auster

Mark could you give me a call re this prop. 0458185211 Or send text with email. Thanks. Kerry

Mark and others who’ve offered help, many thanks. I now have a suitable borrowed prop for the trip back to base and leads on a permanent replacement. I’m sorted!

I’ve just posted in the classifieds but as it’s a bit urgent I’m adding a post here. The D9 is currently at Watts Bridge in SE Qld but this morning’s pre flight revealed a crack of about 6cm developing in the prop so this Bebe is grounded! Dia. is 1.8 and Pitch 0.8 on a VW 1700 with a cruising speed of around 75 kts. Serviceable second hand or new if you have one on the shelf would be appreciated so I can get the plane back to base. Call 0458185211. Kerry.

I flew it at the factory field in Slovenia and I think this plane is a major development. In it's current form flight training is the main role however there are many pilots who spend 90% of their flying doing local flights of less than an hour and just staying current so it's ok for that as well. The revelation, and I hadn't thought much about this before I flew it - the utter simplicity of pre-flight and maintenance.

I asked the Pipistrel people about this and, understandably, they said it's just a matter of difference training and they make exactly the same plane with a Rotax 912. Obviously they hope flying schools would have the electric version for the circuit and near airfield training and the piston version for the remainder. Another big advantage here in Europe, especially for training, is the low noise output. Where I fly we have many restrictions i.e. a circuit that looks like the Albert Park GP track to avoid noise sensitive villages and farms, and restrictions on times when circuits can be flown. It's a big problem and the restrictions, in my view, sometimes impinge on safety.

Actually it's not quicker to dump in 60 liters and go. This would have been my mind-set until I flew the Pipistrel at the factory but once you've done it so many other lights are switched on and electric begins to make sense. For a start your plane has probably been sitting for more than 4 hours before you fly it so it's already charged. If it's a flying school plane then it takes about 5 minutes to slip in a fresh set of batteries. When we did the pre-flight I was baffled. No dipping the tanks. No checking the oil. No fuel drain. No pulling through to check compressions. Just check the prop turns and look at a battery condition gauge then push the power lever forward. Six seconds later you are in the air. No run-ups and no magneto checks and no carb-heat checks. And think about all the fuel, oil and coolant plumbing that you don't have to check and replace every five years or so. I don't have any connection to Pipistrel. I love my Gipsy Major and the Rotax 912 I regularly fly behind but, the advantages of electric go far beyond saving Co2 emissions. Safety, simplicity and neighbor friendly are bonuses which only became apparent when I actually flew the Pipistrel. Yes it is still a 45 min around the patch plane or a student ab initio plane. But when, after 43 years of flying, I look at my log book, that's about 80% of my flying. The next step is a difficult one I.e cross country, infrastructure, recharging etc but I'm quite sure it will come. Oh and the noise in the cockpit. It's heaps quieter than my 912ULS Kitfox. We took the headsets off and conversed easily. Like sitting behind a big electric fan. And watching the battery recharge as soon as soon as you pull the power back and begin to descend is very comforting. My first post here. An Auster, Kitfox and Jodel flyer.