danny_galaga

These look a hell of a lot like the ones on the Bushcat

Errol is a very industrious person, so I think he'll make a good fist of it. From his unique perspective his team can iron out the QA issues of the kit. The plane itself is a good plane. Regarding my build, I had a lot of trouble with it, but I'm easily disappointed and offput. If it was a much cheaper project (I've made a couple of arcade machines for instance) that wasn't working out, it probably would have ended out the front for hard rubbish collection. But because it's an expensive undertaking, I had to persist. Every other builder, of this or any other plane has just knuckled down and got on with it. Anyway, mine will be inspected next week. Might be one of the last South African versions to be completed.

Just occurred to me that if the Orange Guy stays true to his promise of 60% tariff on Chinese made goods, that'll kill their US market.

SURVEILLANCE drones. They notch up thousands of hours very quickly. I'm not THAT daft that I think an engine design to last three hours is something to consider for a passenger plane 😄

I think it was discussed in another thread that some Canadians and Americans have been trying these engines. I used to be a neighsayer regarding these engines but I'm only hearing good things about them mechanically. Price is another matter I think I also pointed out in a different thread that a pretty good indication these engines are A grade is that they are supplied to the Chinese military for surveillance drones. If there's one customer you don't want to upset, it's the Chinese military 😄.

😲

Which is why this list can help. Except when it goes off the rails of course 😄

That's something for your 'away' tool kit. There's nothing special about an NGK spark plug that you have to find cheaper alternatives or workarounds 😄

Its what ive always done with ultralights. In fact it's probably more accurate if you know your current elevation since that doesn't change from hour to hour, whilst the air pressure might. In my case the airfield elevation is different from one end to the other so I have to be mindful of that. I think it's maybe 30 feet difference. Not a disaster if you get that wrong but it pays to be as accurate as possible in general, doesn't it? Edit: I'm thinking of circuits and local area mind you.

Do I have to 'unfollow' my own thread now...

Oh yes, that's an unfortunate perspective 😄. I can definitely confirm that's just the through bolt and nothing to do with the armature shaft.

Fact Hunter, there's a lot to scroll through, can you describe in simple terms what this pin is doing, and what it goes in to? When I had my 912 starter out, I noticed nothing remarkable about it except that is a Denso motorcycle starter motor. I don't specifically remember a pin somewhere, but I wasn't looking for one either.

I'm quite confused now too. Are we still talking about the 912 starter? That just has a splined armature shaft. If we are talking about the sprag clutch inside the engine, I have no idea.. maybe there's a pin in that somewhere 🤔

But good enough..you see them on Lucas and Delco car starters

This is a different matter, I think we covered it before. The later starter is an upgrade, it replaces all 912 starters.

Dunno if anyone is talking about that. Rotax themselves upped it to 0.9kw I think. That later starter is all you need.

It's definitely Denso, and pretty much down to one or two models. Just the question of rotation. Surely someone must have a loose Rotax starter they can chuck some jumper leads on?

Also, I've lost interest in the whole thing. I doubt I'll own my plane long enough for there to be any problems

I'm still convinced my BMW starter is the one so I'm staying out of this discussion 😄 Other than to say all of these motorcycle starters should have an oil seal because they all have the shaft going into the gearbox

I saw Brian today at the airfield. At first I didn't recognise him. I said "Christ almighty Brian! Did they have to remove your moustache as well as your wings to get you out of the wreckage?" He's in good spirits. Sold the wreck already. Apparently it will be used as some sort of static display. I've seen the video now. He tells me he climbs at about 1000fpm as it's a pretty spritely plane. The video shows that was roughly his climb rate that day. The engine quits only a second or so after he establishes the climb. He did a long take off so to some people it might look like he's just hauling it into the sky, but he's going pretty quickly by then. He MAYBE got 300 feet AGL. Within a second he had already pitched the nose down. I feel that's an impressively quick reaction. Unfortunately he says the glide is ball park the same as a Drifter, roughly 5:1. He disappears from view behind a large tree at that point. When all is said and done I think he did a good job. He kept flying the plane, there's not much you can do from there other than try not to hit the biggest trees as it's a pretty rough paddock. A few hundred feet higher and he could have made the next paddock, which is much more undercarriage friendly. Pic shows view from end of the field, at the road. Trees centre left I THINK is where he ended up. I sometimes have a chat with the horsies to right. I must remember to bring them carrots one day. Look at the lovely flat, green paddock just a few hundred metres too far away. Apologies for quality of the pic. Cheap phone plus overcast day equals 1999 webcam quality 😄

The most important thing is he is safe, and you have video that could be helpful. Being Ra Aus that's the end of the line investigation-wise. It would be instructive to see the video. Or at least contact Brian so he can view it and comment on it. Not remembering what happened doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Don't make it about you. Enlighten us, but don't get upset that we are finding it hard to follow your posts. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth? Why describe it when you can just show it?

Thanks for the detail. Are you saying you observed two problems? That he pulled up violently/prematurely and that after he did his engine also failed? Could it be then that he could climb at that steep angle normally, but this time the engine quit on him? Incidentally, I just bought Divinyls - What a Life on vinyl. Been getting into LPs again and that was one of my favourite albums back in the day 🙂

I feel your pain!

Hi Richard, I don't want to bust your balls about this, since you are a very rare thing- a witness who knows about aircraft and who filmed it. The devil is in the detail here. How far do you reckon he was from you when you hear the engine quit in the video? If he was say about 300 metres away from you, you have to wind back the video pretty much a full second. That is where the engine actually quit. I don't know enough about this configuration of biplane. Could it be that trimmed for takeoff under full power, it would be inclined to pitch up with an engine failure? Or maybe when the engine has quit, he has pulled back to gain height and then pitch down for glide?