Marty_d

Big day today!  My plane has moved home (temporarily).  Neighbours of ours about 300m up the road have a large shed which I helped concrete the floor of.  It's 11m x 9m so big enough to set up the plane and mount the wings, install the flaperons, test the fuel system, etc etc.

So on to the car trailer today - this is the first time the plane's been fully out of the shed.  Moved the fuselage first, then used a queen-size inflatable mattress on the car trailer to bring the wings up one at a time.

I locked the elevators by securing the stick and the rudder by means of a couple of angled bits of aluminium bolted together through the rear tie-down point.  Mind you I didn't go above 30km/h anyway.

We're in a mobile dead spot - a lot of the time my phone only connects to 3g.  Which is a bugger, I really don't want to buy a new one.

That wing folding mechanism looks complicated and heavy too. 

Cars and planes are different machines for different purposes. 

As Danny mentioned a rotorcraft is a different proposition but will never drive on the road in any case.

1 hour ago, IBob said:

Nice looking job, Marty!
Another option is to have the the LE sitting in a sling, webbing or I used a strip of carpet, attached at a centre high point of the frame then passing down and under the LE, with the other end attached at a raised point over where your casters are. So the wing is sitting in a pair of slings, which conform to the shape of the LE, and are not resting on anything hard or solid.
I copied mine from a pic I saw somewhere, passed it to another builder who has beefed it up and added wheels, it has now passed to a third builder...........)

That's what I was going to do, but I wanted to be able to leave the cradles on the wing and lift them onto the wing stands.  The front supports are printed to the same profile as the leading edge (6mm bigger to allow for the foam rubber) so hopefully they won't impact the wing.

It's certainly far easier to move the wings around on the cradle, even lifting them (ie not on the castored trolley) as you have somewhere to grip.  They're only 20kg but without handholds they're bloody difficult to shift around, especially by yourself.

This is something I should have done a long time ago, even before I built the wings.  (Mind you I didn't have a 3d printer back then, but there'd be ways of doing it the old-fashioned wood way!)

I've made 2 wooden cradles for the wings, which have printed plastic LE shape to support the LE of the wing and clamps at the back to keep the TE secure.  On the bottom of the cradles are steel L's with a bolt through.  The cradles and clamps have 6mm self adhesive foam rubber on all surfaces touching the wings. 

The cradles can be sat vertically, as shown in the pics, on a wheeled dolly which has a vertical post that the bolts go through.  They can also be sat at the top of some wing stands that I've also made (haven't got a pic as they're stored under the plane at the moment) with the same bolts.  These stands comprise some heavy duty tripod stands from a drum kit (from the tip shop) combined with 2" diameter aluminium tube.

There's a climate change thread over in Social Australia where denialists can have their say.

The article says one option is to have the glider land with the plane, still on the tow rope!  Sure...

17 hours ago, facthunter said:

Depends on how much new tech is in it. The Guppy's Airbus used to move big Bits of Plane around IN didn't require much development. Nev

The Airbus Beluga was based on an existing A300.  This looks like a completely new aircraft (there's certainly nothing in the world like it now) so you'd think there'd be a large amount of development work.

You quickly zip-line to the glider and break away.

Bit misleading - "delivers" implies that it is currently delivering, whereas "in the concept stage and may be flying in 5 years" should be described as "may deliver".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-26/qantas-flight-lands-in-perth-after-engine-shut-down-bang-heard/103632442

Engine out on descent into Perth last night.  Passengers report hearing a loud bang.

5 minutes ago, IBob said:

Well, that's a relief........was trying to figure how to get them to take the net down in time............)

You leave the net up, works the same way as an aircraft carrier...

End of the day, everybody lived.

True,  but it sounds like the other aircraft weren't being very communicative. 

Because the chances are the build quality would be the same as piloted ones.

Imagine the door coming off an SST at hypersonic speeds.

1 hour ago, 440032 said:

Where's Sully?

I did think of calling the thread "Another passenger jet in the Hudson!" but thought that may be in poor taste.

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

SANDING and Painting?.  Nev

Might have been sanding with sand blasters.  Who knows - as a static display the paintwork's not going to be going anywhere at mach 2.

Must have been a sight for New Yorkers.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/14/concorde-completes-final-journey-along-hudson-river-in-new-york

Looks like their starting bid for everything is $1000, including the "baggage trailer with accessories" which has bugger-all use for anything else.

20 minutes ago, Area-51 said:

So there will be a university and petrol station as well on the island? What about a strip club?

As a nature reserve, the best you can hope for is to find a tight seal.

Is Bronnie Bishop still around?  Maybe she ordered it to get to the bingo.

Looks like it's a nature reserve.

So the quarantine stations will be 2x 3m tinnies powered by Evinrude 3.5hp motors, parked either end.  (Example on 1 end crudely drawn in).

Just joking Nev.  Of course we couldn't go it alone.

We could become New Zealand's westernmost island though.

3 minutes ago, red750 said:

 The land border is 85 metres (279 ft) long.

 

Big enough to place passport control, when we secede...