Spin

Lets hope the weather clears for this one - looks interesting and a good cause to support at the same time. (You see honey, we have to go to the fly in - it's for charity ) http://www.wingsoflife.com.au/

That looks like a load of fun Tomo. Is the covering perhaps ceconite? Must say I thought that sort of vintage generally had dacron covers, a la Drifter. By the way, on a similar subject, does anyone know what the two Scouts were like that were recently for sale down south? One had floats if I'm not mistaken. Very sad looking Winton Grasshopper for sale on ebay at the moment:crying:, seems the old classics are out there, they just have to be dug out of sheds and chook pens across the land.

Frank, I was picking up on Nev's comment to you that he could count the number of people who he has seen do it right (side slip) on one hand. I'm a low time pilot and always keen to hear what others have to say on subjects like this. As I said, I use the technique fairly frequently but other than a caution not to let it get too slow, have never received much feedback.

Do you want to elaborate on the subject of side slipping properly, Nev? I have to agree it is a very useful technique to have in the quiver and tend to use it fairly regularly. My RA instructor seemed a little surprised that I was familiar and comfortable with them when I converted.

I believe they call them "tiger tails", used to mark lines that may come into play with cranes, tip trucks etc on building sites or other places where work is taking place in close proximity to live lines. That said, you'd have to find someone prepared to sign off on semi permanent installation - might just be easier to have some kids act like little vandals:laugh:. Fertiliser bags huh:cool:

Yup, seen that too Tomo although I recall 150 feet per minute. No worse than some light twins and at least your thrust lines aren't too far apart on the Cri-Cri.

Well done Flightygirl, that's what it's all about!

Looking good Tomo, I've added a couple of my snaps in the other thread. So far, the red Kitfox and the Fisher carry the day for me.

Thanks for the reminder Tomo, here are a couple of mine...

Extract from the latest RVator, the Vans aircraft online magazine. Dick Van Gruesen is known as one of the thinkers and straight shooters of the homebuilt aircraft design fraternity and I found it interesting and a little disappointing to read that in the case of electric power for aircraft, as with so many other emerging technologies, promises seem to have run well out ahead of delivery. Maybe I'll have to wait a little longer before adding an "elec" endosement........ "A year ago, following AirVenture 2009, I wrote an article on electric powered airplanes from my perspective as an owner/operator of one. I compared and contrasted my actual electric aircraft operating experience with the reports and projects being published. Since then, the “press release” news has continued, and I have continued operating my electric self-launch Antares 20e sailplane. Since June of 2009, I have logged over 400 hours of flight time. Just 15 hours of this was “under power”, usually five or ten minutes at a time. This practical application experience has put me in a different position than most people writing or talking about electric airplanes. In our field of interest and endeavor, the calendar year runs from “Oshkosh to Oshkosh”. This year, again, there were a lot of talks and programs about electric airplanes, but not much action. Yuneec had another very interesting POC airplane on display. With a low wing and fixed tractor powerplant, it would normally be classed as a motorglider. It featured a single retractable landing gear and a folding prop to minimizing drag for soaring rather than motor flight. It really looks more like a self-launch sailplane than a general purpose sportplane or motorglider. I don’t mean this to be a bad thing, but rather a concession to the realization that electric technology is not ready for prime time GA; certainly not ready to power an airplane like the Cessna 150 or Katana. Neither of the Yuneec airplanes flew at Oshkosh this year. I heard that they had a system failure of some sort which prevented them from being able to fly. One of the leaders in electric airplanes has been Randal Fishman with his ‘Electraflyer’ aircraft. Starting with a weightshift trike several years ago, he advanced to the Electraflyer C — an electric motor powered Moni airplane in which he flew demonstrations at Oshkosh and Lakeland for a couple of years. He had a very nice looking Electraflyer-X prototype on display at Airventure 2009 but hadn’t flown it by Sun’N’Fun 2010, where it was on static display . I did not see or hear of it at Oshkosh this year, so don’t know what its current (pun intended) status is. The last entry on his website is dated July 2009. My friend Dave Nadler had his Antares electric sailplane on display at Oshkosh again this year and performed flight demonstrations during the airshow on two days. I’m not aware of any other electric airplane flying there this year, so the Antares sailplane still appears to be the industry leader. There are about fifty of them operating worldwide in the hands of private owners. Some have been in operation for five years or more. This would indicate that their system obviously works well, demonstrating that they have achieved a good level of operational reliability. Interestingly, the Antares does not get much attention from the aviation press, probably because it is a single seat, special purpose, quite expensive airplane. Why can’t the Antares electric motor system, or a similar level of technology be incorporated into a more general purpose airplane like the Yuneec or Electraflyer? It probably can, but I assume that these folks are working through the teething problems that the Antares people struggled with 10 years ago. It’s also possible that the folks at Yuneec, et al, are trying to develop a more affordable package, and thus not able or willing to “buy” the expensive components that have contributed to the success level that the Antares has demonstrated. Since the aviation press is not yet able to treat us to pilot reports of operating electric aircraft, here’s a few words about my experience. According to the factory information, the Antares has enough battery power to climb to approximately 9000 ft. at my normal operating weight. I have never verified this, and do not feel that it could be done in a single “open the tap and go” motor run. My experiencehas been that the indicated battery power starts to drop more rapidly after about 3000 ft. of climb. Normally, the motor is stopped and retracted at about this time; the start of a soaring (or gliding?) flight. After a few minutes following motor shut-down, the battery power indication will rebound by 10-15%. I have also found that by reducing the power to just enough to sustain level flight (about 25% output), the battery power will rebound somewhat and then drop slowly, commensurate with the low draw. It would seem that the batteries need to be “rested” periodically to re-balance themselves, either by shutting them off or operating them at a much lower continuous power draw like the “low cruise” mode. On an ideal flight, I would launch, using battery power to take off, and contact a thermal within a mile or so of the departure end of the runway. I would center the thermal, reduce power to 50% or less and establish that a positive climb rate is probable with no power. At that point, somewhere between 1500 and 2000 ft. altitude, I would stop the motor and retract motor pylon. The high-performance airplane would continue to climb and soar for hours without need to use motor to remain aloft. Total battery use would be 10-15%. A sample flight for a “poor” soaring day might be: Take-off and climb at about 80% power to 3,000 ft., at which time the power meter will be indicating about 60% or less. After turning the motor off and retracting it, the power level will rebound to about 70%. At a later point in the flight, I might find myself running out of thermals, altitude, and ideas. I extend the motor and climb about 1500 ft. in the process of getting to another thermal (or getting enough altitude to glide back home). In the process, the power meter may drop to around 35-40% and then rebound to about 50% as the batteries re-balance themselves. Tallying up, I would have climbed a combined total of 4500”: half of the specified performance capability, and used about half of the battery energy. My real world experience has basically validated factory claims. In the real world, I am rarely climbing in stable air. While climbing in sinking air, often unavoidable while trying to reach the area of the “house thermal” energy goes away quickly as the altimeter slowly winds upward. The reverse is true when the thermal gods smile on me, so the above examples are based on averages. During a long soaring flight, the flight instrumentation and radio will use about 2-4% of the battery energy, not enough to seriously deplete the energy available for a “save” if needed. Another characteristic of my system is that the motor should not be operated at high power (high battery discharge) when any of the battery temperatures are below 20 deg. C. When soaring at higher altitudes (low outside temps.), the battery temps can easily drop below 20 deg. C. To assure that the motor can be used if needed, there is a built-in battery heating system. The batteries draw from their own energy to heat themselves. This obviously reduces the available energy by a small amount. Normally, I do not activate the battery heater unless the flight is not going well and I feel that I may need to use the motor in the next 5 minutes or so. I do not waste energy keeping the batteries warm during an entire flight. If I should be distracted with the challenge of soaring flight and overlooked heating the batteries, I can still run the motor at low power (level flight or slight climb) while the batteries are heating. The problem is that cold batteries do not deliver energy well and may be damaged by attempting to draw high output when cold. This is true for other common type batteries as well. This is why your car may not crank well, or at all, in really cold conditions. Most of the general purpose electric sportplanes being developed or proposed quote flight duration available from their batteries. Its safe to assume that these flight times are based on low power settings and “economy cruise/ loiter” speeds. However, unless one is to cruise at an altitude of 10 ft., a fair amount of energy is needed to reach even a modest cruise altitude. In the case of my Antares, normal climb rate of 5-6 hundred fpm requires a power draw about 4 times that of level flight. So, a large percentage of the available energy is used just getting to altitude. I suppose that at the end of the flight, gliding back down to landing with the motor throttled or shut off, some of this can be offset. Still, it’s a factor to consider, as would be traffic pattern delays at the end of a flight. The bottom line is that, from my experience, electric aircraft operation is not necessarily as “plug-and-play” as some advocates would like you to believe. In some respects, it is. For instance, operating the motor is as simple as pushing a lever forward----the equivalent of ignition, primer, starter, throttle, mixture control, etc., all in one operation. On the other hand, there are concerns such as the limited energy (range) available, and the battery temperature issue. We can continue to hope for breakthroughs to alleviate these concerns, but in reality we probably must not expect more than incremental gains in the near future."

Nice one bp, now I've got to clean the keyboard after I snorted my coffee all over it! I hadn't considered the snakes on a plane scenario, I'd probably save it the trouble of biting me and just die of heart failure. The mongrels do have some bad habits though, years ago a couple of mates and I were kayaking on a lake, when suddenly one of them veered off to a nearby shallow area and somehow levitated out of a tight kayak cockpit and straight up into a willow tree. Turned out a small snake had been woken by the rocking n rolling in the boat and had appeared between his legs! You can imagine that he copped a fair amount of abuse, until it dawned on one of us that the snake's mates might have taken up residence in any one of our kayaks too - they had all been stored together in a shed. Our "preflight" inspections became a lot more rigorous after that.

Ditto what those above have said - always makes me take a moment to re-evaluate my priorities when I hear a story like yours, ie do I really have to finish that report this weekend or should I rather take my son flying. Seize the day! As you're probably aware, the agent for the Sinus/Virus is a member at Jacobs Well and will quite possibly be involved at the fly in. Why not try and tee something up beforehand? I, and a few others from the forums will be there and look forward to saying G'Day. Regards Carl

Normally that supersonic buzz is something that attracts a smile from me, however not virtually every morning at 4.30am, especially as I lived around 30 deg off centreline and about 8km from the threshold! A bit of detective work at the time revealed the ID of pilot and aircraft rego, turned out the ex wife lived on the ridge behind my place. Anyhow I prepped atc and the following morning phoned them as he passed over, they were a little more co-operative than expected and passed my threat of where said 206 was going to be stuffed more or less verbatim:big_grin:. It didn't happen again.

Congratulations Garry, good to hear of a local manufacturing business getting ahead. I look forward to seeing many more of those good looking machines in the skies. Incidentally, although we may not always agree with RA-Aus politically, I have to give them a big thumbs up for their administration, each time I've changed something or added another rating, their response has been quick and accurate.:thumb_up::thumb_up:

C206 has a habit of doing that too - I eventually had to have stern words with a survey pilot who persisted in buzzing my house at low level at 4.30am every morning, waking the baby in the process; became a wee bit tiresome.

Yip, Greg has already given me a taste - lovely machine that. I'm due some leave, wx permitting I'm hoping to do a bit of concentrated flying then.

Please do RD, as you probably know there is quite a bit of interest in importing aircraft on here, self included. Incidently I saw the results of someone's "blind" prchase at the field the other day, a simply magnificent RV7A purchased via Barnstormers - so far so good in the process apparently.

Thanks Sue, Daryl - I tried a stretched version on for size, fit fine so that is ok, I believe the original with the midwing was very tight though. Most here seem to be the IIL, ie low wing. I did notice that one of the locals had put a larger, semi rounded rudder onto his, so your other half may be onto something, Sue. You probably also summed it up perfectly - depends what your experience is and what you're expecting. A friend who flies Airbus for a living and C182 for fun, is quite rude about a Tecnam too, twitchy was one of the more polite words used and yet anyone who is used to the lighter side of flying seems to find them thoroughly well mannered little aircraft. I guess I need to polish my skills in aircraft with the little wheel in the right place before I get too far ahead of myself:laugh:

Does anyone here have any direct knowledge of these aircraft? I was told years ago by a fairly experienced pilot that they are slippery, twitchy beasties, not for the inexperienced, however having had a bit to do with a couple of very enthusiastic owners lately, I am beginning to wonder whether he wasn't over-egging the pudding a little.

Hi Gerrit, welcome to the forums. Yeah, the elusive diesel engine for aircraft, there has been a bit of debate over them recently, do a search. Finding one at a reasonable price that runs on JetA1 and keeps on running, isn't too heavy..... a bit like the search for the holy grail:loopy:

Found this one posted on an overseas forum by Jim Davis, sometime contributor to Australian Flying. I couldn't improve on his description of events so have posted as is....

Hardy lot them Drifter Drivers from Boonah - glad to hear it wasn't a complete washout.:big_grin:

David, I re-read the article after scanning and posting the photo, seems like quite an interesting beastie, for example the "wing fences" aren't that at all. Probably not the right thing to post the entire text here, but if you like, PM me an email address and I'll gladly scan the article and send it to you. I see she was based on Philip Island a few years back. Regards Carl PS I'll agree with most of what you said except that a C180 cannot be pretty. Never flown one, but admired plenty from afar. Incidently I see there is an early C182, converted to taildragger, for sale at the moment. I didn't realise that there was that amount of commonality between the early C182/C180s.

Come to think of it, I'd said I wanted to go to the Angel Flight (Angel wings?) fly in at Archer Falls that weekend - gonna have to spread myself, I missed Oakey last year.

Oh no, another weekend of gardening that I'll be forced to sacrifice to aeroplanes!