Oscar

Since Pturbs has always Ptolemy I am wrong ( along with the rest of the world,) you should think it Pharaoh nuff that you've just been pticked off...

Ron - I didn't pay too much attention to the SIDS video, but from what I saw, Senator Williams (??) wouldn't have known a 310 from a 140 - including how many engines.. if they both walked up to him to do a shave and haircut..... And that's a strong reason why we need a Senate Inquiry to have Senators who have some damn knowledge of aviation matters. Trying to 'argue' technical matters before an arbitrator who simply does not have the knowledge to distinguish a spanner from a sandwich is fruitless. In recent times, some Courts have moved from entertaining combative evidence from expert witnesses to having an 'expert witness conference', where both sides can thrash out their differences and a consensus opinion is delivered to the Court. Since there are relatively few 'experts' with decent credentials for Aviation, the 'expert' panel will almost always consist of a small group who have respect for each other, and so 'consensus' is in reality, not too hard to achieve (and that process allows for the reporting to Court of 'dissenting' opinion, in a properly-framed and explained manner). Example, of which I know. In a fairly recent legal action on an Aviation matter (of some notoriety), the expert panel met to discuss their relative opinions. One side presented certain argument; the other side presented its case, on a specific technical matter. Side 'A' presented documents that supported their case: Side 'B' said: 'look at the date of that log entry'. ' Side 'A' looked at it hard, and then said: 'God, you'd think if he was going to forge the log-book, he'd at least have looked at the dates..' - and Side 'A' completely withdrew its submission. My point: if we have a competent 'jury' in a Senate Inquiry, there's a very fair chance the results will be useful.

Turbs has just discovered information that some of us have known - and been working with - for at least eight months. Give him a break - he's been pushing his barrow within the fog of no actual information and myopia for a vast amount of time, while the reality train has long since disappeared into the distance.

I think that is fair comment, to a degree - but at least if we get to a Senate Inquiry and Heffernan is involved, quite possibly as the Chair, then we will have someone who is 'flying literate', and in reasonably comparable sort of aircraft. That might hopefully get past the sort of hurdles where people get stuck on the idea that (for instance), when an engine stops, the aircraft does not automatically: a) burst into flames; b) plunge vertically down out of control with the occupants screaming their last breaths away, and c) explode into a fireball the size of the USS Arizona under attack, leaving a swathe of destruction half the area of Hiroshima. IF this gets to a Senate Inquiry (and I do think that CASA will pull out the stops to try to head that one off ) then a goodly part of that is going to involve CASA trying to justify its suspect action on the general grounds that 'this is risk management - maybe we didn't do it quite as well as we should, but we did it in good faith because of the terrible risks involved'. That's an argument that would get considerable resonance with an audience that is already disposed to believe the risk is genuinely great - but it's not going to have such resonance with an audience that has a reasonable appreciation of the real nature of the risk.

Nev, that is undoubtedly correct. I think, in this case, we can have a wee bit more confidence that the Senator's office is handling this with some interest: after all, he started the action - so we are (collectively) backing him up, rather than trying to force him into the corral on an issue on which he has little primary interest. And I have every confidence that what has been sent is intelligible, cogent support - not just the 'let's all jump on this bandwagon' of popular media stream manufacture. It's interesting to me, from the videos of the Senate Estimates Committee hearing of the 9th. that Heffernan is most obviously well up on his GA aircraft: comments such as 'was this a 210 or a 310?' in relation to the SIDS question suggests that he well and truly knows his Cessnas, at least. We may all thank John Lyon, who died recently (very sadly from an inoperable and virulent brain cancer), who was working very hard with Heffernan and a couple of others during the Forsyth Review) for part of that, but I suspect that Heffernan's apparent ease in all of this comes from some depth of knowledge of GA. We should never underestimate the value of having 'friends at Court'. And the Senate - particularly through the mechanism of the Senate Estimates Committee - has a long, long history of being a ferocious auditor of Departmental performance.

Merv, I think that such a quick response indicates at least that the issue is very much 'on their radar' - at least they are opening emails (this was to O'Sullivan's Office Manager using her personal email sent to me in response to my 'standard' message through the Parliamentary 'contact' channel) and it was definitely not an automated response. What we may manage to achieve in this specific matter is of course unknown - but quite possibly, we may as a group manage to find and convince a 'champion' with real political clout that Recreational and Sport aviation is something that deserves some protection from ill-considered and arbitrary action by CASA. OK, today's issue is Jabiru engines - but who of us knows what CASA might, if left entirely unquestioned, decide is a safety issue tomorrow and acts in a similar manner. Look, I hesitate to write this, because almost any 'implied' criticism of any particular make/model of aircraft starts a fire-fight on here - but if CASA decides to use other criteria of 'safety problems' based on a dodgy examination of statistics, it can target other makes/models and apply 'restrictions' for 'safety reasons' almost arbitrarily. If they choose 'fatalities/manufacturer/number of aircraft/hours flown', then with the baseline as Jabiru (which is as much the 'gold standard' for reported performance as Rotax is for engines), it's going to be a massacre of aircraft on the RAA register. Australian-owned RAA aircraft manufacturers - other than a crippled Jabiru - will simply disappear. Nobody with any sense of respect for the lives of fellow aviators - let alone the general public, though we have never impacted them - ought to have a problem with CASA / RAA acting to rectify a genuine, proven safety issue. I believe that you and I are in complete agreement that the quality of 'investigation' of incidents that may - or may not - represent genuine cases of 'safety issues', is wildly varied: we both know of fatal accidents that have completely inadequate investigation, yet the very detailed forensic and Coronial investigation of SOME incidents/accidents ( e.g. the evidence preparation of the engine failure details for the Coronial Inquiry into the Goulburn Sting accident) is excellent. Other fatals, deserving of decent investigation, lack more than the most cursory examination of serious contributory factors. Merv, the whole 'Jabiru vs CASA' issue is more than just people aligning in one camp or the other: it goes to the heart of whether Recreational and Sport Aviation has a right to be taken seriously by CASA or is merely a rubber ball in CASA's sandpit to be kicked around when someone in CASA is having a career-advancement/threatening moment. Recreational and Sport aviators are not just bogans who buy jet skis / trail bikes / mini-monster trucks so they can go out and blast noisy holes in other people's peaceful enjoyment of the environment. I believe that we - generally - are respectful members of our community. Merv: you run a FTF. I will bet London to a Brick that you teach your students to: Fly competently and safely; Observe regulations; and Respect the community over which they fly. I believe that with those ethics pretty much the norm in Recreational and Sports aviation - we deserve better from CASA than arbitrary bureaucratic imposition based on half- ar$ed compilation of dubious evidence. And that is what this fight is really about.

They've been busy in O'Sullivans' office - I got the same, and sent them some other stuff they may find useful - and got a 'thanks for that, we will read it with interest' response in about ONE MINUTE!. They are on the case... I think we can start to see that the effort we've put in to writing to O'Sullivan's office has had some effect!. Absolutely great work, everybody who has put the effort in!.

A bit more information on weights, and a correction: the CAMit flywheel is, as JJ said, lighter than the Jabiru one. ( Mine is actually a spider-centre Jab. one, not a proper CAMit one - my bad memory there!) And the newer alternator is apparently same installed weight as the Jab. charging set-up, with all the advantages of the CAMit one - a no-brainer, I reckon! A set of four cht and clamp-type egt sensors plus cables and bracketry, weighs 540 grammes: 135 grammes/cylinder.. Standard Jab is one CHT: I don't have a weight for that, but I'd estimate around 50 grammes ( since the egts have a s/s hose clamp).. So, for a six-cylinder, I reckon add 760 grammes on the engine. The old standard Jabiru oil cooler adapter is 211 grammes with the O/P sender and the hose barbs attached. The CAMit TOCA, is 324 grammes. (assuming my kitchen scales are fairly accurate!) The CAMit cylinder anti-corrosion oil injection system adds around 450 grammes approx., maybe a bit less. So, yes a fully-optioned CAMit engine is going to be a some kgs heavier than a basic early-model equivalent Jab. engine, but I just can't see anything like 10 kgs - maybe half of that or so, for really quite a bit more 'kit' - all of it highly desireable, I reckon, for a good and faithful life. HOWEVER : my estimate is based on adding what I can think of. It would be far more reliable if someone could remove their Jab. engine with all ancillaries, weigh it, and the weigh all the direct replacement parts for a CAE engine swap, so it's a true apples for apples comparison. CAMit has measurement gear of an accuracy that most of us can only dream about; I wouldn't doubt their advertised weights for a moment.

Bruce - what we have used is a spirit level between the wing pick-up attachments - which is only available if you happen to have the wings off!. We found these to be very good, side-to-side. I think, next best, is to put blocks on the front and rear ends of the door lower frames so you can run steel beams across the fuselage above the centre 'spine' moulding, and then put a level across the centre of those transverse beams - thus averaging the ripples in the mouldings. CAVEAT: the Jabiru moulds lasted, on average, around 100 mouldings at best. Then a new set of moulds had to be produced, and I have reason to believe that each time that was done, the accuracy improved. So if your aircraft has a production number of say 200 or more, your airframe is very likely more accurate that ours... which is production number #50. Jabiru didn't have the best of record-keeping of variants in the early days; our ST1 wings are no longer reproducible, the moulds with that combination of aileron and flap dimensions no longer exists. Our own aircraft, a factory-build and the first VH-reg Jab., is as rough as guts, to be honest. My co-owner and I have spent a great deal of time 'improving' things - in consultation at every step with an aero-engineer with an intimate knowledge of Jabirus (who flew our own aircraft in the early days when it was used as a factory mule for the 2200o development.). The horizontal stabiliser happens to be 10mm offset from the centreline.. Seriously, one of the great attributes of Jabirus is that they are EXTREMELY aerodynamically forgiving. They don't turn around and bite you...

Roger: thanks for that info, you don't need to send it to me ( my 'bitzer' part-CAMit engine is a 2200) but it's going to be a useful reference for everybody considering heading down that track. Does yours include the CAMit engine-oiler system and the TOCA? I'll weigh those later today... It's axiomatic that 'weight creeps in' with changes. We've seen plenty of commentary regarding the possibility of changing over to a 912 in various threads here over quite a time, with most of that concentrating on the weight differential. Only one 'real-life' example of the rest of that conundrum has emerged - Ian Boag's conversion, which he estimated cost him around $40k. I believe that AAK is doing / developing a 'kit' but I know very little about that, though an initial report suggested the weight change was very little, so your comment that the Jab. has gained some weight over time sounds pretty much on the money to me. There's a lot more to be considered than just weight in contemplating a change as radical as replacing a Jab. engine with a 912 and this is not the thread to go into that, but your experience is, to me, useful in comparing the weight question ( the 'buggerising around' question is a different one entirely!) so what you have reported will surely be of great interest. It will be ALSO be of great interest, I think, if the CAMit operating experience shows them to be competitive on reliability with the 912's - because I, for sure, would think that if the reliability of the CAMit is close to the 912, the relative purchase price, operating cost, and pretty much 'drop-in change' - though your comments re changing the cooling arrangement and the alternator wiring are noted - of the CAMit change-over would be pretty attractive!.

THRILLSEEKER....

Jeez, get it right. It's a 582 Blue-Head Rotax. [ATTACH]26801[/ATTACH] And the Everel concept isn't 'self-feathering', it's more like a 'constant speed' prop: at high rpm the geometry reduces it to fine pitch so the thrust is maximised; when throttled back, it automatically coarsens pitch for best economy. However, at much more than around 100 hp, other factors make the Everel concept inefficient. But, you're right: somewhere near Toowoomba. And a Blanik. With the necessary mods. to allow it to fly. Rumour has it the bugger has several 'legal' Blaniks in his hangar, after some metal-bashing has been done to repair damage to one of them.

Mark, hi. Flew in a Rallye in the mid '70's Canberra-Tocumwal-return. It climbed like a homesick angel with those l/e flaps and cruised like a drunken sailor - sea-sick material: too much dihedral and therefore too much lateral stability. Nicely and sturdily built. If you want a nice and competent little airplane for local flying: great. If you want to do long XC: (like three hours at a stretch or more) - you would likely grow to hate it. For XC work: buy a Jabiru, they're the Holden Commodore of the air: dead boring but you get there... cheaper than most else. The 0-200 is a damn good engine - which is why they don't go cheap!.

Roger - I will guarantee that the door frame bottom on any of the early narrow-fuselage (aka LSA55/derivatives) is a complete pile of , ahem, for level. Just try it for comparison side to side: and pick the one that you like!. If your original W&B was done with the small wheels and you have changed to the larger ones since (as most people who fly out of anything other than tarmac strips have done), then the effect of the bigger diameter will add to the change for tilting. If you have changed to the later (heavy-duty) noseleg, that will also add a bit - and the bigger nosewheel + tyre would add a kg or more, I'd suspect. The LSA55-airframe engine mount is the same - same part no. - for the 3300 and the 2200 engine, so the c/g of the 3300 engine moves forward by around 50% of the extra length. That's not the same effect on the W&B of 50% of the actual engine length difference, obviously, since the c/g of the engine will be aft of 50% of its length. The CAMit alternator and flywheel upgrade adds overall weight - but is closer to the aircraft c/g than the engine c/g, so the compensating tail ballast won't be at anything like 1:1. The move to using the Belleville washer pack for the prop retention would be sod-all in the scheme of things. Can you think of ANYTHING that has been added - either since the original W&B was done, or within the context of the swap to the CAMit engine - forward of the firewall to your aircraft? This could be valuable advice to those who wish to follow your path. Your point that: 'just because two engines look the same and bolt up the same does not mean that a bit of diligence in these areas does not go astray' is a really good one. Everybody should take note.

Well, the CAMit barrels are 275 grammes approx ( 276 on my kitchen scales..) heaver than the Jab standard ones, so there's 1650 grammes already. The alternator is quoted as 1.7 kgs heavier than standard, so there's now 3350 grammes added. The stronger flywheel might add maybe 250 grammes? The through bolts are considerably more meaty than standard Jab ones, but I doubt if that could amount to more than about 50 grammes per bolt, and the Jabiru locating dowels go, so maybe 40 grammes? Rocker gear would be line-ball for weight. I don't recall the earlier CAMit flange being different from Standard, later ones may well be enhanced. I would have expected about 5 kgs all up heavier for a full-fruit CAMit engine, with a fair bit of that (alternator, flywheel) being fairly close to the c/g so compensating weight for that at the tail moment would be, (at a rough guess) maybe half of that? Roger, did you add anything else - like replace the oil cooler? (the original Jab flat one was rubbish; a decent Aero Classics 7-row will add probably well north of 1KG and the lines a bit also. Did you change props? Change to the s/s/ exhaust system from the original Jab? Same as Gandalph, I am in NO WAY doubting your figures - getting an accurate handle on the conversion details is going to be important for lots of Jab. owners. In the (fairly likely, I suspect) event that there is a 'standard' conversion developed under MARAP, it is real experience such as yours that will contribute greatly to the development of the most effective 'scheme' for conversion. This is all valuable information!

Quick amendment to the above story: Nixon had been replaced as Federal Minister for Transport by Ralph ( 'Rhyming Slang") Hunt; I can't remember how we ended up with Milton Morris on the steps of OPH ( I think he was deputing for the NSW Minister for Transport at the time, as he'd been NSW Minister for Transport for quite a few years). However, there was plenty of TV coverage and Hunt certainly got the 'message'.

Ah, the old 'Mills of God' problem..

Which bloody part of 'we have the Spreadsheet' do you not understand? CASA commits a crime if it does NOT provide an accurate copy of its records in response to an FOI request, with redactions according to security/privacy/ Cabinet-in-Confidence / Commercial-in Confidence concerns.. It released the data under FOI last bloody August - just because it didn't happen to include you on that release list, doesn't mean others do NOT have an accurate copy. You are simply not sufficiently important that CASA automatically includes you on their list. Deal with it.

Please forgive my accenting the cogent sentence! And this is the nub of it all: the bloody statistics don't support the ridiculous haste to implement the Instrument - including denying the Jabiru team the opportunity to even meet to discuss. People were NOT dying - or being injured - whether in the aircraft or on the ground - in/as a result of Jabiru engine failures at a rate that in ANY way deserved the 'Indecent Haste' response. Let's not muck about here: this Instrument was delivered as a result of the desire of the departing Acting DAS to cripple the incoming DAS. And Jonathan Aleck was complicit in delivering something as shonky as the Dreyfus conviction.

Absolutely correct - and CASA has put another noose around its head by claiming that it has relied on the NTSB figures ( see Jonathan Aleck's response, probably following the information given in a letter from one of the Sports Aviation unit staff..) Applying the NTSB formula CORRECTLY, produces: the GA fatality rate in the USA is 1.14 fatal accidents per 100 000 hours flown (2010). Using the FAA guidance material this translates to an event rate of 11.4/10 000 hours flown. Jabiru aircraft rate given of 5.8/10 000 hours now looks good at ½ the GA rate. This shows how using the number in the FAA guidance material as a benchmark, in the CASA justification, is flawed.

KG - Thanks for that clarification, I was relying on memory for the title and my memory isn't what... where was I?

See: http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgPolicy.nsf/0/4ab3d0632e35843b86257b2d0058841c/$FILE/1999-00006.pdf

CASA used the FAA benchmark all right - but stuffed up the actual application of the benchmark to the figures. O'Sullivan has - I am reasonably sure - analysis of this, and if it comes to a Senate Inquiry, will draw and quarter CASA on this point. CASA has already hung itself, so it is only the subsequent actions that need to be completed.

OK, slightly off-topic, but possibly instructive as to how we MIGHT get some progress. Many years, ago, (1979-80), I was heavily involved in agitating politically for decent rights for motorcyclists. We were faced with impending legislation for 'headlights-on' for all motorcycles - which may seem like a good safety idea, but the implications of that were that the onus of responsibility was being placed on the motorcyclist to 'be seen', rather than motorists to 'watch out' - and statistics prove around 80% of all collisions between motorcycles and motor vehicles are the fault of the motorist to observe and take due care. Peter Nixon ('the self-proclaimed 'bastard from the Bush') was the Minister for Transport in those days. Three of us - all senior Public Servants - organised a meeting with him to outline our concerns. We were duly ushered into his office ( Old Parliament House was a rabbit warren in those days, with MP staff camped at desks in the corridor!). Nixon gave us a 5-minute lecture on his view of Road Safety ( 'door handles injure lots of drivers), and a passing observation on Aviation safety ( 'we don't need Air Traffic Controllers, Pilots have to watch out and take responsibility') . Then, he asked us what was our problem. I think he was expecting some knuckle-dragging dope-fiends; as we laid on his table statistical analysis and legal argument, he stopped us short, and said: 'I have not been properly briefed for this, but I will get you to the Head of the Office of Road Safety so you can put all this stuff to him.' Then he punched a button on his phone to aforesaid Head of ORS, and told him: 'I want you to meet with these people tomorrow.... NO, tomorrow.' and thanked us for our input. Nest day, we were ushered into the Head of the ORS's office. He waved us into seats while he conducted a phone conversation regarding the arrangements for his son's Hockey team trip to Tasmania... then sat back in an avancular gesture and asked us 'what is your problem?' - or similar words. Having listened, somewhat disinterestedly, to our submission, then he leaned forward and patronisingly said: 'Well, we will just have to agree to disagree, won't we?' Cue an explosion of Kruschev proportions from one of us ( a senior analyst in the ATO at the time..) To cut a long story short: we screwed him.. We organised a rally of 10,000 motorcyclists (official Police estimate) on Canberra in 1980. We forced the Minister - Milton Morris - to attend the rally on OPH, and he was really, truly intimidated by the sight of 10,000 affected people staring at him. As a result, motorcyclists gained a position on the Motor Vehicle Performance and Safety Standards Committee ( MVPSS) so we had, for the first time, a direct say in the formulation of regulations affecting us. What relevance does this have to CASA action? - Well, the Head of the ORS at that time was the ex- Director of DCA Vic/Tas region - known for its complete ignoring of DCA policy, and a law unto itself. The description 'arrogant bastard' hardly encompasses the man. He had carried that over to the ORS. The moral of the story is this: united, we can bloody well frighten the Minister into kicking downwards, if we can show him ( or her, but at the moment it is him) that there is a truly angry constituency baying for his blood. It takes a combination of logic, reasoned argument and very, very evident mass willpower. RAA needs to coordinate this, but we also need to get behind the barricades when the time comes to resist the 'authority'.

Farqharson's s occupation of the post of acting DAS ended hours after the Instrument was promulgated. Farqharson did NOT get the position of DAS... Connect the dots.