Yenn

Yes Farri, but you are not a high tech geek, looking for the greatest technical udate at whatever cost. Just a practical bloke. Have a great Christmas and may you make even more people enjoy flying.

It depends upon your understanding of Near. If it is less than 5 years, then maybe.

jim Weir of Kitplanes described using the resistor code colours for marking with shrink wrap. He had a system that had for example all engine wires starting with 1 and all instrument wires with 2 and then a further three numbers. The start end also had to be marked. Really unless you have a very complex engine there is not much wiring that is not apparent in its purpose firewall forward.Starter cables are heavy, alternator cables a bit less so, CHT and EGT are lightweight and visibly traceable. Wires going to relays can usually be seen easily.

Surely the overloading depends upon what the designer says is OK and a decent pilot would know how to load to max weight and C of g limits, especially if they were GA rated and have been flying for 30 years. I reckon the Jab would be a good machine. Better than some others who seem to use excessively enhanced numbers for performance. I would not worry too much about engine oil changes. If you are doing so many hours in a short time that an oil change is due, I very much doubt that the oil would be in poor condition. RAAus I don't think could prosecute you if you went over hours and GA would have it on the maintenance release. Not a hard job to get the maintenance release changed to accomodate longer time change periods. Just change from 25 hours to X days. It goes on the MR as being due on such and such a day.

As i said previously most big slabs are poured in smaller sections. This makes life easy because you are not trying to finish one big section in a hurry. Another advantage is that you box up a couple of sections, pour them and then you have two poured slabs which saves boxing that area. Pour it in a chequerboard fashion and the boxing out is much lessened. If you are going to supervise it yourself, be warned. The people doing the job will listen to you and do what you want, but if they see you don't know what you are talking about, you could get taken for a ride. Believe me I have had to supervise many jobs and when I wasn't on top of the job, it was safer to keep quiet or even admit that i didn't know enough, than try to push things. Better to be quiet and thought a fool, than open your mouth and dispel all doubt. Ready mix concrete suppliers have been lousy in the past, but I am hopeful that they are more professional nowadays. Concrete finishers will often want to add water to increase the slump, which gives the readymix supplier an out as to concrete strength. Adding water reduces the strength, but you need workability to place it.

I would have thought that for a hangar that 100mm would be sufficient. I have been out of touch with the construction industry for twenty plus years, that means i have no experience with fibre reinforcing. One of the problems with mesh reinforcing was that it could get trampled to the bottom of the pour, but it is really needed within 25mm of the top surface. Any closer than 25mm could lead to moisture causing it to rust. If it is too low in the pour it does not work. Fibre reinforcing overcomes that problem as it is evenly spread through the depth. You need 50mm sand, covered with plastic to form the sub base, That prevents moisture loss when the slab is poured. As I said before it needs to be broken up into say 5m Sq sections to help control cracking. The slab can be laid over the footings for the columns, or it can be laid around them. If laid around the footings there will be a need for extra reo at the corners. It is also good practice to cary reo from one slab to the adjoining one to prevent the slabs moving in relation to each other. There is also a need for edge thickening, to act as a rat wall and also beef up the edge, where traffic comes on to the slab. Writing this it is coming back to me, I used to design and specify this kind of work. Concrete strength, I forget the numbers of MPa used, but the supplier would put you right there. You need a slump of say 70mm to allow easy handling, but bear in mind that the greater the slump, the lower the strength. Finish with a "helicopter" and maybe broomed finish, it depends upon what you want. the broomed finish can vary in roughness and it provides grip, a smooth finish can be painted or left alone. Pour it early in the morning, keep it shaded if possible and better still flod it with water after the finishing has been done. The moisture needs to be retained as long as possible to get full strength and avoid a dusty finish. I hate concrete, having been in the construction industry for too long and really never gave it a thought since the turn of the century.

What do you mean by specs. It reads as if you want to know the required concrete strength, but there is also reinforcing needs. The loads on a hangar from light aircraft are less than those for a carport. You would need to reinforce the slab to prevent cracking and also cut it up into several areas for the same reason. Another thing to understand is what is underneath the slab, is it reactive soil?

There is a tool available to dimple and also rivet about 450mm into a sheet. There is also a tool available to countersink, that lets you set exactly the correct dept to suit the rivet. I have both of these tools left over from building an RV. Have a look at Aircrafft Spruce microset countersink I think it is called.

I let my Avplan subscription lapse and have always backed up my nav with maps and worked out navigation. The Kane computer is an old friend. I did once get into strife using the electronic gear. I was looking for a strip and not using the paper map, travelling along looking down and ATC called me up. Aircraft x miles Sw of Rocky do you intend entering controlled airspace? What happened was that my magenta line was exactly on the limit line of controlled space. I glanced at the line and saw magenta, but it was also blue for the airspace. It is great to have a transponder so that they can advise you before you breack airspace. If I had been relying on maps I would have realised that I had to descend, but complacency and the magenta line led me astray. I had seen the problem when I did the prior planning, just forgot it.

OME your question about lift and drag on the rudder makes me think of applying a burst of throttle and full rudder to start a turn on the ground. Full left rudder and a burst of power moves the tail to the right. If there was a lot of drag it would move to the left, so the answer is clear. It is lift that causes the movement. Bournelli would say that was negative pressure on the right side of the rudder. I say, as would Newton that it is deflecting the air to the left, that causes movement to the right.

The two sites intermingle all the time, bring them back together. Look after the costs as best you can.

Drifter and Thruster are vastly different. The Corby is a highly responsive small GA type plane with a fairly high wing loading, lovely in turbulence. The Drifter is a low wing loading, not quite so responsive, light aerolane. To jump into or rather onto one without some prior experience would be foolish. I have no doubt I could do it, but maybe I am over confident.

If the problem is caused by not being able to train in a very basic aircraft, which seems to be what is said here, what has caused that situation? I would think that the problem is that very few want to fly those old basic machines, so they have gone and the instructors with them. If we really wanted to still be flying Drifters and Thrusters we should have hung onto them and got ourselves an instructor rating to teach others. Personally I don't really want to fly a Thruster ever again, I wouldn't mind flying a Drifter, but would need conversion training and for the ability to say I have flown a Drifter, it is just not worth the hassle.

I had problems with the Bing carbie on my Corby with Jab 2200 engine some time ago. I used to be a good mechnic, but years have passed and I have lost a bit of confidenc, so I sent the carbie to jabiru. They overhauled it, replaced one or two items and sent it back. I could have left it with them for a longer time so they could fit it to an engine and run it, but decided I would forgoe that luxury. I fitted the carbie and found that it needed no choke to start it, in fact sometimes it needed throttle. I tried to adjust the slow running to reduce rpm and found the slow running needle valve screwed right in, opening it caused roughness, so I just reduced the throttle setting. I was getting black spark plugs and a much higher fuel consumption, but it was delivering power OK. Now I have decided to look further at the problem, I removed the carbie and fuel level was good, nothing obviously wrong. I removed the choke / starting system and the only obvious problem was that a short piece of the paper gasket was missing. I could not find the missing piece, but I may have broken it during removal. Jabiru say that they never remove the choke, so they don't stock the gasket. I made a new gasket and today replaced the carbie. Result, it now needs choke to start and runs well. When running application of choke results in a slight rpm increase. I only ran it up to 50% power and will conduct full power tests and a test flight probably tomorrow. I would have thought that a broken gasket in the choke system would have resulted in lean running. I will have to look further at how the system works. Has anyone else had any experience with the bing carby similar to this?

It depends upon what you call lift. If lift in your eyes is a force acting against gravity, then the elevator usually produces no lift. But if lift is a force perpendicular to air flow, then the elevator usually produces lift, but it is usually acting with gravity. The rudder is easier to envisage. There is drag when it is deflected, but the movement in yaw is caused by the lift sideways. The elevator lift, drag is highly influenced by C of G location.

Maybe off topic a bit but Skippy says that todays LSAs make spam cans look archaic. On another subject in these forums I read about many people are not flying after 9am because of turbulence. I would think turbulence in NZ could be similar to here and no doubt a Cessna would be flyable after 9am.

if you were in Australia I would say it would probably be a very expensive uy, but I have no idea what NZ authorities require, although I doubt they would be as difficult as CASA. If flying was purely for pleasure I would go for the C150, but once you want to take a passenger or go any great distance the C172 bus would be more appropriate.

I have no real experience of flying a Jab, or any other RAAus plane that I would consider suitable. From that low base I would consider the Jab to be well worth considering. It is OK performance wise and also comfort wise. It is high wing and provides reasonable shade for the pilot and crew. Another I would consider would be the Savannah, with similar properties, but slower. A lot of the plastic fantastics don't appeal because they have little shade for the pilot. My choice of high wing is based on years of living in the hotter parts of the country and while I mainly fly low wing, they are not the best for sunny conditions. Jabiru are tough, I have seen them tyrned over and the nose wheel ripped off and been back flying very quickly.

possibly the denser water could have a higher drag co efficient and bringg it all back to the same speed. We could go on finding little differences for ever at this rate. How about some simpler question OME. I will have to think one up. How about. I am on finals in my Corby. On the best speed and am falling below my desired glide slope. I respond by pushing the stick forward slightly and surprisingly am back on the correct slope. Why? Give them a bit of time Nev.

I wonder why Rotec have big discounts.

Tail winds will make your gllde flatter, by that I mean that you will fall less verticly in the same distance than you would with nil or head wind. that is not as good as it sounds because you will be going faster over the ground. Somebody said all landings should be on glide slope, would they care to define what they meant by glide slope? Is it the 3 deg slope favoured by the heavies, from which we would have no hope of recovering from an engine failure?

I had a set twenty years ago and they were OK. Nothing special and I sold them with the plane on 2003. David Clarkes are good, but I have never owned a pair, I can't recall what I am using now, but I bought them from Ian Baker many years ago.

The Super Petrel is a good plane in my opinion but it has one quirk. You have to add and subtract ballast to account for either one or two person flying. This could be done by adding water in a container, but I think it is rather a lot of water to go into a small space and am not sure if it would fit.

Gliding also depends upon the current thermal activity. I have been in a Victa, going up at 1000' fpm with the throttle right back.That of course didn't last, but you can get a reduction in descent during a glide if you can find a thermal. Anyone who doesn't know what their plane can do with engine shut down as far as possible is not really trying. I believe it is bad airmanship to use power to come in for landing and that is confirmed by the number of GA pilots who lose an engine on finals and cannot make the strip. I definitely would not recommend shutting down the engine and conducting a landing without power. Just look at the number of pilots who stuff up a landing with power. Do you think you could shut off the engine and then bounce the landing without an engine to recover and get away with it. By all means shut down the engine and try a landing, but for safety make that landing at at least 1000' above GL. Even then you will not learn what to do if you bounce, because you will not bounce at 1000'.

Having said that I can't recall a nose wheel biplane, there is one in the next hangar to mine and it is a two seater. The Petrel is a plastic fantastic, home built with a Rotax 912 and also is a seaplane with a floating hull and outboard floats. I have even flown in it and because it doesn't look like a rag and string biplane I had forgotten that it is one.