Marty_d

1 hour ago, turboplanner said:

Take it up with Standards Australia; they're not based in Chicago; I've made a submission there and had unsuitable details changed.

My mistake, the wrong SAI Global details were presented when I searched them.  Intertek is the parent company of Intertek Inform which you now pay money to to access Australian Standards, and they're a multinational headquartered in London.

The main point is that Australian standards, which are compulsory to follow in every aspect of manufacturing, materials and engineering, are only accessible by paying a multinational company.

32 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

You’ll be surprised to learn then that none of the lawyers will ignore that admission.

Someone once said that ignorance is no excuse.

There's two separate issues there.  

Yes ignorance of a law is not an excuse, that's one issue.

However setting up design standards which everybody has to adhere to, then allowing a private company (based in Chicago) to charge people to access those standards, seems to be stupidity.  It's like Parliament making laws then hiding them from the public unless you pay.

There's an article in the latest sport flyer about the Microair ADSB (including In).  It stated that even with the rebate it was something like $3,097.  

Beautifully finished.  Good luck with your sale.

That was a beautiful landing. 

Website aside, it appears to be a lightweight rag & tube which would be both STOL and fit under FAR 103.  So not like they're promising the next flying car.

I escaped the family yesterday and spent a very pleasant hour exploring Ballarat airfield and doing some plane watching.

Unfortunately the aviation museum is only open weekends and public holidays, neither of which coincide with our visit, but there were a gaggle of C172's doing circuits, several Air Tractors, a nice little RANS taildragger, Foxbat, Skyfox, Beech V35 and others.  A very sad looking De Havilland Dove sans tail sits behind the aviation museum (hopefully being restored?)

In one hangar I could see a bloke polishing a very nice looking Ryan with enclosed cabin and radial engine, but I didn't have my phone with me at that point so missed the picture.

A C206 on floats landed at one point, swapped passengers then took off again.

Seemed like a very nice airfield.  There's a bunch of what looks like WWII wooden barracks nearby, all with different signs - the Morris Minor club, woodworking club, etc... so much nicer than being surrounded by concrete factory outlets - but given the road and construction work going on nearby, that too is inevitable. 

8 hours ago, danny_galaga said:

Simple, it costs them $1230000 to make.

I can do the math, but the bit about HOW it costs 1.23m to build is beyond me.

Hi all,

I'm in Ballarat this week on holiday with the family.  Wednesday and Friday are booked out, but Thursday I could possibly sneak out with the car in search of aviation related activity.

Anyone in the area have a build, or a finished aircraft, that I could come and drool over?  (Not literally.  And if I did I'd wipe it up.)

Cheers, Marty

All that and they crash in test flying (because of the use of aforementioned BunnAero parts).  

Hold on, $400k plus for a Rotax 912 powered amphibian and they're making a loss of $830k per aircraft?  How does that work?

I was an R/C builder - and did a few original designs, all of which flew, some briefly but the later ones well.

In fact I had a shed cleanout a year or so ago and took a couple of my planes to the tip.  The wings were damaged so I broke them up, but just threw the fuselages out as is (minus engines and radio gear).

I was in the tip shop the other day, had a wander round outside, and blow me down - there's one of my fuselages sitting out in the weather with $30 price tag on it!  They're dreaming, it's covered balsa with a nosewheel and no wing.

I just gave a box of R/C engines (0.25ci to 0.90ci) to the neighbour who's letting me park the 701 in his shed.  His boys are into aircraft, rocketry and all the good stuff.  Mine aren't unfortunately - I must have made planes uncool.

But how many times did a giant woman wrap herself around your plane?

Ukraine has been reading Bruce Tunk's posts.

Yep.  If it weren't for all the powerlines you could take off down that strip of road, it'd be a nice gravity assist!

Funny thing is it's a dead end with only a couple of houses above the new location.  You'd think that the chances of another vehicle on a Sunday afternoon would be remote.  But no, park a trailer on the road and start unloading it, sure fire way for a car to come up - plus a bloke walking his dog snapping pics on his mobile of a plane being delivered!

(There's an idea.  Should have wrapped it in cardboard with "Amazon" written on it.)

5 hours ago, Blueadventures said:

There is a US carrier 5 miles off the Gold Coast seaway and they are allowing light aircraft to land on its deck for free up until 1159 hours today only. If you want a video of your landing it is $50 USD payable to the Biden / Trump fund. 

Good one.  I'd forgotten it was 1st April, I thought you'd just gone a bit loopy.

I don't think they bother with doors on the outhouse, out Smifton way.

Actually it was all up hill after that, 10-15 degree potholed driveway.  I don't think a 2wd would have pulled up that trailer at walking pace.

Bits of my plane are from crashed or written off aircraft.

Doesn't worry me in the slightest. 

Ah, forgot this one - crossing our bridge.  Pity about the branch in the way.

It's not a matter of having a phone that can only do 3g, in many areas of Australia you can only GET 3g service.  No matter if your phone is 4g or even 5g.

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.