Mike Gearon

Here are some nose wheel examples. Below from a YouTube similar accident to the one the other day and similar result in RV tricycle gear. The point of failure obviously the solid spring steel shaft of I’d say 1” dia. Given a preference I’d rather be stronger here and bending the engine mount and firewall and landing without ploughing the ground. 2nd image is the RV10A engine mount. Obviously a revision for a reason. 3rd is Cirrus SR22. I don’t really understand the forces involved that you’d think would bend the shaft upward toward the propellor when in fact they bend it toward the ground and then around in a U shape. The pivot may provide the nosewheel shaft more chance to deflect upward and absorb load and at the end of travel the spring steel can possibly flex in the correct direction to continue absorbing load. I know an aircraft designer pretty well and I’m going to ask!

Smashed when flipped. It was somewhat caved on passenger side and possibly the cause of head injury.

Tree height/ neighbour fly over considerations and down slope won’t allow it. I fly in a lot. Max has been a 22kn tail wind and done with the combination of full air brake in Pipistrel and watching the over fence speed (65kn) They exited through the broken canopy if I recall correctly. As a member of local fire brigade I was unintentionally first responder on scene. Pilot did a great job pulling the passenger from the aircraft and already had cloth and pressure applied to head wound.

Very good. It’s quite flat where the incident happened. Tail wind was a major factor. Nothing wrong with the runway.

Yes, I was there. I’d like to stop replaying the incident in my head. Yes, it went over at a low speed. Damn close to not going over which would have been much the preferred outcome. Cessna make a damn fine nose wheel assembly. I can’t see why the lighter categories are all following each other with the pissy assembly. It’d be easy enough to have it on a pivot and shock and spread the load between firewall and fuselage a little aft. Combination of shock able to work. Triangulation and spread load.

Sorry, I’d meant to mention the SE2. I’ve just purchased for the motor glider and if I understand the instructions correctly it still needs a hex code from CASA. I figured I better sort the Pipistrel out and make sure it is sending ADSB out from transponder before I bring something new to the mix. I’m going to call my avionics guy tomorrow and have him sort. Mechanical I’m good. Electronics amd communications not so much. That’s why we have RFguy and Kyle com.

Could have been any one of us and he’s beat up over his friend being hurt. He did a great job pulling the passenger from the aircraft. The good part was when his friend called from hospital and was okay. Well, very okay. They must have started using the good drugs. While I wasn’t impressed with the Vans nose gear (rans S21 is much thicker) the steel tube (roll bar?) above the screen looked like it could have taken a lot more abuse just fine.

Pilot is okay. Passenger had a few injuries. Airlifted to hospital. Passenger is now fine. Strong variable tail wind and yes the nose collapsed. If that nose wheel assembly was stronger it would have been a different story. Apparently this is an RV problem.

Avplan problems AvPlan used to display in Pipistrel 23-1750 twice. Must up to date I assume coming from my own and other aircraft ADSB out. Second slightly behind the pace from Avplan and only available while cellular service works. Avplan stopped display and I only just worked out why. 4 devices were logged on. 3 is max. Avplan doesn’t tell you it won’t work and why. It really should have a warning or I didn’t see it. Anyway, solved. It works now. It just displays a wrong aircraft as below 2 days ago or doesn’t display one at all as now and I have no idea why. iPad displayed the aircraft below 2 days ago and iPhone doesn’t show one at all. Transponder. I suspect it’s somehow lost the hex code. Happened after a complete Garmin downgrade and upgrade as per AD but I can’t see how that stopped the transponder sending. I’ve applied to casa for either the existing code or a new one with no response yet. Maybe a holiday backlog. See pic below of the Sinus I had reg in USA. They all have a hex code. No applying. It’s just there. Why don’t we have this? Too simple?

Unfortunately the Pipistrel broke loose. I’m thinking it’ll polish out. Not too upset.

I’m very happy to support a new product if it’s for friends. Not so for unknown business ventures. Impressed with RFguy research in other areas. I’ll PM him

I owe you Mark! That’s the perfect answer. First.. confirmation this isn’t another dodgy product like the microair. Second.. It’s an elegant solution. Instead of trying to pack everything into a tiny space (obviously Microair’s mistake) it’s 2 separate units. It’d be nice to have the touch screen of the larger head. I’m now looking at how to go about getting the outdated (and broken) Old Garmin GPS amd Behringer display removed and replace all this with MGL.

I have Sinus motor glider arriving at Moorabin next week from USA. Hopefully it’ll be pretty straight forward to get its C of A and fly it out. Microair replacement is a priority. Do we know anything about this radio….https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/v6commradio.php

Took daughter 2 for her first flight with me. Tyabb around the bay via coastal route, down to Geelong then back up the coast via Phillip island to French island for a visit with Nic to see the Rans S21 build then back to Tyabb. Combined with building aircraft in the morning it was a big day out.

To end the year we have aircraft 1 powering up avionics today. Nic has promised he won’t turn the power on until I’m there to celebrate primarily and with the fire extinguisher as a backup plan. We have ULPower USA about to ship 520turbo carbon fibre engine cowling and engine mount. We have Sensenich prop about to ship. We have the engine crated in Europe and ready for air freight. If all goes well we may have test flights in February 2023 as scheduled! Second S21 has fuselage and tail mated. I’ve had to stop frame work now and jump forward to dashboard and wiring. Makes sense as Nic suggested to do the second set of wiring while it’s fresh. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to YouTube Rans S21 video blog Cleared Direct. Steve is a retired fighter pilot and we’ve duplicated his panel exactly. Steve has also supplied a wiring diagram that’s made our life infinitely easier. I’m an apprentice avionics wiring guy this week. As you see the two panels in pic. Being able to physically check the first aircrafts wiring and have Nic look over my shoulder is a massive help. I’d not have tackled wiring on my own. We took time off to change out Nic’s windsock. Both agreed we have a lot more fun doing general farm stuff than building aircraft! Still, it’s a satisfying daily grind with some mile stone fun moments coming up. Control stick in and moving control surfaces… very satisfying!…Getting avionics powered up. Getting wings on. Powering up the engine. Actual flying. Well, that’ll beat farm stuff!

I think the record was about 20 cape barren and 10 swans. Last soft field take off about a month ago I had a close encounter with some variety of bird. Loud thump that turned out to be the front wheel spat. Training drums in to keep the nose down when slow. My new muscle memory training is to keep the nose down then lift and lower again if large birds suddenly appear from nowhere. I was probably a few cm from a prop strike and a possible dip in Westernport bay. 17:1 glide in the Pipistrel may have made the beach or paddock. I’ve practised going to idle and turning after take off. It’s bloody tempting to push in the rudder because the nose looks more like it’s going the right direction. Confident I’d not have tried the impossible turn. Coordinated turn with airspeed and then decision to try to make beach/ paddock or normal full flap landing on water/ mangroves. The Cape Barren are pretty good at getting out of your way. STOL and good manoeuvrability. The swans not so much of either. Grader work…. Yeah, I’ve appreciated your shared knowledge on runways. If I could have had the local grader owner come in when it was disc prepped it would be damn good. He really let me down with unfulfilled promises. My family also in earthmoving business (much smaller) . I’d have brought a road grader over and copped the 2k float charge and 1.2k barge bill. I have a plan for an east west runway down down toward the beach. It’s sandy all weather and protected from southerly winds by the beach tea tree. The birds don’t hang out there either because the grass is crappy. They love to crop the runway short grass and also like us seem to enjoy just hanging out on the lawn. 30 ton Excavator and truck coming soon. Those bloody easterly winds last summer caused some drama. Definitely want to land into the summer easterlies. Well. All that inconsequential with the 220hp turbo S21 tail wheel with tundra tyres. Can pretty much exit the hangar and be in the air a few meters later any direction. The 50ft wing motor glider can sit in the hangar on windy days. It’ll come out for nice thermal days. Looking forward to annoying the pelicans thermalling up mid island before they commute off from great heights.

Runway test IMG_8999.MOV

This is something I can reply on with some actual facts rather than the avgas/ mogas conjecture. We discuss on the Pipistrel forum and Robert Mudd is the expert at Moriarty New Mexico. He’s just shipped my motor glider from him and had him check the wings as part of an overheaul. I don’t know about other brands. I do know Pipistrel. Recent years the Pipistrel fibreglass tanks have been improved and can handle ethanol. Older ones can’t. By can’t, they start by deformation and extreme case end up looking like the wing surface has melted. It’s dramatic! Robert sent me pics. I’ll dig up if anyone is a disbeliever. That’s why I’ve decided to run exclusively Avgas in the 2003 Pipistrel. Really, it’s a motor glider and I’m hoping to regularly turn the motor off. 29:1 glide on 50ft wings. Only drama is landing the tail wheel and it’s pretty slow and tame on touchdown … (within reason) Back to conjecture…. Decalin. I ran this in USA in above mentioned Pipistrel at recommended dosage. It apparently scavenges lead and it exits as dust instead of hanging around the head and in the oil. However, bloody injectors… I also read on forums it’s useless. I’ll double the dose as you mention.

This again raises the avgas versus mogas question. I’ve recently been told about the Soar Aviation aircraft at Moorabin running exclusively Avgas with no problems around the head. 600 hour opening the gearbox and cleaning out the gunk. While I believe this and it makes me feel better about occasional avgas fills on the rotation engines I have now and the new UL engine coming I see the above post that confirms what I’m reading from USA Rotax forums…….Don’t run avgas in the lower cylinder head temp engines. On the subject of temperature. It must be the higher cylinder head temps on Engines that don’t have a head gasket. Rotax/ UL run lower temps. The Lycoming/ Continental engines must be burning the lead at that higher temperature. Conclusion. As I might have mentioned elsewhere At OSH Kosh I talked with the rotax guys. One told me he puts avgas in everything he owns when it’s going to sit for a while. That’s 2 and 4 stroke small engines. Volatiles as discussed in this thread must be more stable in avgas. The ULPower engineers at Osh Kosh told me their steel cylinder engines handle longer periods without rust when run on avgas prior to prolonged shutdown. I’d like to see the things first hand. I’m bloody confused…Anybody have pics of rotax cylinder heads run for many hundreds/ thousands of hours exclusively on avgas? I’m becoming more convinced it’s better to run Avgas and pull the gearbox of a rotax down at 600 hours because you want to check the slipper clutch anyway. At the moment I’ll more happily fill avgas on cross country and longer shutdowns and try for fresh mogas. The Pipistrel motor glider has fibreglass tanks that melt if part ethanol fuel is used. They changed this for newer Pipistrel’s. I’ll definitely run avgas in the 2003 motorglider.

Aircraft 1 has avionics starting to light up. 2 weeks to done then we are really looking for a motor. Turns out the Titan steel barrel option is still quite a delay. Nic plated Titan a year away and steel sooner but not soon! We may end up putting the UL520t in aircraft 1 and ordering a second UL. We had the SAAA guys visit aircraft 1 and 2 last week. What a great volunteer service. Inspection 2 on aircraft 2 and inspection 1 on aircraft 2.

Is this true?

Aircraft 2 up to the wings. Definitely phone a Neighbour time. I couldn’t get my big hand in at all. The D leading edge well worth it though. Some concerns with plastic wing tanks moving and swelling. I’m seriously looking at aluminum tanks. An external flange can sit between the 2 ribs where the book is. We apparently have a genius aluminum welder at Tyabb that does the war birds.

This solves a puzzle I’d not understood. Had a potential buyer for the rotax powered motor glider in USA. He cancelled and amongst 10 items was “analog oil pressure gauge dangerous” I thought he might have meant connections were a problem. He was a very fussy NASA rocket scientist so I didn’t ask further.

Now I’m building an aircraft and actually building the second S21 I have a lot more appreciation for your efforts. Life certainly gets in the way. I’m luckily on a nice calm patch after years of turbulence. Hope yours improves. Your S21 will I think be an easy build compared to what you’ve been doing so far. I’m on the 2nd S21 with tail done. Horizontal, vertical stab and control surfaces. The elevator and trim tab an anticipated pain. Finishing up trim tab hinges today and I’ll make a YouTube video of what is likely a much better solution to fitting and drilling those hinges than the methods I’ve seen in various YouTube’s. With regard to the stainless corrugated tube. Have you flow tested it? Just a simple hook up to tap and run it at different pressures on timed release. Maybe a meter of it in typical bends to really push the testing. Say 10 seconds for 2 litres at a certain pressure then compare to standard rubber hose. Then change the pressures up and repeat.

Wing tanks today and tomorrow. We’ve watched 3 different YouTube builders and the Rans videos. Then we run out of stuff to do on aircraft 1. I’ve started aircraft 2 with rudder done straight and near perfect. We will push into aircraft 2 next few weeks amd whenever stalled on 1. Garmin G3X stuff is slow. It’ll arrive in bits and pieces next few months. Titan 180hp engine is now steel bore because we can actually get one in the next month. UL520Turbo 220hp will be here soon. We’ve decided to go the easy way on aircraft 1. All the Titan FWF is here and looks straight forward. USA Ulpower are in process of getting 520t carbon fiber cowling and engine mount done for S21 I’m guessing these will be toward the end of the year. There have been delays already. Airmaster prop for 520t is some 8 months away so aircraft 2 can proceed at a leisurely pace and we won’t sweat what will probably be a challenge getting the Ulengine sorted. Aircraft 2 is a tail dragger at this point. I have the Pipistrel tail dragger motor glider in a 40’ container mid November so can see how that goes. It’s much harder to handle than the S21 TD If anyone wants space in the 40’ I have heaps. Shipping from Moriarty New Mexico to Moorabin