CutieDarkFae

39 minutes ago, Voidhawk9 said:

But don't expect to ever have one in your hangar!

Doesn't that just mean I need a bigger hanger?

I do but unless you're in OZ I doubt I'm the closest person with a set.

I read some of our search/rescue agency's reports, and they're normally finding people in 1 day, though some idiot didn't have a PLB on him but was in mobile phone coverage (so lucky there) so it only took 2 days.  So at this point, enough supplies for 1 day seem fine, and 2 should be plenty

 

I'm not sure when they'll start looking here, but I have a registered PLB and I know they'll start looking about 14 minutes after that goes off.

 

Now to get back to CAD'ing, and get time on a 3D printer

TMann, motorcycle camping definitely, I don't get why people need to carry a full kitchen/bed/shower/tv/whatever with them when they're camping.  On a good day I fit everything into or on a backpack

 

As to the survival gear: CASA legislates that I need to carry survival gear if I go into certain areas, which cover about 2/3 of Australia, and include a lot of the places I'd like to visit.

 

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2009C00093 Specifically part 7 and Appendix III.  Unfortunately, as far as I can find, they don't legislate what and how much.

 

Marc, I did that and came up with some lovely numbers, if it's just me and full fuel, I should have 131kg spare  Wai! (japanese happy sound)

 

Does anybody know what happened to some of the projects which were started round updating the Long-EZ?  I know people were working on updated plans, some guy was building wings, another was building bodies.  Did they get anywhere?

How much baggage capacity does the Long-EZ have?  I've seen baggage pods, but with 2 people, a tent, other camping gear, food/water for 7 days, an ELT (the food/water is because most of Australia is inhospitable desert and if you crash you'll need it) I figure it won't be enough.

 

Am I being unrealistic with 7 days of water, especially with modern rescue services?  Possibly.  Do I want to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere without it?  Never!

Thanks everybody

 

I'm not going to let this discourage me, the mockup is still sitting out on the balcony, awaiting a 2nd go, and Andrew's comments about how I could use the longerons on a real Long-EZ are helping

 

There was a Long-EZ parked on the grass at Moruya airport when I went for my TIF, next time I'm down there I'll see if I can find out who owns it and try it out.

 

The teen goes to the dentist in a couple of weeks, maybe I should try the chair out just to see

 

I agree that proper upholstery, not just a small cushion and plywood would help a LOT with me be comfortable relaxing in the chair.

 

I'm definitely glad I built the mock-up, I get to find all this stuff out now

Well, I built a mockup fuselage today, based off John's 3" width stretch CAD files from ez.org, and I can't say I'm a fan of getting in and out  I may be able to get used to it, but it is making me think of Plan B.

 

The fuselage is plenty wide though, and it's comfy when I get in, but reclining at 45 degrees isn't, and would put a lot of stress on my neck  I'm also not a fan of headrests, they never feel right.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22013977@N06/albums/72157675277656811

It's good to hear that you're making progress Kent  And yes, this website is pretty much yours now

 

The cowling looks nice and I hope your hot testing goes well.

I'm so interested in this, why must you tempt me to go to Oshkosh TMann?  It's a LONG way from here.

Hi Tori,

 

I'm in the same area and I saw a couple canards at the airport once, no idea about them though.

Good luck with your search

Welcome Nothing built yet but a few bulkheads in CAD, gotta lay them out and spline myself up a fuselage next

I certainly wish I had, but I was too busy trekking the world and enjoying it.

Photo's, used my nice DSLR to take photo's of the drawings

The CAD program is Fusion360 Ultimate.

 

I got JG's drawings, obviously I haven't studied them enough as I didn't see the 1/10 scale.  So now I just need to retake the photo's with a ruler in there as well and it should be so much easier than counting all those tiny little boxes.

 

Drawing this up in CAD is part of the 'research required'

 

I got the tiny 3 view from the internet a while back, and yes, that's why I got JG's package, much better to make things from  The source was the Berkut site from the WayBack machine.

With the berkut io360, what's the length from nose tip to firewall?

 

I've got a CAD program, I've got shots of the 3 view on my computer, I just need to scale them now

Unlimited could be used as an attack, keeping all those changes forever eats up memory space.

For CAD I'm seriously thinking of Autodesk's Fusion360 software, it looks nice, and at $300/year is rather cheap (if your sub dies you don't lose access to your models, you just can't change them any more) and with the free upgrade if bought before 15-Nov it looks VERY nice, as it also includes CAM software and is getting pretty good reviews.

Yay! Glad to hear you're still in business, another company still building canards is a good sign

Care to attempt to convince me to buy one of yours instead of attempting to build my own Berkut from scratch perhaps?

Thanks for all your replies, I'll try to address everything covered, forgive me if I miss something please.

 

HUD: Yes, a HUD is a nice to have, and probably of limited additional usefulness, but I just really like the idea of having everything I need to know right in my field of view when I need it. Unfortunately there's too many problems with that sentence, like how does a computer know what I need to know and when I need to know it? But as was mentioned, Avionics is one of the last things I need to worry about, it was just one of the easier things to mention as I had an example available. I do hope that that company continues, AR glasses will only get better as time continues, as will portable computing. Moore's "Law" isn't dead yet

 

HOTAS: Those sticks would probably do. One of the problems I face with the Warthog ones is working what to assign to all those controls. If I can utilise them all then fine, if not then I'm better off without it as I don't need unused controls cluttering my stick. Everything right now is just options. When I have a better idea of exactly what I'm putting into my plane then I can start making these decisions.

 

FBW weight: Yes, weight will be an issue. If I were to go with mechanical linkages and make them all out of lovely Titanium the entire setup would weight, what, 2kg? If that? Right now that buys me 2 whole linear actuators *sigh* And I'm looking at needing 4 per wing currently. With the tech I can find currently, I fail to see how this could possibly be lighter, or cheaper than mechanical linkages. But I can't do 1/2 of what I'm dreaming with mechanical linkages so I'm going to have to live with the weight/complexity penalty, and minimise/manage the risks as best as I can.

 

Redundancy: Does anybody have redundant mechanical linkages? I'll have dual redundant power busses, dual redundant data busses. I'll only have a single linear actuator per control, but I'll have dual redundant sensors/controls for those, and my EFIS is planned to be FailSafe/FailSafe/FailOperation. In case of mains power failure (aka engine death) I want enough onboard power stored for full control and my EFIS for my max glide time from altitude. And in case of both mains power failure and onboard stored power failure the gear will drop and lock into place and Ram Air Turbines will drop out also which will give me more than enough power for control, but probably not the EFIS. This is when something like Xavion on an iPad comes into use

 

Capacitors instead of Batteries: Skier, why are you worried here? Supercaps are great Obviously some testing will be required to confirm that they are the correct choice and I may end up falling back to LiPo's, we'll see.

 

Oh, Skier: She

 

Avi and building this: Yes, getting the fuselage shape will be, interesting. No plans, and no kits any more It makes me wonder what it would cost to get a current Berkut laser scanned. The good news is that the costs for that are dropping all the time

 

Oh, what happened to the effort some years back to get the Berkut CAD'ified? The site hosting the links has died and nothing's been posted since the site was rezzed. There's a 1/3 scale CAD of the Berkut going for a couple hundred dollars, (here) but I'd need to know the accuracy before purchasing it. Also the license specifies I can't start churning out a kit which could be a nice option if this all works out nicely. And the liability lawyers don't eat me first.

 

OK, 3 step plan

1: Buy a house, with a 2 car garage minimum! Ideally without a central support pillar.

2: Pay off the house like crazy for a couple of years and use what little I have left over to practice my carbon techniques building funky cosplay outfits And possibly LARP armour. Ideally in this time I get things like infusion casting and mould making down. And practice my mechatronic skills

3: Now I have a house, some carbon skills (and ideally CAD skills) and the house paid off a bit, lessen the repayments and start building a plane

 

Obviously each step has a multitude of sub-steps but it's a general plan that I'm sticking to pretty well

 

I'm trying to find a nice CAD course locally, I may have to just live with online tutorials.

 

Wishes: I wish that Boron Nitride nano fibres would become easily available and cheap! Oh to build a plane out of those 90% the strength of carbon fibre, tough and abrasion resistant, and electrically insulating

Success! I'm not offended and I'm not shooed away either

 

OK, dream list item 1: HUD, see here. This certainly looks like the best and easiest HUD I can think of, what do others think?

 

(I'll cross post this to HBA later tonight)

Oh, a distinct lack of experience indeed. It's one of the reasons why I'm not even attempting to design my own plane here. That would be asking just a bit too much, and as I said I value being alive

 

Fly-by-wire mock up is being planned currently, I should be buying parts in about a month. Just got to decide on which linear actuator I use. Then work out how to put a quadrature rotary encoder on it.

 

I understand that this appears to be pie-in-the-sky stuff, and it will continue to be so until I start posting serious progress with pictures and videos. I need to post proof that I can do this before I expect people to believe me.

Cutie, have you ever built anything? If so, what?

I've never built anything like this. Software I can do, but the carbon etc will require practice and experimentation. I'm not going to just jump into doing this, I like being alive I have a plan. Plane is step 3 of said plan. Step 2 is getting experience in carbon manufacture and engineering and is expected to last for about 2 years. I'm about a year away from achieving step 1. So I have about 3 years to work out how much of this dream is feasible, achievable, and practical. Still, if I don't dream big, I'll never get anywhere. It's one reason why I'm here asking questions after all

"Berk-EZ" is the codeword... search the Internet for that to find others that have done the same.

Thanks, I'll do that. I knew I wouldn't be the first person to think of this

 

The only hydraulics are the brakes, which I don't see replacing at all. Control surfaces are mechanical, which have the wonderful benefit of never running out of batteries :-)

Electric brakes are no good? I'll have to look into that. I'm pretty sure the Boeing 787 has electric brakes, I wonder what I can leach from that.

 

As an aside I shan't be using batteries, I intend to use supercapacitors instead. Almost the energy density of a good LiPo but you can drain them stupidly fast and all the way to 0 and they don't complain

 

Also should mains power die, the gear will automatically drop due to gravity and Ram Air Turbines will pop out also. Worst case is the EFIS dying and my Fly-by-Wire is gone, but in that case I can direct control the servos from the stick.

 

Actually, no, worst case is full failure of my power bus, nothing powers the servos. Is a dual fully redundant power bus enough?

 

Electric systems can be easier to wire these days, and you can definitely get your EFIS to talk with you avionics. http://verticalpower.com/products/

My data bus will make it even easier If I can't do full proper ARINC 664.7 I'll just fake it, the concepts aren't that hard.

 

Consider that the only thing you would gain here would be more complexity.

To a point, complexity I can live with. It will be distinct, discrete pockets of complexity. Each individual system will do one thing, and do it well. Coordinating all those systems is where the fun begins. Nothing that can't be conquered though

 

Good luck! Maybe in 10 years some product might happen. Maybe you'll design, build, and offer it!

If my crazy plans work out, yes

 

HOTAS, like these somewhere down the bottom of this "web page": http://www.infinityaerospace.com/infgrip.htm

 

Or this one? http://tostenmanufacturing.com/product/military-style-grip-ms/

No, more like this one. The trick will be getting someone to sell me a force feedback inceptor. There are people who make them, maybe sending them something on company letterhead would help, they don't seem to target individuals.

 

You didn't mention 'auto pilot', which is quite common.

Ooops, forgot that one, but it's an inherent part of my Fly-by-Wire hopes and the EFIS.

 

Always, but if you fly solo you'll have the whole back seat as your "overhead compartment". Beyond that, maybe you want to build a Cozy-Berkut? Think about the flying that you will actually be doing 80+% of the time...

What I see myself doing in this plane is myself and someone else hooning through the sky together, on our way to somewhere. A Cozy-Berkut sounds, wrong? Fat != Fast (or at least I can go faster if I'm not that wide)

 

What do you consider better, pushing a button? I personally wouldn't want that for the same complexity reason mentioned above (you would desire a manual override anyway). Having dual tanks provides redundancy and safety features. For example, if your single tank sprung a leak in flight, your first wish would be for a manual control to switch to the other fuel tank (that you didn't have), but instead you're left with planning your emergency landing.

OK, thanks. Dual tanks I get. Manual fuel shut offs I get. It was just manually choosing which tank to feed from that I didn't get. We have computers now. Surely the EFIS can detect a fuel leak (it knows how fast we're burning fuel, how fast we're pumping fuel out, or in, and it can monitor tank levels, it can detect that) and automatically initiate pumping all available fuel into the other tank then sealing the tank. And adjusting the flight controls to compensate for the weight shift.

 

Maybe you want to catch the brewing electric flight wave? If so, then think of building smaller and lighter, forgetting about a 2nd passenger and more storage space.

Electric flight is a nice idea, but batteries are way too large and heavy right now. It's definitely a space worth watching but for the long cross country trips I want (OZ is a big place!) Kero is a much better choice. The good news is that I won't have to run on fossil kero for long, we're getting good at brewing that stuff now

I have the LongEZ plans so that's where I can start.  I plan to reverse engineer what was done to turn a LongEZ into a Berkut, and incorporate as much of that as I can.  Additionally I want to bring the plane up to modern spec, fully electric (no hydraulics if I can avoid it), a nice data bus, as close to fly-by-wire as I can get, HUD, HOTAS, and so on.  A bit more storage space would be nice also.

 

Is there a centralised location for what the inconsistencies and errors in the drawings are?

 

Yes Jon, they are so pretty

 

Another question:  Why are we still manually switching fuel flow from between left and right fuel tanks?  Can't we do better now?

Yes, the package arrived this morning, I still have to unpack it and see what goodness it contains

 

Hopefully someone else here has an idea about the videos, or a copy that I could buy off them perhaps.