Oscar

Gracious me!. It appears that Turbs still hangs around here!. Turbs, let's both join in the herbal swing here: if I am the Sage, then surely you are the Basil?

If you've ever handled a Lithgow-built SMLE .303 rifle, the stock is (at least, almost always) Coachwood. I believe that Coachwood was restricted from harvest during WW11 and for some time thereafter, for use in gun-stocks and presumably, also Mosquitos!. It is a lovely, very straight-grained timber that you could easily mistake for Hoop Pine, and it dries with very little warpage. I have a small stand of Coachwood trees in a gully on my farm, and they grow -as per the piccy in the Wiki link - pretty straight, not much wastage after milling.

Yep, Bunnings would suit you very well.

Gandalph, I fail to understand why you are so defensive of RAA. The facts as you state them are self-evident, and I can't see why you think it necessary to state them. I mean, FFS, it's not as if there is any alternative to RAA, the purported alternative has disappeared like a balloon in a hurricane, (once again, and as usual). I cannot imagine that anybody in Australia does not understand that the abject failure of Australia Post to provide an acceptable level of service means we all have to re-calibrate our expectations of postal delivery times. I doubt that there is anybody who has not had the unpleasant experience of receiving a postal bill due for payment after the due date has elapsed. Just because RAA has taken a realistic position based upon member experience of the delays in delivering the ballot papers does not automatically justify repudiation of RAA's actions on the part of those seeking to ascribe fault. People are entitled to expect perfection... though one might look at recent events, such as the CBA failing to report as required something like 65,000 transactions requiring report due to legislation. This sort of slackness is unacceptable on the part of Australia's largest company and quite obviously, it is equally unacceptable for a small enterprise relying on volunteer management. Get with the programme, Gandalph.

Flaps: his aircraft ( as most high-performance gliders) has negative flap position, used to minimise drag when running fast and flat; then in a thermal, you pull a degree of flap to maximise lift at the lower airspeed.

We can hope that the Instructor will not only recover well, but be able to provide an accurate account of the circumstances. It is not unreasonable to question the aircraft concerned in any accident, as it adds to the store of community knowledge. As has been well-expressed in this thread by some very, very experienced and competent pilots, knowledge of the particular characteristics of the aircraft you are flying may be the difference between a whoopsy turning into an 'Oh SH1T' or merely a 'Phew'.. or even better, consciously avoiding the 'Whoopsy' moment altogether. A Chipmunk is a classic example of this: a major training aircraft, used for spin training, but requiring a very specific spin recovery technique. I have NO experience of them myself, but a family member trained on one, and I haven't even thought about asking him if spin-training on, say, a C152 Aerobat and then applying that would work on a Chipmunk; I believe I know the answer. In the case of this accident - based on the impact evidence - and the case of the Piper Sport near Bundy, (also based on the impact evidence), there appears to be a valid question as to whether the 'arrival' was due to a flat spin. We need to hear from the Instructor in the case of the Bristell, in the absence of reliable eye-witnesses. The Bristell POH ( and I am not sure if the version I have seen is current), indicates clearly, simply and unambiguously: There is no an uncontrollable tendency of the airplane to enter into a spin provided the normal piloting techniques are used. Unintentional spin recovery technique: 1. Throttle - idle 2. Lateral control - ailerons neutralized 3. Rudder pedals - full opposite rudder 4. Rudder pedals - neutralize rudder immediately when rotation stops 5. Longitudinal control - neutralize or push forward and recovery dive. Apart from the sequencing - I would have thought 'stick forward' should come at either no 3 or no 4 - it's very standard 'normal piloting technique'. Assuming that in this case, the Bristell was not adversely loaded aft of the rear c/g., the Instructor had no reason to believe that any 'normal' training exercise would have presented a problem. A flat spin takes some time to develop - at least several rotations, I believe - the aircraft has to develop sufficient rotational momentum that centrifugal effect overcomes the drag of the vertical surfaces. We would all be precipitate in coming to any conclusions here, and the Instructor's evidence may well be crucial. However, I suggest that it is way too soon to dismiss concerns about the aircraft and load the cause of the accident solely on the Instructor.

This whole discussion would be so much better served if we could get someone who DOES spin testing for aircraft as a matter of course, to comment. Keith Engelsman comes to mind.. I can only comment with experience from glider flying, and that experience may not be of much use for powered aircraft. However: when flying gliders, in any thermal one is flying even closer to an incipient spin condition than in a well-organised circuit. Flying right back at the near-stall speed, in a continuous turn of anything from 30 to 60 degrees of bank, in rough air that is throwing you around, and often in close company with other gliders. Watch: from about 2.00 to 3.15.Developed spin recovery might not be appropriate for Recreational aircraft, However, I firmly believe that recognition of and trained response to incipient spin recovery should be a requirement.

This is an emotional response, not an informed one, so if I am wrong, can we all please stick to useful additional information and not get side-tracked into attacks? I am not a current RAA member, so my understanding may be quite incorrect. However, i THINK that RAA rego - of which this aircraft was a holder - comes with Public Liability insurance? I do not know the legal intricacies here, and doubtless lawyers would shoot me down in flames, but I would LIKE to believe that rendering first-response assistance to crash victims would be covered. Yes, that is a voluntary act and not causally connected to the actual accident. However, there are some precedents that I think could apply. If you are a member of the RFS, SES, or VRA, then the organisational insurance picks up on your circumstances for attending an incident that was none of your making. As a volunteer, you have - I think - no legal requirement to render assistance. There is a - possibly not enshrined in legislation - understanding that as a mariner, you are expected to render assistance if possible to another mariner in danger. I hope that in this case, the RAA Public Liability insurance would apply. Obviously, the constraints of that insurance will be thrashed out by lawyers, but I will be VERY, VERY disappointed in RAA if it takes a combative position against a member who was trying to do the best he could for the poor buggers in dire straits following an accident.

DJP: I understand -from a very-well respected aircraft designer with thousands of his designs flying safely - that the Bristell has an aft c/g limit of 35% MAC. The best that a Jabiru can get is 28%, and Jabs have (since the original LSA55 design, anyway, and that was not unsafe) quite large tail-feathers.

Geoff: Having a factory kit for the conversion would be a HUGE advantage in cost, I'd bet enough to make it worthwhile. Just the mount alone: perhaps people do not realise, but you can't just build something that hangs a new engine in the right place. A factory kit will have taken into account not just the location, but the forces involved: the engine + prop. torque being transferred back to the firewall mount locations, the centrifugal forces of the prop. etc. Normally, if you do an engine swap, it needs quite a bit of engineer's input (and cost) to calculate whether that can be safely taken out by the mount and the airframe behind it. Then, there is the question of performance of the installation. A factory kit should have tested the flight performance to ensure it does not impose out-of-limits conditions on the engine (e.g. cooling, in particular). For a non-factory installation, those conditions need to be established by a qualified Test Pilot using calibrated equipment (unless you are going for Experimental category approval). The Hunaman seems like a superb choice for such an engine swap. BUT: those with aircraft that do NOT have those advantages, should be careful in assuming that they will get away with the same sort of cost for the job.

Unfortunately, high-frequency sound is very directional and also easily blocked (e.g. by earphones playing music from the iPhone/iPod.) So low-energy/high frequency devices - such as piezo tweeters, easy to mount etc. - are seriously compromised. However, sounds issued at down around the human alpha-rate - around 14 Hz, I believe - have a pronounced impact. So - possibly - a purpose-built system that uses piezo tweeters facing forwards BUT cycles the sound pulses at around 14 Hz, might work. This is just a wild thought out of left-field on my part, but maybe someone with the requisite electronic knowledge - such as Mark Kyle - could build a test unit? As for Shoo Roo's: I've had three physical encounters and more near-misses than I care to recall. In all of the hits- the bloody roos ran into ME, from the side, trying to race the car across the road. I've had two front guards bent onto the tyre, and one bastard launched into lunar orbit from the bull-bar on my Rangie at around 130 kph, near '|Hopping Joe Creek' on the Cann River Highway. All came from the side of the road, out of the area likely to be covered by Shoo Roos. Roos make sheep look intelligent.

A guy in N.Z. swapped a rotax 912 (second-hand purchase) into a Jab. some years ago. There is a thread on that somewhere on Rec. Flying. He came up with a total realistic cost of somewhere around $40k for the entire exercise, which included (AFAIK) the engineering costs for the necessary calculations, associated paperwork, test flying, updating the POH etc. While he was happy with the resultant aircraft, he concluded that the exercise wasn't worth the money.

Out of interest: do those costs include any engine mount alterations, cowl mods, control run ( throttle, carby heat) mods? Did the weight calculation include any additional ballast aft for the greater weight of the Rotax to keep the aircraft within its allowable W&B limits, or was that not necessary?

You might need a bloody flashbomb.. Training with Trevor Bange... he requires that you open the door wide, lean out, shout 'Clear Prop', close and lock the door again, and tighten the harness before you hit the starter. He explained why. One day at Clifton, student training. Nobody but DDSA members around - therefore, experienced aviators. Did the pre-start-up checks, student called 'Clear Prop', hit the starter. A head appeared, looking very startled, just ahead of the prop. The bloke had been crouched down, looking at the front tyre quizzically. You would not credit that, of experienced aviators. But ask Trevor: it happened.

I join with everybody in condolences and sadness for the loss of life and severe injury to the aircraft's occupants. I hope that the accident investigation looks beyond the circumstances of the accident to also looking at occupant safety issues that may have contributed to the severity of the accident result. I believe that this is something that warrants concern, given that the designer of the Bristell is also the designer of two of the three worst aircraft for accident safety in this report: http://www.jabiru.net.au/images/The%20Aviation%20Consumer%20-%20LSA%20Accidents.pdf - the CAW Sport Cruiser and the Evektor. Also the designer of the Piper Sports, that Piper removed from sale after very few were delivered to the market.

More likely from impact with one of the unfortunate beachgoers. Jabiru wing struts are classic design, and even the 230 wings are held on by four 5/16" bolts ( AFAIK, certainly the smaller Jabs. are, and in the case of the LSA 55, by 1/4" bolts at the wing root pick-ups and two 5/16" bolts for the struts) - all of which operate completely in unrestricted shear. It is CRITICAL for compression strength that the force line on the strut is transferred end-to-end absolutely through the centre-line of the strut extrusion so no bending moment is introduced|: Jabiru have placards on the strut attachment bolt lugs on the wings and fuselage saying: 'DANGER:DO NOT TIGHTEN' to ensure this. Any intermediate bracing struts - e.g. on the Gazelle - attached to the main struts can introduce a bend on the main strut that takes the line of compression force beyond the strut strength and it collapses if that force is sufficient. In an adverse wind gust, combined with the extreme twisting loads on the wing in the case of the Gazelle as the wing section introduces a negative lift condition on the front of the wing at high speed/load condition, makes the wing twist itself to structural death - with fatal results for the occupants. C152s are a very, very well-proven design with a great safety record - and you can bet they routinely get rough treatment. I very much doubt that a beach landing would have exceeded the compression tolerance of the lift strut without some other damage being sustained by the strut.

It may be instructive to look at this report ( published BY, but most certainly not Produced BY, Jabiru): http://www.jabiru.net.au/images/The%20Aviation%20Consumer%20-%20LSA%20Accidents.pdf I believe that the Bristell is a design by the same designer responsible for the Czech Aero Works Sport Cruiser, though that does not mean it hasn't been significantly changed. The CAW line had, according to that report, a very unfavourable record for safety compared to many others in the class.

The Bristell appears to be the old Pipersport design by another manufacturer (same designer). The Pipersports in Aus. have had somewhat of a chequered career, I believe, as training aircraft. Piper certainly bailed out of them very early. It's never a good thing to try to make any judgement from a crash photo, but I am wondering whether the apparent dissection of both the engine mount and the fuselage aft of the rear bulkhead - which MAY well be a result of emergency services cutting the thing open for rescue access, so I don't draw any conclusion there until we see an accident report - suggests that a structural examination of occupant safety is warranted? However: IF the airframe did part under the crash impact - which appears to have been fairly much flat to the ground - at the rear bulkhead and the seat-belt shoulder attachment was therefore compromised, that would be consistent with facial injuries. In the case of the double-fatal Sting crash at Goulburn, the shoulder-harness attachments failed and were so poor in design as to beg the question as to whether the design standards ( or the testing regime) for LSA-class aircraft are adequate. I join with all of us in hoping for the best outcome for the occupants of this crash, and I also hope that there is a decent investigation into why the severity of the injuries they sustained happened.

Some sort of mechanical warning device would be useful, though nowadays, given that people appear to not be able to walk without being on their mobile phone and very, very obviously can't walk and talk at the same time, maybe what is needed is an electronic 'screecher' on the mobile phone frequency that imitates a police siren. I'd like it to be a personal device, so I can use it to make my way through shopping malls...

FFS: how WOULD RAA or CASA be able to 'extend' manufacturer's limits? NO airworthiness authority ANYWHERE conducts independent engine certification testing - and engine certifying ( as per the ASTM regime) is purely the province of the manufacturer. Certification - to an ICAO acceptable standard - is CONDUCTED by the manufacturer and AUDITED for Certification by the Airworthiness Authority. CASA does NOT decide to run any engine through the test regime - and RAA has no authority to do that. The suggestion that RAA is 'ar8e-covering' by not providing its own assessment of mandatory TBO times, is complete and utter BS - and Kasper, you know that.. Certifying to ASTM is entirely the responsibility of the manufacturer. Once again, RAA has NO authority to vary this. Kasper, you also know that. So: please explain HOW RAA could increase a manufacturer's TBO? It would be very instructive.

Flying gliders at Forbes, many years ago. Winch launches. We shared the strip with Darby Munro, the local croppie, who never few more than about 5 metres above the ground - and always headed into his hangar and replenishing site from whatever direction was shortest - circuits? - HA! If you were in the air and saw Darby heading for the field, you could tell where the fences where because the shadow of the Pawnee got momentarily longer as he gave them room. So - every 'all clear above and behind' check before commencing launch, we did a ground-level scrutiny for Darby incoming. One day, we'd done all the checks, the PIC of the Blanik on the wire had given the 'all out' signal, and started rolling. He'd gone abut 10 metres when Noel Winterburn, the CFI, screamed 'BUNG OFF' at the top of his voice - which he did. About 15 seconds later, an F111 blasted down the centreline of the strip at about 10 metres AGL and probably 500+ kts. The noise and airblast was soiled-underpants time for us on the ground. Had the launch continued, the Blanik would have been at maybe 300 feet with the wire centred on the strip. The Tost release on a Blanik MIGHT have shed the wire; might not. Just the wake turbulence of the F111 would have made the Blanik's survival questionable. When we all got our excrement together again, someone asked Noel: 'did you see that (sexually active) F111 incoming?' He said: 'no, but there was a heat haze where there shouldn't have been one'. I believe he saved the lives of the two people in the Blanik at least, by an instinctive reaction. What might have happened to the F111 and the winch crew, I don't want to think. Noel had a subsequent conversation - a very terse conversation - on the phone to the Commandant of the F111 squadron at (I think) Dalby? shortly thereafter.

Nev: no argument on that!. If there were ever a case where 'look after the grammes, and the kgs. will look after themselves' applies, it's in aircraft. But - as with everything to do with optimised design, there are compromises. Intelligent use of FEA makes those far easier to rationalise than just old 'by eye' engineering, which is one reason, I believe, that the performance of RAA-class aircraft has improved very considerably while keeping within the stupid, and arbitrary, weight limits (but that is another long story..) HITC's selection of Stainless for his firewall, is an example. Weight for area, s/s is considerably more than mild sheet..But Wait: There's More! ( and no free steak knives involved). I've been rebuilding our ST1 ( an LSA55 Jab. built for VH-compliance). The LSA55 has a 10mm thick ply forward bulkhead, which is a major structural member of the airframe. On the FWF face of this, is normally a galvanised sheet steel firewall of, from rough memory, about .035". I believe that would meet the FAR requirement for 30 minutes (I think it is) of engine fire. Due to modifications to replace the original nosegear with later-series 'heavy-duty' nosegear done by a bloody butcher of an L2, we decided to replace the firewall entirely to eliminate the holes in the firewall that would allow fire penetration aft of the firewall into the bulkhead - and our feet. We did this using .024" s/s sheet, backed with 1.2mm Friberfrax with an additional layer of .016 6061 sheet to support the Fiberfrax across the quite large cut-outs in the actual ply bulkhead. All mounted with 4mm s/s cap-head machine screws through the bulkhead ply, to prevent heat transfer into the ply - rather than the 3/16" commercial-grade alloy rivets used on the original firewall installation. Plus stainless washers under the engine mounts to prevent compression of the Fiberfrax. Overkill, since that combination easily exceeds the FAR spec. BUT: we weighed what we added - and it added about 800 grammes in total over the Gal. sheet firewall. That's a wee bit more than 1 litre of fuel reduced to keep within MTOW ( or about 5 minutes of flight at cruise power, a reduction in range of about 6Nm. ). On the upside, however: in the case of a fire, we would not get burning zinc fumes filling the cockpit (toxic..), nor charring wood fumes ( nauseous, at least), and removing those would - we decided - give us better options for selecting a forced-landing site. It's a risk-management decision: we decided to sacrifice range for the ability to have a better chance of actually getting down safely (or at least, minimally-injured). We could be accused of being paranoid about being fried, since AFAIK there have been zero incidences of a Jab. engine fire. Call us worriers, but we don't want to be the first case, with a bad outcome. Jabiru have moved to using s/s as their firewall material post the LSA55, so I rather think we have the expert's decision-making on our side here. S/s has a far better resistance to heat transfer than mild sheet, so it the case of DooMaw, given the tank is just behind the firewall, I personally would have chosen s/s..

Phil, if you think the Bf109 cockpit is small, try an Me162 for size. When I worked for the Australian War Memorial, I moved both of these, and OF COURSE did not fail to try them out for size, when (mostly) nobody I couldn't bully was watching.. The 109 cockpit is tight, even for a small-ish guy like me ( as is the Spitfire Mk 5, that Bluey Truscott flew), but it's no wonder that Hanna Reitsch was an Me162 test pilot. You'd have to be a shaved rat covered in Vaseline to get into the Me162, not some fat-arsed 67kgs, 5'8" hulk like me.

A family member conducted the engineering side for DH Australia of flight testing in PNG and Australia for the Twin Otter, and has a couple of memorable stories - just like anybody I guess who has flown into the back country. Back in Australia, he finished off the performance testing for the POH (or whatever is the equivalent for that class of aircraft) out at Hoxton Park. Randy Green was the test pilot.. a legend. Beta landings were not allowed (AFAIK) for inclusion in the performance figures, but when all the T/O and landing figures had been finished, Randy ended up doing a beta landing; I had never seen anything like it before ( or for that matter, since.) It just all-but hung in the air pointed extremely down at the strip, and when the roll-out was finished, it was travelling slowly backwards as the props wound down.. I was close enough (I was doing marking duties) to see that Randy had a grin on his face wide enough to blind the unwary - like a kid who has just managed to crack the lid to the Candy Jar that he's been denied for ever.. I can imagine that that level of STOL capability would be very, very re-assuring in the PNG conditions.

Pretty much, they WERE the people concerned.. When you work within the 'inner circle' off the P.S. in Canberra, you know who to meet and greet.