F10

I have been told if my Gazelle has a 24 number before the RAAus number, then it was certified with an 80 Hp 912 and you can’t change that without voiding the certification? Would be great to put in a 100 Hp 912. Another thing….the Gazelles had an alternator on/off switch installed, apparently CASA wanted it for a VH reg. What is the story here? Flight manual says with an alternator failure, land as soon as practicable basically means land at first suitable airfield….it’s not land “immediately” basically a forced landing or land as “soon as possible” basically this would be a precautionary landing on the first suitable surface…so it seems to be not that urgent? However, the manual says to NOT switch alternator off in flight? Surely engine won’t stop? The alternator windings will induce a current, you don’t need battery power surely? Rotax maintenance manual doesn’t address this as far as I can see.

Crab for me…kick it straight on touchdown, stick over into wind. Wing down just complicates things, I’ve seen more getting out of shape lifting that low wing (aileron will be down, on the into wind wing….not great) than stick into wind on touchdown. But I concede, probably a personal preference. Crabs worked for 6500 hrs….not changing now. By the way, airliners gear is engineers with being able to touch down sideways, it’s actually recommended, changing a few tyres in that Bob Janes tyre shop hanging below them, costs a lot less than scraped engine pods and possibly fodded engines.

Looks pretty old, seems to have possible attachments for aileron cables? Harvard had wooden removable rear cockpit sticks, but not one of those, metal base fittings are different. Nice item!

Jay, good luck mate, motivating you to get control of your health has already been a good outcome! Yes saving time made me smile, this last Tuesday, decided to fly from Yarram to Leangatha, a pleasant little 40 odd minute trip in my Mighty Mouse 80 Kts cruise Gazelle, over some pretty countryside. Let me tell you how this “short” trip went. Arrive 0900 at Yarram….chat and coffee with Jim, open hangar, remove dust covers from plane, (lots of them). Decide to stick on my lovely big “boxing Kangaroo” decals on tail fin, do it now so glue will cure by airborne time….spend time admiring said decals. Go back to car, outside security fence to fetch fuel cans…need two trips….push beloved (plane, not wife) out hangar, carefully fold out wings….touch up some small paint scratches. Oh yes, had to remove Geoffs Kitfox from hangar first, to get my plane out. Install turtle deck over rear of cockpit, fiddler job, you have to be careful….Refuel, using three seperate 10l cans….burp Rotax engine, won’t explain technicality, but takes about 20 hand prop rotations, normally tell bemused onlookers I’m winding up the rubber band….carry out careful pre-flight, make sure wings are pinned drain all four fuel drain points pitot cover is removed. Sign daily inspection form. Climb in cockpit, strap in…spend time recovering breath…get iPad flight plan up. Start, warm up a while…taxi out….for my relatively “short” flight, airborne at 1130…😉 coming back after watching some interesting crop sprayer action…..reverse the process, leaving re-fueling step out, but add time spent lovingly wiping down admiring and cleaning up my little magic carpet…Add another coffee and chat with Jim. Arrive home after 1730….Time savers….they ain’t! But I love it, it’s SO much fun!

I guess if you started on a twin from scratch, knew nothing else, maybe….but yes, twins are expensive if money is a concern. I flew a King Air once in my SA Air Force days, sitting upfront as a pax, I thought the controls had jammed, the ailerons felt so heavy….but I was used to a Harvard which has pretty light controls in fact. As for performance, we’ll again, if money is no concern, a P51 Mustang or F4U Corsair will outperform most twins….yes, for us “I now fly just for fun” people, the “thing” that creates lift under our aircraft wings, is not intricate airflow, causing changing flow velocities, with the subsequent pressure changes….but buckets of cold hard cash….and lots of it!🙃I would suggest, train on a single, then if you must, buy a Cherokee 6 or a Cessna 206, light twin size, with half the cost and complexity.

Simple, most of the Jewish settlements were in areas that had been agreed to by Arafat and Netanyahu in that original dual state agreement. But when Jews started to "occupy" these agreed to areas, they were ctiticized. Now, I think its more about survival. Clearly areas occupied by the Jewish people will not be used for uguided rocket attacks or incendary balloons. Nice neighuours! Still, funny how Tel Aviv airport isn't full of desperate people wanting to leave, as we see in Kabul, seems people aren't too keen to live in an "Islamic Sharia Law utopia".

Just on 5000. So probably pitch set a bit coarse, but then thats good for cruise. As I said, take off performance is as expected, so no problems with this. The only concern is I guess, going fulk throttke on take off, could be a overboost, if RPM is low?

I think Gazelles would be quite happy at a MAUW of around 550kg. Two blokes around 90kg and you really can’t take much fuel at a MAUW of 520…(basic is around 320). There is an AD out to have another carry through strut bolted on, below the original, after that incident. Apart from an aileron failure, (which had significant contributing factors) the old Gazelles have a pretty good record I think. Yes underwing camber is interesting, I must read up on it. Most positively cambered aerofoils have a nose down (leading edge down) pitching moment at low angles of attack. At high AoA, it changes to nose up, with the CP moving forward on the cord line. At some point, there is no pitching moment on the wing. That CP position is referred to as the “aerodynamic centre”, upon which the tail plane stability will be designed I understand. Interesting stuff aerodynamics!

My Gazelle has a 3 blade Bolly on it, maybe this drops the max RPM? Performance seems good, acceleration on take off pretty brisk and solo, climbs out at around 600-700ft/min. Cruise at 4800 RPM is 70KIAS. Also pretty ballpark. Anyone else have a 3 blade Bolly? Flew to Tyabb from Yarram recently with a mate on board, retired Esso A139 driver. He really enjoyed it. I got normal fuel burn figures as per the flight manual. Book says 12.7 l/hr at 4800 RPM. I flight planned at 13 and it seemed accurate, but that’s trying to see fuel levels on the sides of those tanks….they really needed to Put in a small clear tube level on the side of the tanks!

I largely agree, but I think one important factor you left out, I remember when all the Taiwanese made tools were cheap….and junk. It took a few years but now they are as good as the best. I don’t like Chinas government and would happily support its removal or democratisation, but one thing is some Chinese goods are just that, good. I’ve owned a small Chinese made CFMoto little commuter motorcycle. It’s done around 25 000 Kms trouble free and still looks brand new at 5 years old. I bought my wife a Haval H2. SUV. At the time, nothing came even close spec wise, for the price. Took a punt. Had it for four years and it’s been fantastic we love trips in it. Chinese junk….not really anymore. It’s an interesting situation.

Your passport will expire on this trip!

Reference the “global warming” (yeah right) undies saga....that was SOP for any young Alo III chopper pilot...if you have to carry out a precautionary landing, due to a fuel low pressure light, fly until you find a farmhouse with the sexiest undies on the line...and land there! Any young female PAX approaching your aircraft in a skirt....pull 0.2 collective pitch setting....rotor wash will lift the skirt....oh dear, weren’t the pre PC days a lot of laughs! I miss them!

Love the Monogram model box top pic! Oh boy, did that bring back memories! I loved that kit as a kid and the Monogram Cessna 180 also. Civil light aircraft kits were quite rare in those days.

I think radio calls are really important. Going into Tyabb on Monday (I avoid weekends...too busy by half!) about two weeks ago, listening to radio calls as I flew in for an overhead join, helped a lot with building up a mental picture of traffic. I joined mid downwind, number two to a yellow Gazelle, who I was able to spot because of his radio calls. I don’t have a transponder unfortunately, have just installed a GPS Garmin 495, and I don’t have an i pad, I prefer my paper map with tracks and distance markers drawn in, my A5 clipboard with my log card clipped on it....old school habits I’m afraid. I like to think my eyes are mostly outside.

Nice! Kept hoping she would hit a thermal and zip up 500 ft...but that would probably frightened the pilot so much he might have stopped pedalling! Wonder what advantage if any, the single prop blade has?

Hmmm, mess with thunderstorms and all bets are off. Going into a strip like that, in those conditions, pure Russian roulette. Bytheway, can you build a Zenith with a conventional stick position, or is a central stick the only option?

Nice! Looks like a Tripacer on steroids. I like nose wheels, I have enough tail dragger time, to own a few of those T shirts... these days I like the relaxed taxi and seeing where I’m going!

Yes, a lady engineer solved Merlin -ve “g” fuel starvation problem, short term. A plate in the float bowl, with a small hole in it held enough fuel near the jet diffuser, with short term negative g, to prevent a cut, but hole was big enough to not impede normal ops fuel delivery, simple but clever! Later carbs were floatless, or had a type of injection system to deliver fuel to the jets I think. The Bings on my Rotax, have a throttle butterfly, ahead of the moving piston and tapered needle. With choke on, throttle fully closed, the butterfly is fully closed. This exposes very small drilling’s only just past the butterfly plate, which are part of the choke circuit, because downstream of the fully closed butterfly plate, a suction exists (manifold pressure being lower than ambient, especially at idle) over these drilling’s, which suck up fuel, to enrich the mixture for start. If you crack the throttle slightly, the butterfly plate actually covers these holes, or moves past them, putting them in a pre butterfly plate high pressure area, so fuel is not sucked up, engine struggles to start. Normal running. As I understand it, the throttle butterfly valve causes more air to come into the Venturi throat, this sucks up the piston, withdrawing the tapered needle from the jet orifice, leading to more fuel and air going into the induction manifold. The bottom of the piston forms the Venturi, creating a suction, constantly drawing fuel up past the needle taper, for higher power running. The Bings are cool carries, simple really yet reliable. I like the fact the Rotax config, gets the carb bodies nicely warmed up being so far back on the engine. That is why they rarely suffer carb icing. They are a lot like the old SU carbs on Brit sports cars. Wow, I did ramble on!

Will try putting down a tarp on the floor, that sounds interesting, and will close off engine better. Heating not an option, no power unless I can try a solar panel but that will start to get complicated, we have many cloudy days! Trouble is, will an open engine dry off faster? We’ve also had a lot more winter rain here at Yarram then in the past few years....very wet, but as I said, will definitely run the engine once a week, roll on spring!

My rental hanger has a dirt floor, with carpets over it, recently noticed a lot of condensation on the engine, after a old night, which was alarming! I keep the aircraft under cloth covers. Recently put a blue plastic tarp over it, in winter only, due to dripping condensation from the hangar roof🤨...in summer it’s all good and does give great rain and wind protection of course. But, lots of different opinions on the net...some say heaters good..but others insist they make corrosion worse...I agree with, “run the engine at least once a week”....that means fly it, not a short run, that’s also bad...I close up the cowling, should I bung the exhausts? Tough one.....

Dog loose on the airfield....bad idea! The high frequency buzz of some propellers will casedogs to try to bite the spinning prop, I had been told this by an old crusty heli QFI, who said watch out for landing at an LZ and dogs are around, some will try to jump up and bite the buzzing tail rotor. Takes a courageous dog, with all that noise...but one day, landing my “flying Jeep” Alo III , I noticed this excited Staffie terrier running around, I said to the flight engineer, “watch the dog”, as we were in the hover over the LZ, he was leaning out the door checking the TR and suddenly shouted, “go up three”! The dog had run up and leapt up to have a go at the tail rotor...missing it by not much....only time it had ever happened to me, but it only takes one to ruin your day! Besides, if dogs were around my aircraft, I don’t want to be replacing rusty brake discs or wheel bearings!

Yeah interesting this, I got rid of the wheel spats on my Gazelle, two rear ones were already off and gone walkabout when I bought the aircraft, only nose had it. It to me it’s like the three Musketeers..all or nothing! Looks bit like a Tripacer, one of those aircraft that actually looks better without spats in my view. So, question is, what is better, losing 3 kg weight, or the drag? Weight loss will reduce drag very slightly, but to me, at speeds below 100 kts, drag becomes less of an issue, exponentially. Remember, twice the speed: equals four times the drag, four times the lift and control effectively four times better. All those vary as the square of the IAS, simply put.

You hear what you want to hear...he’s basically saying medical doctors could look into adapting the use of UV light or disinfectant in some sort of medical modified application, this was in dark days when no one knew much....but I’m not arguing, if you hate Trump, nothing will change that I guess. Just funny how as time goes on, a lot of what he said is proving correct, like his promise about having a vaccine within a year for example...but I’ll let sleepy Joe’s performance show how good as a President, Trump was. I will watch with interest.

I don’t think he said that, he did say he suggested why not try hydroxychloroquine, it MAY help, but this was greeted with foaming mouth hysteria by the media, I clearly recall one CNN propaganda merchant saying “that stuff will kill you”, funny, I took it for many years as an anti malaria drug....and you really think Biden has been a better President....??

You mean like he was totally wrong when he said this virus originated in China and it originated in a lab....or building a border wall was a good idea, going well on the border with Mexico is it? 😁