Marty_d

As for the price... the first models of anything are way over priced. I remember seeing one of the first plasma TV's in Aus, the price tag for that was $40,000 too! As volume increases and technology improves, both solar panels and battery packs will come down in price. It'll get to the stage where the advantages of electric that HITC mentioned - lower maintenance, higher reliability, low running costs etc, will outweigh the power and range advantages of petrol.

Just look at R/C - when I was flying models as a teenager, electrics were almost unheard of. We used to laugh at the occasional enthusiast who would get their 3 minute flight and then sit around for an hour while they recharged. Now it seems that the electrics have pretty much taken over, and it's the die-hard petrol heads with oil-slicked hands struggling with power panel, needle valve and chicken stick to start their recalcitrant engines that are the dying breed!

I think electric is the way of the future. As for the fossil fuels being used to produce the electricity, like the CSIRO bloke said on that Dick Smith show the other night - all their cars are charged using renewable energy produced by PV solar.

Hangars have large roof areas and Australia is sunny. Work it out...

Price isabit rich I think..........For a Single seat rag and tube.....

Especially since you still have to assemble it yourself!!

Love it!

My 5yo is unfortunately more into cars and *shudder* helicopters than planes, this might help straighten him out...

It's funny - over here, we tell Irish jokes... over there, they tell jokes about County Kerry folk. Don't know who the Kerry residents tell jokes about.

Dirty buggers. They'd have to have been maggoted.

Is that flies that keep it in the family?

Thanks Phil. P*ssed myself laughing. (Not literally).

When they are not apart the top one is a boy. Nev

He just took to horizontal what was intended to be vertical, that's all!

Well I was trying to be encouraging! When the kids get older getting some time for yourself gets easier, but investing time in your family is probably one of the best investments a person could make.

Oh I know... and fully admit it's my own lack of motivation, after the kids are in bed at 7:30 I could go down to the (cold) shed 2 or 3 evenings a week for 3 hours at a time. Guess it's like exercise, I don't do that either.

eightyknots if you did manage 10 hrs per week, and work on the build for say 40 weeks per year (time off for holidays, family commitments etc) and you are say 80% efficient (allowance for rework etc) for a 500 hour build (Savannah) then it will still take only 19 months. Promise the better half that you'll only need the garage for two years with a nice holiday at the end!Phil - we all get discouraged from time to time, but keep on truckin, look at the end goal - your own aircraft that you built!!

Even 10 hours a week is shooting for the moon when you have a young family... I have trouble getting more than about 2-3 hours a week - some weeks!

Think I need to make my shed more comfortable.

Yep really. A lot of schools teach 10 deg flap for all takeoffs & that is their prerogative so it will be in their checklist. The manufacturer says otherwise though if the field is not soft, rough or short but it does change with the model. The 172N says zero deg for short field takeoff but the 172P says 10 deg for short field takeoff. Go figure. All say zero deg for normal takeoff & 10 deg for soft/rough field takeoff.

To use Dazza's quote... "whale oil beef hooked!"

The POH for some aircraft with flaps don't recommend flaps for takeoff. e.g The C172 POH says zero flap for normal and short field takeoff and 10 deg flap for soft/rough field takeoff.

It was a lot of years ago but I remember always using 10 degrees flap on take off in the C172. Can't remember what the POH said but it was certainly on the checklist.

Enclosed cockpits with harness vs motorbike? Two different things. Your enclosed cockpit is far more similar to a car than a bike and as someone said, if you're not rallying or racing then you don't wear one in a car. I'm a fan of the 5-point harness and will be seriously considering putting them in the 701.

To anyone who likes the "wind in the hair" on a bike though, consider the following from the Motorcycle council of NSW:

"unhelmeted riders have 2-3 times the fatality rate of helmeted riders and twice the rate of serious brain injury (Ouellet & Kasantikul, 2006)."

http://www.roadsafety.mccofnsw.org.au/a/74.html

When I was young and even stupider than I am now, I went for a ride on the back of a mate's motorbike. We did 200km/h on a dirt road with no helmets. Looking back now I shiver at how stupid we were, and I dread the thought of my sons or daughter doing similar things.

Is that feeling of freedom worth the 2 - 3 times increased risk of leaving your brains over some power pole or spending the rest of your life eating through a straw?

Thanks FH - that makes a lot of sense.

Wouldn't it be all in the gearing? At the risk of revealing my ignorance, can you bolt on different ratio drives to the Rotax 912?

Original was 84 HP, depending on version of course.

they got $10k for it.

Not surprised - seemed cheap to me. It'll probably need heaps of money to restore to flying condition though.

Saw that - beautiful looking old plane. Perfect for someone with a big shed, lots of time and buckets of money!

At the risk of being stoned by the purists you could bolt on a 912UL with the cylinder heads hanging out in the breeze...

Trouble is, there's probably not much meat on politicians when you remove all the hot air!

Apart from Joe Hockey and Dick Adams, that is. Plenty of meat on them.

Slight thread drift - old farmer couple I knew had a cockatoo which would not only mimic the phone ring tone, but also would screech out "Max! MAX!! MAAAXX!!!" exactly like the wife - so old Max would drag his arthritic bones up from the shed to the house to find out what his wife wanted, only to find it was the bird.

I would have been tempted to shoot the damn thing.

Very pretty plane. I like it.

Using a spinning chain on that alloy nose cone would surely restrict them to about 2 attempts per spinner. Hell, in the days when there were still roughnecks on the drill floor (it's all automated now) we used to make up drill pipe connections like that. Those fellows should be protected against themselves! The mind boggles.

Gotta give them points for ingenuity. I'm assuming that they've just been caught out with a blown starter motor or something, and this is not their normal method of starting the aircraft!

Nursing homes are starting to give male residents Viagra every night.

Stops them from rolling out of bed...

Since my wife left, I started drinking heavily, bought a motorbike, and shagged two women.

Jeez she's going to be pissed off when she gets home from work.