wideblueyonder

Pm sent.

Hi Glen, In my J-120 the tank is also behind the seat and very difficult to see the last 20 litres of fuel quantity. Each 5 litres measures 17mm on the quantity scale, so 20 litre mark is 68mm from the bottom of the fibreglass tank in my plane.

And faithfully repeat their mistakes......

“Quadrantial”has been replaced with “hemispherical” some time ago (u showing your age?) just sayin.... But yep, fly at the safest level! Below 3000’ you must be ‘clear of cloud’, so gives you a bit more flexibility. 2nd the web cams?

Best thing I ever did to my plane, is to remove the 3 dial steam driven altimeter (which about 80% of students mis-interpreted) and replaced it with a digital altimeter. What a beauty! Not a single person has mis-read it or got it wrong. There is no need to interpret the thing. If it says, lets say: 3750, then that is what it is. Can’t get it wrong. Quick glance, get the info you need in an instant and eyes back out side!

Many (most) aircraft become overweight if you fill the seats and fuel tanks. Full tank and just pilot may be fine. Many earlier light sport aircraft are over the allowable legal weight with two up and anything over 5 litres of fuel. Many flying schools had to change their training planes after an audit revealed the weight issue.

Some calls may only be recommended, but the phraseology is mandatory and must be in the standard published order. In other words, you may choose whether or not to make a call based on traffic or relevance, but if you make the call, it must contain pertinent information, in the approved order, using approved words. The reason being, rather than to be compliant and make the call to satisfy a legal requirement, the call needs to be meaningful to any recipient it may be directed to, and that pilot is expecting a stream of relevent information in a particular order, due mainly to limitations in short term memory. If the listening pilot missed the first bit of a call and does not know what station the call is being made to, then all that pilot needs to do, is listen to the rest of the call, knowing that the station identifier will be confirmed with the last word of the call. The call begins and ends with the station identifier.

Nope, must end with “Parkes” eg: .......”circuit at 15 Parkes”

Hey.... We’ll have to do that BBQ trout and vino thing in gods country again soon! Welcome to the forum?

It is a great text and has everything you need to pass the exam. Very easy to follow and understand with the excellent illustrations. The easyest to follow compared to the many GA texts I’ve used over the years. A ‘must have’ reference for the future when you might have to look some things up. WBY

I bought a folding bike with 5 gears. It was second hand but unused, for $90 off Gumtree. The carry bag it came in was a bit light, so I made up a more substantial rounded zipped bag for it and it fits nicely on the passenger seat of my J-120 Jabiru, with the seat belt around it. It has to be in the correct orientation as there is a few different ways it can fit, but only one way where it wont interfere with the throttle or joystick. Never needed the electric version as I always feel the benefit of the pedalling exercise! I can now fly to Triabunna (on the east coast of Tasmania) for fish+chips and not have to call an uber or taxi for the trip to the wharf? WBY

Ummmm..... Very entertaining. (and clever film making) Anyone notice the huge difference in how much disturbance the water surface gets from the downwash between the shots where he was dangling and the drone was not visible, to the shots of the downwash when the drone was visible? WBY

Hi Bruce, I swapped my Jabiru wooden prop for a new black composite prop from Jabiru some 5 years ago on my J-120. Mine was not set and pinned by the factory so I was able to pitch it to suit my needs a bit better. I set it to get 3300rpm straight and level at wide open throttle. (set for best climb). Could not be happier! Quieter, more efficient, shorter take-off roll, less fuel burn, similar cruise, better climb, stays in balance, no damage from taxying over animal droppings, polishes up easy with your favourite furniture polish to keep it looking as new! Everyone comments on how sweet it sounds. If my calculations are right after a trip to Temora and back, I get the equivalent in car talk of 7 litres per 100kms at an easy 100kts. (13 lph) You will need a new spinner, prop bolts etc. I also used a Dynavibe to balance it to 0.03 ips WBY

You can drop in to Tunbridge anytime Marty, I’d be happy to show you around - by air of course!!

Convert a pedestrian into an aviator.

Great trip, great pics, top job! WBY

Gona need best part of 1.21 Gigawatts....?

Hey Skip, when you're ready to part with that pesky IC-A20, give me a ding please! My once trusty back-up unit now has an almost unreadable LCD screen. I'm not savvy enough to know whether its a failed screen or something else, but as you said, they are a solid reliable unit worth fixing. cheers WBY

Jabiru powered X-Air performance? I have a mate who owns a 618 powered standard X-Air. It is going just fine, but with 450hrs of trouble free low stress operation, thoughts are now divided between a full rebuild versus a repower with a new fourstroke engine. He would prefer a fourstroke (for all the usual reasons). How successful is the Jabiru 2.2 engine in the standard X-Air? Would like to hear from owners/ pilots who have flown the 2.2 powered versions. We live and fly in the coldest state, so I believe overheating may not be as big an issue here. Thanks in advance, WBY

I stand corrected and happy to be enlightened by someone who has the actual facts.

L Looks to me like clever use of photoshop to produce an 'artists impression' for a development application from a developers perspective and not so much as from an aviators perspective.

I just went to my local friendly battery wholesaler here in the map of Tassie and bought what is probably a generic battery that they put a sticker of their own brand name on. Even with their probably 300% mark-up, I still paid an eye-watering $94.00 for something that came from, you know where... Ask for an AGM, sealed, zero maintenance type. The one I settled for had significantly higher CCA (cold cranking amp) rating and boy, I was not disappointed. The combination of the factory original battery and aero oils in very sub brass monkey temps meant starts were totally up to wether the planets were in suitable alignment or not. Not a good look with students duly arriving at their appointed times, wondering why their trusty steed is un-cowled and lifeless. again..... WBY

I agree, difficult to charge with a modern automatic charger. I used an old fashioned manual charger on the lowest setting. ( this prevents any calcification that forms on the plates from case-hardening). The battery recovered twice from the same operator error and 8 years later, was still going strong. Recently, my Odyssey in my current plane would not start my engine when it was cold. I replaced it with an AGM a smidge bigger for a fraction of the cost and get instant starts in any temp, even in -7C. Could not be happier. WBY

The way I see it, the plane was already much slower than most would fly for a buzz, fly-by etc. I'd say he was lining up for a river ditching. Engine problems... no fuel, failing fuel pump etc. the thing suddenly burst into life catching him unawares, climbing and the engine failing again, just as he was desperately formulating a new plan in his already totally overloaded head. If it was still developing cruise rpm on impact, there would be visible damage to the prop. Who knows how any of us pilots might react in the same situation with literaly only seconds to formulate a plan with the river being (in his mind) the better option for a forced landing. Consider also it may well have been the passenger at the controls after the pilot became incapacitated.... Just my Aus$0.02 cents WBY

Hi Hi Rob,It's going to be a process of elimination, bit by bit. Try borrowing someone else's voltage regulator if you can, for a start and see if that changes anything. A failing component like a capacitor might be the culprit, still allowing the unit to regulate, but with noise. Be sure your plug leads, if shielded, are only shielded on one end. There should be a noise filter fitted to the power supply wiring to your radio. Again, try a substitute filter to eliminate that as a source. Let us know how you get on with finding the fault. Wby