Marty_d

That's a Smart idea.

Stalls can happen at any speed - that's the point. "Stall speed" usually (AFAIK) refers to level flight. If you're going down vertically in a nosedive and you try to pull out too suddenly, if you don't rip the wings off, the AoA can go past 16 degrees and your plane will stall even though it's doing 500kph. Plenty of fighter pilots found this out the hard way in WW2. (Probably in WW1 too, but the speeds would have been lower). When the air starts separating from the top of the wing instead of flowing around it, the wing is stalled. Regardless of the speed or direction of the aircraft - it's all about the angle of the chord relative to airflow.

Thanks Bob, I talked to Blueadventures and Nomadpete, and they both agree with the gel coat too.

Thanks Planey, good advice! The trouble with my shed is that I'm building a plane in the back half of it, and my wife uses the front half for her business. Paint and fibreglass fumes tend to migrate to the other half. So for the last bit of glassing I did, I moved to under the carport where I have no walls at all to keep in the fumes. Also wore a full face 3M mask which cuts down the fumes as well as stray fibres. Hoping to go back to the fibreglass shop tomorrow and stock up for the first attempt at a cowl. Luckily our nearest neighbours are about 200m away, so it's only the kid's yelling that disturbs them.

I hadn't heard of Gel Coat before. So you put that on first and let it go off fully before the first layer of resin? Now for the mat. From a few videos I've seen, chopped strand mat seems to be the choice for car panels. Would you use that or woven mat for a cowling? From what you're saying, it seems that it doesn't much matter if the first layer has gone off or not when the second layer is started? Thanks Peter!

That may be true, but both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and neither has (so far) dropped the big one on the other. I think that when it comes to government-level people, pragmatism will overcome pure dogma. The old cold war theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), although a horrific and risky premise, holds especially true here. Unless you're a full on true believer (and my theory is that most people in any government aren't) then the thought that any nuclear attack on the other guy is going to bring about total destruction of your own country is a sobering proposition. Border skirmishes and the occasional durka-durka's shooting up a hotel are one thing, going to all-out war is another thing entirely.

No photos this time, but have taken the plunge into fibreglassing and strengthened the outside of the mould with another layer - after reinforcing with some timber strips glued on with construction adhesive. I'm now eyeing off the inside and will do some gap filling with Bondo or equivalent, before sanding back with increasingly finer paper. Then will be the ultimate challenge of producing a relatively good cowling from inside the mould. Having seen how quick the resin goes off, I'll need to have my ducks in a row with all the sections of glass fibre cut to shape first. Questions for those who have done this: 1. Do you lay up your second layer while the first is still wet, or wait until it's gone off? 2. Do you paint a layer of resin onto the release agent first and then press the glass fibre onto it (before painting more resin onto that), or put the fibre down first? Any advice welcome, as always. Cheers, Marty

This is from RC experience, but yes the elevator is the primary turn control. Bank with aileron and up elevator to turn. Rudder was only ever used to balance the turn, and at least with RC (where you didn't have to worry about making passengers throw up) the rudder was often omitted completely in turns. When you think about it, it makes sense - the aileron puts the aircraft in a different attitude laterally, ie you're now flying with one wing down, and the elevator changes the pitch of the aircraft so that pitching up in a non-level attitude will cause you to turn. To take it to the ultimate, which was often the case in RC, a 90 degree bank angle means that elevator will turn you as it's pitching the aircraft around to the new heading.

Interesting fact about the Pepsi-painted Concorde - they only had it in that colour scheme for 16 chartered flights, and because it was blue instead of the normal white, the pilots had to fly maximum of mach 1.7 instead of the normal maximum 2.04. (Because of skin heating). Must have cost a fortune for that advertising campaign!

If it were me, I'd remove both rivets. The steel motor mount is held on with AN bolts so the strength from those would be greater than the first 2 rivets anyway. If you feel you need that second rivet then I'd move it so it clears the engine mount. But your best bet would be advice from the manufacturer, if in any doubt.

Seems to be working fine now, even the photos went in the right way up. Thanks Ian!

Hi Ian, Off topic (socialaustralia.com.au) seems to have a problem, doesn't load up, just sits there spinning its wheel forever. It was really slow last night too, and again, when I tried to post a pic it was inverted. (I tried to fool it by making a copy of the pic and rotating it so it was inverted, then uploading that, but it remained inverted. If I didn't know better I'd think someone had hacked the upload thing for a joke!) Cheers, Marty

So that's how Santa moves like Lightning... Merry christmas everyone, all the best to you and your families.

Why don't you choose a girlfriend WITH a sense of humour? 😁

That is true, Nev, but I think your average A320 pilot is a bit higher trained than Phil Bloggs who's crashed five RTF polystyrene electrics and has just, after six attempts, got his "bronze" rating by being able to do a loop and flick roll followed by the plane remaining in one piece after landing.

What, and trust some other bugger to control it while you're hanging on??

And that landing was a corker. Don't think I've seen a better touch down with an RC model.

How could they be "forced to eject" when the aircraft (looking remarkably undamaged apart from the sooty bit around the cockpit - ejection rocket burn?) - is trundling along on the ground at walking pace?? My totally uninformed guess is that someone accidentally punched them out...

Would it be hard to segregate if you brought it back? For instance you could have the "what's new" buttons only giving aviation stuff and a separate "what's new-off topic" to give all off topic stuff. I don't mind one way or another but saving you money would be good!

Not sure what crop is in that paddock, looks like grass to me. But then I'm not a farmer!

I think he did a great job. Even had the prop stopped horizontally so it didn't hit anything. At least he didn't hit the other big rock in Stanley...

Especially if you're looking for one without a cowling, and you add "nude", "bare", "undressed", or "with bits hanging out"

As far as I know, the 80hp Rotax is a 4 stroke...

I think the instructor was the clown there. Jeez that put the pucker factor on, especially when the camera inverted - I thought they'd gone in then.

I would agree that the guy is a highly experienced jumper, even without knowing who he is you can see his skill with maintaining different attitudes in free fall. However I would also say that there is a lot that can go wrong with trying to attach harnesses (looks like he's hiding some straps under the shorts) while going straight down at 220km/h. I've done a tandem jump - just one, which I admit is not a great deal of experience, but there was a lot of strapping together and adjusting and tightening stuff and double checking before we jumped out of the plane. Not a lot of time for that when you have to link up with someone else after your solo free fall.