Oscar

As always, very sad to hear, for everybody. It was an S6?

Now that's a bit presumptive - how do you know he only has ten toes?

Why worry? FT - if he is there - will be the guy with the huge boots, red nose and tinfoil hat. Hard to miss, easy to avoid.

Whatever strategy you use, it seems to me that consistency in practice is very necessary. Without having the experience necessary to make any significant contribution to this debate, some thoughts occur: Fuel delivery is supposed to be a redundant system, with primary fuel delivery coming from a purely mechanical pump that will continue to function in the event of total electrical power failure.. Whether that redundancy is supplied by a secondary electric pump or by gravity, is necessitated by the configuration of the fuel system. Wing tanks that deliver to a low-mounted sump (a la Jabiru), do not provide gravity feed redundancy. Mechanical pumps will not overcome fuel vapourisation - that is ONE function supplied by the electric 'boost' pump. Another, is ensuring that there is positive pressure in the entire fuel delivery circuit, so that a collapsing fuel filter membrane or a mis-routed fuel line that constricts under negative pressure does not shut off fuel delivery ( e.g. as for that Jab. that landed on the beach in N.Z. and then was destroyed by a mug's attempt at take0off). BOTH the primary - mechanical - pump and the 'secondary' - electric boost pump / gravity feed - need to be able to provide the necessary fuel flow to the engine for a full-power application, for at least sufficient time to climb-out to a safe height. If you habitually run the boost pump full-time, then you will not know it if the mechanical pump has failed / you are operating for whatever reason (ambient temperature / fuel quality) in conditions where fuel vapourisation may occur. Now, IF you normally do NOT run the boost pump full time, then it is quite possible that on your downwind check you will turn OFF the boost pump in an instinctive reaction to move the fuel pump switch - and if the mechanical pump has failed /fuel vapourisation happens, if you need to go around, you are in deep trouble. I know of a case where a highly-experienced pilot selected a full tank for take-off when taxying out for a dawn take-off, decided the sun was in his eyes on the selected runway, back-tracked to take off in the opposite direction and while dutifully doing his pre-take-off checks again, then selected the empty tank.. one written-off expensive Twin.

Aha - AFAIK, that 100% NO vote was for the personal vote and proxies delivered by the Tasmanian Board member. But I wasn't at the meeting and others would have to verify. I imagine proxies from Tasmania delivered by OTHER than the local Board member, were not tallied as 'Tasmanian' votes.

It is indeed good that everybody appears to have accepted that vote stacking has NOT occurred. Vote stacking can usually be seen if a particular electorate has an anomalous return. The only anomalous return I have seen is for Tasmania, where I understand 100% of the votes (including proxies) was for the NO case.

Here, on Earth, or on FT's planet???

Ian - I think that many might construe that as indicating that you are planning a campaign of some sort. I may be being naive here, but I thought that your intention is to offer a service to RAA members to improve their access to information and reasoned exchange of opinions on RAA matters, that RAA does not currently provide. Surely, with that aim in mind, it is desirable to open up the flow of information immediately, and if that exposes an obvious antipathy on the part of RAA to embrace your ideas, then the sooner RAA members are made aware of that, the smoother the path to its achievement it will be? The concept of an independent information/discussion channel of value to RAA members surely means that an effective partnership need to be established. I can't see why you wouldn't gain support, by opening up that information channel ASAP?

Then it would seem to me that Gandalph's suggestion that that correspondence be made public, in the interests of providing full information to forum members, is entirely reasonable. If RAA management is being secretive, vindictive, unreasonable - Ian has the unfettered opportunity to present the evidence of that for forum members' elucidation. Let's have the evidence and allow forum members to judge the submissions for and against the case in point in full possession of the facts. That is the absolute sine qua non for the determination of 'natural justice'.

In something with as much wing area as a Blanik, actually a well-faired fixed engine makes very little difference in performance - provided you know how to design the pylon. That was proven on the Riley conversion. For a Janus, big difference certainly.

When did you leave? I was there around 1000 hours, would have loved to hear it fire up (and meet you). The only close experience I have had to radials, is having shut down the engines on the AWM B25 for the last time for inhibiting ( the props are RIGHT beside your ears.. - you can lean out the window and turn the buggers to clear fence posts when road-transporting one, I kid you not, I've done it) but radials have a visceral sound like no other engine. Mark Willard occasionally flies his Numchukka near my place when practicing for airshows - sometimes with a mate or two in Nanchings/Yaks, practising formation manouevers, and it always stops me to just go out and watch and listen.

Saw it this morning - pretty schmick too.!

Wow, DR, that's one heck of a hot-rodded engine!, and absolutely, at that spec, I'd only be talking to the 'maker' also!. Good to see her sitting pretty in Dave's hangar this morning, with a clutch of smaller Pitts ( Pittlets? A rash of Pitts?) around her. Dave said she doesn't drop ANY oil, well, maybe one drop - amazing!. Dave did say he 'was a bit concerned', but then Dave is pretty unflappable...

No, the analogy is incorrect. Water ballast is distributed across the wing and the weight of the water is carried by the skins/spar - but NOT the root attachments. The extra penetration one gets from having water ballast does NOT come at the cost of a degradation in max. rough speed - and in 'strong' conditions', max. rough is a serious consideration. An engine is weight added to the fuselage, thus increasing the loads on the root attachment fittings, and impacting on max. rough.. Adding an engine to a Blanik, reduces the fatigue life by about the same as the difference between a full life of winch launches vs. aerotows, or using it as a fully aerobatic aircraft. For the Llewellyn modification Blaniks - almost the only ones flying anywhere - that reduces the fatigue life from 12K hours to around 8k hours.

Inverted engines will - mostly - have this problem at some time. Gypsy's were notorious, and it didn't always happen on start-up. My brother had to land on the only croppie strip on Razorback one morning on the way to work at Bankstown, to clean the plugs. The farmer who owned the strip came out to ask him if he was OK; since he didn't have any chocks aboard, he asked the farmer to hold the tail while he started her up again - which the farmer did, and as soon as it fired, let go! Luckily, it was an Auster, so brother was able to scramble aboard... being late to work, he hurriedly tied it down outside deHavilland's and went to work; mid-morning, one of the workshop crew came up after smoko and asked him if he'd like them to remove the bits of tree from the u/c, or did he want to take them home as a trophy? Quite seriously - is it worth taking the bottom two cylinder plugs out and screwing in blanks (or even better, inhibiting plugs) if she's going to be sitting around for a while? I know that Mark Willard - I'd imagine you know him - does a fair bit of work on the Chinese version of that engine for the Namchang crowd, he may have some ideas for you?

OK Ian, I thought a little levity might not go amiss, but if that is breaching your standards, then I'll cease to contribute to the thread. Hopefully, that will be acceptable?

Good grief, it appears Turboparrot is still about. Can't keep a man down, eh?

Holy Crap. If you don't have a tame QC on hand, FT, you'd better hope Jim will forgive you on the grounds of mental incompetence from being sued for everything you have. With the Board of RAA backing him to the hilt.

Jeez, be tolerant! Did not the Lord say unto Gilgamesh: 'It is better to have Stalled Oxen than the bread of the fruitful, lest the seeds of the fishes rain down upon the Halls of the Unmighty?' You should consider that.

Of course, if you want to look at 'ludicrous'...Barry Manktelow ( who built the superb Pitts Samson that Pip Bormann killed himself in by fiddling where he should not have) recently built for a US nutter, the fuselage of a Laird 'Super Solution': http://supersolutionproject.blogspot.com.au/

It's 'little' by most radial sizes, but it's a large lump in the front of a Pitts! I had a good look at DR's plane in Dave Dent's hangar (standing at a respectful distance, DR, believe me - no grubby finger-marks on that immaculate finish). Dave's hangar is usually a swarm of Pitts (Ok, Ok, it's 'THE Pitts' in the best possible way - someone has to stoop to make that joke..), but all the others I have seen there, are an aircraft with an engine in the front. Not that I could ever use one; I've tried patting several affectionately but they never follow me home.. Damn. But the S12 gives the feeling of being an engine with sufficient aerodynamic surfaces behind it, to go do wonders. It is an aircraft that one mentally says: 'Sir' to, touching the forelock and backing away every so slightly.... I know that Dave Dent hankers to build a GeeBee racer replica. I don't know what engine he has in mind for it, but whatever that will be, a GeeBee has always struck me as an engine with just sufficient flying surfaces behind it to get you into vast amounts of trouble, so quickly that you wouldn't have time to say 'OH SH..'. With the engine in the S12, those surfaces would be two paddlepop sticks and three toothpicks. At least the S12 has FOUR paddlepop sticks...

Col, about 99% of the time, I regard FT's comments to be as believable as those of a bullfrog doing accountancy, but that particular statement is one that - if allowed to go unsubstantiated, WILL become part of the body of urban myths and lies that gain traction, because it is seductive to those of a predisposition to believe anything that appears to 'support' their position. There is an old, old saw that: 'if faced with a choice of believing in conspiracy or a stuff-up as the cause of a situation, a stuff-up will be found to be the real cause in almost all cases'. Those who have a reasonable insight into the management of RAA over the years will know of certain deliberate actions by some members of the Board at various times that have, indeed, led to major problems. The 'registration audit' fiasco has never been satisfactorily explained and there are - without doubt - elements of that due to interference by certain Board / Executive members that are largely unknown; if there were to be a forensic ( 'ICAC-style') investigation, much dirty washing would come to light. The case for negligence bought against RAA and CASA in the case of the Goulburn 'Sting' accident was absolutely no fishing expedition and had it proceeded through the Court there would have been some ugly revelations - which can be directly linked to the CASA audits and the failure of those to be resolved without huge repercussions, some of which are still unresolved satisfactorily. However, I firmly believe that it is way beyond the bounds of possibility that a few Board members managed to manipulate the rest of the Board to engage in wilful and knowing malfeasance of RAA for their personal ends. The RAA Board has never been a FIFA or an IOC, where wholesale corruption - and what other term could one use, in the face of revelations over many years?- has been the norm. To suggest this, without incontrovertible evidence, is at the least a huge insult to the good character of Board members, and is quite possibly libelous. I have been a constant campaigner on the topic that the 'old' constitution and form of Board did not produce other than by luck a Board and management that was adequately competent to conduct the affairs of what is a small but intensely complicated operation: intensely complicated because the regulations themselves under which the RAA is FORCED to operate, are intensely complicated. To borrow from a term well-known in administration, the KPIs - 'Key Performance Indicators' - that RAA MUST meet, are almost ALL dictated externally. The simple fact that CASA can undertake an audit and find non-compliance issues that all but castrated RAA, is surely sufficient evidence of that? The suggestion that the Board, as a whole, could be led by the nose by a few of its members into willfully harming the organisation, beggars belief. IF it is credible, then the entire idea that a larger Board than that currently proposed is likely to be less easily manipulated by a few, is completely destroyed by the evidence presented by historical precedent.

Who? and a direct, attributable link to the public statement of this, otherwise this so far beyond the height of acceptable comment that it can see the edge of the universe.

Well, thanks for that, FT. We all need a laugh at times, and there are (brief) moments when you don't supply us with that essential element. Not - I am happy to say - in this matter - you've been a source of constant thigh-slapping hilarity throughout.

His playing around with the fuel system (against all the advice and warnings given him) killed Pip Bormann. I'd be surprised if there is ANYBODY in Australia who knows Pitts aircraft as well as Dave.... and therefore, what to look at.