pylon500

You need to be careful with some of these 'scaled warbirds'. As a sideline, I looked into what people wanted, SPITFIRE ! was the usual answer, so Sullivan supplied. Almost immediately they cried, 'Can you make it a two seater?!' Idiots, I thought to myself, surprised they didn't want tricycle undercarriage!but that's the way it went; Two seat Sullivan Spitfires, Two seat Titan Mustangs, Two seat Flying Legends Hurricane, and so on. I got to thinking, if they want two seat warbirds, build warbird trainers! I started tossing up between the Chipmunk, and the Ryan STM. Then the company at Bankstown I worked for, got to restore a Ryan! (Here's where my first sentence comes in....) I quickly found out that I, at only six foot, could not fit in the front seat of the Ryan, and could barely fit in the back!! I think a good scale Ryan STM would be about 110%! I then started looking at the AT-6 Harvard, as we worked on them as well, and it actually scaled nicely. Initially drawn to have a 912 up front, the Rotec fitted as well... Not long after I started some drawings, the Flying Legends Tucano appeared on the scene. Inspired by Bryan Gabriel, I looked into a small single seat scaled PC-9, with a 582 up front. Since them I've had a few people interested in the PC-9, but a bit bigger, as a two seater. The scribbles continue...

If you want a Spitfire, and are willing to go the composite route, you should do some serious digging around, and see if you can find the 3/4 scale Mk9 moulds that Scott Winton made for George Markey. They must be out there somewhere?

Interesting! Initially thought it was the English 'Leopard Jet', with American rego to throw us, but looked up Leopard, and it's different..

As mentioned, the 6000 series is more workable than the 2000 series, even at T6 temper. If you look closely at a Spitfire, it's not unusual to see the odd wrinkle and buckle, they were built quick. The usual trick for 'compound' shapes is to do 'steps' between bulkheads, if you sight along the skins, this becomes apparent. Have a look at a Sullivan Spitfire for some ideas, he solved most of them. In stressed areas like the wing skins, using the multiple skin join steps, requires a bit of thought about number of rivets at the joins. A lot of it depends on how complex you're willing to get...

Thought it was a Klemm of some version, but I think Bucker could be right.

At least this owner could get his money back, the hard way...

Looks like a 'Mielic(?) Czech cropduster.

All these things have been worked on, no promise that I've solved all of them yet, but basically as you've said. Aircraft originally designed around a 912s, but there is an EA81 Subaru sitting there at the moment, so the wings may yet get swept. I am looking at an extension shaft for the Subi reduction system, ie, an extension between the block and the reduction system. Am toying with the idea of tall skinny radiator as the trailing edge of the pylon. Will never be able to get rid of the 'pusher' sound, but working on it.

Looked like an 'Airshark' amphibian? Next to a lake? May have taken off with some bilge water moving aft, and stall/spinning?

This aught to get some discussion; My internet is barely working! Probably best to go in the 'Bat, covers all bases.

Sorry Bill, didn't see this post earlier. Yes, I've dealt with them on a few occasions, got some drums of dope waiting for me to recover my Lightwing as we speak. I've been getting non-tautening Nitrate and Butyrate dopes from them. Previously I was using Polyfibre adhesive, but this time I have a drum of their fabric adhesive, but haven't tried yet. Don't expect a problem... We need people to support them, so they keep making these products.

Meh.

How about Delta?

It was a bit slow off the mark, but you're starting to make the right decisions. A centre section is always better from weight and strength point of view. It gives you the ability of wider U/C, somewhere closer to the CofG to put fuel (that's NOT in the cabin, lower stress wing attach points, and somewhere to do control linkages that are not buried under a seat. Some other 'predictions' of your learning curve...; Don't use an all flying tail, (or do it properly if you do...) Don't use 'Telemorse' cables for primary control systems, I know they're tempting and look easy, but they make an aircraft fly like crap! Don't create control systems with bolts just drilled through bits of tube, use ball joints where you can. Use a trim tab, not bungees!!!!

With reference to item 3 (bad landings) I would have to put my hand up for being in the position of bashing circuits with a student(s) that can fly, but just not getting the landing right, and said, "Here, watch how I do it..". And then going splatt, just as bad as them. Or;

That's looking more like it. Every Kilo you save.......

Most likely.

So, from what I'm learning here, we need (initially) weight increases up to 750kg, so we can be sure that out two seat aircraft are strong enough to carry two of our typical 100kg pilots, but we want to fly for five hours each time, so we need to carry 150 litres of fuel. When we go through and crunch the numbers, and take into account that (supposedly) our manufacturers can't be trusted to build a structure that can carry that weight, we also have to install a 25kg BRS system. Naturally when we want to go out and do five hours worth of circuits, we should take some luggage with us as well as a survival pack. We should also have a full IFR panel in case it gets cloudy, as well as epirbs, tie down kits, and maybe a small tool box. Can't imagine why, because most of the people (that have the money and are pushing for these planes) wouldn't know one end of a screwdriver from the other! OK so, so far we really need our ultralight recreational aircraft to have a weight category more like 1500kg! Maybe we should also allow to fit a second engine to increase our reliability? Not sure how that works with Jabiru engines, does that mean we should fit three of them, just to hedge the odds? Or if you have a Jab, maybe the second engine should be a Rotax, just in case.... Oh, sorry, you wanted two Lycomings, well OK then, we all know Continentals will blow up on you.. Anybody remember how to start a Wheeler Pixie.....?

Maybe we should have Jumbo's in RAAus, you can get a few thousand litres in them......

Poor old controller's probably going to get a grilling...

That's some serious overkill! Even if this was going to be fabric covered afterwards, this is WAY too much material. You will also find that, suddenly it's quite hard to flex the sides in!! If you're fully skinning the outside, you only need a couple of verticals to support the outer skin, and they only need small simple triangles to brace them. There's a reason that the small triangles are all thats used, it's all thats needed.... If fully skinned, diagonals are pointless, the skin will do that, and you may remember that the diagonals on a curved frame do not stay on the skin 'plane', so you can't rivet to them anyway, or were you planning on gluing with Sikaflex like Gary...?

While I totally agree with your sentiments, as in we all want more for less, but the truth is, with our English inspired bureaucracy, it's a case of the victim being 'hung, dead and buried' before they realise "Sorry M'Lord, we seem to have got the wrong one". The funny part about the American 'improvement' to aid dying GA, was LSA, which we blindly got on the bandwagon and followed, even though those that actually read through it and said "hang on a minute, have you seen all the bits that go with it?", while being fully aware that we actually lead the world in ultralight regulations (or lack of them) at the time, and we managed to step backwards about twenty years to take on LSA. We had unlimited speed, retractable, variable prop, auto pilot at least ten years ago, we were following Europe with 450kg, but were looking at 480kg for manufactured and allowing 540kg for homebuilts, with our typical whingeing and complaining, we would have eventually got to 600kg with our own regs. People would still be complaining that we need still more weight, but with the above freedoms, they wouldn't be as many.

Seems to be the way most want it to go, they just can't see that if you want GA, you'll get GA, and everything that goes with it! Remember, GA is dying, try to remember WHY !!!

The aircraft is reminiscent of a plane I test flew many years back, that was also built by an above average 'handy man', built his own house, wooden boat, half finished a KR-2 but got sick of dealing with DoT (CASA back then) and also builds wooden weaving looms. As a University lecturer, he clued himself up on engineering and aerodynamics, and designed and built his own ultralight. Only powered by a Rotax 503, it could still cruise in the 80kt range. Was also a bit squeezy in the cabin, and was all plywood. My own designed single seater was all metal, also a 503, was 30" wide in the cabin (nicknamed the flying armchair), and could hit the mid 70's. I could also fit a full size, two stroke exhaust within the cowl. Was later converted to a two seater. Haas been sitting the back of my hangar for a few years, but nearly ready to fly again... Still not sure how you're getting that exhaust in there? Arthur.

Don't need more than 600kg. If you can't build a decent plane under that weight, you shouldn't be building planes. If you want to fly heavier planes than 600kg, GA has been in existence for more than eighty years. If you can't hold a GA medical, learn to put up with only one pax, and light weight, day VFR aircraft. Don't go bringing your potential heart attacks, and clapped out 1950's airframes over to us, we don't want them, we don't need them, and we have better aeroplanes anyway! Gee, that felt good, I'll get off my soap box now and let this calamity carry on to it's final destruction, after which, we'll have to look at re-creating the AUF again....