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kgwilson

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  1. kgwilson
    This problem is guaranteed to speed up the transition to electric trucks. Fortescue are spending $4 billion with Liebherr on 360 fully autonomous electric dump trucks. Quite a few already in service, & a lot of diesel tractor units are being retrofitted with battery electric motors. BHP & Rio Tinto are trialling Caterpillar electric haul trucks in the Pilbara. Janus Electric started the first trials from Sydney to Melbourne 2 or 3 years ago. The conversion from diesel to electric is cheaper than a diesel overhaul. They have done 25 so far. There are over 200,000 electric long haul trucks in China
  2. kgwilson
    You are right. I should have said "some" not "a lot". There were 52,651 accidents & 13,873 aircraft lost. Roughly 8% were due to mechanical faults.
  3. kgwilson
    I have seen plenty of homebuilts with very poor workmanship. How they ever got approved to fly is a mystery to me or perhaps they didn't. When I built my aircraft I was very fussy. I wanted a specific measurement that wasn't on the plans & when asking the designer he said "Dunno, never measured it", though he had other good tips and my aircraft has zero trim tabs anywhere. I've seen a student built ultralight & it looked OK from the outside but they hadn't kept a photo log of the construction so there was no way to see how things were under the skin. I wouldn't trust or fly that one. Women were employed in the UK to build all types of aircraft in WW2. At the time most of the capable men were in the armed forces. The British were very fussy about the build quality. The US mass produced aircraft utilising a number of car manufacturers & the error rate was pretty high. Over 15,000 US airmen died in training accidents before they even got out of the country, & a lot of these were due to manufacture faults.
  4. kgwilson
    It doesn't matter how experienced you are at anything. Mistakes can always be made because we are all humans. When more than one mistake is made and the holes in the swiss cheese line up the consequences are very dire. We will never know any more than we know now about this fatal mid air collision. We know what and when but how and why is conjecture and opinion.
  5. kgwilson
    A bloke down the road built a combobulator that would fit that. This is a later development of his earlier thingamebob but with reverse thrust and twin overhead carbuncles.
  6. kgwilson
    Very few products are pure aluminium. It is too soft. Most are aluminium alloys with varying degrees of corrosion resistance. As soon as aluminium is created and cools a cost of aluminium oxide forms on the surface creating a barrier to corrosion. Introduction of other corrosive elements such as salt will begin the corrosive process. If you wash un-anodised or unpainted aluminium regularly it will last for a very long time. After WW2 most pots & pans were made from scrapped aluminium from aircraft. They didn't corrode though some got pitting due to introduced corrosive elements. Most got scrapped again when stainless steel came in to vogue. The grade I built my aircraft is called 6061-T6. It has magnesium, silicon, copper, & chromium, in it & the T6 is the tempering number. It has high corrosion resistance excellent welding capacity & high strength which is why it is great for aircraft. Back in the 70s I built my hang glider out of the same spec & other than new carbon fibre stuff that is what they are still made from.
  7. kgwilson
    HV transmission lines are usually aluminium. Copper is just too heavy and expensive. I have aluminium jumper cables, about 40 years old & have lived at the back of my workshop without any cover for that time except while being used and still work as good as when i got them.
  8. kgwilson
    What a fantastic effort. The only down side is that it won't have that famous Merlin V12 sound.
  9. kgwilson
    4 pages of debate on aero or land internal combustion engines is interesting except they are all crap compared to the reliability and simplicity of an electric motor. One major moving part that doesn't touch anything other than the bearings at each end. EVs have proven their superiority once on board energy storage became a viable option. The latest can be charged in 5 minutes to provide over 500km of range. Aviation batteries now exist providing over 450 Wh/Kg where most EVs have batteries between 160 & 200 Wh/Kg. They will be mainstream in a few years though not cheap.
  10. kgwilson
    When i began flying recreational aircraft after many years of GA singles, I couldn't land them well either. Bouncing was common so there were plenty of go-arounds. My thoughts are that 1. There is much less inertia with a Jabiru or any recreation aircraft than with a C172, PA28 etc so airspeed will bleed much quicker leading to rapid altitude loss even in ground effect. 2. Fly the aircraft all the way to the ground. This takes practice, Flare at only a few feet from the runway. With the high wing ground effect is less noticeable that in my low wing Sierra. Don't try to recover from a bounce until you are much more proficient. Always go around. YouCanAlwaysGoAround11.mp4
  11. kgwilson
    An engine failure or significant power loss at only 30-50 feet in the air and nowhere but tree stumps and scrub ahead of you to land in gives you no time at all to make any decisions other than to flare as best you can & fly as far in to the crash as possible. Low wing, high wing, bubble canopy, isn't going to make much difference at all. In theory if you can see 2 tree stumps the fuselage may fit between that would be the best option to absorb energy with both wings being ripped off. The problem is lack of altitude and time to make decisions. A planned long distance flight means a lot of fuel is on board along with 2 occupants plus any baggage so the all up weight is substantial. Luck or the lack of it plays the biggest part. If there had been no fuel leak and no fire the occupants may well have survived and possibly without significant injuries. However this was not the case. The ATSB investigation should get to the bottom of all the issues given the speed at which assistance arrived plus witness and video evidence of the incident.
  12. kgwilson
    According to the ABC report a Flight Plan was lodged to "a small town outside of Tamworth". Possibly an EFATO. Terrible tragedy. Condolences to the occupants family and friends.
  13. kgwilson
    That should be standard practice. If there is a carb heat device fitted, it is there for a reason and that is to help avoid carburetor icing. By just dismissing it as not necessary is poor judgement and passing this on to students is poor management. Carburetor icing can occur at ambient temperatures up to 35 degrees under the right conditions.
  14. kgwilson
    When I was a student over 40 years ago there were heaps of touch & goes with full 40 deg down to none & in a 172 the controls are quite heavy compared to many other training aircraft like a 150 or 152 & pretty much all recreational aircraft. The method drummed in to me was always carb heat cold, full power, yoke forward to counteract pitch while the electric flaps retracted & airspeed built up. There is quite a bit of pressure required to keep the nose angle down for speed to build while the flaps retract. Every now & then my instructor would yell something like "sheep on the runway go round" when on short/late final & the method was always the same. Like most students I got it wrong in the early stages sometimes forgetting the carb heat off on short final & retracting flaps before full power. What happened here seems obvious to me but I have no knowledge of the training methods, the instructors assessment of the students readiness, the students attitude, understanding, ability to react to change, etc.
  15. kgwilson
    A bit blurry but the rounded wing tips look like a cub though the tail after the fire is Cessna.
  16. kgwilson
    I assume he had flaps deployed when landing. If full that would be 40 degrees. If it was a T&G it should have been full power, yoke forward to keep the nose down, raise flaps & as speed builds, bring the yoke back to climb pitch. Simple enough but with other things like turbulence and the fact that this was an inexperienced pilot things get mixed up or forgotten & then the excretia hits the fan
  17. kgwilson
    I went for a Gyro flight a year or 2 back. It was a tandem seat open cockpit modern one (Don't know make or model) with a Rotax 912. Not sure of the model but it looked like the ULS one. Flying up the Clarence River and through the gorge plus some very narrow ravines etc was quite exhilarating & felt quite safe as you can put one down virtually anywhere. Not so with takeoff though. What I didn't like was the shuddering and shaking when in many different manoeuvres. It felt like it was going to shake itself to bits. Didn't worry the pilot though.
  18. kgwilson
    Better to deal with the problem head on and suffer any consequences than do a Boeing & not tell anyone.
  19. kgwilson
    Many EVs use heat pumps. Mine does. Some call them reverse cycle air conditioners. They are greater than 100% efficient. An internal combustion engine is about 30% efficient. Most of the energy from the fuel is converted to heat. Use that heat as best you can & an exhaust shroud is by far the most simple and effective way to do it.
  20. kgwilson
    An electric resistive heater is very power hungry although 100% efficient. A standard 1 bar household heater consumes 1 kilowatt of electricity at 230 volts or just over 4.4 amps. At 12 volts that would be over 80 amps. You would need 20 amps minimum and that wouldn't be that effective with OAT below zero. A simple exhaust shroud is the most effective IMO. The Jabiru one fits around the straight exhaust pipe and not the muffler which is similar to T88s RV on one exhaust pipe and much reduced risk of CO poisoning.
  21. kgwilson
    The video shows what appears to be the wing and a small piece of the fuselage with another piece separated from it & smoke coming from both wing tips. It doesn't look real or anything like a C130 to me. There are other reports showing the burnt out remains & Al Jazeera also shows the large ball of smoke presumably just after the fireball when the aircraft hit the ground. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360883218/turkish-military-plane-20-board-crashes-georgia
  22. kgwilson
    I'll fly her in and Europa on touchdown.
  23. kgwilson
    Wouldn't bother a Kiwi Ag pilot. Obviously a one way landing personal strip & the concrete is really only needed for reducing rolling drag for takeoff especially is the grass was wet & soft.
  24. kgwilson
    This is the beginning of the end for aerial crop spraying and top dressing by manned aircraft & the main reasons are cost and accuracy. My neighbour in NZ had an airstrip on his farm where the Crescoes had to takeoff & land on a hill under some 22kVA power lines. I went up with the pilot once and was blown away by his skills. I'd sit on my veranda and watch him dropping load after load of super phosphate. Each trip was only about 3 minutes. It is a shame that we will see the end of this but technology & electrification will see its demise.
  25. kgwilson
    Just like the Mini in 1959. Engine gearbox & diff lubricant was shared.
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