Dafydd Llewellyn

You are quite correct, and my memory was faulty. Schedule 5 as it currently appears contains two parts - the daily inspection and the Periodic (yearly or 100 - hourly, whichever comes first) inspection. There's no mention of the 3 - yearly major inspection. Back in the 1980s, the 100-hourly and 3-yearly inspections were separately specified; the 100 - hourly was a bit simpler, I think, and the 3-yearly inspection involved greater depth. For RAA - type aircraft, it may be worth while looking at the earlier version. I'm not, myself, a LAME so I'd have to see if my archives contain the earlier version.

Is that from 50 feet, or is it just the ground roll? Because if it's the latter, it sounds unnecessarily long.

I meant, one should study the question of what a landing gear should be, to contend with that sort of surface. I suspect, some variant of wheel/ski gear, but it really needs some experiment to see what would work. Damping a spring-leg is something we'd all like to discover how to do.

[quote= Talking about going slow ,any thought on the highlanders pop out slats, I'd love to look at something like that on my Skywolf ? Matty Problem with slats is (a) They're another mechanism to wear & need maintenance; and they need to be linked together across the aircraft. (b) Slats, contrary to popular perception, increase the nose-down pitching moment - i.e. they add to the download on the tail. And © they do not do much for the takeoff roll, because you can't get sufficient angle of attack on them until after lift-off. I think there are preferable ways to approach the subject.

One capable of landing in saltbush. Ever driven across the Hay plains? What about a one-piece steel spring-leg with sufficient track that it has a respectable travel? i.e. not one of the minimum-weight style a la Tecnam, but a real one?

Ta - that's useful info. And you're right, I've not had the opportunity to spend time out on the stations, so that makes your input doubly useful. So - a trailing-link suspension a la Wilga but with more travel; and using oleos that sit about 80% closed under static load, and 800 x 6 tyres; and a REAL stall speed around 42 knots CAS, with handling characteristics allowing you to be at maybe 48 CAS on short finals; and two seats in tandem, so the front one is ahead of the wing; and LSA type cost. A tractor tailwheel layout for good propeller clearance. And no carpets. With a pannier suitable for carrying tools etc.?

OK, Darren is ahead of the game - good on him.

Well, you are talking about a rather specialised tool; in effect a flying Jeep. I've done a couple hundred hours in Super Cubs, glider towing - including outlanding retrieves - and yes, you can do very short landings in them, by the old bush pilot's trick of dumping the flaps at the appropriate moment. I've seen Jim Hazelton land an Auster on Nestor Slepcev's strip that he used for his Storch demonstrations - two up - AND take off again, very nearly as short as Nestor. And no, the Seeker is NOT STOL. Its particular strengths are its ability to give the pilot a gentle ride in low-level turbulence that would rattle your teeth in a Cessna 172, and its safe manoeuvrability and good field of view - plus the ability to carry remote sensing gear that's normally only suitable for a helicopter. And it has the structural integrity to have a long fatigue life under that usage. That's not the job you describe. What you are talking about is a commercial operation as defined by CAR 206 - and as such, does not belong on a recreational flying forum. I'd imaging the Wilga would be just about ideal for what you are describing - if it had a sensible price and a longer fatigue life. That's if a fixed-wing device is appropriate for this at all; a jump-start gyroplane would really fit the bill. However, Nev is correct, I think - what you need is a short take-off aircraft with what I would describe as a "Blue-bush" undercarriage. How long do tundra tyres last on rough ground? I suspect a long-travel Wilga-style undercarriage with 800 x 6 tyres might be more practical. A wheel-ski type setup would give considerable protection against rabbit holes. However, the obvious question is, how large is the market? Certificating a niche-market aircraft is very risky. There have been many attempts at what you describe in the past; the most commercially-successful was probably the Pilatus Porter. You have only to look at the market penetration of jump-start gyroplanes to see how great the risk is.

The best direct-reading magnetic compass I have come across is the LUN compass fitted to Blaniks. It's a 3 1/8 inch instrument, and designed for a vertical panel, and it was good enough to do procedure turns on. The ones fitted to Australian Blaniks are southern-hemisphere dip compensated. They get had to read as they get old.

I tend to class it with tractor-pulling and such things.

The vertical-card type I have yet to try in flight, but it does seem to lock-up when significantly nose-up or nose-down. It's clearly designed (as are most gyro attitude instruments) for a vertical panel. The liquid-filled compass it replaces does not malfunction due to aircraft pitch, but it becomes unreadable because the float moves outside the viewing window. All direct-reading compasses are also subject to turning errors, due to the Earth's magnetic field dip, which is why turning onto a heading is normally done using a DG (or by counting seconds, if you have a T & B). Direct-reading compasses are really only for use when you're flying straight and level or making very gentle turns. The SILVA type is more capable, but does not suit many panel-type installations.

You may notice that CAO 100.7 is quite explicit concerning gliders. So, when that CAO was written, (it was an ANO, back then), it was thought necessary to make it quite clear that although gliders came under ANO 95.4, they were NOT exempt. Of course, gliders do have airworthiness certificates and M16's argument could be applied to them, but I think it would be incorrect to do so; they are weighed because it it essential for safety; the reference to doing it as a prerequisite for an airworthiness certificate I read merely as a convenient way to specify when it must be done - because when ANO 100.7 was written, NOTHING flew unless it had a C of A. For decades, the GFA Chief technical Officer was also a WCO, and whilst the people doing the weighing were not, they sent the weighing results to him. Gliders, being almost exclusively factory-built certificated aircraft, were (and still are) always weighed as part of their manufacture process - and the experimental category had not even been thought about. I started weighing aircraft (up to DC-4 size) in about 1965 whilst I was working for de Havilland at Bankstown; and as well as GA aeroplanes, I've weighed dozens of amateur-built aircraft and gliders since; in those days DCA kept several sets of calibrated scales and made them available for this purpose. That stopped when DCA became the CAA, in the '80s. The cost to an amateur builder was nothing like what has been mentioned in this thread; it was often done for no charge, frequently by DCA when they performed the final inspection required by ANO 95.28. As the GFA RTO/A for NSW in the mid-'70s, I often re-weighed gliders when they came up for their 20-year inspection - and got some surprises in doing so. People DO make mistakes, and W & B is an area where one simply MUST get it correct. I've mostly used my CAO 100.7 authority as an adjunct to my CAR 35 work, or when involved in flight testing, not as a primary means of earning a living; so getting an aircraft weighed has not been a problem for me. I've occasionally obliged somebody who needed a weighing - and hired scales for the purpose; I've never charged more that $ 600 to do that, even when a day's driving and hire of scales were involved. I don't do this any more. So I'm not the person to answer the question in this thread. It's a serious question and needs to be sorted out between RAA and CASA. There are a small number of individuals who specialise in aircraft W & B, especially since possession of a set of approved aircraft scales became necessary to do this work; scales are not cheap, and keeping them calibrated is also costly. These people are very reliable and professional in how they go about the process; however, they have to eat, too. The GFA nowadays has the ability to issue its own W & B authorities, and it does not do so willy-nilly. Gliders are nowadays subject to very tight W & B control, because it has proven to be necessary. It's also very complex for gliders that have disposable water-ballast and complicated weight-CG diagrams. So, whilst M16 may have put his finger on a loophole in CAO 100.7 - which may or may not have been intentional on the part of CASA - it sounds as though the RAA Tech Manual is, as usual, inexplicit about the qualification of persons performing this function, and the procedures to be followed. This is a question for Darren Barnfield, I believe.

Well, that's an interesting point; indeed CAO 100.7 does refer to weighing as a pre-requisite to the issue of an airworthiness certificate. 3.1 Initial Weighing (1) Except as specified in subparagraph (2) of this paragraph, all aeroplanes, gliders and rotorcraft shall be weighed prior to the initial issue of a certificate of airworthiness. (2) The weighing of an aircraft, other than a prototype aircraft, prior to the initial issue of a certificate of airworthiness is not required if the empty weight and empty weight centre of gravity position have been established to the satisfaction of a weight control officer. (3) CASA may require an aircraft to be weighed or reweighed, as applicable, if reasonable doubt exists as to the accuracy of the weight and balance data submitted in respect of that aircraft. I suspect this is because CAO 100.7 was extant long before CAO 95.55 was drafted, and nobody twigged that the wording did not make the situation clear for CAO 95.55 aircraft. I cannot answer for the legal definition; however I suspect that if it came to a point, CASA would invoke 3.1(3) and require the aircraft to be weighed, before it goes into service; even if an airworthiness certificate is not needed. What does the RAA Technical Manual have to say on the subject? Weight & balance is so fundamental to aircraft safety that neglect of proper establishment of the empty weight & CG position, and suitable loading rules, would be gross negligence, I should think. Having said that, scratch designed homebuilts obviously do not have previously-defined CG limits; and neither do prototypes - the CG limits are a result of the flight testing process. American-origin experimental kit aircraft may not have properly-determined CG limits either. So far as I am aware, weighing & setting loading rules are requirements of the Production Certificate for Australian-manufactured recreational aircraft; and it's a requirement of the ASTM QA procedures: 8.1.2.1 Ground Check—Prior to flight testing, the manufacturer shall conduct a thorough ground inspection of each LSA produced to verify at least the following: (1) Weight and Balance—Empty weight and proper center of gravity location has been calculated and verified to be within limits, and that a weight and balance report has been completed for the airplane; so this is covered so far as factory-built aircraft are concerned.

Schedule 5 was written as the default G.A. major inspection standard (i.e. required every third year) because there were a lot of aircraft around for which the makers' maintenance system was considered to be inadequate. If you dig around on the CASA website, you can still find that list of aircraft whose manufacturer's system was declared unacceptable. One could opt to use Schedule 5 in preference to the manufacturer's maintenance system, and the majority of GA aircraft importers did just that; the maintenance system for a GA aircraft is in the Log Book Statement, right at the start of the airframe log book. Since it was originally written in the 1950s, it was appropriate to the sorts of aircraft that existed back then - Austers, Chipmunks, DH Dragons, Beech 17s etcetera. It remained pretty suitable for aircraft that were certificated under either the American Civil Aircraft Regulations Part 3 (CAR 3) or under the British Civil Aviation Regulations (BCAR Section D and later BCAR Section K); and they were also pressed into use for oddball European aircraft of that era, such as the Aero 145, Meta-Sokol, etc. In general, those certification standards pre-dated any fatigue life requirements; and although Australia was the first country to apply fatigue life requirements to GA aeroplanes, it did so by the use of Airworthiness Directives - which were all listed in Air navigation Orders Part 105, so that system was still compatible with Schedule 5 as the basic aircraft maintenance system. This remained the case when CAR 3 was superseded by FAR Part 23, because Part 23 did not introduce fatigue life considerations when it was first introduced; and also FAR Part 21.100 (The "Grandfather clause") allowed manufacturers like Cessna, Piper and Beech to continue to use CAR 3 for updates to existing models - so CAR 3 remained in force - e.g. for Cessna 172s, up to the 172Q. However the FAA finally got around to addressing fatigue issues, and when it did, Schedule 5 was no longer adequate. The FAA is now introducing retro-active fatigue requirements, in the form of SIDS, and it will get even more complicated when GA aircraft start to be designed with fail-safe or damage-tolerant structures. For those aircraft, the maintenance system is part of the Type certification process; and Schedule 5 is simply out of the picture.

Yes; see CAO 100.7. This CAO comes under CAR 235, which is NOT included in the exemptions in CAO 95.55

Actually, the quote of the RAA report does say that the factory did the repair - see post #97. Doesn't say which factory; the Jabiru repair shop is NOT the manufacturer. Getting the info is like pulling teeth without anaesthetic. Yes, of course, the operating conditions could well be one of the uncorrected problems; and for sure, there are many factors involved, and they are all quite subtle - the most obvious one (and probably unmeasurable) is the case jointing compound. It only has to compress about 0.001 inches to have a significant effect on the preload. There are far too many unknowns to hypothesize.

My understanding is that if the engine does not have a TC, (which the 3300 does not) then that Jabiru document is a Service Directive - i.e. it's mandatory. If the engine has a TC (which the 2200 J and C do have) the Jabiru document is not mandatory unless made so by an Airworthiness Directive. So regardless of its actual technical merit, I suspect that that SD is mandatory in law for the 3300.

Quite true; that why I located the compass as far from the Ipad as possible, and in the direction that gave the lease sensitivity. I'll just have to swing the compass for both conditions.

Well, your initial post left out one extremely salient point - which was that the engine had been operated (if I read the information supplied correctly) some 326.7 hours longer than was allowed by a legally-binding Service Directive, namely JSD031-1. It looks to me, from the second part of the RAA incident report, as though Jabiru should have scrapped the engine instead of replacing the through bolts; because the second failure says to me that the previous history had done damage that prevented the replacement through bolts from maintaining sufficient preload to prevent them from being fatigued by the cylinder firing loads. The peak cylinder pressure at full throttle is around 1000 psi; this acts on the underside of the cylinder head over the full area of the cylinder bore - so the force per bolt every time the cylinder fires would be of the order of 2000 pounds force - nearly one ton. This can only be resisted if the preload on the through bolts exceeds that value. They would appear to have run 844 minus 826.7 = 17.3 hours; each through bolt gets the loads from two cylinders, and each cylinder fires once every two revolutions, so at 2900 RPM that would be around three million load cycles. That was in the face of pre-existing damage. Such damage tends to occur extremely slowly at first, and to gradually accelerate, progressing much more rapidly close to the end. So whatever that damage was, it would quite probably not have existed had the engine not been allowed to run that extra 300 odd hours.

Interesting comment; to make room for an Ipad mini, I'm putting one of those in our Blanik. In what way is it any worse in this regard, than any other direct-reading magnetic compass? The one I have doesn't seem to mind aluminium, which is, after all, a metal. I did notice that it doesn't like the built-in magnets of the mini-Ipad, though, especially if it's mounted close to the longer edge of the Ipad; not too bad six inches away from the short edge. However, those funny little screws underneath it, that can be seen in post #10, are supposed to allow some compensation for stray magnetic fields.

Well, we ain't got the full story, by a long shot; however Jabiru SB JSB031-1 (which is a maintenance directive, for a Jab 120, since the J120 is under LSA rules) was dated 14 April 2011, and it says, inter alia: If it had 820 hours on 9 January 2014, on the original through-bolts, where does that place it in regard to the above? Work it out yourself . . .

All right, let me see if I have this right: 1. The aircraft flew about 820 hours on the original engine, before having the through-bolt Service Bulletin incorporated. 2. The aircraft flew about 5 hours after the SB was incorporated, then broke two through-bolts on January 9. That suggests to me that the SB was incorporated late last year. However, that's quite a while AFTER Jabiru's 12 month offer to do the job free of charge. If correct, that leads to three rather pertinent questions: (a) Why was the SB not incorporated when Jabiru was making that offer? (b) Was it incorporated because the original through-bolts had failed; or was the engine still servicable when the job was initiated? © Was it incorporated by somebody other than Jabiru, since the factory offer had expired? (Do, please, correct me if I have this wrong; I'm trying to get at the facts.) If I do have the sequence correct, then there are a couple of deductions: Firstly, the through-bolts fail primarily because their pre-load has diminished sufficiently to expose them to cyclic loads each time one of the cylinders they secure fires. There are a number of potential causes for the loss in pre-load - but it is inescapable that the original assembly was good for 820 hours, on through-bolts that Jabiru were requiring to be replaced. Secondly, if the original bolts had failed, a condition must have developed that caused it - and simply replacing the through bolts obviously did nothing to correct whatever that condition was. Whether that indicates inadequate practice on the part of whoever performed the replacement cannot be deduced from this; it would require that forensic analysis to clarify that.

Well, no, actually it doesn't. It's off topic and provides no enlightenment. This occurrence should be able to be used to provide some useful information; but what we're getting is obfuscation. If the engine was repaired in the field, that's an important piece of info. Exactly who did what to the motor, and when?

And of course, until CAMit has a formal CASA approval, if Jabiru were to allow the mod., that would presumably make them legally responsible for it. So whilst we're waiting for that formal CASA approval, which should relieve Jabiru from vicarious liability for CAMit's modification, just don't fly over tiger country. There are at least two gliding clubs that run courses in alpine soaring; and that has to be on the basis that you keep sufficient height to glide clear. The applies whether you're over the alps or over the Pillega Scrub or over Bass Straight - just takes more height over the alps. That height is not available to RAA aircraft - so plain airmanship says: Don't go there.

Thanks; that's some of what I wanted to see. Probably all that can be mentioned on this forum. It wasn't clear to me from what was on this thread prior to this. The problem is that the moment something like this is mentioned on this forum, people go off into all sorts of speculative comments, which completely obscure the actual facts of the matter. That's what annoys me; I'd like to know what the REAL underlying causes were. There would seem to be cause to question the Jabiru factory repair work; but it may not be that simple. Of course, it is neither possible nor appropriate to attempt at a forensic analysis on a forum such as this - but that does not stop people from leaping to conclusions. The incident occurred on Jan 9; three months have passed - that's ample time for a proper forensic analysis to have been done; so the answers must certainly exist. Who has them? If they are in the public domain, surely it would be appropriate to add them to this thread? I believe Ian Bent has the answer to this problem, and it has multiple facets, all of which have to be got right. Ian's answer can't be applied to any of the LSA Jabirus without Jabiru's permission.