Louis Moore

I switched off my GPS once. I've still not recovered from the experience

Welcome, you will have to extend those legs a lot and come visit all of us east coast inhabitants!

If you go GA you get a licence!!!

I think we must remember the younger, and lets face it more technically able, will often be reading through forums and threads in those first impresionable years as a pilot/student where the brain is a sponge and not yet able to totally quantify good information from bs. A slither of a wrong idea, even if made via innocence, I guess could lead down the incorrect pathway! I figure it's not really about can a thread kill, that seems to be the wrong question. Should we not be asking can a thread SAVE someones life. On the other hand, I think these threads can kill, via starvation, because you just to glued to your computer screen to eat!!!

There a nice little aircraft, nearly as good as an Auster!!!! There every where in the USA, they love them over there

My father loves old cars as much as me, I learnt to drive on a Series 3 Landy ute & old willies jeep myself. Then I upgraded to (or downgraded maybe) to Series 2 X-Armies both SWB and LWB version, drove one off a cliff once but thats a different story...... I'm not big into 4WD myself though so after I was ready to drive myself around I bought a Peugeot 403 Station wagon (Which was fire engine red and AWESOME!) then a few Peugeot 404's which I progressively destroyed! Finally got a nice old 203, then went to a triumph spitfire! All in all I am yet to own something reliable, here are some snaps of the cars I had taken a pic of, dragged these out of the archives!!!!

My condolences to the family and friends. I did not know them but they sounded like an amazing group of people with an amazing aircraft that will be sorely missed around the many air show and fly-in circuits. I had a friend with a later model Dragon, amazing aircraft and a lot of fun, although the non feathering props always seemed a little worrying to me. What I can say is this, the instrument dash in the Dragon is very similar to that of the Auster, if it was a flight into IMC that caused the end result there would have been next to no way to maintain control, the aircraft moves about the sky a good 30-50 seconds ahead of the instruments.

That is where I found the old van, I have one of those all over, fully waterproof covers for it too! I bought it of an indian gentleman who bought a old dinkie toy commer van, loved it at ended up with four or six of them in his yard! I bought the only viable one out of all of them!!! All the other cars there where mercs, he was a true sucker for punishment I would say!!!

More non aircraft shots! This is my SU conversion I bought this nifty little EG analyser to tune the carby spot on, the duck tape around it was my own calibrations for it! This was an in-field repair for a crack in the head at the thermostat adapter plate, completed with copious amounts of JB weld, epoxy glue and loads of radiator stop leak, drove over 1500km like this to get it up here before dismantling it and having it welded!

Not really much to do with aircraft but ......... This is the van not long after I bought it on our first camping trip The professional painting both I secured to paint it in!!!! This is a very common sight with a commer!!!

It is start, at least my toys are running for now. You know how it is with british engineering combined with lucas electrics, you just never know what exciting troubleshooting experience lies around the corner! All up though the Commer is performing very well, I converted the engine over to take a single HIF6 SU carby, getting 90km per hour @ about 3200 RPM for a 10litre per 100km burn, before the rebuild I was using about 1litre of oil, 2 litres of water and 30 litres of petrol per 100km and barely making 75-80 km an hour! Now all I need is free time to pursue the many camping adventures that await! All you need now is a trailer for the Auster and folding wing kit ... LOL Actually david I have considered trying to get something to tow around behind the might van, somehow I think it would have to be a trike though!

Herm, don't be so worried. Just go for it, what is the worst that can happen .................. That's right, just remembered what the worst outcome was, on second thought do what ever makes you feel safe to avoid that Remember that if you get pressured into a flight, then crash the aircraft, it will be those very same people who where pushing you that suddenly turn around and wax lyrical about how they NEVER would fly that way and how incredibly insensible a pilot you are! I have found myself, on only a few occasions luckily and in my slightly younger years, sitting behind the controls of a leisurely flying vehicle when I really did not want to be there but had been talked into it by other pilots. It's a very unpleasant feeling when that wonderful machine of joy feels like it has huge snarly monster, with lashing teeth, that wants to chew you up and spit out the tatters of what is left on the other side. I have since made resolutions to only ever fly when I myself have intended upon flying. They keep telling me what does not kill you only makes you stronger, yet when I recall those situations I go weak at the knees

I have been absent the past few months, as this forum had become so purely addictive, I found I lacked the time to finish my project van. Every spare second was spent scouring over the many pages of interesting conversations contained on this site! Alas the project now be complete and driving on the road after a very big, embarrassingly expensive rebuild project (has a good 300km of road use now after I finished a few weeks ago). so I am finally back on to get my much needed forum fix!!!!! How is everyone?

Thanks Motz, will be checking my fuel sampler next time I am out at the aerodrome!

Thats wicked, I want a free flight model! On that note, there was a J3 cub that ended up as free flight model. They lost it after the pilot hand swung the ol thing at full throttle. Turned up a few weeks later sitting in a farmers paddock, no damage at all!!!

Motz I have heard people talk about the ethonal testing, any chance you could explain the procedure to me on here? If it is going to be thread drift would you mind starting a new thread on it? Cheers

The point is AWESOME, and it keeps you fit, and I LOVE MY ENGINE

Is Kaz going to come up so I can oogle her auster

Time taken to remove tail plane - 10 minutes Time taken to read through thread and find the answer - 30 minutes Well Sandman, the upside is this is still a FAR better turn around than a) trying to figure it out yourself and B) trying to do it from an actual aircraft manual!

Expensive Rats Nev! I am going to go check my spar ...... be back later!

Actually to her credit Ariel is a communications Major and she orchestrated the entire show after appearing on a game show and meeting with some T.V execs. There are some good interviews with the family talking about how they did this because it was something Ariel wanted to do. It made a lot of sense because because jim seems very stoic and like the last thing he would want is twenty tv crew men following him around. It is a great show but I personally found there were a few aspects that annoyed me so much I no longer bother to watch it. The cuts to different aeroplanes was one thing that I also found a little stupid as well as the obvious audio changes! But personally it is the WAY over the top, too dramatised hollywood style voice overs and constant repeats of footage and explanations where ads would normally be that drove me NUTTY. What there doing is amazing flying in some hard terrain, the guy constantly saying things like "At this dangerously overloaded weight the Cessna 208 blaaa blaa blaaaaaaaaa". Also some of the obvious set ups to make things a bit more of a "hair raising adventure" began to give things a touch more of a false feel, which was unnecessary because what there doing in the show in it's own right is amazing. There should be no need to try and GRAB THE ATTENTION of people at home with false antics. It took away from the really good stuff. Just my opinion.

I am not sure if the weight figure on air cooled engines is correct. You might be thinking a lot of liquid cooled engines are lighter but this is due to the smaller piston size (or bore size to be correct) and higher revs of the engine, not water cooling (referring to Rotax and auto conversions etc....). As a rule water cooling is far heavier due to the included liquid, plumbing, cooling jacks or sleeves, radiators etc.... Weight is one of the often sighted reason they switched to air cooling for heavier aircraft engines.

Must be hard for this poor chap to fly with his head ALWAYS turned to the side!!!

Some amazing aircraft in this thread, but they all look far to difficult to fly. Think I will stick with the ones you sit in!

Well done Enoch, she is a neat looking little machine, hours of fun to be had there!