Marty_d

1600 hp I think. https://www.firebossllc.com/

You might be safer in a Rolls Cowardly... it rolls away from danger!

At the moment there's a bushfire in Snug Tiers national park, which is only about 10km or less from our place as the crow flies. For the last 2 days there's been between 3 and 5 Air Tractor AT8T's constantly bombing the fire. For the first part of yesterday they seemed to be going to the upper Derwent near New Norfolk to reload with water, but later - and all of today - they've just been touching down on North West Bay near Margate, obviously loading very fast (they're only on the water for 10 or 15 seconds before going again), doing the 3 or 4 minute flight to the fire and back for more. Apparently the fire is very difficult for regular vehicles to get to because of the terrain, so it's been fantastic to see these planes scoop up water every 10 - 15 minutes and hit the fire. So to the pilots of these planes, as well as the Bell 214 choppers that have been bucketing water - you are bloody heroes, thank you for your efforts to keep our properties safe. (Having said that, I really hope it doesn't spread quickly and burn us out!) Not to mention the people on the ground - the firies, police, coordinators, volunteers and everyone else involved - very grateful to you all. Tried to get some pics after work today but my phone camera is crap.

I think you're trying to duck the question.

Horses for courses. Nyngan is a town of 2000 people so probably not a lot of traffic on the road. From that photo the stretch of road he landed on looks long, straight and level. Plenty of visibility for both the pilot and any oncoming traffic. Compare that with the forced landing about 15 years ago on a Victa ct4 on the Brooker Avenue north of Hobart. He ran out of fuel and put the aircraft down on a divided road with a rise, bend and overpass and concrete barriers. Needless to say the aircraft was a write off. He must have been lucky with traffic because that stretch of road turns into a parking lot during rush hour.

Good on you! Inspirational.

Hi, Nope - not as yet sorry! The front wheel stays on the ground with the engine attached and doesn't when it's not, that's the extent of w&b to date...

Hi Skippy, Be not concerned - as I said, that was simply the breather barb which I haven't YET run a line back to the tank. For the purposes of the test I simply filled the header then put a crimp in that plastic hose with a clamp on it so I didn't get fuel pissing out of the breather barb. On my to do list is to run 1/4" alloy fuel line, which I have some of, back up from the breather barb to the wing root, then thru to where the existing return line goes into the top of the starboard tank and put a T joint in there.

It was already fitted. I got the tank 2nd hand from the Sav guy, so whoever had it before might have put it in.

After pitching the blades, I went back and removed the whole prop from the engine, sat the hub on a level block above the bench and measured from the bench to the LE and TE of the tip of each blade, rotating the hub so that each blade was measured at the same spot. Happy to find the measurements were the same to the millimetre (LE-LE-LE and TE-TE-TE), so no difference whatsoever. My Mr Funnel arrived yesterday so I grabbed 20L of petrol and headed up to the plane. Tested the fuel system bit by bit, apart from some tightening needed at one connection it was all good. Some learnings: Mr Funnel is excellent but not particularly stable when balanced on the tank neck. I will print up a support stand with the profile of the wing surface at the bottom which centres on the tank neck, with a circular rim at the top to hold it steady while filling. My Sav header tank does indeed have an additional 1/4" barb for a breather tube. I will have to fabricate another line back to the wing and a T in the hose that goes back to the top of the tank. For today I just put some 1/4" id PVC on it and into a bucket until the header was completely full, then crimped and clamped the hose. Tested the two tank taps in the cockpit individually, checking that each was pouring at about the same rate into the header. They did. Then both on and the pouring doubled. I then took the hoses off the carbs and into buckets, and opened the cockpit tap. This resulted in a fast drip on each side but no real pressure. (Assuming that when the engine is running the mechanical pump sucks it through). Next I made sure a fire extinguisher was within reach and held my breath while turning the key, then hit the switch to the electric pump. This caused both hoses to jet the fuel out quite nicely. I hadn't put graduation marks in the buckets, but it looked to me like at least 1L/minute on each side if not more. I was running out of time so didn't get a chance to put the hoses back on the carbs and test the fuel pressure gauge and return line, will do that next time. Drained the system from the lowermost point at the bottom of the header tank (looked for all the world like the plane was squatting and having a very long piss) and looked into each wing tank, confirmed they were both empty. Used Mr Funnel again to put the fuel back into the container. Very happy that the system seems to be working as designed, with no leaks! In the 2 pictures of the header tank, you can see the difference between having the breather crimped off first, and letting it fill and THEN crimping it off. This confirms what @IBob said about the early tanks not having a breather and the low fuel sender going on and off. There's a definite air gap under the sender when it was crimped first, where in the second pic you can see that the tank is completely full. ...when ya gotta go...

Oh! For some reason I assumed they'd waited until the passengers had deplaned. I guess that falls under "in flight entertainment".

All they had to do was turn around.

There's a DC-3 still flying to Antarctica. Wouldn't be the same though - converted to turboprops.

So when any GA aircraft gets hired out for a "hobby' flyer to bore holes in the sky for an hour, it becomes a hobby aircraft? Doesn't matter who owns it, just who's driving it.

Getting a bit heated guys. This site is about the aircraft.

Yep, 1113 I think. At 19 degrees that gave me 383.23 on the floor, whereas if you stick 19.1 degrees in the calculator it gives 385.41.

Thanks Bob! I like the idea of the stick with clamp to get vertical distance. Especially if the stick is a spirit level so you know it's vertical. Will double check with that next time I do this. With the blade tracking further forward, do you mean if the prop hub was sitting on a flat surface then that tip is 2mm higher than the other 2? According to the instructions that came with mine, the flat table test should come after pitch - so now I have to take the prop off and do that test before putting it back on again.

Prop pitch done! (First attempt anyway!) I made a tool to hold a laser pointer which I bought on Ebay for $17. I think it might be slightly illegal as the damn thing is very powerful - you can clearly see the beam in low light conditions and even in broad daylight you can see the spot on a tree that's 100m or more away. Anyway, I was interested in @IBob's method of attaching a piece of wood and aluminium to the prop, but being someone who likes to over-complicate things I 3D printed a holder for the pointer based on measurements of the prop blade at 300mm from the tip (600 from the centre). It slips on and stops at the same spot on each blade, and features a sliding switch which holds down the spring loaded button. If anyone has a Bolly 3 bladed prop of the same model and wants to print their own, I'm quite happy to email you the STL file. I ensured the prop is as vertical as possible, found the height where the blade is parallel to the ground and leveled the flat back of the blade vertically. From this point I turned on the laser and made a cross on the floor where it hit. Then used a calculator to get the adjacent length of the right angle triangle where I knew the vertical length and a 19 degree angle. Marked a line at that point forward of the mark on the floor. (Just to check, I calculated for 18.9 degrees and 19.1 degrees. Each 1/10th of a degree is around 2.2mm.) After that it was just a matter of swiveling the blade until the laser line exactly hit the front line, and repeat for the other 2 blades. I nipped up the bolts just enough to hold the blades from turning - less than 8nm. When I recheck with the spinner thingy off completely I'll tighten up the bolts to the recommended torque settings in the recommended order.

My thoughts exactly, I would have no idea of where to start with designing a helicopter.

They might need a sling to get it back to the hangar.

Are there any of these in Australia? There's some posts from Murray A who's building one in his garage in Canberra, but he hasn't been on here since 2020.

I think I'm in love.

It was on ABC radio this arvo too. They keep pushing it. I know they sometimes jump on a story and keep thrashing it, not sure why this particular one is retaining traction though.

The topic is linear actuator for a cowl flap. Suggesting that there are other ways to actuate a cowl flap is not really off topic.

There was an interesting cowl flap shown somewhere here, French bloke had it on top of his cowl to release heat while on the ground. From memory it was hinged forward of the midpoint of the flap and lightly sprung, so at low speeds it would open but any wind pressure would close it.