nomadpete

It looks very slippery. Where will the noise come out?

Rastus, 4000' and going up 🙂

Watch out.......

In my past employment we used many magnetic reed switches. The only failures I recall were caused by the rare stuck 'closed' switches. This usually coincided with years of being constantly in the 'closed'state . Never had an intermittent one. If you are worried by the low probability of a stuck switch, add a test into your 100hr/yearly maintenance. Slip the reed switch out of its holder and verify that the alarm works. Better still, you WILL be doing a gravity fuel flow rate check, won't you? When you drain the last of the fuel, the alarm is verified, and the switch gets an annual workout which should prevent long term sticking. Oh, I assume you didn't buy the cheapest little reed switch you could find on the net!

A new long term accessible fuel source......

It sure does on a Drifter!

I just love the sound of a Boomerang doing a fast low pass!

J J, We have forumites here, who would love to discuss Lightwing aircraft.

Is brevity the soul of wit?

You're verbose

And. ?

Nah, Bernie, he's going a bit too quick for trolling a lure.

I'm no expert on Savanna wiring looms, but the schematic diagram should tell all. It looks like a Rotax regulator in the pic, so I'd expect one wire to be going to the electrolytic capacitor.

Well after reading that other thread about "empty" fuel filters, I now understand how the filter can end up filled with vapourised fuel. But I still don't get how the engine still runs when there is no liquid fuel in the fuel filter cavity. Isn't that just a vapor lock?

It's not only the student who might 'freeze' on the controls. I have personally experienced an instructor freeze on the controls. During conversion to a different RAA aircraft, I bounced on landing. By the time he called 'My aircraft', I had firewalls the throttle, levelled the wings and he grabbed the stick...... And just held it. I foolishly trusted him to tart us climbing. By the time I realised he wasn't doing anything, we settled into a drainage ditch beside the runway. BANG! It was all over in 4 seconds. I later heard another pilot had similar experience with that instructor. She exclaimed 'If I hadn't grabbed the controls back, we'd still be bouncing down the strip.' There are good instructors,and there are other kinds. It pays to shop around.

Early in my glider flying I had an encounter with an eagle. I had not long gained my cross country endo and still nervous when going out of glide from the airstrip. An instructor was taking someone out for a modest X/C and invited me to tag along. "Build your confidence, we'll mark the thermals for you. Besides, you've got a GPS, map, and radio" It was a nice day. So I tagged along in the Hornet (single seater). My confidence grew as we went. Then we had to cross a patch of tiger country. Toward the top of a thermal, I lost sight of the other glider, they had headed off whilst my back was turned. I called up on the radio, to get a compass bearing of their track. No answer. Radio dead. Battery flat. Examined the sky for hints of the next thermal in range. No hints there. Suddenly I was on my own over tiger country and without a way out. WIth sweaty palms I desperately searched for lift. The trees got bigger. And bigger. Finally I turned into a bubble of rising air. It wasn't much but I clung to that . Tight circles just above stall, gaining a couple of feet at each turn. I was staving off the inevitable, all confidence in my abilities trashed. Just as I got a thousand feet of air between myself and the trees, I glanced to the side and there just off my wingtip was an eagle effortlessly circling with me! If he came to share 'my' thermal, it must be the best one around! If he came to the thermal I was working, my skills weren't all that bad. From time to time he looked across at me. I mentally thanked him for sharing his backyard with me. I relaxed slightly and continued scratching for height. It all ended well. But by the time I got 'home' I was totally exhausted. One of my greatest delights is watching an eagle thermalling, just off my wingtip.

It was repeating a fully acrobatic manoeuvre. So was obviously breaching Recreational flying rules. It was something between a chandelle and a loop but he repeated it precisely and gracefully. I think it was the adolescent offspring of the pair that nest nearby. Just being a typical show off.

I'll start with today's observation: Nice day today. Well, a nice Tassie day. BOM gave us a high wind warning. There was a nice brief break in the rain, and that's when it happened. Our house is high on a hill. It's 700' AGL. As I stood looking out, wondering if I had time to bring more firewood inside before the rain returned, our local wedgetail zapped overhead. His wings were part folded, like they do when diving on prey. He pulled up in a graceful arc, slowing as he rose vertically. Just before stalling, he rolled into another dive. He dropped like a stone, at eagle VNE, pulled up vertical again. Again, just before stall, he rolled to the other side into another dive. Incredibly, he did his routine a third time as he disappeared between the trees down the hill. I guess he was just so delighted to see a break in the rain, he couldn't help himself. In that few seconds, I felt his exuberance, and sheer joy of flight. I don't think I'd have ever done it so close to the ground though.

O.K. please post a pic of your camper, over at "off topic". It's a subject that's a long way off flying.

Yes, it's a common problem for some drivers.

Flighty, you seem to be the only one repeatedly referring to fear. I don't base my decisions on fear, nor do I see signs of fear from many other forumites. I look at the available data, and make my choices. As far as covid goes, I choose to filter the sometimes contradictory information that comes from many sources, and find a pathway that I am confident will minimise my risk. I do the same process for all my decisions. It works for me, and as a result I don't live in fear. I'm simply managing the risk.

OK, I'll back off a bit. They claimed that initial "proof of concept" motors have been running. Doesn't that mean that the concept has been proven? They claim to have a number of larger motors "in production" which implies the motor prototypes were made and successfully tested? I should wait until somebody buys one and reports that it actually works as claimed.

All I can say, is.... WOW! It doesn't appear to be "pie in the sky". They have running examples.

Nice idea, Nev. But not likely to happen. People don't want to pay for information, these days. So the information streams are provided by less visible financial backers who are expecting a financial return on their "information".

Doug, as pointed out above, there are quite a lot of us going quiet on the forum. Not from lack of interest, rather from the march of time. My day came a couple of years ago. My saddest day was when my aircraft went. I still can't stop myself from glancing up whenever a plane passes by, and I get a year in my eye when watching 'our' wedgetail cruise past on the rising air. Now we have 'Calypso'. A Columbia 34. So I can still feel the air, although everything happens a lot slower now. As a bonus, a stalled aerofoil is a lot less hazardous on a sailboat.