Natfly 2012

[Guest Michael Coates]

I am sorry everybody but I am currently in Europe and some reason I cannot read your e-mails correctly because they are not in English ! :eek:

 

 

[metalman]

I am sorry everybody but I am currently in Europe and some reason I cannot read your e-mails correctly because they are not in English ! :eek:

Ich hoffe, das hilft, haben Sie viele Freunde, die viele E-Mails zu sagen, was sind wohlwollenden Person, die Sie senden wird. und es kostet nur ein paar Flugzeuge

 

 

[bas]

I read "intern", so in any case if they pay, doesn't sound like it will be a lot.

 

I also wonder how they are going to find these people that are both still in college and have a CPL, 250 hours and instructor rating. I am guessing they are going to have the drop the "in college" bit from the final selection requirements...

 

 

[Guest avi8tr]

Holy smoke, I just saw that they want $170,000 for a new Skycatcher delivered out of Moorabbin !!!

 

 

[metalman]

Holy smoke, I just saw that they want $170,000 for a new Skycatcher delivered out of Moorabbin !!!

I guess that's one way of saving the masses, I didn't actually hear, what was it like on the temora flight?

 

 

[Guest avi8tr]

I can't remember what I wrote without looking back, so here is a sumarry.

 

Overall it has pro's and con's.

 

-It's pretty roomy, but not suitable for anyone tall as the pedals are a bit close. Shoulder room great and not cramped, feels like a large plane, however the seats are a bit small and uncomfortable; probably similar to a Jabiru with very thin cushions.

 

-Visibility not as good as a Jabiru as the wing mounts are a long way forward, so you have to lean well forward for a good look in a turn.

 

- A little bit tinny thus making it a bit noisy and it's a little light weight. You can't put your foot on the floor, it's too thin and says "no step."

 

- Fuel circa 90 litres. Not really enough with an unconfirmed fuel burn of 23 lph giving 3:15 on paper (I burned more fuel as the aircraft was brand new)

 

- Engine ran well, although there was a noticeable vibration that was evident as the flaps were shaking (expected a little better for an aircraft with 15 hours on it) - another one I've flown didn't do this

 

- A little underpowered @ 100hp. I was constantly battling to "fly" it at 7,500ft, it would creap down over time unless I kept pointing it in an unusually high nose attitude. Forget about high altitudes on a hot day, particularly at MTOW.

 

- Payload 222kg's. Didn't have enough payload for much baggage with 65 kg's of fuel and we aren't heavyweights

 

- Dash had a nice single Garmin 300 unit and no other instruments on the dash at all, other than transponder and radio (as pictured). It started flickering (the Garmin 300 EFIS) during flight and we lost it completely whilst in a position that you would not want a complete instrument failure ;) It came back on for the landing, but is a significant risk and a good piece of advice for home builders and the like is to NOT put all your eggs in the one basket because equipment does fail some times. (A fault with it is still to be found - the screen was lost for well over 10 minutes, multiple times)

 

- Takeoff and landing a breeze, massive manual flaps

 

- Getting in and out is easy, even for less flexible people - far superior in entry and exit to a similar looking Tecnam high-wing or a low wing for that matter

 

Is there anything else you can think of that you would like to know?

 

 

 

[Guest Michael Coates]

I thought by some unwritten law you had to have a backup ASI and ALT ???

 

 

[bas]

Only for certified aircraft?

 

 

[Guest avi8tr]

Do you have backup's of those in your aicraft? No... therefore I assume you are referring to the EFIS being a single point of failure?

 

It certainly is! (a single point of failure)

 

Scary part is that this aircraft is night rated.

 

 

[metalman]

Do you have backup's of those in your aicraft? No... therefore I assume you are referring to the EFIS being a single point of failure?It certainly is! (a single point of failure)

 

Scary part is that this aircraft is night rated.

that would be a bit of a moment, losing the PFD in the dark, scary. Just going through the motions for my RV6, I'd like a Skyview but the 6's just aren't worth the expense nowadays, I can get all the unnecessary flight inst and engine inst for around $2k ,so I think that'll be the go .On redundancy, a mates RV7 only had a dynon panel, he'd lost it a couple of times, just flew the plane off attitude, although he never flew at night

 

 

[bas]

that would be a bit of a moment, losing the PFD in the dark, scary. Just going through the motions for my RV6, I'd like a Skyview but the 6's just aren't worth the expense nowadays, I can get all the unnecessary flight inst and engine inst for around $2k ,so I think that'll be the go .On redundancy, a mates RV7 only had a dynon panel, he'd lost it a couple of times, just flew the plane off attitude, although he never flew at night

Why did the Dynons go black, ever found out? They should be pretty reliable.

SkyView looks nice. But with all the options, you should probably restrain yourself. In a day VFR machine, a single 7" with one ADAHRS and engine probes should be all you need.

 

Then leave a nice big space in the center for an iPad with OzRunways! :)

 

In any case, I'd always put in an ASI and altimeter as bare minimum backup.

 

 

[Guest avi8tr]

The unit is actually a Garmin 300 EFIS. I assume TSO'ed but I didn't check. No fault was found by the Electronics guy. When it was flickering there were buzzing sounds in the headset, but it blacked out completely. You could replicate it by turning the dimmer knob up and down.