pylon500

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....

Just some observations, which I'm not 100% sure of..? Is the wing actually tapered? Depending on which photo's I look at, I get the impression that the wing has a lot of cantilever after the strut attach point? Yet the spar caps look to be about the same size over the whole length? The strut reinforcement blocks look a bit 'sudden', meaning they don't appear to taper the load out into the web gradually. I think I would have used a plywood rib at the strut attach, to stabilise the shear movement in the top cap in that area. At least with full span ailerons, the twisting load on the wing is lessoned. Separately, I would have mounted the engine a little higher, for multiple reasons; Less power/pitching moment, Better ground clearance, More room under the mount to try to hide the exhaust, (it can be done, you don't need that big can hanging totally on the outside). How wide is your cockpit?, does look a little cramped.. Sorry for any grief, just my observations (hopefully all wrong).

Reports from The Oaks, had water over the Northern end of the strip, as well as the Eastern end of what was the cross strip (down towards the creek). Will take a few days to dry, the wind helps.

Shame about all those side plates you had lasered !! And as mentioned before, if fully skinning the sides, you only need light bits of angle to stiffen the skin.

Provided it's one of the newer Jabs, and not a 55.

If you want to align airflow past ailerons, it's better to fit fences on the end of the ailerons than hope for winglets to help (and I certainly wouldn't expect the Jabiru ones to be of any use). Having said that, the Jabiru ailerons need all the help they can get, as they are very poorly designed.

While this is all thread drift, I would still like to reiterate my view that 600kg is plenty for what we are generally doing, and remember that the Europeans have to do the same for only 450kg. We use the 'recreational' moniker, just to hide the word ultralight from the insurance companies. Going beyond 600kg is stepping on what SAAA exists for. Failing that, if CASA is going to step away from private flying, and let it self govern, how about we get some real dispensations towards a 'recreational' world of flying and allow all the fun things we want like aerobatics, night VMC, private crop dusting, 'Not for profit' flying (cost recovered flying like beach shark patrols, at cost social joy flights, etc). And more so in the experimental/amateur field like, multi engine, turbine engine, light weight helicopters, lifting platforms etc. I was going to say electric powered aircraft, but I feel these will become mainstream much sooner than people think ! Meanwhile, my mate with the RV4 is still thinking about moving on to something else.

Has someone got the copyright to 'OZFLY'? As for radio, technically yes should have it, although no RPT goes into Narromine, which is usually the reason for radio. (I said reason, not rules...) Having said that, all the times I've arrived at Narromine for Natfly, it's been a case of, the place looks deserted, but the radio chatter is non stop! But even with radio, many seemed to just turn up at all different places around the area, and try to figure out where the circuit was...

Like the hydraulic cable swaging tool.