Marty_d

Who's the media's boss lady? Gina Rinehart? Still a wannabe I think.

 

 

That'd get the heart pounding - especially the bit between the buildings!

 

 

My father self-published a book about his life, cost him about $3,000 for a print of 200 copies (with free editing) - obviously it gets cheaper per book the more you print. Of course then you have to do publicity, marketing etc. Mostly family members & friends bought the book and he gave a lot of them away, so

 

didn't make anything from it.

 

Personally I like e-books, my wife & I bought Kindles and cleared boxes of books out of our shed. Quick and easy to buy & download from Amazon. However a lot of people say they couldn't give up the feel of a paper book. My limited understanding of it is it's rarer than rocking-horse droppings for a first-time author to get picked up by a publishing house for a book deal, as they are generally risk-averse. So you can spend the money to self publish a real book or not spend the money and publish in E-book form - honestly don't know which way is better. Can you do both?

 

 

Agree with others here - fantastic. Are you planning on publishing as e-book as well?

 

 

That's impressive. I still think you'd get far better performance from something more streamlined - the C172 isn't the least "draggy" airframe there is! - But having said that, it's a damn good achievement.

 

For example - from Wikipedia...

 

The Boeing Fuel Cell Demonstrator Airplane has a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell/lithium-ion battery hybrid system to power an electric motor, which is coupled to a conventional propeller. The fuel cell provides all power for the cruise phase of flight. During takeoff and climb, the flight segment that requires the most power, the system draws on lightweight lithium-ion batteries.The demonstrator aircraft is a Dimona motor glider, built by Diamond Aircraft Industries of Austria, which also carried out structural modifications to the aircraft. With a wing span of 16.3 meters (53.5 feet), the airplane will be able to cruise at approximately 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) on power from the fuel cell.

What you say is very true. My first computer used an audio cassette drive and had 16Kb of memory. I don't think the term Gigabyte, let alone Terabyte, had actually been thought of because it would have been beyond dreaming about. Now my ebook (another pipe dream) has a million times more memory than that PC and my TV is hooked up to about 300 million times that memory. Quantum computing at the sub-molecular level is the next big step and at that stage imagination will be the only limiting factor.

 

It would be fantastic if battery technology continues to evolve as fast as it has been recently, let's face it - the weight, capacity and recharge speed of batteries is the only limiting factor in electric transportation of all types. Not to mention facilitating true off-grid sustainable energy production. And the electric motor is orders of magnitude simpler and more reliable than the infernal combustion engine. C172? I'd rather see a glider-style aircraft with a dozen small (maybe retractable) motors in the wings. Let's face it, you can flick the switch and turn them off when you don't need them.

 

 

A lot of nice 3D imagery, but I'd like to see them come up with a real prototype. Miniaturising to insect size a MAV containing engine, flapping mechanism, flight computer, communications, battery, GPS, operational legs, and optics - not to mention chemical or explosive payload - is a bit unlikely at this point in time, isn't it??

 

Someone bought me one of those cheap contra-rotating helicopters recently, about the size of your hand, but even that only flies for about 5 minutes before the battery needs recharging.

 

 

even up to $25,000 for killing a animal

I remember when practising forced landings in a C172, I asked the instructor what to do (in a real forced landing scenario) when sheep were in the way. He advised me to land anyway - apparently the sheep help you slow down quicker!

Didn't mention legal liabilities. I guess if you manage to walk away from it, you're happy to shell out to the farmer for the mutton you've just purchased.

 

 

High reving car and motorcycle engines run at about 10 - 20% 90% of the time whereas aircraft engines have to operate at 75% 90% of the time.

Good point - although the Honda VFR750 I used to own would happily sit on 5000 rpm all day when touring (redline was 11,500 so a bit more than 20%.)

One for the LAME's - are purpose-built aircraft engines such as Rotax "beefed up" or in any substantial way (engineering, metallurgy etc) different from motorbike engines?

 

Thanks for the info... I learn heaps from this site.

 

 

503, makes me want to go get one!! There's just something about 3-axis I like though.

 

 

I don't see high revving car and motorcycle engines with a redrive as the answer.

Why not?

 

Not being argumentative, I'm genuinely curious.

 

Reason being, I'm very interested in using a BMW 1150 motor with the Take Off redrive for my 701. If there are reasons why this is a bad idea, I really want to hear them before I lay out the cash!

 

Thanks.

 

 

Virgin, hang glider

Not if you're in Tassie. On many occasions I drove my old XE Falcon 130km, lugged the hang glider to the top of the hill, then got a total of 5 minutes flight time. That's on the times the wind hadn't changed and was the wrong direction, too strong or non existent, in which case the glider got lugged back down again and driven back to Hobart. I reckon in terms of car fuel cost per hour of flight, even Qantas business class would be cheaper.

 

 

Hardly a cross country vehicle when you have to fill up every 50 km. Plus the noise of that 2 stroke sounds like the world's biggest brushcutter, that'd get old real fast.

 

And - just noticed... Carbon fibre Engine Heads?? I'm not an engineer or mechanic, but never heard of that before. Wonder what sort of engine life it'll have.

 

 

've always wanted to fly an open biplane from the US to OZ via Russia

I'd be too afraid some ZU-23 crew with itchy trigger fingers would use me for target practice.

 

 

Is Elm Farm Ollie any relation to Guernsey?

 

 

Hi Flyerme, really enjoying the story, you've got a talent there. Best of luck with publishing, can't wait for the movie - or will it be a TV series??

 

Ewan McGregor playing Jack I reckon... he loves planes, his brother's in the RAF - they did that Spitfire special a few years ago. Plus he's not afraid of an adventure, given his "Long Way Round" motorbike journey!

 

Laughed myself silly at the "smelly hitch hiker" chapter. It's an unfortunate fact of life though that when you gotta go, you gotta go... this happened to me when hang gliding once, well fortunately on top of the hill before I launched. I watched where I put my feet though.

 

 

I reckon they've done some photoshopping around the canopy too. It could be a large R/C scale model, or just a modified picture of the full size one, but it is definitely not real.

 

What I can say for certain is that the propeller blades cast no shadow, the "grain" (for want of a better word) of the plane's image is different from the man and the light source for man and plane are on 2 different angles.

 

If you reckon this plane is real, I have a flying hotel to sell you....

 

 

 

I didn't photoshop the SR71, as I understand it someone in the US built it, it has a pair of 0-200s in it I think.

Nope - definitely a fake. If you look at the photo closely you can see that the SR-71 and its shadow have been pasted (very cleverly) onto the concrete background. Some propeller blades have been pasted onto the inlet cone (funny how they don't cast a shadow!) and then the lad in the overalls pasted on. If you check out the shadows of his legs, they appear to end around knee height...

Plus, there must be 2 suns in that sky, as the bloke has the light on the side of his face, but the aircraft's shadow is right below it...

 

(Yes I looked at this for way too long!!)

 

 

I just found this thread again after a few months, love it.

 

However....

 

I would prefer a designer of most ugly planes. This would have to be chris heintz from zenair.Functional designs but only a mother could love the look. And yes i owned a zodiac once.

I will now run and hide.

grrrr...

 

I like the look of the 701 (or Savannah, given it looks pretty much identical) in the same way I like the look of the Landrover Defender. "Chunky and angular but functional as all hell" can have its own attractiveness in vehicles...

 

HITC, love the photoshopped SR-71. Your work?

 

Also love the biplane design. Fantastic stuff.

 

 

If it is a car, it'd be breezy at highway speeds.

 

 

I like the turbine-powered flying motorbikes in the movie "The Island". Can't wait til someone invents an anti-gravity device...

 

 

Flirting with Death in a so called flying car.

What makes that a flying car?? All you see in the clip is a set of rudder pedals. Could be any homebuilt aircraft. The fact that he lands it on a suburban street means nothing - in 2010 a bloke put a Victa Airtourer down on the southbound lanes of the Brooker Ave here in Hobart, which wouldn't be any wider than the street in the clip. Admittedly it didn't end real well for the plane, but he walked away from it.

 

 

PIC? C172. Flown in? 747. (About 30 metres from the controls...)

 

Went for a joyflight in a 2-seat Pitts once. The G-meter touched 5.5 a couple of times. Wildest ride of my life!

 

 

My addition to the survival pack would be some female company. If too heavy, then an inflatable version would do.

Would that double as a flirtation device?

 

 

On Ebay...

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/gyrocopter-ultralight-aircraft-engine-new-Hirth-F30-80hp-with-gearbox-/321061797630?pt=AU_Aircraft_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4ac0c63efe&_uhb=1#ht_826wt_1186

 

Considering different engine types for CH-701 project. I know this is a 2-stroke so it'd sound like an overgrown chainsaw, but any pros/cons/advice people can give? Thanks!