Soleair

Not to mention looking ugly as sin (IMHO) Bruce

You're probably right, Nev. I just had it drummed into me in my days as a student engineer that centimetres were used by shopgirls, not engineers. (Yes, we really were that sexist in those days - remember?) But since we also calculated on slide rules using such wonderful units as slugs and poundals, all those dull metric units seemed pretty boring anyway. Just rather more logical.

Centimetres are not an SI unit. The International System of Units uses millimetres and metres - NOT centimetres. So if we're going to do it metric, we ought to do it properly. . . Bruce

This thread has stalled.

Of course, it's my home forum! It's a great group, lots of very knowledgeable, helpful people, and usually very well behaved No, I haven't seen Arthur here. Leon Massa, who made the MZ engine I use, reckons to use Castrol TTS and nothing else. He says when rebuilding engines, those who've only used TTS show almost no carbon deposits & very little wear. So that's the oil I use (at 50:1). Of course, amongst 2-strokers, the 'which oil to use' discussion is one which often kicks off long and sometimes heated arguments. It seems everyone has a preference: I just feel it makes sense to go with the engine builder's experience. Cheers Bruce

A warm welcome, Dick. Good to see you over here from the Buzzards! Bruce

Thankyou, Ian. As a fully paid up member of the ROF* society, I greatly appreciate the return to this format. *Reactionary Old Fart

Just love that vintage engine sound.

Look for used rag & tube type planes. They sometimes come up for sale at $10,000 or below. But make sure you either know what to look for, or take someone with you who does, when making a thorough pre-purchase inspection.

Thanks for the offer, BP. Might just make me decide to revisit Queensland! Daintree from the air? Cheers Bruce

I've never flown a Drifter, though I'd love to: they look a lot of fun. I do fly a MiniMax, with a tailwheel. And I have a few hours on a couple of other tailwheel types. Now it may be that the Drifter behaves a bit differently than other planes with the little wheel in the proper place, but FWIW, here's my 2 cents' worth of opinion on why some may prefer the small tailwheel or even the skid. I don't know if you fly off a grass strip or an asphalt runway. But if you normally fly from grass, then use an asphalt runway, you will probably notice a big difference in directional stability. On grass, there is much more drag on a small, narrow tailwheel than a big pneumatic one, & even more drag on a skid (a true 'taildragger' as opposed to a tailwheel aircraft). This drag makes it much easier to point in the direction you want to go, meaning less of the tailwheel tapdance we all know & love. My Max is certainly a lot more squirrelly on hard runways - I much prefer grass. So I'm guessing that would likely be the reason some would prefer not to have a large diameter, wider tailwheel. But I reserve the right to completely wrong! Bruce

My AGM held its charge for 6 months sitting idle. Dropped to 12.4V

Hi Dave, & welcome to the forum. So, you're looking for a plane to carry two heavyweights; short takeoff & landing; bush strip amphibian that folds up small enough to go on a boat. I'm sorry to say, AFAIK there's no such animal. You might be able to get 2 of any of those requirements in one aircraft, but you'll be struggling to get more. But on the bright side, at least you didn't add 'cheap' as well! You might want to look at a 912 powered trike. They will fold, but take a fair bit of time to rig & space even de-rigged. As a start point, you could go here but you'd need to enquire whether they'll take floats. If they do, the floats alone will be pretty bulky. Good luck with your research. Bruce

Great write up on an interesting plane. Howsomever, I've always been an enthusiastic fan of the DH Mosquito. Beautiful lines, multi role: fighter; bomber; fighter-bomber; pathfinder; night fighter - truly multi tasking. And all that from wood, nature's original composite. Just love they Mossies.

It would be a pity to permit cynicism to obstruct progress, or to stymie potential innovation. Rorts & stuff-ups are almost inevitable in any State funded endeavour. But the alternative (doing nothing, or making the wrong choice) could be a great deal worse.

Why spend megabucks on macro projects for renewable energy generation when there is a better solution much closer to home? Australia (& Africa) have the highest insolation (solar energy per sq.km) of any country in the world. Literally millions of MWh irradiating us, nearly all of which unused. If the housebuilding industry were required to incorporate solar energy devices into every new build by law, and all existing house-owners were incentivised to retrofit similar devices, we would substantially reduce the need for huge new power stations. Here is the case with my present house, in Northern Victoria. We have lived here since January this year, taking in some very hot weather, when frequently the ducted aircon was on several hors per day. We have all-electric cooking, and two fair-sized freezers + fridge, all running 24/7. And yet since we have been here, we have not paid a cent in electricity bills: at the last account, the electricity supply company owes us some $35. Now, do we have a vast array of PV panels to achieve this? No. We have a 4kW PV array, fitted on part of the shed roof, facing north. We have a solar hot water panel roughly 2.5m x 1.5m on the house roof. Do we get 60c/kWh from the state? No. Our feedin tariff is 11.30c/unit. We pay 17.6c/unit from the grid, plus $32/month for poles & wires. So, with a tiny 4kW PV array, plus modest hot water panel, we are net suppliers to the grid. And we are using maybe 15% of our roofspace. Now, if every house in Australia were fitted with full roof PV/solar water heating, how many thousands of square km of solar array is that? How much zero emission energy would that produce? Of course this doesn't work as well in cities with high rise apartment blocks. But it would certainly work in the suburbs with individual houses. I'm guessing domestic housing could pretty much pay for all its own consumption, leaving only industry needing external power - and some of that could be defrayed with maximum solar use from roof & property space. Thus every house in Australia would go from being a consumer to a mini power station, feeding the grid. True, energy storage facilities would be required, but that problem will undoubtedly be resolved in the future, and surely it's better to spend money storing solar energy rather than building fossil or nuclear power plants? And here's another big pollution-busting bonus: with all that spare power generated from one's own home, your new electric car can be charged for free. Battery pack charged during the day, changed over daily, for example. At present prices PV panels are still expensive, though much cheaper (& more efficient) than the early ones. But if their use was mandatory for all new builds, economies of scale would massively reduce their price. Also, such a large market would drive the industry to innovate. For example, with flexible thin-film panels produced, these could be laminated onto tin roof panels. Tiles could actually be PV panels, saving the cost of the original material. Every square metre of roof is used as a PV generator. With this size of market, you can bet the industry will come up with the goods, at very low prices compared to today. It seems to me axiomatic that it is extremely misguided, not to say just plain foolish, to expend billions of taxpayers' dollars on building power plants that run on a finite supply of fossil fuels. Coal will run out some time, what then? And that is without trying to calculate the monetary, let alone ecological, costs of polluting our poor overloaded planet. The solution is dazzlingly obvious: a great big thermo nuclear fusion reactor, beaming effectively limitless power down on us, 300+ days per year, for free. Come on pollies - we can do this! Bruce

Mine needs the password before it will let me use the fingerprint. I hate Apple passwords with a vengeance. My cloud storage is full, & I can't delete it. My iPad is now rarely used. I would forgo the whistles & bells of Ozrunways on my iPad in order to enjoy the simplicity of android. Wish I'd bought the Samsung now, instead of spending $700 on the iPad. I'm thinking of replacing it all with just a simple motor vehicle GPS with off road facility. That's all I need for my local flying. Bruce

A Nicaragua bird like the magpie. (m) ??

That's a very pretty aeroplane, Doras, & certainly looks fun to fly. Impressive performance figures, too. The combination of shoulder wing & forward sweep gives the best of all as regards visibility from the cockpit in my view (geddit?). I have a fair bit of time on the ARV Super2 that shared this format. Welcome to the forum. Bruce

For sure it would be great to lure the young away from their virtual world and into aviation. Preferably into the 'seat of the pants' minimal planes many of my generation grew up with. But the problem is money. I built my MiniMax as cheaply as possible, and it is one of the simplest homebuilt designs available. It still cost me more than $20,000. Plus 2 years of 20+ hours per week building. How many youngsters have that sort of time & money available? Incidentally, I had no problems with the support from RAA. I would regard it rather as lack of interference: I just built the plane, registered it, & went flying - no problem. The group of people I believe should be targeted are the 'empty nesters', i.e. those 50 somethings whose children have left home; whose mortgage is small or largely repaid, and whose earning power is close to maximum. Many of these also realise time is running out, & would wish to embark on an adventure before they're too old: travel; motorbike; sportscar; (mistress?): something to mange their midlife crisis. These are the people we should be aiming to attract to our fold. There may also be some amongst them who are in positions of influence, who could make useful allies when needed. But I don't think many of them will be interested in building. Those skills really do seem to be diminishing, since people now largely just seem to pay tradies to do what we used to do ourselves. Thus craft skills, confidence, and the pride of achievement in manual work well done are never achieved. But we could, and should, be doing all we can to attract the 50+ age group into aviation. I don't know how - marketing is not my thing. Maybe organize a flying day at our local clubs? Just a quick circuit or two, with a tiny bit of hands-on for the pax, no money involved? We surely need to, otherwise councils across the country will reclaim airfields for building sites, and what little voice we have now will be lost forever. Bruce

Thanks, Charlie. It looks Fisheresque - you can see some Airbike genes in it, and, of course, the Demoiselle. Bruce

Thanks to both for the links. Interesting planes. Bruce

Charlie, could you post a link to this plane? I can't find one on Google. Cheers Bruce

Yes, Leon Massa sold CRE to the Chinese late last year. However, this is potentially good news, as the Chinese would not have bought the company if they did not intend to continue manufacture of these excellent engines. The email address I was given for enquiries / assistance to existing customers is: [email protected] Bruce