kasper

Original factory Nippers were all powered by VW based engines - hand prop ones too. Homes built ones were usually VW before the Jabiru 2200 became available. Many are now flying on Jabirus

Straight is overrated - so long as it stays within the width/length of the runway and does not scare you silly Im ok with a bit of wander/realignment with the wind

Absolutely yes. The regos were originally xx-xxx and when it was expanded to 4 digits the leading 0 was allowed under the tech manual prior to 4 to be omitted. all old aircraft rego are grandfathered so old reg 2-3 numerals still exist.

Yep, that's possible and exists in some makes/models and countries. Difficulty is that its not a perfect solution - if you work and commute your car is ususally a long way from your panels so unless you have a grid link to allow you to push elelctric in at home and draw it out elsewhere it is a battery that is not generally available when solar pv is generating the elecltric that needs to be stored ... unless every parking space is wired to the grid ...

I agree but I'll get political ... tell the baby boomers to downsize or the Gen Xers living in very large houses or Mc Mansions covering the maximum m^2 allowed that its not reasonable to live in an energy inefficient way and see what happens Me, I will transition to retirement into a small flat in a town where I need no car to live and aim to arrive at death with just enough cash to dispose of the corpse and leave as little adverse impact on the world as I can achieve. I have almost completed the conversion of my ancient Sapphire from KFM to electric power and will have to scrounge a few more recycled solar panels to build the charger for that so I can continue flying without burning dinosaurs. I'm far from perfect but I am trying.

Probably a factor like that is required. However, its not a single solution or a simple replace 'A' electric generation with 'A' from a different source The cheapest electricity is electricity you do not use. 'green' electric changes includes power saving measures and changes to how we use electric and how we design and build the buildings themselves. Our home is NOT ideal, it is a weatherboard and tin roofed cottage built in the early 1950's ... it was build without indoor plumbing and no elelctric just a tap on the wall in the kitchen over the sink straight from the tank. Both of electric and plumbing were added later. When we rebuilt it from the frame out 8 years ago we spent our money on the core fabric to get it as good as we could on the cash we had and we spent under $50k total ... all the finishes and fittings are the cheapest because we needed something that minimally impacting on my wallet to run ... I am a skin flint. We have double glazing, full insulation all around and a passive heat recovery/exclusion system with solar/battery/grid link electric. Granted it's a small house and there are only the two of us but we run everything from the water pressure system to the clothes dryer and deep freeze without thought of 'managing' electric like I did 30 years ago in a solar house ... but we NEVER use more than 15.2kwh a day to run it no matter what we do. Our 6.6kw battery linked solar runs it and we pump about half the standing charge in feed in electric back to the grid constantly. Lots of small impacts on demand, lots of improved coverage of generation and storage all linked through the grid is viable ... but there is need for scale and speed.

So given the topic is lost in the distance of comment I feel ok with a lunchtime rant 1. if you have an electrical grid the issues of the copper etc in it are immaterially different regardless of what source is throwing electricity into the system - stop bagging non-traditional power sources on the materials in the grid itself - it will exist anyway. It MAY be reduced if you reduce the singular grid to mini-grids but that's a completely different issue 2. The need for electrical storage to allow time displacement of generation and consumption has always existed as an issue. Historic management has avoided battery and been through a mix of generator types that can be ramped up/down as reasonably possible depending on the generator type. The grid management 'fun' has traditionally been matching capacity and generation to have a relatively stable current reducing/removing brown and black outs 3. The only instant access storage systems currently available are batteries and capacitors. All others have ramp up times be it minutes or hours they are not instantly available. Capacitors have their own issues separate from batteries but people will keep looking and that may emerge ... just not tomorrow. 4. for grid linked battery there is a real concern on the risk/cost/hazard of the systems and the embedded resources that they contain. There are possible battery storage systems that are moving out of design/development into operational use on scale that address many of these concerns eg Redflow – Sustainable Energy Storage And here is my 2c worth on nucelar and Australia and where I think we will go: 1. nuclear is not publicly acceptable so until and unless that changes all the issues (real and imagined/exaggerated) will stop it starting 2. Australia has a real capacity in terms of geography to access solar and wind - play to your resource strength maybe? 3. even if it were socially acceptable it is not timescale viable in the short to medium term as a solution - coal and gas will be ended before anything substantial could come in nuclear so its not the short/medium term solution and we are not going to sit in the dark twiddling thumbs waiting for electricity become a thing again 4. short and medium term will be solar and wind, how that is stored to spread over time is the biggy 5. a distributed grid with solar/battery on buildings with a grid draw facility will become a part of the solution for generation time displacing - a way for ramping up 'battery' capacity without a single huge battery as the building owners pay for effectively a minim grid of their own that can be accessed to store and draw from other generations.

Agreed, BUT a 150km round trip Newcastle to Singleton last week mostly at 110kph with aircon on and just cruising along returned 16kw/100km. As EVs are really WORST consumers of electric/km at higher speed I think my real world is a fair worst case. I have also driven the Ioniq5 and its nice but I do not know its actual kw/100. I discounted it from my to buy consideration after a short drive when NRMA brought a fleet of EVs to town for members to try out.

Agreed that power per 100km varies. However, the 16kw/100km I use in debunking IS the actual 110kph consumption use on highway of the BYD Seal last week ... been there, done it, seen the consumption and also know that road fast chargers are NOT $1.65/wkh. The Mail story cannot hold up internally at all. It is a hatchet job on EVs Oh and that's before you consider that her petrol costs of $70 one way equates to around 3.8l/100 ... love to see even a 2011 Corolla get that mileage on that trip ... and its not a comparable car either ... medium large SUV EV vs small petrol car. Its a hatchet job

We would be better suited to add a leading alpha to the current 10,000 per rego series. That would mean we would go from 10,000 to 260,000 + up to 10,000 by leaving the existing regos without the Alpha alone eg 10-0001 would become 10-A0001 etc Much more freedom as we are unlikely to add another half million airframes any time soon.

The 'evidence' in the mail story is clearly false. Two charges at Avenel for $69 is the givaway - that's only 260km of driving for $69 of electric - NOT POSSIBLE For example the BYD Seal uses 16kw/100km ... that would be around 41.6kw of electric ... that would put the KWh price for those recharges at around $1.65 ... and that is NOT what you actually pay ... at worst with Chargefox its around $0.45 Real life - real cars - in 'normal' use - absolutely debunk these anti-EV false stories. For the vast majority of driving EVs are already operational viable. The acquisition costs of the EV are a hurdle BUT this Mail story is pure falseholds to present an anti-EV position

Hmmm apples and pears to an extent - there is no such thing as a $27k new Hybrid available so I can't reconcile your calcs. How about real world current compare - and I will give EV for small and large battery to compare. So my assumptions. Inflation will impact both vehicles equally over the next 15 years. I do not believe this but it makes the compare simple. I am looking at a fairly 'normal' family car Hybrid => Toyota Camry, EV => BYD Seal Both are priced at current on road without adding extras like metalic paint etc. Both will be run for 300,000 km over 15 years Both will be serviced by a garage not by the owner I will ignore insurance and registration for the years assuming an equivalent cost Fuel / electric prices are what I see today in Armidale NSW Here goes. Camry - specs, efficiency and price from Toyota Purchase $48,500 on the road 4.3L/100km = 12,900L = $36,045 pump price today Servicing (from RFguy) = $1,200pa = $18,000 Total cost to compare = $102,545 Range is around 1,100km/tank BYD Seal - short range Purchase $51,900 on the road (incl home charger) 61kw battery = 380km real range on highway (worst case) = 16kw/100km At home charge = $14,400 Charge fox public prices Slow = $14,400 Fast = $19,200 Servicing (from RFguy) = $500pa = $7,500 Total cost to compare = $73,800 - $78,600 Range is 380km BYD Seal - long range Purchase $60,800 on the road (incl home charger) 82.5kw battery = 510km real range on highway (worst case) = 16kw/100km At home charge = $14,400 Charge fox Slow = $14,400 Fast = $19,200 Servicing (from RFguy) = $500pa = $7,500 Total cost to compare = $82,700 - $87,500 Range is 510km No matter the compare both EVs are cheaper over life than the hybrid so you are really only looking at range and up-front costs. And if you could live with the lower driving range BYD Seal you have saved more than the purchase differential in the first 3 years of ownership. In the real world WHO drives more than 450km without taking at least a 20-30 min break? Because that's the time it takes to do a 20-80% recharge on these vehicles at those costs. Against that you do have the risk that petrol prices will rise in cost faster than electric making the EV even more attractive In addition, ANY solar from roof electric use over the 15 years improves the EV - I've done worst case grid electric/public charging for all km In addition, ANY around town driving improves the EV - I used open highway range cruising around - plus IF you are mostly in city start-stop driving in the hybrid your fuel efficiency will fall making you even worse than the EV as they get better And all of this disregards 1. any and all atmospheric carbon from the fuel and 2. how your children/grandchildren will view you in 5 years let alone 15 years and 3. the reality that new ICE and hybrids will cease to exist on showroom floors in int e5-10 year timeframe, On 3. there is nothing Australia can do - we have to accept this because we are product takers in this market because we manufacture no mass market vehicles and that will not change towards opening new ICE or Hybrid vehicles that are unsaleable outside Australia. I can do the same for an electric ute but the range issues on that one are more real - the LDV eT60 looks like real world range around 265km on a charge with load but not full tow capacity. Whilst that is OK for around the farm and to-from town for many farms it's not realistic for way out west farms and/or towing a caravan on holiday a long way from home. That operational area is still to have a real world electric solution. But lets be fair and clear - TODAY EVs have no real issue with beating hybrids on a pure $ cost basis for the vast majority of actual Australian family cars.

One of the BIG drivers of the reduction in HEV is that many countries in Europe have legislated TRUE zero emission vehicle requirements that require manufacturers to sell large numbers of EVs to get an average emission across their manufactured range - they needed to make and sell lots of pure EV to offset smaller numbers of ICE as they transition away from petrol/diesel under government mandated change. As all HEV are the 'same' as pure ICE for this calculation there is no/little commercial value in building them. Add to that the general population in those countries expecting EV not ICE and the reason becomes clearer. BTW these European EV build/sale targets are one of the reasons there was a slower offering of EVs in Australia - manufacturing capacity was directing EV manufacturing capacity towards countries where ICE was penalized. Countries like OZ were on the end of the offer list for those manufacturers even if they thought there was a market here. Now we are starting to see EV offerings that are practical (if not affordable) for many OZ driving profiles.

A question. IF you accept that ICE with hydrocarbon fuels from the ground are not going to be the future you have options of: 1. chemical battery/electric 2. fuel cell/electric 3. Hydrogen ICE Which one would you think are likely to win as the emergent power in the lighter end of aviation? All three options have issues and are better suited to some use over other. BUT we will have to chose sooner rather than later given the way the world is moving. Legacy hydrocarbon ICE will become increasingly expensive to run on fuel costs and less supported by manufacturers so something 'other' will emerge. Yes, you can use solar electric + CO2 + pressure + catalyst to create a non-dead dinosaur hydrocarbon fuel that may be a possible replacement for from the fuels currently being burnt in ICE. And yes, these are carbon neutral when burnt because the carbon in that fuel came from CO2 - though the carbon embedded in the infrastructure to create it is large. Oh and the cost per litre is not like dead dinosaur petrol and diesel.

Up here in nthn nsw the fire season is well underway. On Tuesday evening as I drove home I saw 7 fire appliances heading north … from locations as far away as the southern highlands. And this morning coming in past the Armidale airport the chinook is up and out dumping water from 830. Trust me - that’s one hell of a big Bambi bucket that thing lifts. I just hope this years season is not going to be too horrendous.