old man emu

S'OK

OME

Ossie and Deskpilot,

The most recent photo I have of myself.

I don't think I need anything to improve my good looks.

OME

Lyle,

Your picture did not come up. Please post again with the photo as an attachment.

OME

Nice one I wouldn't mind one myself, not really sure where you would get such a thing though.

Get onto Ebay International and search for the shop: leatherduds.

OME

Whacko!

My son gave me a leather flying helmet for Fathers' Day.

On the day before Fathers' Day, I had to agree to lend him my car until he gets the money to register his. Is the helmet worth the walk?

OME

If you go out in the boat with him, who cleans the fish?

OME

Without wanting to impinge on the investigation of the recent fatality at Curl Curl NSW, I wonder how many pilots are briefed on ditching before undertaking flights over water along the coast?

I believe that the airplane involved in the Curl Curl fatality was based at Wedderburn and was originally heading south just off the coast. If that is correct, one might suggest that the flight was along the popular Victor 1 route.

The incident shows that pilots undertaking any flight where there is water between their flight path and a safe landfall need to know how to put their aircraft down into water. This incident shows that a couple of hundred yards off the coast can be very dangerous.

Old Man Emu

See. You are all talking about the fear of getting airsick. That's the real thing to get over for most airsickness victims. Even experienced old salts get sick at times, but they don't get sick just heading out of port.

OME

He might be willing to fight forhis honour, but what's he done about yours?

OME

Darky,

As a victim of airsickness, I can commiserate with your other half, especially since he is keen to share the love of flying with you. By now he has probably progressed from airsickness itself, to the fear of getting air sick. That is what you need to combat now.

First thing is to eat light, low fat, low meat meals before flying. Throw in a change of clothes and some soap when you head off to the airport, or buy him a pair of white overalls and sew aviation badges onto them to make them his 'flying suit'. The next thing is to carry readily accessible water and a damp hand towel. Finally have barff bags readily available, and a tube of toothpaste. That takes care of the situation if the failure of the desensitizing process.

The second thing to do is to control his fear of getting airsick. He has to realise that his condition is psychological, and therefore he can control his emotions. This control comes from practice. Also, he has to know that he can control the situation he finds himself in, to some extent. That means that as soon as he tells you that he is starting to get airsick, get back on the ground as soon.

The first step of the desensitizing process is to make him at home in the cockpit. Go sit in the plane with him and fly some imaginary circuits. Try to see if you can make each imaginary circuit last for as long as a real one does. Talk to him while you 'fly' these circuits so he knows exactly what is being done and what the plane is doing. After listening to your patter for a while, give him a go at "flying" a circuit or two. If he's occupied, he can't think about up-chucking. Finish off the imaginary flights and go home.

Next step involves you flying an imaginary circuit with the patter, then he flies one. If he gets it correct, light the fires and go do a circuit ( including patter) with a full stop landing and return to the parking area. Get out of the plane and take a walk. If he feels OK at the end of the walk, go do another full stop circuit, park and walk. Take a long break. Depending on how long it takes you to travel from your home to your airport, you might hang around and do another full stop circuit or two before you go home.

The third step involves the imanginary, followed by a full stop, park and walk. If all is OK, get back in and do one touch and go followed by a full stop, park and walk. After a bit of a break, back into it again and do two touch and goes, followed by a full stop, park and walk. Keep increasing the number of touch and goes in each set until he can handle an hour of touch and goes before the full stop, park and walk.

You have to keep up the patter all the time so he is distracted. If your patter is good, he might like to follow you through all the control inputs as you fly around the circuit. You might show him some 'hands off' flying, but he might be a bit fearful and keep hold of the stick while you show him ;-)

After he can handle an hour of circuits, plan a day where you can do a couple of ten minute out, ten minute back, full stop and walk flights. Just keep them nice and gentle cruise type flights. That should be about a half hour flight in total, so by the time you come to do them, he should be comfortable in the plane and starting to forget that he has a fear of getting airsick.

One last thing. If, in the early stages of the desensitizing, he has a big upchuck, get him cleaned up, get the taste out of his mouth, have a good cup of tea (possibly black with sugar), and after a rest continue from where you left off. I have found that once I have had a technicolor yawn and freshened up, I don't seem to get airsick for the rest of the day.

I hope this might help your boyfriend. If it does, I will require delivery of your first-born male child.

Old Man Emu

Sorry. I may have been wrong with the location of the input to the condensor unit. I'm only a storeman/salesman afterall.

Obviously there is someplace that you can draw crankcase vapours from, but not being the one who was working on the plane, I didn't take notes. Next time he comes in, I'll make a closer inspection.

Despite my failings, the device seems to work, and if anything, it keeps teh engine bay and underbelly oil free.

OME

One of our customers is field testing an oil recovery system in his Jab.

The device consists of a small box with an inlet from the crankcase ventilation. The oily engine fumes pass through a mesh of stainless steel and condense. The condensate then drips back into the engine via the oil filler tube.

The customer has recently done over 50 hours in a long trip up to the northwest of WA and back to Sydney and reports that his oil useage was negligible.

He told me that his unit is a trial one. If it proves effective, the release version will be made from fibreglass. I don't know the manufacturer, but when things progress to commercial release, I'll spread the news.

Old Man Emu

I was speaking to the owner of a Sportstar today. The engine is a couple of hundred hours off an overhaul and the owner was thinking of selling it and buying a brand new one. The engine to be sold would have a couple of hundred hours left, so would suit a private owner. The plane has been used for flight training, that's why the hours are up so quickly.

Old Man Emu

LTT,

If you are in the market for an altimeter, I suggest that you steer clear of the Chinese made ones. There are no Service or Parts manuals for them, so if they need work done on them, you are "seasoned with sage and onions". Also, an instrument maker cannot certify them "correct". They can only be declared "functional"

I don't sell sensitive altimeters from my shop, but the second hand price from instrument makers, parts suppliers and aviation salvage mobs is about $500. Usually this includes certification.

OME

Get her to save it for you as a pdf, then it can be enlarged.

OME

Are you encouraging us to buy the cheaper types ?

Without digging into FAR 43 Apendix F, I thought that a simple explanation of why one type of altimeter could be more practical than the other would satify Long Tall Texan's query. Try as I might, I can't see any words of encouragement for people to buy insensitive altimeters.

Old Man Emu

Just to ad a bit to this conversation.

You can still buy insensitive altimeters and they are about $300 less than sensitive ones. However what you must consider is the readability of the instrument. If you had an insensitive which could read to 10,000ft, its face has to show 0 - 10,000. Therefore the distances between any two markers (say 2000' to 3000') are small, and the markings for the hundreds of feet are close together, so it's hard to read. You might only get a marking for each 200'.

The sensitive altimeter only shows 1000' on its face. The face can have more marks, so each mark could show 20'. This gives the pilot more accurate information.

Both the sensitive and insesitive altimeters would read the same altitude if they were set to the same QNH.

Old Man Emu

A 'sensitive' altimeter has two or more indicator needles and can read to very great altitudes. An 'insensitive' altimeter has only one indicator needle and usually only reads up to 10,000ft.

The usual altimeter that you see around the place is the 'sensitive' altimeter. You probably will never see an 'insensitive' altimeter unless you are looking at a museum exhibit or a very vintage plane. Insensitive altimeters are very rare in Australia.

Old Man Emu

has this info been conveyed to casa OME?

http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/war-has-been-declared.28201/#post-174138

Seriously, this type of damage is just one of the joys of operating an airplane. I realise that this damage could have lead to a catastrophic wing failure, but what could CASA or RAA do? It could have been found by a really good pre-flight, but rodent damage is something outside the normal range of experience. Having said that, I'm sure that those who know of it by personal experience, or by reading about it here, will add another step to their pre-flights.

Rodents aren't the only tiny things that can create unseen damage. As Spring and Summer approach, we will enter the mud dauber nest building season, and those little muddy-footed buggers love pitot tubes. Not to mention wasps, bees and other types of pluckabingees.

We restitched the opposite lower wing of this airplane not long ago, using waxed Ceconite. No meeces in that wing.

OME

During a routine periodic inspection of a country-based Pitts S1, our apprentice discovered that one of the rib lacings in a lower wing was broken. Further examination of the wing revealed that nearly all the rib lacing in that wing was broken. When the wing was opened, we found a mouse nest. The nest had been made from rib lacing cord and paper (which turned out to be the ERSA which was stored in the plane). Examination of the other lower wing revealed that the lacing was OK.

Why was the lacing in one lower wing OK, but the other was attacked? The good lacing was waxed, and the damaged lacing was not. We think that waxed lacing cord tastes lousy to mice.

This leads to two things:

1. If your airplane is hangared in a bush or rural area, and has been sitting for a while, make the inspection of the interior of your wing to check that the rib lacing is intact. Also check that any papers kept in your plane haven't been chewed up. That's a good indication that you've got mousy stowaways.

2. If you are going to do any rib lacing, use a waxed lacing cord.

Ceconite rib lacing cord (Spruce & Specialty Part No 09-41300-1) is waxed cord. There was no information to say if Polyfibre cord is waxed, but I only look at Spruce & Specialty.

Old Man Emu

80 Kts

I have a shop at Camden Airport.

OME

Thank you all for your comments. It seems that it is going to be worth my while to do some R&D. I have an electrical engineer who can design the electronics, and I have just located a supplier of some of the hard to find components.

Give me a couple of weeks and I'll hopefully have more information.

Old Man Emu

I'm running this idea up the flagpole to see who salutes.

Would you be interested in purchasing an electronic carbon monoxide detector for you plane?

Card type CO detectors cost about $10, and have an maximum life of 18 months from the time they are opened. I am thinking of a device that can be plugged into an aircraft's electrical circuit (both 12 & 24 VDC) perhaps via a similar power outlet that a GPS is connected to. The device would be housed in a box about the size of a cigarette packet (are we still allowed to use "cigarette packet" as an indicator of size) and would have a flashing LED warning light and siren to warn of the presence of dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. I would not be a permanent fixture. You could remove it from your plane and use it in your car or boat.

At this stage, I'm hoping for a purchase price of around $60 - $75.

This device would be used in an enclosed cockpit, so, despite your interest, trike, open cockpit and gyro pilots need not reply:cheezy grin:

Old Man Emu

I just had to put up with the smell of Jet A-1 and Turkish bread, if you get my drift. Mind you, it was hard to get the instructor to stop making "whoosh" airplane noises and keep to "putta-putta"

OME

The beauty of this technique is that all the instruction is done without the distraction of the actual flying. The student can give full attention to the task to be learned and since headsets don't have to be worn, verbal communication is so much better.

I've had blackboard briefings, read books and magazines etc, but I found that using this technique was so much better. Apart from learning the main task, sitting in the cockpit environment also allowed me tofamiliarise myself with the location and feel of all the instruments and controls.

As an instructor, you must remember that the student is a visitor to your "office". S/he is invading YOUR space, and that adds to the tension felt by the student. I reckon that you could reduce the amount of airsickness, too because the student, who is entering unfamiliar territory in the air, will have built up a their sense of security before getting into the air.

OME