pylon500

OK, just looked at photo's. You're on the right track, but the critical part in hinges is the hinge line, you need to know exactly where it is to get it right. You need enough material to to create patterns of ALL the hinge pieces, not just one and reproduce it, (Titan may have done this with a jig, but you always get movement). As for the rolled hinge being a bit open, before separating, lay the hinge on top of a vice with the roll in the gap, and gently close the hinge. 1.Number all your pieces, as you have done, then separate all the hinges. 2.Cut up your extruded stock into the sizes required and NUMBER. 3.Using some form of clamp (duckbill grips, G clamps, even a vice), clamp a piece of hinge (new or old) onto your template material, can be plastic but a bit of alloy sheet is probably better (and cheaper), this is the guide hinge. 4.Take an old hinge and using the pivot pin rod, mesh the old with the piece that is clamped and fit pin. 5.Drill the holes of the old hinge into the pattern material, try using a drill with a fairly flat point, or it will walk around in the hole. 6.NUMBER the new hinge and put aside. 7.Unclamp the guide hinge and move to a new area and re-clamp as per step 3. 8.Repeat steps 3 to 7, remembering to NUMBER all new pieces. You will end up with a bit of pattern material that looks like swiss cheese, but each hinge piece will be a perfect copy of the original hinge. As for assembly, a good trick would be to rivet every piece of hinge in it's respective place with ONE rivet in the middle, then fit the hinge pins. Now hold the aileron up at 90°, and install the other rivets, this will keep the hinge line straight. See how you go.... Arthur.

Not sure that the OPEL, as a straight flying wing, has many similarities to a delta This would be a bit closer in concept; Read about it here; http://fraseraerotechnologycompany.com/Rohr_2-175_Fan_Jet.html. Arthur.

I first joined forums at an American Homebuilt site, and was already calling myself 'pylon500', so I created a little pylon racing gif with a program I had called 'Animation Maker'. A bit rough and pixelated, but does the job; Usually have the slogan 'Go Fast, Turn Left' under it. Arthur.

Inspiration from here maybe? Alexander Lippisch; Or maybe this french cartoon from the 80's, 'ROBOSTORY; Not knocking, looks like a lot of fun.

I think that quote is actually attributed to 'Woody' from Toy Story

Just tried to look at this thread, but got an odd redirect..?

I had a similar experience a few weeks back returning from Melbourne to Willytown on a Jetstar 320. Arrived off the coast of Willy at around 5,000 ft, and heard something mechanical being deployed, but couldn't see anything move, I was back around row 19. Figured it was the gear in an effort to slow down, which we did. We turned inland and crossed the coast at about 3,000 ft, north of Willy and began to pitch up to slow further when I realised that the Leading edge flaps had been deployed, but no main flaps? We then turned left again at about 2,000 ft and crossed overhead Willy, still decelerating and still no main flaps! By now I'm beginning to worry that maybe the boys up front were being distracted by the Hornet activity and had forgotten flaps (not supposed to happen in the computer flown Airbuses) and started to think 'What do you do if you think something is going wrong, and can't tell anyone?' At about 1,500 ft we turned mid down wind, feeling quite slow and nose high and finally a bit of flap started coming down, so I got out of the brace position and watched the rest of the landing. The gear actually started coming down on base and more flap was added on final and the landing was completed with a fairly sudden overpitch resulting in a good bounce, which was as suddenly dropped by the deployment of the lift dumpers. Probably a good thing I wasn't about to have my blood pressure checked at the time. In their defence, there was a fairly good (15~25 kts) wind blowing partly across the strip. I guess I've been watching too many of those aircrash investigation shows..........? Arthur.

My avatar is me sitting in the plug I used to make the moulds for my racer; project, https://picasaweb.google.com/113292981019876413104/BuildingTheLR2 A little photoshop has been used to add a canopy and U/C leg with wheel spat. Unfortunately this project has been shelved for a while as other projects, with the promise of being finished quicker (?) have taken precedence. This is the original photo. Arthur.

Have a look out around 'The Oaks' just West of Camden, and contact http://srfc.org.au/web/.

The Foxbat is rapidly becoming the training ultralight for those not wanting to struggle with the local plastic offering. It follows in the footsteps of the Gazelle, and the Lightwing before it, pity the A-22 is not available as a taildragger. And the visibility has to be seen to be believed.

A lot of those could go in the 'Guess the Plane' thread. I did recognise the prototype 'Rivets' racer near the end.

We want to see it on youtube!

Has anybody started a discussion somewhere else about this? It would appear to be an oversight from RAAus that has come out of the investigation so far. A list of which aircraft are actually under LSA would be interesting......

Not trying to brag (mainly because of a mistake) when I went to do my 5 hours, in a BLANIK, I forgot what time I took off. Took off with a digital watch at 11:50 and thinking to myself "OK, ten to twelve". After an afternoon of street running, NOT playing with clouds ( 'cause I wouldn't do that....) and running away from lightning strikes, (the day seriously overdeveloped) I got to thinking, "did I take off at 11:50, or ten to twelve, or was it twelve fifty?, crap!" So I just stayed there til I could see the sun going down and ended up landing after 6 hours, 15 minutes. I also got to 9300ft to get my Silver height as well, launch was about 3400ft. Just out of interest, the day before I did my silver distance in a Ka6, 105 klms, that took me 2 hours 25 minutes, I'm definately no competition pilot.

There's actually an entry in the maint. log describing other repairs nearby, and quoting the repairer, but nothing about the axle. As for work by certified welders, I'm a little unsure if certified (25-55-24) RAAus aircraft require this, or if it's just whether the final L2 is willing to accept the work and sign the log? As for the previous owner, I'm a little more unhappy at the manufacturer for not upgrading the material as the aircraft 'grew', and for not letting more people know about the problem. My original club had the same failure years ago on serial #5, I though that by #83 things would have improved..... Don't get me wrong, the Lightwing is a great plane and I can't wait to get it back in the air, but I will be doing a lot of close looking while I rebuild. Arthur.

OK, call me lazy, but could someone put up a link to where you can study these changes please?

As a side note, if you own a Lightwing, I would seriously consider taking the time to pull off the wheels, clean down the axle at the leg juncture and do a dye penetrant test. This failure has happened before. Arthur.

OK, here's a quick rundown, the report goes in tomorrow.. While training EFTO's a (no more than usual) heavy touchdown occurred. Instead of the expected bounce, there was a loud bang whereupon the aircraft pitched onto it's nose and a wingtip causing substantial damage. An undercarriage axle had snapped at a weld junction allowing the wheel to depart (found 150m's away!) and the end of the U/C leg to dig into the grass runway. Picture below shows the cracked end of the axle (still in the wheel), orientation would be top of the axle at about 11 o'clock. The dark grey area (4 to 7 o'clock) is all that was holding the axle together, the brown 'rusted' area is all crack. The shiny, lumpy area across the top, is a really bad weld attempt (probably MIG) where some-one has found a crack and tried to fill it in. There will now follow a period of annoyance as I rebuild my Lightwing. Arthur.

....while in cloud, or you could lose your.....

I think the guy that made the paraglider video must have seen me standing in that line up at Stanwell ! While I enjoyed gliding back in the 70's and 80's, I look back and realise that it took me three or four years before I looked out and noticed I was having fun. Up till then the drive for performance flying kept me so busy that it was really hard concentrating work, and I only said how much fun it was, once I was on the ground:juggle: Maybe this reflects in my current training to make sure the students are enjoying themselves while learning. Arthur.

We started with a 532 Lightwing back in the early days and found that we learned how to run two strokes at about the same rate that Rotax was improving them, so by the 90's with oil injected bluehead 582's, we had virtually no problems with them. The oil pumps do meter flow, but in two ways; 1. As the throttle is opened, so is the oil flow, this keeps the ratio right. 2. If you reduce the throttle, but 'push' the airplane (come down fast so the engine revs up even when closed) the pump, being driven by the engine, will run at a higher rate and add extra oil to make up for the higher revs. This avoids over lean 'nip ups' The other beauty is that you can add straight fuel to your tanks without having to mix all the time. There's a few odd 'nay sayers' out there, but I was quite happy with the injection system.

The centrefold bit was funny...

I remember seeing the doco years ago, and always thought the other guy was Steve Cohen, must ask him some time..