Marty_d

Congratulations Ahmed! The number of children may have doubled, but you and your wife's workload has just gone up by a factor of 10... :-)

Not sure where I saw it now, but I read somewhere that the "Jug" referred to the fact that when stood on its nose, it resembled a milk jug. Wikipedia backs that up (not an infallible source, I know) and has as its citation "Dorr and Donald 1990, pp. 84–85, 88."

Really?? Gawd the back end of the 701 is in no way airtight. Do any others with the boxy aluminium planes have this problem?

Excellent reporting as usual... check out the photo of the "747" they've included, which unfortunately happens to be an A380. Now I know that reporters are not aviation experts (and editors for Murdoch press a bit less expert on most things) but FFS it's not difficult to see that one has a top deck that goes ALL THE WAY ALONG and the other one doesn't. Boeing to cease production of iconic 747 planes in 2022

Here's another one for you - if you're in a spaceship travelling at the speed of light (suspend your disbelief), and another spaceship is on a head-on collision course also at the speed of light - what's the closing speed?

Dark Blue World gets my vote too, top movie. Also the flying scenes in Dunkirk were brilliant - no CGI there, done with real aircraft (not always Spitfires though!) Flight of the Intruder was good in parts too, featuring the A-6 as the name suggests. One that was crap but enjoyable was The Rocketeer - more about a jetpack than real aircraft but it did have a Gee Bee and a Zeppelin, from memory. To broaden it out, someone mentioned space too... who can forget the Vipers in Battlestar Galactica (the modern version), and any of the lovely Naboo ships in Star Wars, with the J-Type Diplomatic Barge bearing a startling resemblance to a Northrop YB-35. Oh, and still in Star Wars, the Wookie Gunship looking a bit like a MIL MI-24 chopper without the rotor. (And if we're branching into choppers, the AT-99 Scorpion from Avatar was brilliantly done, but if I was going to fly anything in that movie I'd be on the back of a Mountain Banshee!) Also deserving of an honorable mention is Sean Connery shooting off their own rudder in one of the Indiana Jones movies. If only the special effects were a bit less clunky...

He's just going into vertical flight. Straight down!

Impressive woodwork Don. Looking great!

I decided to box up the engine until the plane's painted - almost finished whipping up the box this morning. I've also ordered a couple of electric pet blankets (about 20w, 12v with transformer) - one for under the engine and the other one for under our new puppy which will be coming home in 3 weeks!

Talking of instruments - what's the essential nav aid for a homebuilt? I see a few vertical card compasses there, I've also seen the pedestal style "ball" type sitting atop the dash and then there's similar dash-mounted ball types. The vertical card ones seem to be between 2 and 3x the price of the ball type jobs. Can anyone enlighten me about what's good, bad and ugly in the world of compasses? (And why are non-certified boat compasses around half the price of non-certified plane compasses?) Thanks!

Ah, good idea Nev. Always fly with a senior citizen so they can be the canary in the coalmine!

I think Nev has the right idea. Audible alarm and a flashing light. Shouldn't be too hard for an electronics whiz to build one, should it?

It has lugs for the pipes from the exhaust ports in the engine, but it doesn't have lugs for the actual exhaust pipe.

Hey folks, I need some advice... again... The muffler pipes are all cut out and assembled on the jig ready for welding (dropped it off to the welder yesterday). BUT I told him to hold off on welding the exhaust pipe to the muffler until I got some advice. Firstly - it IS welded, isn't it? I've seen some installations with a longer stub coming out of the muffler that the exhaust pushes over and is clamped with hose clamp and held on with springs. But my muffler has the short stub, no spring holders, and the exhaust pipe is the same diameter as the stub so no way it's going over it. Secondly - the angle. I've tried to look at as many 701 pics as possible but they're good at hiding the exhaust. I've seen a couple which seem to show the exhaust coming back under the firewall at a fairly shallow angle, I reckon about 30 degrees or less from horizontal. I think where mine is mounted I may even be able to get 20 degrees or less, as shown below. Question is - is it better to have it angled that far? Thanks!

Hey folks, Due to obvious unexpected circumstances, we're not doing the Australia trip this year. (Maybe not the next, or the next, or the next either, depending what happens!) So while I would have loved to catch up with everyone who extended offers of hospitality (and cadged as much airtime as I could), it just ain't happening. Thanks again to you all - hope to see you in a year or three! Cheers, Marty

I've talked to a bloke in South Africa who's seen a few BMW motors converted with the German TakeOff redrive. His verdict was "If you want to spend your day fiddling with your engine, then go for a BMW motor - if you want to fly, get a Rotax."

I'm just intrigued as to how they handled the logistics there. Did someone hiding in the rear seat actually remove that wheel mid-flight in order for the stunt to happen?

Ah yes but your Hurricane is the plain sister compared to the supermodel that is the Spitfire. Capable, yes, did the heavy lifting, yes, but beautiful?

I agree - to me PSI and BHP make more sense than KPa and Kw. But metric in everything else (and I get picky - metres and millimetres exist, centimetres don't...)

You wouldn't be Robinson Crusoe there, OME.

Thanks Jerry! Downloaded and reading.

I believe the bloke who's building a 1:1 scale Spitfire here in Hobart is planning on using a Chev V8. Can't remember his name now - I have met him at the Sandfly strip, there was an article on his build in the ABC a year or two back.

10 years actually - I bought one for the house a couple of weeks ago.

Skippy, I'd be very interested to hear what they advise too.

Yep... 'cos there'll be such a market for more new 737's in the next 5 years...