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Bruce Tuncks

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Everything posted by Bruce Tuncks

  1. Bruce Tuncks
    Once, at Alice Springs, I lived with solar water heating and I just loved a big hot bath, being a cheapskate and knowing the hot water was "free" helped a lot.
  2. Bruce Tuncks
    Here at the farm, we have installed a shed containing a diesel generator. And as you guys said, the cost of its power is 3 times what we pay for mains. So it is there as a standby. Alice Springs used to have a power station with big diesel generators, these days it has turbine driven generators. I guess the cost is subsidised, many other things are. But I still hanker for living off the grid with solar, wind and batteries. The power would seem to be free, so it would be much more enjoyable than the mains stuff.
  3. Bruce Tuncks
    There was a stol plane crash near here and the reason was that a "sudden" tail wind dropped the airspeed below stalling. This can happen when there are thermals around, or in this case, a sea-breeze at shallow levels. I agree about the rudder, but loss of airspeed is worse.
  4. Bruce Tuncks
    I wonder if Facthunter ever flew the super-constellation. Apparently they often finished a flight on 3 engines... dunno if I could cope with that.
  5. Bruce Tuncks
    Anybody is welcome to come and watch as long as they don't start spouting bureaucratic stuff. Actually, I have no doubt at all that it will be safe and sound. It is an amazing bit of nonsense that 2 engines like the cri-cri are banned. What about drones and electric planes with multiple engines? More independent engines = more safety obviously.
  6. Bruce Tuncks
    Geoff-h, if you ever build that cri-cri, you are welcome to bring it to the farm here to test fly. I guarantee you will be free from bureaucracy.
  7. Bruce Tuncks
    And short-range cars. At the moment, a 2 car family should have one electric.
  8. Bruce Tuncks
    Yep, I loved the smell of the methanol but not as much as the diesel fuel ( ether was the best bit ) of my youth. But the oil was sooo messy ! And electric power is just so easy in comparison. OS even tried to break into the electric market... that was sad I thought. So you guys please keep on with the methanol motors. There was one guy with a powered free-flight thing I was flying with who got real jealous at how I could turn on power from the ground with the electric thing. So I got several goes to try and find a thermal and he only got one. Hey I even saw electric control-line models flying... who would have predicted that?
  9. Bruce Tuncks
    Is it not probable that environmental concerns are the province of the rich and well-fed? With the exception of global warming, I reckon there are too many politically correct bleeding hearts stopping progress. Here's an example... the highway to Melbourne from Ararat has been halted because "indigenous" ( but they look very white to me ) types have demonstrated against the removal of a single tree, said tree being far too young to have been used in Aboriginal times.
  10. Bruce Tuncks
    I was just reading about how ev's were selling like hot cakes and how used ev's were also selling well. Look at power tools... the battery ones would be outselling corded ones for sure. And the increasing price of petrol sure is helping ev car sales. Maybe our next car will be battery electric? I like the way there is bugger-all maintenance on electric stuff.
  11. Bruce Tuncks
    HAR! Gosh it would be good to be a rich farmer...Here's the question going around... Q: "how do you make a small fortune from farming?" answer: You start out with a large fortune.
  12. Bruce Tuncks
    Bugger! at the risk of answering my own question, I see the weight of the turbine is 123kg installed compared with 81kg for my 3300 jabiru motor. AND the fuel usage of 47.6 l/hr is more than the Jabiru uses which is 20 l/hr. It looks so small and light, and turbine motors are mounted ahead of where ic engines go on ag planes, so I just assumed it was a lot lighter than the 3300 ic. Of course it is more powerful, so maybe it should be compared with the Lycoming 360. Looks like I'll be waiting for better batteries before going electric.
  13. Bruce Tuncks
    Geoff_h, what do you think about putting one in a Jab230? I would like the extra power, but would not need or want to fly over 120 knots on cruise. ( 120 knots is where the ASI goes from green to yellow). As far as weight is concerned, the figures show a substantial saving over the 3300 engine, and at least in my case, there are a few kg of lead which could be taken out the tail end.
  14. Bruce Tuncks
    Here is the hangar at Edenhope Airport
  15. Bruce Tuncks
    Last time I bought a new auto start battery, it was more than $100! I asked the guy, and he said "world price of lead mate". So I said that my old battery weighed the same, so I reckon I hadn't used any lead. The recycling center offered $2 for the old battery.
  16. Bruce Tuncks
    PMC, is not copper recyclable? I reckon the same goes for lithium and lead.... battery stuff which seems not to be recycled as it should be.
  17. Bruce Tuncks
    Is that 40% comparable with the 25% figure for an IC engine? But if this is so, why are turbines such gas guzzlers?
  18. Bruce Tuncks
    It looks great! If the range is not reduced too much and the engine is remotely affordable, I for one would be looking to buy for my Jab 230
  19. Bruce Tuncks
    I know a couple of pilots, one with an 80 hp Rutan type plane and one with a Lycoming 360 one, who are doubtful whether moving to RAAus would suit them anyway. At present they fail on the stall-speed issue, but if this is sorted out, they will have to look closely at the cost of RAAus membership vs the cost of lame work. And the lames actually do useful things for your plane. The new CASA medical rules have removed the one big impediment to GA, so I reckon these guys will stay as GA.
  20. Bruce Tuncks
    cscott, is that where the lot that was going to compete with Raaus finish up? being "slow walked?"
  21. Bruce Tuncks
    Yep Turbs, there are 150sq m blocks at Palmerston which were sold for 150,000 dollars, while there is nothing but worthless land (5 cents a sq m I guess ) for thousands of km to the E thru to the SW. I enjoyed telling about this back home, as evidence of the corruption of the NT govt, but then the same thing happened at Blakeview, just north of Adelaide. On the old quarter acre block, you could keep chooks and grow veggies. These new slums will become death traps one day.
  22. Bruce Tuncks
    Yes, the near misses or actual collisions have all been in places like you say, Aga. Once I saw a Cessna just north of the Kapunda township. We were both there because of an airspace boundary. Even worse, we were both near the same altitude. There is a jump in altitudes there and we were both flying as high as we were allowed.
  23. Bruce Tuncks
    There is no real risk except where there is a concentrating factor, like an airfield or an airspace boundary, or these days, by accurately flying between well-used places with an electronic nav system. I once calculated that the risk involved in 30 aircraft flying blindly over Australia's wheatlands will have a near miss or collision once every 20,000 years. Of course, if you look out the window then you will reduce this risk, but by how much was beyond my ability to calculate...
  24. Bruce Tuncks
    Was the other lot ( who were going to set up in competition with RAAus ) shafted?
  25. Bruce Tuncks
    Is decalin the right stuff? several months ago, there was detected a change of avgas formulation and it was for the worse.... does anybody know about this?
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