kgwilson

Saw it on the ABC news last night. It is lucky that it was a very light helicopter, it didn't hit anyone or power lines, there wasn't a fire and the pilot was not badly injured. It will be interesting to find out the cause. Power/mechanical failure or Pilot error. My money would be on the latter.

It plummeted, they were forced to free themselves from a sinking aircraft and swim to safety and it was also a precautionary landing, no-one was injured and the aircraft as well as the airport sustained minor damage. What a load of absolute sensationalist crap. Same BS headlines in the QLD murdoch press. Nine news shows a 20 second clip of what looks like a Beaver not sinking being towed by a boat.

Very reminiscent of the Ferris Wheel incident at Old Bar 10 years or so ago. No power then just people.

Never flown a Vixen but the 2 things I didn't like about the Foxbat were the weird position of the throttle beside the seat and the awkward flap handle. Other than that it was as easy to fly as a Gazelle.

That's why I always use my Mr Funnel when refuelling. Filters water, rust, sand, dirt & other debris down to 74 microns. I have not had any dirty fuel yet that I know of. I get my fuel from the same busy servo 3 minutes from my hangar & only looked in detail for a while so could possibly have filtered out some crap. There is always 50 ml or so in the filter sump at the bottom which I use as weed killer at the hangar door.

Doesn't matter who wrote the article. Australias emission standards and fuel quality are poor by standards set in first world markets as are the emission standards of imported motor vehicles. Government handouts have nothing to do with actively discouraging where the future lies. By 2035 you will not be able to buy an ICE engined car. You can choose to ignore the facts if you like. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-14/australia-dumping-ground-for-polluting-cars-euro-6-standards/100535418

The quality of Australian petrol is amongst the dirtiest in the world. Australia is a dumping ground for cars with poor emission control. This was the policy of the coalition government who also thought electric vehicles were a fad (remember Morrisons BS "won't tow your boat, won't run a tradies ute") & unlike most other countries had zero incentives for people to shift to electric. The current standard for 91 RON in Australia is nearly 15 times lower that the current standard in Europe. The rest of the developed world is making use of Euro 6 emissions and fuel standard while we are stuck on Euro 3 for 91 & Euro 4 for 95. https://www.bgaustralia.com.au/news/technical-advice/australian-fuel-quality#:~:text=The current standard for Australian,Worldwide standards for sulphur content.

I was in NZ in July & the price there was over $3.00 a litre. The government watch dog there found that fuel companies were adding extra margin dramatically as the price increased & had reached an all time high of just over 60 cents a litre. There was a massive outcry as you would expect & the price came down to $2.60 overnight. They were still making 15-20c a litre after that.

In my GA days I flew mainly C172s (M,N P models) and lastly the S variant with a 180hp IO360 engine, and also Piper Cherokee Archer 2 & 3 PA28-181 180 HP carburettor variants. Both had good and bad points. C172 good points - easy to get in & out of, no requirement to change fuel tanks, 40 deg of flap on the early models. C172 bad points - heavy controls, Upright kitchen chair style pilot seating, slow electric flaps, quite noisy. PITA to refuel PA28-181 good points - comfortable seating, nicer lighter controls (quadrant) easy x wind landing/ground effect, easy to refuel & check fuel, good comfortable tourer, more grunt, quieter. PA28-181 bad points - Single door on RH side for access, having to remember to change fuel tanks. Overall I preferred the Archer despite changing tanks every 1/2 hour & getting in and out of it. That most likely influenced my choice of a low wing RA aircraft to build. My Sierra handles X winds very well compared to the Jabirus, Gazelles and Foxbats I've flown.

Fibreglass resin can be a number of different compositions. The most common is Polyester and this is most definitely unsuitable for fuel tanks. The glass fibres are unaffected by ethanol. Vinylester is the chemical composition used in most fuel tanks. I cannot comment on its ability to handle ethanol. The light aromatic hydrocarbons in 98 RON petrol will permeate vinylester tanks and cause a petrol smell. They do the same for thin plastic petrol containers. Vinylester though will not melt or deform. The thicker the wall the less permeation of light hydrocarbon molecules there will be. The same goes for good heavy duty plastic petrol jerry cans. I am sure that there will be a number of epoxy resins that are also good for fuel tank construction. I have done no research on these so cannot comment further.

Even 91 octane is unlikely to cause detonation in an 8:1 compression ratio engine. Something else is awry. I have only used Avgas when away when I could not get Mogas. 95 or 98 runs beautifully in my Jab 3300 engine & the engine stays clean. I don't top up oil between 25 hour changes and the oil is still relatively clean after 25 hours. I have seen numerous Avgas only Jab heads & pistons with so much hardened gunk on them I am surprised the engine still runs & the main reasons the head was removed was because of a valve, compression or ignition problem.

No. All our fuel is managed & in specific "chainsaw" containers with the date of mix & ratio marked on the top & initialled by the person mixing. They are only refuelled with 50:1, 2 stroke mix. The problem was, it was not refuelled before it was used. I have modified our SOPs so a saw is always topped up with fresh before use. If it has not been used for a long time we tip the fuel in to a glass jar. Fresh 2 stroke is green (from the 2 stroke oil used) and clear. Old 2 stroke is brown and can also be cloudy. Earlier 2 strokes were 20 or 25:1 ratio so overheating was more difficult. You always knew the fuel was 2 stroke as the exhaust showed some smoke even when hot. The Stihls only show a minimal amount of smoke right after start up.

Correct but it is when the engine is cold that the damage occurs. This is also when the most wear occurs in all engines. Engines with large tolerances won't be affected as much but modern engines have far smaller clearance tolerances as enabled by technology and better lubricants. Old sloppy 2 strokes will not be too bothered about lean fuel at cold start. They will just take longer to develop full power so they have time to warm up. With a chainsaw, most users start it with choke, once running, choke off, rev it to full power and start cutting. The bloke at the Stihl shop said they get a spate of failures usually in Autumn when people decide to get in Winter firewood and the chainsaw hasn't been used for 6 months to a year.

Read the pdf of the BP report " Loss of light components - impact on mixture" section.

All of the things mentioned were included in the BP study of 2010 which I have posted on this site a couple of times. One thing your bloke did not say is that aged fuel (over 5 weeks old in a vehicle or appliance tank) causes the mixture to be lean and the engine overheats resulting in detonation and piston damage in High Revving engines such as those found in chainsaws and boat engines. I can attest to this after one of the SES chainsaws would not start after being used once after sitting idle for 6 months. The report from the Stihl shop was "hole in piston, scored bore and big end damage" & the saw was trashed. This is not a major issue with a low compression low revving aircraft engine. I have started & run my J 3300A engine after well over 5 weeks without adding fuel & it started first turn of the key & ran well. This is not my normal procedure. That is to add fresh fuel every time I have 30 litres or less in the tank. BP recommended a bit of fresh be used if the fuel has been in the tank for over a week. You do not need much but you will need more the longer the fuel has been in the tank. I keep our 8 SES emergency generators with very little fuel in them and always put 3-500 ml in the tank before going through the monthly generator test process. They are then run under load for 10-20 minutes. The comments re plastic containers is very valid. I have a 4 litre ex oil container for lawn mower petrol. The light components permeate the plastic and the container stinks of fuel. The same is true for the vinyl ester tank in my aircraft fuselage. It dissipates quickly when I open the canopy after it has been in the hangar for a week. The heavy wall plastic containers are much better. The pdf of the BP study is attached. petrol-life-vehicle-tanks.pdf

It doesn't matter whose opinion you get because it will be tainted with that persons personal beliefs and prejudices. It is more valid to get a written statement or thesis from someone on a specific subject and have that peer reviewed. Then you can allocate some credence to the information provided. So a "Professional" opinion is just an opinion and in this case from a Fire Services Engineer about charging electric vehicles in a multi unit complex. When was electric vehicle charging included as part of fire services engineers qualifications?

Fascinating. I'd always known about Albatrosses dynamic soaring and that they have tracked Wandering Albatrosses circumnavigating the world in the Southern latitudes. This takes the phenomenon to a whole new level.

I couldn't see it at all till I went full screen. Wow that thing is fast. The G forces must be incredible.

That is not hard when you control all of the media and jail everyone who opposes you.

It is already here. The CATL Qilin CTP battery uses LiFePo4 with integrated cooling to allow fast charging without degradation and higher energy density. The prototypes have already demonstrated this with Geely's Zeekr-1 achieving more than 1000km on a charge and the ability to charge from 0 to 80% in 5-10 minutes using a 350 kW charger. It went in to production in China in September and is to be released in Europe in Q2 of 2023.

Toyota only rolled out its first pure EV in May this year after being a leader in the Hybrid market for a decade and putting a lot of R&D effort in to Hydrogen fuel cell development. All of Toyotas rivals are way ahead in the BEV area so Toyota is playing catch up. Their plan is for 3.5 million BEVs by 2030 & 30 new BEV models in that same period. BEV sales world wide have increased from 130,000 in 2012 to 6.6 million in 2021. This is a 100% increase over 2020 when the world market contracted except for EVs which increased to 3 million from 2.2 million the year before. EVs now make up around 9% of car sales world wide. Car companies who do not embrace the change will not survive.

Toyotas debt has skyrocketed in the last year. Hybrids are the worst of both worlds. Toyota is failing to embrace the EV revolution and waiting for a miracle in hydrogen propulsion to happen. By 2035 there will be no more new ICE vehicles made. The largest car company in the world by market capitalisation is Tesla. BYD will cease manufacturing ICE vehicles by the end of this year. By all means whinge about what is the future. It won't make any difference. We either adapt or our tenure on the planet is very limited.

Teslas do not have a maintenance schedule as there is virtually nothing to maintain. They recommend checking the brake fluid and replacing aircon cabin & hepa filters every 2 - 3 years & rotating tyres every 10,000 km. Other EV brands have varying maintenance schedules. Tesla set up a purpose built battery recycling plant in the USA but so far have not recycled any except some that got damaged. Batteries from the very early Teslas have been re-used in houses etc as they still have a lot of capacity left. There was quite a furore when the distributor of the BYD ATTO 3 in Australia reduced the warranty provided to Chinese buyers and set an annual capped price service fee (there isn't one in China) higher than many ICE cars. They thought they could do this as demand far outstripped supply but a number of buyers cancelled their orders & they got pretty bad publicity. This is just commercial greed at work. I don't know if this has changed.

Maybe rental cars have them too as they are business assets. May also be true for companies & other businesses.

Yeah too late for an edit. the second ICE should read EV & that should be than.