cscotthendry

Ok, a confession of sorts, more of a cautionary tale. I took a friend up for a fly on a gusty day. The flight went all to plan until the landing phase. As we approached the field, the wind was a bit cross to the runway, but very gusty. On short final, the plane started an uncommanded left bank. I thought "What have I flown into? Is it some kind of willy willy?" After a couple of seconds wondering what was happening, we were over the side fence of the airfield and about halfway down the runway. I decided that it would be just about impossible to fly back to the runway so I pushed the nose down, gave it full throttle and called "going around". So what happened? My guess is that I let the airspeed drop and stalled a wing. Fortunately for me and my friend, my training caused me to do the correct response, nose over and throttle. Had I tried to correct the uncommanded left bank with ailerons, we might have been a smoking hole in the paddock. I have practiced stalls many times, but haven't had a wing drop like that before. It started out gently and I applied a little aileron pressure, but got no response like I usually get. That was when I figured that the plane was out of my control and that it wasn't going to be possible to fly back to the runway. I have a fair bit of history with go-arounds as I fairly often mis-judge my approach and end up too high on short final. It's my biggest shortcoming as a pilot, but I just go around and work it out. So the point is, I don't hesitate to abort a landing if things aren't to my liking. In this case my comfort with go-arounds save two lives.

Welcome to the forums and to flying. Blue skies and tailwinds.

Hi Mike: I'll give you a call WRT to the ceramic coating option. That sounds interesting. Thanks.

WRT the oil temp for takeoff 1) Rotax specify that as a minimum 2) I have heard that this is because there is a bypass valve in the oil filter that remains open until the oil is at 50 degrees 3) I masked off a third of my oil cooler because my oil temps were too low during flight, but especially on descent. Now, my oil temps run in the middle of the green arc during flight, climb to the top of the green/bottom of the yellow on a sustained climb and sit at the bottom of the green on descent. Clearly, the Rotax supplied oil cooler on my airplane is providing more cooling than my engine needs. I have a simple normally aspirated 100HP 912ULS. As for not doing runups before takeoff? Not this little black duck. I do them every time. I want to know that both mags are sparking before I go hurtling down the runway with a fence at the end of it. WRT to cooking the engine? IMO, if you're keeping an eye on the temp gauges, you shouldn't be cooking the engine. I couldn't vouch for air cooled engines, but the Rotax doesn't cook like that. I have had an occasion with a warm start on a very hot day when my coolant temp rose above normal, but as soon as I started my takeoff roll, the temp came down about halfway down the runway. So, how a pilot treats his own aircraft with Lycomings is his business. That it "doesn't use a drop of oil" says only that his engine is still in reasonably good condition, but it doesn't logically follow that his lack of runups is the reason. That's a bit like saying that because rain comes from clouds, if there are clouds in the sky it must be raining. Finally, WRT to the long warmup time for the Vixen, yes, he probably had a similar setup as most Rotax engines. I think the standard oil cooler has been designed to cope with the higher power and turbo charged engines. With the standard oil cooler on a normally aspirated 80 or 100HP engine it can take a while to get the oil temp up, especially in the winter, but it's still required by Rotax.

Does anybody know what kind of tool can make ball ends in exhaust tubing? If so, does anyboy know of someone or business that has one? The ball ends of my exhaust pipes don't seal in the sockets in the muffler. They are just a shade too small and need to be expanded out a bit

Bolly for sure. They're great people to deal with, will help you select the right prop and being a local manufacturer, they're close by for repairs or advice if needed. Also, they make good gear. Probably the Bolly BOS3.

I have the non TSO garmin in my Legend. It works ... Reliably and it has stereo capability. I have Lightspeed Zulu headsets and I wired the system for stereo. I can hook in some music into the intercom if I want (but never have) and listen to it in stereo. Also, on dual watch, the active frequency reception moves towards the left ear and the standby towards the right ear. Also, the pax voice comes mostly in my right ear so it sounds more like you're not actually wearing headsets. As a final plus, the Garmin has remote frequency and toggling inputs so I can cycle through my frequency memory and swap active and standby with a switch on my yoke. PPS! The Garmin has a nice BIG bright display that is easy to read in a bright cockpit, unlike some of the gear with the little LCD screens.

Another take (possible conspiracy theory) about airport fees. When a council implements airport fees, the original, and stated, intent is to cover the operating and maintenance costs of the airfield. However, a subplot could be to drive traffic away, thereby justifying the sale of the airport to developers. Everyone knows that airports draw developers like sugar draws ants. All that flat cleared land is cheap to build houses on and developers can make a motza out of an ex airport. Then the council gets rates from all those houses/units and no longer has to pay to maintain the airport. For the council and the developers, what's not to like. For the couple hundred pilots who can no longer land or house their planes there ... Too bad! This is the world we live in now. Where the $ rules and business is a sacred (cash) cow.

Absobloodylutely!

Hi Phil: I saw your comment on the Gilberton video. When I saw the signature, I guessed it was the same Phil Perry from the fora here. Thanks for watching and thanks for your feedback. Yes it is Tommy in that and other videos. Both versions of Countrywide in that video are Tommy playing, one with an orchestral backing and one solo. WRT flying over tiger country and what it means for the "donkey in front" LOL, it can be a little scary at times, but flying with a group helps with the nerves a lot. I'm not brave enough to attempt these sorts of trips on my own and I'm very grateful for the support of my fellow Puk Airlines members. Another upside of group flying, is that every night is like a party while we're on tour. Our core group is very close; like a family. We get along very well and have a really great time.

That's true if done poorly. However, vehicle wrap is a different product to the vinyl used for making rego letters and stick on graphics. Vehicle wrap is very flexible and is applied using a heat gun. With care, the rivets can be dealt with effectively, but it will be a very tedious job. In addition to that, you could have a very speccy "paint job" for a lot less than having it painted that way. And if you come to dislike the decoration, you can heat it off and design a new one.. But you'd still have to prime and paint a base coat, probably white would be best.

That other link didn't allow the whole series to play. Paste this into your browser's address bar if you want to watch the rest of the trip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries

Not exactly our last flight, but our most recent trip. Our stops were: Dingo Winton Adels grove Karumba Gilberton station Bowen Yeppoon And then home There was some spectacular scenery along the way and some really interesting stops. Winton, Adels grove, Karumba and Gilberton station were amazing

I agree. Also, do you fly with an tablet or phone? If so, make sure the wifi is turned off. I found that cured the phantom receptions I was getting.

We'll be there and looking for you!

Personally, I'm not a fan of having "all glass" for aviation instruments. In my experience, things go wrong at the worst possible time. Translation: When the internal glass cockpit fails will be the time you find out the the batteries in the external pod are dead. Don't get me wrong, I think glass panels are cool, but I also think they can be a distraction to the pilot playing with the "bells and whistles" rather than looking outside the cockpit. I've seen pilots do this.

Something that wasn't mentioned was the possibility of the drone's Lion battery catching fire inside the wing after impact. If that happened with the fuel in the wing, I'm reasonably sure the aircraft would not survive long enough to land.

Where were the wing walkers? Budget cuts???

Mick: Welcome back to flying and the forums. Very pleased to hear that you've found a way to realise your dream.

Will we be able to opt out of CTA?

Yenn: As I understand it, everything that goes into a GA plane (apart from experimentals) has to have some sort of certification somewhere along the line. That adds costs from manufacture to maintenance to spare parts. A simple example is the difference between a Rotax 912S and a 912ULS. There is a significant difference in price of the two engines which is mostly down to all the extra certifications in the 912S. Want to put a new airspeed indicator or altimeter in a GA plane as far as I know they have to be TSO. Not so much in an RAA plane. As others have said, in RAA you can maintain your own plane. Can you do this with a non-experimental GA aircraft? And so on it goes.

Didn't get up...Weather

The GA industry is dying because of the regulatory costs created by CASA. Of course we can "just remove the numbers and instal 'VH-" and then bear the costs associated with a VH airplane and the costs associated with the pilots licenses. That was the whole point of LSA and ultralights; to give more people a chance to fly. These changes (IMO) are designed to accomodate some of the very light GA aircraft into the recreational category. That is where GA started, but steadily over the generations, the bureaucrats in the regulatory bodies have generated endless paper chases under the cover of "safety". The major result of all the credentialism and certification regimes has been to push GA flying out of reach of most average income earners.

That's a nice looking airplane.