IBob

Hi Marty. During my build I came across quite a few references to the ASI dropping out on high angle of attack approaches. And I came across either a reference or a pic of JG's VG where the pitot was cocked down a bit to help prevent this. I think I may have contacted him to ask about it at the time. And I then put a small bend in my pitot to cock it downwards also.......I cannot now recall how much, something like 7 or 8deg would make sense. I fly my approaches heads up but with constant momentary references to the ASI until just a bit short of flare, when I'm fully heads up. I have never seen my ASI decay or drop out at high A of A. In normal cruise etc my ASI still reads accurately. I'm not promoting this, and I don't think JG was either. But it may be worth considering?

Not a UFO story, but a what-I-am-seeing-can't-be-happening event that fairly boggled my mind at the time: Mid 70's I was maintaining Sperry Univac mainframe gear, including twinned CSPs (Communications and Symbiont Processors) on one site. These were quite large free standing L shaped cabinets that handled all the comms plus miscellaneous local peripherals, and were equipped with rows of large white indicator lights and rocker switches on an upper maintenance panel. The entire system was still under development, but had run faultlessly for 6months, I was in the workshop some distance away when I heard one of the programmers yelling my name. Sticking my head out the door what I saw were all the indicator lights, which normally flickered with a pleasing dull pearly light, were blazing white as though I was looking into a furnace. I ran for the thing, and as I ran I yelled 'TURN IT OFF!!!!' To which the programmer yelled back 'I HAVE, I HAVE' while repeatedly pushing the DC and AC off buttons. Actually we may have screamed.....I'm pretty sure my voice went up an octave. These machines all had multiple rack mounted power supplies delivering various voltages, with power cabled to junctions under the hollow floor. Arriving at the machine, I tore open the front covers and wiped my hands down all power supplies, knocking all the front mounted internal breakers off. Jumped back......and the lights were still all blazing. At which point, for just a moment, I literally was not believing my eyes. Hard to describe, it was quite a jolt. For the rest: I ran and got the floor sucker, we now had smoke as well and I was tearing up the floor tiles looking for the underfloor connections to pull them. Comedy note at this point was provided by the suite manager, who danced round my hole in the floor with a fire extinguisher yelling 'SHOULD I HIT IT, SHOULD I HIT IT?' as I flung 2' square steel reinforced tiles this way and that. I had not located the the underfloor feeds when it finally quite suddenly all went off: something of a relief as I wasn't looking forward to pulling live feeds. The entire system was down, (though most of the smoke was at the CSPs and the Modem Room). So we (techs) all went for a cup of coffee. And after about 20minutes our chief tech walked down and put his finger precisely on the problem. Any old techs here care to take a shot at what it was? (I should have said that the CSPs were part of a much larger 2 x 2 multi-cabinet mainframe system distributed over an entire floor of a large building.)

I know Gary Larson had a lot of fun with them:

Looking great, Mark........and looks to be really gratifying work too....)

Yes Aro, but this is where I get stuck: if the rotating part is wobbling, due to imbalance, that means the 'heavy' side is rotating on a (slightly) larger radius than the light side. Would you then not expect the beads/mercury also to flow to that heavy side? Or, at best, is the angular acceleration identical at those two points...in any case, what I am getting at is what are the forces acting on the beads/mercury to cause them to distribute?

I would very much like to see an explanation as to how/why the mercury/shot would distribute themselves so as to provide balance. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying I would like to understand how. And so far I have not come across an explanation, just assertions that it does.

I still can't see it.......(

Curious............

Link not working, Danny.

I was at a Queensland dropzone years ago when the pilot put down, crawled around underneath for a bit, then called it for the day and flew away. Can't remember for the life of me what the aircraft was...8 or 10 place, I think....but a load had gone down near an ag strip (round canopies,little drive, bad spot) so he set down there, they repacked, loaded up. On takeoff he rotated over a sheep that nipped out from behind the fert bin, resulting in large woolly dents in the belly of the aircraft.........(

Yes...but was it a Cessna???

Attached. Join the ends and it makes an oval that sits at an angle off the firewall. Marty, you may need to adjust a tad as the Sav S has a reduced firewall angle. Boot Bracket.pdf

37-40' in summer in Hungary? Budapest is currently showing a high of 32 with the average well below that. What part of Hungary are we talking about here???

Hi Marty, I can't help with any of that but I can offer this: See that little rubber bung in the top of the fuel pressure gauge? Either remove or open a hole in it before going flying. Because that's what lets in whatever the air pressure is as you proceed. And if you don't let it in, you too will have fuel pressure that appears to diminish as your rise, increase as you sink and/or shift suddenly if the bung should let a little in or out.......)

Brendan, I would say make sure you have a radio that works well in your aircraft, and learn to use it to give and receive clear communication. (We all like to think we do that, but some mumble and do not enunciate clearly, and some speak in a rapid monotone, presumably thinking that makes them sound cool and professional.) Test it by asking for radio checks: some owners fit handhelds, and while they may work okay in some airframes, it's clear that they don't work well in others. If necessary, get whatever you can to improve your own hearing inflight: I have Lightspeed Zulus, which are a major improvement over passive headsets for me. Learn to set and use the squelch on the radio: it's not a set and forget thing, if set too high may cause you to miss calls. And get ADS-B. It won't necessarily be used much to locate you in circuit, but what it WILL do is alert others to the fact that you are there.

Hi Bryan, I believe ICP pre-adjust the angle on the ring mount provided, with packing washers at the silent mounts. So if you look at those washers at the 4 mounts, they are not evenly distributed. But that will not be any help to you if you are using a different mount. The aircraft with standard wheels sits with the upper rear fuselage horizontal (or parallel with the ground). It says in the manual 'Inclination of axis of propeller to upper part of rear fuselage : 0'-2' down.' So that is your reference in that axis: the plane of the upper rear fuselage. And the 2 plus/minus 1' right is from the centre line of the fuselage.

What Nev says. I don't claim much experience or expertise, but I've had plenty of time to think about all this, with one tragic accident and further events as wake up calls. One thought that has exercised me is a strong sense that these things would be less likely to happen to the truly seasoned professional pilots on the airfield. And it seems to me a significant part of that must be more complete situational awareness. So I have been doing what I can to improve that for myself, with an ongoing focus especially on radio. As I mentioned above, we saw a considerable improvement in local radio work following the midair. For me at least, that has made a considerable difference. During a recent user meeting we had a visit from the CAA, who told us they are going to be looking a bit harder at our end of aviation. Last year they released an educational module on overhead rejoins. I have my own misgivings about aspects of that. But the next module is to be on radio work, with the aim of improving the general standard. I would welcome that wholeheartedly.

I don't have anything like your depth of experience, KGW, but I'm not sure I agree with you: Since the midair here (double fatality) there has been a lot of conversation and thought as to how to improve the odds. And for me, fresh urgency in that when, a year later, I had a near miss of my own on departure. It seems to me that none of the tools at our disposal........see and avoid/radio/ADSB......... are anything like perfect in terms of collision avoidance. So I believe our best chance lies in using all these things, appropriately and where available. Certainly there has been a noticeable improvement in local radio work since the midair, which I find a great aid to my situational awareness. And I can say this: on the two occasions I have been cut off on base by aircraft on finals (though not too close, thankfully) neither had made any radio call. And for my near miss on departure, which did involve radio calls, my contribution was to hear and discount an overhead rejoin on the incorrect assumption that we wouldn't be requiring similar air space. So yes, radios. I very much believe in radios.

I don't think it ever has been, Turbo. I'm talking GA and microlight here, I have no idea about the rest.

Thank you Garfly. And that report points to the other elephant in this room: the time required to recognise a threat then take any sort of effective action: 12.5 seconds, folks. As I recall for our midair here, it was estimated that at the -12,5sec point, the other aircraft would have been about the size of a fly on the windscreen....(

Turbo, I'm not for one moment suggesting our legislation and habits are better than those in Australia...or anywhere else, come to that. As you will see: Recommended circuit practise for unattended airfields in NZ is one call downwind. I also call when on finals, and many pilots do (despite the pearl-clutchers worrying about us bunging up the airwaves). But Radio is not mandatory or required in uncontrolled airspace here........!

A couple of things: 1. It seems to me there is a whole 'king's new clothes' aspect to this business of see and avoid. Yes, we know we 'should' be doing it, and we read the instructions accordingly. But how many of us actually practise it? I'll even turn the question round the other way: there are endless YouTube clips of pilots at all levels of experience flying. If anyone can show me footage of a pilot actually conducting constant routine visual scans as recommended, please post it here. 2. A fellow aviator here alluded to a fatal midair at our local airfield 3 years ago now. Part of the evidence in the resultant court case (since abandoned by CAA) was a report written by Dr T J Lambert, an expert in human vision. It deals, in very readable terms, with the realities and limitations of see and avoid in general, and then in the context of that accident. So far as I know, it has not been released into the public domain, but I am trying to find out it if it can be made available. It spells out just how unrealistic some of our expectations may be, and I think we need to realise that.

Good point, Blueadventures. And I can see how that would constitute 'best practise' too. It would be interesting to know if it makes any practical difference in this particular case...and I can't think of any easy way to determine that. What we do have is a lot of aircraft not plumbed that way (I went back to the build manual) and apparently not suffering any ill effects. But that doesn't rule out the possibility.

See my earlier post: the effect in this case is negligible, put the manifold where it suits you. Marty, you're right, you get the same pressure regardless of hose length....until you open the end and get flow. then you get friction losses in the pipe, resulting in reduced pressure and flow the longer the pipe.... so........... Spacey, you're right, but its a a matter not only of pipe length but (air or fluid) velocity. Here you have very small pipe lengths and low velocity, so the difference in pressure drop in this case is negligible.