Moneybox

My engine had sat idle in Queensland for 12 years. The outside of the engine looked terrible along with the engine side of the firewall. I brushed what I could of the white corrosion with a little brush like a tooth brush and sprayed everything under in the engine bay with a liberal coating of ACF-50. Once the engine had run up to operating temperature a couple of times all signs of corrosion have gone. Now it just looks like a 20 year old engine because that's what it is.

My friend flew in on Sunday in the Bristell. The wind sock was horizontal with perhaps 20kt SE wind directly 90° to the runway. He stayed for lunch and the wind was just as strong when he was leaving so I suggested he take-off on the 225m taxiway directly into the wind. He's the sort of guy who'd never break any rules so chose to use the runway as he should. Is this sort of behaviour frowned upon even if it's the safest option?

I used to sell Bitron by network marketing, that's where I met Mrs M. It was a great product with similar properties to ACF-50 but it's no longer readily available so I ended up with a litre bottle of ACF-50 and a pump bottle along with it. Now ACF-50 is my go-to product for all those little jobs that require a penetrating lubricant and a light lube job. It's proving to be a great product with a wide range of applications in the workshop and everywhere else. Now I just have to find where I left the pump bottle since I used it last 🙃

Does he have the power to do that?

You can expect a change in viscosity as the engine oil temperature rises however using the correct grade of oil can make a big difference. There may also be excessive bearing (or other) clearance allowing the pressure to drop once the oil viscosity changes. There will be a minimum allowable oil pressure and with a new rebuild you should be well above that. Some after market oil filters can create a problem.

That's if they ever made it to the water. The dense bush between their departure and their intended crossing may have concealed the crash site. Remember those on the ground never received any expected communication after the took off.

I don't know. It's just loaded up as for personal use and if I get three years I'll be happy with that.

Marty, I know I'm of on a tangent here but I've just downloaded a free personal-use copy of Fusion. I always used Autocad versions 4, 10, 12, 14 and 2000. Everything in 2D but I really want to learn 3D modeling. I never used icons so it's nice to see that Fusion will accept keyboard commands. Thanks for getting me started. Phil

I love Autocad but I don't have it anymore and I've tried a heap of free ones, nothing stacks up. I've been using Sketchup but it's not accurate enough for some jobs.

Me too and I was quite surprised to find my Australia ERC Low WA map in 1:2,800,000 scale. Now I need dividers because my scale rule won't do that and I sold my tech drawing set 20 years ago.

Did you do the CAD drawing for all those plastic parts? If so, what program?

I've had a few goes at entering W&B into OzRunways. I'm obviously doing something wrong because my fuel weight/arm is right outside the graph. Does OzRunways do a good job of calculating fuel use? I have a Czechoslovakian friend flying in tomorrow so I've asked him to have a go at setting it up.

I only watched a few minutes of the second quarter where Collingwood appeared to have a couple of team members in yellow shirts so I gave it away and went back to work building my new dryblower.

If he had time to send a distress signal you'd think he had time to deploy the parachute?

We are usually home but we're off to Africa 3rd till 17th of October and perhaps a day either side in Perth.

I doubt you have one but early oil pressure gauges had a capillary tube, no wires needed apart from illumination.

They can only fly on weekends so you'd need a plan-B.

Serpentine has a great group of helpful people. They are oldies building or tampering with their planes housed in 100 hangers however the club own the strip and it's like a secret society. I visited once by prior arrangement to get access through the gate. I walked from hanger to hanger chatting to helpful old guys and all was good until I attempted to get involved. I liked the look of a plane that was for sale along with the hanger that faced right onto the main airstrip but I never got the chance. I had to be a member of the club to buy a hanger and I could only become an associate member for the first year before being considered for full membership and to get that far I had to have a couple of sponsors but at that time I didn't know anybody to give me a reference. I left and never returned. Northam is a different story. I've not met anybody from the club, they meet Sundays, but the airstrip is owned by the shire so is open to anybody unless you have a weight shift or similar aircraft. The workshop there, Northam Air Services is run by Roger Watson, a very helpful approachable guy. There's only Avgas available from the bowser but it's a very short trip into town. Northam has a population of about 12,000 and all services. It's an hours drive from Perth, not too much different in time to reach Perth but country roads vs city traffic.

Out of the dozens of airstrips, why did you pick Serpentine?

This weekend I'm staying home. The weather in Northam where we intended to fly looks ok considering we don't intend to fly all weekend. But the plane has to come from Serpentine and must be returned Sunday. With 35-50 km/h winds and up to 20mm of rain Sunday might make returning the plane difficult so my flying this weekend is cancelled. The next available dates are in November so I'm very disappointed.

Don't be too hard on Skippy, he's used to sitting by a fuel bladder in the passenger seat. A little fuel smell is nothing to be too worried about 🙃😂

Of course when I got the booking for this Saturday and Sunday it was as good as a weather forecast..... 😥

Skippy, I thought it would be best to follow the main highway where I think you'd find airstrips at the various fuel stops along the way.

We've been out and about for the last week. A couple of friends are up from down south an wanted to get onto some good gold and we achieved that for them so now we're headed home. On the way we dropped in to check out YRDY, an abandoned town airstrip just 26nm from home. Yeah I know I'm only allowed to stray 25nm from my home strip, when I get my RPC this coming weekend, for 1nm I might just have to break the rules a tiny bit. I'd rather practice landings here on a perfect gravel airstrip a very long way from other air traffic than play on the big sealed strip in Cue with the occasional Dash-8 dropping in. I like the feel of landing on gravel and this strip is in perfect condition apart from a few shrubs that have sprung up near the halfway point.

Maybe right there otherwise he must have had a massive headwind because the ground speed looks slow and the plane just didn't want to go down to the ground.