metalman

Your doing an RV ?,,,,,get a heap of time in one, apart from a few minor differences they all seem to fly very similar. I doubt you'll have trouble with handleling , something I did was get everyone I could to go over it before I flew it, I thought I was really thorough but was surprised by the. Things people found, there was nothing that would've killed me but there was things I'd missed and might have become an issue. If you want I have a mate who may be able to steer you in the right direction to get some time in one , other than that he's probably got more knowledge about RV's than anyone in Oz and might be worth a chat, if you want PM me.

Usually whenever I start to feel like I'm a real live pilot ,the lovely contraption will teach me something and make me feel like a sweaty student all over again, and in fact when that stops happening I reckon it could all get a bit boring . I've just started doing the test flying on one I've built and its reinvigorated my shaky knee syndrome, doing the first flight was something I thought long and hard over and after getting as prepared as I could and taking advice from as many other pilots as possible I did it myself, its one of the hi lights of my flying journey!

No mate, I'm starting with a Gazzelle fuselage and will cut it up and make some wings from scratch. I've got some time in a eurofox and I have a Kitfox copy experimental( VH reg), I really love the type! And always remember " hi performance" doesn't always mean fast

All the legal stuff aside , I've had my iPad freeze on me inflight three times now, be very careful trusting the things it's a toy, a pretty cool one , but a toy all the same. I wonder if allowing them as primary nav tools we'll see an increase in pilots getting lost or even VCA's increasing as people skirt the edges closer " because the little screen plane says I'm good " , I'll use mine inflight but I'll be using paper maps as primary,and the garmin in the panel and the iPad on the knee as secondary

If your in the Melbourne area I'd love to have a look at sometime? I've got a fuselage at home I'm going to modify to get a kinda eurofox /highlander hybrid

Or put it into RAA 19 reg,,,,unless you have a PPL although you can't maintain it in GA guise ,bummer that is ,I wouldn't go near RAA at the moment if I had a choice

There the inspiration for the next aircraft to come out of my workshop, that and the Kitfox 7 are great planes

Yes the stats do back it up , there another thread that has the info on home builts crashing more, as for needing things in certified aircraft , if its original equipment then its needed, regardless of opinions , if something isn't serviceable then the aircraft isn't legal to fly it! There was some discussion about flying a 24 reg with US brakes, opinions mean nothing , just ask an insurance assessor as he walks from the room giggling at the companies good fortune in not having to pay out

Will do, the sav has a crazy attitude at best climb angle, to some getting used to ,it was also the only modern ultralight I've flown that dropped a wing in the stall, did it every time, it wasn't disastrous but it did get my attention

Where are you doing the savannah time Geoff? They have a nice one at lilydale, I had a go in it a while back

Not sure what donks in the Corby but the first time I flew an RV I was so far behind the bugger it wasn't funny, the climb out speed was about 25knots faster than the cruise speed of anything else I'd flown, I dropped into YHBA at about 170knots and then struggled to lose nearly a 100 kts on half a downwind ,,,,,but once you get on top of them they are a truly great aeroplane ,now project number one is flying I'll be back onto my RV6

Even the CASA guys use google to find their own stuff, got given the nugget at one of their seminars

Sounds like quite a ride so far, did you start in the military ? Something I've always found interesting is that there seems to be two distinct groups ,one just flies because that's what they do for money, there's no weekend hot rod in the hangar and when they retire they just stop flying ,( I got given a bit of nav gear from a guy who stopped flying corporate jets the day he retired and hasn't been near one since) , the other group I guess could be called "aeroplane tragics" ,they just can't get enough!

I had to do the course, although I don't have the background you do, I found a lot of the info on the FAA site and through out the AC43-13 to be heaps easier to deal with and they seemed to accept my answers , I still had to trawl through the CASA sh1tfight but I passed the test, I'm now "legal" to do the maintenance , the end! It's crap but what isn't nowadays!

I used to be a bit in awe of the ATPL's that come into YHBA but after a bit of argy bargy from them I really don't care now , if they don't fly a proper circuit and fit in with the inflight traffic I'm happy to give em a rev, the crap they pull in Hervey bay is ridiculous

Spent a lot of time getting TOLD by RPT what they were doing and I should get out of the way, always made room when treated politely ,but always made sure I transmitted to any aresh0les so the transmission was recorded, something else we learned , whenever there a "near miss" the companies have to report it, if there's no other side to the story then there's a very skewed data arriving at a CASA/ATSB desk, we had a few CASA seminars to correct the "cowboy " attitude at YHBA simply because the RPT guys were reporting and the GA guys weren't , result always report ANY bad airmanship by commercial operators ,be sure they're reporting it and you will be made to look like the problem

So sad, RIP ,he was a real nice fella, never met him face to face but talked a bit when I was keen on a drifter.

Cool, I'll work on it, got a 100hp ,should make a difference

How about AUSFLY in that drifter this year,,,,I'm hoping to take the lobo

1000m,,,nah, I haven't got too exact yet but I reckon I'm getting airborne pretty short, how longs your farm strip, it'll give me something to aim for?

That post encourages me Motz,,,,,,

Not 701 related Geoff,but I took the fox up last week for the first time, went well, will have to get down your way soon

I hope he's learned a lesson, aviation is a hard teacher at times, some of us get to make errors and live to learn ,others are not so fortunate!

Ghost in the machine???,,,,what exactly are the voices telling you to do, I'll leave it there, I have absolutely no idea how to help ,so I be off now ;-)

Geez Dave ,I wish I was smarter I would've understood much more of that :-) Flew the fox again tonight, seems to be pretty good so far