Hi from China

[bexrbetter]

Hi I'm Mark in living and working in Chengdu China, Ex-Brissy and Melbourne just getting into the scene and like the site :-)

 

 

[dazza 38]

Welcome Buddy

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Hey you're a long way from home mate, but welcome to the madhouse.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Well I was swimming at Southbank last month visiting my family for a few weeks so not always so far away (and it was nice to have a 4'n'20 pie, fish and chips and vegemite on toast!).

 

Thanks for the welcome.

 

 

[Admin]

and stock up on Bex...cause Bex is ALWAYS better...true Aussie user name mate and

 

 

[rankamateur]

and stock up on Bex...cause Bex is ALWAYS better...true Aussie user name mate and

Better than Vincents? Can you even still buy them?

 

Sheep shearers used to live on them when I was a kid, made all that bending over bearable I guess.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Better than Vincents? .

I was in a chemist in West End, Brisbane last month and they had a small "Historic Chemist's Tools" display with some Vincent papers in the cabinet - made me feel bloody old and gave me a headache!

 

 

[planedriver]

Mark.

 

Just don't get the Bex mixed up with your Cattle Pills they sell over there, or someone might be in for a big surprise.

 

So whats your particular interest in aviation?

 

 

[Guest Swanny]

Hi Mark welcome

 

No flying there in Chengdu but pandas ok . In Guilin not long back plenty of migs about.

 

If you can go to Beijing military museum and check out the back for ww2 aircraft you might also find a U2 there .

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Hi Mark welcomeNo flying there in Chengdu but pandas ok . In Guilin not long back plenty of migs about.

If you can go to Beijing military museum and check out the back for ww2 aircraft you might also find a U2 there .

Well there is flying close by actually, the National University of Flight is 30 minutes NNE of Chengdu, look here slightly SE

 

https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=30.99,104.25&spn=0.1,0.1&t=h&q=30.99,104.25

 

and there's powered trikebuggy type hang gliders flying over my city, Deyang 1 hour NNE, all the time especially on weekends when they carry advert banners.

 

There are 5 MIGS to be crawled all over in a public park in Chengdu actually! And a big Russian Helicopter, a real and sizeable space rocket with a couple of jet engines laying around to boot. it's fantastic you can crawl over and in all of them.

 

The Chengdu museum has a few odds and ends as well. I'll get some pictures up the next few days.

 

Mark.So whats your particular interest in aviation?

A new LSA engine under development, but not here, there is an appropriate place in the forum and a proper process to follow for that coming soon enough .....

 

Thanks for the welcomes, my first ventures into aviation forums and you guys are so nice I'm wondering what the catch is!

 

 

[Phil Perry]

No Catch, nice place, THEY EVEN LET POMS IN !!!!!!!

 

 

[bexrbetter]

No Catch, nice place, THEY EVEN LET POMS IN !!!!!!!

They do? They kicked you Guys out of Hong Kong, they must have left a crack open somewhere!

 

Actually some of my good UK mates make Rolls Royce jet inconel fuel line parts in Chengdu.

 

 

[DGL Fox]

Hi Mark,

 

Welcome mate..

 

David

 

 

[Phil Perry]

They do? They kicked you Guys out of Hong Kong, they must have left a crack open somewhere! Actually some of my good UK mates make Rolls Royce jet inconel fuel line parts in Chengdu.

OK Mark,. . . that explains it then, my mate's Rolls Royce engined SE5A fuel system has left hand threads, right hand threads, and a lot in between. . . . I wonder if the bits were made in China ( ! ) as he reckons he's "Screwed" if he can understand it. . .

 

 

[damono]

Hi Mark and welcome to the site.

 

Love the sound of the flying over there. It is great to stop and think sometimes about what is going on in aviation outside Aus, especially in non-alike countries.

 

Thanks for adding that perspective!

 

 

[Jabiru7252]

Forget the Bex, take "Baldwin's Nervous Pills'. Cures nervousness, irritability of temper, want of strength and energy, fear, dread, neuralgia, hysteria, disturbed sleep, melancholy, insomnia and all nerve pains and diseases. I think it was cocaine or heroine. If you remember this stuff, you must be about 100 years old now.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Forget the Bex, take "Baldwin's Nervous Pills'. Cures nervousness, irritability of temper, want of strength and energy, fear, dread, neuralgia, hysteria, disturbed sleep, melancholy, insomnia and all nerve pains and diseases. I think it was cocaine or heroine. If you remember this stuff, you must be about 100 years old now.

I've still got some Maribyrnong snake oil, and I think I may have some Condy's Crystals as well, would that help ?

 

Although I have to say that I've had the dreaded gastro-enteritis for the past two weeks and the nice lady doctor has given me all sorts of medication to help, but the course of suppositries were a total waste of time, for all the good they did, I might as well have rammed them up me bum.

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

Hi I'm Mark in living and working in Chengdu China, Ex-Brissy and Melbourne just getting into the scene and like the site :-)

What do you do over there?

My son lives and works in China also...he teaches english at a school there

 

 

[Billzilla]

Gidday, I'm in cahoots with that Bex fellow.

 

I used to fly aeroplanes, but now I don't, but I might be again some time.

 

Gold Coast lad here.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Gidday, I'm in cahoots with that Bex fellow.I used to fly aeroplanes, but now I don't, but I might be again some time.

Gold Coast lad here.

Oh no, he bloody well found me again

 

Actually Billzilla is understating himself ... some great reading here http://www.billzilla.org/aviation.htm

 

 

[Billzilla]

I also conduct professional reviews of aircraft, I was asked about the Metroliner and here's my reply.

 

Can you guys please explain what is so bad about the Metro - I will now never fly in one of these planes, hearing their pilots speak so lowly of them, scary stuff.

I'll explain, as it's also my most hated aeroplane.

 

The Metro.

 

The cockpit was designed by a midget and anyone of even normal size is very uncomfortable in them. Especially if you have long legs as the pedals are simply far too close to the seat so you have to bend your legs so far that it's practically impossible to get your feet onto the pedals at anything like a comfortable angle.

 

Fortunately the brakes, although fitted, don't actually work; they are there for show only and to amuse the ground engineers. So it's really not that important to get your feet where you would normally have them.

 

The control column was designed by a personal trainer, to improve your fitness by means of a continuous physical workout whenever any movement at all is required as they forces needed to move any control surface is in the tens of kilograms. If you can't benchpress two or three hundred kilograms, forget it.

 

Fortunately again, the engineers that designed the Metro had a sense of humour and made the ailerons so they don't really work much. They will roll the aeroplane roughly as fast as an oil tanker can turn, but no faster.

 

Whilst on the subject of controls, I must mention the rudder; like most small aeroplanes it also control the nosewheel steering and this is where the Metro engineers must still be peeing their pants with laughter, with the nosewheel system being the result of something like ten completely unrelated bits of machinery all incorporated to make the Metro perform the complex tasks of .... left ..... and ...... right. The nosewheel system requires approximately two weeks to do a complete systems test on the taxi out to the holding point and so many Metros must return to be refueled before flight. Fortunately it works randomly but the aeroplane can be steered on the ground by means of futilely stabbing at the brakes (I use the term loosely) and moving the power levers to vary the noise left to right.

 

Then there's the stall detection and Stall Avoidance System, which is designed to kick in just before landing; to do this, it senses a completely normal airspeed in the landing configuration just before landing, and then activates the stick pusher without warning, thus making the Metro land on the nosewheel and bounce down the runway.

 

Normally this would be uncomfortable for the passengers, if you are carrying any, but they are probably still unconscious from the lack of pressuristation due to the Metro being fitted with door seals made from molten ear wax and the bleed source a small 12 volt hair drier fitted to each engine. Even though the door seals may keep a tiny fraction of the air in the cabin and they whistle a loud revelry to keep the punters awake, they are often wearing foam ear plugs to block the noise and are likely to be blacked out from the cabin being something like 1,000' below the cruise altitude.

 

Fortunately, the Metro engineers had already considered the dual problems of trying to keep the passengers subdued and also making the ailerons a mere amusement, so they gave the machine a tiny little thin wing that only works when you are travelling along at many hundreds of knots. The wing is also very handy for smacking your head into, to remind you how lucky you are to be in aviation .... in case you had forgotten.

 

Speaking of engines, again the Metro engineers excelled themselves by choosing engines that have the unique blend of being complete and utter p***ks to start unless you have a nuclear power station plugged in (good forethough again - the ground power plug is often on the side of the nacelle near the prop, to help keep the ground crew cool as they unplug you), they also make more noise than said nuclear power station blowing up, and they also take 1.2 weeks to complete a start cycle. So at least when flying a Metro you develop the ability to think ahead. The propeller is also capable of reverse pitch, and this is used to make more noise on landing with the noise reflecting on the airframe to slow it to taxi speed.

 

Back to the cockpit. Whilst it may seem great fun to blast around the skies in a semi-pressurised aircraft that can barely be controlled - assuming it'll start - you can't actually see where you're going due to the windows being too small. To be fair there's a large-ish window on the side, but it often vibrates so much that nothing useful can be seen from it. This is assuming you're lucky enough to be flying in warm weather, for in colder conditions that require window heat only the window directly in front of each pilot has a tiny section of it heated, so if you thought you couldn't see much before you will see even less now.

 

The various controls & instruments in the cockpit were strategically positioned by means of a very large shotgun and many cases of beer I suspect. Fortunately, most of them don't read very accurately or indeed at all. A large number of the switches were labelled by means of picking suitable-sounding words from a brown paper bag. The radar is merely a Nintendo Gameboy converted to black & white, yet still has the batteries removed so it doesn't work. Every internal light is designed to illuminate dimly and also burn you if you foolishly fiddle with it to make it brighter.

 

If you do decide to go attempt to commit aviation in one, you first have to tackle the front door. It's hinged at the bottom and has a single handle to open & close/lock it. Sounds simple, but again the trusty Metro engineers decided that the door should be fitted with a totally reliable lift-assist device that detects the strength of the person trying to operate it, and if the person is weak then the door is scheduled to get no assistance at all, and vice-versa. The chains fitted to either side to stop the door from (mostly) plunging deep into the ground when opening are also designed to fall to the side when closing the door to make it jam, with the bonus of also damaging the door seal. But the Metro engineers weren't finished there, they decreed that even if you'd managed to lift the heavy door up and grow another arm or two to get the chains out of the way, then it has just enough twist in it so it simply won't shut. Well some doors are scheduled to only shut when slammed for the 3rd or 4th time with at least a grunt and swear word. It's then impossible to visually sight if the door is close as the inspection ports for the door pins are made from cataracts extracted from the eyes of old pilots. Fortunately it works nearly perfectly every single time you shut it from outside, though it must be a member of the flight crew that shuts it, not any old person on the ground. Engineer humour again I suspect ....

 

I like the water/meth on takeoff.

 

Does that answer your question?

 

:)

 

 

[rankamateur]

Oh no, he bloody well found me again Actually Billzilla is understating himself ... some great reading here http://www.billzilla.org/aviation.htm

Bill's page deserves a thread of it's own, especially the article about the first powered flight 1901? - 1903?