bushcaddy105

Answer: - much, much more than you would think possible. Several Avalon Airshows ago on the Saturday evening a wind storm went through the row of parked aircraft and inverted many. About 4 aircraft away from mine a Savannah was picked up and dumped inverted about a plane length behind its tied down position. It had 4 tie downs; each wing strut, nose and tail. I helped dismantle it on Sunday morning and one of the strut attachment plate assemblies had been pulled apart in tension. (Not rivets pulling out, but the plates torn apart). A Foxbat close by had been picked up, flown over the top of a Lancair barely touching its prop and then dropped tail down, bending the fuselage into a "J". It, too, had a severed strut attachment plate just below the spar. This plate is from memory about 38 X 6 mm 2021 flat. The break was clean, with no evidence of bending. A Gazelle tied down 1 metre from my left wingtip was flown up and over the nose of my plane, landing inverted over the rope fence in front of the parked aircraft. It did not touch my wing. I'll leave it to you to think about how much instantaneous lift it would have taken in these scenarios. My aircraft was undamaged, the only explanation being that as a taildragger the wing angle of attack is above stall when the tail is down. All other aircraft were nosewheelers and the wings generated lift. Somewhere I have photos of this event which I could scan and post if requested.

Any ideas please on the most suitable lubricant to help fit bungee rings. I'm replacing mine again, and want to make them slide easier around the mounts as they are stretched - no easy task as each ring has a test load of 1160 lbs (527 Kg) and they are doubled up around the mounting pegs. Current thinking is tyre bead mounting paste, but am not sure about its long-term effects on the rubber strands and cotton covering of the rings.

No problem, if the dog's sniff test clears you. She's the boss here after all.

Snap! you have described my lifestyle to perfection. The multiple concurrent projects, the computer hidden amongst all the other info being processed, the several books being read concurrently (always last thing before lights out), the firewood routine - we planted a woodlot of 260 trees back in 1992 to keep us in firewood for space heating and hot water in winter. Old adage:- cut your own firewood and it will warm you twice. It works. We have in the past camped as neighbours at Narromine and Temora, but I don't think we have ever talked. How about a flying trip to my home airport at Pt. Pirie? We'll put you up and are sure to have a conversation starter.

I will read new posts every few days, but refrain from posting unless I have something meaningful to contribute. I have, over the years, gained (and I hope offered) much useful information from the forums (or fora?). I have also been rather peeved by speculation, nitpicking and blatant aggression in posts. I'm still in awe of what Ian has achieved on our behalf despite unfounded criticism at times, and sincerely thank him for his undying efforts. Please keep up your support to keep our contact alive.

Restoring and exhibiting old cars, stationary engines, generating sets. Electronic control design and manufacture. Heritage native vegetation preservation and maintenance on our property. Machining and welding for family and community. Active local SES member including primary response Road Crash Rescue. And I'm supposed to be retired and avoiding Covid due to to age restrictions! To quote my maternal grandparents -" I'll wear out, not rust out." Wouldn't have it any other way.

So what am I doing wrong? My Subaru EA81 out of a Brumby ute has been propelling me around Oz (including outback Oz) for 800+ hours over the past 14 years. It all comes down to the details of the conversion, particularly cooling. Done properly they are just as reliable as any other properly installed and maintained engine, aviation or auto origin. The only downside is that , in my case, the total firewall forward weight is 20 Kg more than a Rotax. The plus side is that up-front and scheduled maintenance costs are minimal and there is no calendar time-out to plan for. When (and if) a rebuild is ever needed, parts are common and relatively very cheap. If I was to build again the current crop of auto engines ripe for conversion is inspirational. It does seem that I am one of a dying breed - the number of newly built aircraft with auto conversions appears to be very small indeed.

I still use a Ferguson FE-35 petrol/kero tractor from the mid-1950's. The workshop manual gives specs for 3 different fuel versions:- Petrol, Vaporising oil and lamp oil. Petrol turned out 38.0 BHP on a compression ratio of 6.6 to 1 Vaporising oil 30.5 BHP on CR of 5.0 to 1 Lamp oil 29.0 BHP on CR of 4.3 to 1 I assume that mine is the 5.0 CR and it starts, runs and idles faultlessly on 91 unleaded petrol. I confess that I can't recall having removed the spark plugs in at least 15 years because there's never been the need! So there's 3 possibilities for what's in the drum.

And a good news story! Thursday 10 am Ordered a small spool of transformer winding wire from RS components in Sydney, no charge for "postage". Friday 8 am Received phone call from Toll depot - "there's a parcel here for you." Sure was, packed in a box which could easily hold 20 spools. I am, however, waiting on car parts from Brisbane picked up by courier on April 28th. They were sent by a courier broking setup called "Sendle". Have a look at customer reviews - 52% of the reviews canned them, particularly about missing shipments where they blamed the contract couriers and dismissed the customer complaint. I tried to find a phone number for them, but they only accept email! Shonky? You bet! DON"T USE SENDLE

If you or a friend are in to DIY electronics it's easy to add a voice operated relay to the intercom mic input. When I installed an A200 years ago I added a $15 kit from Jaycar which worked well. I still have one of these made up kits in my come-in-handy corner. PM me if interested.

I'm late to this thread, but my experience was that when building, if everything was working out well in the first hour, I could find myself still hard at it 12 hours later. If things didn't seem to go as desired in the first hour I would walk away and do other jobs until the urge to do more took over, even days or weeks later.. The only other hint is to plan the next session's work by going through the plans/instructions the night before so that the task is fresh in mind. Hope this helps keep you going - believe me, the end result will be an achievement that will will stay with you forever.

Back to the topic - Apparently not enough airport watchers in SA. ABC radio this afternoon broadcast the official announcement that baggage handlers at Adelaide Airport were testing positive and the health authorities were trying to trace potentially affected travellers.

Was GME until 7yr battery expiry date approached. Would have cost more than a new one to have replacement battery fitted. Bought a 10yr battery KTI for less, still meets the same regulatory requirements. Go figure?

Marty, if you are driving from Adelaide to Alice Springs you will be passing close to Port Pirie, my home airfield. You are welcome to have a squiz at the BushCaddy I built and weather permitting, experience our great flying over the Southern Flinders Ranges and Spencer Gulf. PM me for contact details.

I picked up the iPad on Saturday morning to plan a short trip and found the new route planning page quite confusing. When I brought up the old-style one leg-one line plan and imported the winds, the wind direction imported made no sense and was contrary to that shown on Windy. When I left the iPad home and flew the route from memory it confirmed that Windy was spot-on. Anyone else had this happen? As another "old fart" (or at least aging), and a VFR only flier, I also am feeling that OzRunways is going the way of Windows 10 - Lots of whiz-bang stuff that is 80+% unused and only confuses the core role of flight planning and flight following. I support the call for an OzRunways Lite.

Thanks KG Yes, I must have fallen through the cracks, and yes, I have been continuously paid-up since 1992. I have also just done the survey and added my comments at the end in the hope that they will be taken on board. I agree that the options on many questions were insufficient to allow an accurate response.

What survey?? Has it been sent to ALL members, or just a sample, selected by means unknown? I certainly haven't received it, nor have I been able to find it on the RaAus website. I used to receive e-news emails, but haven't seen them for months. Now that there is no longer a monthly magazine I am the classic mushroom! And no, none of my contact details have changed in years. Where is this RaAus that I read about on this forum?

Sport Aviation, the monthly magazine of the Experimental Aviation Association has just concluded a 3-part tutorial on this very subject. Carol and Brian Carpenter write a regular monthly column titled "Technically Speaking" and the August, September and October 2019 editions have addressed this topic in great detail. The magazines are available online, but I don't know if they are only available to members. As an aside, I joined to get cheaper tickets to Oshkosh back in 2009 but have maintained my membership for the wealth of technical info online, and to get the monthly magazine which I rate as the best I have ever seen. My choice of fuel? Nearly always Avgas - mainly because I only have to push the plane out of the hangar to the card swipe pump. I also consider the price premium cheap insurance in that I am buying a known, safe product. I have used 98 Premium Mogas when travelling, but am wary of what it might contain. My 1980's Subaru engine was originally built for leaded fuel and I haven't had any trouble with Avgas. Oil and filter every 50 hours, and check the platinum tipped spark plugs. Never had a fouling issue in over 800 hours.

I stumbled upon this news item in "The Chronicle", August 16, 1962 "6 Pilots Die MELBOURNE --- Six RAAF pilots were killed yesterday afternoon when four Vampire jet aircraft crashed in formation near the RAAF base, East Sale. They were practising formation aerobatics and it is believed were doing a barrel roll when the planes hit the ground and exploded. Two were being flown solo and two carried a passenger." Does anyone remember this accident? I'm not old enough!

At a Cessnock forum I sought confirmation that currently 19- registered 600kg MTOW aircraft would continue with the L1 maintenance AND modification conditions that currently apply, ie anything goes but the owner/builder takes FULL responsibility. This was clearly confirmed. The factory approval (or MARAP) for repairs and/or modifications only applies to aircraft registered under the LSA provisions.

I flew in from Rylstone on Thursday morning (just before the deluge), having camped there overnight due to the strong westerlies on Wednesday and the one N/S strip at Cessnock. Yes, there is no way I'd want to be flying direct. As one local told me - there's good reason why it took 2 centuries to discover the Wollemi pine in that area! Tracking over the Northern end of the tiger country gives many opportunities to duck out down valleys running out to the North. After clearing the Dochra restricted area it's only a 10 nm run down to Cessnock. I reversed the route on Sunday to fly out via Mudgee. It's still a b...... long way from South Oz at 80-85 kts!

As previously posted, I think your expectations for an EA81 are too high, both in weight reduction and power output. I personally prefer a bit more weight and a bit less power for the sake of reliability. This formula has worked well for the 12 years and 750+ hours I have been flying behind my EA81. (This is my conversion, not a commercial one).

If this amount of weight reduction was possible, I would have done it long ago. Even without an alternator and using exhaust stubs and with an aluminium flywheel (not recommended IMHO) I can't see that 165lbs is possible.

No problem getting mine I didn't go last year, but appreciate the efforts to make this year more about pilots and aircraft flying in, so will support it. If I can't get there from SA (weather dependent as usual) I'll be glad to donate the quite reasonable admission and camping fees to the cause.

Thanks Ian I forgot how much better the old site was (is) until it returned! I'm only speaking from the users end - it may well be more difficult for you, so I thank you for your efforts.