Ian

Personally I'd like to see the highway/freeway speed limit lifted to 160kmh for electric vehicles with automate safety features and a demonstrated low highway accident rate. This would make electric cars more useful. I would note that state government are fighting the release of their accident data. I suspect that this is because the areas where they raise the most revenue from speeding to keep us safe are not the areas where accidents occur. https://www.drive.com.au/news/urgent-call-secret-crash-data-shared-toll-rises/

ADSB is a tool which provides additional information on suitably equipt aircraft in the vicinity. Being proud of the fact that you switch ADS-B off is the same category as being proud of not wearing a seatbelt, or of not wearing a helmet when riding a motorbike or being able to drive home after having a skinful. The see and avoid report is a pretty blunt assessment of the efficacy of the approach. I tend to agree with the likelihood of ADS-B becoming a mandatory requirement at some point in the future if the price of in and out continues to drop. That being said ASD-B is a flawed technology from a protocol point of view.

The short outtake from the video. There are a lot of unknowns associated with the impact. Two aircraft collided, one joining downwind, the other doing circuits with a crosswind join and turning downwind. One was a high wing, the other a low wing. Both Aircraft were fitted with ADS-B. One of the pilots didn't like the FAA knowing where he was an would often switch the ADSB off. This was a view that he frequently shared with his associates. Whether activating his ADS-B could have saved his life is unknown.

Buy again if you're based in Canberra your options are limited. Canberra to Cowra is about 2.5 hours, so a round trip commute is 5 hours on top of a working day doesn't really fit. This doesn't mention hitting roos in the morning and evening. Compared to Goulburn which has a RTT of 2 hours along a much safer road allows a single day trip. But the comments about the weather are valid.

Is this document available upon request? It would be an interesting read.

From someone at the airport.

I was talking with someone there the other day and they didn't mention anything apart from the fact that it was for sale.

A hose generates thrust. A drone needs to be able to generate equivalent and opposite thrust. It's not hard especially once its in a steady state. It's just maths and power. It wouldn't be as small as the toys in the video but its certainly feasible.

But change is inevitable. Climate change and zero emissions will place significant pressure on the industry. Hydrogen fuelled turbines are even less likely, there's a reason why Elon Musk uses methane in his rockets.

Yes and no. A battery drone with a payload of water isn't effective. A drone to control or support hose powered from the ground can have more than enough thrust control a firehose. Whether it's cheaper or more functional than a ladder is a different matter.

Certainly I wouldn't invest in it. But from an economic perspective the stars align more now than 40 years ago. If zero emissions are mandated aviation costs will increase and different design compromises will be required.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this? They fly at about 30m max along set corridors and it's not a particular busy piece of airspace. Even if two of them crashed above you and the debris rained down on you it would be in the same order of magnitude as a magpie attack unless they were carry hot food ;-).

Yes however as costs change sometimes business models do as well. Fuel is between 22-35% of an airlines operating costs. It's not a small part of their costs, if there was a requirement to be carbon neutral it would make this an even larger factor. https://gprivate.com/6ccs0

Possibly the Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz DZ 710 In wikipedia it has a claimed SFC of 201 g/kWh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumption However another source puts it as equivalent to the Napier. https://oldmachinepress.com/2013/08/17/klockner-humboldt-deutz-khd-dz-700-dz-710-and-dz-720/ It's taken a long time for turbine engines to approach the efficiency of diesel engines, if the commercial aircraft industry is forced to pay to capture it's CO2 emissions higher efficiency engines might find a niche. However "adding lightness" was always the hardest design step.

The double sleeve was actually an earlier development and used on some European cars. If you look closely you can examine the pictures of the cutaways on the wiki page and see that it's a single sleeve. The design of the dual sleeve was very different at a fundamental level so I'm not sure how you'd go from one to the other. It doesn't really make sense to change the design from a single to a dual sleve especially given the fact the single sleeve was a later development. Not sure about the failure rates, however they were a complex engines compared to poppet valve.

I think that the Bristol and all of there aircraft engines were a single sleeve arrangement. From the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Hercules#Design_and_development "The rationale behind the single sleeve valve design was two-fold" Some earlier British cars used a dual sleeve arrangement and there was a patent fight at some point from memory. The lower noise might relate more to the rate of the valve opening as it would be sinusoidal openings to a cross section rather than rapid release of a poppet. I'm not sure if I've even seen one in practice. The oil drag at low temperatures is an interesting point. I wonder whether modern oil chemistry solved this to any extent. Another engine design that is mind boggling is the Deltic which was derived from the aircraft engine the Junkers Jumo 204 which even today remains more efficient than even modern Lycoming diesels. The deltic was both light and powerful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_204 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumption

The drones were available at one point in the ACT on the southside. Old nudist wacko's killed the program off because apparently they were flying overhead and spying on them. They actually sound much lounder in this video than they actually are, listen for the alarm calls of the local magpies, they were about 50m away They were brilliant for fast deliveries of small items, coffee, lunches, stuff from a chemist and bunnings when you needed a packet of screws etc. I could buy things online and have them dropped on my front lawn within 5 minutes. They travelled significantly faster than 100km/h, and reduce traffic on the local streets. The process for registering was download and app, identify a spot to deliver and do a 360 spin with the camera. Once it was approved, bingo. Not sure of the payload however it did manager to deliver lunch for 4 people with drinks at one point. I originally though it was a bit stupid and my son downloaded the app and did the registration. But once we used it a few times I completely changed my mind. It was just so dam quick. My favourite delivery was when my entire family was ill and we'd run out of panadol and ibuprofen. It was literally there 3m later. Apologies for the camera work 😉

The gears are for supporting the sleave valve engine design rather than the current poppet valve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Hercules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeve_valve They have better volumetic efficiency and because you can have better combustion area design and no hot valve you can run them at higher compression rations on the same octane rating. The main drawbacks were the complex drive mechanisms, cooling the junk head and the tolerances required between the sleve and cylinder block. Modern machining techniques solved the latter and I've always thought that modern electronics and active cooling could solve the former points pretty simply. Does anyone a few million to waste on developing a new IC engine? They're quiet because the valves motion is radial not slamming shut and opening like poppets.

I might be a bit naive, however I'm not sure on how the seller would separate the leases from the sale of the property unless you go through a number of awkward processes especially give n the various rights of way required.

Here's a metric to pounds goof. Flying 14 tons overweight. https://www.ntsb.gov/legal/alj/OnODocuments/Aviation/4510.pdf Also summary of annex 5 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. So metric is coming 😉 #### Many attempts to improve the level of standardization were made in the following years and a number of amendments to Annex 5 were introduced. By 1961 the number of tables of units in the Annex had been reduced to two, which remained until Amendment 13 was adopted in March 1979. Amendment 13 extended considerably the scope of ICAO's role in standardizing units of measurements to cover all aspects of air and ground operations and not just air-ground communications. It also introduced the International System of Units, known as SI from the "Système International d’Unités", as the basic standardized system to be used in civil aviation. In addition to the SI units the amendment recognized a number of non-SI units which may be used permanently in conjunction with SI units in aviation. These include the litre, the degree Celsius, the degree for measuring plane angle, etc. The amendment also recognized, as do the relevant ICAO Assembly Resolutions, that there are some non-SI units which have a special place in aviation and which will have to be retained, at least temporarily. These are the nautical mile and the knot, as well as the foot when it is used in the measurement of altitude, elevation or height only. Some practical problems arise in the termination of the use of these units and it has not yet been possible to fix a termination date. ####

I think that you probably mean KWh per kilo. Breakthroughs are required, sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. Fuel cells and fusion have been waiting for a breakthrough for almost 100 years and it hasn't come.

But kgs to kgs it easier, just multiply by 1

Firstly let me be clear, I'd love electric planes being a reality, however I don't have high hopes, and I hope I'm wrong. It breaks down to 3 factors Range, weight and recharge time. As a private pilot I could cope with a long recharge time however commercial vehicles don't have this luxury. A breakthrough in low cost batteries is essential to make flying EVs a possibility, and it remains a toy technology. The only cost effective technology I can see is to use aluminium air batteries to provide an energy density near that of liquid fuels. However they're not reachargable. The fuel cycle would be a bit of a logistics nightmare and to complete the cycle would require a lot more aluminium smelters which require 24x7 power not intermittent solar/wind. Hydrogen is unlikely, it's difficult, dangerous and expensive. Most planes want to burn it in a turbine. If it's cryogenic you won't ever leave any in the tank and less frequently used airports would need to be closed. Look at the picture in the following link. Most of the passenger section is now devoted to fuel, directly behind the passengers. Doesn't look particularly safe. https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-05-innovative-aviation-liquid-hydrogen-project-launched

Hi All, I'd like to understand how many people in and around the Canberra region would use a facilities in Canberra Airport, Williamsdale or other site if hangars were available at low cost? Or would people prefer to travel further afield to fly. Also does anyone know anything about this https://maps.app.goo.gl/9PkhZNeSs1H5Bq5h7

Does anyone know the current status and any mechanisms for ensuring that it stays within the usage required by the original deed? Did the current owner buy the property on the basis that the rights associated with the covenant would be extinguished at some point. Is there a risk to those who currently hangar their planes at Goulburn that they might be evicted at some point.