Building the new Bushbaby SAFARI

[Oupa-G]

Transferred all the dimensions to the soundproofing material. Did the bevel cutting so that the bevel can wedge under the pipes of the frame.When all was cut and bevelled, the total weight of the material was 200gm . A weight that can almost be ignored I hope I get good soundproofing. Another source of noise is the floor under the floor boards, there I will make a double layer from the firewall to the gear-leg part that also runs under the fuselage that will also be more aerodynamic, this area is where the exhaust barks. Another source of noise is from the tail and I will see how I tackle that one.

I also had a long discussion with Pieter de Necker on the props and it will be a trade-off between speed and take-off performance.
I'm hearing promising noises from the CAA and hope that I will soon be able to do serious test flying. Enjoy the pics

Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

Oupa moet groot ASB onthou om te duplicate vir no2!! No 2 now also sprouting plenty wires and thingies!!

[Oupa-G]

After a long days work took a 2hrs powernap and then went to the hangar and fitted most of the sound proofing. The weekend promises to be nice and I still have high hopes for a fax or something from CAA. The sound proofing will be finished tomorrow. Thebevel cut that slides and wedges behind the pipes of the frame works well it must just be cut accurately. I'm going to sleep now enjoy the pics.


Cheers Oupa-G

[MYR]

So I'm showing in close-up the 5 compartments that the foam is made from , quite extensively used in the French aviation industry.

What's the name and brand of this foam ?

[Oupa-G]

Myr I will have to look this up in my paperwork I bought it some time ago and will have to trace the paperwork. I'm also not sure I have a friend that maintains a Falcon 2000 and he also supplied me with a sample, when I get the exact detail I will post it on this site. I finished the firewall and will do some tests to-morrow. We have a fly-in and breakfast at our airfield Grootfontein. The weather promises to be OK.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Just came back from a RedX flight to George the weather was funny we expected two ILS's and we ended doing two visual approaches. The vertical taxi yesterday showed that the sound proofing made a big difference I can now live in this cockpit the ANR of the headset is now coping. Awaiting the paperwork with great expectation. I now have to move on, I can not build the aircraft in one year and then wait months for the paperwork. I believe the delay is in the engineering department. One would think this is a Supersonic aircraft they do not realize that this is a little 100mph aircraft built out of pipe and rag and the mysteries were solved 70 years ago, when the first aircraft were only just the same as our present LSA aircraft. There is however much more knowledge about all the materials. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Difficult to believe 57000 hits on this site. I'm still awaiting the news from CAA I believe the queries are from the engineering dept. I wish we had better lines of communication the fact that we are 1600kms away from the CAA offices does not make this problem easier. As soon as I can do proper test flying my results will be flowing on this site for everybody to know. With my taxiing I have sorted the propeller matching. I must be able to do x-country flights for fuel consumption ,stalling etc. there is a whole program to be followed, after all we want a safe aircraft. I'm waiting in anticipation .


Cheers Oupa-G

[Boet]

Oupa, I spake opon MJ this afternoon and het sayetht unto me that the paperwork is neigh. Have faith oh big one.

[Stephan van Tonder]

Could somebody please go light a fire under who's arse is holding this up. I went on holiday for 2 weeks expecting all kinds of flying data when I came back and still 've are vaitingk' for the paperwork. Can't image how tough it must be for oupa-g.. I think I would have camped out at their door already.

[Oupa-G]

It is 1600km to go and camp out Stephan. Not easy to be this patient managed however to fire up the Voyager what a wonderful instrument . I always knew Rainier was very clever but he is very brilliant.






Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Spoke to Monty this evening he is working hard on the paperwork . The CAA is being very thorough on all the technical aspects and are looking at all aspects, this takes time and it has the advantage that if something is not 100% that we can look into any query. I do not mind this at all if the technical engineering dept is doing their work and the outcome of it is safety then it fits in with the whole philosophy that this aeroplane was built with. I was glad to hear that the file was not stuck in the in file box. I will quietly be patient concentrate on the new undercarriage. I have had a full size template made to bend the spring steel. I'm still awaiting the final product but you will see the pictures as soon as I have it.

Waiting in anticipation

Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Yesterday I was finished early and spent the afternoon understanding the Voyager, the more I work with it the more I respect Rainier from MGL for his brilliant thinking. I know him a little and he is an advanced thinker so all I can say we are still going to see a lot more of this space-age thinking. Got stuck in the design program for the screens designed all the engine parameters for the 1200GS with extra temp for the oil cooler etc etc downloaded it on a SD card and went to the aircraft and down loaded it onto the instrument. Everything was checked for function on the laptop at home with a cup of coffee and then loaded the Voyager, start the engine and everything works. We live in wonderful times. To think I soloed in 1965 and we still functioned with green and red lights. A whistle stop tuning radio was the latest in comms. After that King brought out a 90 channel radio without separate crystals, mind blowing if you were used to carrying a little box of crystals along if you did a long cross country. The harnessing of the electronics has been a wonderful experience. The process of paperwork however has not changed actually it has become worse. Every body is scared of litigation. If something goes wrong it is always somebody else that made the mistake (if that person has enough money so that it is worthwhile suing ) , but the electronics remains exciting.


Cheers Oupa-G







k

[Oupa-G]

The weather was pretty miserable was going to fly to Stanford to AP some aircraft. I inspected two Hawks and a Cheetah. It is always nice to see how much care the owners give to their aircraft. The one Hawk had a very nice installation of a 4 cyl Jabiru engine. Vliegvark joined me and we drove the back roads to Stanford. We inspected the aircraft with four eyes and the only recommendation was to replace the fuel lines that had cracks in them. This happens with time . I have seen a lot of cheap Chinese hoses and it is something to be very critical of especially the quality. The danger is that the fuel washes out the plasticizer of the rubber with material failure. The danger is internal wall separation. Boet was here on Saturday to claim his kindly loaned de Necker prop but via the close aviation fraternity we had located another 72X52 prop so that if the paperwork arrives I can continue with the test flying. The day has been long. Good night


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

While the big wait is on I have tuned the Voyager and Vliegvark sat at his computer and designed the curvatures of the new gear. From the taxi trials we know that the gear is nice and springy without being to soft. Once you have the design in your head you also look at every possible gear around and the aircraft with the most beautiful spring gear must be the Yak 55 the Russians are masters at shaping the gear and it is also out of titanium. Titanium is out of bounds for us for us it is EN45. We decided that to get the correct curvatures the spring steel workers must have proper templates to work from. So Vliegvark's drawings were sent to the WaterJet company and out of 10mm aluminium plates the templates were cut. The area where the angles are have plates so that the angles can be changed if necessary. the handles are so that the template can be better handled. So the shape of the gear should be the way we want it and we can repeat the recipe . Enclosed some pics

Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Checked the templates against the under carriage of the Bosvark and all the dimensions are OK. So the next step is of to my friendly spring maker. I'm taking time to do all these refinements. This coming weekend I'm putting a "trekskaal" behind the Bosvark and I will test all the static thrusts of the various propellers.
I will be comparing the three bladed Arplast the de Necker two bladed wooden prop kindly loaned for testing by Paul van As and the variable pitch Woodcomp.

That will be an interesting experiment. I have to do this to pass by the time waiting for the paperwork.

Cheers Oupa-G