onetrack

I reckon more than a few planes have shaved a fair amount of wood in their forced landings!

Santos-Dumont led an increasingly desperate lifestyle, stricken with MS, and possibly also suffering from bi-polar disorder, he took his own life in 1932, by reportedly hanging himself with his necktie. The sad part is that during several depressive events he burned a lot of his books, diaries and records. Typical of many brilliant people, he became a tortured soul. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont

Anerobic adhesives are the best thing ever invented for stopping nuts from coming undone. I didn't see Nordlock testing their lockwasher against Loctite thread lock.

Yeah, someone should tell that Santos-Dumont bloke, that he's flying that plane backwards!

Yes. It's quite common to operate in enemy areas with open hatches. We did it in Vietnam. You only closed the hatch when an armed enemy threat was actually sighted. Mind you, we didn't have a drone threat in the late 1960's/early 1970's. But keep in mind the larger proportion of Russian troops are simply conscripts with minimal training and minimal combat experience. So they can operate in a pretty casual manner and set themselves up easily to be taken out. Even a small explosion in the confined area of an armoured vehicle will result in major casualties, as the hull doesn't give. The secret behind armed conflict is not necessarily kill all the enemy combatants instantly - it's far more effective to kill a couple and cause a dozen other major casualties. This causes increased stress amongst their comrades as they hear their wounded comrades screaming in agony, and it ties up many more enemy combatants, as they have to attend to and remove their badly injured comrades from the battle front. Then the numbers of wounded ties up much more enemy resources looking after their recovery - all the while they tell others who will listen, that the war is going badly.

Peter Stevens comment and photo, below, best describes how the French ended up calling the design a canard. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-front-wing-on-a-plane-called-a-Canard-How-is-it-related-to-a-Duck

Give her top levels of credit for doing an exceptionally good job of landing a pretty big twin in a residential, fairly heavily timbered area, with no fatalities, minimal injury to herself, and even minimal property damage. That's not a "light plane" by anyones stretch of imagination. Even empty, a Chieftain weighs nearly 2000kgs.

It always amuses me how, in the early aircraft designs, it was perfectly acceptable for the pilot or pilots to be stuck out in an exposed cockpit - while the pax got a fully-enclosed, relatively comfortable cabin!

......decided that the hardware business needed to be enlarged to cover aviators needs. Accordingly, they decided to stock glues, wheels, hoses, tapes, nut and bolts, plus about 20 other "generally useful" items that could be used interchangeably with either home and garden use, automotive use, or aviation use. As soon as Alan Joyce came to the rapid realisation there were more massive potential cost savings to be made in commercial aviation by going to Bun Nings for aircraft components and supplies (besides having the pax stand up), he was soon sending Qantas LAME's and other staff down to Bun Nings, to source the necessary supplies to keep the ancient tired fleet of Qantas B737's going. But it was only when a CASA operative - who was doing a rare ramp check on one of the Q B737's (mostly because he'd booked a seat to Longreach and was spending his waiting time examining the "nuts and bolts" of the B737) - found a washer marked with a Bun Nings price tag, that he was alerted to the.................

"May" is the operative word. The above scene was merely speculation on the part of the coroner and other witnesses. No-one saw what happened and the total destruction of the aircraft eliminated any chance of an accident reconstruction. A far better conclusion would be that the pilot was a known risk-taker and there was plenty of evidence provided that he had been observed previously, carrying out risky aerobatic manoueuvres. From the ATSB report ....

It would be much better if journalists actually learnt to spell, and understand the correct word to be used in each context, and even proof read their articles so that paragraphs made sense, and words omitted were picked up. Then again, all I see in the written media is articles copied directly from other sources (usually overseas sources) - and on the TV news, breathless young females, picked for their sexual allure, mouthing 300 words when 50 succint and accurate words would cover the description nicely - and all this babble added to stock video clips of totally unrelated imagery - just as long as the footage has something remotely related to the headlines. The news media today is merely a major extension of the entertainment industry.

.....extracting himself from the crumpled cabins of Turbine e-Drifters (avref), after the extension cord pulled out of the 3-pin wall socket, and the e-Drifter ran out of power and crashed. Harry Turbini became world-renowned for these kind of exploits, but his greatest escape exploit was after he was found guilty of defrauding shareholders in the Turbini Inc corporation, and sent to Risdon Prison, Harry managed to squeeze out of a 75mm window gap, faster than you could say "Turbo ripoff", and when he was asked how he achieved this amazing feat, he replied, "It's easy, once you've been a .........

.....Boing interstellar spacecraft. "But if it's a Boing, is it 100% reliable?", asked the ditzy blonde at the front of the assembled crowd. "After all, we wouldn't want to be travelling in a Boing that crashed, because the pilots couldn't understand what it was doing!" "Never fear", said Elon as he eyeballed the curvy blonde and made a note to get her phone number (Elon's not slow on the pickups). "This Boing has no relationship to the Boings that went Boing back on Earth! This one was designed almost solely by me, so it flies and keeps flying, even when the pilots don't know what it's doing!" "Ooohh!", said the blonde breathlessly, "I had no idea you were so smart you could design an interstellar space vehicle, all by yourself!?" "Lady", said Elon with his trademark silly grin, "You could say that......

Glen, check your States petroleum storage laws, they are quite strict on the levels of fuel storage allowed - especially petrol, as it's a combustible liquid, as compared to diesel which is simply a flammable liquid. Residential areas are usually limited to 20L-25L of petrol, but you can store a little more in separate garages. Ensure you're compliant with regulations in case of a fire - because even a fire that starts from a totally unrelated source to the petrol may end up meaning your insurance company refuses to pay out if they find your petrol storage exceeded the allowable limit. Be aware that petrol in storage degrades fairly rapidly, and even more so in elevated temperatures. Storing large quantities of fuel that take a few months to use up, can be false economy.

Jabiru have built nearly 8,000 engines and are still in business, and still have a very substantial level of acceptance - worldwide. They have a big following in the U.S. There must still be a lot of Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 3 engines still running admirably with an approved level of attention and maintenance. Continentals and Lycomings still go bang on a regular basis, and no-one is threatening to ban them. There's a balance between what a manufacturer needs to do to correct engineering faults, and the owners requirements to operate and maintain their engine in an acceptable and approved manner. All engines respond with unreliable performance, in response to thoughtless, careless operation, and "she'll be right" maintenance levels.

Alan Acton (65), a "giant" of the Queensland cattle industry and owner of Wilpeena Cattle Co., was killed just before midday today, when the Robinson R44 helicopter he was reportedly using for mustering, was involved in a "collision with terrain" on his property, about 140 kms West of Rockhampton.. The ATSB has initiated an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash. There are reports that properties in the area were without power after the crash, seeming to indicate a collision with a power line may have been a factor in the crash. Incredibly, Alans brother, Graeme (63) died from injuries resulting from a fall from a horse, in a campdrafting accident in 2014. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/central-queensland-alan-acton-dies-bingegang-helicopter-crash/102186060 https://www.beefcentral.com/news/cq-cattleman-alan-acton-killed-in-helicopter-accident/

"Where did you camp last night?". "In an engine nacelle". "Were you stowing away from Africa to Europe?"

.....never done it with a Kangaroo, even though he had done it 3 times in Denni. "Do you have to jump in tandem with the Kangaroo?", inquired Mavis, who was completely mystified why Cappy would want to do it with a Kangaroo. "No, you don't need to jump along with the Kangaroo", said Cappy, "But it does help if you wear your.........

......big bum, because I've seen him bare-arsed and totally drunk at the Denny B&S ball, where bull made everyone laugh themselves hysterical when he tried to copy Cappys walk and talk, and he simply looked like a.........

It appears the Supercheap ("Toolpro") feeler gauge set has brass feeler gauges in the sizes .006, .008, .010, .012, .014 and .016". https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/toolpro-toolpro-feeler-gauge-combination/12584.html

Spacey, I'd have to opine that designing a set of foldable wings with the primary aim of using them as airbrakes is a pretty useless idea. I was under the impression a light, strong wing with excellent aerofoil properties, to give better speed for HP available, and still retaining strength, was the main aim.

I've run multiple hundreds of engines over 57 years of owning and repairing vehicles and equipment, and I cannot ever remember a solenoid welding the contacts on me. Starter manufacturers go to great pains to develop copper alloys that resist welding. I think there's probably a much greater chance of a short circuit creating problems, and as a result, attention to wiring design and security has to be a far more important area to focus on. A smoke-filled cockpit will ruin your day very quickly.

That eagle has a great familiarity with people, you'd never get a wild eagle to do that. A wild eagle would more than likely see the paraglider as a threat, and try to drive it off.

Spacey - That is probably because the design was unworkable in practice, and failed to advance aviation in any meaningful way. It appears Bonney became utterly obsessed with the idea of transferring the action of birds wings, to powered aircraft. This is foolishness, it can't be done, it's transferring an incredibly complex design of feathers, hollow lightweight, high strength bones, sinews, incredibly strong muscles - and moveable feathers - to a mechanical design. Even the design of feathers is an incredibly complex design. Thousands of men have been fascinated by the flight ability of birds, since the dawn of time - and they've all failed in their attempts to replicate the flight surfaces and control surfaces abilities of birds. I'm fascinated by them still, I can sit and watch them fly and land, and learn something new every day.

More here ... including a British Pathe newsreel of Bonneys fatal flight. Apparently, a large number of his aviation friends told him not to try to fly his invention, but he was too determined. It certainly looks like a very foolish design, and Bonney should have known better, being an experienced aviator. https://www.spoonercentral.com/Bonney/LWB.html https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/62695/