Category Archives: Foxbat Technical

These posts are mainly about aviation & Foxbat technical and operational information

Reflection-free aerial photos

Posted on by
1

Photo adapterWhen taking photos from an aeroplane, if you want pin-sharp pictures suitable for magazines or blowing up to poster size or bigger, you have no choice but to shoot through an open window or door.

However, in many aircraft opening a door or window in flight is not permitted for safety reasons. You either have to remove the door before flight (very cold and draughty, specially in winter and/or at altitude) or live with the minor distortions of shooting through the perspex windows. Let’s face it, most photos we take from planes do not need to be ultra-sharp and capable of massive blow-ups, so shooting through the door transparency is probably not a major issue.

The doors on the Foxbat can be removed before (but not opened during) flight, so as a result, most people end up taking photos through the perspex which, in the main, is relatively distortion free. However, the real problem is not distortion but reflection – the doors on the Foxbat are convex and in bright weather are excellent reflectors of anything in the cabin. Light coloured shirts are a particular problem and bright yellow portable EPIRBs, light coloured caps and jeans have all been known to appear. It is these reflections which have rendered many of my potentially best photos unusable. Even flat windows can produce big, unwanted reflections.

Enter Mike Rudd and his Bunnings Aerospace plumbing grommet – technically a ‘dektite’ – for stopping photo reflections in Foxbat (or any other aeroplane) doors/windows. See picture above.

DektiteThe dektite comes in a range of shapes and designs but in essence is a bit like a big rubber conical sucker, with different diameter steps. The one in the picture on the left has a minimum diameter of about 25mm (roughly an inch to our imperial measure friends). Mike’s lens is 77mm in diameter, so he cut the rubber cone at that size and removed the square flaps. The cone is held on the lens with a (very hi-tech) plastic cable tie/zip tie.

When taking photos through the window, you just push the sucker up against the perspex and bingo! all reflections are eliminated. Being rubber, the cone is flexible, so you can move the camera around a fair bit to point in different directions without risking the reflections re-appearing.

Hastings from Westernport BayClick on this hi-res photo Mike took through the middle of a convex perspex door while using the dektite attached to his camera. The file is quite big – around 7Mb – so allow time for the download. The picture is a good example, contrasting the sky and dark colours of the bay, which could easily be swamped by reflections. The photo can be enlarged on screen, so you can see there are no reflections at all and any distortions due to the curved perspex are not intrusive.

Dektites come in a very wide variety of materials, shapes and sizes and, of course prices – which range from about $15 up to several hundred dollars or more for specialist applications and large sizes. They are available (as they say) from all good quality hardware and plumbing stores.

Unfortunately the dektites FAQ page I found offered no advice on uses with a camera, so you’re on your own. Happy reflection-free photos!

Measuring the LSA market

Posted on by
3

Rotax 912 ULS engineI found an interesting article in General Aviation News about the growth of the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) market, both in the USA and worldwide. Click HERE to read the article.

Written by Dan Johnson (see his aviation blog at ByDanJohnson.com) it concludes that Rotax is by far the world’s biggest aviation engine manufacturer, with well over 50,000 four-stroke and over 120,000 two-stroke aircraft engines delivered to date. As a result, their annual engine sales can be used as a barometer for the recreational/LSA market as a whole, as other manufacturers like Lycoming and Continental are not really players in this market.

Dan makes some interesting remarks around the different proportions of LSA versus GA registrations in the USA in comparison with the rest of the world. In the USA, the GA-LSA ratio is 80-20, while in the rest of the world the ratio is reversed: 20-80 in favour of LSAs. He comments that this is probably because GA is relatively cheap in the USA and perceived to be very expensive elsewhere. (Tell me about it!). Although USA is the biggest single LSA market, nearly twice as many LSAs are actually sold outside the USA.

Other influencing factors in the USA may be that many aircraft service centres are unfamiliar with Rotax engines and some don’t even have access to the metric tools needed on the engine. Contrast that with Europe – and even Australia – where the Rotax is now a familiar engine.

Foxbat and the Philippines – 1

Posted on by
Reply

MSFC FBAs mentioned in a previous blog post, I’m shortly departing Melbourne to go to Davao City in the Philippines for a week or so. More specifically, to visit the Mindanao Saga Flying Club (MSFC) to help them re-assemble the two identical new A22LS Foxbats they have acquired.

Getting to Davao wasn’t quite as simple as I had hoped. There are no direct flights from Melbourne, some going via Singapore and other far flung places. Only Philippine Airways has reasonable flights, but via Manila. Which means passing over Davao on the way to Manila and then flying back on an internal connecting flight. The whole journey takes about 16 hours, including waiting for the connection.

A precautionary visit to my local GP resulted in inoculations against typhoid and hepatitis, as well as a box full of malaria prevention tablets. And don’t look too closely at the Australia travel advisory website, as they are not very complimentary about the island of Mindanao, where I’m headed…

However, my contacts at MSFC couldn’t have been more helpful and reassuring, including advice on the arrival and departure terminals at Manila, as well as organising to meet me on arrival in Davao Airport and a hotel for the first night. The following day, we are going to their airfield and they have arranged a night accommodation at their club during the rest of my stay.

Their airfield – Mati National Airport – is about  a 150 kilometre drive south east from Davao. My first look at Mati on google earth suggested a very small airfield with only a couple of hangars. However, on closer inspection, the satellite image was taken in 2002 and a lot has happened since then – as evidenced by the pictures on the MSFC Facebook pages.

Interesting facts: in terms of land area, Davao City is the largest in the Philippines, with a population between 1.5 and 2 million, which (for Australian readers) puts it roughly on a par with the Perth metropolitan area.

I’ll aim to post more information as I go along but I’m not sure how certain my internet connections will be – although MSFC has wifi in the club rooms. And we all know about NOT activating international roaming with Telstra!

Pilot tool kit

Posted on by
Reply

Pilot Tool KitWhen I go off on a flying trip – be it for a week or just a day – I put together a collection of tools and other bits and pieces ‘just in case’. One LAME (who should remain un-named) once told me a good tool kit needs only two things in it – duct tape to stop it moving when it does but shouldn’t, and WD40 to get it moving when it should but doesn’t.

My kit usually consists of  some spanners (‘wrenches’ for our USA friends), a multi-head screwdriver, pliers, lock-wire, cable-ties and a spare spark plug and plug spanner. And when it’s a Rotax engine, a couple of exhaust springs, which always seem to break when I’m miles from home. All this lot gets put in a plastic box with some clean rags, along with the aforementioned duct tape and WD40, which rattles around somewhere in the luggage area of the aircraft.

However…I just heard of a custom-designed Pilot Tool Kit, made by a company in the States. It doesn’t have duct tape or WD40 but does include just about everything else you might need for a short trip and potential in-the-field maintenance and it’s all wrapped up nicely in a roll, so the contents don’t rattle around and break loose. The tools are said to be made from high-quality materials and, to back this up, all have a lifetime warranty. Weight isn’t bad for us Light Sport Aircrafters at around 1.5 kilos.

At the moment, the only place I can find to buy the kit is directly from the manufacturer – Cruz Tools in California. Order reference is PTK1. I’m sure suppliers like Aircraft Spruce and others will begin to stock it sooner or later.

Meanwhile, I’ve put it on my Christmas list in the hope that the Finance Director may be able to find room in the budget….

Urgent new Rotax safety bulletin

Posted on by
3

Rotax SB065Rotax has just published a new safety bulletin – SB-912-065 & SB-912-065UL – about their carburettors. At least all 912ULS (100hp) engines from serial number 6 780 228 may be affected. And perhaps some others if you changed the carburettors or carburettor floats in the last couple of years.

You can find the details at Rotax-Owner.com – Service Bulletins. You’ll need to subscribe with your email and engine number if you aren’t already a member.

Please check the bulletin as it can affect the running of your engine!

Aircraft decals

Posted on by
1

DecalsWhen I first started selling Foxbats in Australia, one of the immediate needs was to organise vinyl adhesive decals for the aircraft.

Apart from the mandatory registration numbers/letters and fuel type(s), there were a whole lot more I wanted to stick on the aircraft to ensure there was no doubt as to where you could push, pull, stand, what quantity of fuel you could fill etc etc. The factory necessarily supplied the minimum required stickers but were a bit limited in that these had to apply to each country they served – as you can imagine, every nationality has their own way of marking particular aspects of the aircraft, and Australia is certainly no exception! An example is the passenger warning sticker, which is slightly different in the UK, USA and Australia.

So I looked in the yellow pages (Remember them? They were what we used before the internet…) and asked around. And I ended up approaching Business Image Graphics, in Southport, south east Queensland, near where I was based at the time. Andrew Cripps, the owner was quite candid: ‘I’ve never made decals for an aircraft before’. But he was more than willing to start. And after a few discussions about outside use (ultraviolet and other weather resistance), sizes and colours, he produced the first batch for the first Foxbat I sold in Australia – 24-4114, and my original demonstrator, 24-4163, the aircraft I helped build in the UK.

That was in 2004 and the rest (at least the last 10 years) as they say is history. Andrew now knows the requirements so well I no longer have to send him graphic (!!) details of each set – just the registrations – and he does the rest. He’s now supplied all the decals for the 130 or so Foxbats and 55-ish SportStars in Australia, as well as for a few other aircraft I have imported both for myself and others.

It’s great to see older Foxbats with registrations numbers/letters as black (or white) as the day they were delivered and they are a great testimony to Andrew and his aim to provide a high quality decal which does the job.

Andrew’s website is: http://www.quickerstickers.com.au and you can also contact him by phone on 07 5503 0282 or by email at: bigraphics@optusnet.com.au

Foxbat bird strike

Posted on by
2

9100 bird strikeI’m sorry to say that Foxbat 100 – the 100th Foxbat officially delivered in Australia – has suffered a bird strike while conducting training circuits at home airfield of Caboolture in south east Queensland.

Although seriously shaken up, instructor Bill Haynes and his student escaped uninjured and landed the aircraft safely. As well as the photo here of the damage I have others and they are not pretty. Apart from the windshield damage, the bird may also have damaged a propeller blade.

In Australia, there are typically 1,500-2,000 reported bird strikes every year. Most of these involve larger aircraft (eg Boeing 737) and happen during take-off or landing roll. There are plenty of photos of bird strike damage on the internet – some of them spectacular. It is unusual for bird strikes to cause injury (or worse) to pilots and crew, although a small number of fatalities in light aircraft over the years in Australia may have been caused by bird strikes. Here’s a link to an ATSB Review of Bird Strikes 2002-2011 published in 2012.

You will recall, I’m sure, the famous incident of US Airways flight 1549, an Airbus A320, which suffered multiple bird strikes just after take-off, causing the shut down of both engines. The pilot, ‘Sully’ Sullenberger and his crew successfully landed the aircraft in the Hudson River with no injuries or loss of life. In case you haven’t already seen it, here’s a link to an excellent Reconstruction of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River.

Caboolture has always been potentially risky for bird strikes – there is a rubbish tip quite close to the airfield perimeter and there are always large flocks of Ibis scavenging the tip.

The aircraft has now been repaired and cleaned and is back flying.

Remember – bird strikes are a real possibility near and around most coastal airfields, so keep your eyes open and don’t think the birds will get out of the way. Particularly, stupid Ibis!

New Dynon firmware for SkyView

Posted on by
1

Banner-SkyView-11-IntroductionDynon Avionics has announced a significant upgrade to their SkyView firmware, along with updated base maps and terrain data.

There is a huge host of additions and improvements, some of which – I’m thinking of the weather information in particular – are not much use to us in Australia, as the data sources are not available.

However, there are a couple of items worth noting: the SkyView can now be interconnected with the Funkwerk ATR833 and TRIG TY92 VHF radios, so frequencies can be recovered from the navigation database. So those Foxbat owners with the Funkwerk or TRIG radios – they have been standard on Foxbats for the last 18 months or so – may want to consider connection at the next major service. Access to frequencies this way saves a lot of hunting about in ERSA and/or OzRunways and then entry into the radio.

The SkyView will also now display traffic information – if you have an ADSB-compliant Mode S transponder fitted. Quite a few recent Foxbats have the TRIG TT21 Mode S transponder and this should be compatible, as Dynon’s own SkyView XPNDR262 is manufactured by TRIG.

It also looks like you’ll now be able to watch TV on your SkyView. So all my friends who have jokingly referred to the SkyView as the ‘in flight entertainment system’ can eat their words. Although personally, I’m not sure watching TV is a good idea when you’re piloting a small single engine aircraft. Or even a big one for that matter!

Foxbat factory visit – flying day

Posted on by
Reply

Screen Shot 2014-09-06 at 11.11.30 pmSaturday 6 September was flying day at the Aeroprakt factory and club airfield.

Doug King and I were lucky enough to spend a fair bit of time flying in the Foxbat (both A22L2 and A22LS versions) as well as having a good look at other aircraft around the airfield and in the hangar.

The photo here has not been photo-shopped to look like this. It was taken with a a small Sony camera, similar to a GoPro, mounted on an extendable pole, held just outside the (removed) left hand door of a Foxbat. Apart from yours truly, the pilot is senior instructor Nadia from the Aeroprakt Club. Yuriy Yakovlyev was flying the other aircraft with Doug King.

The reflection of the wing and the aircraft are all exactly as per the original shot – sometimes you just get lucky. Talking of which, a young photographer at the airfield managed the shot of a lifetime – using a huge telephoto lens, he captured a silhouette of a Foxbat against the almost-full evening moon. I’m hoping to get a copy and  put it on here – it really is a shot of a lifetime.

There are some other photos of the flying day here on the Foxbat Pilot Flickr Album.

Tomorrow, sadly, I am leaving the Ukraine to begin my eventual way home to Melbourne. Thank you everyone at Aeroprakt for making Doug and my visit so enjoyable and memorable.