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kgwilson

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Everything posted by kgwilson

  1. kgwilson
    So, Who owns jabiru then?
  2. kgwilson
    The cost of a new Gen4 3300A is $25,850 according to the website. I bought my Gen 3 new in 2013 & it cost $18,633.88 & that included the airbox & filter, carb heat muff, ram air ducts, an extended prop flange, engine mount rubbers, exhaust muffler system & tachometer & sender, oil temperature and oil pressure gauges, CHT gauge & sender and freight. The basic engine was $17,325.00. The only extras I asked for were the instruments & extended prop flange. Everything elso just turned up. With the current exchange rate an installed 912 ULS with radiator & all the bits as above would be well North of 40k.
  3. kgwilson
    They have sold 6 times as many engines as aircraft. Despite what Rotaxophiles think the Jabiru engine is well established with continuous improvements, is very well priced and has an excellent reputation everywhere except with a few disgruntled people in Australia. Both the airframe and engine need to continue production and improvement over time. Aviation is a small market and overcapitalisation is a very real threat. Hopefully the new owners are motivated by their dedication to the aviation industry rather than profit only.
  4. kgwilson
    The way CASA treats people who do the right thing and declare every medical event in their history requiring a myriad of additional tests after the Pilots DAME has given their OK it isn't any wonder that many lie or refuse to divulge information about a past issue. There have been quite a few threads on this subject in the past where pilots have had to spend $10,000.00 or more to try and get through the CASA brick wall, sometimes to no avail. That expenditure was to try and satisfy CASA after their DAME had given the all clear.
  5. kgwilson
    The number is likely to be miniscule. The study completed in the UK before their decision to scrap medicals for GA pilots in favour of a personal declaration found no deaths at all that could be solely due to medical misadventure.
  6. kgwilson
    At most airports the grass is smooth and mowed often and in many cases is an alternative to the seal as it is at South Grafton. Our runway is 50 metres wide with only the centre 8 meters sealed. Funny thing is that we have had 2 wheels up landings in the past 18 months & both landed on the seal & messed up their bellies substantially. I land on the grass as a matter of course. My tyres thank me every time.
  7. kgwilson
    And if you drink Gatorade you will die. Nobody gets out alive.
  8. kgwilson
    A couple of things. Why not land on the grass? That would minimise underbody damage & why keep the engine running? Surely windmilling would stop when close to stall speed and minimise prop/hub damage. Then again maybe the pilot isn't the owner & insurance will pay anyway.
  9. kgwilson
    I have to sit on the front edge of the seat in the 172M to do a full/free yoke movement if the seat is right back. One of the girls in our club at the time had to fly with 2 cushions behind her back with the seat fully forward to be able to reach the pedals and yoke. She was a very good pilot and 1 year with another female from the club got a 3rd in the round NZ air race.
  10. kgwilson
    Well in the 172 I can barely reach the yoke when the seat is fully back. When it happened there was an immediate pitch right up and luckily as I already had full power I was able to grab the top of the panel which was already showing the foam through cracks in the vinyl covering from 10 years of desert UV and gave me some grip. I was about 2-300 feet in the air at the time. Total time from the seat letting go and getting the nose down was probably only about 4-5 seconds. I didn't have time to think about anything and completed the circuit without further issue. I remember giving the owner & the CFI a serve when I got back. JGP was taken off line and didn't come back till the complete refurb was done. This one had a 180HP engine and a coarse pitch prop & had a better climb rate & angle than the standard 160HP 172M. I just checked my old log book. It was 18th of October 1998.
  11. kgwilson
    I've had a 172 seat rail let go on climb out. Reported this in another thread a few years back. There was an AD on this back in the 90s or possibly earlier. When adjusting the seat & get it right you need to give the seat a good rock back & forth to make sure it is locked in place. In my case it was in a 172 that had been in the desert for more than 10 years after a drug bust & bought by a club member from the DEA for about US5k & shipped to NZ. It was put on line for a while before it was fully refurbished. I was in full power climb mode when the rail gave way. I grabbed the top of the panel with the throttle hand & pulled myself back to get the nose down. The panel fascia came right off half obscuring the instruments. I'm pretty sure the 152 seat rail system is the same, just a bit smaller. According to FB this was Quebec City Jean Lesage International Airport. The main runway is 06-24 with a cross runway 11-29. Takeoff appears to be from 29. You can see the 06-24 sign at the end. There is 1300 metres from the threshold of 29 to the intersection with 06-24. The camera had good zoom as this was taken from the terminal. You can see the airbridge at the beginning. There will be report on this and the tower will have all the data.
  12. kgwilson
    Ground stations seem to be concentrated around cities. They are few & far between in the regions of Australia. It used to cost about $45.00 to set up a Raspberry Pi receiver but I think it is over $100.00 now. Anyway all that I am concerned about is seeing others in the area I am flying in and hope that they can see me. At present there are too few aircraft ADSB out equipped and even fewer with ADSB In. Most I see are Training operators who have had to install ADSB out to their ES Mode S transponder. The 6-7k cost has put most private operators off. If the entre GA & RA fleet had SE2s everyone would see everyone else.
  13. kgwilson
    https://www.flightradar24.com/add-coverage
  14. kgwilson
    You may need to set up your SE2 as an ADSB device in FR24 and then there must be a ground station somewhere receiving the transmission from the SE2 which passes it to FR24 through the internet. You can set one up very cheaply with a Raspberry Pi connected through your home network but there may be some in your area already. Somewhere in FR24 there is a huge list of all the ground stations registered with FR24.
  15. kgwilson
    The simple explanation is that there are no genuine sightings of actual alien craft and never have been. There have been thousands of sightings of things that those sighting them have no explanation for, so they have convinced themselves that they must be alien and for some reason a large number are saucer or circular shaped.
  16. kgwilson
    I reckon they got the 737 Max 8s at a good price. After the 2 crashes, lengthy groundings and the findings of the investigation with Boeings reputation trashed they had heaps of these unsold after numerous airline cancellations.
  17. kgwilson
    The reveiwer obviously hasn't flown with many budget airlines before. Most are now using an app as well as in flight WiFi for most stuff. Before this though others also had local produce, wine from a 750ml bottle etc and waiter type service as well. Usually only full service airlines have the meal trolley and in economy this can be a slow process if you are in the middle.
  18. kgwilson
    Just like religions, all belief in something they are unable to substantiate or prove in any way except in their own minds.
  19. kgwilson
    If everything is checked and found to be OK with ethanol I still wouldn't use it in an aircraft unless it is run virtually every day. Ethanol is hygroscopic and will absorb the moisture from the humidity in the air. Depending on the time of year and the level of humidity it will not be very long before there is water in the tank as while it is absorbed by the ethanol it will eventually separate out and being heavier than ethanol and petrol will end up at the bottom of the tank.
  20. kgwilson
    There is no interference from mine which is stuck on the side of my bubble canopy approximately in line with the panel.
  21. kgwilson
    There is nothing wrong with the MRH-90 per se. The problem was with our politicians and military experts who made the purchase without ensuring all of the local modifications and requirements would work and what the cost of these were and we would build them here. Australia had no track record building helicopters especially high end, very complex large military designs requiring lots of local design features. Simple things like not ensuring the door was big enough to despatch troops effectively was a pretty basic oversight. The tail rotor failure problem was something else that should never have happened. If the components had been replaced when they found an issue with the German version in 2014 & 2017 leading to a modification that all user nations were advised of in October 2018 then the problem during Operation Talisman in July 2019 in an unmodified Taipan wouldn't have happened. This led to the grounding of the entire fleet of 47.
  22. kgwilson
    I started my RA conversion at Caloundra in 2009 at the Skyfox Flying School and it was really busy then. I only flew on Weekends. I can't imagine anyone not making a entering /lining up call though many do not make a rolling call especially when there is little or no other traffic. With a busy frequency overtransmits are common and it is possible that both these aircraft made their entering/lining up and/or rolling calls at the same time so they would have not heard anything. There are plenty of frequencies available even with the 25kHz spacing to give all 3 aerodromes their own. Most radios other than those in older GA aircraft and old hand helds, even the poorly rated Microair M760 can monitor 2 frequencies.
  23. kgwilson
    Very sad. Condolences to the deceaseds familys. A failure in effective communication seems pretty likely. With one on 24 and the other 29 it is unlikely they would be able to see one another if they were both taking off due to the bush between the 2 runways.
  24. kgwilson
    If those are Rotax 912 ULS engines they'd be worth twice as much as the rest of the aircraft I reckon.
  25. kgwilson
    I'm pretty sure the 80HP 912 is by some margin the most reliable of all the variants. The 916 has only just been released but doubling the HP from 80 to 160 from the original 1352cc engine with injection and turbocharging must have some effect on its reliability. I do note that the 160HP is only available for takeoff & there is 137HP available for continuous operation. They do manage to crank out 200 to 250 or more HP from Hot hatches with 1.6 to 2.5 litre engines and they are ridiculously expensive. No idea about reliability though.
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