Moneybox

I'm just disappointed that I never reached my goal. I wanted to leave here tomorrow with my RPC but the change of planes held me back. Of course the weather doesn't help a lot either. Tomorrow is my last day and it's not looking good. My plane is sitting out in the weather at Northam airport and I won't get back there until mid June. The main trouble with retirement is that you don't get time to scratch yourself. I think I need to go back to work so that I can have some time off.

I was practising engine out and forced landings. It was good see how to set up and perform the landing. He said lets go an have a look at the beach but on the pointy bit, lower right he cut my throttle back to idle and said "You've just blown the engine. What are you going to do"? I chose to turn back while I had plenty of height and set up for a landing on the edge of the lake. He expected me to head for the beach but it could be quite steep and soft.

The green track was yesterday practising circuits and forced landings with a but of dodging the rain and low clouds. The pink was my solo this morning. Fortunately the GPS doesn't show the vertical oscillations upon landing 😉. After the second bounce the full burst of throttle did the job 😅. The engine cut out twice after landing, it appears the idle is too slow and when the windmilling has ceased the engine stalls if no power is applied. I'm a bit slow getting back on the power because the stupid electric flap control is setup for the right hand but I must use my left because the Jabiru only has one centrally mounted joystick. I find it quite challenging to reach the left hand to the centre of the plane for several seconds while in the middle of a touch-and-go.

I realise now these are poured just for the purpose. Each taxi way has a runup pad like this.

I was considering laying a bit of concrete or laying a area of artificial grass that is pegged down with sand laid in it. Here at Myrup, Esperance they have a circular patch of concrete, about 30m from the gravel airstrip, that looks like the top of a tank of some kind. It's about 3m across and does the job nicely.

My mining lease where I'm doing rehab good enough to land a plane on already has two badly weathered wind socks that just need a new sock. They are there so that anybody mining can prevent dust producing work when the wind is blowing towards town.

I doubt it but if it has an automotive type of pressure cap then and automotive coolant pressure tester would be an easy option. You only have to pressurise the system to the pressure stated on the cap. Anywhere beyond the electric pump if you have one would be tested as soon as the pump is activated otherwise you could temporarily install an electric pump near the tank end so that all plumbing is tested.

Maybe https://youtu.be/exD-ZrG1XTA?si=IqkT5eAUhZtfewUB

Yes I was hoping to leave here with my RPC but I can' see that happening now. As soon as I'm home we're off to the goldfields prospecting until late may, then off to China until the end of the first week in June. Perhaps I'll get another go then.

I can go back to Cloud Dancer where the Harmony is fully booked a lot of the time. Times like this when the weather is bad and it strikes right on my flight time then I sit in my camper and wait to see what tomorrow brings. I just don't get enough time in the air to cover the cost of days sitting around. Here in Esperance it's fully overcast with showers coming through. We went up this morning between showers, had to remain at 600' maximum height to avoid the clouds but we were the only plane in the sky so performed low level circuits with touch and go for 0.8 hr in dead calm conditions before the next shower sent us back for the hanger. Now it's too gusty to go out but it could have blown over before my next booking at 12:00. Yesterday was a wipeout with thunder, lightening and rain but I sat all the theory tests and passed BAK, Air Legislation and Human Factors. I've already done Radio so for now all my theory is out of the way.

Undoubtedly practice at recovery gives you a better chance but are you going to have the time to implement that procedure? My concern is that you are unlikely to stall at 3000'. It's going to happen at a time when you're distracted or there's an engine failure and somewhere near the ground where there is no time to recover. It's not a steady "whoops the right wing is dropping", by the time you sense the stall it's all over.

I looked at the weather on Wednesday and nearly stayed home but in the end decided to bite the bullet and head the 1250km to Esperance to do some flight training. I had to be here to commence training on Saturday. The rain came down as expected but we had some gaps between showers on Saturday so we managed three sessions totaling 2.6hrs but by then my fatigue was showing through with some sloppy landings. The aircraft is a Jabiru J160, not what I wanted to fly but I don't have a lot of choice. This is a scary little plane especially when it comes to practising stalls. When we did our stall training in the Evektor Harmony it was quite sedate sinking slowly after a slight warning vibration. In one case I had to see the vertical speed indicator to believe we'd already stalled. The little Jabiru doesn't leave you wondering. Within a second or two of the stall you are fully inverted and diving towards mother earth at a massive rate. If I hadn't experienced it I'd never have believed an aircraft could tumble upside down so rapidly. I had to try it another couple of times to see if I could catch the stall before it was out of control, I had no chance. He wants me to practise that until I no longer find it scary. The idea of that is scary on it's own. If this aircraft was to stall at perhaps 200' you'd be done for with little chance of survival.

You might have missed an opportunity to have your last swim 🤪

The guy could have been flying cross country for many years but just decided it was time to make it legal. He could have very well had hundreds of hours in the air before commencing lessons.

Yes my brother is due to arrive here on Thursday for our annual prospecting trip, I'm heading the other way to Esperance but I was telling him this time last week we had 30.5°C at 11.35pm. We ran the AC right through the night so not good camping weather but shortly we'll have 0°C some nights.

Yes, fortunately English is my first language, I managed 3% in German but I did a bit better in Urdu.

At present we're watching Spotlight on channel 7. The Chinese have set up Nichol processing plants that are predominately supplying batteries for the EV industry. It's an environmental disaster.

Definitely go self inflating, not because of the inflating but because they insulate you from the cold ground. The ordinary blow-up ones are very cold to sleep on. Even if the self inflating one gets punctured it still gives you some support.

Skippy it helps to be a light weight but my generous looking load capacity is because I only have 65L fuel capacity. Even two up and full of fuel we'll have 65kg as log as it can be distributed properly. I've been eying off a later model with the two 65L wing tanks and MTOW up from 545kg to 600kg but the owner is uncommunicative.

When I did Tassie I had a very narrow self-inflating mattress, perhaps 450 wide, that was also quite thin but it insulated quite well from the cold ground. The straight air ones that you blow up seem colder than no mattress at all. I've had several Therma-Rest mattresses and all have lasted for years. The Kathmandu mattress I took to Tassie was smaller and really only lasted one trip. https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/reviews/camping-and-hiking/sleeping-pad/therm-a-rest-neoair-xtherm-nxt#packed-size

I thought this was under wing camping? You're going to have pack a jack.

I think the hiking shops like Kathmandu would give you a fair range of light weight camping gear. I hiked the six day Overland Track in Tassie and got my sleeping bag, tent, mattress, food and clothes into a 17kg backpack. That was perhaps 15 years back so the range of gear is most likely a lot better now.

It was interesting to see the Shark that was assembled in Perth for the advertising tour of Australia had little windows in the wings and the front floor so that you could see the gear was down. It also had three lights that changed from red to green confirming that the gear was locked in place. Mechanical release cables were included if all else failed.

https://youtu.be/41t-xc302wM?si=FkHmU2j9bUud3xzO

My only chance to get off the ground is to climb up there and hope I don't fall. How could I ever consider building a hanger without giving it a trial run to keep the cook happy.