Markdun

Spacey, a friend of mine’s wife is legally blind (in her early 60s) and, as you would expect no drivers licence (they are not in the NT).  She manages to ride her electric boosted bicycle the 3km to the shops and back (on the road mind you).  Exercise...sort of...and shopping, but probably more risk than covid.

Oh dear.  You use ALL the tools available in your kit, you just don’t ditch some, because they’re not 100% perfect.  Laws against murder don’t work...people still murder ...but we don’t ditch those laws!  Listen to the wise people at the WHO.  They have been exceedingly critical of the UK’s single policy of vaccination and let it rip.  They were blunt, calling it ‘stupid’ and dangerous.

It is increasingly likely that even with an unachievable 100% vaccination rate, covid will still be active in the community, including killing people....vaccinated people, albeit at a very much lower level than if people weren’t vaccinated. The Grattan Institute came out today with an 80% vaccination target to ‘open up’ the economy, and they admitted that covid would still be running rampant at that level of vaccination and implicit in this is that a small percentage of people will die each year as a consequence.....10,000, 25,000 pa what, they didn’t say?

it might be deliberate policy to “let it rip’ a bit to scare a lot of people to get vaccinated....it worked for me.  But how many people died as a consequence?  In my view pretty immoral.

We’ve got a great advantage over most other countries, let’s not trash it more by ditching proven effective public health measures, like quarantine, track, trace and isolate, face masks, avoiding other people, and vaccination.

Alan, no it won’t, unless you have gravity feed, ie. no mech pump.

Yep, and some yank could do that in a twin at a thousand foot or so, dead stick, do a wing over or two, land and roll to his gate.  Some guys have energy management down to a fine art.

 If I recall correctly didn’t you run out of fuel after landing and while taxiing to the fuel bowser after a flight from Porepunka?

Spacey, I think there is a reasonable article in the Guardian today that tried to answer this question. I don’t know. Tthere is not a lot of empirical statistically robust research.  There is the general argument that vaccinated will have less severe outcomes.....but by how much and what proportion?  There are growing comments about children both increasingly contracting the disease and getting long covid/complications with the Delta strain.  It’s good of the USA and UK to have experimented (sorry trialled) vaccines on their children for us.  I do recall early on in the pandemic that a number of hospitals and obstetricians were demanding newborn infants be separated from their mothers (& forced csaesarians in one country) despite the absence of evidence of any benefit.  A similar thing happened with HIV in Africa which resulted in thousands of unnecessary infant deaths.  It’s true we have to make decisions with imperfect information (which would have been better if Morrison had not completely bungled the borders and quarantine), but too often the absence of evidence is wrongly confused with evidence of absence.

Alan, I have two aircraft, both powered by a Jab2200 with a mechanical fuel pump and with a facet electric ‘boost’ pump in series for T/O and landing.  One has a mid wing and tank (shoulder level) with a simple vented cap, probably with some negative pressure as it slopes to the back.  This works fine, and will go ok with just gravity feed.  The other aircraft has a low wing and the tank is mounted above ones’ knees.  It has a forward facing vent.  I tried gravity feed with a boost pump in parallel, but that set up failed the gravity feed ground test, hence the mechanical pump plus facet.  Over 200 hrs in each.  I can’t tell the difference.  Both tanks have finger strainers and fuel filters to eliminate problems of bugs and blown grass in the tank. Cheers, Mark

Ok, I’ll now stick my oar in.  First, there is BS everywhere on this issue.  Second, for good trustworthy and reliable information listen to the WHO twice weekly press conference.  Also look at the data and graphs on the covid pandemic in ‘ourworldindata’.

Third, acknowledge that not all outcomes are due to guvmnt or individual action...chance and environment also play their part.  Australia has had good outcomes mainly because of our remoteness and isolation....oceans are good.  Had the premiers not forced the prime minister to close borders we would have been worse off.

Fourth, the vaccines.  Some like AZ (& a host of others) have ‘emergency approval’.  In some countries (USA) others have full approval (mRNA).

Fifth, the vaccines are targeted at reducing deaths and severe illness...they do NOT make people immune, nor are thet tested for reducing transmission.  For example, in the UK over 50% of the population are ‘fully vaccinated’ (over 70% just one dose), and as a result now over 90% have some immune response to Covid,,,,either because they have had the disease or have been vaccinated.  The good news is that the UK despite having an obscene death rate to date (a total basket case really) deaths are now down to 40 per day (and yes it is both vaccinated and unvaccinated). The bad news is that even with such high percentages of vaccination or ‘natural immunity’ their case numbers have been massively growing and hospitals are at capacity.  The evidence there is that being vaccinated reduces getting the disease by about 50% and similarly it only reduces transmission about the same (this is still with over 90% efficacy for death or severe morbidity). This is still extremely good, but it is also why it is completely nonesensical to allow vaccinated people to travel or ignore other public health measured, like mask wearing.  Indeed it is possible that vaccinated people may be more likely to spread the disease precisely because they wrongly believe they no longer need to be careful.  
Sixth, the other lesson learned from the UK is that the ‘let it rip in a fully vaccinated population’ policy, is likely to substantially reduce deaths (compared to an unvaccinated population), but it nevertheless will result in increased deaths.  My back of the envelope calculation is about 5,000 to 10,000 per year for Australia.  The question is, what is an acceptable number of deaths per annum to open an economy that is doing ok without opening up? Influenza currently kills about 3000 per annum.

seven, with the Delta strain that has almost double the transmission of the original one, it is likely that ‘herd immunity’ will not be reached even with 100% vaccinated.  I expect some clever footwork by the boffins on this, with a fudged answer that assumes a certain ongoing death rate.

Eight, there are several studies on case death rates by age, gender and race in quite divergent cultures and countries.  The relationship is pretty uniform and the main findings are that death rates is a log relationship to age: over 80..20%; over 70 ...10%; over 60...5%; under 30...bugger all.  The average of 3% is pretty meaningless.  This is why the advice on AZ and age has changed.

Nine, the problem in Sydney was caused by failed border control; too lax entry, too many exemptions, no federal purpose built effective quarantine facilities (despite having 18 months to do so).  Had the federal government fulfilled their Constitutional responsibilities on ‘we determine who comes across our borders’, we wouldn’t need to be in the mad rush to vaccinate.  Instead, it could have been more orderly, and more moral (in assisting our neighbours in more need).  Instead the hapless feds rushed to purchase vaccines, driving up the price and reducing supply for those in more need, and botched the delivery.

Ten, if you want a good comparison use NZ, Taiwan andSouth Korea.  If you want to look at failed countries look at the USA, UK, France, Brazil.  I used some comparison with the UK....but be careful....they have effectively euthanised a substantial proportion of their over 70 year olds, so their reduced, but still significant, death rate may be due to eugenically thinning out the weak.

Eleven, when you get vaccinated, keep doing the other stuff as you still are likely to be contagious!

I think you will find the federal auditor, Grant Hehir, has quite a good track record.  This is not a paper clip counting exercise.  I expect the auditors people will not only listen to CASA, but also talk to those in the industry.

i, too, have had experience in accompanying auditors on random financial compliance audits a federal grants program which I managed (generally spoken of these days ‘rorts programs’) ....I was amazed at the sloppiness of state QANGOs like regional development boards versus the meticulousness of community not-for-profits.  My program was also subject to a federal auditor-general performance audit.  They reasonably quickly identified a program we continued funding millions of your dollars to, that had absolutely no hope of succeeding, including my note to our ‘board’ that handing out a $5000 cheque to every rate payer would have delivered 4 times the benefit of the proposal they agreed to fund.  Luckily for my Dept I also convinced them to advise the Minister to abolish that part of the program...and he declined.  The Auditor gave that a tick, because the stupidity was a well documented political decision, not unlawful or bad administration.

Good point.  I thought the same about Airservices ‘land grab’ for class C airspace at a time of falling GA traffic.  My impression is that tge auditor is particularly interested in how CASA does or doesn’t do enough on compliance/enforcement in RPT and commercial, along the lines, it’s no good having rules if everyone, particularly the shonky ones, are ignoring them.

Here is your opportunity to let our wonderful federal auditor (of fame for exposing all the federal ‘rorts’ in spending our money unlawfully as per the sports rorts etc etc etc etc etc).  But remember the AG’s intention is that CASA more effectively and efficiently implement and enforce the legislation and sub-ordinate regulations, not assess whether such regulation is over-burdensome or unecessary.

https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/the-civil-aviation-safety-authority-casa-planning-and-conduct-surveillance-activities

Bruce, navigation is not only knowing where you are, it has to have meaning or context. An aviator got lost in a hot air balloon, so he descended over a golf course and asked a couple of guys playing golf where he was.  Their answer was, ‘you’re in a hot air balloon 200’ above a golf course’.  He then asked if they were accountants, to which they responded, ‘how did you know?’. ‘Because the answer you gave was precisely correct, but absolutely useless’.

Jimmy Cook was a superb navigator, but when he cruised the Australian east coast he may have known his lat & long, but his charts didn’t show where the land and water was etc.  so despite knowing his lat and long, he had to navigate with the original instrument....the Mark 1 Eyeball and a string with a lead weight on the end. Knowing his lat and long enabled him to make an accurate chart for others....indeed some of the charts I’ve used in 1985 were marked as  Lt Cook of the RN being the chart maker.

Spacey, my reliance on the sextant was pre-GPS days.  If it broke, you fall back on dead-reckoning, or you do a Jimmy Cook, ie. eyeball navigation.  Some yachties still do a James Cook for east coast navigation, ie. keep the land to port.

This reliance on instant modern equipment is often just too much.  At work, a colleague thought up a policy proposal to have emergency phones every 5 km on all major highways because it might save a few lives despite the massive cost because, ‘how do you call for help, if there’s an accident’?  My response was you do what people have always done...knock on the door of the nearest house and ask them to call an ambulance, or stop a car and ask them to do so at the next house’.  Evidently this is too ‘embarrassing for young ones.

Like I said, if the screen goes blank, there is the colour based navigation option.   But seriously, our primary navigation instrument is the eyeball, hopefully both of them, which should find you a paddock to land in.  If not, you shouldn’t be flying.  I do carry an orienteering compass and a paper map with me, despite the colouring navigation option.  I’ve used this compass to sail single handed across thousands of nautical miles (with charts, a sextant, almanac, watch and calculator/log tables)...if it’s good enough for that. However, this is not life saving stuff to have, just it would be nice to get to where you want to go.

I’ve still got a nifty Z80 based computer that I built a little while ago.  When connected to a HF radio’s audio output and a thermal paper printer, prints out the  BOMs weather reports including actual and predicted MSL pressure charts.  A toggle switch changes the program (I think it’s called an ‘App’ now) to Morse code decoding, assuming you re-tune the HF radio to an appropriate frequency (like RAN ships)...quite interesting if you want to learn which admiral is moving ships for cocktails etc.   At least this was all from the 1980s.  I suppose it still works.

However, I’ve never really worried about what if the GPS system goes down and I’ve never had a need to look at a magnetic mechanical compass in an aircraft.  If the GPS system is out, there’s a lot more grief for others than just me....and I can always revert to the colour and temperature method of navigation, ie. green OK; red, too far west; blue too east; hot too far north, cold too far south.

I forgot to mention.  Laminations are used because wood shrinks and expands with changes in moisture content, and this doesn’t occur evenly.  Laminating makes the plank/propeller dimensionally stable with changes in moisture content. Length wise, along the grain, wood moves little ~1% or so.  Radially (imagine a line from the centre of the tree going outwards horizontally) ~5% or so.  Tangentially (also horizontal, but parallel to the growth rings ~ 8-10%.  This is why many timber boards twist cup and split.  Of-course, some timber’s are pretty dimensional stable with moisture content, eg western red cedar, and this is why this wood is often used in windows and boat building despite being soft (it’s also toxic and doesn’t rot).  And if you purchase radially sawn timber (the yanks call it ‘quarter sawn’) as you ought to for aircraft, then you minimise twisting, cupping and splitting, but you don’t get rid of it; laminating does.  Also laminating overcomes small defects, like knots, gum pockets, grain misdirection etc.

Spacey, that’s an excellent idea.  My Jim Maupin designed Carbon Dragon had lots of wood-cf composite construction.  The wing main spars (full cantilever wing 44’ wing span) had caps of spruce and carbon fibre.  The spruce was in the shape of a ‘U’ that tapered towards the wing tips. The carbon was ‘tows’; a specified number went full length and then there was progressive less full length. You had to make a jig for the carbon to roll off a roll, down through an epoxy bath, up to be squeezed to get rid of excess resin, then along the length of the spar cap.  The wing ribs were also made with 1/4x1/4” spruce strips with a 3/32” groove routed down the centre (another jig), and carbon tows were laminated into that groove (similar jigging as for the wing spar caps).  These made exceptionally light and very rigid and tough wing ribs.

CF has good compression strength, unlike Kevlar, but in most work the compression forces are handled by the resin.  But this is why cf laminations are very stiff, again unlike the floppy nature of Kevlar laminations.  The problem with cf is that with such a low modulus of elasticity it bends only a very little and then fails completely.....it’s brittle.  The combination with wood as a composite in the Carbon Dragon seemed to work well.  However, Kevlar was the main tension load bearing material from the wing spar (and anti drag) attachment points to the fuselage.

Back to prop building, the question would be what are you trying to achieve by laminating cf between the wood?  It would make it much stiffer, which could make the prop more efficient, but it would also make it less resilient and perhaps less forgiving to engine power pulses say.  I’d also give a warning from my experience...cf is not easy on tools...if you intend to do any shaping, cutting, sanding etc...good luck.

Skip, in sailing boats there’s a saying you can’t have a boat that is fast, cheap and with lots of room below.  You can have any two features but not all three.  I think aeroplanes are similar...we can’t have it all. Perhaps it’s time, as we all are getting older, to compromise on speed, but keep comfort etc.  As per ‘Flying for fun’, spending more time getting there is, might deliver more fun!
I hadn’t heard all that about the Europa....it always looked like a nice aeroplane.

Skip, I’m thinking a Europa...stall speed maybe a tad more than 30 though.  And if you get some long wings you can switch the iron thermal off.  Negative is low wing, but then I own a Corby which is such a hoot to fly....what’s wrong with 115 kts?

My comments about my experience flying gliders was based on flying in NZ.  I agree with Mike’s comments about the GFA...strictly rule based, not safety conscious.  I stopped after a check flight with an instructor in strong winds and heavy turbulent sink who was pissed I didn’t landed short instead of putting brakes away to risk a long landing among other gliders and people. He hopped out, pushed the tail through the 25kt wind, the rudder jibing savagely as you would expect, and with the rudder cable exiting the aircraft....an oversized or improperly swaged Nicopress sleeve gave way, and of-course, that glider was unairworthy both before and after this!  This was the last straw for me. That club were discouraging of any family attending, particularly children, and expected everyone to attend a full day or not at all.  I’m not surprised at all that the GFA has declining membership....they certainly weren’t fun to fly with for me.....a stark contrast to the people of Wellington Gliding Club in NZ based at Paraparaumu aerodrome.....and I’m an Australian and was only in NZ for a job for a few years!

Thanks....I also recall that the guy who landed the Boeing convertible soft-top in Hawaii was also a former glider pilot...but not completely sure on that one.  
Anyway, I would advise all people interested in flying to do some gliding; it’s not only good for flying skills & knowledge, it’s also good for your hearing and your soul.  In gliding I learnt about and experienced incipient spins; we spun and had to recover; we did EFATO releases and flew circuits from 200’agl; we always did co-ordinated turns, including close to the ground; we climbed in weak narrow thermals frequently dropping that inboard wing and picking it up with rudder not aileron; we did outlandings which weren’t emergencies; we scared trampers and sheep ridge soaring in the mountains; we flew super smooth wave to 15,000’; we were towed through extremely rough rotor losing and regaining site of the tug in seconds; my kids often got to ride in the back seat of the Cub tow plane; we coastal ridge soared in westerlies below 800’ for ages; we flew with 10 or more gliders in the same thermal; we did aero tows, winch launches, car tow launches, and rubber band launches off the side of a hill with the hang-glider guys....flying for fun at its very best!

And the guy that dead sticked a heavy who run out of fuel in North America...the one where thought he was buying kilograms of fuel but they sold him ‘pounds’.

Two point landing.  Its not three point until the wing tip is resting on the grass. 🙂

I also agree with Nev and Bruce. Gliders are conventional aircraft.  As regards landing, I’ve only flown gliders with one wheel and a tail skid, and landing is as per conventional for any tail dragger; fly a conventional circuit, control glide slope with spoiler/brakes or side slip, using the spoiler/brakes/side slip like you would with a throttle, except you can’t do a go around, or like a dead stick landing in a powered aircraft. Cross wind landing is by crabbing not wing down....wing down risks a ground loop from touching a wing tip on the ground.  Most gliders will also pull up fast, say if that fence is coming up too fast, by doing a wheeler landing, applying wheel brakes if you have them and pushing the stick forward to rub the forward under fuselage in front of the wheel on the grass. They also pull up faster if you keep the undercarriage retracted.  
I’ve assumed you understand the difference between nose wheel and tail dragger aircraft in that the centre of mass in a nose wheel aircraft is forward of the main wheels, and so when the mains touch the runway on landing the nose drops and this reduces the AoA on the wings, reducing lift.  On a tail dragger the opposite happens, so if you land with airspeed above stall, the tendency is for the nose to pitch up, increasing the AoA, and you will balloon back into the air.

There are also considerations about how spoilers/brakes affect stalling. The gliding club I belonged to regularly had landing ‘competitions’.  We would put a row of toi toi (pampas grass) across tge runway to simulate a fence.  The winner was the person who went clear over the row of pampas grass and pulled up closest to them.  One time a young bloke came in with the club Blanik, real slow, brakes in, pulled up over the pampas and then snapped the brakes out.  The glider immediately stalled about 1.2m above the ‘runway’ with almost no forward speed, coming to a stop about two plane lengths from the pampas fence.....a hard landing, but easily the shortest. The CFI disqualified him.

Contemplating how I could install a remote transponder in my Corby (definitely no room on the panel for a transponder) with it being controlled by my MGL Xtreme EFIS.  Seems there are plenty of cheap Garmin XTR33 around.  You would think manufacturers would publish their RS232 protocols but alas, no.  The MGL setup is for a Sanden remote transponder, so it has the functionality. Has anyone either worked out the protocols or built a multiplexer/converter?