Case

There has been a serious accident at Caboolture airfiled. The television news suggests skydivers were involved. http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/plane-crashes-at-caboolture-airfield/story-fnihsrf2-1226861972646

Hi All, I'm making plans to be in Temora this Easter and was just wondering if anyone will have a 12 at Natfly this year. I'd love to see one in the flesh. :biggrin:

Hi Kevin, go out a find a few and you'll soon see what people use. I do a bit of caching and it's a lot of fun. Someone once described geocaching as 'using high tech US military hardware to find tupperware containers in the bush'. People use all sorts of containers but Sistema containers are popular in Australia because they are fairly waterproof and cheap. They usually have a logbook for people to record their find. Lots of caches are placed to bring you to places that you would not normally think of going. Hi Ultralights, the cache at Warnervale is still there. It's been in place for almost as long at geocaching has been in existance - 10 years.

Hi Denmit, Great work. Have you got a builders log or blog somewhere ? Would be good to see your progress regularly.

Done - Thanks Ian

How do we get this event displayed in the - Upcoming Events for the Next 30 Day(s) - section the the forums front page ?

Thanks for the S-19 info Codlocks. Looks an impressive aircraft to. The rules for LSA in Australia are a bit fluid at the moment. I ask the Tech Mananger Steve Bell for advise on my options for the RV-12 and he gave me quite a detailed reply. Essentially it boils down to that any Australian RV-12 kit built aircraft will be classed as experimental LSA and as such will allow changes such as different engine types and Avionics. It will retain it's 600Kg LSA weight limit. It cannot be included in the Amateur built category because the kit is not certified under the 51% rule. It will be registered under RA-Aus as a 19-xxxx

Good point Basscheffers. After reading the description of LSA on the RA-Aus site I think I understand a bit more. Essentially LSA has 2 types of certificate - A Special Certificate of Airworthiness which applies to factory built ready-to-fly aircraft. An Experimental Certificate which is for kit built aircraft. The kit built aircraft must be built exactly to the manufacturers specifications with no variations. In the case of the RV-12, Vans will issue an "LSA Statement of Compliance" only after you have purchased ALL the component kits. This statement of compliance will be needed in order to register the aircraft as LSA in Australia either under RA-Aus or GA. Outside of the above the aircraft would need to be Amateur built and 544 kg MTOW. At that weight it would be 5 kg short for a full tank of fuel and 2 people on board. From my perspective that wouldn't be a problem because I would usually fly on my own. Question is would it be better to spend the money and keep it LSA. Better resale? Who knows?

Thanks all for the comments. I've been doing some calculations and if I build it like Vans intends it will cost about A$85K. That's complete, fly away, paint and all. In the US they have no choices, as this is the way the kit was approved for their LSA class. We have some choices to save money here in Australia. We don't have to go with the Vans Avionics kit which is about A$16K. And there might be some savings on the power plant but I'll talk to Bert Flood about that. I know $85K is a lot of money but for that you would have a pretty schmick glass cockpit aircraft and if your realistic about the actual cost of other aircraft choices it's fairly competative. Thanks again for the advice.

If you have a look at Brisbane airport runway 01 you will see the shadow of a twin engine jet taking off (just near the 01). I can't find the actual aircraft in the picture though.

Hi All, Two years ago I cancelled my order for a Zodiac XL kit after realising that there were some serious problems with the design. I've been following Zeniths solution to the problems and sincerely hope that all goes well for the XL in the future. Time will tell. Time is the problem though and as I'm regaining the enthusiasm to start a project I've been looking at the Vans RV12. As expected from Vans it looks like a well designed aircraft that would be a pleasure to build and fly. Van's Aircraft - Aircraft Models: RV-12 Introduction As part of my research into the project I'd like to get some opinions from members. Why would/wouldn't you build an RV12 ?. My only dislike so far is that the fuel is in the fuselage and not in the wings. This is offset though by the fact that the wings can be reasonably easily removed. Please, any opinions would be most appreciated.

Unfortunate end for their factory aircraft. Welcome - The Airplane Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa

Thanks for the advise Ian. Perhaps the Zodiac issues dried up business a bit.

G'day All, I was doing some research on the CH750 and started looking for Sport Air on the Gold Coast who were the agents for Zenith but they seem to have disappeared. Does anyone know what has happened to Sport Air ?. Does Zenith have an agent in Oz ?. Cheers Case

G'day All The RA-Aus sought ATSB assistance with examination of the canopy pieces found after Gary Sweetnam's accident last year. The ATSB's final report can be found here - 2008029