pylon500

Actually, 30ish years ago, a mate and I bought a Dick Smith FM radio 'bug' kit, little microphone with a weak FM transmitter. We used Carl Goldberg Nyrods to the rudder and elevator in a Bridi 'SoarBirdi', so we could seal the whole rear fuselage. We then stuck a capillary tube into the rear section and placed the bug microphone in front of the tube. The plan was to have a small transistor radio in our pocket and listen to the sound of the air coming out of the rear fuse 'capacitance', blowing on the mike. If we could hear it roaring, we were in lift. Problem was, the overall wind noise around the aircraft, the twangy noises from the rubber bands and the buzzing noise of the servos made it near impossible to tell what was going on. We did hear a magpie attack and peck the nose on one flight though. Also the other glider pilots were not real happy with our arrangement.

Hi HITC. Yeah, don't know how much things have changed from my days, but most gliders have 'auto couple' controls, which anyone could rig, the usual thing was to then have someone double check before signing the DI sheet. I can't remember if that was our club policy or GFA policy? Probably more complex today... As for the Trail, I thought it looked the part (mainly because it looked like my Stollite), and even managed to have a look at it at Oshkosh back around 2013. Even showed the designer photos of my Stollite! The only thing that concerned me a little (and I can't remember if I mentioned this before, or just refrained), but I was a little worried about the top end wing/strut attach point.. Most aircraft set the attach systems up to use bolts in shear, as does the Trail for most of the wing, except the top of the strut. To facilitate the folding system, a bolt is used in tension, and it is used through two diaphragms (technically). It's OK if this is done with a complete 'overkill' of materials and hardware, but from memory, it just looked like a 3/8th bolt through two pieces of 1/8th plate just under an inch square, welded to support brackets. Probably well strong enough, just left me a little concerned.

I had been following the other big two ducted fan projects; The Dreamer- Ассоциация Экспериментальной Авиации - Заглянул случайно в один ангарчик. The UL39- Gonzo - Kategória UL / LSA And figured a bigger fan would be better, which dictated something powered by centrifugal style jet. I had also worked building Sadler Vampires back in the 80's. Basically, was going to make a fan, mould an intake, expansion plenum, and jet-pipe, then build the aircraft around it. Airframe would be all metal. Toying with the idea of a single (maybe retracting) wheel ala glider to save weight. Only drawings... Very old photo.

Funny you should say that...

Looked through the site and the inflight photos show a lot of down elevator being held, even the landing was done with down elevator! Me-thinks a little tail heavy? (I know the real Spit flies with some down, but that's at cruise) Found a video; Interesting though.

I didn't actually build the Corby. It was built in QLD many years ago and registered as a 95:10, when I checked it, it was 10kg over the limit, so changed it to a 19-. It's an interesting machine with some interesting mods to get the weight down, but other mods that defeat the purpose. The wing is built in two piece (which is a Corby mod), and lengthened for a bit more span. Power is a 50hp Hirth F23, which was capable of flying it, but the prop wasn't really matched to the reduction, hence the work I did in the photos. It was built with small (12lt each) wing tanks and had another 15lt fibreglass tank between your knees, and a nightmare of pumps and plumbing. I didn't like the glass tank between my knees (and had a wing tank leak), so ripped open the tanks, moulded new larger (24lt each) ones and fitted to the wings. The last owner had tried to change a few things in the engine bay, and made a mess of it, so I ended up remaking the firewall. I managed to do about two hours of flying in it, but then had an engine problem. Not major, it just lost a bit of power, but with a two stroke I wasn't going to risk it, so have been waiting for a mate to have a look at it. It flies nicely, but is a little cramped for me at six foot, and just a little tail heavy with my weight. Will climb at 500fpm, but I've held it back to only 75kts so far. Other projects have overtaken it, so it's gathering dust (not really, it has a full set of covers!) in the back of my hangar. Oh, and it's open cockpit!

Yeah, I did the test flying of this install. Being a 230 it flew pretty well, the 100hp ULS give basically all the same numbers,although climb one up was nearly 1500fpm. You could also climb at 60~70 kts and not overheat, but the main improvement was (scratching my memory now) 115kt cruise at 16~17 litres per hour @ 5000rpm. As for the picasa page, google changed things a few years ago and I didn't keep up. Try this link to the archive https://get.google.com/albumarchive/113292981019876413104?source=pwa but not sure if it will work?

Both 55- and 24- are certified level, and if certified with a Jabiru, that's what you're stuck with. If you change the engine in a 55-, it would end up as a 19-. If you change the engine in a 24, you could end up with an E24- or 19-, neither can be used for training. There may be some Jabiru airframes with Rotax engines going or gone through the certification process, but you would have to talk to RAAus tech. JR-230, note E24- rego

Yeah, but chicken sticks were for chickens! Real men (boys) used their fingers, and also learnt to clean the edges on props. Chicken sticks also tended to break props. While modelling in the RAAF through the 70's, I discovered that the engines in the CAC Sabres were started with a material called Iso-Propylene-Nitrate (IPN), was a good 'nitro' replacement and there were still a few bottles laying around.

Most Team racers ran diesels so, they all smelt of caster oil, kero and ether, and maybe a little amyl nitrate.

G'Day Kim, scratching my head trying to think who you are? I'm Arthur, Len's son, and I was in the Mercurians from about 14 onwards, but maybe a few years after you. I know dad was in the club when I was still a toddler.

Possibly just as it seems, although that then means there was three people involved. It looked like he looked at three different bags, but all the same colour and type, while someone was checking a manifest sheet? Who knows...

G'Day Mike, thought you might like this one... (I colourised this in photoshop, taken from a newspaper clipping) Len Armour 1963.

Yeah, it was loosely based on the Nobler, and incorporated some ideas from later stunt designs like longer moment arm fuselages and aerodynamic balances on the elevators. Here's another one I had. Didn't look much like the picture on the box by the time I'd finished with it...

Almost looks like a Monty Python sketch of some sort. Team race was boring, I flew stunt and combat. That was a VERY long time ago!

Have heard now from different sources regarding a windsock being at the crash site. There is a lot of bushland around the airstrip, and although I think I remember there being fences around the strip, there may well have been an animal problem on the strip. Scenario; On approach pilot see animals, initiates go'round, pulls to right of strip to observe animal movement and inadvertently hits windsock? Totally speculation.

So you've still got the Allegro, or still just looking for an RV4?

Don't know how I missed this thread back in July? My mate still wants to sell his RV4, looking for something more like a Lightwing taildragger, although I think he may have been interested in the Allegro.... Has a short grass strip to fly from, not really suitable for an RV.

Just missed the live stream of the test flights (at night), suggested that the props didn't sound like they were absorbing all the power available, little bit more pitch maybe. Also suggested he needs to let the nose down a tiny bit after lift off and gain a bit more speed. The aircraft looks to be flying just on the edge of the drag bucket. We shall see. It's odd, modellers pick up full size flying pretty quick. Full size pilots don't get RC flying nearly as quick.

So the thought occurs, if the fence was to maintain ticket sales, how many extra tickets got sold to would-be fence jumpers compared to how much it cost to hire the fence to catch them?

Seen one airshow, you've seen them all. I'll wait till someone organises a 'flyin' for pilots and planes. We can talk to fellow pilots about building and/or flying our planes, not just what colour they come in. We can discuss the pro's and con's of various propellers without someone in a blinding coloured vest going into conniptions if we touched one. If the circuit doesn't look too full, we can take up a mate to show him our great machine. I could go on, but.

I think there may be a different way of looking at the manufacturer building thing in that; A. For a manufacturer to build a 24 aircraft, it has to go through some certification acceptance as well as workshop acceptance. B. A manufacturer is still only an 'entity', which is backed up by a person(s), the company owner. This entity still has the privilege of building something privately (most likely more than 51%) and registering it as a 19-. The only problem comes if/when he tries to sell it. I think it has to be deemed 'second hand' before it can be sold, but I'm not sure of the definition of that? Twelve months old? Twenty five hours old? Maybe once the 'builder' deems it to be 'surplus' to requirement (non following on from the prototype, company folds, company goes in different direction), and if the aircraft has a 'safe history of operation', there should be no reason it couldn't be sold. Too busy to sift through all the paperwork to be sure, just my gut feeling.

I remember fly-ins. Would grab my camping gear, fly to some remote airfield, meet a lot of old friends and chat about our aeroplanes. Sometimes we'd jump in our plane and do a few circuits so others could see what it looked/sounded like in flight. If you got yourself well known enough, you could bum a fly in someone else's pride and joy and add it to your logbook. Then you could wander around and see what new gizmos, engines, planes, etc that people were building/bringing into the country. No one seemed to mind too much when said manufactures and importers wanted to put on demo flights (we all remember Nestor demo'ing the Storch), but for some reason, organisers started to think we wanted more aerial entertainment, and before we knew it, we were going to airshows. Now we can watch parachutists open a 'fly-in', but I don't think anyone can parachute out of an ultralight. We now (pay) to watch professional aerobatics pilots put on a display of daring do, although we can't aerobat our ultralights. We watch the Roulettes do their thing while trying to drum up enrolment in the air-force, even though most of the people at the show are older than the Roulette pilots. And of course all this closes the airspace around the field so no-one can come or go, or take their mates for a quick flip around the area. Maybe with forty years of flying I'm starting to get a bit jaded so I probably wont be going to Narromine.

All quite valid, and while I don't know who did the engineering for the mod (we did have an aero-engineer building a Wheeler Express here), the gear mounting was proven after an EFTO with the aircraft ending up in a deep ditch at the end of the runway. I became involved in flight testing after the rebuild from this incident, and a different motor. Although the gear leg snapped, there was only minor damage to the mounting structure, if any (I cant remember as I wasn't really involved with the project at that time. the aircraft was built from an early J200 kit.

Remember that not everyone is on farcebook or twitts, if you want to put up pictures, just drag and drop to your desktop, then upload from there.