kasper

Well RAAus management have sent out a survey ... and once again if you actually do not agree with what they want half the questions force you to answer the way they want. so frustrating that I am not going to complete it and will drop a pointed message to the directors with specifics within the survey where a legitimate point of view cannot be provided. irony that is run in survey monkey because that’s what it appears management think members are.

Looks like a tri gear sd1 minisport.

I disagree. Either there is a cutoff for recreational aircraft under RAAus or there is not and it needs to be relatively measurable. As others have said the current rules will leave you scratching your head if you are thinking in terms of energy at stall speed as 300kg doing 45knts is nothing like the energy 600kg doing 45knts yet both exist within the current RAAus administered area of recreational aviation. BUT the weight and stall limits with max 2 occupants is at least a circle on the venn diagram of ALL aircraft that can be seen and measured ... and if it didn't come from a factory as a certifited/type accepted/approved design we have a builder declaration of stall speed. But please DO NOT get CASA interested in testing and 'certifying' stall speed on homebuilts. They have that in the UK (along with noise testing of ANY/ALL prop changes) and trust me having lived thorugh it many times over we do not need to go there or Level4s/approved to inspect Level 2s and the required test pilots are going to have to charge a whole lot more for getting any homebuilt into the air. But if you really want to focus on energy equivalence for your reference point on Recreational aircraft and you can get CASA to not require measurement/test/verify of the stall speed for homebuilts ... by all means use energy at stall speed as the logic as stall vs MTOW becomes a sliding scale. Current thoughts/comments are on 750kg going 45knts ... on energy equivalnce that is: - a 454kg aircraft stalling at 58knts - the Bushby Midget Mustang at 454kg stalls at 53knts - a 523kg aircraft stalling at 54knts - the Pitts S1 with 160hp at 523kg stalls at 54knts We are looking at a VERY different circle on the venn diagram of aircraft that fall within Recriaction/RAAus ... but if we go to energy and seating capacity I might enjoy building a really quite high performance MM1 in retirement ... 6 cyl jab engine should see it pootling along at close to 170knts in cruise. In my opinion we have too many categories of RAAus already. I know them pretty well but I'm a legal and compliance nerd and have been hanging around ultralights for close to 30 years now. I would personally prefer that any movement into the new regulatory structure for SASOs and any increase in MTOW be done as an overall review and simplification looking at risk. Get rid of control groups, get rid of historic old categories and allow a pathway for any factory built aircraft to migrate out of factory control/management of maintenance and modifications and base the requirements around use and risk exposure. Give me a whiteboard and 30 min and I'll give you a simple single structure of aircraft, pilots and operating area restrictions that would make RAAus the most flexible in the world and I would challenge anyone to point out how it would be any greater risk exposure than we currently have.

Nope. All Australian SV1/SV2 skins are 0.016" as is the spar web for the main spar. AS are the pressed ribs all in 0.016" There are dozens of doublers in heavier gauge on the main spar web to spar cap junctions as the main spar caps and veritcal webs are all 1"OD tube. The US original sadler ultralight were built with 0.012" skins on really long weak wings ... ribs every so often if they felt like it ... but the Australian SV1/SV2 are a very different kettle of fish structurally.

I agree - looks like a very unattractive engine fitting to an SA102/SA104 Cavalier homebuilt

Starlite

Indeed recovery can be long and surprising ... 1 year today since I did this on the way to work. Trapped in vehicle for a couple of hours, operations in several hospitals around NSW and a year of rehab ... I now walk without a stick and appear mostly normal ... but every step of every day is painful. I was very fortunate that all the damage to me was limbs - lots of metal bits to hold it all in place and work to get all the soft bits working again. Regardless of fault in his flying of which I have no knowledge I wish him the best in his recovery as I can appreciate what may be involved. PS - I got a WHOLE new concept of pain on a scale of 1-10 when they moved a leg that was no longer in its hip socket.

Yep, We had a 'lovely' runway video of a visiting Sav 'stalling' from around 2 feet ... it ended with the nosewheel including yoke bouncing off down the runway while the Sav sat in a cloud of dust looking very sorry for itself. Fortunately SO slow as it hit that it did not have the momentum to dig and flip but remained upright. Lots of "fun" (and $$) replacing everything airframe foward of the seat backs and doing the engine prop strike inspections to get it back in the air.

But the third level was the pilots and crew. He already said they don’t count. Or the breguet Sahara would have complied with three levels.

Well I’m intrigued. I don’t think it’s any of the old flying boats - the biggest of them was the SR princess and it only had 2 rows. The Beverley has three levels but was a transport. I recall a pic of a French multi decker from reviewing 1950’s magazines back in the 1990’s for a job I had but I’m stuck ?

Don’t think the breguet Sahara has three rows of windows ... does it count that the windscreens were in the middle between the deck lines?

Why do people perceive a need greater than standard motor vehicle? Serious question. If if you can take a ton of steel at 60kph+ within a couple of metres of pedestrians in a car why set higher limits for outside control airspace where risk is mostly to you and your 1 passenger? So on top of the issue that any medical is an on the day test I really do do not see the benefit to actual risk that higher limits bring.

And if you are flying an aircraft at a non-tower aerodrome - 99% of Australian Airfield’s - then this is not an actual issue is it? So why not manage the issue with operational limits? and FYI the 1 time I did have radio failure at a tower controlled airfield the tower made no light signals and I visually conformed with existing traffic in the pattern and reported to tower after landing. Not in oz I’ll admit but the Uk follow the same rules on this one. I prefer to look for practical workarounds rather than putting absolute rules in place when not required.

No. The RAAus medical declarations are not required to be declared to RAAus when they are not met ... but 1. You can’t exercise your certificate privileges if you are not compliant with the Med reqs 2. If you are medically unfit for more than 7 days you are reqd to provide clearance notice to RAAus to make your medical active again. 3. To renew your membership and certificate you make declarations and if you’re 75 or above you have to provide written declarations but it nowhere is it a requirement to notify RAAus of becoming medically unfit you just must stop exercising your certificate privileges until you are fit again and have complied with doc notices to RAAus if they apply. Would be be really nice and useful if RAAus ops manager provided simple Q&As on things like this to help members comply with not just safe flight but legal flight.

How about a very precise answer of MAYBE with a huge * 1. if your LICENCE is cancelled/suspended/varied by CASA the instrument comes into operation 2. does the suspension/cancellation/expiry of your medical cancel/suspend/vary the LICENCE ?? or just mean that you cannot exercise the licence? Hmmm - would really have to look into that which is why you get a MAYBE The HUGE * is that the current RAAus ops manual DOES NOT give the OPs Manager the actual power to cancel/suspend or vary your RAAus pilots certificate ... but we are getting a new OPs Manual and we can expect that the Ops Managers powers to be expanded to align with what CASA instruments require. The only power to suspend of cancel a pilots cert is in 2.14 of the Ops manual and that can't be triggered by the operation of the instrument.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49909735 And bbc news are reporting deaths.

V4 stepped piston engine for UAVs developed in the Uk ?? by Bernard Hooper engineering. 580cc looks lovely but they do not appear to be looking at aircraft engines

Possibly not. I agree with your reading of the CASA proposal as your first two dot points but disagree with your view on dots 3-4 Consolidation of medical requirements could be met with either a sub-ICAO CASA medical or by allowing the ASAOs to align their own requirements to a consolidated form between the ASAOs covering 103 ... that would currently be RAAus, HGFA and I think ASRA (though might be wrong on ASRA as have not read fully 103 proposal to see if gyros are in or not). If the ASAOs have to align their operations to requirements set out in 103 on medicals ... that are the consolidation of existing ASAOs requirements ... we could well still see self declared medicals under 103 ... which by definition I suppose becomes a CASA recognised medical declaration if not certificate.

If you want a flat twin two strike with two power pulses you’d need to either run two sumps or have a blower to pressurise the single sump. Or get really adventurous and us and go for a flat 4 two stroke with stepped pistons and a wet sump. 4 power pulses each revolution and simple plain bearings without the oil in fuel environmental issues of most two strokes.

The McCullough front two pistons go in and out together and fire together ... that’s the only way to get the pressure sump and transfer fuel/oil/air into the pistons. Like the r582 it’s disc controlled from the single carb over the centre of the engine. If you wanted a flat twin McCullough you’re effectively getting a single power pulse each revolution. if you take both pots off one side and leave it as an inline twin you get the same power but two power pulses each revolution - a much smoother engine.

Which half would you like? The McCullough flat four pressure sumped with opposing piston sets - it is a two pulse engine. A half McCullough would be an in-line twin not a flat twin ...

Pulsar

Interesting to see the Romanians do what Rotax started with - a boxer twin 4 stroke. Most people forget or never knew the origin of the 912 was a boxer twin that looked pretty much exaclty like this ... but the rocking couple of the flat twin was not acceptable to Rotax and they used the twin to create the first 912 flat four. Wish them well ... but at only 50hp I think thay have really limited sales ... a big bore kit to get it up to 65hp+ AND give it a bed mount option to direct bolt replace a R582 then you will have a larger market.

Well there is a CH602 model from Chris Heinz ... z-602 with exactly the same specs from a company that started out making a bf109/me109 replica would lead you to the copy/licence development. On the next next one I’ll go for DR109

CH601