Building the new Bushbaby SAFARI

[AndyCAP]

HI Oupa

Havn't chatted in quite a while. ...Almost being retrenched sidetracked me a bit - but the good news is that I started a new job in the Fairest at the beginning of August! Currently commuting back to big smoke over weekends but hope to settle down in the next 2 months or so - Then I might just bug you with a visit again

Good to see you are as busy as ever and that the project now seems to be at "fyn draai" wrt the commission against aviation

Good luck with the progress!

Cheers

A

BTW did you execute a nice landing in RedX PC12 (assuming its got half red half white colourscheme?) at FACT this afternoon? (saw it from the terminal builgin)

[Oupa-G]

Today fitted the updated gear i t must now go for powder coating. Just trying the gear took all day. These little aeroplanes steal a lot of time. Also compiled the screens to fit the BMW and they were installed on my Voyager and also Anton's . What a pleasure to custom make the screen The MGL instrument is just superb. On the paper front there is still a silence it is a funny situation one day you can fly and then the next day you cannot fly because the famous paperwork is missing.All these paper inventions make one wonder. I read that in England only 50% of registered Aircraft have legal flying papers these sort of statistics tell us it is becoming to complicated. In South Africa we have CAA and RAASA and I wonder what our statistics are?

I spoke to a well informed member about torque values and tightening the flywheel of the BMW. Over the years the picture has changed a bit. In the olden days a car cylinder head was tightened and then after 2000 miles it was tightened again.Pure torque includes the torque on the bolt minus the friction of the bolt head surface and the friction in the thread. The specs on the flywheel bolts are as follows, the bolt is first tightened to 40nm that is to eliminate any space then it is followed by 40 degrees rotation that means 40/360* 1.5mm pitch of the bolt thread or applicable thread pitch. That means a bolt stretch of .166 mm. So now the stretch is constant and the friction is taken out of the equation. That is why a longer cyl head bolt specs are different 90 degrees and again 90 degrees it depends what the boffins with the slide rules worked out what is the required stretch. On some of the fancy turbines they actually measure the stretch of the bolts with micrometers. A bolt tightened to the within the ductile limits of the application should remain tight under the normal operating temperatures. That is why stretch bolts should be replaced and not re-used. Just some little technical detail.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

Thanks for the lecture. CAA has all the peppers, al of about a 1000 pages. Ve arre vaiting. I was just wondering. Can the programming that you have done for your instrument be carried over to the Banana Boy`s aerie by memory stick or card? I flew some with my aerie this morning. What a blast. wanted to weigh the BM Explorer on Thursday, but the grim reaper dictated otherwise, by taking away the dear old Mother of my right hand man for the last 15 years. Attended the funeral today. Never a good thing. Hopefully on Monday it`s going to be life as usual.

[Oupa-G]

I see that there are only 150 views left and the 100,000 visits will be exceeded. We will most likely hit this target before the paperwork is finished. Today I had some spare time and visited my friendly heat treating connection and did final adjustment to the gear-leg I opted for 2 more degrees on the pilot's side seeing that the captain of the Bosvark has a portly figure and therefore the compensation, to-morrow it goes for the final powder coating . I have had 3mm shims cut with the Waterjet method so that I can do the final toe-in setting. The glare-shield is at my friendly upholsterer and we will see who wins the final race CAA or the Bosvark project. Tonight I stuck on the the little tubes made from broken arrows. They have a 7mm i.d it is actually some weird imperial size, but it works. I left my camera at the hangar so no photies tonight. MGL is working hard on the autopilot actuators, and I'm awaiting them in anticipation. Bosvark II is awaiting the gear-leg before we can fit the wings and then poor Anton is in for the paperwork marathon. Luckily a lot of homework has been done and can be repeated a small example is the handbook which should be the same except for the registration and photo's. This is all for tonight .



Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

I brought the camera from the hangar and I promised the picture of the new graphics on the Voyager the photo does not do the quality justice. The bottom row was designed for the BMW.

Now that the visits have passed 100,000 hits it is time to introduce Gerrie. He is my friend responsible for all the beautiful welding. When we build prototype parts Vliegvark comes in as the welder but when the final parts are made Gerrie is the man. He is a coded welder and his knowledge of materials is excellent. He did all the final welding of the engine mounts and also welded the exhausts. Here you see him at work with his little Lincoln welder in the background The hand-piece is water-cooled and he has the correct rods for 4130 and also for all the various aluminiums. It is wonderful to have such a world class welder on my doorstep. I'm enclosing some pictures I took tonight.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Duck Rogers]

I suspect that "little watercooled Lincoln" is now pushing in the region of about 60 Grand or so?

[Oupa-G]

But the Lincoln still needs a good driver. Today got my seats back for the Trike the old seats were very discoloured. Also got the exhausts from Gerrie and also the glare-shields for Bosvark I and Bosvark II Getting the epoxi-coated gear-legs back to-morrow so my work is mapped for the weekend. I'm showing one exhaust stub and by the discoulorisation on the exhaust I place the EGT probe 50mm from the flange. We are making this our standard distance because then we can compare the temps on different installations. That is all for tonight.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

It is the first time that I feel like leaving this whole crazy aviation game. You build an aircraft in one year the changes we made to the airframe were minor and well researched. The testing programme was followed with precision and now the final paperwork is becoming a mountain and the Bosvark is grounded by a system which I am now starting to doubt, they are pushing me and if you fly and forbid something happens you are the total criminal idiot. It is time that the CAA come to the party. I cannot see why if they gave me a piece of paper to test the aircraft why my aircraft which I paid for must now be paralysed by a paper system which is grinding to a halt. The Bosvark is a non type certified aircraft entrapped in paperwork of a production aircraft. There is no logic. Sorry for my gripes but I now have enough. Vredendal weekend ideal conditions many hours of meticulous labour reporting helping to share knowledge, but then the authorities take possession of your asset and make it worthless. I'm sure I will feel better to-morrow, the new gear I rolled is superb the glare shield is lovely the engine is running sweet. The new Voyager II with the new software is nice on the ground. I hope some body of CAA reads this and tries to look at us aviators from a different angle. There must be a solution. I have given Braam the handbook and they can use the file for any body that wants to write an operating manual. I have shared all the knowledge. Enough being negative maybe I will revert back to vertical taxiing.

Life is short

Cheers Oupa-G

[Mogas]

Hi Oupa
Eish, I feel your frustration, if it is any consolation we share this frustration at the factory. I believe that the folks at CAA are being extra careful in ensuring that all the "I"s are dotted and "T"s crossed in an effort to not go back to the days before they failed the FAA audit.
We have had a mountain to climb in getting all the factory MOPs, SMSes, QA systems and so on sorted out to their liking. Sometimes the things they demand seem ludicrous to us considering the scale of our operation.
Similar things have been going on regarding our flight school.
This process has absorbed just about our management man-hour resources and there are just not enough hours in the day to jump through all these hoops and run an airplane factory the way it should be run, ie time on the hangar floor.
Having got that rant off my chest I will add that we have enough faith in the product to say that we have come so far now that there is no turning back, even if we had to start the whole process again from the beginning tomorrow we would do just that and we WILL have the type acceptance granted.
The CAA will be at FAKP next week and so I can say that tangible things are happening, not just a bunch of papers being shifted about from desk to desk somewhere in the big smoke.
We at KFA and the other Safari owners (current and future) thank you for your patience. I truly believe that the end is near now.

[Oupa-G]

It is now after midnight and I did two RedX flights and I feel better I was frustrated all my mates are in Vredendal and I have a perfectly good aeroplane that needs to do longer flights to get the final fuel consumption figures, I would have thought that an extension to the proving flight Auth would make sense I do not want favours or special treatment I just wants sense and not a draconian no. But I will be patient it is just at my age time becomes very valuable at 67 time can run out.

I'm going to sleep now.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

I'm patiently now waiting I will have to stir a bit to make sure I do not end up in the bottom of the bottom tray. Just a quick glimpse of the rolled under carraige I'm scared to make changes because that may place another hurdle to let me wait longer.



Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

The paperwork is slowly strangulating this project but we will keep on . Have now been taking the time to finish little detail. Have put 5V USB ports in the cabin so that I can charge the cellphone run music etc. I was given a beautiful Lightspeed Zulu headset. I must say it works well. Last night I bent the Glove Box and went to the plane and fitted it . Also fitted the Glare shield so now everything is finished. Today I will take the vacuum cleaner and give the whole bottom of the aeroplane a good cleaning these filings and drill twists work their way to the bottom irrespective of trying to catch them while drilling. I put my hand again to the bending brake the metal pieces I had computer cut.Enjoy the pics.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

To morrow Stefan and Monty have their meeting with the CAA I sincerely hope that something positive comes from this meeting, let wisdom prevail. Meanwhile I had a visit from Boet and family. They are in the Fairest for business, we had a quick look at the Bosvark and we were patting each other on the shoulders for a combination effort, to think Loeriesfontein and Durbanville are 400 km apart. We hope that the Safari which started as a vision of a roomy cockpit will be accepted well by the South African home-builders. I really wish Kitplanes for Africa many sales. We took some photo's of the new gear and the finishing touches to the panel and the glare shield. In the panel is the glove box and also USB plugs with a 5V supply . So the waiting game is on. Ystervark7 has given me a rheostat on the panel so that I can fly and play with the mixture of the EboXi. I hope I get a special permit while the type approval gets processed to do this testing and final tuning. Enclosed some pics


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

As you can see the gear is attached with the new saddles made by Vliegvark and I'm really tempted to try the gear under actual conditions but I will have to wait for the final say from CAA. I'm a bit like a small child with a box Smarties but I must wait till X-mas to taste them and only in the new year your allowed to eat them. For a man of my age it really does not make sense and it gives me a feeling as if I'm being treated by a sadist but what can I say. My loyalty is towards Kitplanes who are having paperwork hassles and I really do not want anything to go wrong . Luckily I'm going on a coastal trip to Namibia I would have liked to do it in the Bosvark I could really do good fuel consumption tests but instead I'll take the Vansin. I have just had a call with the Red X to Beaufort West so there is a nice night landing by car lights. I'm going to check the weather.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Well so BW was interesting the weather gave me all sort of surprises . Quite heavy icing had to descend back to 12000 to get below the freezing level and then when we could see the stars we went to 19000ft on the way back we again picked up ice i went to 24000ft eventually bucking headwinds of 110kts. However the PC12 is just magnificent. We picked up a youngster that was injured in rugby a very high neck spinal injury. , so in the early morning I again had a chance to quietly have tears in my eyes. We landed at 5 O'clock so the nights rest is gone I will take a nap this afternoon . This morning I have been making autopilot brackets if I can't fly the Bosvark I do something else. The base of the actuator was a challenge to make a flush fit but the photo copier came to help, and so I could transfer the data.


Cheers Oupa-G