flyvulcan

Under my proposal, this would become "We (being the new amalgamated organisation) offer flight training to individuals to gain a recreational pilot certificate, a sport pilot license, a general aviation pilot license and transition training into your own recreational aircraft." For those members of the new organisation that have built or bought their own experimental or ultralight (non-commercial) aircraft, the existing FTF's could offer transition training, an initiative which CASA have supported and which the SAAA are investigating. The "Experimental" division of the amalgamated body could pursue the issue of transition training, as the SAAA is doing now, but it would be the organisation's FTFs that could benefit, along with the members who have built or bought their own experimental category aircraft (whether GA registered or sport registered) who could now get training in their own or a similar aircraft (on a commercial level). I am also a member of the Sport Aircraft Club of SA, an enthusiast group that has members from all genres of recreational aviation who all coexist and complement each other and is a great example of what could be achieved on a national level. I for one would like to see that happen. The AusFly event just highlights the success that can be achieved when all the recreational aviation bodies cooperate and support each other. I'd like to see that cooperation, possibly through integration all the time, not just for a weekend. I think that there would be more support from SAAA members for such an initiative than one might suspect. I don't think there is the same perception of RAAus being an organisation of "Cowboys" which there was 20 years ago. I think that the new generation of SAAA members is over the bias that may have existed in the past. I personally feel like the SAAA is struggling a bit at the moment, particularly with the upheaval in the National Council and that maybe it is time to consider a sea change for the organisation, and in my opinion, an amalgamated, bigger, stronger body would benefit everyone. This site is predominantly RAAus focused, but support on both sides would be required to introduce this initiative.

The SAAA just this week has clearly entered another period of instability with the resignation of its CEO and 4 members of its National Council. I know that it concerns me and I'm sure it will concern other members. I have been a member of both RAAus (AUF in those days) and the SAAA since both their inceptions. I have always been a bit disappointed that there was not more cooperation between the two organisations, although there has been a clear improvement over the last couple of years in the level of cooperation between the organisations. Individually, the organisations are sitting on SAAA - 2000+ members and RAAus 10,000 (?) members while SAAA has around $1m in its coffers and RAAus has about the same (?). Both organisations have necessary infrastructure to support their businesses i.e. Staff to support membership, accounting, office work etc. and both organisations have their tasks relating to their role. There are clearly functions that are common to both organisations (membership etc.) as well as tasks that are common to both organisations (lobbying to CASA, Part 149 approval etc.). Perhaps it is time to consider some type of amalgamation of the two organisations to rationalise the administration of Sport/Recreational aviation and provide cost-benefits and resource benefits to both organisations? Does anyone else feel the same as me and is it worth proposing such an initiative to RAAus/SAAA management? Your thoughts?

Today, we completed fabrication of all gussets and straps for the LH elevator then drilled and clecoed them all in place. We had to ensure that all ribs were set at 90 degrees to the spar and that all ribs and the bow were parallel to the right hand elevator. i.e they are both on the same plane. It all worked out quite nicely. We need to check a feature of the plans with the designer, Robert Baslee before we can rivet the structure. I expect that by our next build session that we shall have the answer from Robert so that we can complete the fabrication and then do all the prep for riveting.

Thanks Tim, I just hope I get it finished before we are too old to have that duel! Dave

It was on to the left elevator today. We started by jigging up the elevator to the horizontal stab to ensure symmetry between left and right sides and to ensure that we had the same gaps between the elevator horns and horizontal stab on both sides. The spar was trimmed to length, again ensuring that the size of the elevator horns was identical on both sides. While the elevators and horizontal stab were jigged to each other, ensuring that the right hand elevator was parallel to the stab, we marked the front and rear face of the main spar where the ribs would be mounted and ran a 90 degree angle along our table to mark the exact front and rear face of the spar where the ribs would be attached. After the spar was trimmed to size, we accurately marked the location of all 4 ribs (3 trailing edge and one leading edge), then placed the spar gently into a wooden vise and used a hand drill to drill the 1/2" holes into the spar to slot the ribs into. We started with a 3/32" drill bit then worked our way out using around 10 incrementally larger drill bits to enlarge the size of the holes. They turned out very neat. The holes were deburred and were ready for the ribs. We then trimmed the ribs to length and rounded/hollowed the ends to allow the rib ends to fit snug up against the inside radius of the spar and around the outside radius of the elevator bow. After overlaying our LH elevator bow over the riveted up RH elevator bow to ensure their shape was identical (a very small amount of additional bending was required), we trimmed the ends of the LH elevator bow to the final size. With all ribs/spar and bow then jigged up together, we left it there for tomorrow where we will finish and fit all gussets and get it all clecoed together.

Possibly finger trouble. I've done it accidentally when scrolling. When I've noticed someone else who may have done it, I've pm'd them and they've gone back and undone it and thanked me for letting them know.

Congratulations Brett. That is a terrific achievement!

I managed to crop the screenshot of the Mt. Mowbullan area as shown above. The Oakey restricted areas appear to be about 8nm to the south of Mt. Mowbullan itself but there is a danger area in the immediate vicinity. However, there are no flight restrictions in a danger area.

Here is a screenshot of the upper air routes in the region of the WA/SA/NT border. From it, you will be able to determine if there are any near your point of interest. Check my post below for a screenshot of the Mt Mowbullan area.

Today, I started with fabricating the two gussets that connect the inboard end of the trailing edge tubing to the spar. The plans do not call for gussets, only joining the tube to the spar with a strap. However, we have decided to use a strap and supplement the strap with gussets. The gussets started as a 3' square piece of .020" AL sheet which I simply cut in half from corner to opposite corner using tin snips. I then trimmed off the corners where the flange mounts to the spar. Next, I smoothed the edges of the gussets on the polishing grinder (or whatever its called). I then bent a 9mm wide flange along one edge of the gusset and drilled some 3/32" pilot holes. I then clamped the gusset to the tube/spar and drilled through the gusset pilot holes into the tube and spar, clecoing as I went. Once the first gusset was mounted, I flipped the tailplane and did the other side gusset. I pulled off both gussets and removed all drilling debris and reassembled the gussets into place. I then drilled out the holes to 1/8" then pulled apart again, deburred all parts and then reassembled again. Those gussets were now finished. After finishing those gussets, I squeezed the ends of the spar where the tube passes through the cutouts in the spar end using a 12mm drill bit in place of the tubing and a wooden vise to do the squeezing. The vise got it fairly close but I needed to use a hammer to finish the squeeze. Once the ends were squeezed, I reinserted the tubing and drilled and clecoed the tubing to the spar end. I then fabricated and mounted the gusset that holds the leading edge rib to the spar. To do that, I had to attach the elevator to the horizontal stab using the correct hinges to ensure that the leading edge rib was parallel to the end of the stab. I then drilled and clecoed the gusset in place ensuring that the alignmenet of the leading edge rib was parallell to the trailing edge ribs. I then fabricated the leading edge gusset which joins the leading edge rib to the leading edge tubing. The usual steps were taken to do this. I still have to drill out the leading edge gussets to 1/8" and deburr etc. which wont take too long. I will then clean, prime and rivet the entire RH elevator structure. Can't wait!!

Today, I fabricated and mounted the straps and gussets that go around the trailing edge tubing of the RH elevator and which hold it to the ribs. I started by tracing and cutting the straps from .016" AL sheet then rounding the ends and smoothing the edges on the grinding/polishing wheels. I then jigged up the RH elevator and ensured the edge tubing was in the correct position in relation to the spar and ribs. With it clamped, I drilled and clecoed firstly the outboard rib, followed by the inboard rib to the trailing edge tubing. I then fabricated in the same fashion a small strap to hold the trailing edge inboard tubing to the spar. In addition to the strap shown above, next build sessions I will fabricate two gussets to supplement this strap. The last gusset that I fabricated was for the very inboard short rib to trailing edge joint. It was made from the supplied small square .020" AL sheets. I trimmed the ends and bent the gusset then mounted it is place using a few clamps. I then drilled and clecoed this gusset in place. That was it for today. It was about 3.5 hours for me to do that. Ok, I'm not the fastest builder, but there was a lot of filing, smoothing, dremelling, fitting, disassembling etc...

Today, we continued with the RH elevator. We started by fabricating the last strap to hold the inboard rib in place against the spar. This involved the usual bending of the strap, followed by clamping, drilling and clecoing the strap in place, ensuring that the rib was fully inserted into its hole in the spar and perpendicular to the spar. This last trailing edge rib aligned quite nicely with the first two ribs that had been mounted. Once all 3 trailing edge ribs had been clecoed to the spar and their alignment was checked, we disassembled everything, deburred all components then scuffed, cleaned and primed all joints. We then reassembled the structure using clecoes, then riveted it the trailing edge ribs to the spar. Note the nice new pneumatic riveter. Wow, it makes it so much easier!! And when all was finished, we jigged up the trailing/leading edge tubing to make it look like an elevator. Our next session should see us finishing the RH elevator. I will admit that in our enthusiasm to rivet the ribs to the spar, we forgot to insert the elevator hinge between the outboard and centre ribs. Consequently, we had to drill out the rivets on the end rib, remove the rib, slide the hinge onto the spar, then reassemble/rivet the outboard rib back on to the spar. We wasted 15 minutes fixing our stuff up but hey, that's building for you. Today, we spent 3 hours doing what we did. It was fun and we felt that we had made positive and visible progress.

After a long break, Steve and I got back into the workshop to carry on with the Fokker build. Today, we fabricated the components for the RH elevator. A few months back, we had bent up the tubing for both the elevators. Today, we drilled the holes in the RH elevator spar to mount the trailing edge ribs into. We also drilled the end of the spar to secure the tubing into. Once the spar was drilled, we rounded the end of the trailing edge ribs to insert into the holes in the spar and would nest against the inside wall of the spar tubing opposite the hole in the spar. Once the ribs were inserted into the spar, we marked then trimmed the ribs to their correct length. We cut them around 2mm oversized so that we could round the end to fit flush with the 1/2" tubing that attaches to the end of the ribs. I drew the shape of the gussets onto the .020" sheet provided then cut and filed the 6 main gussets for the ribs. I filed the hinge brackets to smooth their rough finish which is how they come in the kit then temporarily mounted them on to the elevator spar. We then placed the completed horizontal stab on our elevator jig so that we could align the leading edge of the elevator horns with the leading edge of the horizontal stab. We needed to bend the leading edge of the elevator horn out a little to align it all. We then marked the location of the leading edge rib and drilled the main spar hole to accept the leading edge rib. We then rough trimmed that rib to length. Finally, we jigged all our handiwork up to check that it would all go together ok. This is what we ended up with: It all lines up well so next session, we shall do the final trimming, put it all together with its gussets and rivet it up.

Hi Rialto, Two Bolly prop blades have just been delivered to Australian Lightwing to be fitted to their VIP2 IFA prop hub which will then be forwarded to Lanny for fitting to N44XM. We will then be able to test the aircraft with an IFA prop so we will anticipate seeing a much improved takeoff and climb, and hopefully a top end increase as well. The aircraft will be painted to tidy it up cosmetically. We would like to get it to Sunnfun but we need to make to make sure it is 100% ready for the cross country flight to get it there. If not Sunnfun, then definitely Oshkosh. As we get performance figures with the new prop, I'll post them here.

We have been considering making an attempt at some of the c-1a/0 class records with a new build Bug but I have just seen the Sr-1.weebly.com and that aircraft should smash the existing records...

Until something definitive is published, this statement is very true. There is at least one instance of a bomb being placed in the life jacket holder under a seat by a passenger on a previous sector, with the bomb going off and killing the innocent person in that seat. So the victim could be a terrorist or a victim. Let's not tarnish his reputation until we know categorically which one it is. However in the meantime, we can certainly have a dig at terrorists/martyrs in general!

Alan, do you ever wonder why those icypols that your wife buys you regularly taste a little funny?

Thanks Robert, The list of considered systems are as follows: Airmaster - US$6000+ For constant speed/controllable IFA Woodcomp - US$3200 for manual IFA Varia model Variprop - US$3000+ For a manual IFA system Ivoprop Magnum - decent price but the blade twist mechanism is not desirable Lightwing VIP2 - US$2600 for manual IFA Bolly - IFA still in development but a good prospect for down track. We have quite a few considerations for an IFA system for our Lightning Bug. For starters, we are using a stock Rotax 912ULS that we are getting 185ktas at maximum power from at the moment turning a 62" X 93" Prince P-tip prop. We want a prop that can get to 200ktas from the slow turning Rotax. This is more a blade issue but not all hubs allow the pitch change range that we would like, nor fitment of blades that are suitable for our application. We want to limit the weight of the system which precludes the heavier systems. Cost is a consideration... I have recently visited Bolly in Adelaide where I viewed the Bolly IFA hub and discussed the suitability of Bolly blades to be flying at 200 knots. I would like to support the Australian industry and the guys at Bolly have been very cooperative in supporting our Bug program. I'd like to go with their blades if at all possible (they have a design for a high speed blade that was used on Robin Austins record breaking Rotax powered Sonerai) and I may end up with a set of these improved performance blades. For initial testing of an IFA prop on the Bug, the Lightwing VIP2 offered a good price, a reasonable weight and the ability to fit the Bolly blades. I'm just looking for information relating to the safety, reliability and functionality of the system from actual users, rather than second hand stories that might not be accurate. Dave

Erm, not ready just yet. It has taken a bit of a back seat while I focus on the Lightning Bug and engine programs that I have underway. We want to get the Bug to at least 190 knots if we can. It's currently at about 180ktas at maximum cruise power but we are running out of pitch on our fixed pitch prop and the poor old Rotax is wanting to overspeed. Hence my enquiry about the VIP2 IFA hub. My last foray into the workshop on the Dr1 was to bend up the tubing for the elevators which was successfully accomplished. I plan to have some more Dr1 therapy in the next couple of weeks where I hope to finish off the elevators. The tailplane will then be completed and we will need to order the next kit. Too many plane projects and not enough time (or access to them for that matter: 2 X Lightning Bugs in the US, one Jet Bug in Adelaide and one Dr1 here in Qatar...) Still, I manage to keep them moving ahead.

Are there any forumites that have experience with the Lightwing VIP or VIP2 in flight adjustable prop system? If so, could you please provide some feedback as to its performance, reliability, ease of use, ease of fitting etc.? If you are using one, what type and size of blades are you using and do you consider that it was a worthwhile investment over your original prop system? Any and all feedback is appreciated. Cheers, Dave

Congratulations Peter! What a terrific achievement to have both built and flown your own aircraft. I hope I can get the chance to see it when I am back in Oz in January. Cheers, Dave

It's a classic...

You can have mine!

Tim, Another historical ultralight that you may consider for your museum is the Stingray by Ray Tolhurst. The Stingray was a Winton Grasshopper lookalike. I visited Ray Tolhursts hangar at Camden, NSW many many years ago and he still had enough components for a new build Stingray. If he still has them, you might be able to put together a flyable example. Cheers, Dave