Moneybox

My flight trainer told me to get Chapter 10 of Steward Maddigan's flight training manual. From studying this I really understood the theory and practical of cross country flying. Of course you could buy his entire Flight Training Manual but chapter 10 is all you need and it can be purchased separately. The exercises are WA based but you just use a map of your choosing although I recommend doing a paper study of the course he has noted just to get a clear understanding of each stage of the process. If you need a copy of that part of the chart I can post it here. https://www.amazon.com.au/FLIGHT-TRAINING-MANUAL-performance-Recreational-ebook/dp/B0BYXQNQLM I didn't buy it from Amazon but it comes on Kindle anyway and I thoroughly recommend it.

It won't run in the 912ULS, it wont run in either of the Honda quad bikes or the Honda GX275 on the dryblower so just to protect the environment I burned it off in the 912ul. 🙃

I don't keep petrol in plastic jerry cans, they are porous. If I put plastic jerry cans of Diesel into the boot on our bus we wake in the morning with a headache from the diesel fumes. If I use steel jerry cans you'd never know they were there. Twice I've found plastic jerry cans of petrol spraying a fine mist of fuel into the air. They can't handle the heat, expand and fracture. They are not safe to store petrol in our climate.

I had 60L in the Sportstar for more than a year while I was refurbishing it. It started the first few times then I was having real trouble firing it up so I drained it all into jerry cans and put fresh 98 in. That fixed the starting problem but left me with three jerry cans of stale fuel. It smelt stale too. I couldn't use it any of our Honda motors because they don't like stale fuel. Since then I've used it all in the Zenith running the 912ul. Doesn't seem to bother it at all but I did throw a little 98 into the mix each time. After all the old fuel was used I've filled it with 91, starts well and runs well.

Be careful crossing the Nullarbor. Tesla driver stranded on Nullarbor as charging stations fail | The Courier Mail It's it amazing, we run low on petrol and diesel then you jump into your new electric device to find that supply has failed as well.

Yes Nev, I learned a bit on that flight.

I don't know if mine is a normal fitout but the canopy opening doesn't allow easy entry and exit. It tilts from either side with a gas strut in the middle. If you want to get in the left you release the left and the right remains hinged, same the other side. If you remove the central gas strut then the whole canopy can be removed simply by unlatching both sides. Apart from the difficulty getting in and out it's good as long as you're not a big guy. There's not much space in the cockpit. It sits more steady in the air than the Sportstar and is very easy to land although it has no flaps. Mine has two joysticks, I think some have a central "Y" stick like a Jabiru. Generally a great little plane and so simple with a fixed prop, no carby heat and no flaps. Not a lot to remember on takeoff and landing. I was told it'd be slow with those big fat wings, it's not. Considering it only has 80hp it performs well but you do need more airstrip than needed with the Sportstar.

I'd rather pay a little more for Avgas from the bowser than travel into town and fill jerry cans. So far I've not had the chance of filling from a bowser, it's several trips into town with a couple of jerry cans costing more in the long run.

Bit tight on fuel money at the moment so Mrs M suggested we slip out and see if we can find anything. Fortunately we made some money. It's a bit old but I think it's still ok.

Electric vehicles have been in service for many years, forklifts and golf carts. These vehicles have been serviced well by Lead Acid batteries and due their mode of operation they perform well, have a long life, low maintenance and last throughout the day. They are the type of vehicle that can be parked up at night on charge and the mass of the lead acid battery pack doesn't present a problem. Road going vehicles have problems with weight, they need to reliably travel longer distances, they need recharge at varying locations and so far battery technology and charging facilities haven't reached a suitable level to service the needs of regular daily use if you are anywhere away from the city. For many of us they are not a viable option and in and economical sense they cannot compete with internal combustion engines using regular fossil fuels. Sure we're running out of fossil fuel just like we were when they tried these scare tactics forty years ago. 😁 [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024152310 "One argument advanced in support of reducing fossil fuels consumption is limited supply. Using the principle of “Peak Oil Theory,” proponents state that fossil fuels is a limited resource and the world will simply run out of it. Based on the available data, we demonstrate that supply of fossil fuels is relatively abundant, and we will not run out of fossil fuels in near term."]

Yeah, I could do that if my plane had flaps like that. 😅

While we're talking warbirds I sat and watched an 1:49min about Evelyn Whitmore who brought her P47 Thunderbolt down in enemy territory. She survived for a short while but even though she'd radioed her position nobody came looking. It's not a movie but I found it a sad but interesting story.

Filling a vehicle when supply is limited is perhaps more self preservation than greed. If you are going to need fuel and the message the price is going up and the supply is diminishing then surely it's wise to keep the tank full. I doubt there is a high percentage of people filling 44 gallon drums. It can't quite be compared to the stupidity of stacking up on toilet paper when there's no mention of a gastro epidemic. If there was greed involved it was from the suppliers jacking up prices on stocks of product purchased at lower prices. Jumping in your electric car may seem a little smug because in reality most doing this are still in debt for the cost of installation on those solar panels and batteries. The electric power supply has not come for free.

Today I was back trying to sort out my charging system on the Zenith. When I left for a 3hr flight on Tuesday afternoon I looked at the plug-in volt meter and it was showing 13.4v so I was quite happy with that but a little while later it dropped to 12.4v and by the end of my flight it was on 12.1v. This is with my Ducati copy $44.77 rectifier. On the trip home it started out at 12.1v and ended on 11.4v. I was using a USB power pack to look after the iPad. I started out with a stator check again. No problems there with the AC voltage rising nicely at higher revs so then I went looking for high resistance wiring or connections. All looked good until I took the wires off the capacitor and checked that. I never got a resistance reading but each of the terminals sounded the beeper on the ohm meter. There's a leak to earth from both terminals. Now with the capacitor removed from the circuit I have good battery charge. It was 22000uF 40v so now I'll go looking for a replacement.

That wasn’t meant to happen. It was meant to stick to the coast and miss us. Not good, it’s wild out there.

Yeah, long nylon ones....

We are meant to be outside the main cyclone region but it's a bit wild out there. It'll could intensify as the cyclone heads further south so we took further precautions. That should prevent it flying off on its own.

I was out there at first light with misty rain and gusty winds. I spoke to my flight instructor last night to get his opinion of fighting a strong crosswind for three hours. His only concern was that the wind velocity was beyond the crosswind capability for my plane to land. I was not concerned about that because I had alternate runways to select at each site. I lifted off at 6:25am, should have seen a sunrise but couldn't even see the horizon. I circled the airport at YNTM until I hit the cloud at 3000'. I leveled the synthetic horizon and dived 700' into clear air and stayed at 2500' for the next hour. It was more like smog than cloud but eventually it cleared enough for me to climb above the cloud. At 7500' it was bright white everywhere and smooth flying but at 30nm to Paynes Find I needed to get down again. There was clear air over that string of dry salt lakes I usually follow so I headed east. It was a decent sized hole but I could see it was closing so I wound up the throttle poked the nose down a bit and sat it on 125kts, just below VNE. I overshot the hole by a bit because the other cloud was at a lower level, then I backed off the throttle did a u-turn while holding about 120kts and dropped through into the dirty air below. From there into Paynes Find I was dodging the heavy downpours but it's a great place to land with two big wide gravel airstrips at 90° to each other. I had to attend to a nature call while I was there so got my back soaked for the few minutes I was outside. I wanted to add some fuel but was reluctant to open the tank in the pouring rain so I took off again heading north. It was not a good decision because visibility was poor and the clouds were low but this is all flat country so it was a case of stay low or try to fly above it. I chose to fly low level all the way into Mount Magnet where I chose the gravel runway that was directly into the wind. I put 20L into the LH tank because it seems to favour that one although the return fuel might be all going to the RH tank, I'll have to check that out and perhaps fit a multi port valve. The trip to Cue was more of the same, howling wind and low cloud. I just zig zagged my way avoiding the downpours dropping from the heavy cloud above. When I got to Cue it was dry and I had a choice of taking the unused gravel runway or the wide sealed runway. The sock was horizontal directly across the runway but here there are may acres of flat nothingness so a good opportunity to try a cross wind landing. It was bouncy final but this plane is really easy to keep heading in the right direction. All went well until I was about 10' off the ground and it dumped me. One bounce and I was on the throttle landing better a hundred metres further on. Mrs M was there waiting. She said "Can you do it again for the camera?" I don't want to do a trip like that ever again.

Had a report on my trip home in cloudy conditions. Loaded a couple of photos from above the clouds at 7000'.

Well I did post my flight home this morning. Has it been removed?

I can only get 91 in town if the unreliable 98 bowser is down. I asked my L2 about it, he said "That's all I ever run, you'll never know the difference".

I’m running the 80hp Rotax on 91 for a considerable saving.

Up and ready to face the cold gusty wind. Half hour wait for daylight, I guess I got up a bit early but I went to bed very early as well. I collected another 20L of spare fuel, not sure if I can fit both Jerry cans in the seatbelt and still clear the stick. I’ll be fighting a strong cross wind for better than three hours so I’m pretty sure I’ll add fuel in Paynes Find, not because it’s empty but because it draws more from the LH tank and I have no control over that.

Skippy, the iPad was fully charged and shaded however it didn't have a fan. It was just the extreme temperature in the cockpit from the high ambient temperature and the few minutes doing the runup with the canopy closed. The interesting thing is it still recorded the trip even though the screen was shutdown. I had it charging from a powerpack. Once I got my final waypoint into the MLG iEFIS Lite that was the best way to go. The MLG compass heading is much easier to follow than the wobbly ball in the magnetic compass.

I could get quite a joyride if I try to go home over the weekend. Perhaps I need to sit in the plane anyway just to keep it from doing its own thing. I really do need a hangar.