Peter Anson

The demonstration of aluminium brazing in the video posted by JG3 is quite impressive so long as you remember that the samples of aluminium he is using are probably very low strength alloys. A few people have mentioned the reduction in strength in the heat effected zone of the metal being welded. It's worth remembering that the reduction could be even more pronounced in aluminium alloys than in steel. From Matweb, here are a few values of the yield strength of a few common aircraft materials in both their high and low strength forms: 6061-T0 49MPa 6061-T6 276MPa 2024-T0 76 MPa 2024-T3 310MPa 7075-T0 103MPa 7075-T6 462MPa Any of these materials initially in their high strength form, if heated above about 200°C will eventually turn into the low strength form, and the higher the temperature the faster it will happen. I think that of these materials, only 6061 is suitable for welding, but you can see from the figures you could be reducing the strength of 6061 by 80%. The brazing rods in the video melted at about 700°F, or 370°C, easily high enough to reduce the strength of the material being brazed.

Big engine, little plane, so hot take-offs are no problem. I was a bit surprised on one take off to notice one CHT go to 150°C so just eased the climb rate. Well, that was for 12 days and I did know in advance that I would be paying to park there. I have parked in the open there a couple of times in the past for $5 per day but was happy to get the undercover parking. If it comes to that, I effectively pay about $40 per week to hangar my aircraft all year round so $12 per day on a casual basis didn't seem too bad. The other aspect of this is that when you are talking to people about hangar costs they are imagining a Cessna sized aircraft, not something with a 22ft wingspan.

Hmmm, won't let me edit the post but here's the link: Try this link

Who needs the airlines when you own a Sonex? Well, I have to admit I often do, but if I had flown Qantas or Virgin Blue I wouldn't have had this great photo opportunity. Except for the chance to take a photo of my Sonex with an aircraft that my father once flew, this was a pretty arduous trip, one during which I thought several times that I had made the wrong call. I have flown (and written about) doing the flight from Kyneton to Rockhampton a couple of times before, but doing a long flight is always a bit of an adventure and sometimes it can be a bit more adventurous than you wanted. Here's a link to my blog: http://www.ansoneng.com/sample-page/sonex-trips/who-needs-an-airline-when-you-have-a-sonex/ Peter

I use a Wombot (Australian assembled from the usual Chinese parts) printer for making parts such as this NACA duct. Starting 3D printing even with a fully assembled printer has a steep learning curve. To successfully print ABS you need a fully enclosed printer. These ducts are printed in carbon fibre reinforced PLA but are not necessarily any stronger than ordinary PLA because in one direction the strength of the part still depends on the bond strength between layers. Some models of Markforged printers can insert a continuous strand of glass or carbon fibre into the print so they are structural in two dimensions but still just rely on bond strength in the third dimension but they do at least have the potential to make structural parts. Printers with that capability are very expensive, I think around $20K. I have made (sort of) structural parts like impellers for water pumps but the only really structural things I have made are nylon blades for a brush cutter. Peter

Interesting report, Especially odd is the Pyramid of Austerlitz. I suspect it was built mainly to keep some otherwise idle troops busy digging dirt. Wonder if there is a Hole of Austerlitz nearby. Peter

This was just a fun flight to a remote(ish) location by four Sonex drivers. Here's a link to my blog. And a couple of photos. Peter Anson

Hi Rene, that is a lot of history covered in such a short flight. The forts are interesting. From the fact there is not much structure left I'm guessing that they were mostly wooden. Peter

Crikey, that's a lot of history concentrated into one blog. I always imagined Holland as just having defences against invasion by the sea.

Which eliminates a very large percentage of us.

You didn't think of landing across the runway did you Graham?

Go to Airstrips near Pub and Food - Google My Maps for a map of airstrips within walking distance of pubs and food. Not sure how up-to-date this is or who was responsible for compiling it but they did a great job. The information is correct for the airstrips I have visited.

Yep, sounds like us. We were using distance-to-go off the ipad to locate each other. The headwind on Monday was the strongest I have experienced. Great for bragging rights if you were going the other way though. I remember doing a trip home from Narromine a couple of years ago when I had 160 knots on my GPS for part of the trip. Reckon I could have beaten that easily.

I must have read 5 or 6 accounts by WW2 fighter pilots about being in a furious dog fight among dozens of aircraft and suddenly finding themselves alone without another aircraft in sight. I have enormous difficulty spotting other aircraft near me. In the blog I mentioned passing underneath one of the Bristells, but I didn't see him until I was within a couple of hundred metres. Good thing he wasn't coming the other way. It reinforces the need to fly at the correct cruise height, but even that becomes problematic when you are flying north or south.

Thanks Bill. It really was good to do it in the company of a couple of other aircraft. A club fly away would probably be the best way to do it.

This was a trip undertaken by Stuart Trist, Brian Ham and Peter Anson in three tiny Sonex aircraft. Was it fun? You bet! Was I nervous about flying my little home-built aircraft in really remote places? Well, maybe a bit.Read all about it at Lake Eyre Trip – July 2018 | Peter Anson – Engineering Peter Anson

Great photos. Now that's one advantage to not having an enclosed cabin.

Looks like Holbrook

At the Antique Aircraft fly-in at Echuca a couple of years ago I saw a P51 and a Corsair flying in formation. They both looked great but surprisingly the Corsair looked quite portly compared with the Mustang. For a really purposeful looking aircraft I don't think you can go past the FW190. Kurt Tank was behind several very good aircraft designs and we were probably a bit lucky that more of them didn't make it into mass production. If you think that's ugly have a look at a Grumman Duck! Hmmm. I think a biplane trainer made a forced landing on top of a speedboat and the designers at Grumman thought "Hey, that could work".

All of these famous aircraft had their faults, as do many modern aircraft, but they were the best that the various combatants could produce at the time. Compare them with some of the aircraft that were obsolete within a few years of their design; the Bolton Paul Defiant, Brewster Buffalo, nearly all of the early British bombers or the ME110 as a day fighter. It took actual combat to show up those faults and the theory of air combat was changing rapidly. In this the Axis forces started with the advantage of more recent combat experience. Producing combat aircraft in large numbers was such a massive undertaking that even in the heat of war it sometimes took years to turn things around. The allies accepted staggering heavy bomber losses when they had DeHavilland Mosquitoes that could carry substantial bomb loads and had far fewer losses. Germany continued to produce vast numbers of ME109s right to the end of the war even though the FW190s were superior. Probably all of the combatants mythologized their own aircraft to some extent. For the British, it's the Spitfire, for the Americans it's the Mustang, and for a time when things were going well for the Germans, it was the Stuka, which I guess shows that an aircraft doesn't even have to be pretty to be mythologized.

I tried two things. My ipad has a folding lid cover which incorporates a couple of magnets in the lid. In the right position it can really muck up a compass readings (180 degrees error) so I also tried it without the cover attached. The ipad itself parked about 100mm from the compass will deflect the needle by 10 degrees - obviously enough to get you lost. Have to admit that I rarely use my compass, only as a check and backup to the GPS bearing shown on my phone. Another Peter

Don't forget that the ipad you are going to place near the compass also has a magnetic field. I just checked my own ipad near a compass and it deflected the needle by up to 60 degrees. Makes me feel justified in being too lazy to build a decent mount for it on the panel. Peter

I'd say it's one of the many ghost airstrips that appear on Australian aeronautical charts. Some of them disappeared years ago.

Hi Yenn, in fact all the control bell-cranks in the various Sonex types are single sided. I have never heard of any bolt failures but admit I didn't like the look of them so made all mine double-sided as shown:

Hi Charlie, I'd agree with everything you say and have done many trips in my Sonex. See http://www.ansoneng.com/sample-page/sonex-trips/ for reports on some of them. When I started building my Sonex, I too was a little financially crippled because I already had an aircraft and couldn't afford two of them so I built mine from scratch. You can still do that with the Sonex (as well as some Zenith models I think). It took me longer than I had hoped, 6 years, but that just meant the expense was also spread over 6 years. The dribble of money on the Sonex was small enough that it had little effect on the family finances and at the end I had a fantastic little aeroplane. My Sonex has withstood loads in Thermals that would have ripped the wings off my previous aircraft. On the other hand my previous aircraft would have been 50 knots slower when it hit the thermal so maybe it wouldn't have been a problem. You are correct, and I think the Sonex designers certainly aimed for this, but my point was that the consequence of adding weight to the build could be that fatigue life does become a worry. John Monnett is obviously not happy about people changing the MAUW of his design, but this isn't just a Sonex thing. It applies to all metal aircraft.