Some advice please

[Guest Tesseraphoto]

This is the first post in what is sure to be a long learning experience. I am a nature photographer who would love to use a microlight as a platform for photographing Australia. As a bit of background, I used to fly an Airborne Sting hang glider about 12 years ago but have never flown in a microlight. I now travel around the country with my partner and photograph this gorgeous land (as well as having a day job here in Brisbane).

 

Inspired by Bill Fortney's America From 500 Feet and Yann Arthus-Bertrand's The Earth from the Air, as well as really loving each rare aerial photography opportunity that cames my way, I am exploring the feasability of our own project. I would evisage the trip as towing the microlight to regional airfields and do shorter flights from a base, rather than John & Jim's epic around the country. Only rarely would I need to take more than provisions for a few hours and emergency gear. I guess the first question is what aircraft should I get? I was very happy with my Sting and believe Airborne make quality products, but am open to all suggestions. From what reading and talking I have done so far, I would love the 912 Outback as almost the perfect vehicle (although Perry makes a great case for the DTA 912), but alas it would seem to be a fair bit out of our price range. The Redback is closer to our budget. Would a second-hand 4-stroke suit me better than a brand new 503? It seems like it would be really difficult to find a decent 912 a/c for anywhere near the new price for a Redback. And it seems like I'd want to stay away from any other used 2-strokes that have more than a handful of hours on them. Reading about all the areas these engines can fail on the Engines forum gives me the creeping horrors. I'm not reluctant to do routine maintenance, but I have had little experience at working on small engines.

 

Anyway, a lot of things have to fall into place to make this happen, and it is going to take a lot of flying before I'd be ready to tackle a round Oz adventure, but as they say "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". This is that step.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice. Oh, and here is a photo from the reef.:)

 

Kind regards,

 

Andrew Teakle

 

www.tesseraphoto.com

 

 

 

[ZULU1]

Advice on aeries

 

Hiya, I have been doing a very similar project that you wish to embark on here in SA. Biggest problem is the time...but i am about a 1/3rd of the way !!. You will have to also chose a decent camera, I abandoned a SLR for weight reasons, after an hour in a trike it gets painful. I use a "pseudo" SLR the Fuji 9500 and 9 megapixels is good. I have flown many 503s and they are good motors..but still two strokes..I use a HKS as its light for beach landings and so on, solo its a good performer and better than the 503 but not a 912. A four strroke has oil in it, so that factor to me over water is sufficient. 912s are really tough...my humble opinion, stick with a aged 4 stroke and you can at least focus on the job in hand and not the nearest runway.

 

Cheers Paul... and I envy you..

 

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

Hi Andrew

 

As you have discovered, the only 2nd hand, 4-stroke trikes you are likely to see for sale in Aus will be 912. The vast majority will be Airborne XT and hence fairly new & pretty pricey (>$45K). You might be able to find an old Quantum 912 which would be cheaper but they would be pretty old now.

 

A 4-stroke might be desirable but its not essential for what you are planning. In fact it wouldn't even be essential if you were planning on flying rather than towing - there wasn't any legs of Jim & my "epic" which we couldn't have done in the Blade 582 (rather than the 912 we each had). The main advantages for us were fuel economy, reliability, and not needing to source or carry lots of 2-stroke oil.

 

From your description its only the reliability that concerns you about a 2-stroke. No argument that a 4-stroke should be more reliable but 582 and especially 503 aren't as unreliable as is often percieved. A lot of the failures occur in 3-axis where they tend to be worked much harder than in trikes. I did 100's of hours in 2-stroke trikes and the only engine failure I had was due to bad fuel - a 4stroke would probably have stopped too. I know plenty of other trike pilots who have never had an engine failure. Just do the maintenance and look after them properly. IMPORTANT CAVEAT - you still have to fly as if it the engine will stop but this should apply equally to 4-stroke (even if it is a bit less likely).

 

If you can afford a 4-stroke then great, but I don't get twice as much fun out of mine as friends do in their Redbacks (which are about half the price).

 

Cheers

 

John

 

PS I live in Brisi now - PM me if you want any further info

 

 

[Guest Tesseraphoto]

Thanks Paul and John for your prompt replies. Paul, I see by your signature "Life's too short to fly 2-strokes..." that you have strong ideas on the matter. I agree with you and think I would generally be more comfortable in a 4-stroke, but am concerned about the age of any 4-stroke trike that I could afford. Not just engine-wise, but the whole airframe and wing, undercarriage etc. A brand new Redback might end up being more suitable overall, but I'll keep an open mind. I take your point about the camera, too. I use a Canon 20D and Debra has a 5D, but we also have a Sony F828 which is a lot lighter (for long walks, and I'm sure flights). Thanks for the attached photo. I'd love to see more from your project...and I'm the envious one, I'm still dreaming about getting up into the air.

 

John, I'm really pleased to hear you've had good results with 2-strokes and are not too concerned about reliability. You're correct that reliability is my major concern. Because we'll be driving, lugging around 2-stroke oil is no big deal. And fuel economy is not too much of a problem if I can save $20 000 in purchase price. Glad to hear you're also in Bris Vegas. I read about your Australian adventure online when I first started researching trikes. Sounds like it was a mammoth trip, going over so many places I'd love to photograph. Do you have many shots you can post? Oh, and how can I PM you?

 

Thanks again for your advice.:)

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew

 

www.tesseraphoto.com

 

 

 

[ZULU1]

Two strokes

 

Hiya again, I have flown through the Kalahari, Augrabies National Park as well as the Wild Coast and the East Coast of KZN, Swaziland and Mozambique. My justification for a two stroke are centred around reliability. If you have an engine out in Mozambique and land on the beach you have land mines to contend with (although now its better!!) and in the Kalahari you will most probably get eaten.. My first 582 crank went at 190hrs and the second at 380 hrs. Enough was enough but in all fairness the motor was subjected to harsh treatment, poor fuels, high temperatiures and humidity but good oil. I have really hammered the HKS and at 250 hrs not a blip..nothing at all. I may add in my experience that the 503 is really very reliable, you have to be careful descending too fast in cold air (much the same as a turbo charged tin aerie, without level off descents) as it can cause shock cooling of the front cylinder. I have heard of this causing damage. The origins from a snowmobile make it double rugged and I enjoy flying them as they are very light.

 

Hope this helps and see what we get wandering in the traffic..

 

Cheers Paul

 

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

There are undoubtably plenty of instances of 2-stroke failure so I certainly wouldn't claim that they don't happen. I'm pretty convinced a lot of instances are preventable - though having flown round Southern Africa I know how tough the environment is & wouldn't put Pauls experiences in this category. Despite the risk of landmines, the Mozambique coastline was spectacular even by Aussi standards. I have to say though that the original HKS didn't exactly have a reputation for reliability either.

 

Paul makes a good point about the weight - I've flown a couple of models of trike with both 912 & 582 and in both cases the 2-stroke was noticably nicer to fly.

 

Your real problem will be availability of 4 stroke trikes in Aus. There were only a handful imported here before Airborne started making the XT912. I looked at a 2nd hand Quantum 912 for sale before I ordered my XT. It was claimed to be 200 hours but must have done 1000 in my opinion. The engine had apparently been rebuilt but no idea why, what was done, by who and how competently. The plane logbook was completely empty - it didn't even have the alleged 200 hours in it. As if that wasn't even reason to walk away, I sussed out that the strange tacho like instrument on the panel was actually for rotor rpm - the trike had undergone a conversion to a gyro at some point. Strangely enough I bought the XT !

 

This may have been a particularly bad example but you are quite right to be worried about the condition of old trikes. There is absolutely no reason a 10, 15 or even 20 year old trike cannot be completely airworthy provided it has been maintained properly. Good luck finding one like that and buyer beware !

 

Yes I have loads of pics from the Aus trip but I'm not much of a photographer so very few exceptional ones unfortunately. I took a serious photographer up in the trike on one leg who got some great shots - unfortunately it was near Brisi so my home terriotry now. Top tip for anybody doing an expedition is that you can't take too many photos - I thought I had taken loads but afterwards there seemed to be whole flights where I didn't have any. I did a bit better on the Southern Africa expedition so at least I learnt from my mistakes. I'll sort through them some time & post a few.

 

We did also shoot some video on both trips which eventually got made into a couple of DVD which were sold for charity. I'm hoping to make them available through this forums shop once I can find a way of printing the labels & covers more cheaply.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

Sorry - I forget to explain about Provate Message (PM).

 

Its a way of sending a communication to a forum member without posting it so everybody can see.

 

To send one, click on the highlighted userid to the left of a post and select "Send a private message" from the popup menu.

 

When you next visit login to the forum, check the header at the top of the page to see if you have received the one I'll send you.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[Guest Tesseraphoto]

Gee Paul, sure sounds like you've flown in some pretty incredible and wild places. You'd need that Tundra undercarriage if you plan on landing on those landmines . Thanks for the awesome photo of the giraffe. Talk about low altitude photography :big_grin: . That's pretty poor to be having a crank blow at only 190 hrs. I'm please you feel the 503 is more reliable. I'm not sure we have many trikes here in Aus with HKSs.

 

John, sounds like that Quantum you walked away from was quite a basket case. Caveat emptor indeed!

 

If convenient and when you get the chance, please post some of your photos from Oz as well as your African safari...not that I need any more encouragement. Your DVD sounds great. I'm not sure how many copies you are thinking of producing, but for small numbers we have an Epson R210 printer that prints directly on the disc. Much neater, cheaper and more archival than labels, but obviously a lot more expensive than getting them done in quantity.

 

Sounds like you got some great shots with that photographer you took up. If you ever need to take up other serious photograpers, I'm sure we could rustle up a couple of professionals who would jump (figuratively) at the opportunity:big_grin: :big_grin:

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew

 

PS this is a shot of Debra's of the Daintree coast.

 

 

 

[ZULU1]

Pictures for perusal

 

Now you have some interesting topics to think about...anyway your web site is awesome. I enjoy photography but mainly aerial shots..I have a good mate that has posted a lot of my pics on the web. he hijacked a bunch of my dvd archives and spent weeks loading them!!

 

Take a look, unfortunately my Mozambiquan shots were on film and not scanned.

 

http://community.webshots.com/user/alanmack777

 

I still use fujichrome but have pretty much settled on the Fuji S9500 as it is light, AA batteries and takes two cards with 9 megapixels.

 

Buti am open to suggestions on other kit ??

 

Planning on a wild coast trip solo in the next two months to the sardine run a phenomena that is unique at that time of the year.

 

Oh and I use Apple for storage etc. as iphoto is brilliant.

 

Cheers Paul

 

 

[Guest Tesseraphoto]

There are some wonderful shots on the site you linked to. Africa is just one of those continents that all nature photographers dream about visiting. I'd love to photograph Africa by land as well as air.

 

Your Fuji 9500 has a very good reputation and excellent specs. I think it would be hard to find a better camera than that for aerial photography. The sealed, fixed lens that extends from 28-300mm means no dust on the sensor and no changing lenses mid-flight. 9MP is ample, and it has enough control to be used professionally as well as on full auto for those people who want to concentrate on flying. I'd certainly consider one for our project.

 

The camera decision is the easy one for me. Aircraft, training, instruments, communication, trailers & auxillaries are what I will have to sort out over the next...foreseeable fututre.:)

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew