onetrack

It will be very interesting to see the FAA's response to this idiotically stupid stunt. What a waste of a perfectly good aircraft. Of course, no-one was put in any danger, people do this all the time in the U.S., just for kicks!  

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/disaster-and-emergency/plane-swap-stunt-trick-goes-horribly-wrong-as-plane-spirals-out-of-control-c-6572293

The Grobs, and all the aircraft maintenance equipment were sold last year - and from what I saw, nearly all of it brought good money - even though some of the Grobs had around 12,000 TT.

Slattery Auctions sold them, but Slatterys delete all information relating to auction prices and bidding, as soon as the auction is finished - meaning you cannot find out anything about the sales prices, unless you actually bid on an item.

It's a pretty devious stunt to stop you from tracking their actual sales, maybe sales, or simply passed-in items. Often a lot of auction items are put up for auction again and again, until the auction house gets what it wants for the item.

But in the case of the China Southern aircraft and equipment, it appears it was all sold on the day of the auction. Liquidators generally don't put high reserves on items, they just want to finalise the company liquidation.

https://www.australianflying.com.au/latest/wa-training-fleet-goes-under-the-hammer

Grob are still in business as far as I understand, manufacturing powered trainers, despite having gone bankrupt in 2008. The company assets were purchased by another business, who revived the Grob manufacturing operations.

https://grob-aircraft.com/en/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grob_Aircraft

.....the election signage was stolen as fast as it was put up - with virtually all the signage ending up decorating Man Caves up and down the length of Tasmania. Some of the signs even found their way through Customs, to end up in Victorian Man Caves.

However, after a while, it was realised it wasn't the slogan the thieves were chasing - it was the great photo of bull mounting a heifer. It's long been known that in many rural locations in Tasmania, where the blokes are ugly and the wimmen are uglier, mounting creatures other than wimmen was a regular and tacitly-approved habit.

However, it was rare for photos of these activities to appear publically, and this is what caused the photo to be in great demand. So much so, that.........

.....MONA's sex and death candles - not to mention the bouquet and subtle flavours of the Chardonnay variety served, and how they need to lift their game, and provide more exclusive wine varieties, and more nuanced and less crudely-orientated art, if they want to become a greater presence in the Art World.

"Just imagine!", said bull, "We could turn this place into something that would make Guggenheim and Bilbao look like a rained-out church fair in Strahan, with a bit of effort! We need to enlarge MONA's art vision, and collection, to include aviation-themed works, and accordingly, I propose that........

Quote

My questions are "How can a Cessna 177RG be Amateur built" and why do they state that the "Aircraft Damage was substantial" when it was completely destroyed?

The way I read it, the "Amateur built" is a heading followed by a colon. If the aircraft was Amateur built, it would have "Yes" after the colon. It should have had "No" after "Amateur built", but it's obvious someone neglected to add the "No".

I'd guess, "Substantial" damage is Americans understated description, of we would describe as, "totally destroyed". Perhaps, to the Americans, "totally destroyed" is only used for a smoking crater with virtually no recognisable aircraft components.

.....red, resembling Barnaby Joyce or Bob Katter, right after they'd been told that a video had been posted on social media, with them both being caricatured as rednecks carrying centrefire automatic carbines in racks in the back window of their utes - and that the video had been viewed 183 million times and shared with.........

.....decided now was the right time to put on his Kamikaze headband (Hachimaki) - but as he went to put it on, he realised the Kanji characters had been badly done, and it read......

.....the nearby hangar, and it was the sound of a Coffmann starter going "BANG!", followed by the sound of a P&W R-1830 spluttering into life. "That's the sound of a Grumman Wildcat, for sure, yelled OT as he ran to the hangar, with a motley crew of followers behind him (apart from bull, who was struggling to walk, let alone run), who were all........

....fumes, which made everyone within 6 metres stagger back, gasping and choking, and clutching their.........

Unfortunately, there's a lot of shipping that's a lot higher than 10M in height, so right there, is a need for SeaGlider separation from ocean-going craft. And if they're operating coastal, that's where the most boating traffic will be....

So ... does the SeaGlider come under Maritime control, or Aviation control - or both?? Where would these things fit into the rules of boating? Would sail and power still get right of way over a ground effect craft? What do they do about sea fog? - a common occurrence. Do they drop back into the water at a "safe speed" (i.e. - a few kts) and sound their foghorns?

......have you ever driven a Perkins diesel? - and have you ever flown in a Perkins-diesel-powered aircraft?" And when the answers always came back, "No", bull was ready with his deadly followup punch line, which was, "Ahh, I knew you'd be up for a good ride experience with me, then" - and bull would then offer........

I can't see where LPG is viable as a fuel for any aircraft. It has an energy density that is about 60% of petrol, but it does weigh only 2/3rds the weight of petrol. However, the need to have a tank to compress LPG to turn the gas into liquid is a big weight penalty. I guess you could install a carbon fibre tank, if you were dead set on using LPG in an aircraft.

But the big problem with LPG is its poor low temperature performance, once the temperature gets down to about 3° to 5°, you find your LPG engine doesn't like starting, due to the poorer volatility of LPG at low temperatures.

Cold air being taken into an aircraft engine at height would very likely make your LPG engine baulk. I guess carb heat would address the problem, but the fact remains LPG volatility is poor as compared to petrol.

Spacey, Australia's natural gas was only given away in stupid contracts with fixed prices during the era of low global energy pricing and lower demand for natural gas.

The number of fixed price LNG and CNG contracts is now minimal, as energy companies producing natural gas now have vastly increased global demand and pricing, for any form of energy.

Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely we will ever see cheap natural gas again.

One thing we shouldn't turn our back on is LPG. We have huge resources of LPG, and massive infrastructure in place to deliver it. But the Govt seems intent on ensuring that LPG is killed off.

The simple fact remains that LPG is a clean burning fuel, and using it results in lower carbon emissions and longer engine life.

None of the stories below, about H2 explosions are very comforting - and only one involves a H2 fuelling station. All the other explosions were where H2 is already being used in industrial processes, and in power station cooling situations. There were two massive H2 blasts at Fukushima Nuclear power station, after the earthquake, which only compounded the earthquake damage.

All of this is before H2 starts to appear on a widespread basis for fuelling industry and transport. It's interesting that a lot of the H2 explosions were caused by faulty safety valves or couplings.

https://insideevs.com/news/354223/hydrogen-fueling-station-explodes/

https://hydrogen-central.com/explosion-eskom-medupi-power-plant-newest-expensive-coal-plant-hydrogen-leak-photos/

https://abc7news.com/santa-clara-explosion-in-chemical-fire/5326601/

https://www.theweek.co.uk/asia-pacific/56774/five-dead-after-hydrogen-blast-rocks-chemical-plant-japan

https://www.powermag.com/lessons-learned-from-a-hydrogen-explosion/

https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/Hydrogen-blast-led-deaths-US/97/web/2019/12

https://www.nist.gov/el/fire-research-division-73300/dispersion-and-burning-behavior-hydrogen-released-full-scale

......having Aboriginal lineage also helped, as it enabled Turbo to overfly all Aboriginal Lands in Australia, and be able to land at any Aboriginal Community without any need for Permits or Official Authorisation. Of course, it doesn't need mentioning, that ASIC cards were of no use in Aboriginal country, either.

This was a huge help whenever he needed parts for, or repairs done on the Aeroflite, as there was a huge range of aviation wrecks for him to select from the various Aboriginal Aviation boneyards - and one day, Turbo struck it particularly lucky, when, just as the engine of the Aeroflite died, he spotted, not only a group of Aboriginal Community buildings, but also, a near-perfect stripped wreck of a.......

.....re-education into the ways and proper behaviours of Hancock Iron Ore Royalty (not to be confused with royalties - and Gina is Head of State, and must be worshipped accordingly, don't forget that), whereby, if Turbo manages to find and peg a sizeable iron ore deposit, after sighting it from his Aeroflite (avref) - and gives the Hancock Trust a full purchase option and drilling rights over the lease (or leases) - then Turbo will be fully entitled to call himself........

They're talking about carbon fibre high pressure tanks for hydrogen gas storage - and for aircraft, as well as for road vehicles. I'm still extremely doubtful about the system, they will only need one modern Hindenburg hydrogen disaster, and everyone will start avoiding riding in a hydrogen-powered rig.

These people seem to be ignoring the fact that regular fire incidents are a fact of life - and I'd hate to be within a kilometre of a fire with hydrogen tanks in the middle of it.

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/cfrp-pressure-vessels-for-hydrogen

.....to Darwin to Alice Springs, so the whole tribe could travel together. "We don't like getting separated, you must know that!?", said Morton.

"O.K.", said CT, curious by now. "But how did you go, when you had interplanetary space travel 40,000 years ago? That must have split up the tribes somewhat?"

"Oh, we got split up bad, back den", said Morton. "And it's still on, today! Even now, I hear sum people in Gubbmint say, 'You must be on anudder planet!!" ..... "

"So, dey knows we had interplanetary travel back den, and some of our people are still up dere! But that's what happens when you use Pord Palcons for long-distance travel!! And everyone knows there's no abandoned Palcons along the route to Mars, to pick parts off!"

This conversation was unfortunately overheard by an Anthropologist, and a tribal Elder - and before long, a sacred land claim was being made for the land on Mars where the Curiosity rover had landed, and this caused a great deal of angst in NASA, as it was only then they realised the significance of those strangely-placed rocks in front of Curiosity, that looked just like........

The largest majority of open-pit mines in W.A. are extremely hard rock with often only 50M of oxidised ground from the surface. These pits are exceptionally stable and lend themselves to pumped hydro.

Add in the fact that they're usually located in inland regions where solar energy is in abundance, and the water can be pumped using solar-powered pumps during the day, and the water can return to the lower level at night, thus generating power when solar power is non-existent.

I don't understand why turbines need to be fitted into underground mineshafts. It makes sense to me, to simply install large diameter piping and the necessary turbines, above ground, running down the walls of the pits. Easier maintenance, and no major corrosion protection needed, except perhaps for the lower portions of the piping.

......so we can expand our Indigenous Space Programme, which is going to make that NASA mob look pretty tame. Besides, we used to have a Space Programme before the White Man came, they didn't even realise what we were doing with our carvings and rock paintings, and they just trampled it in the rush to take our Lands!

Those paintings you see in the caves with what the experts call the Wandjina headdress - that was our Astronauts in 2500BC! Those experts thought we were drawing some some kind of space aliens - they got no idea! We got the Space Programme records in with the oral tribal history of our elders, you only gotta ask them, and you'll find out that we used........

.....immediately put on the urgent list for investigation by the FBI, as inquiries into his track record after his appointment, showed that his CV didn't match his (overstated) abilities, and his record of flitting from country to country and constantly indulging in new start-up companies made him a prime target for background checking.

When the Turbo-Putin link was discovered, the ordure hit the fan, big-time (as OT was fond of saying), in all of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies. Communication lines were immediately established with ASIO, in regard to Turbo's activities, and what the CIA then found, was explosive, to say the least. 

Said a top CIA operative, "Hey, this guy makes Pablo look......

There are a vast number of large open pit mines in Australia that are nearly always half full of water - there's a good quantity of your pumped hydro sources, to start with.

The missing part of the power puzzle is storage, but S.A. has woken up to that early in the piece, and their Tesla batteries are a good start.

Vanadium redox batteries are highly likely to be the simple choice for lower-cost, longer life electricity storage, than lithium.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/05/10/large-scale-vanadium-redox-flow-battery-takes-shape-in-australia/

Lloyds Auctions are auctioning a 2004 model, Rotax 912 UL-powered, Zenair CH-701 STOL, on 28th April, 2022. The aircraft is located at Lynfield in the Lockyer Valley, Qld.

https://www.lloydsonline.com.au/LotDetails.aspx?stype=0&stypeid=0&cid=454&smode=0&lid=3524400

Lloyds Auctions are auctioning a 1993 model, 6 cyl Jabiru-powered, Replica Spitfire on 28th April, 2022. The aircraft is located at Lynfield in the Lockyer Valley, Qld.

https://www.lloydsonline.com.au/LotDetails.aspx?stype=0&stypeid=0&cid=454&smode=0&lid=3524399