Yenn

One advantage of avgas is that it is a predictable product. I have used mogas a couple of times in my Jab engine, but the quality of supply is so poor that both times I have had so much trouble with fuel problems that I have gone back to avgas. Good super is better than avgas, it burns cleaner and has the same power, but getting a bad batch is just too much trouble.

One advantage of building it yourself is that most homebuilts or kit aircraft are better handling that the Cessna, Piper Beech type of aircraft. They are also a bit more sturdy than the RAAus plastic fantastics. If you have no health issues, then join SAAA and build a GA plane. No annual rego or membership fees and being the builder you can maintain it yourself. Even if you have health issues, you can get a GA medical approval from your GP usually.

Turbs said. "Before you get to the instructor, you have to separate out: Under-Designed nosewheels Nosewheel collapse as a result of prior/multiple prior strikes. Whether the landing strip is suitable for a lightweight RA aircraft" Does this mean that an instructor who is using a plane with a poorly designed nosewheel, or one that has had prior strikes is fully competent Surely the instructor must be able to see where the weak points are and also to know the history of the aircraft he is teaching in. What sort of an instructor uses a strip that is not suitable for the plane he is using. Sorry Turbs. I reckon your comment increases the chance of incompetence. Any instructor must be able to gauge the level of ability of his student and also make sure that the plane is suitable for the job, anything less is just not acceptable.

I see that RAAus are concerned about the number of collapsed nosewheels on landing that are occurring. They say they have a significant number of these occurrences. They also say that the majority are done by student pilots who bounce the landing. THey say that go arounds should be practiced. What I wonder is why RAAus have a problem. Could it be that they have poor instructors, or is their training curriculum lacking somewhere. It is no good blaming the light weight and poor strength of the nosewheel assembly, especially as most of the planes flown nowadays are supposedly designed and built by manufacturers to suit the job they were designed for. It is many years since I had anything to do with an RAAus instructor in an instructional role, but the last one who did a BFR for me didn't impress. He seemed to lack understanding of what was required for him to observe me in a single seat plane. He was the same instructor who approved a BFR for a pilot who landed wheels up on his BFR flight. He gave the pilot his review and RAAus later revoked it when they heard of the wheels up landing. The real question is, are our instructors competent?

I used to think that Boeing were the bees knees. but after flying in an A320, I think it was, the big one and realizing that it was more comfortable and quieter than the 747, I began to change my mind. Then along came the Max problems and I will go for Airbus any time.

If it was space junk, surely it would have been quite hot when it arrived.

The rain may be forecast, but it will not happen at Old Station. Rain is seldom as forecast for this location. No problems with rain softening the runway, it will have to drop about 100mm overnight to have any effect.

I have already voted no. I remember the problems we had a few years ago and one of the problem makers is still on the board and proposing we should vote yes. If it in corporate law it doesn't need to be stated in our constitution.

I have read it again and it looks to me as if the board wants to be able to dismiss a director and also prevent that person from standing again for 5 years. I don't know what the law concerning directors is, but it appears to me that the board is wanting to be able to dismiss a director who may be not able to be a director under company law. Why try to do what is already in the laws. I have little faith in anyone who holds power nowadays and going on past performance I would not trust some of the present board to be given more power. There needs to be a really good reason to change a constitution and I don't see it here.

I got an email yesterday saying there would be a special meeting to consider changing the constitution. At first glance it looks to me as if it is un necessary to change the constitution and it could be a grab for power. I will read the proposal more closely to understand it. Anyone else got any ideas about it?

I built an RV4 which I think would come in for RAAus rego under the increases weight ruling. I also built a Corby Starlet, which is plans only, not a kitlthough I think partial kits are available.

If you lean while taxying, enough to keep the plugs from fouling you will not get anywhere near full power at take off and it will be immediately apparent. Not much chance of taking off too lean, but you need to be monitoring those EGT numbers. Problem is a lot of pilots do not understand EGT and CHT and the differences between them. From memory Mike Busch's book explains it all.

It was stated here that RAA and CASA used to provide ASIC cards but no longer do so. When CASA stopped issuing them I phoned the issuing body who took over to find how mine was progressing. Guess what. The person ansering the phone said I had contacted CASA and how could she help. Maybe CASA doesn't issue them, but it seems funny that their staff are involved. Could it be a name change? In which case it still does not smell of roses.

Clinton. To get the best out of your engine you need EGT on all cylinders as well as CHT. It may seem like an excess cost to install, but having all that info enables you to diagnose problems easily. For example I have had a Lycoming misfire after a long taxi, when I hadn't leaned enough. I could immediately tell which cylinder and also which plug was misfiring by checking the gauges. Lycoming don't like lean of peak running and in some cases their recommended procedures can be detrimental to engine long life, such as their recommending running just rich of peak in cruise.

We can only elect from the pol that puts themselves up for election and at the moment that is dominated by two parties, with a couple or so smaller parties and a few independents. Looking at the top positions in the influential countries it immediately becomes apparent that we are electing clowns. Our own top bod is making a big show of getting the nuclear powered submarines organized with UK and USA. He doesn't mention that the whole fiasco would not have been necessary if his government had made the correct decision when they ordered the French subs. The UK seems to be run by a clown, who has no moral standing. The USA is run by another clown who appears to be asleep at the wheel. All three of the above are endorsed by their parties, which I suppose means that the parties consider them appropriate people for the job. The present Labor leader was yhe minister responsible for aviation when the ASIC was brought in and the reply to my queries of him about it was completely useless. He just asked the bureaucrats for their take on it and sent that to me. His party will still get my vote as it stands at the moment, because the LNP is completely corrupt.

Not only the cards but we also have to ensure that our plane cannot be controlled without having a key. Have to have a special lock that the key will not come out of unless it is locked, plus have to have a sign on a canopy cover stating that a security lock is fitted. I really wonder at the sanity of those in charge.

As usual the government cannot write legislation in a form that can be understood. They state that a pilot must have a security check. OK that entails either an AVID or ASIC. They do not state that it has to be current. It could read that you get either ASIC or AVID and when it runs out you just ignore it. They obviously don't do any checking because one of the things you have to tell them is if you are convicted of a crime when you hold an ASIC. I would have thought that for the system to work they ought to monitor the court records and also police records. Can youn imagine a terrorist with an ASIC would tell the powers that be if he was convicted of a crime. I Can't. We keep hearing lot of people saying how useless these cards are and publishing in flying magazines, but nobody ever comes up with a way of getting some sanity into the system. The card came about because of the terrorist attacks in the USA on Sept 11, but the USA never brought in anything similar. It was just a trick to make the government look as if they were doing something and of course it is a nice little earner.

I had my Corbys' tank welded by a local sheet metal fabricator. Told him what I needed and he said he could do it, no worries. It has been in use for 19 years with no problems. Maybe there will be a Brisbane sheet metal worker who could do the job.

I should be there with the Corby, don’t know if I will camp.

I have built two aeroplanes using of battery lead in the counterweights.

You will miss out by not learning on the Thruster. It is a much harder plane to fly well than the Jabiru. Just see what I mean by the comments about speed control on landing. From memory the Thruster had one speed 50kts. Climb,descent and cruise. I put mine in a dive once and it didn't go over 70 kts.

That diameter sounds about correct to me. It is the thread that is used for aviation usually. I still have the bracket on my jab engine and it definitely isn't 3/4" nor is it 18mm. Sadly the sender has been lost. About oil senders, it is usual for the hose from engine to firewall mounted sender to have a restrictive nipple before it, to reduce the flow rate from a hose failure.

Nev. You have hit the nail on the head. It is governments inability to write sensible regulations that causes most of our problems, not only in aviation but in everything else as well. Refer to Novak Djokovic for an example.

I have a Vdo tacho for the Jab motor fitted in my Corby. I never used it as it seemed to need a 24 / 7 power supply. I don't have the sender. For twenty plus years I have been using a tiny tach. Well four of them actually as they die eventually. You just coil the wire around a plug lead or the HT lead to the distributor, set the pulses pwr rev and they work nicely. Thay don't give a reading when you turn off the mag. for testing, but they are more accurate than the big round gauge.

Liquid fuel does not burn. Only the vapours burn. High concentrations of vapour will not burn. In my young and stupid days my party trick with new mechanics brought into my army workshop was to casually walk along a line of trucks, remove the fuel cap off one and then replace the cap and walk on. That truck was checked to be brimming full of fuel and when the match hit the liquid it was extinguished. More by luck than by judgement I never tried it with a less than full tank, but the result would have been catastrophic.