farri

Flying the Drifter this afternoon, with the sun going down over Mount Bellenden Ker!

Two dead after helicopter crashes on Barrier Reef pontoon

I`ve spent the last 2 days driving the excavator in the mud, doing what I should have done before the flood! Flood water all gone! no rain and some sunshine today, so it dried out enough to take the Drifter and the X-Air back to their shed, but not before a fly around in the Drifter to see the result of the flood...Gees that fly felt good! Frank.

Brilliant!!! .

The water`s not all gone off our property but it`s all gone off Ross Rd, out to the Bruce highway...The flood water was the highest we`ve had in several years but it never made it to highest ground, here at home...Life goes on! Frank.

G`Day Steve, I havn`t had anything to say, absolutely OK though! Fran and Me are here on our own and flooded in, probably for the next couple of days, but that`s nothing new and we `re always well prepared; we can get out in the Tinny if we have to, plenty of water around to float it in... Alison, Sam, and the kids are in Innisfail until Ross road is out of the water and they can get back...The Drifter and the X-Air are tied down, up here at the house, brought them up on Thursday afternoon...Strip 2 up here is well out of the water. Frank.

How many hrs has the pump done?

A long time ago, lousy memory but the name rings a bell! I think so! I recall someone down south making it up for me. Frank.

Wikipedia. Design and development[edit] ARV Super2 aircraft, with the first prototype flying on 11 March 1985.[10] The factory used some novel manufacturing techniques, including British ALCAN's "Supral"[11] (a superplastic aluminium alloy), adhesives (to reduce the number of rivets and thereby save weight), and a bespoke new British engine, the Hewland AE75. These innovations gave the ARV an empty weight 40% lower than the Cessna 152,[12] making the Super2 both cheaper to buy and to operate. Frank.

This is the timing belt reduction drive I chose...At the time there had been a number of Rotax B type gearbox failures so I reasoned I could inspect the components of the belt drive, at preflight! from memory, it did around 130 trouble free hours before Cyclone Joy damaged my AC and I stored it.....It`s held to the engine by 2 pieces of Aluminum angle and the adjusting arms are attached to those...It`s been sitting in a box since 1990. Frank

Steve, When I built mine back in the mid-eighties I expected to be able to do it for $3000, in fact, it ended up closer $7000 and I had no expense on tools as the only tools I used were what I had in the shed at the time. So far I`ve made 1 set of skins for my home built and 3 sets for my Drifter! each time the cost of materials went up! from memory, the last set for the Drifter cost me between $800 and $900 for materials alone so I reckon if I do another set it will be well over $1000... At the moment, with the value of the Aus $ it would probably cost around $3,500.00 for a set of skins, for the Drifter from America. You can`t just get any engine and put it on an Ultralight! with high revving engines, you need a reduction gearbox, then you need to be able to drive a prop with it, Rotax`s are popular because they have a purpose-built gearbox, with mine, I used a Robin Fuji 440 engine and chose a timing belt reduction drive. If you want to build a 95-10 single place Ultralight, as I understand it, you can pretty much choose the materials and the engine you want but I can`t see how anyone would be able to build a safe to fly Ultralight, for $3000. You might find this site interesting! Rotax engines, Rotax 377, 447, 503, 532, 582, and Rotax 912 aircraft engines, parts & ultralight aircraft accessories. Frank.

Hey Steve! You offend me??? Never! You`re the only one on here who says nice things about me... Nah! Not everyone! only the members who view it. Frank, Ps, Great to know that you`re doing well, keep it up! Pps, Bit hot up here so I went flying in just a pair of shorts again, this afternoon!

After some consideration, I thought this statement of Steve`s worthy of some comment and possibly some discussion on my points. Boring!..."Boring" is the last thing I want out of my flying or for those who want to fly with me! The ultralight (rag and tube) movement was started primarily as a fun, affordable way to fly for those who didn`t want to or couldn`t afford to do it any other way, me being one of them. Fun!... The fun bit comes in when the pilot knows how to make the flight fun and ends it with a smile on their face and if carrying a passenger the passenger is smiling too. Safety!...To me, safety is "No Accident!", not how you achieve it!...I might make it look to others that I`m taking it casually but in fact, I take it very seriously and everything I do is calculated in advance! when I`m flying, I`m always well ahead of the aircraft. Daring Maneoveres!...I don`t consider any of the maneuvers I do, "Daring", I consider the ability to perform them absolutely necessary for my safety. How to fly!... I`ve learnt what works best for me and my situation and at this stage, i`ve no intention of doing it any other way! Frank.

Am I the only person without a mobile phone?...My wife has a mobile phone but it doesn`t often get used, it sits in the glove compartment of our car, in case of an emergency when we`re out driving. Fantastic device and it certainly is a benefit to society in many ways! Like a lot of things, it comes down to how the individual chooses to use it. Police officer’s leg amputated after crash in western Sydney Frank.

Hey! Steve! I got a real pleasant surprise and a good laugh when I read your post! Fran and I are both pleased you enjoyed your time here with us and we hope to see you again! The Drifter`s here to fly if you come back with your qualifications. The flying? Well?... That was pretty normal for me! just me being me. Have you got over that feed of Oysters?...Guy`s! I`ve never seen anyone eat as many live Oysters off the rocks, as Steve. We had a fairly bad thunderstorm here this morning, it`s now cleared up beautifully though! I`m finished repairing the ride-on mower, there`s still plenty of fuel in the Drifter so I`m now going to do some Drifter-ing! Frank.

G`Day Alan, I take it she`s flying a "Real Plane"?... ...Good on here and all the best with it! If you eventually fly together, don`t fight over the controls! After landing on her first solo, a lady I instructed, got off the Drifter, layed down on here back, did a little dance with her arms and legs in the air, squealed for joy and said, and I quote, " If only my mother could see me know!"...I also instructed her partner and they flew together for several years, firstly in their Drifter then in their LightWing, nicknamed, " The Yellow Peril "...There are probably some on here who would know who I`m talking about. I got so fed up with Frances`s anxiety when she was with and I was driving that I came to the conclusion, it was better to let he drive, if I was in the car!... ...Works just fine! I don`t have any anxiety with her driving! We`re off to Cains this morning and I`ll just sit back and watch the world go by. Frank.

Well, I`ll be! As a bike rider, I had my idea about 40 years ago, forgot all about it till I read the post from jg3...Thanks! Frank.

Maybe not overkill but I wouldn`t recommend it! just something else to go wrong. I created a forced landing in my home built by mistakenly turning the wrong tap and cutting off the fuel! Once should have been enough, but no! I had to go and do it again! Second time at 1300` agl, this time I quickly realised what I`d done, no problem methinks, plenty of height and electric start, I turned the engine over a few times, didn`t start and the battery went flat! I forgot to prime the Carbies! Now I was committed to land. Frank.

Goodonya! I`d prefer the engine behind me and nothing in front to obstruct visibility, though. Way back when! I came up with the idea of attaching a suitable trail bike to the airframe, underneath the wing. The AC would be powered by a pusher engine and could be flown conventionally from the sitting position on the bike. At the destination, the bike could be detached and provide transport. It would be classed, Experimental. With the right design, I reckon it would fly, what do you reckon? Frank.

Dave, The only bottom tank I`m aware of holds 40 lts... I decided to drain the top tank into the bottom and take the fuel from the bottom; the first thing I did when I got my tank way back when was to modify the outlet hose barb; I took the barb out, sweated the strainer off if, soldered it onto a copper pipe, cut the pipe the correct length so that the pick-up point would be in the center of the tank and soldered the other end onto the barb, this increased the amount of usable fuel with a nose down attitude but wouldn`t overcome starvation when the fuel quantity got low enough... I never once let it get low enough and never had a problem with my setup. I ran my grey head 582 with the standard carby jest they came with and I was using an average 12 lts phr! When doing cross country, I would flight plan for 14 lts phr. Frank.

Geese Turbo! Good to know you were once a mere mortal like a lot of us old buggers here! Frank.

I started my own cane harvesting contract business at the age of 23 and for a number of years, I was an Employer so I wouldn`t argue that an employer shouldn`t have a responsibility to their employees, but I would argue that an Employee also has a responsibility to themselves. In your post, you`ve said the machine Operator told the Ring Road Contractor that the brakes were faulty, therefore, the operator knew there was a problem with the brakes so regardless of the order or advice that was given by the Contractor to the Operator, the Operator should have refused to operate the machine but continued to operate it. I know a guy who owned a Gold Mine on the Palmer River, knew that the truck his son was driving had faulty brakes, the son eventually had an accident and was killed, the guy was charged and jailed. Frank

Hi Will,......My name is Frank.

At 16 years of age I was helping my father clear a block of heavy scrub to create a Sugar Cane Farm... It wasn`t long before my father had to go back to the Servo he owned to earn some money to be able to carry on so I was left there on my own to continue the work. At 17 I was blowing up stumps with Gelignite. Dad had just enough money to buy a second hand Massey Fergerson 65 tractor which had very poor brakes and I was working on my own beside a creek so one day I told my father that I was concerned about the tractor brakes, his reply, and I quote, " Learn to use it as it is"...I did and I`ve always believed that advice set me up for the many things I have done in my life that so many others wouldn`t even have thought of doing...The moral of my story, " Take responsibility for your own actions!" Having been a farmer until retiring at the age of 60,10 years ago and still riding a quad bike (without a helmet) in the case of the Farmer hiring unskilled backpackers who are experiencing a farm for the first time, I would see the risk of injury being any number of things so by today's standards they probably should never be allowed to go near a farm, let alone given a task involving a Quad Bike! In an accident involving any backpacker on a farm for the first time who then should be held accountable for failing their duty of care, the Farmer or the system that allowed unskilled backers to be employed in the first place? Frank.