pylon500

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..

I liked it when the ground guy handed him the R/C controller. I guess it's better than Airbus, it's fly by wireless!!

That would seem the logical progression, but I'm always different. I started in gliders and then went to hang gliding. Got going back in the 70's in a Kookaburra while in the Cadets. Ended up with about 127 hours, Silver 'C', and 19 different types. Was actually the secretary of the RAAF Richmond club for a couple of years. Would like to combine my ultralighting with gliding and get a Sinus, just need to keep saving I guess...

Ahh, youthfull exuberance. Sorry, I must be getting old but a lot of that just looked too close for comfort...

Was doing a few circuits around Taree when I heard some-one call up "Taree Traffic, Wombat XXX, Old Bar, Southbound Caibou at X#ft (I missed that bit)". I sat there and thought for a second, then came back with, "Did you say Caribou?" To which they replied, "Yep, a Caribou" I finished with, "I didn't know you guys were still flying, good work", but got no response, probably too much like chatter for their liking Now I understand.......... Arthur.

I dunno, do they have licenses for kite surfers?

I have a 15 year old(female) student that has achieved solo in a Gazelle, but due to HSC studies, probably wont get to her certificate until after her 16th birthday.

Some interesting things noted early in the clip, like the guy assembling the 'Sparrowhawk' glider by himself, and the guy wheeling his PW-5 out to the flightline on his own.:thumb_up:

Found this by accident; <http://www.efootage.com/stock-footage/59902/Glider_Stunt/> If these doesn't work, search 'e footage', glider stunt..