Bob Llewellyn

As the tech manual is a non-disallowable instrument, this is third-tier legislation, and a breach of the constitution. Otherwise, it's a breach under the ADJRS 1988 for the tech manual to contradict / add to the CAO. RAAus have no authority to create regulation.

Depends on the Classification of Ops... I haven't checked for some time!

ask their insurers!

In GA, TBO must be observed for school use. In lieu of anything specific to ultralights, the presumption would read across.

It didn't used to. The amendment could well be challenged in court, it's arbitrary bullshit - 86 kg is the current international norm, and what's to stop a 110 kg pilot having a go?

A lot of cars use resistor ignition leads; if using both resistive leads & plugs, spark gets weak. Use resistive plugs on your lawnmwoer, they die every 20 hours or so from the vibes... "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, I'm schizophrenic, And so am I"...

Resistor covers seem to work on Rotax 2-strokes, though I still won't have them on a single ignition engine - note that my Icom seems happy enough with the coax in good condition and the antennae 3m from the donk... Personally, I LIKE an ignition that can slay an elephant at ten paces...

All aircraft may be considered as a lot of bits, joined together. A Jabiru is a lot of bits of glass fibre, joined by glue; a Drifter is a lot of bits of aluminium (and a few of steel), joined together by bolts and rivets. One repairs either aeroplane by adding joints and new material. Provided the quality of joints be as good as the original - e.g. same size, same grade bolts, or same (or slightly greater) weight of fibres & same orientation, and compatible resin, and "good practise" - ref. FAA AC43, e.g. de-burring rivetholes, prepping scarfed composite surfaces with MEK or whatever - then the repaired product is, quite literally, as good as new. Traditionally engineers tend to get drawn in, to consider such things as stress concentration factors collateral to the repair, triaxial restraint etc; but the Approved Repair Manual (which so few manufacturers produce!) or AC 43 are sufficient for most repairs.

Yeah, well, if you want that kind of speed, or economy, or comfort, go and buy a Jab then. For reliable longevity, the Thruster TST family has a few members at over 10,000 hrs TT; and a good pre-flight is equivalent to an airframe major inspection on a jabiru... unlike the Drifter, they don't have multiple-sleeved spars, which is about the only thing att all difficult to inspect on a Drifter (provided you're limber enough to have frequent suspicious squizzes at the underside of the fuselage boom adjacent to the rear bulkhead of the floor raft, or bathtub, or whatever you may call it). Both the Drifter and Thruster two-seaters provide an indefinite life, with good safety, by thorough pre-flights (and timed maintenance on the donk...)

No worries - a bit of extra history: CAO 95:55 uses 80 kg for the "minimum useful load" calculation for foreign certified ultralights...

HATE THEM - the resistors eventually fail open-circuit; it's an issue in cars if you do a lot of mi... er, kms; also an issue if you run single ignition...

I stop at "it's none of your bloody business"...

They're usually tinned copper or brass, so provided the threads ain't stripped, there's no physical reason not to.

Unlike nukes, there is no treaty requiring end-user certificates for sparkplugs, so it's none of their bloody business, whatever the fee-seeking legal vultures might want to fabricate.

Just look at all those Skycraft Scouts still on the flightlines!

In this case, in all seriousness, he would have been safer with more power - the airframe fairly accurately reproduces the unforgiving qualities of the original, but the extra speed margins weren't there. I think the Isuzu is a fine choice from the available options, but the lack of RR Kestrels does somewhat compromise the operational tolerances of an accurate replica. A sad event.

yes... well, they get rid of any road on which a car crashes, so it follows logically... hey, wait a minute...

Actually, with FEM for design, it should be much easier to come up with an inflatable structure that'll stay up (the french trike appears a logical evolution of their high-performance parawing technology, not an exercise in FEM). Costwise... how much do two parawing canopies cost?

you COULD get a spitfire!

avoid C&W music, you should be ok

hot day no boost increases the possibility of vapour lock in a lift pump system; if carbed, carby heat could exacerbate a vapour lock situation. I don't think TIO 540s qualify as carbed, and I believe that they use a sheltered intake in lieu of adding heat for butterfly de-icing. As greybeard sapiently observed, the picture tells us very little. Politely responding to his suggestion, I'll surmise that they had a forced landing, probably due to some form of power loss, and put it in a paddock wheels-up to not over-run the available distance. The props may not have fully feathered, or they may have held their go-around option open to the last moment. Or they may have had their minds taken over by little green men from Mars...

....oh. Maybe that's why there are not more of them around...

...but it bounced off the ground and kept going!!... didn't it?

Keyword alert! Keyword alert! look, the good old Aus CAA / CASA folk who created the ultralight categories wanted no truck with durability, OR crashworthiness; the sooner pesky ultralighters eliminate themselves from this mortal coil, the better. This is not a joke; the low stall speed / low wing loading perversion that regulators have, is anti-safety. Firstly, the vast majority of ground gusts in calm old North America are under 15 kts; so a takeoff safety speed / approach speed of 1.3 times 50kts almost eliminates wind shear / convective turbulence type accidents. Anything with a lower stall speed needs a greater margin - say, 1.4 times 40 kts or 1.5 times 35 kts - and a larger margin again in an Aussie summer. Secondly, the material used in those seven-acre wings uses up the available (category) weight limit, leaving stuff all structural reserve in random structural members like, say, wingspars. Thirdly, the ludicrously low weight limits mean that a high power to weight is practicable, and so you get aircraft like the wire-braced Drifter, with a rough air penetration speed of ~54kts, a manouvring speed of ~65 kts, and a Vc of 70 (from memory; the ratios are about right, even if the numbers are a little high); or the 912 engined Sabre, with a cruise speed of ~125kts and a maximum rough air speed of ~65 knots. The industry proponents of CAO 101:55 wanted a 45 kt stall speed and 544 kg MTOW; they got 40 knots, fudged up to 42 when the Skyfox couldn't make it, and 450kg - which is why earlier Skyfoxes, Lightwings etc have such miserable official disposable loads, and th e'fox has short fatigue lives on certain components.. It's regulation in the interests of danger. Note that, after the rest of the world had watched 101:55 for a few years, the Europeans came up with JAR VLA (45 kt stall, 750 kg MTOW), and the Yanks came up with LSA (40 kt Vs0, 45 kt Vs1, 600kg MTOW, 650 if webfooted). So - I suggest you focus on 95:55.1.5; 544 kg, 45 kt Vs0, RAAus ops so owner maintenance.

agreed, BUT - the extortionate / "we don't do aircraft" approach has no basis in statistical fact; it's a flat earth approach.