Cowl scoop and carb inlet query

[facthunter]

They jettison $#!t when in a hurry to escape. Nothing personal. It's flight performance issue. Nev

 

 

[Guest SrPilot]

I suspect eagles have sufficient nouse ( and more than sufficient eyesight) to avoid collisions, though in the case of a Drifter, they may simply be irritated at the noise and keen to chase the damn thing out of their area before a headache sets in. If I were an eagle, I would... Dethpicable....

I was feeling relieved by Oscar's observation concerning eagles' eyesight until I learned that some of them have less than 20-20 vision. Visit this thread over in the Aircraft Accidents and Incidents (or something like that) thread:

 

Mid-air with eagle at Bathurst

 

Dang eagle. Right through the windshield. Pilot probably thought "DUCK!" and the dog in the back seat thought "EAGLE!!!" That had to be scary. (dethpicable, Oscar - or is that actually a Daffy Duck quote?)

 

 

[Birdseye]

When locked into a fairly juicy thermal I noticed a couple of wedge tails leave their thermal and come join me. Was quite a sight to see them soar with me for more than 5 minutes and they even adopted my direction of turn.

 

 

[facthunter]

They know a winner when they see it. Nev

 

 

[Oscar]

The dog in the back seat probably thought something rhyming with "DUCK", though with a slightly later-occurring (alphabetically) consonant as the first letter. Even if the Duck concerned isn't a little black one, with the initials 'D.D.'

 

Of course, this sort of occurrence is always going to happen as the airspace gets evermore over-regulated and pilots (and eagles) have to spend too much time checking their WAC charts, NOTAMS etc. to make sure they are flying in the legally-correct bit of air. The less time you spend looking outside., the more time there is for an object to intersect your flight path.

 

Seriously: At even 100 kts, an object with a small frontal area on a collision course that does not have flashing / intense warning lights, is bloody nearly invisible - especially if it has colouring even vaguely similar to the background. Eagles do not have fluoro-orange chests or led strobes...

 

Personal experience: on a 300k declared flight out of Narromine, in a Libelle. I'd taken off about 30 minutes after a German pilot in the Narromine Janus (a 20-metre span two-seater - not a small aircraft). I rolled out of a thermal at about 7,800 AGL, tracking to my first turn-point of Coonamble, and going like the clappers: 100 kts or so) because I knew I could get there and back to that thermal, which was roughly on-track for my second leg of the flight, if I didn't dick around.

 

On the way in, a radio communication, all in German: ' Umlaut chowdermarcherz COONAMBLE whatzeestuffernezz neezupmutherbraun"

 

OK, I haven't a clue what he was saying BUT that sounded like a turning-point call for Coonamble - and I'm headed for there. Let's just keep the old eyes peeled... HOLY DUCK, here he comes - 100% reciprocal - he'd been (presumably) doing exactly what I planned to do, and since that thermal was well-established, from the same starting height and position, it was almost predestined that two people doing the same flight path would intersect.

 

We both did the classic diving turn to the right simultaneously - obviously he'd seen me at the same moment I saw him - and as we levelled off, we could see each other wave 'thanks'. Passed maybe 100 feet apart. I reckon the closing speed was 200 kts, and the time between recognising this was another aircraft on a reciprocal heading and potential impact, was maybe two seconds. AND: we were both in shiny stark-white aircraft, very much larger than an eagle and highly more visible against the Aussie background.

 

The point I am trying to make here, is that the sky is NOT devoid of things to be avoided, and the more time we have to spend with our eyes INSIDE the cockpit to ensure we are keeping clear of restricted airspace, on frequency for the local traffic area, have adjusted our altimeter for local QNH etc. etc., the less time we have our eyes outside the cockpit checking for things that could cause us to crash. Large birds do NOT make radio local area traffic awareness calls, in my limited experience.

 

All of which - in an extremely convoluted way - brings me to one of my bete noirs with the current light aviation/recreational aviation scenario.

 

The advances in the ability and the reliability of EFIS is the only effective answer for a single-crew PIC to navigate the increasingly complex skies in which we travel. The argument that ' well, mechanical ( or in this case, electronic) systems can fail" is so far beyond its use-by date by proper risk-analysis for flying complex skies, as to make it a no-brainer. What we need, is reliable electronics to report to us that we are flying correctly according to regulations and safely according to the flight parameters of our aircraft. THEN: we can actually spend time looking at what's happening north of the windscreen - and adjust things accordingly if required.

 

 

[Marty_d]

They jettison $#!t when in a hurry to escape. Nothing personal. It's flight performance issue. Nev

Same applies to pilots in times of crisis...

 

 

[DrZoos]

If the powers that be was snot such morons , they would insist in hid flashing lights rather than inhibit the installation of such technology! And or simple frontal beacons that warned of any oncoming aircraft within 10nm and a possible collision tangent

 

In this day and age this is a simple and cheap technology, if only the regulatory bodies stopped interfering!