marshallarts

It's looking to me like Air Australia, based at Jandakot, might have closed its doors. Lots of aircraft being auctioned at the moment, and al lot of them look like they were in the Air Australia fleet. Anybody know anything about this? They were there when I did my training in the 1980s, for heaven's sake. The principal, Chuck McElwee, famously put a stricken aircraft down in someone's backyard some years ago, in a suburb near Jandakot, and survived to tell the tale. Them wuz the days! Sad to see another aviation business (apparently) disappearing, but I'd guess that Chuck would be well into retirement age.

The frustrating thing about satphones (like mobiles) is that plans change all the time. I bought an iSatPhone quite a few years back, not for flying but for emergency coverage on our road trips into sometimes-remote places. I went for the iSatPhone because at the time InmarSat had a very reasonable prepaid plan on which the credits lasted a year - or maybe even two years. Perfect for what we wanted, i.e. hardly ever needed, but when needed, possibly needed badly! But - after only one cycle on that plan, it was discontinued, and the longest any prepaid credits lasted after that was (I think) 30 days. I was extremely unimpressed, so the phone sat in a cupboard for a few years until I finally sold it a while back. Advancing age means we don't go to such remote places now anyway, so no big loss. But just be aware that this can happen any time, with any provider.

Hence my comment about the Rotax 915iS. It would also be interesting to see something like one of the ULPower engines on the front of a Jab. But I note that the Vne is only 140 knots, so there may not be enough headroom to do things like this.

I guess an obvious candidate here in Oz is the Jabiru. It has always seemed to me that the factory-built 230D is somewhat crippled by its 600kg MTOW, especially as the same airframe (I believe) is rated for 760kg if you build it yourself as a 430D. I assume it would still be limited to 2 seats in RAA, but even with that, all that extra payload would represent a huge increase in the usefulness of that aircraft. And if they could just bolt a Rotax 915iS onto the front...😁

I would have thought anything with MTOW=750kg would not be "cheap". There are a couple of Liberty XLs for sale at the moment, that have MTOW very close to 760kg. Certified aircraft, based on the Europa homebuilts, so all composite, and reasonably well equipped, reasonable performance. I reckon they would be quite nice. But cheap? No, not that. I guess this means that a homebuilt Europa would (might) be able to move to that category too.

That is a lot of fun to watch. My TIF was in a 152, and I remember being taken aback at how flimsy it seemed - and how cramped! But it didn't stop me - went on to log quite a few hours in the 152s before graduating to the 172s, and others. This was in the 1980s. Heady days.

Wow, this is fantastic. It might be my way back into a form of flying!!

OK, I thought it might be something like that. Those damn laws of physics - you just can't get around them! 😄

I'm throwing this in in the hope/assumption that "there is no such thing a a stupid question..." We all know that modern ICE-powered cars have thermostatic electric fans to push or pull air though their radiators. Given that the Rotax is a liquid-cooled engine with a radiator, is this something that could be considered in this situation? I guess it's one more thing that could fail, and maybe a fan (or fans) could never move a big enough volume of air for an aircraft engine. But it seems to me that it/they could make some contribution. Just thought I'd ask.

Fantastic, thanks so much for posting that. I watched it as soon as I saw it, and will watch it again. Such a great story, such great minds, such great achievements.

Change of emphasis a bit, but... Reminds me a bit of an experience I had in the UK in 2018 - before Covid changed the world. My wife and I went to visit Bletchley Park, the now-famous place where Alan Turing and many others worked on code-breaking during WW2. It is a fantastic experience to go there, and so much to see and take in that one day is not enough. It totally blew our minds that up to 9000 people worked there during the war, and it was all kept totally secret until about 20 years ago. That just could not happen these days. Anyway, unknown to us, the day we went was a special anniversary of some sort, and dozens (maybe hundreds) of people were dressed up in 1940s clothes and/or uniforms. The Poms love that sort of thing, as we all know! There were fly-overs by a lovely old DC3 and a few other aircraft, and it all made the day very special indeed. If anyone ever does get to the UK again, I'd highly recommend a visit to Bletchley Park. And right next door is the National Museum of Computing, also a fascinating place to see. Both my wife and I have spent a lifetime (over 50 years) working with computers, so we were especially tickled to see all sorts of machinery we had worked with in decades past. The pic is of a statue at Bletchley honouring Alan Turing, depicted with one of the German "Enigma" machines. Considering his achievements, Turing was treated appallingly after the war, mainly because of his homosexuality which was in those days considered a crime. He was hounded basically to death by the authorities. And for those interested in trivia, the Apple logo is actually a tribute to Alan Turing - he was found dead with a poison-laced apple on the table next to the bed. There was a bite out of the apple, just as in the logo. In 2009 Turing was given a royal pardon for the supposed crimes of which he had been convicted, and an official apology was read in parliament by the then prime minister Gordon Brown.

Yes, I've read about this one, it was in 1999. The aircraft was VH-LWA, a Glasair 235 built by one of the Serpentine community I believe. They refuelled and overnighted at Aldinga, and the crash occurred shortly after their departure from there the following morning. Here's a link to the CASA report: https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/1999/aair/aair199901340/ There was fairly clear evidence that the tanks had been almost drained by thieves overnight. An absolute tragedy - two guys lost. It's not stated in the report, but I'd bet nobody was ever brought to account for it. Yes, pre-flight checks must ALWAYS include verification of fuel levels.

This looks interesting, but all those cranks and levers in the middle worry me a bit. I'm no mechanical engineer, so I wonder why the two halves of the crankshaft need to turn in opposite directions - is that to damp out vibrations, by rotating 180 degrees out of phase? If so then maybe it's OK, but my uneducated thought is that vibration could be damped using a weighted flywheel somewhere. Or by using two pairs of opposed pistons, arranged so that the pairs are 180 degrees our of phase - but if I've thought of that (and it works), then I'm sure Ampere Inc has too! Happy to be corrected on any of these assumptions.

You have to read the small print. I'm fairly sure that when I last looked, Aldi SIMs do not use ALL of the Telstra network. It can be significant.

Is this the Ben Lexcen of aviation? Mind-bending stuff. I have to wonder where all his money comes from - he seems to have a bottomless supply!

Yes we use that one on an Android tablet, not for flying but for road trips. The problem with any opinion on this sort of thing is that the plans change so often. Until a few months back Telstra was offering a 180-day plan for $70 (I think) which gave something like 25 or 30GB. It suited us well and was actually better value per GB than the 365-day plan. Someone inside Telstra must have realised that it was too good, so it is no longer offered. I was very annoyed by that. But for travelling you really need a Telstra plan, because they do have the best coverage.

I quite like their approach. I like the cantilever wing, the cavernous interior, and the robust build. But the LSA MTOW limit is a serious limitation - maybe Vashon have designed this with an eye to a future weight increase for LSAs. It seems like the airframe could almost certainly handle much more weight. With a few more horsepower (Rotax 915is?) and a MTOW around 800 or 900kg, this would be very attractive - like a mini Glasair Sportsman.

Well that may be true, and it might happen if it were the only choice. But the likelihood of my getting back into flying is vanishingly small, so it will probably never be a decision that I have to make.

I couldn't agree more. I'm not a pilot these days, but was back in the 1980s and 90s. And for a glorious few years we owned an old Beech Debonair - now that had a bit of heft to it! Built like a tank, it shared a lot of components with the Bonanza, and even a few with the Baron I think (e.g. landing gear). MTOW was about 1350kg if memory serves, and that weight certainly gave it a lot of stability in the air. I really wouldn't want to fly anything really light, and the thought of a 600kg MTOW makes me shake my head a bit.

Equator Aircraft is working on this hybrid amphibian, somewhere in Scandinavia I think. They have flown the prototype, and seem to be progressing quite well. https://equatoraircraft.com/index.html

Just saw this from a while back... RFguy, I'm sure you are aware that there is at least one J230 around powered by a Rotax 914. There's actually one for sale at the moment. So maybe that's an option if the Jab engine saga gets all too hard.

Good grief. That is a near-death experience. I stopped it at the frame where the nosewheel goes past the photographer's head, and I'm sure it was below the height of his head. The guy on the motor scooter on the road got a surprise too.

Thanks for all that. Doesn't sound like it's something that is going anywhere really. Not anywhere worthwhile, anyway.

Anyone here know anything about the Foxcon LSAs, from north Qld? I'd never heard of them until I just noted one for sale on planesales.com.au. I found their website (rather basic), all quite interesting - the Terrier 200 seems to be the mainstream model. They look quite nice in the pics - about the only thing that doesn't appeal (to me anyway) is the double wing struts, as they would intrude into the view quite a bit I think. They seem to be pushing the Subaru EA81 engine, another thing I know nothing about. But they also mention the good ol' Rotax 912. It isn't entirely clear to me whether they do factory-built, or only build-it-yourself. There are a few used aircraft for sale on the Foxcon website too, all with not many hours. Anyway, if anyone here has some experience with these, I'd be interested to hear their impressions. Not because I'm a potential buyer or builder, just interested to see another Aussie manufacturer.

There's a Brumby low-wing with a Lycoming for sale in Oz at the moment - it's an amateur-built one, looks very nice in the pics. The ad says its an O-235 but when I enquired about it (just curious, not because I'm a potential purchaser), I'm pretty sure the agent said it's actually an O-233. Don't know why he hasn't corrected the ad, but there you go. Anyway, I was interested in the empty weight, which I believe was (is) 360kg. So not a lot to play with there. The aircraft is virtually brand new - completed in 2020, only 40hrs TTIS. The agent said it was built by a "serial builder", who is onto his next project already. Obviously a builder, not a flyer. It has been on planesales.com.au for quite a while so it doesn't look like people are lining up to buy it.