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danny_galaga

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Everything posted by danny_galaga

  1. Maybe they are investigating because it's a novel accident for Australia?
  2. Would not not a great idea IMO. A small electric scooter would be better. But they also bring quite a weight penalty. I've looked into it for myself. The only way is to fly solo, and so the extra equipment doesn't weigh more than your passenger would. A thumb/taxi/fellow aviator is probably going to be your best bet, which I think you've already realised
  3. Actually, UAVs need to be as reliable as a regular aircraft. We often think of suicide drones. But most of those are quite small. Don't think of the shahad or whatever, think of craft like the Reaper. If course a Reaper is quite a large machine with a turboprop capable of carrying missiles, but a lot of UAVs are just for surveillance. Stay aloft for say 6-10 hours. Sending Intel, guiding strikes etc. Then back to base, refuel and off again. They would rack up thousands of hours pretty quickly. It's made me think these ZD engines are going to be quite reliable. I mean, if you sell dud products to the People's Army...
  4. Just watched the other video where the American importer is interviewed. Interesting to note ZD first market for their 912 was the UAV market, my thoughts on Ukraine have a precedent 😄
  5. So as long as Freizitpilot only flies a floatplane, he should be golden...
  6. You made me look that up as I was sure it wasn't that old. But as Google Earth it's about 20 years old though 😲 boy how time flies, seems like only yesterday...
  7. You could carry some decalin additive for when you have to use avgas
  8. its all going to depend isnt it? if theres a passenger then 40 litres of fuel in the back might seriously effect your weight and balance. In my plane, it would almost definitely be out, besides its just a light mesh carrier for most rear luggage, strong enough for two empty jerrys, but not full thats for sure. If two place and you are on your own, there are ferry tanks (made like those collapsible jerry cans) that you can put in the front seat. If not plumbed in, then use it as a large jerry can. Then you would definitely also want the electric transfer pump skippy was talking about to fill the main tanks when on the ground.
  9. A fair point. But people are going to want to see thousands of hours running first. UL Power engines have this problem right now. Not many people want to be the guinea pigs. Mind you, the ZD has a huge advantage of other contenders in that it is a drop in for anything ROtax powered. I know on my plane it would be a pain in the arse to fit anything other than a Rotax compatible...
  10. From that video posted earlier, didn't they say it was about 1/3rd the price? Or am I misremembering? if it was say 2/3rd the price or more I'd rather get a Rotax. But at a third, and keeping an eye out for our Canuckistani pal as he tests his, it would be tempting. For homebuilt, I'm still swinging towards an 'on condition' donk. Which is what I went with. kgwilson, in that video, the US warranty is 3 years and I think 500 hours. If i warranty they just swap the motor and send the broken one back to the factory for evaluation. Which is sensible.
  11. Oh yes. Expansion! Thanks for the tip. Another plus for collapsible. Mine is high wing so I'll probably stick with solid. That's already an adventure when pouring 😄. Which reminds me I should find a tiny stool or something to stand on when away.
  12. Yeah, I'm wondering if when I looked at the weights I saw the weight for a FOOD grade can, which I note is only 900 grams.
  13. For sure. My post was only about fuel cans. Although after I posted I couldn't find where I got the weights from when I made my decision to use solid cans 😄 If pouring, I imagine solid will be easier.
  14. Actually now I can't find where I got the weights for the cans from 😄 A normal plastic 20 litre jerry can weighs 1.6-1.8 kg. Can someone weigh a collapsible 20 litre fuel can? Maybe they actually weigh LESS! I have been known to be wrong every now and then 😄
  15. I'll just add that if you have the room, old fashioned plastic jerry cans are a LOT lighter than the collapsible ones. And a lot cheaper too. I loved the idea of them and looked into it and decided I had plenty of room in my plane. There are two weight and balance luggage spaces in my plane, two empty plastic jerry cans fit in the rearwards one no worries. I imagine a solid can would be easier to lug around than a collapsible one too.
  16. It's really strange that they made that intro look like something from a Call of Duty game, they even made the actors look like CGI. Here's a sequence from in the show. I haven't seen it. The trailers sold me on it. If all I had seen was the opening title sequence, I wouldn't have even rated it.
  17. Dafuq? Are they from an alternate reality?
  18. I saw the remake. It wasn't TOTALLY awful. They did at least find a similar type of plane and got it to flying condition. But agree, not a patch on the original. Blue Max is on my movies to see list. Yes, isn't that museum fantastic. I didn't even know it was there. Went for the Omaka airshow.
  19. Remember that it's an ultralight. With full fuel maybe it can carry two hundred kilos of people. If you have no people to fly it, you have to fill it full of stuff to make it fly. Have a look at the system in this Cessna. It does not look light. Assuming you still have 100kg to play with, that would be in the ballpark of people saying it looked like a 50kg plastics explosion. Hard to know how the environment around the explosion affects our view of it. For instance if the plane went through a wall, concrete roofs may have suppressed the fireball. You can bet the Ukrainians (who know what they loaded the plane up with) are very carefully analysing every shred of info they can get. Even in that footage they can count all the smashed windows (sadly I believe the drone didn't hit the factory but the dormitories next to it) and get an estimate of the force. That's just the footage we see right now. They'll be trawling through eyewitness accounts, all footage available etc. even looking at the mushroom cloud is going to tell them something. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/cessna-turned-drone-foreshadows-future-unmanned-opportunities/
  20. Can't blame studios for using CGI etc. It's often cheaper, and obviously MUCH safer. But I agree, there's something special about seeing it done for real, whether it's the car chase scenes in films like The French Connection, or Christian Bale actually losing nearly 30kg for his role in The Machinist or of course this movie.
  21. One of my favourite movies of all time 😊 I bought the DVD a while ago and it turned out to be NTSC, so thanks for the heads up. Will watch this via Chromecast on my ol Samsung tellie 🙂
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