DrZoos

The more the merrier, but if Jabiru with its resources, people and history cant get it right in this amount of time what chance does bex have on the balance of probabilites. Only way a new manufacturer will come in is with some serious cash to burn on development and testing prior to selling one unit, rather than trying to sell prior to development and testing. Iron all the major creases and problems out before achieing any scale or vloumes of both revenu and problems.

Yeh go get shot at while you fly and someone will pay for you to learn how

Absolutely it is and still can be, but it needs a few mods to bring it back to decent for the ordinary man...most pilots are not as inteliigent or well informed as you and No i wont because of hard landings, but if I was a club executive or wasn't flying my aircraft as much as I currently do, I would have every faith in my rotax to survive...we currently have 2 aircraft in our club both with Rotax and they are accumulating around 1500hrs per year and 800 per year with no problems. One aircraft is at 3000 hours on its second engine and not a single issue with temps or engine Our previous foxbat went through 3 Rotax engines to TBO no issues, then it was written off from a front wheel collapse...

Agree but if there are no other manufacturers we may have 90% unimpressed because Rotax start charging $40K per 912ULS Monopoly = bad Competition = good Overheating and other issues = bad Future = ??? so lets be careful what we say

That is the problem in a nutshell......any pilot or flight school with multiple pilots (many of who have limited knowledge of the intimacies and idiosyncrasies) should be able to buy and fly by maintaining it to a maintenance manual, flying it to a POH and not have to nurse and monitor the thing like its in intensive care unit.

Glad to see a keen young fella, but, its called a job, go get one and stop asking others to pay for your wants...do the hard yards like everyone else. Or apply for scholarships or to the defence force or some other body that will give you a scholarship... I would love to drink more beer than i can afford and go on more holidays than i can afford...so i will make you a deal...you pay for my holidays and i will pay for your flying...

As Pauline would say "Please explaaaaiiiin"

Most businesses I know that sell and service make far more off the servicing and parts.. Yeh the point i was hoping was that Jabiru factory would get behind a Jabirotax...but i can see why he wont...however if CASA doesnt get off his case, he might have no choice going forward. Problem is once that happens i think we can almost guarauntee a rapid and continual rise in the cost of rotax engines and parts

Hi welcome

I think there is an illusion that the magazine is free to digital and all the cost of the magazine is in printing.. Postage is a huge cost, layout, editing, writing, selling advertising etc all still costs significant coin regardless of whether its paper or digital. I agree that by going digital we all recieved, a substantial fee increase , but i think some of the assumptions of paper v digital costs are not as clear cut... Personally i dont mind the fee increase if its used wisely and effectively, but if i see waste , i see red...as far as a motorsport organisation goes , this is pretty cheap for what we get and the associated workloads and risk profiles

dont forget the stall speed is there for a very good reason...it helps improve survivability in aircraft that traditionally had little if any occupant protection... My how things have changed...Im not arguing for or against a change in stall speed, but I would suggest the Jabiru offers SUBSTANTIAL occupant safety to when they 45 knot stall speed was chosen for the reasons it was.. At some point in the future airbags or airbag seatbelts will make it into our category and possibly even occupant safety cells, and ballistic chutes will become cheaper and more common..at which point surely the 45 knot speed limit would need to be reviewed upwards for some aircraft. Whether we like it or not new materials, increases in living standards and incomes are adding higher end aircraft into our category. This will continue on mass as the older generation are gradually replaced by Gen X and Y who many lack the ability or desire to homebuild and would prefer or need to buy factory built .

This new CEO is a mover.... whilst i think if they spent much north of $40 k on the website they probably spent too much (and i can speak as someone who currently designs and maintains many web sites for similar organisations), I can certainly see why anyone doing the job would want to charge a lot... Its often harder to redesign and move sites like this than it is to build new ones from scratch... Stupid little pieces of corrupt code in databases or poorly designed issues from the past can cost you days , sometimes weeks when it comes to integrating functionality in the backend. Organisations like this are notoriously difficult to get decisions out of and often require a ridiculous amount of revisions and refinements becasue they are usually overworked and lack vision about exactly what they want, until they see something they don't want. Right now 90%plus of everything that is happening is extremely positive and effective, or at least convincingly moving in the right direction. I hated the orange vest stunt, but since CASA paid, I can swallow that ..Id rather see the money spent significantly more effectively, but bygones.

Probably a very legitimate point and one to be stronlgy noted by anyone reading this thread...this IS NOT ADVICE its discussion....you want to try something new- discuss with your instructor

My thoughts exactly...what a shame they cant be factory produced, i reckon they would outsell everything including and become the gold standard trainer for both RAA and GA flight schools cross the world... Its a crazy concept that they have at least trialed it in some market against the jab option and then looked at the volumes and margins That would be one amazingly capable machine 10 knots quicker, a lot better short field performance and insignificantly heavier...Imagine the remote farmers, businesses and even passenger transport options if you could register one of these as certified GA with a rotax in it.... This would make most 172 and 152 worthless overnight, because the fuel savings in commercial applications would be too big to ignore. Infact I wonder fi Cessna themselves might take on one of these engines in the near future. It would certainly provide a benefit of new v old. The biggest problem I see is that i think every one would go the rotax, eliminating yet another aviation engine and allowing Rotax to charge even higher than high prices. We really do get severely ripped off when you think of their scales and costs... Consider that an entire japanese car with similar engine size is around half the cost... It surprises me that one of the japanese manufacturers has not entered the market with the margins that are on offer, compared the the thin margins on cars. Clearly volumes are tiny, but with margins like Rotax has its surely only a matter of time till one of the Jap brands has a crack at it. And with the global military drone market booming, using these types of engines, now is the time to enter.

Got to say theres a lot more to like about RAA lately then in the recent past...things really seem to be happening

Hey its been 2 years i really love my aircraft, but still have lots of envy for a Jabirotax....the perfect RAA aircaft in my opinion.... Lots of room, power , good fuel exonomy , tough engine, tough airframe and room to put a dismantled mountain bike, fold up bike or camping stuff in it... The only real thing against my plane is a lack of room and mtow... Some days i seriously wish i had of persued the conversion. Hows yours going and are there several others around now...did PG or anyone else do a firewall firward conversion kit ?

Yeh i like to set up early, not necesarily from final, but at least get a feel for the change in drag before hitting the round out...

Im guessing its too late, once you find the actual point of failure, or stall, or lack of runway to tell anyone about it..... so dont be the first

If its case of box ticking znd covering thier bums im against it, if it actuslly has hands on prsctical skills and must know life saving competency i am all for it. At the very least certify a few who are dojng it and let those eho want to attend courses and be accredited to a standard. Regardless of whether that standard id opyional or mandatory. And hive RPL status. Grrr small phone letters n big thumbs

Ozzie makes a really valid point...if you can have that guy labeled a serial complainer or vexatious by a judge, council will feel a lot more comfortable listening to you and ignoring him....even if you dont want to go to court, at least dig some dirt to establish a list of complaints that you can have in paper to attxh to any letter or show anyone you are conversing with...this person probably has a trail of complaints to the local paper and other organisations.... turbo planner might be good to comment on existing use,he made some valdi points elsewhere on the topic and said NEVER concede any existing usage rights ever without comsulting your own planning expert as once you comcede anything,your existing use rights are GONE.

When the Oakshot money arrived in port macquarie and Kempsey after his deal with Gilard, it had to be spent on the hospital and at the airport, but they insisted any money spent had to be on the airside of the fence and terminal, not on the terminal or carparks etc. Perhaps they had some spare federal money from a grant or for some from a visiting polli?

Best to learn how to land using rudder and also holding centerline with aileron (wing down), as often in a reasonable crosswind you will run out of enough rudder in many of these aircraft and at winds less than the maximum cross wind in the POH. Eg my aircraft has max crosswind of 16 but runs out of rudder at around 12 and rudder is at company recomended settings. Its quiet easy to land even with 16 knots but its definitely a mandatory wing down landing from about 12 knots upwards to be able to hold the centre line...(note these vary with approach speed and landing configuration-eg less flap, higher landing speed, more rudder authority. Many POH recommend minimal flap in high crosswinds ) for this reason my favoured technique is straighten the nose either before or after round out and then hold the centerline with use of aileron. I love landing in challenging conditions and this works a treat compared to the old kick it straight.

Welcome Im on ipad mostly and works well...except spell check!

As you will learn we have a culture of jumping in and saying things "just in case" , because its very hard to explain to people after they have an aviation accident. well done cheers for the heads up

Love it, we have come so far...now we need tiny nuclear power cells to run them