Building the new Bushbaby SAFARI

[Oupa-G]

Oupa is back and had a wonderful trip with three of my grandchildren , two of my own kids and my eldest son's wife who is a honey. We had a magnificent trip through the Namib. I came home with no mechanical faults in any of the two vehicles a Land-cruiser and a 4X4 ford bakkie. Coming home the brick work was finished on my workshop and they are now putting back the woodwork , and then all the boxes etc will be packed back into the original spaces a lot of chucking away will be done there is always junk that gathers and matures . I'm enclosing the workshop photos . Then I'm going to make the jig on which I will assemble the harness of the Eboxi system for the BMW. I flew the Bosvark yesterday, the take off run still amazes me it must be less then 100 meters. The prototype phase is finished and the challenge is now to make the system user friendly. We found out that what we regard as normal and easy builders struggle with the wiring. We will make a loom that can just be hooked up to an ordinary wiring system. We had converted a Rotax 912 trike and found serious earthing problems where on starting the earth path shunts through the radios Eboxi and any other path that electricity can find. There is only one way to do the earth. The negative wire from the battery must go to the engine block. Then a new wire to a n earth buss bar. All the earth requirement for earthing must then be taken from the buss bar. The frame is not an earthing point. The frame must be earthed from the engine block with a separate earthing strap only then will you not get shunting. You will only get a voltage drop on starting its the shunting that does the damage. That is all for today.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Ranger]

Good luck and happy sorting out the garage. The times i've been there i've seen all sorts of wonderful gadgets and thingamajigs. Problem is that something can be lying on the shelf for years and as soon as you throw it out you will need it the next day.

[Oupa-G]

I will have to be quite aggressive I do not own a Golf any more but I still have Golf starters and Alternators etc. They must go so will all the BMW car parts will have to go I have moved more in the direction of the Japanese cars like cruiser and Subaru's. The German luxury cars become to complicated and that is not what I want in life. I have promised myself to be radical.

Cheers Oupa-G

[Grumpy]

Hey Oupa G, Welcome back, we missed you madly.................
IDEA.........Maybe list the items you will be chucking away, could be useful to someone else.

[Oupa-G]

Grumpy will do so. Workshop is almost fully operational.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Just a visual update, it is a lot of unpacking sorting I never realised that one could get so disorganised in such a short time. At least I can now again see my tools, because working out of boxes is no fun.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

Oupa, do a "garage sale".

[KFA]

Baie welkom terug. Ek hoop die vakansie het nou krag in die vingers gesit vir daardie netjiese toetsverslag waarvoor ons so in spanning wag... Oupa jy maak ons skaam met so 'n netjiese werkswinkel. Jy het nou die dag die vraag oor die strek toetse gevra, die kort antwoord is dat ons die type acceptance moet he en dan moet ons CAA se jaarlikse vakansie in Komati sponsor teen groot koste vir ons wat, eintlik Monty se koste is .... maar soos ek lankal gese het die vlerke hang al hier by my vir die afgelope 8 maande. Groetnis

[Boet]

[Oupa-G]

The last of the flight testing has now been completed which was the climb test. The rudder needs a small trim adjustment because the ball was needing a bit of left rudder so with a plane trimmed out the performance should be even a little better. The aircraft was full of fuel and ballasted to 600kg.The day was excellent because the OAT was 34 degrees C already a density altitude of 2500ft, so nice and warm. I elected to do the climb test at 80 mph and 4 to 5 degrees pitch up. I stopped at 3500 ft because otherwise I would enter Controlled airspace and the density alt was 6000ft.

From 500ft to 3500 ft took me 6 min and the oil temps an cyl head temps all stayed within normal limits. The oil temp rose to 108 and interesting the oil temp coming of the cyl head (the inlet of the oil cooler) went to 120 degrees C but the cyl head temp were still below 100 degrees C and the EGT's were well within limits. Most engines are limited to 5 min at full power and I would think that this is also reasonable for the BMW. From the climb I glided back down to again get below the airspace and I glided 66mph and 500ft/min rate of sink, that calculates to a glide ratio 1:11.6 coming back I had to chase the cows of the runway. The fine tuning of the fuel flow will be done later but at present running high power settings I burn about 20 liters/hour that is for rpm's 6000 and more. She however flies very well at 5800 and I feel I can cruise there all day. My friend Derek with the Whisper is also getting good performance they were getting 800ft/min climb and he tells me that his Whisper out performs the Rotax and 6cyl Jabiru Whispers. It seems the beans are there so now we must see what the reliability is like enclosed some photo's which are screen shots during the actual climb test. Now for the writing of the handbook. Luckily I have hard figures so I won't have to thumb suck.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

The workshop is back in place found tools I had lost, but it is a pleasure to be able to work. All the computers are back on line and the new network cables pulled through. I still prefer network cables over WiFi. Thursday night Boet and myself spent time on the paperwork I'm also writing the Pilot's Manual for ZU-OTT. Also all my packing crates were repacked and the contents recorded on the computer in a program with a slick search function, so hopefully I will be able to find things I'm looking for. I have started on the Banana boys exhaust and radiator and wiring loom all these items will be make the the new jigs. That project is now foremost on my to do list. This past weekend I did 6 hrs PC12 flying Friday night to Upington and Sunday day to Beaufort West. I'm a bit pap and I'm going to have an early night. Just some photo's of the restored Chaos.


Cheers Oupa-G

[KFA]

Mooi workshop Oupa. Onthou asb my spinner...

[Cloud Warrior]

And my Porsche..........

[Oupa-G]

When all projects are finished she is next on the block. I have owned her since new and will restore her to full. Blaupunkt radio as well.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

Ek was laas Donderdag by Oupa, en het amper nie sy workshop herken nie. The place is as neat and organized as can be. A bloody nice toyshop.....if I may say so. We are busy doing the last of the paperwork of the Bosvarkie, and expect to have it sorted out soon. .......hopefully!