cscotthendry

Yes indeed it is a Conestoga, made by Budd. And yes it was made of spot welded stainless steel. Only 17 ever flew. Here's a closer look at the very interesting spot welding.

Saw this today… Something special about this plane!

The retailer that used to be at archerfield has moved to Tingalpa. They still supply the oil at very reasonable prices. I wouldn't buy it from Floods. They charge too much. To answer the OP's question, look up the Shell distributor in your area. Or the fuel supplier at your nearest GA airport.

Um, I have to pull you up on that little fudge. The thing that sent USPS to the wall wasn't paying PHDs to sort the mail. It was when the Republicans legislated that the USPS (unlike ANY other business or government enterprise) had to find ALL the money for the pensions for ALL their employees in perpetuity (in cash in advance) and pay it to the Fed for keeping. It amounted to billions that USPS had to find and is still trying to stump up. That caused massive cost cutting and price increases and is still going on because that law is still on the books. THAT was the Conservatives way of pricing the USPS out of business in favor of the private carriers who, BTW, donate heavily to Republicans.

Mike; I'll second what Gary said about getting one from the UK. They are the main distributors since Phillipe died.

I watched a couple of your videos. I thought they were very interesting, but the topic seemed to jump around a bit. I was absolutely stunned by the “tape plane”. Thanks for sharing though, it's really interesting stuff, especially for those of us who maintain our own planes.

Since the Jabs tend to fall out of the sky, my vote will be for the Kamikaze option … if they stay running long enough to reach the enemy…

I agree: over the past 3-4 decades we've heard this “low tax” BS from government at all levels. What it really means is that those governments are operating various services “like a business” which means “at a profit”. There is some sense to this in some areas, but it has been taken to the extreme. And the result as Skippy says is that we are paying double and paying excessively for some services because they are being run for profit (with a keen eye to being privatized and sold off to the pollies's mates to make money from). They haven't quite got around to privatizing the police and fire brigades … yet, but private schools, hospitals, electricity, water, roads, airports, prisons, communications … the list is ever expanding. Once these services are sold, it is nearly impossible to get them back in public hands as the leeches that buy them feel entitled to the extortive profits they can wring from captive markets. For a good look at how this privatization can be abused, you only need to look at the American *health care* system works. There are some things that governments shouldn't be allowed to privatize. I'm thankful that the Aus public pretty much kicked John Howard out when he went too far and we still have a semi functional health system, but it was not for lack of him trying to “Americanize” it.

With version 2, if the cooler is above the level of the tank, the oil can drain out of the cooler and create an air pocket in the oil system that has to be purged by the oil pump every time the engine is started. Since the cooler is usually on the suction side of the oil system, this could introduce air into the lifters and possibly cause a valve strike. This is why oil coolers are almost always mounted with the connections facing up and why rotax advise not draining the cooler during oil changes and why they have that involved method for purging air out of the system if you do completely drain all the oil.

I fly in normal clothes (to suit the season) with nothing in my pockets and full cover shoes. Things in pockets are just another source of potential injury if things go sideways and full cover shoes will be useful if you have to walk out of the bush.

Did the 5 year rubber replacement on the Legend last year. I just ordered the hose from Floods and was done with it. Toohard chasing odd bits for Rotax engines and then you might have “under spec” parts that would automatically get the blame if anything happens.

Hi Mike Saw your plane in the latest email from RA Aus😊

I watched Trent's analysis and I agree with him that it looks staged. It makes my blood boil that someone would deliberately crash an airplane for social media clicks. I hope they throw the book at him.

This was the panel I built in the Nynja, there are some things to note 1) The layout resembled the panel of the Beechcraft Baron with the flight gauges directly in front of the pilot and the engine gauges in a vertical line in the middle of the panel. 2) The color was chosen for high contrast between the gauges and the panel. This made visually locating any qauge quick and accurate. 3) The light panel background in a cockpit with a skylight and full height clear doors gave off a lot of reflections in the doors and was a PITA for photography. In retrospect, the light panel in that cockpit had more downside than upside. It works better in my current plane which has a darker cockpit.

The cowling on my Legend matches all the specifications you laid out. It works well on all but the hottest days after a heat soak. There has only been one time when my engine looked like overheating on the ground. The situation was this; My wife had gone for a TIF with and instructor in our plane and had landed. The plane sat for 1/2 hour on the ground afterwards and then we started up and taxied out to the runway. It was 35C on the ground and we were on bitumen taxiways. There were 5 aircraft in the circuit so it took quite a while for us to catch a break where someone wasn't on short final. The temp gauge went up into the red, but as soon as we started rolling at full throttle I could see the gauge dropping like a dead fly. By the time we lifted off the ground, the gauge was back in the yellow and headed south. AFAIK the engine suffered no lasting ill effects from this. However, I have a normally aspirated, carburetted Rotax 100HP. The same style cowling as mine was used on two subsequent Legends with injected engines and they had a lot of overheating issues and had to have the cowlings modified. So the moral of the story is that the cowling design isn't just a straight numbers exercise. The environment and the engine characteristics probably will require some trial and error no matter how much you plan and calculate. Edit:Something to consider. On my cowling and on other cowlings I've seen with the radiator at the exit of the cowling, there is always a flare around the exit hole which I think creates a low pressure area around the hole and increases the flow a little. The flare is always small and not a pronounced angle. I'm guessing that is because at 100Kts, it doesn't take much to be effective. PS, I have never had any cooling issues even in the longest continuous climbs on the hottest days.

My latest flight was a scenic trip around Moreton and Stradbroke islands. With a little digging, I found a lot of interesting things about the two islands.

The one that gets me is when people do an inbound call from a non standard distance without an ETA. I get the non standard distance bit, that happens a lot at our airfield because our CTAF overlaps another one. It's the lack of an ETA that annoys me. I always set my GPS up on my way home with a simple GoTo. It then gives me my ETA which I use with my inbound call and it tells me when I'll be in circuit. Then I hear someone in a plane whose speed I don't know say “I'm over Jumpinpin inbound…” when I call them and ask for an ETA I invariably get something like “Oh, about 3 minutes from now”, and it looks like I'm 3 minutes from circuit entry. So now I've got to try and spot them, hoping their position call was accurate.

I think you can safely tighten that u bolt fairly tight. The cross tube is double walled in that area from memory. It needs to be tight enough that it won't rotate. I had a similar issue on mine that I only discovered after I flew home from testing your airplane. If you look at the very last few seconds of this video as I brake to a stop at the hangar, you'll see the leg swivel a bit. https://youtu.be/H0FZq3KIp9M

I recently discontinued the hull insurance on my airplane. If I damage it, I'll pay to repair it. I know that insurance is a “for profit” industry, but IMO lately the profit motive has gotten out of hand. Ithink there are a number of reasons for the rises and not all related to claims. Shareholder returns and executive remunerations seem to be excessive in a lot of businesses and insurance is no different. In any case, I made the decision to “self insure” going forward. If I completely write off my plane, there's a good chance I won't care about it.

What are you pushing on to “do the wiggle”? That may give a clue as to what is squeaking. The noise sounds like the fibreglass (or plastic) squeaking to me. Look for rivets chafing or for shiny areas on the frame. Check that all the connector bolts are nice and snug. Don't overtighten them or you'll deform the tubes. Also, check that all the bracing wires are tight. There shouldn't be any slack in any of the bracing wires. Also, check for corrosion around the bolt connections between the tubes. It sounds like the frame is flexing and rubbing on the fibreglass or the windscreen. You just need to find out where it's flexing. You already know which side it's on, so that's half the battle already. Just as an after thought, especially check the tube that supports the lower part of the door and the windscreen.

I didn't know him well, but had a long chat with him at The Old Station fly in. He greeted me and treated me as a long lost brother. He knew quite a bit about my Nynja build even though we had never met before that. That seemed to be the kind of guy he was, interested, caring and personable. I was a bit shaken when I heard of his death in what seemed like a preventable crash. If it could happen to someone as experienced as Ross, what about me? RIP Maj. Blue skies and tailwinds.

If I was rebuilding a crashed airplane, I wouldn't leave anything uninspected. A little thought would have told him how important bracing structures are in an airframe, and that is exactly what those things are. If he missed those, did he miss inspecting other welds on the frame? And the original owner should be hung drawn and quartered for using zip ties to attach structural members.

The expanding air=lower pressure makes sense to me given that the heated air is not contained in a rigid container.

Yeah, the mass insanity around the COVID vaccines astounds me. I hope someone in authority is looking closely into where this is all coming from. I think a big contributor is Fox (so called) News. Ironically, Murdoch REQUIRES all his staff to be vaccinated or tested daily, including those talking heads railing against government vaccine mandates. Back on topic, what iBob said about mfgrs changing formulation is the key here. Airplane engines are too critical to safety and expensive to play Russian Roulette with.

Took a good mate up for a fly. He goes in Tuesday to have an op on his thyroid. Apart from being a good friend and thus deserving a fly, I wanted to take his mind of the upcoming op for a little while at least. https://youtu.be/niAKRiBYnjQ