Geoff_H

My vehicle actually has laser lights.  They are reported to have an effective range of 600metres.  They are inhibited from operating where there are street lights and the car is exceeding 60km/hr.  They have a pretty heavy heat sink on them so the speed limitation might be for cooling 

Both the laser and led headlights in my car are dot controlled.  If there is a car in front or coming head on the dots in that area are turned off by their computers.  One time when the laser lights came on there was a car in front of me, it only lit up the left side of the road a few hundred metres in front of the car in front of me.  I don't know what that driver thought seeing the side of thr6road lit up

After a websearch, always a little dodgy, I am sure that for thin thicknesses laser welding could be great for the homebuilder.  Less distortion continual good penetrative and ease of use by amateur.  I did a google purchase search on laser welders. 90% for sale are tig or stick etc welders.  The price of  welders from that laser search ranged from around $1000, very affordable.   But on closer inspection none of these were actually laser, usually tig (already have tig set up so not at all interested).  Then I found that the cheapest laser was $10,000.  Just a lot outside my budget for new tools.  $25,000 for a reasonably capable machine ( and I really do not know what makes a machine more or even less capable).  To buy one I would have to be building a steel tube large aircraft to even start to think about one.   Maybe one day they will get cheap.  My car has laser headlights.  Supposed to be able to light up to around 600metres ahead.  The car manufacturer does not offer them any more.  They were a $2k extra, I guess that they were not considered worth buying and hence not in demand. 

It apparently can make professional welder out of a dog dollop welder like me.  It appears that you melt the filler the the filler transfers heat to the metals to be joined.  Fast weld less heat into metals so less buckling.   Expenditure for equipment that is needed to be purchased is vague, I don't know all that is involved. 

Anyone got any experience with laser welding for aircraft? 

Yes.  Gliders have a very short relative tail to aileron distance so much more rudder is needed to counteract adverse aileron yaw.  It's as you said a matter of rudder force times distance of the rudder to the centre of gravity creating a moment on the aircraft.

20 minutes ago, Student Pilot said:

Haven't CASA given the authority for DAMEs to cover that?

I believe that casa have committees that look into your fitness to fly.  Takes a while to assemble a lot of people.  Committees are great no single person can be responsible!  Consultants are often used as a means of deflecting blame,,

1 hour ago, 2tonne said:

A self-declaration medical would have saved me a lot of time an money about 10 years ago. I went for a class 2 medical, as a fit 40 year old, and all the tests were fine except the final dip stick into the urine. It detected traces of blood.

 

My DAME said a positive dipstick test for traces of blood in urine would often be a false positive. Nevertheless, he sent me for an ultrasound of my kidneys. That showed my kidneys were in great shape. CASA wouldn't accept it.

 

CASA demanded I see a urologist to be further assessed and have a CT scan. The urologist looked through the paperwork and thought it was ridiculous, he told me I was perfectly healthy and he would have told me to go away if not for CASA's requirement for testing. Anyway, $600 for a CT scan and a letter from the urologist and I finally got my Class 2 medical. Whole process cost me about $1,000 and took 6 months. Absolute freaking waste of time and money. And, of course, my kidneys are still perfectly heatlhy and I have had zero health issues in the last 10 years.

 

That's my 2 cents worth.

Just about the same happened to me except that the specialist wrote an immediate reply virtually telling casa how ridiculous their claim that there could be a problem was not valid. It was cysts on the kidney issue benign and large proportions of the population have them.

The windwagon is nearly identical to Hummel,  they are linked.  Wing chord is one of the very few differences 

The Hummel aircraft is a derivation of the Windwagon and the Hummel.  The Windwagon has smaller chord wings, faster but not sure which wings would be better.   Any ideas on which to choose.  I Waa thinking of an industrial v, but again maybe the 1/2 vw would be best.  Any ideas.

Geoff

I visited Spacey, really nice guy, sat in his very nice Hummel.   I am convinced it is the way to go.   I have started working on my Hummel.   

Trouble Nev is my passport is out of date so I can't enter Victoria (lol).  Spacey lives only a handful of kilometres away from me.  I am hoping that he can put some light on the issue.   I think that the Hummel classic, which seems to be more relevant to me is being discontinued.   Very little seems available as the company appears to be heading in the direction for kits.

Has spacey got one,?

Anything build will be VH, just don't have a ra licence. 

This is the craft that appeals to me.  Plans are not available 

I went and looked at the HB.  Plans are out of stock!  Why would this be?  Surely they only take a day to make.  Are they stopping offering these plans in preference to another aircraft in their line-up. 

Are they available in tricycle?

I am having a serious look at building a Teenie Two.  Has anyone on this website built one?

If so would you have any comments on the subject?

To my mathematical thoughts and studying and a huge proponent of hydrogen I think it is extremely "ambitious ".

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

Planes don't run on rails though, or fall quickly if they slow up. There's a big difference. BUT the flying medical needs to be more related to the type of flying you want to do. Dispensations given for restrictions accepted. There's a balance. Nev

It's my opinion ion that driving a  big train is more about economic loss.  Blocking the line and stopping iron ore getting through is many millions of dollars.  Theft crimes get bigger sentences than murder!  CASA has the problem that they are responsible for the safety of the air.  So if someone dies at the controls they could theoretically be sued.  Losing more than 1 cent by a public servant is a serious issue.   Could result in dismissal. 

21 hours ago, facthunter said:

It is fairly basic aircraft Knowledge. I have NO idea what the robot knows.   Nev

An AI only knows what it can access in its allowed databases.  It will search these databases and output relevant statements.   However if anyone  is interested here is an example of AI vs preprogrammed. 

Suppose that we make an artificial leg, identical to human leg in every way.

1.  We get Beckham to kick a ball and record how each muscle reacts.  We then program the computer to control the muscles in an identical way.

2. we use AI.  We make a target and give the computer a feedback of how close the kicked ball is to the target.  We then tell the computer to kick the ball as close to the target as possible.   Then tell the computer to start.  It will start flexing ,"muscles" in a numerical way.  When it finally gets a feedback that it has hit something it will store the value of the distance of the target.  It will remember all the actions of the muscles to achieve this result.  It will then (preprogrammed) to star small variations to these muscle actions.  If through iteration it gets a closer score all the muscle actions and target distance will replace the previous one.   This will keep making small changes until it gets the target.

In fact the AI will get a better score than Beckham.   But it will take a very long time to do it.

AI uses comparisons for the various questions asked and store a result (answer) when it gets some agreement to its given task.  It can only use the database access it was given. If it were to use Facebook and someone had said that Mooneys can fly backwards then it would believe it if it had not been challenged by someone on Facebook.  Industry use only verified scientific databases for AI work, reduces error. 

7 hours ago, BrendAn said:

Fitness to Fly - RAAus.html 42.43 kB · 7 downloads

What if we flew aircraft fitted with the system I proposed in the opening of this thread.  Would that be enough to allow us to fly at age 75+ if it were fitted and we had a health issue?

I always thought that when I lost my class 2 I would go recreational.   I thought that all I needed was a current driver's licence.  But I looked at the CASA sites and found a pdf that needed a doctor to complete.   It looked very much like a class 2 basic.   Was I wrong? Or has this degree of inquisition always been there.  It requires revalidation every year after 65 years of age.  My drivers licence requires a similar medical examination now I am over 75.  

My car has two "old age" safety devices,  automatic emergency braking (AEB) and infra red eye monitoring to assess my tiredness and life.  If it determines that I am impaired through tiredness it first offers to take me to nearest coffee, if ignored, turns air-conditioning down to lowest and vibrates seat belt.  If unresponsive it will stop the car.  Why could not something like this be installed in an aircraft ,(using Garmin emergency auto land system) and I could fly with minimal medical if the aircraft had to have such a system?

They piped the oil system into the cockpit.  Put a 'y' in the piping  two oil filters with valving. 

They had a truck run on a  loved highway. They had a rope and winch to bring fuel oil food.  They said that there was a well fertilised area of the woods.  They fitted the aircraft with additional fuel tanks and fuel pumps.   A cabin system for adding oil and a cabin arrangement to change oil filters.  It's a long but fascinating read.