ML's at EAA

[afskies scribe]

a Viper, I think it was ( Agent told me it was from way before my time)

Thunderboy, it's a vampire - as in whooosh, swooop, screeech, blood-curdling VAM-PIRE

[Duck Rogers]

.. it's a vampire - as in whooosh, swooop, screeech, blood-curdling VAM-PIRE

And how would you know about the sound effects
....nevermind, I don't wanna know anymore...

Duck Rogers

[Sleeper]

OddBall awesome flying saturday, could you explain a bit more how the smoke works, maybee show some pics of the machine that does it??

I was also wondering about the smoke. Thinking about a wing made of fabric and something burning, mixed together, doesn't sound too good to me!

[Duck Rogers]

.....and something burning, miced together, doesn't sound too good to me!

Ain't gonna smell to good either if you mix the mice together...and burn them

Duck Rogers

[Thunderboy]

Thunderboy, it's a vampire - as in whooosh, swooop, screeech, blood-curdling VAM-PIRE

I knew it was something with a V

Well Im old enought to remember Tony Hart's Morph and Bennie Boek Wurm which puts me early 30's so where do you reckon that puts Agent

[RudiGreyling]

a Viper, I think it was ( Agent told me it was from way before my time)

Yip a Vampire and van you believe they used a lot of WOOD on that puppy!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire

Originally named the Spidercrab, the aircraft was entirely a de Havilland project, and it utilised the company's extensive experience with using moulded plywood for aircraft construction (see Mosquito). It was the last time composite wood/metal construction was used in high performance military aircraft.

Regards
Rudi

[Sleeper]

I saw that Pretoria News has 2 pictures from the airshow, and one of them is the MICROLIGHTS! Who said that the media ignores us except for accidents?

[Oddball]

I'll post a fuler description on the smoke later but here is a basic rundown on what I did.

I turned up 'plugs' that fitted into the leading edge tubes and welded a flat plate to these so that the smoke tubes could be attached here. The original smoke tubes were simple aluminium pipe that had lugs welded to them to attach to the wingtip plugs.

I cast the smoke mixture (sugar and saltpetre) into round cardboard moulds (bog roll inners!) and these fitted into the smoke tubes. I also cast a homemade electrical fuse into the mixture. When ignited this mixture does indeed produce quite a large and hot purple flame, so I had extensions of about 10cm from the wingtip to the tubes. My wing is also shaped such that the wing is angled inwards from the leading edge to the the trailing edge at the tips. This meant that the flame end of the tubes was around 20 cm from the fabric.

I performed several tests before the actual run; one with just the tubes in place to see how they affected the wing behaviour (you can feel them, but not much). Then I ignited one smoke mixture on the ground with a trike blowing air over the wingtip using propwash. The engine was running at +-3500rpm so there was not too much flow over the wing. We watched how the flame behaved and it did not come anywhere near the fabric. This gave me confidence to try an airborne ignition since the airflow over the wing would be far greater. This was of course the final test. I didn't know whether to fly high or low and settled on low (100' and near to the runway). This way I hoped that if the wing did catch fire I would be able to put it down quickly before the wing became uncontrollable; I actually lined up on finals, sped up and then ignited - hoping that I would simply fly it straight down onto the runway if somethng went wrong.

As it turned out, these smoke generators did not produce sufficiently dense smoke and I turned to a company called Safe Case where one of the company owners had manfactured smoke generators that produce very dense smoke whilst remaining surprisingly cool. In fact, the smoke mixture is housed in a 50mm PVC tube and you cn hold it in your hand as it burns. Unfortunately it is also very expensive... ...but also impressive, as you saw.

I want to try and improve my mixture and see if I can get the same effect now.

That's about all- I hope to write an article on the whole thing, smoke, show and all so I will put more detail there.

Oddball

[afskies scribe]

Oddball, the smoke displays and leapfrog landings were AWESOME

[Oddball]

It was also mentioned by Karl Jensen that the nosecone of the Vampire is made of balsa wood....

Glad to hear that the newspapers took notice of us in a good way!

Thanks very much for the compliments Trixie!

By the way Rudi, thanks for the crit; I am not sure if you got to see the Sunday show- we improved a few things; Rob McFie took over the commentry which made a big difference, we tightened up the show so that there was less time between the sequences (we do need to get altitude for the spiral, but perhaps not as much in the future...) and as for the 3rd guy in the spiral; well, we'll be putting a lot more practice in.... one must also bear in mind, however, that on Saturday the conditions were not great; the slot was at 14h30 = thermic; some wind (not much, but around 8-10 knots and gusting). We were bounced about a lot and in the spiral I recall the bar running about all over the place, the aircraft dropping suddenly, then slowing, bounce here, bounce there.... .... which is also why Steve, the 2nd pilot, had a difficult and bouncy landing.

Nonetheless, thanks for the feedback and we'll work on improvements; we now have more ideas for new sequences that should also look very good.

Oddball

[Smiley]

Hello there guys,

Thanks very much for the compliments! The pilots were David Levy, Steve Yap and I. We practiced a lot for the show and went through a few iterations around what to actually do. I put a lot of time in to getting the smoke working, first using my own recipe, which didn't produce enough smoke, and then with a commercial mix.

None other than Scully Levin came to us to tell us how much he enjoyed the show and how impressed he was with the landings. Several other of the top airshow pilots (Larry Beamish, Mark Billing and others) said similar things. After we landed on Saturday even the ATC lady congratulated us (the Mazda Zlins before us got no such accolade!).

Even though we handed a two page description to Brian the commentry was very poor, well non esistant actually (although there were apparantly TV cameras filming who wanted him to keep quiet...). On Sunday we had Rob McFie to do the commentry (he did a great job I am told) and they also patched me to the PA from the cockpit- the show was apparantly even better!

EAA treated us like royalty and really looked after us. It was a pity that not more pilots camped over- they gave us a golf cart for the evening, braai packs and generally looked after us very very well. I will be publishing thanks to them later as well.

Thanks to all of you who came along, flying or not. Thanks to those who flew in as well; good to see the line of trikes standing there!

Oddball

PS The Mustang is Rob McFie's; it has had a new paint job and name.

Hello Oddball

Myself and a couple of other pilots not on this forum watched your display. The landing sequence really stood out for me . It was something new and refreshing. After your Saturday display our group and the public that surrounded us clapped our hands and I was very proud to be a ML pilot

Thanks!!!

[RudiGreyling]

<SNIP>
By the way Rudi, thanks for the crit; I am not sure if you got to see the Sunday show- we improved a few things; <SNIP>

Oddball

<SNIP>
After your Saturday display our group and the public that surrounded us clapped our hands and I was very proud to be a ML pilot Cheers <SNIP>
Smiley

Hi Oddball,
Sorry I did not see Sunday, I was very impressed on what you did manage to achieve, I stood with Smiley and gave you clap of hands and thumbs up. The Public next to us joined in. Well Done...Can't wait for the next version. You made me proud to be a MPL!

Regards
Rudi

[DieselFan]

Well done Oddball, my friends and I thoroughly enjoyed your show. I particularly enjoyed the smoke and the paper cut. I had a great view of your approach and will post some pics tomorrow.

Pity I missed your Sunday show as the commentator on Saturday didn't say much...

I look forward to seeing you guys perform again and it was great to show my non-pilot friends how cool trikes are!

Thanks for all the effort!!!

[Smiley]

I particularly enjoyed the smoke and the paper cut.

Thanks for all the effort!!!

Oooops, forgot about the paper cut, that was excellent, I also want to try that sometime.

Oddball, did you guys use a certain length of toilette paper with a weight at the bottom or something...????

[Cloud Warrior]

Can somebody maybe scan in the newspaper article and post it on the forum so that us poor sods what couldn't be there can see too?