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Yenn

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Posts posted by Yenn

  1. What’s this about notches in the needle. My Jab engine book mentions them, but they don’t have a notched needle nowadays. 

    Why fit EGT to a Jab or a Rita’s. Neither have mixture control as standard.

  2. The performance figures are nothing special, so I reckon the engine would by an old DH Gypsy or similar. With a new engine it should achieve better performance. Of course if you build from plans, you may find some things specified to be better upgraded. That means it would no longer be the same deign, but only based on it.

    • Like 1
  3. I used to start the Lister engine twice a day for milking and charging the lighting batteries. never a problem to start and that was in the UK. Beautifully reliable. A similar engine was the Petter and I bought one for my 28" yacht, what a heap of shit it was. Nothing like the old motors of the fifties.

    As far as starting diesels it is more about technique than strength. I used to hand start an 11 litre AEC engine powering a compressor. Just bounce it backwards and forwards until you get up momentum and then get it over TDC.

    I can't remember if the Petter had a manual decompresser or if it had a groove in the flywheel with the decompresser running in it.

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  4. Visibility is difficult. What we think of as good colours for visibility is not necessarily correct. When I built the Corby I painted it yellow with dayglo orange wing and rudder tips. It is not really easy to see even against a blue sky.

    I painted the RV4, dark green underneath and white on top and it was easy to spot. My personal experience is that a white plane beneath you is just about the most visible and a dark plane above is the same, white underneath and dark on top is just about the hardest to see.

    Non radio equipped planes can fly legally and you will not hear them, but you must look for them. Any radio equipped plane is expected to use the radio and not using it, then getting involved with another plane could lead to CASA taking action against you.

    We still no nothing about the Gympie accident, but the powered plane should have kept clear of the glider.

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  5. I am nowhere near the area for you. Whoever does the test flying would spend a lot of time going over the plane with a fine tooth comb and checking out the engine and fuel flow. The Rotax with a CS prop is unusual, I wonder how many pilots are conversant with it.

    I did a test flight a few years ago in a plane unusual to me. It had several little quirks, such as all the switches being down for on and a difficult to reach fuel tap. I was not happy and just ferried it 15 miles and I don't think it has been flown since. It certainly taught me a bit about test flying.

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  6. Why join SAAA. They do not administer any part of aviation, they mainly are interested in building and maintenance. If you have a C150 for example you will not be able to do the annual inspection if you are an SAAA member. Their inspection and maintenance is only for planes you have built yourself or similar ones and CASA gets to say what is similar. They said an RV4 would be similar to an RV8, but they did not say an RV6 or 7, which are just the same maintenance wise as RV4 and 8. Join SAAA if you are like me and have built a Corby Starlet or similar, then you can dispense with annual fees and rego. But you ill have to re register it GA and that is not toodifficult, but you have to find an approved person to do it, which may involve more expense than a few yeas of RAAus fees.

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  7. They are not really predicting weather, but the likelihood of a weather event. Ths chart will show rain for all of SE Qld for instance, but then look at their likelihood and it may be 5%.

    They haven't got worse over the years, but they haven't got much better either.

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  8. All aircraft have an annual, so it doesn't matter how many hours you do in a year. Every year the engine will be run up to temperature and check of power output. Then it will have a compression or leak down test. It will also be checked for oil leaks or any signs of deteriorated joints or gaskets.

    An old engine may be perfectly good or the gaskets and seals may be deteriorating, but it should show up at the annual.

    Those in power love to control us and think about what could happen, then dream up rules to prevent it happening. They should also look into the likelihood of it happening.

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