Building the new Bushbaby SAFARI

[Wargames]

Just spoken to Oupa...... his Prado`s done a Land Rover on him....... Stuck in Helmeringhauzen, werever the hellmering that may be. Somewhere in the South of Namibia.

You want co-ords, Boet?? They could be stuck in a worse place, and they could have been stuck in a better place as well. Enjoy it.

[Ranger]

his Prado`s done a Land Rover on him

So i take it then that he's back home.A Landrover will always get you home. Boet, ons moet nou mooi dink hier. Van ons is groot Landrover fans. My first Landrover was a series 3 which I bought when i was working in Zululand. On a trip to Pietrmaritzburg it started misfiring and cut out on me about 1 hour into the journey. The distributor cap carbon pin had disintegrated. This was repaired with a wet twig and every time the Landy started to misfire I had to replace the twig because it had dried out. Well i got to Pietermaritzburg and replaced the distributor cap. Nowadays it would be slightly more complicated. Most of the ignition and fuel systems are electronically assisted and eventhough they are reliable they cannot be fixed with bloudraad and a pair of pliers should they fail.I have gone the diesel route but actually prefered my old mechanical diesel pumpTdi over the electromechanical Td5. With both though it's a matter of getting fuel into the combustion chamber without having the spark to worry about as well.
I hope Oupa gets the problem sorted and may he have a safe journey home.

[Boet]

Ranger me mate, please do not feel offended. Pain Oupa a brief visit this afternoon. He is totally bushed. I think he needs another holiday to fulle recuperate from this on. he got back yeaterday, and put in a full day today with his patients. Late this afternoon, he made himself (TOO) comfortable in that chair, and NUTTIN could keep him awake.....

Anton`s cowling has now been sprayed. What do you guys think?? Self is dog-tired too, just stopped at home after the long drive from The Fairest. Going to keel over and cut down a BEEG forrest. zzzzzzzzz

[Boet]

Eish. VERY tired, forgot pics.... here dey are!

[Oupa-G]

Back from my trip to Namibia had a wonderful time cruising the dunes between Luderitz and Walvisbay. On the way back my LandCruiser broke the timing belt a rather abrupt stopping to a smooth running engine. Before the trip I checked the life of the belt and it is recommended to change the belt every 150000 k's I was well within the recommended time and k's . I do not know yet if it is sand ingestion or just failure of the belt. What was painful is that I had already bought the new belt with tensioners and idler pulley. The lesson is for the aircraft out there that are running Subaru engines rather change the belt to early then to late and I would put the time limit at 3 years. A broken belt will take the plane out of the sky. I would love to hear some comments on this topic. Luckily the BMW engine has no such limitations. Was tired today had a late afternoon nap and started working on the Bosvark. Did little things , the cowling with the lights installed look stunning and I must compliment the Loeriesfontein branch of the Superteam. To-morrow I will post the pictures. In my absence the site quietly slipped past the 28000 mark in hits and we will keep this site hot. Once we are flying there will be many nice interesting topics. We already know that the Voyager instruments has flown to England and back and we must "salute" Chalkie on his wonderful flight. And bringing the record back to South Africa. As you see Boet was in the fairest he left quite late so must be poegaai left the paint to finish the cowling stripes we will not copy the scheme but it will look similar.

Cheers Oupa-G

[Stephan van Tonder]

Is that a v8 VX or a Diesel VX? I have a diesel 80 with the 1HD-T and I change that belt every 80 000km - no matter what the manufaturer say. I actually do that with my VW's as well. Have seen a couple of belt failures prematurely in my lifetime so I change them early.
Do you know of the landcruiserclub?. if not www.landcruiserclub.co.za

[Oupa-G]

Stephan it is a 100 VX diesel and the belt had 95000k's , we have not yet excluded sand ingestion of the belt or a true failure it is possibly foreign matter that caused it .

Cheers Oupa-G

[Mogas]

Welcome back Oupa-G, we missed your regular posts!

[Oupa-G]

Back in the swing of things flew REDX last night came back in the early morning hrs with a RVR of 600m and landed, had problems taiing back to the hangar. The help from Pieter Rau the app controller was superb,he was in the tower and he never saw me the vis was done to about 20m . Team work is what it is all about. Today started the running of the engine on the lawn. I had the prop setup by the factory for 100hp at the designated rpm on full power she pulled the prop past the theoretical redline and I had to pitch it more luckily it is a variable ptch and the pitch is set by the stops of the microswitches by the looks of it I should be getting 110hp for take-off. To-morrow we will set the map for this prop engine combination with the help of our in house "Rocket Scientist" I'm enclosing some photo's of the lights they came out very well. The Midas spotlights have the same diameter as a KOO jam tin. Nothing like standerising ! The necessary fine liner tape has been bought and the rest of the paint job will be finalised in Durbanville. Quickly flew my trike this afternoon and it was just stunning weather. Otto was training his engine out landings and on his last landing I could only hear the whistle of the wing ending in a perfect landing. Just some pics enjoy them.

Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

NUWE tegnologie. Ek het so gemik,eers vir die Smoorsnoek blikkie, en toe die jemblikke, maar die een was te groot en die ander te klein. Die Makou-kak ertjie blikkie was NET reg. Soos oupa se, NIKS werk so goed soos om te standardiseer nie!! Midas se liggie en die manne wat die geut-goeterse maak, Marley, se alles pas tog te mooi. Gestandardiseer.

[MYR]

I should be getting 110hp for take-off

Hi Oupa-G, Are you sure it is 110 hp ? With your exhaust line and with the gear box, the power is certainly different. Do you intend to put your motor on a test bench ? It would be very interesting to know how many hp you lost with the gear box and how many you earned with the exhaust !
This make me think the power of most of the ultralight aircrafts motors are measured before the gear box. Don't you think so ?

PS : You have a nice garden.

[Oupa-G]

Myr I take the hp from the BMW technical blurp You have prop losses gearbox losses exhaust losses but luckily all aircraft have that in the end we do not stare ourselves blind against all this but we look at rate of climb and weight and then we can talk about available hp. I,m not intending to build a test bench but I will definitely look for a Bushbaby with say a 912S and then compare similar weights and then do climb performance tests , then you are comparing apples with apples.All I can say that at full power I need two people holding the tail down . But if I had a choice I would not mind a windtunnel can you imagine how nicely one could refine the aerodynamics, my garden is big enough.

Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

Mmmmm. I see a wind tunnel coming up.

[Oupa-G]

Boet the drawing looks good but due to building regulations I will have to limit the building to only double story

Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

I have been tuning all afternoon having a variable pitch prop there are many parameters. Having the mixture control it is much easier to evaluate if you are rich or lean. If you take for instance 5000rpm and you maintain 5000rpm pitch fully fine and the pitch fully course then there are a multitude of settings and mixtures. The final tuning will be in the air. This however is very exciting. With all my static running I have very conservative temps and I think that all the trouble that has been taken with the cooling is giving nice results. Meanwhile Otto is fine tuning the software. He has all sorts of clever tricks up his sleeve. Will keep you updated .

Cheers Oupa-G