IBob

Nice! I have a (non-aviation) story to add to all that: A friend of a friend is a successful rally and car race photographer, taking the sort of action pics that end up in magazines, calendars and ads. At one stage he was also commissioned to take static pics of lovely ladies draped across hot vehicles, and found himself having to source various garments for the project. Including a pair of bright red stilleto thigh boots, bought very cheaply from a local big box store. On completion of the shoot, he and his wife put the surplus costumes on TradeMe (which is our Ebay). And the bright red stilleto thigh boots caused a bidding storm, eventually selling at multiples of the original purchase price. So they bought some more. And the same thing happened. And so far as I know, they carried on like this until the big box store finally ran out of stock...................

Does the Jab have a return line bleeding fuel back from the engine compartment to one of the tanks?

Skippy, so far as I can make out on the two ported bar that is swung forward at approx 45deg: The upper port is in the upper sloping face but is drilled back horizontally (not perpendicular to that face). The lower port is in the in the bar end, which is angled down at approx 45deg , and is drilled perpendicular to that end. As for the Dynon, the pitot port is at the front tip of the probe in the usual manner, while the other port is part way under the rounded tip, so set in a surface that is angled down. There must be many ways to manufacture a pair of pitots ports, one pointing forward, the other angled downward, which is the aim of the exercise. I have chosen to use a bar for ease of fabrication and mounting, and not to have it swung forward, as I am wanting to use an existing hatch for mounting, while maintaining the port position back under the wing as recommended.

Skippy, as I see it: 1. How the pitot ports are formed.......solid bar/tube/drilled rivet........is immaterial, provided that they are in clean air and not affected by surrounding structures. 2. After that, you are looking to maximise the change of pressure as the angle of attack shifts from approx 0deg to 20deg: the greater the change, the better the accuracy and resolution of the reading will be. 3.Various manufacturers appear to set the second port at between 45 and 60degrees. I believe they do this to optimise the accuracy of their equipment. Setting the second port outside this range (or mounting it elsewhere) may result in a less accurate reading.

Skippy, if I understand you correctly, you are proposing to implement the Dynon imminent stall option, but with a DIY second pitot setup, rather than with the Dynon head? If that is the case, I would be looking to emulate the Dynon head in some way: that is, I would have the second downward tilted pitot close to the forward facing pitot, and at something like the same angle as the Dynon: there are plenty of pics of their head, which show the position and angle. This should be easy to arrange with a short length of pipe, or similar. And in my view it would be most likely to give a good match to whatever filtering and calculation is built into the Dynon system.

PS: I believe Dynon offer a 2 port pitot head which then enables their A of A option. They make good gear, so I would expect it to work well. However, the readout is (I think) down with the rest of the glass cockpit stuff, which is not where I would want my eyeballs on finals. The audio system mentioned above is a possible workaround for that. It will be interesting to see how well that works in practise.

Hi Skippy. Don't be too tough on yourself: I printed the thing out, and digested it by slow and painful degrees! The guts of it are in the conclusions on Page 39, though this takes some interpretation too. My reading of it (in no particular order): 1. Two pitots, one faced forward, the other down at 45deg, were attached to the underside of the wing. The probe they used is shown on Page 7. I would guess the two pitots or ports are approx 100mm below the wing skin. 2. It is recommended that these be mounted between 25% and 60% of the chord of the wing, from the leading edge. 3. The ratio of the pressure readings from these two pitots can be used to calculate an accurate angle of attack. 4. This works at whatever the ambient pressure is: there is no need to correct for density altitude. 5. This works regardless of aircraft speed. 6. The results are relatively linear. 7. Calibration is required for the specific aircraft. There is a bit of work in it, and if what you principally want is a stall warning, there are probably simpler ways to come at it. I'm finding it an interesting project. I have put in a fair bit of work to filter the readings from the two ports in order to give a clear (non-jittery) readout, but with minimal time lag. It's been on the back burner with extended family visits here, but I hope to get back into it soon. Here is a pic of my Mk1 probe, lashed to the Volvo for ground testing. The neighbours took to twitching the curtains as the wife and I made numerous runs up and down the street at various speeds and various pitot angle settings...........)

Skippy, here is the study, released by the FAA, detailing a workable A of A indicator that uses differential pressure between a forward facing pitot and one tilted downwards, usually 45deg or thereabouts: https://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/tc18-7.pdf There is nothing new in this (most commercially available A of A setups work on this principal) but the study serves to verify that with the pitots correctly positioned under the wing, angle of attack across the range can be read. I am currently prototyping a standalone unit based on this. The display will sit on top of the instrument panel, in line of sight.

ZK-AFF in the pics belonged to New Zealand Aerial Mapping, based at Bridge Pa near Hastings. I can remember it being flown by the company founder, Piet Van Asch, for the lolly drop for the kids at an airfield open day in the '70s,. They were using an AeroCommander by then, but kept the Monospar airworthy. The reduction boxes on the Pobjoy rotaries made a curious clattering noise. Sadly, it was lost in a hangar fire, some time in the 80s, I think

Gotit........thanks.

That's good input, Skippy. I will be installing ADSB in the coming months, was looking at making up my own harness, I have the correct crimp tool but the crimp pins/sockets seem to be hen's teeth. You're saying you got the crimp plug kits from Dynon? Or are you saying you just bought the appropriate length harness from Dynon (the harnesses for their gear do seem to be reasonably priced, and available in various lengths).

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/127354766/bitter-rivals-airbus-and-boeing-team-up-to-call-for-delay-of-5g-rollout-in-us

I would be looking at this as two entirely separate questions (albeit quite possibly connected): 1. Either your airspeed is indicating accurately, or it isn't. That can be checked at various speeds and at a safe height, allowing for some delay in the GPS etc. 2. Either your aircraft is correctly rigged, or it isn't. For my aircraft there are various measurements and also a metal template for setting up the flaperons. It would also be extremely useful to know what if any parts of the control system the LAME touched. It occurs to me that if he just tweaked down an aileron to match the other one, then you too now have flaperons! It seems very unlikely, but I had a car which nobody could get to run straight down the road, because they just kept tweaking one side or the other rather than centering both sides. So I guess anything is possible...... Most interested to know what you find...........)

Good idea! I didn't get round to it because the connector is firmly in place and sits well clear. but it's untidy: I shall rectify it.

Hi Blueadventures, yes it does but it doesn't stay there. I do need to tidy that up!

yep, definitely walking on the wild side, FlyBoy. I've been known to ride a bicycle without a helmet too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Skippy, I'm pretty sure mine.....supplied already fitted to the Savannah wiring loom...are exactly what you said: ordinary spade connectors (just not the soft brass ones the DIY outlets sell). The top of the temp sensor is a disk on a short stem, much like the head of a tack. And the connector is pushed on from the side. I would think any auto electrician would be able to supply them. See bottom right of this pic, with brown wire attached. I am guessing that the top face of the 'tack' is dished or recessed, and the two dark cuts you can see on these particular spades are where the spade is sprung down into this recess, to prevent it working loose. Whatever you are able to purchase may require simple doctoring....a dimple or some such...to achieve the same effect.

I was in Pensacola a couple of years ago, where a Hercules was making odd orbits at altitude. I was told the thing was fitted with a large cannon and a gunnery crew. Odd to be out on that beautiful Gulf beach, with people circling above practising how to kill other people.........(

Drifting threadwise here (as we do) I recently had a lengthy but fruitless exchange with FR over their use of the term 'Calibrated Height' which is what they claim to display. The only references I have been able to find online to 'calibrated height' imply that it is a corrected value: the actual height. But what FR displays appears to be raw transponder data, not corrected for barometric pressure. Anyone got anything to add to that?

True enough. But very few warnings systems are entirely foolproof. So I believe the emphasis needs to be on understanding the system. And the number of forced landings due to poor pilot fuel management would seem to bear that out. I think most here would agree that tanks should always be physically dipped before flight. After that, in the case of the Savannah, there are sight glasses for the inboard wing tanks, which inevitably slosh around some, but still provide the pilot with a reasonable indication of tank contents. I would go so far as to say that I think the Savannah has a very well thought out fuel system.

Hi Ivark, the newer Savannahs have a vent pipe, from the top of the receiver tank up to the top of the LH wing tank. This allows any air in the receiver tank to vent. The older Savannahs do not have this vent pipe, so if you get some air in the receiver tank (perhaps from momentary unporting of the wing tanks), it can become trapped there, and you may get false low fuel indications. Typically this happens as you gain altitude, because the trapped air bubble increases in size as the air pressure is reduced. I have flown in a VG that did this. This may be the reason for your warning light coming on. If there is an air bubble in your receiver tank, you may be able to see it with a bright light. ................................................................................................................................................................................... The low level switch is a simple reed switch, operated by a floating magnet in the tank: when the level falls, the magnet closes the switch. It is possible for this switch to fail. I do not know if this would cause the intermittent fault that you describe.

kgwilson I picked up that habit from my Savannah instructor. I am not sure how much it proves, as it is my understanding that the ignition modules tend to fail by degrees, the first indication being failure when cold. But I do it anyway, at 3000RPM, where I see a drop of maybe 200RPM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As an aside to that: I used to see a quite uneven drop when doing this, with distinctly rough running on one ignition module. However, this cleared up while I was chasing a minor radio issue, as follows: I had started at the plugs and leads, could tell nothing much from the plugs: we have a reasonably long taxi in from the strip, and my plugs have always looked kinda terrible after this, but the engine is new, starts and runs like clockwork etc, so I've come to accept that's how the plugs look after a long taxi. I took them out, looked at them, put them back, checking the leads and caps in the process. What I did notice while doing this was a certain amount of rubbing where the leads for the lower plugs pass down between the cylinders. These leads sit inside a heatproof sleeve, but there is nothing to prevent this sitting against the heads, so I cut a couple of square rubber guides from large grommets, centered the leads through these. I also cut the cable ties off these leads, then fitted new ones with the leads centered in this manner. None of this improved my radio issue, but since then I get equally smooth running on each mag during my pre-shutdown 3000RPM mag check.

Or register your ownership with Rotax, and get regular news, updates, and notifications etc from them.

Lots of folk here do the same, Skippy, so you're in good company! It'd be interesting to run a survey. And we could print 50 and 100hr t-shirts and stand at opposite ends of the bar.........)

Lovely to see the punters wandering all over the paddock, and not a single individual minced up! That must have been when they were still delivering Common Sense with the milk every morning............)