Geoff13

Yes I am hoping to go on Saturday.

You should have jumped in the Girlfriend and come to Monduran. It was an excellent day.

You didn't get aa picture of my baby. You are correct it was a great day. Well done to the organisers.

Practice talking to a post, talking to the dog, talking to thin air, talking to the missus (oh hang on I already said thin air) Seriously though practice practice practice.

Only seems to be one bloke continually bringing up costs.

Yes you can certainly learn a lot about the people.

ausadvance why did you not drag the strip I plead ignorance here, what do you mean by drag the strip? I went into this strip at about the same number of hours as Ryan. I didn't enjoy it one bit. The problem I had were the clumps of grass threw the plane all over the place on the ground. I was in a Foxbat. I certainly wouldn't go in there in a Jabiru, not without a lot more hours in the Jabiru first and I would certainly want some short field/soft field training beforehand as well. The other real problem I had was the wind sock. I got totally inaccurate info from it. In hindsight I should have been more aware, there was an obvious onshore breeze but the windsock did not reflect that. My comment at the time was that I would never go back there, however I am now at a point where I would consider it again. I have learned a lot since the first time.

Why? I would have thought they were more likely to be Gods of the Runway/Taxiway, surely once they (taildraggers) are in the air they are no different, it is on the ground where they will bite you.

40kg Sorry I just had to do that.

I had the same problem when I learned the fly. On advice from my CFI I went to an optometrist who is also a pilot. I ended up with to sets of bifocals, one tinted and one plain. They have standard unassisted viewing for distance and a slight assisted read section for the close work. I have fund them to be excellent, not only in the plane but also on the bike and whilst driving both the car and the truck. One of my better investments.

I have just had a 2 hour session with my Audiologist. Very interesting. I personally have had no problem wearing my hearing aid with either standard headset or with my EQ-1 ANR headset. If I don't wear my hearing aid I just turn up the headset. Over the last 3 months I have felt my hearing aid to be not as effective in normal use, hence my visit today. It was very enlightening. basically in the last 12 months my hearing has deteriorated a further 30% on what it was. My hearing aid was mainly to help control Tinnitus but now it is there to help with hearing as well. I had a long discussion with her about ANR headsets and ANR ear plugs. BOSE have just bought out a set of ANR earplugs that can be blue toothed to the phone for hands free operation and wanted her opinion before spending the money to by them. To cut a long story short she likes them especially for people like myself who have difficulty hearing in a noisy environment. Her main -ve was to be aware of not having music etc turned to loud. But to wear as earplugs and the hands free phone setup she was very positive. So off to the Bose shop and purchased a pair and set them up then Julie and I went to a little cafe she likes, and I hate because of the loud background noise. After a little fiddling with the controls and finding a comfortable level of attenuation I found that I could totally block out the crying baby and hear almost everything that was being said in the cafe. The one problem Julie noticed was that she couldn't hear me. Obviously because I could hear everything clearly especially myself, I was speaking much softer than normal and as such she really did struggle to hear me. (ahh they say payback is a b!tch) So with the Audiologist, the anr earplugs and the previously very noisy cafe, I have overdosed on sound today so I think a little quiet time in my chair with my little dog who for some reason thinks the chair is hers may be the order for the rest of the afternoon.

I accept the kick in the bum and apologise to Kieth first for my inappropriate comment and also to the other forum users for my error.

Totally agree. Don't tell us how bad the other guy is, Show us how good you are. I wish Politicians could do the same thing.

Yes but that will put another $15k on the price to get the same horsepower, thats a 25% price increase with the relevant increase in associated costs. And weight could also then become another problem. They could also go to the Jabiru that could be another story.

My least favourite is he gave 110%. Just how the heck do you even do that.

Could you present the citation on that one Yenn?

I have read this thread with interest. A couple of themes keep coming through. 1. It is a great product. 2. Ian is a nice guy. First to address the Great product I actually agree that Ian has addressed all the major issues with the Jab motor and come up with solutions to them. I think that in the market it was aimed at the Camit motor given time and market share may have proven itself to be a great product. But to claim that on such a small market share and with only one motor claimed to have 2000 hours (by a manufacturer trying to sell aircraft) is simply jumping the gun. Yes it appears to be a good product and given time it may have been proven to be a great one but not yet. Second Ian is a nice guy. I spoke to him several times and met him once and was given a 2 hour tour of the complete factory on the day before Christmas shutdown, so yes no argument he is a nice guy. The problem as I see it is this. We are all assuming that because they have a great product (questionable) and the owner is a nice guy they should be successful. Sorry but to succeed in business you need many things. A good product is one of them. A nice guy is certainly not. In fact to make a business succeed you really do need to have just a little bit of Mongrel in you. You need a million other things as well. A Market. Market Share. Affordable Money. Business acumen. There are so many things you need to make it work, and missing out on any one of them will without doubt put you in long term jeopardy. I have seen so many businesses fail even though the owner was a nice guy and sometime because he was. As I say to the people that I have mentored over the years, being good at your job will not make you successful in business. To be successful in business you must be good at so many things. It is sad and this is not meant as a to belittle Camits efforts, I would have bought one almost two years ago, but at the time I could not even get a delivery time frame out of them. Had they been able to supply I don't doubt that I would have had in excess of 250 hours up on one by now. As sad as I am to see another Aussie Manufacturing business fail I am wary of looking for someone outside the close circle to blame. I also see this as a great win for Jabiru and a huge loss to Jab owners. If Jabiru can bring the new motor online in a timely fashion the can corner the market. I however fear it is being rushed and as such could quite possibly be heading the way of other Jabiru motors. I guess only time will tell.

I have been doing the Maths on the Bathawk with exactly that in mind. I believe that those figures would be not to far off the mark. At $64k factory bulit with a 120hp motor I think they would make a great low priced trainer. However. They run a Camit motor and as we all know Camit are no more so I am not to sure where that will leave the Bathawk. Immediately its resale value is probably going to plummet, and that is one of the major factors in a 3 year costing. Sad but I really did see it as a potential low cost trainer.

Just call me Sir!

A line straight out of Ernie drove the fastest milkcart in the west.

Drone ohh sorry I meant Groan

So I wonder where that leaves the Bathawk? Pity it looks like such a fun little plane but I certainly would not buy one with a Jabiru engine.

Ok now you are getting all technical on me. What I do is have a program to run my trucks. I print a work dairy using a pdf printer and email it to myself. In the past I could just open that attachment in the email and copy and paste to other emails or and of the wharf/container park operating systems that I access. It no longer allows me to do that. So are you suggesting that I use a specific pdf viewer of some sort rather than just my windows email reader? If so do you have any suggestions?

That doesn't look good.

Ring Ian