kgwilson

My hourly costs are minimal as I usually only have fuel as outlay. I don't bother factoring in depreciation so I have written off the build cost. Since new in 2015 I have installed a new Bolly prop in 2018 at a cost of $1,700.00 and other parts have been $300.00 for a coil, 2 batteries $280.00, starter clutch $220.00, new mains tyres $325.00, engine mount rubbers $130.00, tacho sender $65.00, oil/filter every 25 hours $45.00, spark plugs every 100 hours $55.00 & air filter $25.00. There are a few other minor things but that's it so far.

To answer the question definitively. There is NO legal requirement to instal a battery isolator in a 19 registered amateur built aircraft. Wiring is entirely up to the builder. You can instal motor vehicle cables or certified tefzel cables and the switch gear can be anything you like so long as it works & considered safe by you the builder. When the pre-flight inspection is carried out, that is done by you and observed by a L4. Personally I have nothing that will isolate the electrical system except a 30amp fuse on the firewall for all electrical power to the master to deal with a direct short and various size fuses and circuit breakers for the various bits of electrical equipment in the cabin. The quality of the wiring installed will be determined by the knowledge and experience of the installer. If I had a lithium battery I would instal an isolator but even that may not prevent a runaway internal circuit failure. I've seen some terrible installations with cables bundled allowing for electromagnetic interference, too close to hot surfaces, poor joins and bad insulation some even showing bare wire, cable runs throgh drilled holes with no grommets or glands, the list goes on.

Air Traffic Controllers are employed by Air Services Australia. If you add their 3600 to CASA's 900 gives a better comparison of 4,500 to the FAAs 45,000

49?? According to US government Accountability office there are nearly 45,000 FAA employees. FAA Workforce: Better Assessing Employees' Skill Gaps Could Help FAA Prepare for Changes in Technology WWW.GAO.GOV The Federal Aviation Administration relies on a workforce of nearly 45,000 to operate the national airspace system. Changes in the aviation industry...

I'm not so sure. The only Westach instrument i installed is a Carburettor Temperture gauge. The probe stopped working after a couple of years and then the needle fell off the gauge making it entirely useless.

Absolutely the best and least expensive way to fly is to build your own aircraft especially an approved design. You can modify it and maintain it yourself and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are not trusting the strength and integrity of the build to anyone else but you. I am talking about a full build of every nut, bolt, rivet and fibreglass/resin part here not a quick build kit which is more like an assembly and paint job. Not flying over built up areas and in controlled airspace are just stupid rules that mean nothing as far as I am concerned. The only thing is that my aircraft has 19 & not VH in the rego. If I was across the ditch there is no difference.

Well at least we can land on sports grounds, golf courses and roads without power lines in our small aircraft.

This bloke clearly has not done his homework. Who is going to finance an unproven new internal combustion engine when clearly all manufacturers are moving to electric and hydrogen power to meet zero emission standards in the future. Janus trucks here have an electric B double that can get from Sydney to Coffs harbour on a single charge & the battery can be swapped out in 15 minutes while the driver has a compulsory 2 hour stand down period. All he is advocating is another Hybrid & these have been shown to be the worst of both worlds, though Toyota is persisting with them...... for now. He hasn't kept up with battery development. The new Sodium batterys have energy density almost as good as lithium 200Wh/KG and CATL says they will surpass lithium density within 2 years. They also do not require cobalt or nickel & even the LIFePO4 batteries do not require cobalt.

MARAP of course relates only to factory built aircraft but I think the $660.00 fee is over the top and some justification for this fee is required even though it is published as such. I built my own aircraft and so can maintain and modify it as I wish. I installed a new 2 blade Bolly BOS-5 prop in December 2018, completed the appropriate form with the prop data supplied by Bolly and that was it. No fee and my aircraft record is updated so why this exhorbitant fee for doing essentially the same thing. Given the prop being replaced is identical and I imagine is also installed on other Gazelles I can see no justification at all. RA was supposed to make aircraft ownership more affordable but all they seem to be doing is trying to emulate the ridiculous compliance costs of GA. The circumstances surrounding this specific case should see the fee refunded in full in my opinion.

I have a twin piston compressor for inflating tyres. It will inflate a completely flat tyre to 40 PSI in a couple of minutes. It came with a cigarette lighter fitting as well as aligator clips for direct battery connection. I tried the cig lighter fitting & it blew the fuse straight away. It uses about 25 amps. Any mob that thinks their jump starter can be used via a cig lighter socket has rocks in their heads. Don't even think of buying anything they try to sell. There are heaps of jump starters on Ebay from $35.00 to about $300.00. Lots around the $100.00 mark. Check for a money back guarantee and Australian supplier plus customer ratings. The lithium packs are pretty light & they also often have a torch & various USB outlets so can be used to charge your phone, SE2 and other devices. Some also have wireless charging.

Cars usually have them specially made with all the appropriate bends in the one hose. This won't be the case for a homebuilt aircraft unless you have planned everything around the chosen radiator hose. Not my field of expertise but I'd think that you only need flexibility between the engine and fuselage and the rest could be an alloy pipe if there was a longish run.

Who cares when the wings have fallen off.

The alternator on my 3300A engine charges at a consistent 14.2 volts but I would have thought it is the current (amps) that it charges at via the regulator that is more important. Most vehicle batteries are never fully charged by the vehicle alternator. Even after a long run you can put the battery on charge with a good quality intelligent charger like a CTEK MXS-5.0 and it will usually go in to charge mode for a while before deciding the battery is fully charged and switching to trickle or maintain status.

I changed the lot at the time from about .024 to 021. I couldn't believe the difference. It fired instantly once the change had been made. Having one lot at 021 & the other at 024 is an interesting concept. I am not sure how or if it would affect performance or fuel conumption or in fact cold starting. Someone might like to comment if they have tried anything like this.

Anderson plugs should be a standard addition to any amateur build. I had my plugs set for warm weather & woke up on Monday after Airventure in Parkes to a decent frost & the aircraft covered in Ice. The engine would not fire & the battery got too flat. The bloke in the tent next door had one of those lithium jump start battery packs with an anderson plug on it. Stlll wouldn't start till I closed the plug gaps but the little unit was used 3 times. Once warmed up my battery had recovered sufficiently to restart the engine. I have never been tempted to buy one as I'd probably never use it but having the anderson plug with 2 alligator clips in the kit is enough. There are always people around with cars and jumper leads anyway.

From the jabiru Engine Installation manual. 3.3 Ignition • The ignition unit is a dual breakerless transistorised ignition with the magnets mounted on the flywheel and the coils mounted on the alternator mount plate. Figure 11 shows the coils of a Jabiru 6-cylinder engine.

Like all these devices there will be good and bad ones. Anything bought on-line from a Chinese supplier cheap will be crap and have ridiculous specs. One of the guys at our airfield has one and he can start his iO360 with it. I'll ask him what brand & cost. You can't hand prop a Jab engine either. It requres 300rpm to excite the transistorised ignition & there is no gearbox advantage being direct drive. I put a new battery in the other day. The last one was only 6 months old but someting went wrong inside & there was no voltage at all. It was replaced under warranty. I'm glad it happened at the hangar & the battery shop was just down the road.

Trading insults is not what this forum is about. I agree with most of what Bex has said. Morrison took this country down a dangerous road that we are now trying to repair. Youtube sensationalist videos should be taken with a grain of salt till details are verified. The problem is often they never are, so the protagonists get away with it because it suits the narrative of those who support it. China is the worlds factory and produce some of the best products available today, EVs being one of such. There are over 300 EV manufacturers in China making more that 700 different models. China is now the world leader in battery technology. Their platforms are now being used by European EV manufacturers. Battery development to market is occurring at an astonishing rate in China & CATL, the worlds largest battery manufacturer & BYD will be putting sodium batteries in cars this year so if you were thinking of investing in Lithium mines in Australia you may be in for a surprise.

No, both IOS and Android are operating systems and both were originally based on Unix. Both generate GUI (graphical user interface) and commands using gestures. The main difference is that IOS is proprietary and only Apple products can use it. Android is Open Source so the code can be modified by hardware manufacturers & each hardware manufacturer can have a different flavour of the same version. That said it does not alter the functionality of the standard version, they just add stuff to it to try and out perform competitors. When a new version of Android is released phone makers like Samsung, Xaiomi and the other hundreds of brands add their bits to it and they create apps that need their extra functionality. Other App creaters will ensure that their app runs on the standard version so it will run on any brand of android smartphone using that version. Apple make sure they have control to keep prices high and they keep preaching to the converted who often have an almost fanatical loyalty to Apple even though there are plenty of Android phones that are equal or better and a lot less expensive. So Oz runways are telling porkies because they don't have the expertise or development expertise in Android. I have an iPhone SE (2022 model) provided by SES. My own personal phone is a 2017 LG G6 (bought in 2019 for $270.00) The G6 was ranked as the best flagship smartphone available when it was released but LG now don't make smartphones. It is still a great phone now and runs rings around the iPhone SE. Ozrunways need to smarten up ther act because not everyone is going to continue to buy expensive iPads when there are hundreds of Android tablets available with better features for half the price.

Last time I was at Warwick it was pretty cruisy. They have model aircraft & gliders operating & the fencing was very basic (only farm 7 wire fence around most sides) & no gates so ASIC is unlikely to be an issue. LF is $12.00 & parking $12.00 a day after the first 24 hours.

We are about to instal weather cams at South Grafton through Auswebcams. If power is available as well as internet access all you need is a 2 camera system costing $200.00. Annual cost is only data so about $50.00 in subsequent years. If no internet is available you will also need a router, & mobile SIM card & the cost of data upload. Total cost for year 1 is about $440.00 & subsequent years about $200.00. If no power is available you will have to add solar panels and a battery. Cameras/router can run on mains power or 12 volt DC. Photos are uploaded every 6 minutes and are live on Ozrunways, Auswebcams website and Windy. Windy also has a historic stream of the past 24 hours so you can see the weather change data overthat time in a few seconds

I believe that Ozrunways was developed with Apples IOS and the conversion to Android that is called RWY for Android has not been done that well nor is it fully functional. IOS is Apples proprietory tool and while it is good, costs are continuous so everyone pays and pays. Android is Open Source and you can modify it as required and there are no continuous costs. Apple even tried to build in redundancy so you were forced to upgrade when they made older versions of IOS to slow down. Of course iPads are also good quality but expensive. I believe that the Android version of AVplan works well. AVplan is generally preferred by GA pilots. I don't use either. There are a lot of good tablets available for Android. I bought a Teclast P20HD (8GB/64GB now superceded) on line for $180.00 & it is excellent & I have a 256GB SD card in it & have all my documentation & photos on there & room for tons of stuff. iPads cannot be upgraded and do not have card slots.

There are many theories put forward by all sorts of people some with qualifications that on the face of gives their opinion a measure of authenticity. Over 95% of the worlds scientific community agree that climate change and impending catastrophe if not adressed will change the planet so that life as we currently enjoy it will be something of the past. I have not found any that say everything is fine and we have nothing to be concerned about other than those few who have some odd concepts that do not tie in with any verifyable data. After thorough investigation and analysis their theories are always completely debunked. Human need for the resources of the planet to satisfy the ever increasing consumer lifestyle we live is unsustainable. We have used most of the fossil fuel that took more than 3 billion years to create in less than 400 years and pumped all the waste into the atmosphere the land and the oceans. Many continue in their denial and that is their right but it does not give any credence to their opinions especially when they have no verifiable evidence to back those opinions up.

Entrepeneurs keep on striving for never ending growth even though throughout the ages they eventually crash and burn. Environmental damage has not abated even though we know that global temperatures are rising and all the agreements to date have failed. The 1.5 degrees increase by 2100 has well gone and 2 degrees is now unlikely. We will all be dead when it all happens but some may be around to see the tipping point to global catastrophe. There are now over 8 billion of us. There were 2.5 billion when I was born. Growth is slowing but will reach around 11 billion before starting to retract. We have the capacity to deal with it and save civilisation as we know it but eternal greed and quick money over rules sensibility and always has.

An oil cooler is just a radiator heat exchanger. The number of rows, cooling fin size and design, materials used, quality of manufacture, flow rate and weight are all significant issues from an aviation perspective and of course physical dimensions for your build. I chose a 7 row Positech often used in RVs Lancairs etc. It is quite thick and is at the bottom of the firewall with its own NACA duct intake. Works great. Oil temp never gets over 90 deg C even on hot days. I can't remember the cost but it wasn't cheap.