May 2008

03.05.2008: As already mentioned I am back in Sydney for another stay of six weeks, so no Sportcruiser building yet. I will be back at the end of May, however, and am currently busy making sure everything will be ready by then. Today, for example, I ordered the tools at Aircraft Spruce.

I also added a few gadget as possible future add on's..

Last weekend I made a trip to the Temora Aviation Museum, which lies about 400 km south east of Sydney (that's close for Australian measures). The special thing about that museum is that all planes they own are in flying condition, and that they organise a small airshow with them several times a year.

What differs them most from other museums is that they do not only own the usual Spitfires or Mustangs, but a number of Australian built planes as well as Jet's. The Gloster Meteor F.8 below from ca. 1945 is one of them. It is the only one flying in the world.

The airshow started with a lineup of propeller trainers, like the DeHavilland Canada Chipmunk below,

or this rare Ryan PT22.

Here a bunch of them in a loose formation.

This Lockheed 12A Electra was something like the Learjet of the thirties. All the famous Hollywood stars of that time had one. One also featured in the final scene of the movie Casablanca.

After that a lineup of the usual military planes of he second world war, like this very rare P-40 Kittyhawk...

.. and of course a Spitfire. The Aussies were the first ones to paint shark mouths on their planes, and continue doing it until today..

Here the first jet, a DeHavilland Vampire. They were in use in Switzerland too, from about 1949 until 1990 (probably the last ones in the world)! I haven't seen one flying since at least 25 years..

Than a English Electra Canberra, built under licence in Australia in the early fifties. Quite a large plane, making an unbelievable noise.

At the end of the show the Australian Air Force demonstrated a Pilatus PC-9, which is their standard trainer of today (of course again with the shark mouth). Compared to all the other planes impressive in performance, but unbelievably quiet...

The National Fly In 2008 of the Antique Airplane Association of Australia took place in Temora on the same day, so I could go and have a look at some of the planes. It started however with an amateur plane that was quite unique. I had a chat with the mate flying it and he told me he bought it for 8'000 AUD! That makes cheap flying, but I am not so sure I would trust it...

Here a DeHavilland DH89 Dragon Rapide, quite a rarity. It was not really in a good state, however,...

..others on the other hand were restored to better than new condition, like this one (whatever it is).

Also this DeHavilland Tiger Moth looked just perfect.

Here an idea how we could also have equipped our cockpit... Note the "communication system" to the back seat (you shout into the tube), as well as the compass, both of which would rather fit in a ship than a plane....

On the way back I passed Nowra, where the The Fleet Air Arm Museum is located. I did not know that, honestly, until I saw a sign on the road. It is owned and operated by the Australian Navy, and thus of an excellent quality.

The museum contains mostly planes that have been operated by the Australian Navy, as well as some of their former enemies. The one below is still under restoration. I took a picture due to the impressive wing folding mechanism. That might be a solution to reduce the cost of hangar rent..

Here an attempt of the Aussies to build a training aircraft. If it flew as it looks it must really have been a challenge to the flight students...

This wing folding mechanism looks much simpler to me.

Here a Hawker Sea Fury, the fastest piston engine plane ever built. What if I would put that 2'480 hp engine on the Sportcruiser instead of the 100 hp Rotax? With the fuel tanks installed in the Sportcruiser I could probably fly for about 30 minutes, but really, really fast....

17.05.2008: I just noticed something was wrong with my webpage, I hope this fixes it.

I will return to Switzerland from Australia next week. After that we will start building our kit full speed. Rolf and I have reserved many days and weeks in our Agenda over then next few months, where we will build full time on the kit, in order to make good progress.

I have also looked for the tools we still need. Most of the normal stuff I already have, but not everything. Originally I had planned to place an order for tools with Aircraft Spruce, but then I had to realise that 250 $ worth of tools costs another 250 $ for shipping! Luckily another builder, who is an airline pilot and flies regularly to California, volunteered to bring me the most urgently required stuff. Quite a few things I can also find in Switzerland. The rest is not that urgent, and as I will be in California for our summer vacation I will be able to fetch it then myself.

I also started writing an assembly manual for the elevator and the rudder, as we have to build them ourselves. They normally come pre-assembled with the kit and are thus not covered in the assembly manual delivered by CZAW, but due to local requirements we had to ask CZAW to ship them unassembled.

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