Old Koreelah

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

... Jabiru always warn against "over propping" their motors. Nev.

I was led to believe a major reason is to keep revs up and avoid detonation. Luckily I’ve only experienced piston rattle in an old Falcon car, when loading up the engine at low revs.
Nev maybe you could comment on my hazy understanding of this; if the prop’s pitch is too course it causes the engine to work harder to make revs, allowing the flame front to propagate across the combustion chamber before TDC is reached.

My dreams of flight started with watching magpies at dusk after the day’s work was done. They’d skim down our gently sloping paddock for a hundred meters or more, then pull up into a dramatic stall and touch down. Then they’d strut around enjoying the glow before flying back up the hill to do it all again.
 

I always wanted to do that as well. Landing my plane on that paddock would be a tick off the bucket list, but, alas, the soil there is an unusual type, with enough hummocks to put off any aircraft without tundra tyres.

9 hours ago, kgwilson said:

... Also 98 stinks & the aromatics permeate through my Vinylester fuselage mounted tank & the cockpit reeks when the canopy is first opened...

Kev I too have vinyl ester tanks so that’s interesting. Does 95 have the same problem?
 

This recent AvGas issue got my attention; the buildup of crap inside my combustion chambers had me concerned enough to give my engine a dose of the Subaru cleaner.

Looks like I’ve been waiting in vain for lead-free AvGas. I’ve stuck with proper aeroplane fuel because we were told of Jab engines being damaged by low-quality car fuel, so it’s good to hear that you and others have had years of trouble-free experience with it.
 

I’m very tempted to fill one wing tank with MoGas before a long trip, so I can start, takeoff and climb with AvGas and then switch over to MoGas for cruising. 
 

One problem then is that I’d be using so little AvGas that my drum would only need refilling every second year- and our supplier is a stickler for the rules.

3 minutes ago, RFguy said:

Oh it runs richer? OK.  mmmmmm.  even at  wide open settings ?

Too plurry right!

6 hours ago, RFguy said:

...How bad  does the mixture go at 8500 feet with the carb ?  Can a tiny bit of choke pulled on rich it up a bit if necessary?..

That would make it worse, RF. The Bing runs richer above its optimum altitude; I’ve seen some frightening fuel flow numbers up very high.

15 hours ago, Mike Gearon said:

...Cattle also love new grass the best. Must be tastier when new shoots so they’ll intensively graze the mowed area anyway.

That’s a whole story in itself; plants communicate among themselves about the approach of grazing animals and release toxins into their leaves/blades of grass to encourage animals to bugger off in search of better-tasting fare.

Quote

 

I guess what I’m saying is keep your main runway to prevailing wind direction mowed and otherwise just land in between the cattle on the less rough stuff. That’s my plan.

Good luck with that, Mike. Cattle tend to wander in front cars and trucks, so why not your plane?

The other problem is after you’ve parked your precious aeroplane they are likely to gather around for an inspection, or to rub their itchy bits on its extremities.

13 minutes ago, ClintonB said:

Buy or borrow a large enough paddock To land in all directions just like some of the WWII fields, takes all the hassle out of it.😁

Some of our farmer pilots might tell you the cost in (lost revenue) of leaving a strip of paddock uncultivated Is considerable. 

Who can afford a whole paddock?

I think all motorcyclists perform better with a bit of serious off road experience and be able to let the bike hang loose a bit. A slide isn't the end of the world generally unless the bike is a real lead sled.. . Co ordination is still part of it...

Very true, Nev. Good advice that I didn't follow. I hadn't ridden a bicycle and my first ride in a motorcycle was a 650 Thunderbird, in peak hour traffic. The best road racers seem to have learned on the dirt from an early age.

...Several iterations (at altitude) in a Mooney 20E yielded average altitude losses in a 180° turn of:

360′ lost at 30° bank,

270′ lost at 45° bank, and

200′ lost at 60° bank.

Very useful; been a while since I did this sort of homework.

What would have been the result if, instead of starting to react when he did, he sat there and counted six seconds and then tried to complete it?

... If we are going out to practice ourselves, recation time might even be 25/100 sec. Even if we decide to set a random alarm to give ourselves a surprise we are still ready.

Yonks ago a car pulled out in front of my new Ducati, spilling me down the tarmac. After I got the bike back on the road I started practicing how I should have reacted. For a random, no-warning trigger, I decided that each time a bird flew across the road I would treat that as a life-threatening car or kangaroo.

After a dozen such simulations it was amazing how much I could toss the Ducati about.

Sure wish that was transferable to my plane, but reactions are now much slower and I'm no longer bullet-proof.

...I have several adhesive mounting bases (for want of a better word) so I stuck one to the front, in the center of the wind-screen, about 10 inches from the top! I can see the screen and I can reach over the top to start and stop the recording...

Interesting; the camera moves a little in relation to the screen, so it must be a flexible mount. Still very smooth footage; no prop turbulence to deal with. Very nice music too- a great ad for our movement. (Just don't get too close to the fluffy white stuff.)

Frank that's a pretty awesome video for a first effort!

What was the camera mounted on?

Here are some other flyers we can envy:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-21/sydney-airport-opens-to-small-planes-for-unique-opportunity/12668870

??

Land, stop rotation of wing, lock it fore and aft, taxi to hangar, where your aircraft takes up less space than a small car.

Gyros are starting to look more attractive.

As others have said, any prop hitting enough raindrops is going to suffer damage and the wooden Jabiru prop needs TLC, even with its leading edge cover and layer of fiberglass.

Murphy dictates that your prop will encounter rain at some stage, so you need to reduce the impact speed as much as possible. It’s useful to know the minimum prop speed that can sustain flight.

Mine is around 2000 rpm, which gets me airborne and can sustain around 55kt in level flight. That means the leading edge gets nicely cleaned by drizzle, or quickly abraded by proper raindrops.

...If money were no object I would have a very large hangar, and gradually fill it with the flying dreams of (mostly) men: the machines they built. There are so very many out there, and some of them so beautifully built too.....................

One very experienced CASA bloke told me that every shed has a part-built aeroplane in it. There‘s one in my shed too; I put lots of work into it and was helped by several of this country’s best designers. Too many other projects to complete this one, so I hope it finds a good home one day.

...they are in the USA and difficult to talk to.

I’ve been able to phone a helpful guy in Oz several times over the years; this is the only number I could find:

02 85203208

I read somewhere that the Chinese were doing virus research in Canada but were told to go.

Now another story has come to light that all is Not as we were told !.

" The revelation that the Wuhan Institute was experimenting on bats from the area already known to be the source of

COVID-19 - and doing so with American money - has sparked further fears that the lab, " wuFlu.txt

" Doctor Li-Meng Yan, who published a study undermining the origin theory that coronavirus naturally occurred,

Told Fox News it did not come from nature.

“This is created in the lab,” she told Fox News. ". WuFlu2.txt.

spacesailor

Spacey that story is like the conspiracy theories that are causing people to do stupid things during this pandemic.

Check your sources: “I read it somewhere” and Fox News are equally unreliable.

NFW ! I am not having switches and contacts with electrical currents going click near gasoline. You gotta be kidding ?!!!! ?????. (maybe near kerosene but not gas)

(I have a background in intrinsically safe environments- I have an aversion to explosive environments and electricity)

Another source of sparks: I’ve been advised that in certain conditions static electricity can be created by fuel pouring into the funnel. I have a plastic shroud around mine to encase the fuel vapor and, hopefully, keep its concentration too high for ignition.

Hey all,

 

So currently I am running a GoPro in the cockpit and it records both video and the audio from our Comms. However, it's a bit of a pain with cards and batteries etc, and so was just wondering if there is a solution (other than go pro) that sort of works like a Dash Cam. Just loops if need be, but can still connect to Comms?

 

What are you guys all using?

 

Cheers

J

I too am not satisfied with my old GoPro, but persist with it. A new battery was inexpensive and greatly improved duration, but I also plug in an external battery to extend recording time. Recording can be set to loop.

The memory card has also needed replacing every few years.

Another problem: it’s major role has always been to record test flights but lately the picture quality hasn’t been good enough to read the instruments.

The best solution that I am aware of is to wear foam ear plugs and an ANR headset...

Even better is custom-made earplugs, which you can mould in your ear yourself. The kits are cheap as chips and available on eBay.

Having the prop in front is the main problem; it dirties up all the air behind it.

...They also needed rubber and oil.. They called their action the South East Asia Co- Prosperity something or other. They'd invaded Korea and China quite a while before and expected India to come- across and support the liberation of India from the Poms...

When, in the late 1950s, Japan decided to build the bullet train in time for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, it was actually a return to a pre-war project. The Shinkansen network was originally meant to go under the sea to Korea, south through China and on to India.

One of the clearest summaries I've seen, of the geo-politics leading to Pearl Harbour

(in less than 2 mins ;-) is at the start of this film about the Zero

 

Excellent summary, Garfly.

Without excusing the fascist, militarist regimes of our enemies, I’ve long held the view that Australia’s Billy Hughes was a major cause of WWII. His was one of the strongest voices arguing for punishing the starving, defeated Germans with war reparations, while wiser leaders like Woodrow Wilson predicted that approach would lead to another war.

Hughes was intransigent in his opposition to the Japanese being treated as equal to westerners, despite all the help Japan gave to the allies in WWI. This led to the Japanese delegates walking out of the League of Nations.

Humiliated, Japan’s moderate government was propressively pushed aside (or murdered) by militarists, who knew their country could not earn respect without an empire of its own.

Great post. Interesting to note the factory was dedicated six months before Pearl Harbor. So someone in the administration was thinking ahead.

...and Americans still believe that the Pearl Harbour attack was a great surprise. Japan was pushed into a corner by America and the outcome was obvious.