pylon500

It also suggests that Pipistrel thought about reasons why one would deploy a chute, and ripping the wings off must have occurred to them, thereby deciding to attach the chute to part of the airframe determined to stay intact after ripping off said wings !! Good thought for all designers out there........

260hp? Most seem to have missed that 914's are only 115hp for 5 minutes... = 230hp. Also, from a design view, he's probably loosing/absorbing 15~20hp countering the very high thrust line..? A motor on each wing would give him even better performance, but at the cost/risk of an asymmetric engine failure. Everything is a compromise.

Guess it could be either. General feeling is 'Fan - Jet', means a fan (shrouded) turned by a jet engine. 'Ducted Fan', usually implies a shrouded fan turned by a reciprocating engine. Very few people use the term 'Shrouded Propellor', as propellor usually refers to a largish (in proportion to the aircraft) airscrew of up to five blades. I say this, as once you go to six blades, people tend to refer to them as fans again. So ducted fan implies five blades or more, inside a shroud. ps; if you want a ducted fan to work, you really need to put flow straighteners behind the fan...

These should be our own photo's but I can't resist;

Is that a large prop, or just a short(er) plane? Don't you like gliding clubs?Fun to fly, but a maintenance nightmare....

I had thought of getting involved with that, but figured it would probably jinx a day of flying, plus I'm not on facebook... Having said that, had two flights today; first cross country with an early solo student, and a refresher flight with a guy that hasn't been able to fly for about six months. 1.7 hours total in a Foxbat.

Believe it or not, not everyone is on facebook! If the photo's on your computer, you can upload it via the button over there

Australian camouflage;

Maybe both of the above, with some experiments into zero G 'entertainment' ?

Well, he didn't land on bitumen, so it wasn't the ass'fault.

I've picked up lots of pieces left from 'real' pilots that thought they would easily be able to fly a 'toy'

Oh yeah, they're getting there.... Many of those guys also fly RC, to experiment with new moves.....

A bit more realistically; (Copied from elsewhere) While two-cylinder engines with about 1000cc of displacement power Polaris RZRs, Can-Am Mavericks and Arctic Cat Wildcats, Yamaha doesn’t really make a high performance twin. Its only big twins are found in its Star line of cruiser motorcycles. If my thawed out grey matter is correct, a three-cylinder engine might be in our future. Yamaha uses triples in both its motorcycle (847cc, 115 horsepower) and snowmobile (1049cc, 130 horsepower) lineups. A triple would be unique for the Sport UTV segment, but I’d imagine Yamaha wants to be different. Of course, if Yamaha wanted to be really different it could put one of its screaming four-cylinder sportbike engines in a new UTV. An entire racing class was made for people who put a Yamaha YZF-R1 motorcycle engine into Yamaha Rhino chassis, but that seems a touch extreme for a stock machine.

You know it's an RC model, don't you?

Yes, your idle could come down a bit, 80hp should idle down around 15~1600rpm (the 100hp's start to get a bit lumpy down there, they like around 1800) With max WOT level of 5250, looks like someone's been trying to squeeze all the speed they can at top end? The 100hp's start to over-torque the gearbox/crankshaft with a WOT that low, 80hp's not so much a problem, but should still be able to see around 54~5500 straight and level. With a 80hp Sav', you're not really going to get much faster than you've got, but you are probably loosing a bit of your STOL performance with the prop that coarse. General rule of thumb was to set up the prop so that static WOT was between 52~5300, then decide if you had a draggy or clean plane, and go maybe 100rpm either way, ie; if you've got something like an Esqual, you could set to around 5100 static, but with a Savannah, you will probably be closer to 53~5400 WOT static. I'm running a 100hp Foxbat, and can loiter at 70kts with around 4400rpm, and nearly 90kts at 5500. Straight and level WOT, I start to go past max continuos of 5500rpm. It's nearly ALL in the prop, carbi balancing and the like, tend to show up down around idle (rough), jets, needles and balancing are more to do with fuel consumption and are shown through the EGT's.

On my Ferry trip to alice, I went over to Avgas (was using 98 out past Moree) at Thargomindah for $2.28 a litre. Not too bad considering it's about $2.20 here at Taree. Changed when I got to Birdsville though, $3.16 a litre ! As for the roadhouse, (or bakery as it was) the food was pretty expensive without worrying about the cost of fuel. ie; small sausage roll, chicken/mayo bun and a small box iced coffee = $26.50

It's hard to actually create anything totally NEW these days as most concepts, and many iterations thereof, have all been worked out somewhere in the past. All we can do now is continue to 'mix and match' and bring newer materials into the game. I must say that the Jumo engine is an interesting read.

While caution, and maybe a good dose of natural fear, is healthy around props, a cold, non primed 912 is pretty safe. The possible worry is when turning a geared prop is the sudden 'ramp up' of compression, for a relatively slow turn of the prop, that tends to create a quick 'over compression', right at the point that the CDI pickups can energize. The history of treating props as 'live' stems from the introduction of the 'Impulse' magneto. Here the core of the magneto is held back via a spring until the prop passes 'top dead centre', where upon the core then spins rapidly back to position, moving the magnets quickly, thus energizing the plugs. Thus, with an engine primed and ready to run, the prop only had to be pulled up to, and then just past, top dead centre, and the engine would fire. Not a great deal of effort required to get started. You can hear the impulse system working, if you stand near some brave soul as they turn over most of the old GA engines, as a loud 'clack' as the engine goes over TDC.

'Cause, what he would really like would be if we kept buying new ones......

Here you go SDQDI, look familiar?

Talking to guys in Moree, he was landing at a property. Ag strip maybe?

OK, As promised, a follow up from my 'help wanted' thread with details of the ferry flight I was on. Being based at Taree, I'm close to Olie Hartmann (Australian Aircraft Kits and Gary Morgan (Morgan Aeroworks). Every now and then, either of these two will end up with a plane to be delivered, returned or ferried for whatever reason, and if they are busy at the time, they ask if I could fly an aircraft to wherever it needs to go. This time around was to be my longest trip yet, deliver a refurbished AAK Hornet Cub to Bond Springs, just north of Alice Springs. Not being the fastest ultralight around, I really needed to pick the weather for this one and unfortunately, a byproduct of optimum conditions for this trip would really mean crap weather on the east coast. With a tangle of multi centred Low pressure systems and attendant ridges and fronts, it was still a bit of a guess to pick the exact window. The trip would take a minimum of two days, and if I timed it right, my retrieve crew might also get a tailwind back. Naturally none of the above occurred. The more cautious route would be from Taree, WSW toward South Australia (probably Broken Hill), then around to the NW and upwards (Coober Pedy or abouts) and on up to Alice. Unfortunately the typically stable pattern of a High pressure cell over the Bight negates any chance of tailwinds for more than one day. The next alternative is to follow an 'anti clockwise' direction from Taree which would head more towards Bourke, then onwards towards Birdsville, then Alice. As expected on the day, weather at Taree was pretty dismal, but instead of blowing the howling South Easterly as predicted, the wind was still from the South West. I was tempted to wait another day (and in hindsight, it's still a mixed decision) but assumed the weather would be better once past the Dividing Range (called the Barringtons in our area). Tracking for Narrabri, I came across a wall of weather just before leaving the Barringtons, which caused me to track SW. This had me tracking towards Tamworth CTA, so I had to divert further South, and ended up heading towards Quirindi (never realised exactly where that was, Hi SDQDI) where I landed to access the situation, and get a warmer jumper out of the back! With the wind still strong from the SW, heading for Bourke was going to be a struggle, better to use the weather and gain some Northern lattitude for the rest of that day, so I continued towards Narrabri and looking at Walgett. Still a strong SW wind at Narrabri, I decided to keep going North and tracked on to Moree, where I posted my 'assistance request' post, after finding a minor problem with the engine. I contacted the team back at AAK, and it was decided to send out a guy with more tools than I had, and make sure the problem was totally resolved there, instead of having to send a warrantee crew to Alice! Day two dawned with the wind finally deciding to blow in the right direction, and blow it did! Departing Moree about midday with a 15~20kt tailwind, I tracked to regain my original goal of Thargomindah, assuming I would land at Cunnamulla. Within view of Cunnamulla, and with three GPS units, good fuel gauges, a fuel flow meter and the relevant maps, I crunched the numbers and figured I could still make Thargomindah, where I arrived half an hour before sunset, with reserves. Up early the next morning and off towards Birdsville, still with the 20kt tailwind. There really is a lot of Nothing out of Birdsville towards Alice, but it's not the hot, dry, parched desert that everyone expects. There's an amount of foliage on the ground and lines of scrub trees in the long dunes, that run for miles in either direction. Some of the dunes even have small creeks in them that even from 6,000 feet, looked to have water in them. With the survival gear I had and my RAAF training, I could probably kick back and take it easy for a week or so if I had to land. Biggest problem would have been the cold!, although there looked to be plenty of wood to burn. Reached Bond Springs after 17.9 hours flying time over three days, $590.00 worth of fuel (not counting the full tanks I left Taree with) and $217.00 worth of accommodation. I've yet to find out what the retrieve flight will cost in a Twin Commanchee, but I saw the pilot put in $500.00 worth at Thargomindah, although he said we could have made it non-stop, but not with IFR reserves, so we topped up. Now for some pictures; Terrain around Thargomindah. Filled up at Birdsville. Rows of dunes out in the Simpson. Arrived Bond Springs, might be a hard plane to find out there ? Phone image of my log sheet. Summery, not a lot of adventure, just a lot of flying...

Yes, all sorted, thanks to those involved, even the call from Victoria just with concern for my well being was appreciated. Obviously the double post was just to make sure it was noticed. I'll try not to make a habit of this for the rest of the trip, going to Alice Springs!!, but the tailwind never eventuated. Never tried posting from my phone before, has it's quirks.

Yay, problems solved. It's good to see (most) of us forumites stick together. Aircraft now fuelled, and I have a lift back out in the morning. Sure I could have run around in a taxi (if he would carry the fuel?) then just bill the ferry customer, but now I've met more of our members and saved my customer that $200.

This is a repeat post, in hope someone can help; Hi folks, pylon500 here, I am currently at Moree, and looking for anyone local that could give me a hand to get on my way. Basically need someone that can give me a lift to and from the airport to fill the plane. Hiring a car or even taxis would break the budget of this trip, plus we can chat (yes I will listen to others for at least a few minutes :) It is now 5:00 Tuesday evening, if you can help, call or text O425-323-3O6, thanks..