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sfGnome

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Everything posted by sfGnome

  1. sfGnome
    I still remember my first sight of Uluṟu as a 13 year old from the back seat of dad’s Holden. My second visit (last year) was just as special. The resort is just somewhere to eat and sleep, but the rock is something else, especially if you take the time to walk around it and just soak it in. Maybe I’m just not jaded enough.
  2. sfGnome
    Skippy - Shellharbour Mark - definitely clear, as I’ve only just installed them. 😁 Actually, I had the fuel caps off while I was experimenting, so I know it wasn’t a tank vent issue. That doesn’t discount a blocked vent line from the header tank, but if that was the case then I doubt that it would have flowed so easily once it started. Anyhow, I had anlso asked ICP, and their reply was that on first fueling, it is acceptable to pull the tail down to start the flow. Once it has started, the it will be fine, so I guess that matches my experience.
  3. sfGnome
    After painting the inside myself and deciding that was a bad idea, I went to a couple of spray painters with truck-sized booths to do the outside. I’ve heard some bad stories about people having to remove the tail and undercarriage to fit their aircraft into a car paint booth. I imagine though that, even with the enormous booth of the bloke I used, it wouldn’t have fitted with wings on.
  4. sfGnome
    Then again, sometimes it all works very well. I had a box shipped from Floods in Victoria on Tuesday afternoon. It was in Sydney on Wednesday morning, and it arrived at my regional address early this morning. Come to think of it, I find that’s the norm for AusPost/StarTrack. I panic when suppliers use other couriers.
  5. sfGnome
    Thanks. I’ll drain the fuel and check air flow through all the lines as a first step. Picturing in my mind’s eye, I can’t think of any undulations greater than the pipe diameter, but I’ll check for that at the same time. The advantage of that 18L header tank is that if I have flow problems, then I still have 1/2 an hour flight time plus 1/2 an hour reserve, which is comforting.
  6. sfGnome
    Yep, there's a breather on the top of the header that goes to the top of the LH tank.
  7. sfGnome
    Ok, here's a strange one for all you Savannah (and possibly Zenith?) people. I put a bit of fuel into each wing today for the first time - plenty sufficient for it to flow into the header tank - and it didn't. I spent about 15-30 minutes mulling this over and checking what I could without starting to undo pipes, and eventually I gave up thinking and pushed it back into the hangar. Hey presto, the fuel was in the header. Something about moving it started the flow, and then it flowed quickly as you'd expect. Interested to see if it was a blockage that had somehow moved, I pushed it outside and repeated the process. Again, no flow until the aircraft was moved, whereupon it flowed. Have you seen this? Is this a normal Savannah thing? I expect that if the header tank and pipes were full, it would not happen (ie fuel would flow as it was consumed), but I'm having difficulty making sense of it.
  8. sfGnome
    Here’s an idle thought. What if the bottles was mounted on the engine side of the firewall with remote activation from the cabin (Bowden cable or whatever). More likely to hit the source of the fire, and not going to incapacitate the pilot. Fire in the cabin would most likely be electrical, and (from my singular experience), they tend to be short lived, though producing vast quantities of smoke. Of course, the 50C limit would be normally exceeded with this particular extinguisher, but I assume that there are others which aren’t pressurised.
  9. sfGnome
    Yep.
  10. sfGnome
    I’ll give you a call, but for clarity for people reading this, I’ll add a couple of points. My comments up to this point only apply to Group G experimental. Group A still have the same restrictions & liberties that they always have. Getting a Group G experimental into the air is almost exactly the same as getting a VH experimental up there. The process is the same. As an aside, if you want to have someone else do your first flight, then finding a test pilot with an RAAus Group G license is somewhat difficult. As T510 has noted, currently, someone purchasing an Experimental cannot do their own maintenance, regardless of whether they are registered VH or Group G (with the caveat that if the purchaser has already built an essentially similar aircraft, then they can do their own maintenance).
  11. sfGnome
    As I am building a Group G aircraft, I have been in constant contact with RAAus. I’ve done the SAAA course, and RAAus have accepted the qualification (including weight & balance). This relates to full maintenance, not just pilot maintenance.
  12. sfGnome
    If you are the builder and you have done the required maintenance procedures course (SAAA are the only approved supplier of an MPC at the moment) then you can do your own maintenance under Group G (<760kg). In fact, the reason for the LAME-only stipulation (with the exception of the above) is that CASA has made Group G almost identical to VH experimental, so it’s a coin-flip as to which way you go. It’s not what RAAus wanted, but CASA makes the rules.
  13. sfGnome
    My TC wanted to see the wings prior to skinning. I’m pretty sure that’s the SAAA requirement.
  14. sfGnome
    Ok. The ETX900 has a warning led output which tells you the internal state of the battery beyond just the voltage and current. It’s well worth connecting up to a led on your panel. The EarthX user manual gives a table of actions to take if it starts flashing, ranging from keep going to land now.
  15. sfGnome
    I don’t know which Carmo regulator model you have, but the one that I looked up had an output voltage of 14.5 +/- 0.5V. EarthX say that the maximum regulator voltage is 14.6V. What was the battery led doing while all this was going on? Flashing?
  16. sfGnome
    Spoken like a true heathen! 😝 Personally, I’m easy this year whichever team wins. Swans are out, and there’s no Victorian teams there to hate. 😂
  17. sfGnome
    This may possibly add more confusion (sorry if it does), but here's the hinge bolt setup on the Ventura from the latest manual chapter dated April 26. I have no idea whether it is the same as the Savannah, but the two planes are very similar in many respects. "Inner" and "Outer" in this context are referring to each flaperon, so there's 2 pointing one way and 2 the other way on each wing. On this setup, presumably the bushing is fixed in the flaperon hinge, and the bolt is fixed in the wing hinge so, as Kyle said, the bolt would be rotating inside the bush. On a related point, I asked ICP about an Australian equivalent to the specified white grease, and they said "It is just a white grease, anti-corrosion, water resistant, very dense, protective. No other relevant properties, anything used on boats it will be perfect."
  18. sfGnome
    Yes and no. In the long run, the builder is totally responsible for the airworthiness of their build. The AP providing the ‘airworthiness’ certificate is only saying that the paperwork is done. They don’t certify the actual airworthiness.
  19. sfGnome
    Serendipitously, I came across this article tonight which has some useful stuff to say about this.
  20. 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.
  21. 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?
  22. sfGnome
    Ok, I won’t, but if I was allowed to, then I would. 😜
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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