Ultralights

nice, colour looks interesting. is it dark blue with silver wings?

i can think of 2 off the top of my head, The Saddler Vampire, and the Gazelle, but sadly nothing to fit the criteria you listed, unless its a $200,000 Icon A5

opps, i made a mistake, its now a group people can join to share and post Savannah stuff to. My bad. https://www.facebook.com/groups/917720194978772/

a bit of tiger country from east of Goulburn to the coastal escarpment, but fortunately, if you get there at the max height, i think you can at 7500 or 9500, you can get over it and be on a slow descent the entire way to the coast, so a long easy glide to safety if something goes wrong.

so, will CASA pay back all the taxpayer funds it wasted in this legal dispute?

Gday, while working on the Savannah today, (we are about a week away from engine start) i was wondering why there isnt much online dedicated the the savannah, so i decided to start a bookface Savannah owners page. nothing formal, just a place for Owners and pilots to share pics, tips, hints, build help, ask questions etc, sell savannah related stuff, anything, open to everyone. https://www.facebook.com/Savannah-Owners-Club-1672295209675996/

yep, Jasper Brush, very nice airfield, very friendly. and all welcome..

Welcome to the Savannah owners club.

Another vote for Spot Tracker..

running Avgas without the recommended 25 hr filter and oil change will cause excessive wear in the cam system, as the lead paste trapped in the oil doesnt help with the lubricating properties of the oil.. after a while with avgas use, you will get a silvery look to the oil, and eventually it will go a light grey colour, this is bad.. i have seen a 912ULS camshaft crack in half due to the oil galleries that lubricate that area clog up with lead residue paste, but the oil was a very grey colour and hadnt been changed for a while.

Sadly in OZ, there are a few civilian ejection seat maintainers, i know of 2 of them, sadly CASA will not allow them to work on Civvie aircraft, so, the seats are removed.. sadly a few deaths already could have been avoided in OZ if they were fitted.

Unfortunately i have been a witness to a double fatal accident some years ago, and as a witness, you get interviewed by investigators not long after the event, and the investigators request you not say anything about the investigation in the public domain until they release the investigation, or its deemed that no criminal element is involved.

I think the reason a substantial number of pilots attempt the turn back (im not saying that is the definite cause of this until a report is finalised with witness testimonies) during an EFATO is this (from the report posted earlier) during an EFATO, no one really knows how they will react until it happens for real.. then your thinking reverts back to its basics. in these cases, appears to be the fight or flight response. as the report stated, your first response is to avoid danger, in this case, a hazardous landing in the trees, subconsciously you know the airfield to be safe, you have flown out of them all your career and that though about safety being at the airfield is well reinforced and embedded in your thought processes, so its an automatic mental response to try and get back there in a panicked state of an emergency.. and so, the decision is made on the subconscious level. Why do we practice forced landings? and glide approaches? so it becomes a imbedded mental process that we can draw on in case of an engine failure at altitude. sadly, im i know i am guilty of this as well, is we do not practice for such events often enough, especially the EFATO scenario. so how do we change our thinking patterns so that our initial reaction in a EFATO scenario is to look for an option that doesn't involve the turn back? well, practicing for these events will be a start, but doing them regularly will eventually build mental models in your head you can revert back to on a subconscious level when the shite hits the fan, and panic stations are on full i cant believe this is happening mode. so think back to when you really practiced for an EFATO? or even an engine failure at altitude over unfamiliar terrain? As Nev (facthunter) pointed out, its up to you, the PIC, make sure you get the higher level training, or practice emergency procedures regularly... and take the opportunity in your BFR's to get an instructor to run you though them as well.

"the engine failure after take off" pre take off brief might not be enough, or might be the wrong way to go about preparing one self for an actual EFATO. all i can say is there are some very experienced pilots working with some well known and academically accredited psychologists working on the problem. I have always, and still verbally give myself a pre take off brief, including intended flight paths to take in the event of an EFATO.. but this might not be enough, as evidence by the fact that we are still losing good pilots to this phenomenon.

As people have said before, the decision to fly or not to fly is entirely yours, and also said is there have been no new ways to hurt ourselves in aviation, and a huge majority of accidents are human error, even on an airliner level more so these days, so as tragic and sad as we all are right now, im sure Ross would be up there telling us all to learn what we can from this experience to make our flying safer. I have lost friends to the stall spin on final, and others to the impossible turnback after EFATO. Unfortunately when considering how many fall victim to these types of accidents, its evident to me that our training isnt quite hitting the mark, so i personally, after previous accidents, and again after this one, took measures to make sure i am as safe as possible, by doing an advanced aircraft control course, including spinning and basic aerobatic maneuvers, and once i get my Savannah in the air again, i will do a refresher, and also concentrate on the EFATO scenario. fortunately progress has been made into what makes a highly skilled and knowledgable pilot make the decision to turn back, and yes, it goes deep into human factors, and into the subconscious to the flight or flight response to a perceived or real danger. a lot of good people are working on finding the causes and ways to alter training to prevent such accidents occurring again, sadly, they will, but with sublte changes to training, hopefully they will become far less of an occurrence. Next time you go for a fly, instead of just going on a sightseeing tour, how about practicing some emergency procedures? take an instructor if you want to, or make it a personal minima to practice a forced landing every 4th flight, or an EFATO scenario at least once on every second circuit session you do.. Hopefully Ross's legacy will be better trained, better prepared pilots.

practice braking more softly, and also, dont forget, even at 40Mph, the fat wing will still be producing lift, enough so that the weight on wheels might be considerably less that you think, leading to skidding.

Sadly, the ICAO convention, the convention where all countries agreed to use the same standards in aviation in regards to everything from distances, radio terminology, and most importantly, aircraft certification rules, so that an aircraft designed and built in one country can safely fly in another, was signed in Chicago.. im sure if it was signed in Europe, then it would all be metric.

What causes an aircraft to stall? .......... I do.

not a bad survey, just hope they actually act on the info they gather. and for anyone who doesnt like writing answers to these surveys, its in a click a number between 1 and 10 type survey.

Dont forget the FPV and camera feedback from the PV2+ is over a wifi connection, and the wifi, even with the booster will not have anywhere near the same range as the controller transmitter, so even if you loose FPV and camera controls, it will still fly normally (if you can see it with your eyes, hint hint) you can still fly it back to wifi range. or if you have great line of sight, long way away, set the camera to record video, even if it goes outside of wifi range, the camera will still record.

so, he flew for over 2.5 hours with a low oil pressure warning... at 150Kts+ that is a lot of options to land safely.

the only change i made to the throttle control was to make the carby on the right hand side, go to the throttle on the right hand side, so both cables are the same length. they are still connected and move as one as usual. just re-routed the cable under the firewall and connected it to the throttle bar directly behind it, rather than run acrosss the airbox t the left hand side.

Pretty much every Savannah in Australia has that 3 point latch..

you got to have fat tyres! [MEDIA=vimeo]16561627[/MEDIA] as for STOL ops, all i can say is Practice Practice and more Practice. as suggested, trim for slow flight around 40kts. and fly at that speed for a while until your comfortable with the high nose attitude. I rarely use 2nd stage of flap. the only time i use it is to create drag to steepen up a descent into a tight spot. and use plenty of power in the flar and landing otherwise it will stop very quickly as you flare with 2nd stage flap out. also, the MASSIVE adverse yaw with 2nd stage flap make slow flight interesting. not recommended.

As Mr Swingle would say, you got to have fat tyres!