Oscar

Gosh, Bex, who were you making parts for? 30 years ago, I had pretty much gotten out of racing, but Clever, Eaglebeak, Geoff T. and Paul G. were still in the game.

Well, if you DID drop in a five-cylinder, and go to tailwheel (thus picking up 5 knots cruise or so), it could be interesting. But with the centre shaft, you'd need long, long legs, so it'd end up looking like a mini-Wilga (sort of). a rather limited field of forward vision... Mind you, forward vision is a much-over-rated concept: look at the Laird Super Solution: http://www.skytamer.com/1.2/2003/3184.jpg. The fuselage for this one was built at Toowoomba by Barry Manktelow, to his usual uber-fine standard..

It is? Then I apologise to all, I thought Textron had assumed it. Mea Culpa.

I see that Cessna are now 'officially' junking their remaining inventory of unsold Skycatchers - stuffing them into garbage skips, without even (it appears) stripping them of useful parts. Cessna had earlier stated that they would be using their unsold inventory (about 80 of the apparently around 280 produced) as spares to support the poor bloody 200 or so actual owners.) Cessna says there is no future position for them in the LSA-class market. Since they now own both Piper and Beechcraft, that's it for the three major players in the world market for smaller aircraft. Piper rapidly abandoned their 'aftermarket badging' sales of the Czech Sportcruiser (??) thing, and Beechcraft never even tried. SO: the world's largest and most successful light aircraft company cannot make a decent LSA-class aircraft... yet a small Australian company has produced almost 10 times that number of LSA-class aircraft.. Sold world-wide, and with a superb reputation for the safety (in particular) of the airframe, but also admirable for being an honest, competitively-performing, no-vices for flying, cheap to buy and maintain, all-around decent-thing, aircraft. Jabirus aren't 'sexy', and the performance figures for their advertising are rock-solid honest (you can cruise at a decent speed in Australian rough-air conditions at usually better than a heap of the Euro stuff). . If you own a Jabiru, you don't get people in the Clubhouse drooling over the looks. BUT: they do the job. A Jab. 430 will haul a load equivalent to a C172 as well, or better, than a C172 - at a price of 1/3rd a new C172 if you are willing to build a 430, and WAY lower running cost. And it will tolerate rough strips and take a bulky load easily. In the strictly LSA class, the Jab. 230 has NO competition for overall utility. No, it isn't STOL, nor does it cruise at 125 kts (in smooth air.. flying off and onto bitumen strips). But you CAN chuck the camping gear contents of the back of your Prado into it and head off around Australia.. SO: can anyone answer me this: why does it seem that so many Australians want to tear down Jabiru, when no other company world-wide can match its basically good features? Cessna could not build a decent competitor. Are there any other competitors out there that I have missed?

I absolutely LOVE Mozzies ( my now deceased ex-Father-in-Law was awarded a DFC for his work in one, did most of his photo reconnaissance work at '350 mph and less than 50 feet', and about the only thing he would wax eloquent about was his admiration of the Mozzie.) I was involved in the AWM restoration (and moved it from Sydney to Canberra), and visited Salisbury Hall and another Mozzie restoration site in the UK as part of that work. I think I've actually seen about 5 Mozzies in conditions ranging from very full 'museum' - not flying - class restorations or in lesser states of restoration. To me, the Mozzie isn't 'sensuous' - more like 'very, very 'right' (though the tailfeathers are too small to be a complete visual balance, and indeed were not adequately powerful for slow-speed flight - an engine-out of take-off was almost always fatal, and my FIL suffered a broken back from a landing incident when a misjudgement of W&B for a new large camera put the CoG too far aft and he had to land way too fast in order to keep control, and there wasn't enough airfield.) To me, they look a bit like a finely-crafted, very effective tool - say, an Everwing hammer.. The FW190 is also like that, to me.

OME: I moved the AWM's 262 from Melbourne to Canberra, and had a decent opportunity to crawl all over it. Since that one was flown by the British as a test aircraft (the British markings, along with the German markings, are still visible on the airframe!) - it could have been the one Brown flew. The 262 was designed and built - in separate plants - to be assembled in the field - and it's as rough as guts as a finished product.. The 'fields' were mainly grass strips, intended to be 'secret' airfields, and that's why all the wheels are very large - hence the fuselage shape: to contain the wheels!. When the gear is tucked up, it consumes a large part of the fuselage volume. I personally consider the 262 to be one of the three most sensuous aircraft I've ever personally seen, after the SR71 and line-ball with the F7F Tigercat. It's even ahead of the Hughes Racer in my opinion - though the Hughes Racer is like a cut and polished diamond by comparison for finish - I saw it under restoration at the NASM.. In the flesh, the 262 has every line so 'right' to they eye - just don't look at the detail..

I reckon you've nailed it. So - not a Jab. engine, then...It looks in pretty good shape for the incident, kudos to Fly Synthesis?

An RV???? Looks like a fairly difficult location to find the least-worst option, but it appears that the PIC chose the best available...

Not a Jabiru, so not of interest... despite the fact that it appears he did a damn good job of picking a soft spot. . Anybody have a clue to what it is?

Wow, thanks for that. Gives me a bit more confidence if I HAVE to fly in an Airbus aircraft... Poo on your engine problems - is this likely to be the automotive pistons? Mark Willard sometimes stretches his Numchukka's feathers roughly over my place to shake out the mud-wasps... and the gentle rumble of the roundy-roundy is a welcome change from bloody choppers thrashing overhead sometimes at lower than 500 feet (Alan Jones, one day I may have the rifle out, and return your pain-in-the arse comments with something more tangible). He's very happy with the standard engine rather than your hot-dog version, reckons he just turns on the fuel, loads it with all the oil he can carry, pats his whimpering wallet fondly, and off he goes.

Dutch - thank you for that very full and very clearly able to be understood, even by me - explanation. I assume that that 'tricking the computers' operation is what was done on the Northeastern demo flight I mentioned. But it raises a question - to me - that may be completely on the wrong track, perhaps you can set me straight here. Please bear with my very limited knowledge! If you have to introduce 'apparent' failures to force the computers to relinquish control, is there any way of the pilot knowing what has ACTUALLY failed and what has been induced? Again, my lack of understanding of the complexity of a 'heavy' control systems may make this a nonsense question, but it seems to me that if you have to disable certain control functions, you may be losing control capability that actually exists but its condition is being misreported? I have a fair bit of faith in the competence of (most) pilots to judge conditions ( aerodynamic conditions, anyway) from the feel and reaction of the aircraft - though that may only be realistic for small and uncomplex aircraft - and to evaluate what is possible to achieve and therefore how to handle the situation. As a crude but true example: a family member, when test-flying a Jabiru for certification, had the elevator control cable disconnect at the stick-end clamp ( Bolts not properly tightened). However, in a Jab., the elevator trim provides a secondary elevator control (albeit of somewhat limited authority), and he was able to make an uneventful landing, by advising a straight-in approach and playing the throttle and flaps a little bit differently to normal to minimise pitch changes and effect a round-out.. What would happen in an Airbus aircraft, if (say) a limit-switch for the flaps on one side goes feral and mis-reports the flap position? I imagine that the computer(s) would rationalise that unequal flap extension is dangerous and a) refuse to deploy the opposite side flaps other than as balanced to what is being reported for the 'faulty' side, and b) calculate the landing profile (if that is the correct term) for that condition? Do you guys get the chance to actually test out and determine by feel and experience, what is ACTUALLY happening? P.S. - have you gotten your engine problems for the Pitts sorted?

M6: it depends on the instruction set. I believe there were some early cases where the F22 Raptor was rendered effectively useless by Windows Vista glitches...

No, I do not have the technical knowledge. But both the AF and the Qantas 380 situations, says to me that Airbus still places its computer algorithms above a pilot's over-riding control. I believe - but do not know, as I have little interest - that the Airbus 'alternate law' means that the 'channel' with the fewest exceptions is given precedence, NOT that it is a 'we computers can't agree, it's over to you chaps' mode.

Bob: you were onboard? That would have me waking up in the early mornings sweating. even now. For anybody with aircraft knowledge, seeing the damage to that A380 would be on the scale of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules decides that not being shot was an Act of God.

You have to be joking. Even in the '70's, DoT (pre-CASA), had issues with Qantas trying to circumvent regulations that prevented flying with not only primary but also redundant systems inoperable.

We are ALREADY in the era when the major 'heavy' computer systems are potentially over-riding primary pilotage principles. A mate of mine was a Qantas Check Captain, and he gave me some of the skinny re the de Crespigny A380 incident. de Crespigny and his FO were frantically trying to work out how to make sense of the absolute turmoil being reported: a cascading series of computer-generated alarms situations. With all due respect to de Cresigny - and he did a bloody good job - the thing that saved that flight was the presence of at least two check Captains on that flight, one of whom realised that the fuel loss situation was about to render the aircraft uncontrollable due to fuel weight loss off one side, and commanded that they get the damn thing on the ground NOW, while they still had aerodynamic control. de Crespigny's career ended ( I think somewhat unfairly) as a result of the Airbus computer system's total inability to STOP trying to resolve the problem - which it could not - and hand over to manual control. They couldn't even shut down one engine for two hours when on the ground, FFS, and finally had to throw the contents of a fire-tender into the engine intake to stop the bloody thing - co-ordinated by mobile phone to Qantas engineers in Sydney! Seriously: you are on the ground, you are sitting in a pool of Jet A1, and you can't shut the engine down because the control system has gone to 'I'm a Teapot' mode'? Same mate told me about the 'sales' flight of one of the first Airbus aircraft to a US airline (possibly Northwestern? - I don't remember). This was just after the Airbus A320 accident at the Habsheim airshow, where one crashed while trying to pull up after a low demo run. (.Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia ) Airbus had tweaked the landing control algorithm. The demo flight progressed smoothly until they tried to land, whereupon the engines fired up and forced a go-around; several further attempts had the same result. As it happened, Airbus had a computer-control guy on board, who was able to hook into the control computer system and change the landing parameters while they circled, and so they all got down safely. That airline did NOT buy Airbus.

Hadn't realised they made a movie about the Gimli incident; watched a wee bit of it, I doubt there was that much emotion going on in the cockpit on the final descent though they made a fair fist of most of it in the movie, to be honest. An experienced crew doesn't waste time being emotional.. it doesn't help. It's an interesting condition of the human brain, that when faced with a hyper-stress situation, it can go into a sort of super-speed mode where both sensory appreciation and decision-making are being processed at a rate that freezes emotion out. Tine seems to progress glacially. I've been there, in a car crash that had every chance of killing me, and when sliding inexorably into a light pole, I was thinking about not just what control inputs to make to miss the thing ( I couldn't), but even what actions would be necessary post-crash..

Phil: Sullenberger and his F.O certainly did a magnificent job, no question, but you should also read this, about the 'Gimli Glider' action, which I think was up there with the Hudson incident: Canadian Airlines Flight 143

You don't necessarily need an audio warning, BUT, to meet the FARs, any form of warning must NOT be by visual means alone, requiring attention within the cockpit: FAR Part § 25.207: Stall warning -- FAA FARS, 14 CFR

Bruce: there's more useful information at Post #37 in: Jabiru Prop failure

Bruce, the strength comes from the wood; the glass provides some extra stiffness to limit blade twist under load, and critically, a barrier against moisture. As you know, you need to leave your prop. in the horizontal position when hangaring the aircraft, so the moisture already in it does not travel through the wood grain and unbalance the prop; ( the wood is dried to a moisture content of around 15%), so if you have an area of de-laminated 'glass with any hole through it and wet conditions, the wood will take in moisture and unbalance the prop.

Jab. wood props are made from plantation Hoop Pine. They used to be - but I am not sure of this for recent times - hand-shaped using a jig, then hand-laminated epoxy resin and light e-glass.

Having worked extensively on a two-cylinder, opposed-piston diesel 2-stroke, specifically designed to drop into Jabiru-powered drones, (so same package size), I believe I have some genuine experience. We got it to running stage, but it needed more development and the funds ran out. This was not a back-yard lash-up, we had the full resources of Phil Ainsworth's Technology Park machining facility behind us - capable of producing everything including the injector pump!. The Deutz DZ710 was a successful opposed-piston aero engine, of 2700 hp capability, and weighing 1450 kgs. That weight provides a hp/lb figure of .84 - which is NOT shabby. A Lycoming 0320-D says .67 hp/lb, a Jab 2200 says..58 HOWEVER: all of those figures are not necessarily directly comparable, because in the Jab case it is 'installed' (or Ramp) weight (actually, what it weighs dry but ready-to fly), and we don't know the configuration for either the Lycoming or the Deutz. There are several problems for a piston-ported 2-stroke horizontally-opposed diesel engine. The first of these is that it requires forced induction in order to scavenge the combustion area until at running revolutions. The D710 had forced induction. The next, is the need for heater plugs unless the c/r is very high indeed - requiring massive (and heavy) strength. The third, is (in small-capacity engines), the physical area required for heat transfer from the very compact size of the combustion area. This is one time that 'a good little 'un' beats 'a good big 'un' doesn't hold true. The cubic rule for area vs. size works in the favour of the larger engine -especially if you are going for air-cooled. When you are trying to cram everything: induction, exhaust and cooling - into a compact size for a 100 hp or so engine, it becomes extremely difficult. The ancillaries - including the source of forced induction - become a large part of the 'installed' weight and complexity. The ancilliary penalty reduces with size. There is a place for 2-stroke, horizontally-opposed piston diesel engine in aviation - but it's probably unlikely to be for the 100-hp or so class.

jk - obviously, there are considerable manufacturing tolerances at play here!. My 'heavy duty' type-1 legs are tighter than a fish's between the bolts of the saddle, I radiused the vertical (and horizontal) edges of the saddle to stop it biting into the glass. If you flock the saddle for forward-and- aft movement, make sure the flock doesn't go onto the bottom of the saddle. The 'flat' edges of the legs flex and change shape with deflection, and if the saddle width is anything more than necessary, that introduces a leverage effect that raises the stress at the clamp point by a heap. Citabria legs and P 92 Echo legs fail for that exact reason: if the bottom surface of the saddle is not changed to a slightly convex shape, the stress rise breaks the leg. Jab legs have a bit more tolerance, but better not to ask of them more than reasonable!.

jk - I think you mean, the toe-in can be set by flocking at the axle (that is what Jabiru recommends, btw). You'd not want to reduce the strength of the leg by shaving anything off at the saddle clamp, it's a high-stress point on the leg, and it's (normally) a very tight fit anyway. I made up this device for setting toe-in: uses a laser level (which I have calibrated to be pretty damn accurate at 10 metres, within the laser-dot margin of error): It clamps onto the machined centre of the wheel (the bearing housing area) using the spat extension tube, and clears the tyre so it's reproducing accurately the machined surfaces of the actual wheel (the centre bolt floats on the spat extension so it pulls the thing down hard onto the wheel). I checked it in my lathe for accuracy and the laser-dot on the wall about 16 feet away, was again within the size of the dot circle for each end when rotated 180 degrees. I am quite sure I won't be able to get the aircraft lined up on a centre-line to anything like that accuracy, BUT, the mains will end up as a pair, with the combined toe-in equal either side and at the Jab. recommended toe-in - just the aircraft may taxi slightly crab-wise.. but that's going to be the same result for any other method, I believe If you have access to a lathe and can weld, it's dead easy to make up..