skippydiesel

"IF you are flying level or on a fixed approach angle, your speed is controlled by POWER ........" Again. All very good as long as your engine is delivering power. Far better to become proficient in the glide approach & landing. What you are promoting was just how I was trained in GA (fortunately also had a lot of glide approach/landing as well). My RAA conversion emphasised the glide approach and I am very glad of it. Being competent in the glide approach makes for a better more confident pilot, much less likely to "drag' the aircraft in to landing, on power. Power is still there, if needed, when everything comes together , its not.

All very good , IF your engine is still delivering power. Much better to practise glide approaches.

A reminder; Your first statement on this topic. I may be reading too much into it however the statements; "Hydrolyte is my favourite, ..." suggests to me habituation. "...drinks heaps before I fly." sounds like excess. "Cost a lot of money but worth it and works for me." addiction? Later: "Like everything I look for multiple sources of information, I should have added that I have spoken to my Pharmacist and GP about this stuff and they gave me suggested dosage rates and how often. My six monthly blood test regime has many added tests at my request for reasons I have outlined to my GP and he has not knocked me back on a request yet, because I tell him why, based on medical research I do. Yes, I m a medical freak, amongst other things 🤩" No offence intended but this sounds like obsession. Does nothing to convince me of the appropriateness of your use of electrolyte drinks.

May not be "earth shattering" however the increasing use of hysterical language, in our media and by our authorities, is a trend that should be called out. We no longer have "Extreme Fire Danger" weather condition, an accurate description, it has escalated to "Catastrophic Fire Danger" which isn't even good English. Such misuses of emotive language, does no one any good , and does not help to appropriately motivate the population. It almost seem that there is some sort of competition to see who can come up with the most alarming, disproportionate language, for any given situation.

My point is simple - it's not a crime scene until a crime/suspicion of, has been found. It serves no good purpose (other than the cops promoting themselves) to prematurely declare every incident one. By all means declare an incident/investigation scene but don't call it a crime scene until strong indication that there may have been one.

Supplied by your employer (?), covering his or her rear end, not by a medical professional. What do you think our grandparents (& before them) did, before the invention of this rubbish drink? - they drank water and unfortunately indulged in overly salty foods (which may have helped a little with dehydration but killed them later due to vascular hardening). If you don't drink enough water, sweat profusely (physical exertion/fever) have diarrhea, you may become clinically dehydrated. It is likely that drinking a suitable electrolyte fortified drink (or get put on an IV fluid drip) will speed your recovery/rehydration. Your body is designed to tolerate a degree of dehydration ie its normal. When this happens you feel thirsty and drink (preferably water) to rehydrate. If you have a good diet and drink when your body signals, you should not, in the normal course of events, need added electrolytes. The advent of "Sports Drinks" fortified with sugars & electrolytic salts, combined with strong marketing campaigns, has convinced the general population that consumption of these products is necessary for their health /wellbeing (I am fairly sure Coca Cola did much the same) - - its BS!!!! Anecdotal story: Last summer, I did some physically demanding construction work, with the help of a young man, a good 40 years my junior. He sipped (?) all day & had a lot of "wee brakes". I on the other hand had four, good drink of water, in the same working day. Some of this may be physiological difference, some experince?

Sounds about right Nev - why be accurate when you can escalate & save money at the same time.

Just speculating: Regular Super Glue & Araldite tend to harden & go off over time. Care needs to be taken with preparing the surface to be glued to, least only temporary adhesion take place. Aside from removing all traces of grease/silicon (polish residue) double sided tape will stick remarkably well to a painted/smooth surface (no roughing required). It comes in diffrent thickness & width. The one I use the most is about 2mm thick, which gives the item (VG?) the ability to absorb a little movement (not totally rigid) if knocked/rubbed /etc which will happen even if it's only washing the bugs off.

As always, with 12V systems - Check your (-) earth/ground connections are clean & secure/firm

Don't know about you - I find the use of the word "crime" as in "crime scene" to be inappropriate, even disquieting. This and others like it, are an accident/incident scene/location - at some time in the future, it may be determined that a crime of some sort has been committed, until then this word is completely inaccurate and inappropriate.

Never used VG's however do "stick" things on the outside of my aircraft eg trim tab on the rudder. I use good quality double sided tape. My favorit is by 3M. Its amazing stuff .

Yes but whose instructions? I would be sceptical of instructions on the container, these are from a vested interest in getting you hooked and consuming. It is true that as we age our ability to thermoregulate tends to deteriorate BUT then so does our ability to process and excrete excess salts (electrolytes). Pre exercise consumption of electrolytes, is something that needs careful management and is likely unwarranted in most situations. Post exercise consumption is also unwarented in normal every day exercise and should only be considered when genuine dehydration has occurred. People seem to forget that human physiology has changed little in hundreds of years - our forebears did not have access to "sports drinks" and the like and seemed to have got bye perfectly well.

Squashed the side of the offending header today. Could not perform operation in situ, so removed pipe. Used a piece of tight fitting water pipe, on the side I wanted to remain as is and Vice Grips to gradually squash in the point, at which it was contacting the engine frame. I did not need to use th socket as an anvil. Ran the engine up to oil 50C. Shut it down as per usual. No contact mark on the witness tab. Great! I will fly the Sonex in a week or so, for a definitive test but very hopeful of this being the solution (along with all the erlier incremental efforts/improvements)

New Flash! -Doctors are not gods - this fact will no doubt surprise many and possibly uspest a few. The medical profession (abely supported by entertainment media) works hard to project an image of superiority, bordering on infallibility. It's no wonder that a Dr's signature is so highly regarded and they have ridiculous lobbying powers well beyond us mortals. The truth is, with the best will/training/equipment, Dr's are still unable to predict the time & place of anyone's demize, that is assuming they themselves, are not about to kill the the client/patent/themself (I am sure it's happened)😈. Young & old people drop dead for no obvious or known pre- existing, condition. Most often, the postmortem will give a clear cause, not always. There is much the medical profession still don't know. Medical examinations, have their limits - at the moment they are the best we have to judge the health of a person, wishing to exercise the privileged of pilot in command of an aircraft.

Turbs - You are a master of the out of context commentary - Simply put: most naturally aspirated Rotax 9 exhaust configurations, are unique to that aircraft or in factory supply , model. The main driver for exhaust configuration is, to fit within the available space (cowling/engine frame). Tuning (exhaust length) is a secondary consideration, that usually loses out to the former. There are a few exceptions - these tend to feature much convoluted custom supply (ie not Rotax) exhaust headers/muffler (expensive, heavy, complex) may have the muffler in atypical locations (eg above engine). Of the latter designs, the improvements in engine performance are likely to be relativly small for the cost involved (analogues to fitting a small aircraft with a CS prop)

Nah! to all the KitFox style aircraft (all good but SLOOOOOW) Australian distances cry out for something like the ATEC Faeta. Intuitive handling Quiet in/out Comfortable for two adults Robust undercarriage for paddock strips Minimal maintenance, composite airframe Low stall - safety & ease of short filed operation Great payload - 300 kg empty weight : 600 kg MTO Great range - 100L fuel Distance shrinking cruise - as low as 10 L/ hr (912 iS) Choice of Rotax engines to suit mission/pocket Competitively priced - even better if made/assembled in Australia FYI - I am neither an agent or dealer - Note: I said like a Faeta - there are a very few others with the similar attributes.

No racing or engine "Hotting" experience to speak of. From my lifetime of engine maintenance and reading (others experince) I would guess that the typical (there is no actual standard) Rotax 912 exhaust installation, is quite some way from being "optimised", even with all Rotax supplied component (as mine is). Different length headers, log style 90 degree muffler, does not look to me, to be a tuned exhaust extraction installation. It does however, get the job done. With the above in mind, my objective is to aim for reliability, which in this context includes having no part of the engine inadvertently contacting structural (engine frame) or non structural (cowling) part of the aircraft. To this end I have installed "stiffer" engine mounts, which have themselves then been further stiffened, using Cupped Snubbing Washers and additional spacing washers (supplied by Sonex). These changes have almost but not quite, eliminated engine to frame contact, that likely occurs at engine shut down. Rotax 9's are infamous for having violent lateral movement, at shut down. This is usually attributed to the integral gear box. In my installation this may be exacerbated by having a relativly heavy 3 bladed, constant speed, propeller acting as a pendulum. I feel that I only have two further cost effective solutions to try: Fabricate a new left side rear exhaust header (the offending component) with a wider obstruction (frame) avoiding curve - The most effective solution but quite costly in time & dollars. Create a shallow (10mm) dent in the existing header pipe, adjacent to the contact point. This with the aforementioned engine mount changes, should result in no further engine: frame contact. This is a simple (KISS), minimal down time/nil cost solution, that may have some minor impact on performance. I will try the last solution first. To assess any changes in performance, I will compare future EGT readings with those already recorded.

Lizzard's posts ??????

My limited experince is with the Airmaster electric system and way back when I was in GA, hydraulic . So far (about 60 hrs) I can say the Airmaster is not at all slow to move between changes, seems to have no problem adjusting pitch, whatever the situation and neither hunts or allows overspeed. The Airmaster can be used like a traditional CS, with the pilot controlling all pitch changes or in semi automatic ie preset Takeoff , Climb, Cruise.

Hi Kyle, Three questions: Is there a CS (Glorious) E-prop in Australia? Why have E-Prop opted for hydraulic pitch change, rather than one of the electric systems? Is there an In-Flight-Adjustable variant of the Glorious (or plans to offer one)?

I preferer the status quo . This does not mean that I am blind to the potential for self assessing, one's own medical fitness, to be deliberatly or inadvertently (self delusion) falsified with potentially tragic outcomes. It true that medicos make mistakes, people have dropped dead shortly after an all clear from their GP/Specialist but at least the opinion of a trained third party has been sought. With no medical training/pathology tests/etc, you are asking that a pilot assess their own fitness to hold a license/certificate -- dodgy! Also true that, on a flight by flight basis, we all assess our fitness but should this be extended to a 12 month health check ????

Good thinking Thruster88 & T510. I will come up with a method that hopefully results in only one side being depressed jst enough to clear the contact with a bit to spare for future changes to engine mounts. Thank you all, for your constructive and very helpful suggestions - I now have a cost effective way forward,

Really???? I suspect luck and or statistically small/insignificant (at the moment) incidents, that have been "brushed under the carpet". Times have changed - the club atmosphere has all but evaporated - it's now a business. In a club, there is some chance of a straying individual being guided back onto the proper path - almost none in today's RAA - that is until after the fact/transgression has come to light (death?) In the RAA beginnings, the aircraft were minute underpowered kites, that barely left the ground. The enthusiasts knew or at least knew of, each other - we are now contemplating 720 kg relative monsters by comparison, that will regularly climb to 9500 ft and cruise at 140 knots, coupled with sufficiently large & dispersed membership, where all sorts of shenanigans may be contemplated & got away with - until tragedy. Ask yourself - what aging person readily admits to the ravages of time on their physical/mental capacity? You are ignoring the weight of historical evidence, on the failures of self administration, resulting from all too fallible humans running the system.

"The attitude is that the public of Australia are not going to pay for your sports mistakes." Ultimately everyone pays - either for a good system or much more, for a bad. The public have had a "snow job" done on them - irresponsible leadership had lead us down the garden path, to this sort of wrought. My limited understanding of the market economy is that somehow all costs can be isolated and the user pays - history clearly shows this is BS! We live in a society where many, if not, all costs are related/impacted by others. User pays does not work! I"f you don't like the system, you can always just pay the bill when the Judge makes his her decision." How does this change/improve/help anything? "You're talking about communist or socialist systems there; we don't have one." No! I am talking common sense, humanity and the understanding that no man/woman is an island - we all depend on society and its well constructed relationships for our economic well being. Market economics seeks to silo expenditure (user pays) - it can't be done & retain efficiency. For years I worked for a bureaucracy where funds/costs were siloed. There was no recognition of physical and or economic interdependent systems or synergy - result the whole system cost way more than it should. Despite the taxpayer coming to the rescue every year, there was a general winding down, as assets deteriorated systems/teams were lost - the Australian public has & will continue to lose valuable services due to this shorterm fake economic system that infects pretty much every facet of our lives. Communism is a wholly discredited system, that has been comprehensively shown not to work. Socialism, on the other hand, works very well in a number of counties and has done, for a long time. I am not advocating for a Socialist state, only that we remove our heads from the sand, check out what can/does work and be open to a more efficient/effective/ kinder way of governing ourselves. The adversarial/court based system, for dealing with public liability, is a crock!

History would suggest that self certification/adherence/administration is going to be abused/fail. It's human nature to drift from the rules (look at Boing) This is an oft repeated mistake by bureaucrats & politicians seeking a cheap way out. Ultimately there will be a high cost to pay - much recrimination - costly investigation (of what everyone already knows) - no one to be held responsible - followed by a return to an independent certifier/authority.