kgwilson

I never had a problem with my Gen 3 3300A till I went out West and in the morning it was minus 4 or 5 degrees with frost all over the aircraft. No amount of cranking had any effect & I flattened the battery. The answer was blindingly simple & FH has already mentioned it. I closed the gap to .020 got a jump start & it fired straight away. As has already been stated the throttle must be fully closed & the choke on fully. It really isn't a choke at all but a secondary separate rich jet system. Jabiru can also supply a cold start kit which provides a much ore powerful spark by replacing one of the coils with a vhv coil. I believe they are very good in extremely cold conditions.

I only buy my petrol from busy reputable outlets. I know the Manager of my local supplier and that the underground tanks are fairly new. I know the quality control is lower than that required for Avgas but I always buy fresh and don't store it and filter through a Mr Funnel. If I don't fly for more than a couple of months I drain the tank and use it in my wifes car & the lawnmower. The aromatic hydrocarbons in 98 unleaded evaporate off quickly especially when there is a large air space in the tank so I like to add some fresh after the aircraft has been sitting for more than 3 weeks. BP recommends adding some fresh after a maximum of 5 weeks. I have heard of people having issues with bad fuel but not anyone I know or in recent years. I had a personal problem with my company car back in the 1980s. The oil level on the dipstick began rising and others were having the same issue. Diesel had been put in the company's petrol supply tank. Mistakes are always possible as everything is managed by humans. As time has moved on so have the controls. I have seen plenty of lead fouled plugs and known issues with valve guides & seats. My engine has only done 400 or so hours but the risks of using Avgas compared to Automotive petrol are minimal with appropriate management and care. And the engine is all the better for it.

I have used automotive unleaded 98 in my Jab 3300 since new and Avgas when I am away at a place I could not get 98 ULP. The engine has never missed a beat except when one of the coils developed a fault. The plugs are always black but the oil stays clean and an endoscope inspection of cylinders & heads show clean internals & leakdowns are spot on. I couldn't care less about Avgas disappearing other than the QA aspect. The biggest issue is ensuring quality & freshness especially when refuelling in remote areas.

I can't believe the BS regarding CTR access is still going on in 2026. CASA is and has been obstructive in this regard since I moved to Australia in 2005. CTR access for RA aircraft has been available in NZ since before I left. Initially you needed a PPL and a RA aircraft with a transponder, then a RA CTR endorsement and an aircraft with a transponder. NZ has more light aircraft per capita than Australia I can understand having restrictions around major international airports in Sydney, Melbourne Brisbane etc but why the rest of the country. More than 20 years of discussions, reports, and every conceivable reason not to provide access and still going. Just ridiculous.

I flew a 230 a few times during my conversion from GA & found it very easy to fly & land with plenty of elevator authority on landing. Much better than either the 160 or 170 I also flew. The extra power though was what impressed me the most.

The ergonomic layout of panels of many factory built light aircraft is terrible which is why I designed my own. As aircraft get larger with more functions and engines this becomes more difficult though this is an example of something that should have been thought out better. Yes you should know where everything is and double check what you do but humans make mistakes and better thought in the design of the management systems would reduce the risk of errors considerably

I am not sure how the statistics have been produced but apparently around half of all aircraft building projects are never completed.

I started flying at 22 got a PPL in my 30s but had breaks of weeks to several years as life, marriage and mortgage got in the way. I built my plane over nearly 5 years at age 61 to 65 & am still flying at 76 though not going on long distance flights these days. Didn't fly during the build years but lots since

So are they providing free KFC when you visit the Tower?

And so he should. This was totally avoidable.

The engines are built by Classic Aero Machining Service in Blenheim NZ. Kipaero sell them depending on the model from between $US50,000 & $US72,000. The expensive one has an electric start which defeats the purpose IMHO. https://www.kipaero.com/product-category/rotary-engines/ https://www.kipaero.com/aero-engines/gnome-rotary-engine/

Wing warping excels in slow flight. That's how hang gliders are controlled. The early Rogallo gliders of the 1970s had large billowing sails with few if any battens to maintain some rigidity & could perform 360 degree turns in not much more than their own length.

I don't care if they call it the Mogas section. It is just another Americanism that has been infiltrating our language both spoken & written for a century. What they produce is Unleaded Petrol, ULP and Aviation Leaded Petrol commonly called Avgas because the Yanks invented the name even though it is a liquid. Since Trump has been at the forefront of trying to become King of the World, I have become distinctly anti American mainly because he and his MAGA followers are just ignorant sycophantic fools but most of all a danger to everyone else.

Several companies are now producing solar powered EV charging stations. The NRMA set up the first one in the Northern Territory in 2023 & it was a failure with poor performing equipment plagued with problems. It has now been completely rebuilt & works fine now. It is quite small with only 26kW of solar panels on the roof & a 200 kWh battery. It has 2 x 80 kWh chargers & costs 99 cents/kWh. Sero Global from WA produces one of a similar size. These can be delivered on the back of a truck anywhere so compared to providing diesel or petrol the cost in very small & they don't need to be refuelled like a petrol/diesel station at high cost in the outback . Once set up they just need occasional maintenance. Larger ones are planned. They are still delivered on the back of a truck but a small solar farm produces the power. How much depends on the size of the battery storage, number and delivery speed of the chargers.

All this discussion on storage of fuel etc has been covered before on this site. Avgas has a completely different composition to automotive petrol. Avgas is Paraffin based whereas automotive petrol is aromatic hydrocarbon based. Paraffin is what is in wax candles and has quite a low odour. Automotive petrol has a very high odour & the smell is largely due to the evaporation of the light hydrocarbons in it. It is this evaporation that limits its shelf life. Avgas without the lead would detonate quickly especially as compression increases or when more fuel is fed into the cylinder at low rpm with the engine under load. The BP study on fuel stored on vehicle tanks is attachedpetrol-life-vehicle-tanks.pdfpetrol-life-vehicle-tanks.pdfpetrol-life-vehicle-tanks.pdf