turboplanner

I'm designing one with an electric motor powered by a fuel cell which uses hydrogen captured from the air it will fly through with solar panels on the upper surfaces, so it doesn't need recharging, but it's just in the design stage at this time.

Back in the present there was an effort made last year for a world record in SA in a Pipstrel.

The owner did was he said the aircraft could do and completed the trip.

The aircraft had a 35 to 45 minute range, so he had a ground crew towing two generators to recharge the batteries every hour.

That's an expensive way to fly around Australia.

On 28/05/2021 at 4:50 PM, Bruce Tuncks said:

Yesterday I tried, from a cold start, opening the throttle a few seconds after the engine started with choke, and sure enough it stopped. 

In nearly 20 years of avgas, I had fallen into the habit of opening the throttle early on to get the revs over 1000 when the engine runs much smoother than with the 600 rpm idle I have it set to. Not once did it cause the engine to stop, so this is the only difference between mogas and avgas I have noticed so far.

The slow idle is in order to shorten the ground run after landing, and yes it is marginal. But on a warmed up engine, there is no more tendancy for stoppage than before the change to mogas.

So thanks again guys for the help.

Having talked about warmup, there's another trail you can follow.

Mogas aint mogas

Mogas is slang for US motor gasoline and their standards of fuels are hugely different to ours which some people would say are some of the cheapest and dirtiest in the world.

Just talking about petrol.

First you have to get away from suppliers who from time to time adulterate their tanks with thinners or other cheap byproducts.

Next, unless you use the engine every day you have to get away from cheap alternatives like ethanol which can block  the non-serviceable/reachable parts of carbys.

Next, again unless you use the engine every day you have to get away from petrol types which specify ethanol percentages or are likely to pad out their product with cheaper ethanol.

That leaves you, depending on the Brand with one or two options.

If you pick the top option, you don't get any of the problems with the type mentioned above, but it contains aromatics which evaporate off in the tank over time, so after a couple of weeks idle you may not be able to start the engine. This is easily fixed by pouring in a litre or two of fresh fuel and this seems to catalyse the whole tank.

From your description, you're not having any aromatic problem.

However, I wonder if instead of your fond memory of what Avgas used to do, the carby may have got a dose of ethanol residue in the idle to 1/4 segment of the carby?

14 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

All engines should be warmed prior to loading (flying/driving/mowing the lawn/ plowing the paddock/ etc)

 

Petrol, in particular, need to be warmed before a smooth running/power delivery can be expected.

 

Recent computer management/fuel injected systems may not appear to need the warm up period but I suggest this is the computer masking the symptoms of a cold stat rather than actually preventing them.

 

Two strokes seem to get over the warm up chugs quicker than 4/

 

Diesel engines appear to not have the problem at all however good engine management still calls for a warm period.

 

So the type of fuel (even the grade/RON of petrol) may impact on the time taken to warm up - should not be an issue for any pilot, unless expecting to conduct an emergency take off due to attacking enemy🤣

You're covering a lot of territory there with a lot of different reasons but it does show an understanding of how to increase reliability and engine life.

Another factor is whether the engine is desined for intermittent power or constant power at a selected operating rpm.

Piston aircraft engines fit into the constant power class, so when designed as aircraft engines, the designer will be looking to optimise engine life at that rpm.

When you're setting tolerances life isn't always easy; sometimes you might be lucky and only have to contend with a single expansion load, other times you may have several disparate metals that produce one or two optimums so you have to compromies, and the product will be tighter and wear more at one rpm than another.

With a constant power engine the decision is easier, you set the tolerances to give minimum wear at operating temperature at the constant speed (cruise) setting.

It follows that at lower temperatures there will be more wear and the less rpm the less the wear, so usually a constant power engine should be warmed up before use.

A pilot doing less than 5 hours a year isn't even going to have this in their head, but an owner might.

In heavy trucks it's a financial consideration. In line haul operations where oil changes and tyre changes are done over the pit at the same time and the engines never cool down, the time to in-frame rebuild can be $40,000.00  less than a short haul engine.

....chicken.

Not many people are aware that these days Australians buy 97% bacon from Chinese pigs raised on human excreta.

Turbine Agribusiness tried to start a piggery model feeding them on byproducts from Turbine CAT, but the human stuff is free and you can't beat that. TC even tried shaving the pigs and selling the hairs (dyed) as Alpine Mink but sales slumped.

You'd wonder how these people can make a success of selling Human SXXX around the world, but be so dumb as to copy Cappy's clever sheet of corrugated iron which would prevent the craft from landing.

Nearly as dumb as Mal Turnbull buying dud subs from the French and, ......................

You don't have to worry about plug gap with them. One guy was copmplaining about lack of spark on his Jawa; the lead was only throwing a half inch spark and he knew of someone in Queensland that made magnetos that REALLY threw a spark!.

5 minutes ago, facthunter said:

the "Thing" that allows you to start it seeing the CR is about 13/1 is starting it with the throttle closed and only the choke on (by pass type).   The cylinder doesn't fill.   You can do the same with an aero engine if you want to be kind to it.  Nev

Yes they're vicious pieces of work (the bikes) I've seen them started by people with the knack of an arm flick of the tyre. The riders are a different breed of people too. How they are not disembowelled by that open back tyre I'll never know.

54 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Very cunning. You don't have enough fuel for 6 laps. 

 I'll tell you something though. The Shed smells beautiful for about 6 months after it's used.  Nev

You were right in terms of the bikes. When you buy the engine it's set for methanol and set to race, so no changes to timing.

LOL I’ll take you on for six laps then.

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I reckon the methanol absorbs the water nicely and makes it less likely to go to the carby bowl and build up there like facthunter says to avoid.

 

You don't want methanol in the carby bowl either or the bowl and jets will be full of the waste from its reaction to whatever it can eat.

The injection should be downstream of the petrol jets so how would the water/methanol get back up into the bowl?

I'm curious about the reason for injecting methanol; if you want to use water injection to cool the head area, what is the purpose of the methanol, when you can just increase the richness of the petrol?

Very broadly to get the same result an engine needs about twice the volume of methanol than it does when running on petrol - so there's a major volume difference.

Methanol burns slower than petrol, so you have a burn conflict in the combustion chamber with non-burning junk in the way of the initial petrol flame.

In the car industry, water injection kits were available from speed shops a few decades ago, but they came and they went, so there wasn't really a consistent opinion on benefit.

I'm not saying methanol wouldn't work, but when I use it I have to reject the carb to 2x and advance the ignition, which take time to get right on engines where compession ratio has been increased.

............public speaker on the subject of Recreational Aircraft [avref], and ....

...wrong. Cappy at heart was an honest sort of character, except when chatting up chicks, and he was torn between making money and cheating (except with chicks like Mavis), but nobody notived he was cutting with the back of the axe. The audience was mostly worn out mothers who'd found the few seats at the show to rest and were able to turn the kids loose among the axemen hoping they'd be knocked out or at least slowed down by flying chips.

It was this way for Cappy for seven years until one day, when he was cutting with the handle .........................

....efforts Cappy went to every year to win the wood chopping event. It looked like a well run event, and had been for years until Loxie's father started a gambling ring, and they "turned" Cappy to win or run dead.

You knew the fix was in when you looked at the logs and saw that Cappy's was lighter (pine) and he was going to win, or darker (ironbark) and he was going to lose, and Turbo made enough money for his first investment, a rotary lawn mower design he called Victa, but his observation skills, and .........

....show up in his Daimler (he was one of the Devil's as well), and they had to fall in behind him.

They would all gather at the Clock's Arms afterwards and Bob would hit up Phil for another Australian Tour where they would play two up while Phil's wife opened the Sydney Easter Show in the days when people attended it, and .........

.....Opposition started waking up to the fact that three quarters of Australia's budget was spent on Bob's trips to England where he was ......

4 minutes ago, Captain said:

..... meant that he had to buy some mirrors, before the .....

 

THIS WAS BOB'S FAVOURITE T-SHIRT THAT HE CHANGED INTO EACH DAY AFTER QUESTION TIME.

What a fantastic shot of the 56 Chevy!

1 hour ago, Captain said:

.... purgatory, which is the name given to the back bar at the Blue Oyster, where the All Star Band that plays every night (without a drinks or dunny break, so it really is hell) comprises Judas (Lead Guitar), Pontius Pilate (Rhythm Guitar), Turbo (Bass) and The Snake (on drums) .... although The Serpent's repertoire is a bit limited because he can only use one ............

 

THE BUST (NTTIAWWT) OF PONTIUS IN THE ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME.

 

 

PONTIUS'S GIBSON IS IN A SHRINE IN THE JERUSALEM HARD ROCK CAFE.

HE WAS 2000 YEARS AHEAD OF HIS TIME BY GOING GREEN.

....drumstick, but he's pretty good with an apple when Houdini starts his magic routine.

Not many people know that Bob Menzies was a Hot Rodder and this is how the devil claimed him. He put up a good front, in fact a double breasted front in his suits during the day, but at night Canberra rocked to the sound of his Ford Customline with the supercharged 272 and 8 inch slicks, and he was making smoke most of the night which .............

.....who was actually a cousin of Cappy. That’s the current Satan; they die to you know usually because their prong gets blunt. This one was a gin swiller too so he and Cappy got up to all sorts of mischief in .....

KR do you phone ML a couple of hours ahead to request an Airways  Clearance?

22 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

 Its like this Turbs; The only way out of the Sydney Basin, that does not involve flying over very rugged/extensive urban development, is south, towards you. So no matter what aircraft you fly, getting out of the Basin, N, & W is going to involve additional risk. The challenge is to mitigate that risk (its unavoidable). For all my west & north west trips, exiting as high as I can go, CTA steps permitting, via Katoomba (the only potential emergency landing area actually in the mountains) is my usual plan.

You're looking for a runway; I'm looking for a survivable fotced landing. We've had hundreds of no-damage GA forced landings in Melbourne, most on golf courses. I'm not sure I could get a Jab to stop in the same time as a Warrior or 172, but now that Katoomba has gone, if you were going to lose an engine in that vicinity, within a few minutes I found, further out from Sydney  3.15 km - golf course, 4.9 km paddock, 6.6 km paddocks, 9.8 km paddocks, 15.62 km golf course.

Back towards Sydney, from Katoomba -5.2 km golf course, 6.3 km ovals, 25 km golf course, 34 km paddock.

A few years ago a few of us got together and looked for safe routes north from Melbourne without diverting too far west. A person wanted to attend a meeting in the mountains. It was amazing how far we were able to get him with safe forced landing spots.

"Any RA pilots notice anything about the aerial photo of Katoomba I put up a few posts ago?"

I put this question up on Monday, and while the thread has spun off into a general spit about governments and Australian flying in general, no one has commented.

Facthunter has often made the statement that you should never fly over something you can't land on.

The Katoomba Airfield has no field. There's nothing you can land on other than the runways without an almost certain fatal result.

The question really should be "Why worry about its closure?"

For an RA aircraft with a placard on the panel telling you that an engine failure is more likely than in a GA aircraft, there's no solution for a short EFATO, you're going to die, and for much of the circuit a turn back is likely to produce a similar result. Same goes for the flight in and the fight out.

A few pilots have decided to quite RA after seeing the results of the monthly fatals, but often those fatals are dues to bad habits than fate. You can make a major safety improvement by not developing the habits. In this case you could make a major improvement to your future by not going anywhere near Katoomba.

Rod Hay, well known in RA circles, apparently was actually teaching there, and he died there (story below).

That crash was possibly why the airstrip fell into disuse.

WX00168.pdf

21 hours ago, KRviator said:

@turboplannerAnd let's not mention the rest of the airspace abomination that is Australia. Consider that you can go straight over the top of LAX, JFK or SFO in Class E in the US yet here you're stuck low level over tiger country or coastal because you can't get a decent clearance though an unoccupied Class D! 

This is a Recreational Aviation site.

FAR Part 103 Pilot and Aircraft

We’ve established that FAR Part 103 aircraft can’t fly over LAX.

US SP/LSA Pilot and Aircraft

Can fly in Class E & G Airspace

Can Fly in Classes B, C, D with appropriate training

Prohibited from Class A

International Airports (e.g. LAX) use Class B which goes up to Class E, Class E goes up from there to Class A

LAX Class B includes VFR “transition routes”

One of these, the Mini Route goes directly above the numbers of both LAX runways.

You can fly through these transition routes.

AUS RA Pilot and Aircraft

Can fly in Controlled Airspace subject to training and aircraft equipment.

International Airports use Class C which goes all the way up to Class A

In Australia, we have Light Aircraft Lanes within Controlled Airspace

You can transit these lanes through Class B (e.g. Melbourne Airport)

These lanes are designed to get you through congested airports without having to obtain an Airways clearance. e.g. If flying from Moorabbin Airport to Ballarat you transit via the LAL with just a general call to alert other VFR flights you have entered the LAL.

The intention is that you use the Transition Routes in the US, LAL in Australia to speed up your trip because these are not controlled airspace. So, in Australia you don’t have to make a prior call requesting Airways Clearance, and you won’t be subject to 15 to 30 minute delays.

That’s a very brief outline for recreational pilots who qualify for controlled airspace.

GA Pilot and Aircraft

I’m not going to cover GA/PPL because I finished up with about 20 pages of ICAO/US/AUS comparison, and its better argued out on GA sites.

You could sum it up by saying that the diagramme below of US Airspace classes indicates that you could, as KR says fly over the top of LAX in Class E, whereas you can’t in Australia, HOWEVER, Class E is Controlled Airspace, as is Australia’s Class C, so by my reading a PPL could request an Airways Clearance to fly over the top of Melbourne Airport on the same basis as a US pilot would fly over the top of LAX, but you wouldn’t bother because the VFR lanes are easier and faster.

Class D is not a direct comparison with an International Airport.

1 minute ago, jackc said:

That is for the no licence, no rego flyers…….

Ultralights/Recreational Aircraft

1 hour ago, jackc said:

The thing that peeves me is having to pore over charts when checking G airspace, too much information clutter where something important could be missed.   If only there were charts primarily for RAA pilot use. 

I'm assuming you're referring to the local area near your strip.

They aren't going to make up maps for RA aircraft because they aren't expected in the zone, and I agree tying to sort out where you can go while at the same time trying to dodge a rainstorm without making an incursion and with the aircraft bouncing around is a nightmare. What I've done is get a small rung binder (A5) and do my own page with any special procedures - pretty much what you're asking for. While you're making the page up you're learning critical points.

29 minutes ago, KRviator said:

Things they are allowed to do (still):
VFR in E - straight over the top of a major international airport, no clearance required. Try that in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane - you can't.
 

USA - FAR Part 103

Section 103.15 "No person may operate an Ultralight vehicle over any congested area of a city, twon or settlement or over any open air assembly of persons.

Just now, aro said:

Which "things" have you searched for? I am not aware of changes in the US regulations, but Australian regulations seem to be going backwards e.g. maintenance on Experimental aircraft.

Probably a dozen different things over the past decade brought up on this site, where I posted the current/new US regulation.

Most of them were significant changes made to comply with ICAO standards, for which Australia had made the ICAO changes the people were bitching about.