G'day from SA, South Australia, that is.

Greetings from South Aus. My name is Doug and I fulfilled a life long dream, to fly, at the age of 62. That was 5 years ago. In that time I have accumulated about 75 hours in a Jabiru LSA55 and am currently doing a tail dragger conversion in a CubCrafter's Sport Cub. My dream is to design and build either, a scale replica of a Westland Wyvern S4 (succeeded the Seafury) or my own mid-wing, rag and tube, low and slow (well maybe not so slow) fun ship.

My aviation history consists of 15 years in the RAF where I was initially an air(borne) radar tech and later a nav instuments tech. I worked on Blackburn Beverley's of Transport Command, Javelins, and English Electric Lightnings of Fighter Command. Along the way there were also Meteors, Venom's, Hunters, Harriers, and the Spitfires, Hurrican's and Lancaster, of the Battle of Briton Flight, albeit mainly polishing and marshaling. Er, before you ask, no I don't have any photographs, my first wife destroyed the all....b**ch

I look forward to joining some of your threads and maybe starting my own.

Have a nice day, Doug

Deskpilot,
Welcome to the forum! I would love to see a replica of the Westland Wyvern but good luck with what ever you choose. I think the sport cub is a nice plane.

Chris

Hi Chris, thanks for your welcome.
I've been thinking about the Wyvern for a long time but I have a problem in that it has contra-rotating props. Under our Recreational Aviation Australia rules, only one prop is allowed. Eight blades rotating in one direction would be a nightmare to fly. I think I could make a case to CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) and get them to allow my to bend the RAAus rules.

Any thoughts as to how you would connect contrarotating props to the engine. I have seen scale models (R/C) where only one prop is driven and the other is pitched to turn the opposite way and just freewheels. I dont know if this would be practical on a expirimental but it migth be worth a thought.

Chris

DeskPilot

The wife and I were to south Oz in 2002 for the eclipse. We were out in Arkaroola. We loved your country. We started out in Sydney (of course) and went to Noosa, Adelaide, Arkaroola, Adelaide, Sydney and home. Never had such a nice vacation. If I ever get tossed out of this country I'm moving to Oz
If I did live there I'd try to find an AirTruk to fly. What a great plane

An Air Truck, Who makes it? It does look like an interesting plane.

Chris

A very limited production unit. Used for crop dusting mostly. I think they only made about 125 of them. I first saw one in MadMax Beyond Thunderdome. I thought it was an imaginary stage airplane but that is not the truth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transavia_PL-12_Airtruk