Old Koreelah

Like it, John. I keep refining my flight plan layout to include everything I need, even runways, but I'll be adopting your approach of combining plan and map. OzRunways is great, but a paper map adapted to each trip feels better.

Printing your own strip map from the latest edition of OzRunways seems the best way to go- as long as the damned printer plays fair.

In the good old days, when the government was paying to mail out amendments, all the document sets were in ring binders and replacement pages were sent by mail. Of course, once the government stopped paying to distribute the safety information, there was no longer an incentive to do it cheaply and efficiently.

Back a bit closer to topic, how high should wing fences be? I have used 60mm as per Dafydd's suggestion, but Cessna 150 wing fences were much lower and the subject of an AD after a couple of crashes. http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/1994/A94_177_180.pdf These fences were much lower but further out, between flap and aileron.

The height of the fence was to be reduced to about 19mm to prevent loss of control after stalling.

I attended a Casa mock ramp check at the Thangool flyin recently, which I found to be very informative. The volunteer pilot passed with flying colours, except her Ersa was out of date by about 1 week (apparently a new one was on order but she hadn"t received it yet).It got me thinking, with the 6 monthly reissue of charts and ersa, how much information actually changes, to warrant having to purchase new issues. If a record of amendments was made available and there were only minor changes, what if you could hand amend your old issues and write a statement on the chart that all amendments for the new issue have been annotated and sign it.

Obviously for major airspace amendments you would need a new chart.

 

It just seems a waste to me, having to throw out old charts, when the new issue may only have a very minor or perhaps no new changes.

 

What are your thoughts !

 

Ducky

It seems the electronic versions are taking over, saving huge amounts of paper and allowing regular updates.

…in theory. It all still depends on humans. With regular staff cuts and government mismanagement, I doubt there is a large team of qualified and dedicated people to do the job. I have twice gone through the channels of trying to get a map updated, but no joy.

(The village of Dalman still appears on the Brisbane VNC, even though I helped dismantle it in the 1960's. There's nothing there. Meanwhile, a few miles west, the thriving village which inspires my avatar is not shown. Pilots could easily be misled by out of date maps.)

Jill Bailey's office phoned me today looking for names of local fliers, in case someone was overdue. After lots of calls, nobody I know has any info. One old mate reported his neighbour ( a very reliable man) heard the aircraft and several agencies have been searching the Dungowan area. Dense forest and rugged terrain doesn't help. Hope it's a false alarm.

So many pilots like to go for a fly without telling anyone. It's our right, but can sure cause problems for others.

Have to start populating that section with a lot of aircraft...still to do

OK, first question: How are you measuring your stall speed? If you are using the original aircraft's airspeed system, you are likely to be seeing an exaggerated effect; just as the marketing of VG kits tends to rely on the increasing error on the pitot head at higher angles of attack, giving an exaggerated reduction in stall speed, the same effect gives an exaggerated idea of the penalty for removing the VGs inboard of the fences. To get a more accurate idea of what is happening, I would normally use the sort of airspeed measuring system that is used for a certification exercise; i.e. at the very least, a swivelling-vane pitot, mounted one wing chord ahead of the wing leading edge, and a trailing-cone static. Accurate measurement of stall speed is one of the most difficult pieces of flight testing.Re the wing fences, I simply aligned them parallel with the aircraft's fore & aft axis. The form I use is what is termed a "short fence" in that wikipaedia article. It will develop the chordwise vortex when the inboard portion of the wing is forced to stall by the stall strips. Skewing them I assume means setting them at an angle, as one does with VGs; but that generates a vortex at all angles of attack, which is not what you need.

I use the original fixed pitot, but have done quite a few tests by flying in squares and averaging the GPS reading.

Getting a totally accurate air speed has not been a high priority; comparing the IAS readings should give me a fair idea.

I would, however, like to set up the pitot as you suggest in order to get more reliable readings.

I was reviewing some old testing video tonight, and was dissappointed to realise that after an awful lot of thoughtful modifications, my stall speed has not changed very much.

My fences are only skewed in by a degree or so, and when I do the next series of tests with wool-tufts I expect they'll be pretty much in line with the airflow (with camera mounted on tailplane).

Thanks for that - it puts it all into perspective. Very useful.I have been thinking, for quite a while, that there might be a niche for an aircraft that one might describe as "half a Cessna 180" - i.e. a two-seater, built to be durable, with sufficient power to be able to take off in less distance than it lands, with a full-flap stall speed just under 45 KCAS, and the docile sort of handling exhibited by the Seabird Seeker - but with a cruise speed around 130 KCAS...

You may be getting a kind of "falling leaf" effect, in which first one wing root separates and then the other - and it sets up a rythmic oscillation. I did warn that this might happen with a low-wing machine; with high wings, the initial stall spreads instantly from one wing fence to the other, so the whole centre-section stalls symmetrically, and there is no "tailwagging" effect.You may or may not be able to improve matters by adjusting the stall strips.

My fences seem to be doing a great job of preventing a wing drop- but at the expense of about 4kt extra minimum speed.

In trying to understand why, I am questioning one interesting source:

"The short fence (skewed in) does not increase CLmax, but makes the stall behavior more gradual. The short fence (skewed out) actually worsens stall performance." (http://gtae6343.wikia.com/wiki/Stall_Fences)

I could not find more detail on what they mean by skewed in. I installed my fences on the second rib out, the rear of the fence is closer to the fuselage than the front- ie paralleling the airflow

Could they have meant the opposite?

OK. Please let me know how you get on.

I followed Dafydd's suggestions (http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/do-vortex-generators-really-work.117300/page-2) but made my fences a little larger.

The biggest headache was doing major surgery to my carrier to accommodate the fences.

The results- power-off stalls, with first stage of flaps:

Without wing fence and stall strip: mushing at 41kt, losing 1000 fpm, then wing drop at 40kt.

With wing fences and stall strips: a disconcerting nodding and tailwagging at 45kt, losing 800fpm, no stall or wing drop. Presumably the oscillating is caused by the tail being bumped between the fence vortices. The nodding behaviour may be a result of the elevator rythmically bouncing off from the turbulent air from the inner wing.

Not the outcome I had hoped for; perhaps I can experiment with location of the stall strips

...There's a story going around that the fleet may be grounded until at least the end of the month while they conduct an in depth review of maintenance.

When testing the spark plugs with a spark plug tester I cant get the engine to spin fast enough to create a spark unless I take 1 spark plug out of each cylinder. Brand new starter and battery. Gap is set correctly to magnetos, new spark plugs ,new mags. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. New starter also

.........and power line grids in country areas have increased exponentially since the 1970's. Around the populated districts you can virtually count on a powerline somewhere across every property, most of them near invisible single wire lines, as state power companies have managed to service virtually every country house, and often surrounding sheds which can be half a kilometre away.

Welcome, 409. You seem to be slap bang in the middle of our demographic. You'll find this forum a bit like Wikipedia- a great source of information, much of it provided by enthusiastic amateurs, but there are many highly-qualified and experienced flyers on here as well. No doubt you have a story to tell about past aviating and what brought you to this forum.

Something else fascinates me: where people get their handle from. Mine is from the valley I grew up in.

Tanks.

Actually, I shouldn't have asked that question of Bex, especially given the sensitivity of the date his need to maintain good relations in a complex country.

I was speaking to the Regional Director of our Sheriff's Department earlier this week and he told me that they estimate 1 in 10 cars garaged locally are driven unregistered. The fine for this is $750 so it seems it's not an effective deterrent...but people haven't got the money, rego costs have just increased again, and they take the risk.Kaz

We've seen this in the USA where money has been put ahead of most other values, resulting in crime, family and social breakdown as people struggle to adapt to economic forces beyond their control. We've seen the downside of these policies, yet we keep copying them.

The success of North America (compared to South America) during the 20th century has been attributed to private owneship of land- farms, businesses and homes. People had something to work towards, something to value and protect. For so many in USA and Australia today, those seem impossible dreams.

"Enforce education"? Sounds like the Cultural Revolution. They say the easiest way to get people's attention is via the hip pocket: it seems to be the favoured tool of western governments. Bex I'd be interested in what suite of measures are employed in China to change people's behaviour.

...If the prospect of running out of fuel and crashing and possibly killing yourself doesn't stop people from running out of fuel in their aeroplane, why would you think that a fine would?Kaz

Really ... and just how many fatalities in road accidents have been statistically linked to mechanical faults that would have been picked up in mechanical check?...

Unfortunately Brent Thompson had to sell his business - he has Motor Neurone disease. The purchaser was Bill Izard, located at Kihikihi - he can be contacted via his website - www.omegapropellors.com. Brent made a lot of props for Jabs and they always performed better with one of his props. Bill has the same blanks that Brent used so anything he produces should have a similar performance.

It was/probably still is a life style for Al Gore, and I reckon Kevin Rudd enjoyed air travel, you will probably find he is still doing it at tax payersexpense, what exactly do you think he got done apart from burning incredible amounts of kero? The world is locked into and addicted to burning fossil fuel, with out it things would just grind to a halt. A carbon tax will not change that.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/former-prime-ministers-costing-us-millions/story-e6frfmd9-1225945641593

Who is advocating we stop using fossil fuels? Initiatives like the carbon tax and carbon trading help us in the transition to cleaner fuels. Government incentives helped get the solar cell industry up and running; in a few short years it's been more successful than even my greenie comrades could have imagined.

Don't you start that nonsense and try to catch me off guard.

Maybe name calling is not the best but I find it tiresome when every time we have a warm day there is some git on TV claiming this is evidence of climate change. Even if the theory is correct what do you propose to do? and don't say carbon tax that is nothing more than just a new tax. Al Gore the big promoter of the scam was living in a place that used massive amounts of energy, Kevin Rudd another promoter lived in a jet, if these people actually were serious why are they worse polluters than most others? You yourself certainly should not be flying a plane for fun that just makes you a hypocrite.

Yes I am a hypocrite for flying my plane for fun. (I have used less than 2000 litres of fuel in the last ten years. That's half a litre per day. A fraction of the energy use of many sports- and probably less than what many third-world people burn in their motorcycles.)

Yes, you are right about leaders using up a lot of resources globe-trotting. Perhaps that's the price of getting something done.

... i also want my kids to eat and there is no avoiding that our economies are what they are and can not be changed overnight like some demand, it's just impossible and none of you blokes are going to stop flying tomorrow. the changes need to be put in place at a speed the economic scales can bear without collapsing and it's not and was never going to happen overnight....

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-05/renewable-energy-target-panel-defends-conflict-interest-claims/5501372

Abbott has turned back the clock and investors are losing incentive to support new clean industries which could employ far more Australians than mining.

And a banana republic if Australia just does what it is told and toes the line to fix all the worlds problems, like the good little country we have been told to be. There is more at stake than a little embarrssment.