Pilot magazine for the next edition cheers BP

ah yeah facty, always had the hots for a 203, what a sweet car - I used to be chased around the Toowoomba hills by a mate in a RX3, he could never understand how the inside rear wheel could come so far off the ground in a turn but his over-powered RX3 could not get around me...I used to hillclimb the 16TS at Echo Valley (Toowoomba) and had to run in the next class up to get some competition... the 16TS motor was popular in Lotus Europas, I had a drive of a mates in Toowoomba and was amazed at how you could look under buses and trucks - it drove like a go-kart! this particular fella (from a very well to do Sydney family) gave me a drive of his Series 1 E-Type - red convertible with white leather - I fondly remember changing from third into fourth gear at 100mph....Wow ! BP

forgot to mention that my interpretation of "zero hours" means "it has done 300 hours from new and has had a complete top end overhaul and check-up by a Rotax specialist" and 0455 will need at least a week of TLC before next slipping the surly bonds.... BP

ah Camel, how sad that you have not discovered the delights of French cars - they're almost as good as French sheilas... take for instance my 1968 R10 - would you believe 4 wheel disc brakes and rack and pinion steering? In 1968??? The first Holden/Fords in Oz thought 4 wheel discs might be a good idea in about 2004??? and the R16? would you believe a longer wheelbase on one side of the car than the other? only by about 3 inches, so not much really. and 100mph from only 1600cc ? enough, I know, you must all be wanting to beat down the door of your nearest French car dealer.....but my goodness, I am going to miss 0455 sniff....

yeah we got contact ok - so far five lookers, one checking out 0455 this weekend I will be taking photos of current state of aircraft this weekend and will post them here - btw, 0455 needs a fair bit of work to get in the air, at least a full on week + break-in + test fly..... only good news about this (for me) is once 0455 is sold I can afford a car hoist for my workshop and the restorations of my two Renaults (R10 and R16) will take off (the only taking off I will be doing from now on) sniff.....

g'day barcy, get in contact via pm with an email address and I'll send the info regards Dave

taken on the day 0455 was giving a lovely lady a joyflight at Boonah....sniff.....

HEY Y'ALL, 0455 IS FOR SALE - SEE MY POST IN THE DRIFTER FORUM BP

hey Tornado and others, my WB582 is now for sale - see my other post in the Drifter forums... sniff....

well folks, the news is bad - bad for me, good for someone else - 0455 is up for sale - 25 rego WB582 with a zero hours blue head 582-99 and E box - methinks a bargain for $10k too much to mention here about the 'situation' so I have written two pages of info with everything you need to know about 0455 the said two pages will only be sent via email to people who PM me from this forum cheers big ears BP PS...........pix to follow

hey Litespeed, so right, that's exactly what I'm talkin' about... hey Wayne, still haven't managed to get anybody to do the wiring on the Drifter - gunna do it myself or I'll never get in the air soldering is out, makes the connections brittle (apparently), so a top class pair of crimping pliers plus my trusty voltmeter and Bob's your uncle I did have an uncle Bob, btw...

I would never fly in a 'scenic' chopper because I do not know how long it has been since the pilot practiced an autorotation - in the defence services they practice them all the time because sometimes unfriendly people shoot at them, and it's a skill they need to have honed to a high degree. I overheard a F-111 pilot talking to a GA pilot once, and the GA guy was saying "wow, you guys have the best job in the world", and the F-111 pilot said "yeah, some days you get a few minutes to actually enjoy it - most of the time you are working so damn hard to achieve the task you don't have time to think about how 'nice' it is - not many people have a 'job' that if you make one little mistake, you end up as mist in a smoking hole in the ground. The big drawback is that sometimes when you go to work, people try to kill you" - I've never forgotten that... BP

may have been a practice autorotation - saw lots of those during my time at Amberley and Oakey - the object of the exercise is to use the energy stored in the main rotor that was maintained during descent with the collective down - the problem is the flare and the final use of collective to cushion the 'impact' has to be nothing other than perfect - otherwise - well, you know... there's an old saying about helicopters - "they don't actually fly - they're so ugly the earth repels them" a word of advice - if you ever see one about to crash, find cover quickly - they self destruct like you would not believe... BP

a Drifter with leopard skin lycra wings - I'm gettin' a woody here..... BP

I've seen a case where a Cessna turning downwind had not sighted a Tecnam ahead of him on downwind - they were aware of each other and the Cessna pilot had called "traffic not sighted". I was approaching to join downwind so I had a perfect view of both aircraft. For some reason the Cessna was not on his normal wide circuit so after he turned off crosswind he would not have been able to see the Teccy, he was slightly higher so his view was blocked by the instrument panel. I called "Cessna on downwind at Boonah, the Tecnam is at your 12 o'clock low". In hindsight (as noted above) that could have caused a problem with how both pilots reacted. What happened was that the Cessna pilot turned left and the Tecnam pilot turned right - there was no discussion because at that point they were both very concerned. Problem is that they both could have turned left (or right). I've added a landing light and a strobe to my Drifter in the hope that I can avoid exactly this kind of stuff. BP

hey kg, I worked in a motorcycle shop in the H1 days and we used to sell all sorts of stuff to get these things to handle - the standard swingarm was a couple of lengths of mild steel 1" tubing welded into a U shape - we sold a LOT of aftermarket swingarms made up from aluminium rectangular tubing, about 2" x 1", man that made a difference - the fact the system came with German made roller swingarm bearings was top notch engineering in those days - we sold a lot of these along with 'racing' shock absorbers too, all set up as a package deal including modified front forks (springs, oil, etc.) I remember one guy seeing a bike undergoing "the transformation" and he asked the owner if he was going racing - the owner just said "Nah, I just want to live, that's all"......says it all ! mind you, we were selling hot up gear to the loonys too - three into one tuned pipes, bigger (or re-jetted) carbs - crazy coots... BP

sorry, the link to the website was already posted here - I have OMS (old man syndrome) BP

just found this on the Coominya Flight Training website - twas a lovely little aircraft - get well soon mate !

I had a Kwaka 500 - mine was the H1-D, fourth version, so a pussycat compared to earlier versions, especially the H1-A, which was widely reported as a Widow Maker my 'quietened down' D model was still a force to be reckoned with - two stories: 1. I was riding up a hill in light rain, 5th gear, accelerating, the tacho reached 5,800 rpm and I got wheelspin - in 5th gear... 2. A colleague asked me for a ride - I agreed, told him to be careful - he came back and said it was a pussy - I asked him if he had gone over 5,000 rpm - he replied that he didn't want to thrash it on me - I told him to go for another ride, and this time take it to the redline, but not in a lower gear - he came back as white as a sheet, shaking - he said that he got to just under 6,000 rpm in third and the front wheel came off the ground so fast he thought he was going to flip it... as for the CBX - just wow, a real Rolls Royce of motorcycles, crack the throttle at 100 km/h in third gear and you'd better be hanging on...... BP

so glad to hear the pilot is OK - considering the amount of damage to the cockpit area of the aircraft, that's amazing - hate to think what would happen if that happened to a Drifter... anyway, looking forward to finding out the aircraft came to end up in that position - did it hit the tree further up and then drop to the ground? BP

hey Kiwi - with 404 so good at STOL, and with your incredible piloting skills, you could be The First One to take off and land at Woolooman International Airport... let me know when you'd like to Drop In, I'll chase all the cattle off the 'strip (and run the rack over to chop up the you know what) cheers! CD

I saw a cartoon about a guy flying a trike, with all these geese sitting on the wings, hanging on, fooling around, not one of them was flying... the pilot was saying "now come on you lot, this is not how we practiced this...." now that's funny!