Soleair

Hi Barryco I recently took the plunge & bought an ipad mini 4 wifi+ cellular. (Stupidly expensive: mine was $650 or so from The Good Guys). I used it for the first time on a cross country exercise (YMDG - YQDI) on Monday. I found it superb! My only fault with it is there are so many bells & whistles available that I probably spent too much time looking at the screen instead of out of the window. But no doubt that will pass. For me the mini is plenty big enough. In the Jabiru I was flying it was mounted on a Ram holder, which gave it perfect positioning. For my MiniMax, I have made a kneeboard which straps to my thigh. I don't think there is enough space in the Max's office for it to go anywhere else. So anything bigger than the mini ipad is not an option. But as I said, I found it plenty big enough, particularly since it is so easy to zoom in & out for local or more 'global' view. My task now is to try to acquire the skills & learn the content of the huge amount of data & display options available. It's tough being an old dog with a new trick to learn, though there are a lot of resources available from Oz runways: Youtube vids & their free download ibook, etc. Plus other pilots, of course. For peace of mind in navigation over great featureless areas like the Liverpool Plains, with almost no geographical standout features & very few roads, it sure beats the hell out of a wobbly compass, a paper map & a stopwatch. Bruce

Yes, I guess comments on the cost of building are based on kit aircraft such as the Jabiru. Although this is to some extent 'building', it is more accurate to say it is really assembling pre-built components. And clearly the more you build, the less you are paying for someone else's time - thus the cheaper it becomes. I built my MiniMax based on free drawings downloaded from the interweb. (here) If you source your materials locally - Hoop Pine is an excellent choice for aircraft, being on a par with spruce - then you avoid punitive shipping costs. Of course it will take time to build, and a lot longer than most suppliers advertise. But this discussion is for those who do not have sufficient funds to simply go out & buy, & thus have resigned themselves to never owning an aeroplane. Consider your time: do you never just sit & watch TV in the evenings? Go down the pub? Play golf? Watch footy? etc. Most people could find a few hours per week, especially at weekends, that would over time result in their own home built plane. And if you're stressed at work, it is very relaxing to escape to the shed at home. You could still fly an hour a week while building - assuming you can afford it - there's 168 hours in a week! As to cost, again, the more you do yourself the less it costs. For the MiniMax you can buy a complete airframe kit for 6200 USD. But you would probably pay only half of that sourcing local materials yourself. If you are really short of cash, it is possible for example to find good timber from old floorboards (which has been done) - but you would need to know what you were looking for & inspect very carefully. The great advantage of building this way is that you buy materials as you need them, and if it takes several years to build, then the cost of materials is spread over that time too, and becomes much easier to find. While there is no doubt an accountant would tell you your time spent makes the build vastly expensive, I guess you generally either have time or money available. I'm addressing those who don't have money, & aren't working in their spare time at 20, 50, or 100 $/hr. Similarly with the engine. A new engine will be half of - or more - the cost of the entire project. But if you regularlly search online, suitable engines do come up for sale. Right now over on Classifieds is this Rotax 447 for around a grand. With a bit of ingenuity you could make a belt reduction drive for it, or find someone who can. I used to do this with the 50hp Robin engines I flew. You can make your own propeller too: I have made many, & it is not as difficult as some seem to imagine. Of course you have far greater freedom if you go for 95.10 rego, as you can pretty much design & build what you wish. Though only the foolish would do so without either sufficient knowledge or outside assistance. But there is a lot of expertise available on this site, and elsewhere. Some aircraft are built by a group of friends. Many advantages if you choose this route: reduced elapsed time for build; less cost per person; moral support; social activity & so on. It would be a shame if recreational flying in Australia were to lose homebuilt aeroplanes, and a great pity that fewer people would have the satisfaction & enjoyment that comes from their building, and of course, flying. Bruce

If that was my prop, I would repair it with epoxy & glass cloth. Polyester resin, typically used in 'fibreglass', does not bond well to wood - that's prolly why it was easy to peel off the tip section. Epoxy - preferably WEST system - is made especially for wood. It has a lower viscosity, & ISTR diluents, to allow it to bond better to bare wood surfaces. I would feather the edges of the old encapsulation back, as fine as possible. Then wet the bare wood with neat WEST & allow to cure. Then re-wet with neat epoxy, & laminate glass cloth up to the same thickness as the original - always applying the resin first, & drawing it up through the dry cloth by stippling with a brush. Overlap the feathered edge. Let it all cure, then dress it by hand with sandpaper & a cork block. Note that to cure properly, you should be working in warm dry conditions. For the other end, that just has the ding, I would prepare as above, apply a coat of neat WEST, allow to cure. Then apply subsequent epoxy thickened with colloidal silica or microlite. Let it cure, sand it flush, give it a another coat of neat WEST. Finally sand to profile. When you have done all that, you must check the balance of the prop. If you don't have (access to) a dynamic balancer, you can balance satisfactorily statically. Make a channel of 100 x 25 softwood, about 200 long. Screw it to the bench. Fix a couple of straightedges to the upper inside edges (e.g. steel rules), so you have 2 level steel edges parallel to your workbench top. Use a spirit level to check this carefully. Make a spindle that is a good fit in your hub, then balance in 4 positions. Remove excess resin, or add more, to get the blades to hang level. Fine balance with paint if necessary. Both profiles should be the same.

Yep, that was him to a tee. Actually, I told him to go to 'L'.

In the UK the runway direction is indicated by a Tee. You fly up the leg toward the cross piece. A big white Tee is on the ground near the windsock, at nearly all airfields. I once flew into Popham from the Isle of Wight and landed into the wind. The airfield manager came out & threw a wobbly because I'd landed against the tee. . .

Hi Scooter (& Brent) Like many people, I am very funds limited. Have you thought about building? Very satisfying, teaches you lots about your plane; you can maintain it yourself once it's flying (so saving more money); and it's lots of fun! Worked for me - see my avatar. By far the cheapest way to get airbourne is to finish a part-built kit, although it would pay you to get a thorough inspection from a suitably qualified person. Or just a pre-loved plane that needs a bit of TLC to get up & running. Here's a couple of links just from the Classified ads on this site. You'll probably find many others on different sites with a bit of patience. Streak Shadow SportAir single seater Happy Flying Bruce

Thanks to all. I have some options to explore from these ideas. I guess substitution of components, starting with a borrowed ANR headset, is a good start. And the foam earplugs meet my budget constraints!

Ian, I am not suggesting there is a problem with the headset. As I said, they work fine in the Jab; they're comfortable & are excellent value for money. Although I was surprised not to receive any 'book of words', or even tech specs. Are these available? Dutch, I don't doubt Bose offer excellent service for their high end product. No doubt they can afford to. I just don't have the $1300 needed for their kit. Yes, the Icom A22 is old, but serviceable. I'd love to upgrade to a nice little in-panel Becker AR6201, but see above. I guess I was just rather naively hoping someone else had this problem, & that there was an inexpensive inline amp that would improve it. Ah well . . . as somebody said, if god had intended man to fly, he'd have given him more money.

That looks a very clean installation, Nick. Impressive to get the radiator snugly within the cowl line. Definitely an engine worth considering - shame they can't get the price a bit more competitive to offer a greater challenge to the dominance of Rotax. By the way, my hangar carpet is much worse than yours, & I hope your squares avoid further problems with your testicles.

Yes, I sussed the volume knob, & it is turned full up. Signal amplifiers seem to be readily available for car radios, & headphone amplifiers for various groundbound users. They are also very cheap - hence my question on whether they're used or available for aircraft. Thanks for the link on the ANR kit, MN. The local dealer site seems dead, but Aircraft Spruce are selling them. Maybe I'll borrow some ANR's & see if they solve the problem. Then I may go for the kit - most ANR headsets are beyond my means :( Thanks Yenn! The QT in-ear headsets look interesting. And according to their website, they're so popular they've run out of stock! Still over $500, but I guess that's cheap for ANR like Bose (apparently handcrafted from rare elements, trimmed in ermine & dusted with diamonds, going by the price). Cooperplace, sorry if I worded my original question poorly. I fly a Jabiru, but own a MiniMax. I use the same headset in each.

None, as far as I know.

My Icom A22 works ok - albeit with a bit of hissing - but it is very quiet. My headphones are the 250 series Recreational Flying cans, bought on this site. They work fine in the Jabiru I fly. I can hear transmissions with the engine stopped (on the ground!), but not with the engine running. The ambient noise from my 2 stroke is just drowning the radio. Is there a headset amplifier available that I can interpose between radio & headset? Powered either 12v aircraft supply or dry cell battery? If this is not a solution, anybody have any other suggestions? TIA Bruce

And those who are too lean are getting a bit thin on the ground.

Gixxers, maybe. But my little DRZ400 loved being treated rough - kept asking for more.

Thanks for the link. That looks a very interesting plane to build. I'm even a bit tempted . . . I bet it would perform very well on a Jabiru engine. Currently a very good price as a homebuilt powerplant.

Yes, a similar format. Might be just me, but I have to say I think the Super2 looks much more attractive. No doubt a very capable plane, though.

Doug, it is a shoulder wing. The wing was put in that position because it offers maximum visibility. The leading edge is about opposite your ear, & you can see over it & under it. The engine was inverted to keep the cowl line low, & the result is superb all round visibility. The wings are swept forward Blanik/Bulkow Junior style, to align the CL with the CG, and you look along the leading edge. Yes, it does get a bit hot on the ground - but remember this is a UK plane, so hot sunny days are a rarity! The canopy is hinged at the top, & opens upwards & rearwards. It made for a bit of excitement when hand propping the donk once - it's a big canopy (blown by the people who did the Hunter Hawk canopies). As an aside, the structure between the main bulkhead & the firewall is made of just 4 parts: cockpit floor; 2 sides; upper coaming. All the details required, such as gutter for the canopy seal; central tunnel on the floor for cooling pipes; panel-breaker styling strakes - are formed directly into the aluminium. The Super2 was the first - and as far as I know, still the only - aircraft to use Superplastic aluminium as primary structure. It is in effect pressure formed aluminium sheets, 'blow moulded' over a cast iron male mould. Saves a hell of a lot of fiddly detail items, especially since the cockpit area is the most complex part of most planes. And it allows for double curvature, so that one can style as for composites, but build in aluminium. In keeping with this, the all-aluminium structure was glued together. Although testing showed they were redundant, CAA insisted on some rivets (gluing aluminium primary structure frightened them). But because there were relatively few rivets, they were all countersunk, giving very clean lines free from domed rivet heads.

Yes, I know what you mean about flying without the instructor. It is more relaxed - assuming nothing goes wrong! And the little Jab shoots up in climb one up. At our strip I'm almost at circuit height by the end of the runway. I've just come back from a brief flit or 4 around the circuit, just to build on my skills. Lovely day - had a little play with some baby cu :) Bruce

WELL DONE!! Beautiful landing, sir. Especially with no flaps. Now it's time to consolidate, with regular solo flights. I'm off for one today :) Bruce

That is a lovely example of a Flea, Paddo. Which engine is fitted? How do you find it re crosswind landings? What sort of cruise speed do you fly at? Are you fed up with all these questions yet?

I worked for 6 months in Bavaria. I should have learnt a reasonable amount of the language, but to my detriment I was led astray by other pursuits (mainly skiing & beerkellering). But one phrase I did pick up was useful in cutting to the chase: 'Ich verstehe keine wort von vas du sagst: lassen uns nur bumsen' (sp?) It either worked or it didn't :)

The problem was the needle roller bearing bottom end bearings. They developed a slight slew, which resulted in the bottom end cap applying lateral pressure to the phosphor bronze washer between the big end & the main bearings. This eroded tiny bits of phosphor bronze, which transferred through the ports and deposited on the plugs, leading to a misfire. The solution was simply to specify tighter tolerances on the bearing cage, but it took a while to suss this - by which time the damage had been done to confidence in the engine, & hence sales. And since ARV was tooled up to produce high volumes (the company was hoping to go public very soon, & bankers demanded high projected profits from high unit production), the overheads took their toll on limited working capital. With hindsight, perhaps a case of going into full scale production before the plane was fully developed.

The Hewland engine (as Kasper said) was 3 cylinder inline 750cc water cooled, & the bulge aft of the u/c is the cowling over the radiator. The radiator was recessed up into the fuselage. It started off completely buried, but overheated on first flight, so was subsequently hung out in the breeze a bit more. Yes, as Planedriver noted, it was built at Sandown on the Isle of Wight. CEO was Richard Noble, who started ARV after he got the land speed record. Originally, the firewall forward was arranged to accept one of 3 engines, depending on how their development progressed. One was a flat 4 horizontally opposed 4 stroke engine by Lotus, which didn't get beyond a very sexy mockup. The second was a Wankel rotary engine made by Norton (of motorcycle fame). They were unwilling to see it in an aeroplane. Mike Hewland was very enthusiastic, and agreed to add a 3rd cylinder to his prototype 50 hp twin to give 75 hp. It was a great little engine, with gear reduction drive (not surprising as at that time, mid 80's, Hewlands supplied most of the Formula 1 teams' gearboxes. ARV certificated the AE75 engine for full Public Transport use, which was a huge achievement given the CAA's initial response. It was a very high power-to-weight ratio engine, & if the Super2 were to truly break the mould of Cessna 150/Cherokee type planes, it had to start with a new engine. Remember this was 4 years before Rotax released the 912. Although there was a lot of market resistance from 'conventional' pilots to flying behind a 2-stroke (& little has changed since), the Super2 handled so well in the air that 34 were sold before ARV went bust, with about half going to flying schools. Ironicallly, it was a minor development problem with Mike Hewland's engine which led to a collapse in sales, and shortly after the failure of ARV.

+1 on the Viffers. I've had two, both FV's (the last of the carby models). Done over 100k on them - love them to bits. And the red ones go fastest So back on the thread, anyone know this plane? I used to fly this actual one - sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper, exhibited at the Boat Show in Earl's Court, London.

Thanks, Kasper. Very interesting.