Nobody

I think that many of the parts for the 915 have been upgraded and are not the same as the 912 series. Getting 135hp (rotaxs claim) from 1.4l at 5800rpm means that the turbo isn't putting in a lot of effort. The big benefit will be at altitude.. The price though puts it well outside the realm of affordable aviation. May as well but a Lycoming....

There is a big difference between Coke or Pepsi at a football match and the Ozrunways/Avplan situation here. Imagine if one football club exclusively sponsored the grand final and then said that another club couldn't participate in the tournament. There would be no game for the fans to watch. We also dont know the full details of the restrictions. For instance garmin have their pilot EFB app. Were they banned too? I dont blame Ozrunways for taking up the offer but the organizers should have had more nous that to offer it. Is the event still happening? RAAus said they would provide further details a few days ago but there has been nothing. The event webpage has no mention of any of the latest goings on.

What disturbs me a little is that someone along the line thought that an exclusive arrangement was ok. I am reminded of the quote attributed to Paul Poberezny, the founder of the EAA: “EAA is open to all. Who do we tell that they are not welcome? Who do we tell that they should just stay home?”

I was just emailed this from SAAA. AirVenture Australia - Narromine - 2017 Dear Member, A long-held dream within the general aviation community in Australia has been to bring together all Australian general aviation member groups together under one sky. To achieve something similar to the EAA in the United States. A step to achieve this began in 2016. General aviation member organisations were invited to become stakeholders in the original 2016 Event, which was named OzKosh. OzKosh was created to encourage aviators, sponsors and suppliers to come together under one sky. After the success of the 2016 Event, OzKosh was renamed Airventure Australia in response to participant feedback. Airventure Australia Pty Ltd (AVA) was established with three founding Member organisations being RAAus, SAAA and APF to take the 2017 event forward. The objective remains to bring the general aviation community together and to meet the interests of the Members not only of the founding Member organisations, but those of all in the aviation community – in essence to deliver annual events that are founded on fly-ins which provide entertainment, education and an opportunity to socialise with likeminded people. SAAA is largely a volunteer run organisation, with very limited employed administrative or technical support. The volunteers work hard to maintain and enhance the SAAA community with services that meet Member needs, and keep them safe. We are not interested in making a profit, nor can we as SAAA is a not-for-profit organisation, and we are not interested in politics other than those associated with advancing the richness of SAAA and the broader general aviation community. Our involvement in AVA inevitably exposes us and the other founding Member organisations to commercial relationships with supporters of the industry (product and service providers) who we look to for financial support of events such as AVA. Commercial decisions and arrangements are entered into with the best of intentions to create a win-win outcome for all stakeholders. Not surprisingly, there will be occasions where commercial reality and the pressures to develop sufficient pledged financial support to provide confidence by event organisers to “press the button” conspire to produce outcomes that are unpalatable to some in the community. Sadly, there has been one such outcome which stems from an agreement entered into between AVA organisers and OzRunways. All parties acted in good faith and with proper business conduct. OzRunways were the first industry supporter who quickly recognised the opportunity to become the “Naming Rights” sponsor for AVA 2017. The AVA organisers were delighted that OzRunways made this significant commitment that provided AVA with the impetus and confidence to push forward with the 2017 Event. There are some in the broader community, which includes SAAA, who were not comfortable with certain aspects of the conditions under which OzRunways were engaged, in particular those which resulted in certain parties being unable to exhibit at AVA. Why – simply because this is not consistent with the dream - All aviators, sponsors and suppliers coming together under one sky.” This said, it must be put on record that OzRunways have acted in good faith and have not acted improperly. Accordingly, OzRunways do not deserve to be vilified, and neither should any of the founding Members of AVA. SAAA encourages its Members to not do so. However, sadly, and we believe largely as a result of public response, OzRunways have elected to withdraw from the AVA 2017 Event. There will now, sadly be a shortfall in funding. SAAA is asking the membership if there are members out there who would consider pledging any amount to support the event. If you, as a member can see your way to support this event – please click the button below: President, SAAA – Tony White

I learnt to fly like you are proposing, in a big block. I usually tried to do 2 session per day with about 1.5 hours of flying in each session. The key thing for me was to prepare for each session so that you got the most out of the session. Edit: The reason I didn't try for more each day was that after about 1.5 hours the learning efficiency dropped off. It is actually quite hard to concentrate hard for extended periods.

As Bex points out, under the rules in China a product is free of Asbestos if it contains less than 5%. You cant call them dodgy if the product meets their rules. If you are talking about a facade panel as being the "product", 5% can be a lot of asbestos....

He should(if he can)!!! And that is exactly what tesla and others are doing in the car industry. The batteries have got "good enough" and so they are getting on with it ramping up production of what they have now. I just disagree with his claim that batteries are unlikely to develop further. Past experience has shown those sorts of claims to be comical when viewed from the furture.

At the 15 year timescale there are very likely technologies that will offer significant increases in battery energy density. Saying otherwise risks being quoted in future with Bill Gates* about 640kb and Simon Newcombe on the impossibility of flight. The graph below shows the specific energy of battery types over about the past 100 years. It was published in 2011 in the journal of energy and environmental science. Now the improvement isn't anywhere near as good as Moore's law there is still a pretty goo improvement over a 15 year timescale. Even in the 6 year since that paper was published there have been improvements. That paper looked at a huge range of possible battery chemistries. One of the conclusions of that paper was that Li/F2 had the highest energy density. Li/O2 was also very high. Lithium–air battery - Wikipedia These are probably at least 15 years away but in technology terms 15 years is a long time and so it's possible that this or some other technology will be available in commercial production. 15 years ago the iphone was not on the horizon and Windows XP was the dominant desktop operating system.... I suspect that the problem that electric aircraft will face is that in aircraft weight is far more critical than in cars. Imagine there were 2 new advances, one halved the battery weight but the other halved the cost, everything else being equal. An electric car maker would be far more interested in investing in halving the cost because the ~400kg weight is acceptable in a car that weights 1800kg. Less weight is always better but if a competitor is able to develop a slightly heavier car for a lot less money they will sell a lot more. For aircraft use we would much prefer to halve the weight. Halving the cost of a $30k battery in a $150K aircraft inst that much of a difference but taking 200kg out of the aircraft allows for 2 people plus a good amount of baggage. Who would pay $135k for a single seat aircraft when for $15K more you could have one that carried an extra 200kg, everything else being equal? So where then is the money going to come from to fund the development needed? I don't know... * OK yes he didn't actually say that "640K was more than enough for anyone".

Are you planning on installing toe brakes?

With an aircraft one of the design considerations is keeping the CG within the limits under all loading conditions. This means that all the variable masses either close to the CG or balanced either side of it. This means that the fuel, and the passengers and their baggage all need to be lumped close together. With a battery powered aircraft, as you note, the weight doesn't change over the curse of a flight as in a traditional aircraft as fuel is burnt off. This has positives and negatives for an electric aircraft. The negative being that you can't leave some fuel behind to take more payload but the positive is that you don't have to worry about fuel induced CofG changes. Further with an electric aircraft it is relatively easy to package the battery in multiple lumps. Multiple fuel tanks increase pilot workload and increase the risk of starvation issues so other than left/right wing tanks are often not done in small aircraft. Based on the above I am not sure that the lifting wing shapes give you significant aerodynamic or performance benefit for an electric aircraft. They were developed to have a large volume close to the CofG but the use of electric power reduces the need for this. When you look at the weights and sizes required a conventional layout like you are developing for your other project with an engine and batteries in front with some additional batteries behind the cockpit likely work quite well. I think though that marketing and not aerodynamics would drive the decision. I think that a degree of Teslas success in selling electric cars has been due to the cars not looking particularly unusual. The other car makers tended to go for a very futuristic/quirky look in developing their electric cars and it scared many buyers away. I suspect that the same will apply in aircraft too. The battery technology probably isn't there yet but it probably won't be too far away. My rough calculations indicate that to provide 50kw(about cruise power on a rotax 912s) for 2 hours you would need a battery of about 400kg.

Old Bar, right on the water.

If CASA said you can have the controlled airspace access like the GFA provided you meet the other operating requirements of the GFA would you be happy? The GFA maintenance requirements mean that significant training is required to perform an annual inspection. The GFA has annual check flights with an instructor not every 2 years like in RAAus. Or how about the requirements to be an "independent operator" or else operate under the supervision of an instructor.

True, but the increase affects both the Cessna and the Jabiru equally. The ABS also put the increase at about 4kg over the last 20 years which means a lot of people are lying on the census: 4338.0 - Profiles of Health, Australia, 2011-13 Skippy, the Jabiru performance figures were taken from their website, the POH does not have much in the performance section and so could be influenced by marketing inflation but like you I don't know for sure. The jabiru airframe is a lot smaller and the wing a lot slipperier and higher aspect ratio, the cessna has rivets protruding from the wing and so it isn't unreasonable that it gets these numbers. The main point to take from the discussion is that both aircraft will have to trade people for fuel over longer distances. You can't completely fill the tanks and fill all the seats. This is true of almost every aircraft even up to the large airliners. The other point to remember is that the cessna is likely lugging around all the equipment to allow flight in IFR conditions and all that comes with that. Garmin G1000 + 2 nav radios plus vacuum pump + bigger alternator. This all affects the empty load and how much you can haul.

The Jab430 does compare pretty favourably to the Cessna at a lot less cost to buy and operate. Lets do a comparision to see the difference. Imagine that you and some mates wanted to fly from Sydney(YSBK) to Coffs Harbour(YCFS), 255 nm away. How much weight can each haul? How much fuel will each use? Cessna 172S (Working in the POH units) Empty Weight 1660 lbs MTOW 2550 lbs Cruise speed 119 knots at 2600 rpm @ 8'000 feet =9.4gal/hr(~36l/hr) The 172 will take 2.15hours to get there + allow 0.25hr for climb and maneuvering and 0.75 for fixed reserve =3.15hours It will therefore need to fill to 29.6 Gallons and expect all going well to land with ~7Gal remaining having burnt 22.6Gal(85L) The fuel will weigh 177lbs leaving 713lbs (324kg) or 4, 80kg people and a towel each(and nothing more) Jabiru 430 Empty Weight 370kg (This is the value for the 230 which except for the seats should be the same) MTOW 700kg (The value for a VH registered one) The jabiru 230 POH has scant cruise performance information however Jabiru mention a cruise speed of 120 knots using 24-29l/hr on their website. The jabiru will also takes about 2.15hours to get there + 0.25 for climb and maneuvering and the same fixed reserve=3.15hours If we use 25l/hr then we need to fill to 79l and expect to land with 19l having burnt 60L The fuel required will weigh 56kg leaving 274kg for people (and towels), Your mates need to be under 70kg or one is staying behind. The cessna can carry more (50 kg) but uses 25L more fuel to get there, with probably double the operating cost. Note that there is considerable variation between differing models of aircraft and the comparison would be different if we compared to 172R(less useful load) or a 172Q(more useful load) Also the jabiru, being experimental can be fitted with different engines, a 912 powered jabiru will be slightly slower but with a lower fuel burn. Also I think that in South Africa the Jabiru can operate at 750kg which means that there is little difference between the two.

Also have a read here for more details about the specs of the different models: The Cessna 172 - Models

The 172S has a 180 hp engine in it according to the POH I have in front of me. If you look at the lycoming website you can see that the io-360-L2A has both 160 and 180HP options. It is probably due to the max RPM. I think some engines in other aircraft had a reduced max rpm of 2400 rather than the 2700. The useful load is listed on your link is 895 lbs. Over time the Cessnas have got heavier, both empty weight and gross and with bigger engines. The M model and earlier were only 150 HP and had an emplty weight of about ~1400lbs but the MTOW was only 2300 so similar useful load. The 895 lbs useful load does work out at 577 lbs with full fuel but that fuel will last you over 5 hours. If you want to use it as a 4 seater you have to leave some fuel behind. If you want to fly for 3 hours you will need about 200lbs of fuel(with reserve) and so will have about 695 lbs for people, which works out at just under 80kgs per person. An 80kg person is going to want a leg stretch after 3 hours in the back of a 172!!!! There are very few GA aircraft that you can fill all the seats with big adults and top the tanks right off.... If the designer did that why wouldn't they have bigger tanks for when you want to fly with less people.

First of type?

I am happy to be proven wrong but I think that the space shuttle was a "state aircraft" ie the same as millitary and so doesn't have to meet the civil rules. The private mobs like spacex and scaled composites are civil registered and so do have an experimental certificate of airworthiness.

Anything that isn't fully type certified are registered experimental(or restricted). Experimental has many sub cetergories, amatuer built is only one. Boeing often fly their new development aircraft on an experimental certificate during development. It doesn't have to be a full new aircraft to go on an experimental certificate. It might just be the engine or a component that is undergoing testing. The experimental marking in the instance might relate to the refuling system.

I just had a reread of the rule i posted above and I think CASA have screwed up. Table 4 tells you the size you need and it only lists one size (75mm) for a homebuilt certificated under 21.191(g). You could put 75mm marking on the underside of the wings and operate internationally. I am not sure that is what they meant.....

The exemption is no longer necessary as the rules have been adopted into part 45 of the CASR. In true CASA fashion the regulations refer you to the MOS for part 45, See the link below: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2016L00850 If you are less than 5700kg and operating wholly within Australia then you don't need markings under the wings....

Does it run on mogas? I have heard that plutonium is hard to obtain these days.....

The cost of the liability insurance that comes with membership and registration is probably higher for 2 seat aircraft.

There was this petition from a few years ago..... Australian Federal Government: Remove ASIC cards entirely. It was posted on here at the time if I remember correctly. The sad think is that it only got 1500 signatures. It makes it easy for the politicians to ignore us if we are apathetic....

AOPA have a good write up on medications and flying: Medications Database - AOPA From that it looks like Prozac is a problem. You can ring AOPA, they give advice to their members about medical issues, they might be able to give you some advice but you might have to join. 800-USA-AOPA (872-2672) [email protected]