Moneybox

Nothing tubular means they are relying on the sheets of iron to give it torsional strength. Perhaps the one with the caravan had lots of roof fastenings but not enough in the walls or very light sheeting. The box type structure has to be rigid enough and the frame is just keeping the box in shape.

Yes the sea containers are the most sturdy but we don't buy much from Geraldton because there's no regular freight service. Most things come from Perth.

Looks like you made the trusses. I can do all that work but there are only so many jobs I can get through and I seem to work at half the pace I did twenty years ago. I have a couple of forklifts too but they are on solid tyres and not suitable for off-road. I could get away with a jib on the loader for this sort of thing. We'll see, after I do some groundwork.

I don't know who owns it. It's surely on crown land as there's very little freehold land in Western Australia outside the town boundaries. When I told the owner of the current hanger that I was considering putting something up out there he said that it has to be a CASA approved structure because they don't want anything loose floating about the airstrip in bad weather. The shire operate it.

Skippy, I just took a look at the airbox setup. I think the heavy hose from the carburettors helps give them support. Without that they only have the reasonably loose fitting sleeve back to the manifold. My engine mounting frame has a small tube running across from the rear mounts. It's a bit hard to see in my lousy photo but there's a strap up to the rubber mount supporting the rear of the airbox and in turn the rear of the carburettors.

Here I think I can get away with anything but at YCUE the structure has to meet regulations because CASA have their bit to say about it. The one hanger at the airport is made up of two shipping containers heavily weighed down with concrete blocks, a solid steel roof spanning between and a chain between for aircraft anchorages. The ends are open which means it gives no protection from the wind or what it's carrying. I'll look into the farm shed but it'd need some modifications on the entry but it would work out cheaper than the containers considering freight and crane hire.

Mmm... That wasn't in the budget either. Building anything up here is difficult and expensive. Materials are expensive and contractors are almost impossible to get. I can buy a kit but it still has to erected.

And mine is 100kg lighter than that.

To start with I can't fly anywhere. I don't have a license and my plane is unregistered although since Tuesday last week it is at least unregistered in my name. I'm trying to get a LAME here to inspect it and issue a Form-13 and Form-14. I asked RAAus how long after inspection until I can get it in the air, Nicola said "I'll do it right away" so then I'm ready to have a little more training and familiarisation to my aircraft and I'm going solo. As soon as I can I'll be clocking up hours and at this stage YCUE is the only option around here. My airstrip is going to take a bit of work but at least I've started. In official terms I'm doing rehabilitation on an old mining lease. At lease this 1.5Ha strip should be nicely leveled and free of old mining debris. It might even get a nice patch of artificial lawn at atleast one end to make it look like I'm growing grass 😀 Today I brought home new sparkplugs (I have a tube of Wacker P12). They are sitting on the other end of the table waiting for Mrs M to etch their cylinder number and position, 1,1B,2,2B etc. The last time I ran it up it ran uneven when selecting Mag-1 and Mag-2. It could be carburettor balance but I think I have that pretty close using Mercury in the Slack Tube Manometer however I can recheck that too. My tubular insulation for the oil and coolant hoses turned up too so I'll fit that before fitting the cowl for perhaps the final time before registration. It's a 900km drive to the engineer so I'll call him and see if I can put it back on the trailer and get it down to him rather than wait for him to come up. It's no time to visit the desert goldfields.

Sounds like good timing for the current conversation subject....

The most striking thing I got from this whole conversation was the lack of an acronym for the above comment. 🤣

711km if we take the shortcut but I don't think the fuel would last the distance. It has a top speed of 60km/h.

We have a bitumen parking/runup bay. When speaking to the shire CEO he said there was some talk of running a heavy chain right through the area for tiedowns but so far nothing has been done. If I push it I have no doubt they'll help do something here in Cue. We get wild gusts of wind quite often because we have extreme temperatures and no hills or trees to break the wind. No plane would be safe left untethered. Mine is still in the back yard.

I’ve always wanted a dozer or grader for scrape and detect but couldn’t justify the price. Now I’ve sold the big lease where I needed it so that I could finance my flying. I’ve got other ground I’d like to use it on but moving it around is expensive. Just getting it home is more than $6000. To pay freight moving it to a gold lease I have to sum up the cost of freight, fuel and return freight. I’d need to be sure to find a lot more gold. For now Ripper is going to be busy building an airstrip 😅

Yesterday we took possession of Ripper and left it in a vacant paddock waiting for transport. I hope it doesn’t have to wait too long. The temperature here is pretty much unbearable. We’re not finding much gold so if it doesn’t improve we’re heading home tomorrow.

Boom Aerospace’s XB-1 broke the sound barrier for the first time Top speed achieved was Mach 1.122 Flight covered 524 km and lasted 35 minutes Boom Aerospace’s XB-1 became the first civilian aircraft since Concorde to break the sound barrier on 28 January, with the demonstrator aircraft achieving a top speed of Mach 1.122.

No come to think of it, the back of the airbox is supported by a 6mm steel rod from the firewall up to the small rubber mount just giving it vertical support.

Mine has that heavy reinforced rubber hose as well and the back of the airbox has one small rubber mount back to the engine mounting frame.

Skippy, I have a box of various sizes somewhere but it would be quite old. I saw it recently when we moved a load from Capel to Cue (our sea change). If what you have doesn't work out I'll find it when I get home. We're on the road at the moment, 750km trip, going to move Ripper 10km out to the main road for transport. We used to use this type of hose for AC ducting in the dashes of some RHD conversions. Got badly stung back in the 80's using it for aircleaner ducting on Hilux snorkel conversions. The dust was drawn in along the wire track and dusted a fleet of vehicle engines.

I did Class 2 just because I thought a good checkup wouldn't hurt. The problems began because I listed any ailments in the previous 70 years. I was asthmatic up until I started playing squash at 49, according to trainers I spoke to I shouldn't have mentioned it however if ever there was reason for an insurance claim they'll use any excuse possible to avoid a payout. The CASA doctor said I needed look-over glasses and a more comprehensive eye test because I declared a detached retina causing floaters in my vision some years back. The specialists dismissed all concerns as my eyesight tested good for my age and there was little risk of another episode. I'd tried hearing aids but sent them back because it was a waste of $4000. They wanted a retest. That came back all good so they set some perimeters for a retest using speech tones rather than the beeps and whistles. I needed 60% at 90db. I achieved 90% at 60db, much better than the tones, bells and whistles. Anyway it went on from one test to the next over three months. In the end they asked for an angiogram. At that point I'd had enough so I called my GP. He said "There's nothing wrong with you. I'll write them a letter". I had my Class 2 medical certificate within days.

If your wheel balance is anything to go by you'll notice an out of balance wheel will only wobble at certain speeds. I would say it the gyroscope effect that keeps it spinning straight at higher revs.

French?

No interest Skippy, just wanted to throw something into the argument 😉 on something I know nothing about.

Try this from Area-61 (I use balance master for three years now; its great; mounted behind bolly prop hub.... carbis all balanced 912 purrs very smooth at 600rpm no gearbox rattles; very quiet, no vibration.. because prop shaft is divorced from crankshaft a second balance master mounted at rear of prop shaft will deal with residual imbalance of prop shaft. Nobody gives the rear of the prop shaft any attention 👨‍✈️✈️)