Neil_S

Hi Tracey, Welcome to the forums here, and nice to have another lady on board! Good luck with your trial flight - and be prepared for it to get you hooked and going for a pilot certificate! Cheers, Neil

Yeah - I can't remember if my memory's failing or not....

Hi, For Australian WW1 planes you should contact TAVAS (The Australian Vintage Aviation Society) - formed by Andrew Carter. They have a number of WW1 replicas up in Queensland. Google TAVAS, or check their Facebook page for contact details. My Airdrome Airplanes Sopwith Pup replica should be ready in a year or two..... Cheers, Neil

Nick's is actually a Sopwith Snipe. Dave Marshall at Riddell's had a Sopwith Pup, built by Transavia (same as the RAAF Museum's one), but he sold it recently.

On a US internal flight a few years ago (I think it was AA) I sat next to a young guy with an emotional support dog. The dog was brilliant - sat at his feet without a noise the whole flight. The guy patted the dog as we took off and landed as that's when he (the guy!) got nervous. As others have noted - I've sat next to feral humans that should be banned from flying, this dog was a pleasure to travel next to. The guy told me that having this dog has enabled him to travel to places that he would otherwise never have been able to go to. Cheers, Neil

YMEK is in the ERSA

AVPlan on my iPad mini has a screen fade-to-black function which you can set between 1 and 20 minutes - just tap the screen to get the display back. I find it works well as I only check the magenta line etc every so often anyway. Cheers, Neil

Yup - my doctor reckons I should cut down, or eliminate, both! Neil

Currency? Cheers, Neil

Welcome to this site, Srix965 Cheers, Neil

I also take "built-up areas" to be the areas marked in yellow on the charts (VTC, VNC, WAC). Easy to plan to navigate round them, and then easy to confirm that you are not over them whilst flying using AVPlan/Ozrunways etc Cheers, Neil

Hi Peter, When I (part)owned a Gazelle and wanted a spare key I just made one myself. It is very easy to copy the shape of the forked one from a piece of scrap metal. Cheers, Neil

Yes - he is the museum curator. The original is stuck out of normal public view in a storage facility. Criminal IMO. I saw it on an open day. Surely it is worth permanent public display somewhere? Neil

Yes, I have also flown over the Duigan monument. It was shown to me while on a BFR a number of years ago. I would also recommend reading "A Flying Life" by David Crotty, which details the life of John Duigan and his aeroplane. Cheers, Neil

Hi Geoff, I now realize I must also drive past this monument fairly regularly as I drive up Plumpton Road and join the Calder to the north on my drive to Penfield, which is where I fly from! Now I know where it is I shall make a small diversion and stop to have a look at it. Thanks for that info. Cheers, Neil

I used to work at Heathrow for 10+ years, and every morning at 10.45, regardless of where you were, everyone would stop and watch the New York Concorde take off. A sight that never failed to impress with its beauty, and noise! I was lucky enough to fly on Concorde once (at a much reduced price for BA employees) - brilliant! So smooth and graceful. It was a very sad day when they stopped flying. Neil

Excellent videos! Thanks for posting, OME. Cheers, Neil

A few pictures from the ones I took..... Cheers, Neil

Hi, I also have the adjustable seats in my Sav S, and find them great. I am a short*rse at 5'4" so I have mine full forward and still have a cushion, but most of my passengers have the seat full back. Didn't fit them myself as it's factory built. You need to have the central Y control stick, of course, and the manual flap lever is right in front of the seat. All good. Cheers, Neil

In my recent BFR in my Savannah we put the flaps up and sideslipped reaching a max descent rate approaching 1500 ft/min. A very effective way of losing height rapidly. Cheers, Neil

Hi Skippy, Thanks for your reply - very interesting. The book figure for the Savvy S at that rpm (5000) is actually 18.5 litres/hour....., so my figure of 15 litres/hour looked pretty reasonable to me. My experience of other 912ULS powered LSAs (I learnt to fly in a Texan), was similar, so your figures look amazing to me. I'd be interested to hear what other pilots running 912ULS powered planes get.... Cheers, Neil

Hi Rod, I have a ULS in my Savvy S, and I have got about 15 litres/hr over the 3 years or so that I have been flying her (about 260 hours). I cruise around 4800-5000 revs. That is mostly solo flying, and I weigh around 70kg, which may have contributed, but I still reckon that's not bad...... Cheers, Neil

Welcome, Grothy! Where do you fly from? BTW - Good choice of aeroplane...... Cheers, Neil

Hi Flyadventure, Good to hear you are going well with your flying. Just something to note - I used to own a Gazelle and they are great aeroplanes, the only real drawback is their limited endurance. They have about 52 litres usable fuel, so assuming 5000 revs cruise that will give you around 3.25 hours plus the now-mandatory 30 mins reserve. So probably not the best plane for long cross country exploring. Probably better would be the Zenith, Bushcat or Savannah with long-range tanks. But it is early days yet! Enjoy your training, learn as much as you can, and then maybe try a few different planes before making any purchasing decisions. There are loads of different factors involved in making that buy/build decision! Cheers, Neil

Very enjoyable video. I shall try to go for a flight on Nov 11th here, remembering how privileged we are to fly, and the sacrifice of all those young men. Neil