Jump to content

marshallarts

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    169

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by marshallarts

  1. marshallarts
    What a great project, well done. It looks fabulous. You have brought that aircraft into the 21st century. Enjoy!!
  2. marshallarts
    I agree, times 2! The older Europas are something of a "quiet achiever" among light homebuilts. They have a very low profile in the market, but that is very impressive performance and fuel burn. And yes, their new Elite looks great, it's a pity that the Covid19 debacle in the UK has undoubtedly cost them many lost months of progress on it.
  3. marshallarts
    Ah yes, another (ex) Beechcraft owner here, so I know what you are talking about. I owned a lovely old Debonair ("Debbie" as we affectionately knew her) back in the 1990s - what a delight she was to fly. Quite fast, stable, forgiving, and almost landed herself with those big fat wings and the ground-effect. Glory days.
  4. marshallarts
    Footnote to my original post... I tracked down the aircraft details as listed by the auctioneer. It doesn't show their age in years, but most are quite high-time, over 11,000 hours TTIS. Only about 3 have less than 10,000 hours on them. A surprising number of them seem to be unserviceable - engines and/or props missing or "incomplete", some with no avionics, etc etc. Some are situated at Jandakot, some at Merredin. It's mostly the ones at Merredin that seems to be in bits. So maybe a few restoration projects in store for someone. These are composite aircraft, so you'd think the airframes should be sound, almost regardless of age. If only I were about 20 years younger...😁 onetrack, you must have been typing at the same time as me - the list is here -> https://www.slatteryauctions.com.au/auction-catalogue/6151
  5. marshallarts
    Thanks Red750, interesting. For something with an IO360 up front, the performance seems a bit underwhelming.
  6. marshallarts
    Just saw a heap of Grob G115-C2s appear on the auction market here in WA. China Southern pilot training school apparently went into liquidation back in December, and all the assets are now being sold off. They operated out of Jandakot and also Merredin. They bought the Merredin airfield from the shire back in 1995 for $1, then spent about a million on upgrading it. Another Covid-19 casualty I guess - their primary mission was to train Chinese pilots who would then return home to take up a career in aviation. But with little or no international travel, no students = no revenue = big problems with all those aircraft sitting on the ground. I don't know much about the Grobs, and I don't know how aircraft auctions go, but there might be some nice little 2-seaters going for attractive prices in the next month or so - 38 of them! All quite sad to see really.
  7. marshallarts
    Neither do I! In 2021 most CEOs would give an arm or leg for anything close to that level of ROI.
  8. marshallarts
    I do think OME raises a good point here. And it's not just the billions being thrown at the F-35 fighters. What about the multi-billions being peed down the toilet for these ridiculous submarines? The Collins class subs which will apparently be retired soon have been a huge money-hole too, both to buy and to operate and maintain. My question is - has ANY submarine operated by the RAN since WW2 EVER done anything of any strategic significance? I suspect not, and I just don't buy this line that we need them as a "deterrent". So we will pour these billions down the same hole again, and these subs will spend their lives doing training exercises or "war games". What a joke. Except it isn't funny.
  9. marshallarts
    Does anyone here know anything about the Whisper aircraft, out of South Africa? They have a 2-seater (all-composite I think) called the X350. Looks pretty good on paper (or on screen) - fast, fairly spacious, quite good useful load. I'm not a potential builder, just curious to know how good (or not) they might really be. Their website is at https://www.whisperaircraft.com/
  10. marshallarts
    Interesting to note that there is one of these for sale by auction at the moment in Australia. VH-YXP, part of a deceased estate in NSW somewhere.
  11. marshallarts
    Hmm I did the boat trip out to Woody Island just before Christmas, and on a guided walk was assured by the guide that there are NO snakes on that island. Seems odd that only one (or few) islands in an archipelago of 100 or so would be snake-free. Don't know what to think now!
  12. marshallarts
    What makes it a Recreational Aviation accident? Just the registration of the aircraft? If so, this one wasn't an RA incident - the aircraft is/was VH registered.
  13. marshallarts
    This is just awful. It's not clear to me how the PIC fits into the picture here. I know VH-SIP has been for sale for a long time, because I've been sort of half-watching it since I live just 30 or 40 minutes from Serpentine, and if the lotto numbers ever lined up well enough, it just might have been something I would be interested in. The Aussie register still shows the original builder as the owner/operator, so unless Mr Brady bought it very recently and the details haven't been updated yet, he doesn't seem to be the owner. If he was just doing someone a favour, then it almost makes it all even worse. For those who don't know, Serpentine is operated by a very vibrant club of owners and builders, and there are over 100 aircraft based there, many of them amateur-built. This will hit that community very hard too.
  14. marshallarts
    How very irritating. That $70/35GB prepaid with 6 month expiry suited us very nicely, what's there now somewhat less. Oh well, by the time we need to recharge it will be different again! I can hardly wait....NOT.
  15. marshallarts
    Similar here. Our tablet becomes our own private Wireless Access Point when there is no free one around to use. Or even when there is - free public wifi is not necessarily secure, so I would NOT recommend doing your banking on it.
  16. marshallarts
    I strongly recommend that you compare the coverage maps. The key phrase with ALDI is "MOST of the Telstra network" - you will note for example that while Telstra has coverage almost all the way across the Nullarbor, Aldi has NONE. Zip. Zilch. We use a Telstra simm in a tablet for our road trips, because in our experience Telstra has the best coverage, hands down. Our current one is a prepaid for $70 which lasts 180 days and gives 35GB - data only, no calls or texts. But things change all the time - I can's see that one on the website now.
  17. marshallarts
    Thanks from me too, kgwilson. The Canstar scores confirm my (generally bad) experience with Varta rechargeables, both AA and AAA. They were OK for the first few charge/discharge cycles, but it didn't take many before the capacity started going south. Won't buy any more of them.
  18. marshallarts
    Ah, so it is the turbo engine - I thought that was the most likely candidate. Not surprised to hear that parts are getting difficult to come by. Also interesting to hear it is one of the Serpentine fleet.
  19. marshallarts
    Crikey, I wouldn't have expected that as a choice of aircraft engine. I just looked up specs for the Smarts, and looks like there was an 800cc diesel and a 1-litre petrol., with and without turbo. None of them would exactly give neck-snapping performance, I suspect. It would be interesting to know how that turned out.
  20. marshallarts
    I second that. I've noted recently that at least a couple of the 152s I flew during my basic training back in the early 1980s are still flying today, with the same organisation. I'd love to know their TTAF times! It must have been better economics to keep them going rather than replace, or they wouldn't still be there.
  21. marshallarts
    Not for the retailer running the servo, I think it's the fuel companies further up the food chain that are doing the ripping off. I certainly wouldn't be investing in a servo now, but people are - there's a new one being built near me, despite the fact that there are at least 3 others within a couple of km. Very hard to see the viability there.
  22. marshallarts
    Ah, taxes on taxes, you gotta love it! I thought it was a principle of our tax system that this doesn't happen. Just like all those taxes that GST was supposed to replace - funny thing, but some are still here (e.g. stamp duty), 20 years on.
  23. marshallarts
    I reckon it's a bit more than an illusion. With this ridiculous fuel "price cycle" that we have here (for car fuels anyway), the price can change overnight by anything up to 30%. Personally, I think that IS worth saving, so we make constant use of the Fuelwatch website here in WA, and adjust our purchasing accordingly. We have a Prado with large tanks which can take 180 litres of diesel - 30% saved on a fillup is worth at least a lunch, maybe even two!
  24. marshallarts
    Yes it certainly looks good. Peter estimates (hopes for) cruise speeds well over 200 knots - an earlier video seemed to show that the engine was producing over 300hp at the rev limit he has set (about 3800rpm, with a reduction drive). And it's pressurised too, so with both those turbos pumping, performance should persist way up into the flight levels, and no need for oxygen masks. I think the prototype is quite a bit heavier than it could/should be, so probably won't reach its performance potential. His plan is to put it into production, but not by him. He says some discussions/plans have happened, but they won't be revealed until after it has flown. He has quite a number of deposits for kits - a lot of the enthusiastic followers reckon it's a Cirrus-killer. Well maybe, and maybe not! Anyway, better stop this thread drift, just wanted to make you aware of it. Cheers, Steve.
  25. marshallarts
    RFGuy, something that might light your fire, if you haven't seen it already, is the Raptor prototype being built in the US. An Aussie guy named Peter Muller lives there and for the last several years has been designing and building this aircraft. Its powerplant, believe it ot not, is an Audi 3-litre twin-turbo diesel V6, with a 3rd-party Motec ECU on it. In conjunction with some software this allows him to tweak all sorts of parameters, and monitor/log heaps of things. The aircraft is very close to first flight. Today's update shows him doing some static runs to verify that there will be adequate engine cooling during take-off and climb-out. As you can see, he can collect more data than you can shake a stick at! Not for in-flight use, but very useful at this stage of the project. Peter's background is in computer software, NOT aircraft design. Today's video is below and there are literally hundreds more going back right to the start of the project. I really don't know if this thing is ever going to fly reliably and/or well, but I do respect this guy's persistence.
×
×
  • Create New...