This page is about flying, which for humans implies the use of a machine resembling of a kind of framework with imitation wings and control surfaces made of rag and tube, plywood, fibre glass and carbon fibre, spruce and canvas, or all metal, known in the trade as "tin". It is now 4 months past the century since since Wilbur and Orville Wright made the rudder of their 1902 glider adjustable and for the first time ever, a flying machine could be controlled about all three axes of pitch, yaw and roll. "Flyer" which took off a year later was a microlight as are many shown here. Of the tens of thousands of designs seen in the last century, some have been pure dreams, some killed their pilots frequently, some are plain boring and some are the ugliest creations known to man. Most of the ones shown here are home-builts, mainly microlights, some are war birds of special appeal, some are factory built.
A hundred years on, thanks to one Colonel Paul Poberenzy and his Experimental Aircraft Association, we are seeing a surge in light aircraft construction and the standards attained by many a solitary worker in his basement are truly marvelous. We no longer toil to make statuary in marble, but we sure as hell can create with a gas torch, rivetter and spray gun.
For a brief history of the development of the world's first aeroplane click here.
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Zenair Zodiac 601 UL
ZK-ZOT
ZOT is an all metal, pop-rivetted two seater, Rotax 912 engine, 3 bladed laminated prop, designed by Chris Heintz in Ontario Canada. She shows a few signs of the designer's time with "Jodel", in the all flying rudder for example.
Max speed is about 105 knots at 7000ft by GPS. Stall with one up, 30-35 knots, cruise at 5200rpm is 95knots.
ROC, 1000ftpm with one up, but only <500 fpm with two and full tanks. Range with wing tanks, 105 ltrs @ 16 ltr/hr = 6hrs + spare, = about 570 miles.
VNE 140 knots
Flaps none.
Control, very light fore and aft, slow and rather heavy roll, 5 sec to 90 deg, probably due to long ailerons, the inboard sections giving a lot of drag but contributing little to the roll moment. The view with the bubble canopy is outstanding.
Stall is very gentle. Ailerons do not stall due to 3 deg washout so wing can be picked up with aileron at any speed. No buffet, with power on, nose up and 20 knots indicated slowly sinks. Cannot be made to Spin, a slow descending turn is the best to be hoped for. Application of full power while in nose-up stall results in dropping left wing and a diving turn unless held by full right stick.
Glide. Due to low weight and rather high drag from thick wing, with P/O and 60 knots, the 601 descends at 700fpm covering a st. mile per min. Sink rate remains about same down to 40 knots but distance covered is much less.
Takeoff run 310 feet, on landing has a long float in ground effect due to low wings. At least 2000ft including clear approach is needed to put her down.
TURNS Takes about 12 sec to reverse course in max rate turn, about 8sec in stall turn.
Ceiling, about 16000ft.
Stress +- 6 g at max load. Up to +- 9g with min. load.
Very few crashes have been recorded, one instance of canopy coming adrift, one instance of prop breaking after full power dive by a lunatic to an est. 180 knots. The original Rotax has a weakness in the rubber sleeve connecting the carburettor to the manifold. The vibration of the carburettor caused fatigue of the rubber which in some instances cracked. There are no known instances of a carburettor falling off in flight, but there were some near misses. A retro-fit spring to take the weight seems to have fixed the problem.
ZOT on Big Bay beach, South Westland
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No built-in stability due to lack of fixed rudder stabiliser. Can fly for 30 min hands off, if trimmed in calm weather. If put into turn or dive and hands and feet removed it will continue until cows come home or nature or terrain intervene. Hates crossed controls and resents side slips, but can wash off 2000fpm.
Due to the liquid cooling of the Rotax the 601 can make fast descents in a tight spiral at 110 knots or less, at 3000fpm. Due to low weight and momentum a steep dive at <VA speed results in a descent of >2000fpm. On flaring at 10 feet above threshold the speed degrades rapidly and a normal landing can be made half way along a 5000ft strip. A heavy slippery aeroplane such as the Slingsby would still be exceeding 100knots when passing over the far fence!
Easy construction for persons of modest skills. Heintz does not advise aeros due to Al rivets and possible fatigue if used for aerobatic instruction. He also does not advise tail slides. Deep wing gives strength for very low eight, also high lift.
Owner: B. Gunn. Home port: Young's Strip, Hawea
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Zenair Zodiac 601 Ul
Owner: Peter Herrick. Home port, Pike's Point.
As above but fitted with Airmaster constant speed electric variable pitch prop and manifold pressure gauge. Improved takeoff and cruise is claimed. We hope for some precise details
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Zenair Zodiac 701
ZK-LOK
From the same stable as the 601, the 701 NZ-LOK is a cheap microlight VSTOL machine and also 912 powered.
Owner: Niol Lockington, retired Air NZ pilot and instructor. Homeport, Pike's Point.
With fixed slots in the leading edges, the 701 can get off the ground in about 30 yards, especially in a light breeze. The approach with full flap is steep and the flare critical. Niol was bothered at first by the wash from the wings blanketing the elevators with power off on steep approaches and reset the elevators.
The 701 has been used on ski, floats and with its big safari tyres, on desert sands.
Its best friends might not call the 701 "beautiful" but it is a cheap efficient STOL machine. About 800 have been built and is widely used in Africa (game patrols) and India.
For details on flying the 701 written, I may say, by a VERY experienced pilot, click here.
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The Skyfox Maverick tail dragger
The Skyfox Maverick is another "Kitfox" lookalike, not greatly different to the parental "Avid Flyer".
A highwing two-seater rag and tube machine, the Skyfox was built for some years at Caloundra, near Brisbane.
In spite of the Rotax 912, it is rather slow with a cruise of never more than 75 knots. Flaperons are carried, ie, full length ailerons which can be used as flaps. However the high drag can induce some wild swerves on landing so are usually not used. Light on controls and very simple to fly in the air. Moderate left swing on take off, very difficult to control on landing and corrective kicks on the pedals must be very swift to prevent groundloops. So many ended in the mulga with broken propellors that the Insurance Co's finally refused to insure them, and they were discontinued in favour of the Gazelle tri-gear. The Skyfox has good rough field or beach-landing ability, a dirty spark plug always being carried in case anyone questioned our right to be on some immaculate beaches. The top-hung doors can be pushed open on hot days when waiting behind the threshold for some Ardmore Flying School graduate on long, long final, or even pushed open in flight.
Notice the registration number? We came into land at, I think, Toowoomba and anounced "Toowoomba Traffic, 747 on final" and caused a minor panic on the ground!.
The picture above was taken at Watt's Bridge (100 miles NW of Brisbane,) a large grass wartime bomber airfield now used mainly for microlights.
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The Skyfox Gazelle
The "Gazelle" tri-gear is the most girlie aeroplane ever built. One does no much fly it as baby-sit. An instructor at Caloundra was teaching his 14-year-old daughter to fly one. We once made a single pass down the runway at Maroochydore and achieved four takeoffs and landings. It is very docile on the ground as well, but suffers the same problem of slow speed with the 80hp Rotax 912, which in a large country like OZ would drive the most patient saint to strong drink. As a Cessna 152 feels like a dive bomber by comparison one wonders whether one has really learned to fly.
The amusing point was that as it is 30 lb heavier than the tail dragger version, it cannot be flown solo on an UL licence.
The Taylorcraft Auster
The rag and tube Auster has its coterie of fanatical admirers, and it could not be left out of any page on aeroplanes. Built in Britain in the war from the plans of the American Taylorcraft Cub, and given the 130 HP Gypsy Major engine, it was widely used as an artillery spotter and recco machine, being able to land on any patch of dirt behind the trenches. It differs from the American Piper Cub in having side by side seating. After the war it was for many years the backbone of the deer recovery business, and after the Tigermoths faded out, for topdressing, air dropping etc. Harry Wigley used to land on Canterbury river beds for a spot of fishing. It is quietly happy on wheels, skis or floats, having a cartridge start for float operations.
An Auster written off? (Tasman Glacier, 1956) Not a bit, she was flying again within a week. A new rudder and vertical stabiliser was flown in, the sadly bent metal prop was hammered straight by eng Fl.Sgt Wally Tarr, the ski-wheels replaced by straight skis, et voila! She was landed at the Htge on a small snow patch and some grass wet by a hose. In the foreground with radio, Lt Peter Mulgrew (killed in the Erebus crash) who went of the Pole trip with Sir E. H., on right geologist Guyon Warren. The shoes belong to the pilot, Sq.Ldr.John Claydon, who is looking for our mail, somewhat scattered in the crash. More cynical pilots have likened the Auster to a pre-war half-ton truck without power brakes or steering.
In polar regions an Auster is draughty and bloody cold, without enough head room for anyone over six feet. It has been looped (his secret is safe with me) but the Auster is not exactly aerobatic.
When first built it was found to have inadequate ailerons but it was needed in a hurry and modification was left to be corrected in later versions, the old story!!. Consequently in a climbing turn left she tends to go on rolling to port and one comes out with the stick hard in the north-east corner of the office. In spite of the 130 hp, an Auster cruises at only about 85-90 knots depending on how many tents, skis etc are tied on outside.
The Auster can take a fearful pounding and some structural members are fastened by several layers of tape for quick repair. The Gypsy Majors are reliable if heavy on gas but Armstrong starting them is not for those faint of heart or soft of muscle. An Auster makes modern aircraft seem a little infantile.
Like the Tiger Moth, the Austers will always be with us.
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The Antarctic Airforce
On the Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE) in 1955-58 we had several planes which carried in all the fuel for sno-cats and tractors, plus the dog and man-food for the survey parties. Here we see on right the Canadian de Havilland Otter which was the first plane to cross the Antarctic continent non-stop, flown by Gordon Haslop and John Lewis. Then our DH Beaver which laid all the fuel depots from the Ross Sea to the Pole flown by John Claydon and Bill Cranfield, and on left our famous Auster in which,later, in 1959, Lt Bill Cranfield (known as "Willum" to his friends) rescued the two pilots of the same Beaver (who were new to the Antarctic) when they crashed it in cloud down near the Beardmore Glacier. The Auster was later pranged by some Air Force idiot near Kaipara Harbour.
A replica Auster may be seen in the Wigram Museum, and a replica Beaver is flown by a "Warbirds" group at Ardmore. A second replica Beaver is also to be seen at Wigram Museum.
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Piper Cub
Originally built in USA in 1930 as the Taylor Cub, it was designed by a British engineer, with a Continental engine variously given as 37 and 40HP. In the war it became the PA-18 Super Cub and had many variants with engines from 90 - 180 HP. The Cub more or less replaced the Jenny as the only affordable aircraft for many, thousand were built and thousands learnt to fly in one.
I only flew one once and was not overly impressed in spite of its glamourous reputation. It happened to be a windy day, it weather-cocked like a windmill, and one has the choice of kicking the rudder or using the heel brakes, it does not seem possible to do both. It kind of lumbers into the sky and once there does not have the crisp response of the "Tiger". It feels slow and heavy in roll and does not so much land as arrive. Afficionados will probably not agree.
Note the slot at the leading edge of the trimmable tailplane.
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Tiger Moth DH-82
The "Tiger" is the greatest training aircraft ever built. It trained tens of thousands of pilots to fly in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Canadian version was given an enclosed cockpit and brakes! Even the Belgians used a look-a-like. It was out of date in 1939 and flying a Tiger was not much background for a Spit or a Lancaster or Corsair. Yet she was rugged and one could practice circuits and bumps ad nauseaum, she could be spun, looped and do every aero known to science and not many mod aircraft can do THAT. Inverted flight is kind of limited due to gravity feed in fuel tank. It was considered rather not done to let the noise maker go out in a loop. True, no starter motor, but put the nose down and she kicks over again, one of the advantages of a low compression engine. For a tail dragger, there is not much tendency to groundloop.
Always uncomfortably draughty, impossible to sneak a look at a chart in, numbingly cold in winter, we nevertheless regarded the Tigers with great affection. Perfectly balanced, the Voice-down-the-tube repetitively said "Fly with one finger on the stick, you ham-handed dolt!". Like a motorcycle, Tigers are at their best on a warm spring day at low level. At 12000ft ones ass freezes. The high nose means one is supposed to yaw from side to side when taxying. Try doing that with ice or snow on the ground, especially on a glassy, iced up apron.! The view ahead is never good and one flies with a (cold) nose out one side trying to get a look at what might be approaching head-on. Flying boots, overalls, and sheepskin coats are all mandatory on a warm day as is the six feet of silk scarf
Very responsive in all three axes, she is simple on takeoff but difficult to land for those lacking the delicate touch without porpoising down the strip. Were it not for this, one could go solo in a Tiger after an hour or so (and some did). Not only did pupils take off on their second training flight, but aeros and spin recovery were taught after about five hours, The undercart was indestructible. One could fly hands off, turning by putting a hand into the slipstream, climbing and descending by leaning forward or back! I wish ZOT would do that.
WAE parked outside of the Waitemata Aeroclub Building, Ardmore.
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The Slingsby Firefly
It must be confessed that the Piper Tomahawk, still NZ's most common trainer, is the most boring machine to fly ever made. Notice how few are privately owned.
One of the few trainers which are not one big yawn is the Slingsby. With the Lycoming 130hp it does not have sparkling peformance, but is well balanced, finger-tip control, stick comfortable between knees and fully aerobatic. Climb rate is slow and one would love 150 or 180 hp up front, but as Waitemata instructors not infrequently said, "Yes but would you like to pay for it "? Lycomings, one and all, are gas guzzlers.
The Slingsby has flaps, not dive brakes, and one must pick them up gingerly on take-off to avoid a tell-tale lurch. Because of lack of power when doing aeros, time is lost building up entry speed. The bubble canopy gives an excellent view, and being comfortable to sit in, and responsive in flight, one can enjoy oneself.
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Side slipping has to be done with care as she is a slippery machine and behaves like a dinner plate in water, however with a wing down not more than 20 deg and very firmly held there, she bleeds off a good 2000ft per min. It is probably not a GOOD THING to side slip when less than 50ft up. Because of weight and slippery skin, the speed build up is impressive when over the top of a loop, power must be pulled off VERY quickly or everything is red-lined in about 3 sec.
Stalls. A major design deficiency is the lack of washout on either wing or aileron. Consequently when a wing stalls, it STALLs. She flicks over upsidedown in a flash and is off toward mother-earth at a rapid rate. Recovery from the spin is standard but stalls at low altitude have killed many, especially in the US airforce where she is used as an ab initio trainer. Why, oh why, Slingsby have not put 3 deg of washout into the ailerons I do not know! The Slingsby is also the main initial trainer in the RAF, the RAN and the RCAF.
The Slingsby Firefly is in fact used for training in 12 countries with engines up to 260 HP, the ones with over 160 HP having both constant-speed props and inverted flying fuel and oil systems. In the USAF it is designated the T3-A.
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The Tecnam Golf 100
The Tecnams are factory built, but are one of the new breed of microlight with the 100 hp Rotax unsupercharged engine.
The Golf is a very modern, mainly metal two seat microlight with side by side seating. At long last we have a two seat general-purpose light aircraft which out-performs (in most aspects) the Gypsy Major-powered Miles Whitney Straights, Magisters and the Gulls, of the 1930's.
The new 100hp Rotax gives it that little bit of extra oomph needed, and the Golf climbs at over 1000fpm with full load. There is nothing like ROC to get you out of trouble, one cannot imagine the Golf clipping those trees at the end of the runway, being outclimbed by terrain, failing to get airborne on a go round etc. Having said that, the Miles Whitney Straights at a claimed cruise of 130mph were still faster.
Less speedy than the French "Banbi" with same engine, the Italian-designed Golf is more comfortable, practical and there is no feeling of "Trickiness". The cockpit space, sliding seats, ample leg room and large storage space put many a GA aircraft to shame.
The flaps are large and top hinged, but all the same are remarkably effective. They are electrical with an easily-seen dial mounted mid-panel, there is no having to lower flap by feel as on the C172. The flaps, which give a remarkable amount of lift on landing do takes some getting used to though the Golf, while not as light a bit of thistle down as the "Gazelle", is a doddle to fly. Having only flown one twice, the comments here might be taken not overly seriously, but these are impressions.
The tail plane is all-flying with control by the trim tabs which seems quite effective.
On takeoff the extra grunt up the front makes itself felt with strong torque left, and leaving the nose-wheel down until the rudder starts to bite is a must. With 15deg flap she floats off at about 40 knots and climbs at 70. The stick is rather long and rather far forward for a long legged person, not as well designed as is the Slingsby in this aspect which has fixed seats and adjustable pedals. The throttle is firewall mounted, again not as well suited as are side fuselage positions.
However, these are minor points. The stick has over-many buttons, radio, trim etc so one cannot rest a gloved hand on it, rather two fingers six inches down are used. Brakes are not toe type but like the Percival Proctor has a central six inch lever centre floor-mounted lever which needs a little practice before one is confident when taxying.
With 20 deg of flap, liftoff run is well under 300ft, climbing speed is attained in seconds. The Golf turns like a lady with no tendency to over turn or over roll.
Again, compared to the Proctor which in some respects it resembles, the Golf is less steady in turbulence because of much lower weight, but is quite stable for all that, and there is no tendency to wander or drop a wing.
On final with full flap, and a stall speed of 35 knots, she coasts in easily. With only 20deg flap she floats on forever and will simply not come down at the rather high idle speed. In a wind one could touch down and select flaps "Up" but while passing through 15-20 deg, she might lift off again.
Visibility is good but rather spoiled by thick supports between canopy and windshield. Overall looks are good, somewhat detracted by the knuckle in the front gear leg which gives good springing nevertheless.
Stall. The stall is quite gentle with minimal judder. There is no washout on ailerons and attemptin to pick up a wing with an aileron can result in a roll, but not a vicious one. Recovery can be by addition of power or by dropping the nose. Adding power does not seem to result in a flick roll as, I am told, the P-40 was prone to, as is the Slingsby. There is no sudden stall onset as was seen in the Proctor on a too slow landing which killed many RAF officer who used the Proctor as a taxi-between-aerodromes machine, so design HAS improved.
At high speed max-rate turns a flutter develops at the wing root, which May be the indication of a stall beginning.
One can predict this will be a popular aircraft in spite of the rather high price. It would be an ideal trainer if CAA ever allowing training for the PPL in an advanced microlight. At present only half the hours flown are counted. "This is not a real aeroplane!"
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The Pelican
Jon Farmer is a retired Master Mariner who took up aircraft construction and has to date built five I believe and is beginning a Tiger Moth replica. His own fly-about is the Rotax 912-powered Pelican which at first sight resembles the Kitfox type but is quite different in construction at least. The kitset comes with a light fibreglas body shell in two halves which are glassed together and graphic stories are related re getting the tail end glassed from the inside. Crossbeams are glassed in to take the flat leaf landing gear.
For someone of my size, the Pelican is a little cramped, but at least two have flown the Atlantic, a Frenchman and his girlfriend attended Oshkosh via Iceland and Greenland.
In the air the Pelican is light on controls, rather like the "Gazelle" and cruises at about 85 knots but speed is considerably improved when fitted (as above) with the electrically variable pitch Ivoprop..
Jon has described the construction and painting in back issues of "Sport Flying". We hope he will provide details of the performance. Last year he pranged one on the hills near Manukau Heads when a poorly machined fuel filter clogged.
Aviation
