IBob

Marty, re the 912 oil pressure: Originally Rotax fitted a VDO (or VDO type) sensor. These put out a voltage, but were prone to failure. They then moved to a sensor that puts out 4-20mA, which is far more reliable. However, you need the right gauge to go with whichever sensor you have: they are not interchangeable.

Apologies if I've misunderstood: You should have coolant already in the overflow, with the overflow pipe going down to the bottom of that. I ran with my overflow about 50%full when cold. As for this first run: you quite possibly had air in the system, so I would not expect to see coolant passing immediately into the overflow.

Excellent, Marty! And Blueadventures is right. I think Rotax now reccomend initial warmup at 2200RPM, easing back to 2000RPM after some minutes. And mine always felt good at those cold to warm settings. As for getting the oil temp up with a ground run, you may well have to blank off part of the radiator. The 912 is very slow to warm the oil regardless...

Looking great, Marty! I fired mine up with the cowls off, allows an observer to check for leaks during the initial run, I had a fuel leak at the splitter. Also for any pipework or wiring etc that is vibrating and requires further securing.

My test pilot grabbed the cowl through the front airholes and checked it for movement. That was added to my own walkround......

It seems to me he's grasping at straws.........but I can agree with his larger point: that it's all speculation unless we get a good look at the detail of the data. And until then, it is wrong to be suggesting where the error/s may lie.

I've jumped (from) a couple of Drovers, Queensland in the '70s and later in NZ. The Qld one was a hoot: they loaded 10 people in it, took off and spent about an hour getting to 4000'. At which point they tossed a couple of volunteers out to lighten the load. Quite some time after that, and when they still had not made it to 8000', the rest of us retired to the pub, from where we could see them distantly and forlornly circling as the sun went down. I believe after that they swapped the props, which produced some improvement. Oh, and I don't think that one had any starters on the motors, they all had to be swung. A strange aircraft: seemed to fly in a distinctly tail down attitude, even when not actually trying to climb. Perhaps a result of increasing the dihedral on the horizontal stabiliser to stop it also wagging it's tail as it proceeded.....

Megaloop, It is certainly confusing: welcome to the wonderful world of ICP documentation. Great little aircraft, though! I have no experience of this, but your 07-07-51 (July 2007) would put you well beyond 01-05-51 (January 2005, or May 2001, whichever that is). By which point presumably they had improved the construction. It is odd that this work involves replacing parts with parts with identical numbers. And good luck to anyone trying to do two wings in 13.5hrs. I can only think this is ICP factory time, with all required tools and jigs and experience.

I guess if it happens at cruise speed, it's more likely to blow the doors off.

The Foxbat does not use the firewall-to-wingroots steelwork to support the screen. The screen is held/supported only at top, bottom and sides. I think that's the case?

https://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=1615FC4A-7175-4D37-8CAE-2DA78E64A857

We had one of those in NZ a few years back: same thing, screen let go and doors immediately blew off. He was less fortunate and then pitched over on landing.

Well, there you have it: once upon a time the army didn't fly that sector if there was inbound/outbound airfield traffic. Then somehow they began doing that...........

I think it's right to say the US glorifies and lionises it's military. To an astonishing degree in some of the US military centres, where the leadership are treated like nobility. I wonder if at times that translates to the military coming first in whatever they do.......with civilian activities expected to fit around that. A mindset.............?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360773615/fighter-jet-performs-nail-biting-low-pass

I recall reading somewhere that he was not a particularly gifted pilot.......but he had a lot of shooting experience, could have been game birds in which case he'd haver a good eye with a moving target and where to point the gun......

Probably two reasons for that, Onetrack. I believe what is being reported here is so-called 'leaked' information. So we have no idea how authoritative it is. That, and a tendency for folk to fill in the gaps with their own suppositions.

I agree with all your above Onetrack. I programmed decades of automation (though not in aircraft). I had a lot to do with logging plant data, also examining it. And I have a strong troubleshooting background. On that basis I would like to add this: There are lots of posts here that assume the EAFR cannot be wrong, in either the data it logs, or the timestamps. So there seems to be a general acceptance that certain exact things happened at certain exact times. While I have no doubt that the people who design these systems do everything they can to ensure that, we cannot be sure that is so. The data accuracy depends on where the data is sourced and how robust that source is (in this case in accurately reflecting the state of some switches). We should not be simply assuming that the EAFR 'looks' at the switches. It is entirely possible that it 'looks at' something in the software that is interpreting the condition of those switches. In which case there is more to consider than just a couple of switches. Regarding the timestamps: the EAFR is sharing a common central comms bus with many other things. And it is capturing a broad array of data. Whether it grabs all this data pretty much in one burst, or a bit at a time, I don't know. But any major disruption of those central comms...or indeed any failure to answer by whatever provides the data... has the potential to put the time stamps out from the actual events.The timestamp is when the EAFR managed to source the data. We need to be confident of rapid uninterrupted data access for those timestamps to be taken as accurate. I write this not to further muddy the waters. But from the info provided, I think we should be saying 'The switches were logged off/on at these specific times.' Not 'The switches went off/on at these specific times.' I should end by saying that close inspection of the captured data and of how and where that data is sourced would clarify much of the above. And I am hopeful that there are impartial investigators with access to do that.

Some comments here are clearly so one-eyed and judgemental, I've taken to just skipping over them. Here are 787 Oral Notes that go some way towards describing the general layout of the electronics and automation: https://pdfcoffee.com/787-oral-notesdocx-2-pdf-free.html

Certainly the information released to date indicates that, Roundsounds. However, given the circumstances, I'm sure you would agree that all possibilities need to be investigated.

One would like to think so Thruster. But then we don't know what we don't know, and sometimes that means we don't know what to ask. For instance, a lot of contributors here seem to be locked onto the idea that the FDR is directly monitoring those switches. That may be so, but it is also entirely possible that it is monitoring something in the logic that is 'looking at' those switches. In which case one has to look not only at the switches, but at that logic. And, again for instance, nobody has thought to consider the approx 1 sec between the two switches being logged as off. Maybe that was so. But the FDR is accessing and logging a great deal of data, a bit at a time, presumably by repetitively scanning all the stuff it is supposed to pick up. That approx 1 sec could be due to the scanning rate, the difference between the time it looked at switch 1 then switch 2. For me a major red flag in all this is that it took place at rotation. That, to me, remains an enormous 'coincidence'.

Roundsounds, I watched part of an analysis that included pics from a flight simulator. There was an active display showing the fuel valve/s status. And unless you go through the switches and logic, including the power to those, you cannot say there is no connection between the two systems. In a perfect world, yes. But given what happened, I would not blithely assume that. I would check.

No it doesn't Roundsounds. What it actually says is "In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so." It says nothing about anyone observing that switches were in cutoff position. Maybe he saw the valves off in a panel display??? And you're missing the point about the EFAR, but I don't know how to explain it any clearer except to repeat that it quite possibly logs what the automation thinks the switch positions are......not the actual inputs from the switches. And that's a very important difference.

The media at large have jumped on 'the fuel was turned off' as one would expect. That leaves us with two possibilities: 1. The fuel levers/switches were indeed turned off. 2. Something downstream of those switches saw them as being turned off. Both possibilities need to be investigated as far as is possible. And for 2, it becomes very important to know where the FDR gets it's info on those switches. Because to investigate possibility 2 requires an inspection of everything from the switches to where the FDR picks up that info. Here I am guessing, but after years of process control work, including setting up a great deal of system monitoring and data logging, I would be surprised if the FDR is looking at the actual outputs from the lever switches. It is far more likely to be looking at some register in the automation that holds (or should hold) the state of the switches. In my opinion........

I think folk need to read and digest the whole Interim report to clear away some of the assertions. Some Boeings were fitted with switches without the lever latches. Very unlikely in this case but not impossible. As for retracting the undercarriage: it seems the RAT deployed almost immediately after rotation, with the engines commencing to shut down, after which they were fighting for their lives. They had no 'positive climb'.