kgwilson

Everyones Aviation journey is unique. I have been obsessed with flying ever since I was a little kid. From paper darts to balsa wood cutout spitfires, kites and eventually model aircraft starting with gliders with aerofoil doped tissue wings & then powered models with 3/4 cc diesel engines & up to 1.5cc at around age 12. A friend of my father was a pilot during WW2 & owned a Tiger Moth & he took me for my first flight. I was 9 or 10. Girls & motorbikes dominated during my teens & I travelled the world in my early 20s & saw early hang gliders in Switzerland & returning to NZ in 75 got in to hang gliding which I flew right in to the 90s. I flew my first powered aircraft in the late 70s, a weight shift controlled Quicksilver, & then began my journey to obtaining a PPL initially in a C150, then C152, C172 & my favorite touring aircraft Piper Archer 2 (PA28-181). I built my current aircraft over nearly 5 years from 2010 & fly this currently though I don't go on long trips these days. When the sun is shining and the air is still I still get the same buzz with an early morning trip down the river and along the coast or just somewhere not too far away. I have always related to the poem by John Gillespie Magee in a letter to his parents in 1941. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air .... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew— And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

The brand of battery has no bearing on whether the engine will start or not. It has to spin the engine when cold to more than 300 rpm, that's all. I know of a number of Odessey batteries that have not gone the distance. They are expensive and as a rule of thumb you get what you pay for but they are no better than a number of other brands in my opinion.

Setting the coil gaps is easy. The recommended procedure is to loosen the bolts, pull the coil away from the flywheel & tighten, insert the correct feeler gauge, loosen the bolts & let the coil clamp down on the feeler gauge, tighten the bolts & pull the gauge out. If you can't budge it loosen the bolts a bit & wiggle it out, tighten & recheck the gap. It doesn't matter if the gauge is magnetic or not.

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

Anyone in the outback with any common sense would install a solar array and battery for charging vehicles or other devices. High up front cost but then no dependence on fossil fuels, diesel generators or cost of delivery. The sun is still free.

OK I'll be the pedant here. Petrol comes from petroleum, a.k.a crude oil, which comes from the Greek words petra (rock) and oleum (oil). Gasoline though, has no obvious Greek or Latin roots. Not only that, but the gas part of the word is quite confusing, as gasoline is of course a liquid. And it doesn’t help that it’s generally shortened to gas in American English. So Avgas is an American term that has become standard in the Aviation world. Mogas though does not have that standardisation.. Americans don't call it Mogas, it is just Gas or gasoline. There is no rhyme nor reason for why but Americans change things at will and they become common ( except the Gulf of Mexico is not the Gulf of America. Any change made by Trump is just invalid)

BP produced a major study on this some years ago. 98 is generally good for up to 5 weeks in a fuel tank or if in a sealed container with little air gap about 4 months. I had some in my tank for about 7 months after the aerodrome was too wet to get out & I just added 5 litres of fresh 98 & it was fine. That is enough to refresh about 40 litres of old fuel. 98 has a number of light aromatic hydrocarbons ( Xylene, Toluene, Bezine Trymethyl benzine & others) that evaporate off first & this happens quite quickly (within 5 weeks). Interestingly the RON increases a little over that time but then often the engine is hard to start and once running it is prone to overheating which can lead to disastrous results. This happened in a chainsaw that we had in the SES. It had sat for at least 6 months & someone who was not aware didn't empty & replace the fuel with fresh as required. It was hard to start & ran till it was empty but refused to start again & there was no compression. The result was it had a hole in the piston, the big end bearing was stuffed & the bore was scored. We got a few spare parts from it though.

If your SE2 has been unused for some time it does take a little while to get a 3D GPS fix. If used regularly it takes very little time. Even if you haven't used it for months it will have easily got a 3D fix by the time you have got the engine started, warmed up & taxiied out to your run-up spot. In 2024 I coulnt get my aircraft out of the hangar for 6 months as the aerodrome was a quagmire plus I had been ill. It only took 6 or 7 minutes to get a fix when i finally got it out again.

The demand for Avgas has declined considerably over the past few years. There are a number of reasons. There are fewer old aircraft that need Avgas and many of those still flying do not fly as much. The rise of recreational aircraft that do not need Avgas has been very substantial since the 90s. Modern aviation aircraft engines don't need it either. Diesel engines are appearing in ever increasing numbers. The only reason I ever use Avgas is that it is the only fuel available at many aerodromes when I am away. I have used 95 or 98 petrol in my 3300A engine since new. No more lead deposits or fouled plugs. World Fuel & IOR have been busy installing self contained Avgas units at many regional aerodromes over the last few years often at no cost to the aerodrome. They need to boost their share of a dwindling market.

There is nothing like that in Australia but the Chinese have made huge inroads into electric trucks. Electric including hybrid outsold diesel for the first time in 2025 (54%). Windrose Technologies have an electric truck weighing 49 tonnes fully loaded with a huge 729 kWh battery & 670 KM range. The batteries are designed to be swapped out like the Janus and multiple other smaller trucks.

You can keep your head in the sand and pine for the good old days of smelly oil burners or embrace where technology is going. Plenty of businesses are doing just that. Some will fail but that is how progress happens as we learn from those mistakes. The fossil fuel industry is behind a huge amount of misinformation like EV production using too much rare and costly materials, batteries lasting only a few years etc and you throw away materials when everything is worn out. All garbage and absolute proof exists. One example is that batteries when completely spent are ground in to black mass & 95-98% of the cobalt, lithium, manganese and other rare material is recycled.