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sfGnome

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  1. sfGnome
    Serendipitously, I came across this article tonight which has some useful stuff to say about this.
  2. sfGnome
    I learned on a 160 (some years ago), and was taught to cut to idle when I was guaranteed to make the field. When I did a check flight in a 160 earlier this year (because it was the cheapest aircraft to hire), I dumped it on the ground for the first few landings. Turns out that it drops like a stone when you get too slow. The issue wasn’t that I was gliding; it was that I was letting the speed bleed off too soon (ie I was flaring too soon). That’s the fun of a high wing - no cushion of air between the wing and the ground - and flying low wing had got me into being a bit lazy.
  3. sfGnome
    Ok, dumb question (dumb, bearing in mind your extensive experience). Is there a hole in the side of the breather tube so that oil isn’t being pulled out by the Venturi effect?
  4. sfGnome
    Ok, I won’t, but if I was allowed to, then I would. 😜
  5. sfGnome
    What Neil said! The older we get (and you ain’t old), the more we need to challenge our brains with new stuff. Those challenges came thick and fast when we were younger, so we didn’t even notice them as anything special. 30 years of absorbing stuff slowly on the job, and suddenly a new challenge looks overwhelming. It isn’t. It just feels that way. If you do decided that cross-country isn’t for you, make sure that you find a new cerebral challenge. Older you will thank you for it.
  6. sfGnome
    Thereby proving the point that ASICs are pointless. Who’s going to bother hijacking a small plane when you can just use a drone? The world moves on, but the ASIC doesn’t.
  7. sfGnome
    Is your instructor suggesting that you use something now, or are you just thinking ahead? I would have thought that until you’re a fair way further down the track, you don’t need anything. A pad and pen become handy to note down call signs that you hear (I find it helps with situational awareness and knowing who to address if you want more information from another aircraft), but until you get to your cross country training, I can’t think of a reason to use anything beyond that. Maybe others might know something that I’ve missed.
  8. sfGnome
    Remember when you did the class 5; there were a bunch of conditions that you declared you didn’t have. You don’t get asked those sort of questions for RAAus, so it remains (slightly) easier to be able to fly under the RPC.
  9. sfGnome
    This was a Jab 160, and while I can’t tell you exactly how long it took, it wasn’t long. I hadn’t started to taxi to the run up area, so it couldn’t have been much more that 90 sec (or I was fritzing around more than I should have).
  10. sfGnome
    You would expect the resistances to be the same merely because they are built the same. Having said that, a thermocouple is a temperature controlled voltage generator (ie at the point of the couple), not a temperature controlled variable resistor, so the actual resistance shouldn’t matter greatly (the input impedance of the measuring device will be comparatively very high). Regardless of that, ‘divide and conquer’ is your diagnostic friend. As kr said, swap them. There’s no cheaper (or more accurate) way to diagnose the fault.
  11. sfGnome
    Some do, some don’t. My problem was that I expected the fuel valve to be in the right position, so I didn’t think about what I was checking. All I really did was check that the fuel valve existed. Don’t check for what you expect, check what’s there. A fellow I know told me that he once belly landed a plane because he didn’t realise that he’d been flying with the wheels down, so on final he carefully put them up…
  12. sfGnome
    I learned a good lesson, not in my latest flight, but the one before it. Something I knew “other people” did, but which I never thought I’d do… 🫤 I’ve heard of people looking at, and even touching, a gauge, but not actually registering what it was saying. Who’d do that? Me, it turns out. Working my way through the pre-flight checklist; Fuel switch on. Yep. I even remember touching it and checking it was in the right position. Couldn’t work out why the engine stopped (thankfully while I was still doing ground checks). I had actually, carefully, checked that it was off, not on. Oh, and of course I had to do that in front of the CFI who was setting up a student nearby. How embarrassment. 😵‍💫
  13. sfGnome
    Make sure that your instructors know that you have a hearing issue, and beg them to let you use a good noise cancelling headset (I’m sure they’ll have them, if only for themselves). My hearing ain’t what it used to be, and good headsets make the world of difference. My Lightspeed headset has tuneable equalisers so I can boost the higher frequencies. Helps with clarity, which is what you need when the other aircraft’s radio sounds like “bzzzfgzz”…
  14. sfGnome
    I think my mind is getting more spongy as the years roll on… 😵‍💫😝
  15. sfGnome
    Here’s something I found interesting (the rest of you might be saying “yeah, what did you expect?”). Just to give me a feeling of what a tensioned cable should feel like, I hung 6kg off a rudder cable (6kg being roughly the specified tension) as per Roger’s picture, and I was really surprised at how “un-tight” the cable felt. Using my thumb and middle finger about 50mm apart on the cable, and using my index finger to deflect the cable, it was quite easy to deflect it 10-15mm. In other words, if the cable is twanging like a guitar string, it’s way too tight.
  16. sfGnome
    Thanks. Yes, the Ventura specs are the same as the Savannah ones, so I know what I need to achieve as per the designer. I appreciate the suggestions for methods thus far. Please keep them coming. 🙂
  17. sfGnome
    For all you Savannah/Zenith/etc builders out there, how did you measure the control cable tension? Tension meters at Aircraft Spruce start at >$1k, but fear of flutter doesn’t want me to just wing it either. Is there a good way that doesn’t require spending lots of dollars for a once a year measurement?
  18. sfGnome
    I’m one of those people who, ever since I was a kid, always look up when a plane flies over. Always loved planes, but never thought that I could afford to fly. By chance I saw a magazine in a newsagent that talked about RAAus, and I started to think… I never thought about flying for a living. I just enjoy being “up there” when the conditions are good, and not being forced to be up there when they aren’t. For the last few years I’ve been building, which is an experience of spending waaaay more than I ever thought I would, but one that I’m really glad I’m doing.
  19. sfGnome
    With great relief, I ascertained yesterday (I’ve been away) that my 2025 build 912ULS is not on the list. What I did notice was that the overwhelming majority (i.e. almost all) of the affected engines were 912iS and 914, so it looks like it was a batch assembly issue (“oh, was I supposed to put those parts in??”). A ridiculous number of years ago when I was working on a production line as an apprentice, it was each person’s responsibility to check the work of the person before you, so (theoretically), errors wouldn’t be hidden inside final assemblies. I expect that Rotax’s procedures have been updated now.
  20. sfGnome
    Sorry, Nev. i should have explained myself better. Anything that is it’s between a person (user) and a machine is a user interface. A brake pedal on a car (an analogue control) is part of the car’s user interface, as is the indicator stalk (a digital - on/off control). I was merely using the website example as I had hit it the day before and it was fresh in my mind. The point I was trying to make was that all user interfaces, including the control panels of planes, need to be test operated by ingenious fools before being put into normal use. I’ve spent my life designing user interfaces - mechanical, electrical and computer - and it took some embarrassing mistakes before I learned that lesson.
  21. sfGnome
    User interface design (i.e. ergonomics in the computer world) seems easy until you do it. I have many stories, but one will do. I was using a tourist website yesterday for entry to a museum. You enter your details, select the payment method, and then tick the “i agree to your rules” box. Nothing happened. I went around in circles for a while before i realised that, having ticked the aforementioned box, you *then* go back *up* to select the payment method. Somehow, that got through all the reviews and user tests and was released on a waiting world. Often, everyone who checks the layout of an instrument panel has likely been involved in the design, and are blind to the problems that “ingenious fools” will come up with. For user interface (or ergonomic) design, it is super important to let uninvolved, un-knowledgeable, un-instructed people loose on it in a safe, observed environment.
  22. sfGnome
    I tried to do that and dropped one when my assistants misunderstood an instruction (or I was less than clear, depending on who is telling the story 🫤). Thus, my wings now take up valuable floor space in cradles I made for them.
  23. sfGnome
    56? No worries. Medically, if you can drive a car, you can fly a plane. Talk to Go Fly at Canberra airport (there may be others there too). There are no other airports close by, so for you, it’s Canberra or bust. Alternatively, there’s the Canberra gliding club about an hour south (past Bredbo). That’s a good way to learn too, but the 2 hour round trip might get a bit tiresome. It’s no problem when you’re enthusiastic at the beginning, but if you start to struggle (many do), then the longer trip becomes a good excuse to quit. 🫤 As for building, there probably is an SAAA chapter at Canberra (https://saaa.asn.au/). If you’re thinking of building, it really helps to have people around who have already done it. Just don’t let them talk you into building what they built. Make sure that you check all the options and get something that matches your needs and wants. Anyway, that’s a fair way off. Get your license/certificate first! 😀
  24. sfGnome
    The MPC. They noted that after holding the price steady for many years, it had to be increased. Big jump, but cheaper than paying someone to do my maintenance.
  25. sfGnome
    That price is about to more than double. Will be published shortly.
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