Sierra Del Barón Rojo

Saturday and Sunday saw foul weather so I couldn't make the return trip to Jindabyne.




I have been annoyed sometime by my PDA mounting bracket which is a commercial unit that I cable-tied to the control column. It was always getting in the way of my map board and I had to place the map board between the seats when I want to manouvre because the PDA power-lead would catch on the board. Something had to be done, and it was the last straw when I wiped out the PDA bracket when exiting the plane.

So Saturday afternoon I made a paper template and took it home that night and thought about various mounting arrangements. I wanted a mount that sat higher on the control column and didn't foul with anything in the cockpit whilst presenting the PDA in my face so to speak and without obscuring the instruments.

That afternoon I hunted around my garage and found some suitable building material, a small plastic chopping board that we used to take camping. I used the paper template and my bench saw and cut out the following: a base plate with a split to accept the control-column, and suitably sloping plastic sections to hold the PDA bracket at an angle while the control-column mounting plate fitted vertically to the back of the control wheel. Yes everything but the PDA bracket are to the back of the control-wheel where it can't catch anything.

The plastic strips were glued with 5 minute araldite and screwed with self-taping screws after drilling a suitable clearance hole through both peices. The sloping strips were also glued and screwed to the commercial PDA bracket so nothing would go astray in the cockpit. The flat mounting plate has 4 holes drilled in it, and with the two stop sections that abutted the bottom of the control-wheel, the unit was mounted with the assistance of foam rubber and cables ties to the back of the control wheel, with the PDA bracket overhanging and forming the section that abuts against the top of the control wheel and held there by gravity and the cable ties.

The PDA now sits high on the column, and when I move my seat forward I can see the fuel gauges and the ameter and the clock and of course all the flight instruments are clearly visible and the power cord on the PDA falls in the centre of the control wheel well out of the way of my map and knee boards, should I choose to use them.



Part 1 is the backing plate, part 2 the sloping strips that abutt against the PDA bracket, part 3 is a strut to strengthen the sloping strips and part 4 are the tabs that prevent the backing plate from yawing on the control wheel because these tabs are abutt against the bottom on each side of the centre of the control wheel.
Four holes, for the cable ties, are marked as circles with crosses.

These are some older shots from a trip in April where I took my wife's cousin's husband. English is so troublesome with disconnected relationships have a look at
http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/relation.htm#Algebra and
http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/23761



Some people really travelled to the airshow in style

DC3







A Bird-dog Cessna 377

Links

www.dc3.com
A question of cousins
Relationship Terms

Here is one of the valleys on the way to Jindabyne from Canberra. I am looking for somewhere to land - a thing you do when you are a pilot, in case the engine cuts out.

We are at 8500' AMSL and cloud base was at 7000'. Note how the colours are washed out due to the haze.

A valley to land in

The snowy mountains - with snow

You can just see the snow capped peaks.

Adaminaby Airstrip from 8500' AMSL

I orbitted over Adamindaby airstrip and took this shot.

After landing at Jindabyne I talked to the locals from the Jindabyne Aero Club, they had the Gyro planes out. The main rotor blades auto-rotate due to the forward motion of the machine as it is driven by the rear-propeller. At least the rotor is free-wheeling and the only concern here is that the nut doesn't come off. I do not like small helicopters because I have seen how they are put together. I must find out how much these gyro machines cost because it looks like relatively inexpensive flying. It costs me about 17 L of fuel to takeoff in my machine.

Press this to see a Gyro takeoff

VH-UMS
Well Anzac day 2006/04/25 saw VH-UMS down at Bunyan. After having been to Jindabyne, landing at Bunyan was a breeze on R09.

The large wheels on UMS don't mind the rough paddocks. UMS doesn't bounce around like a C172 after setting down.

VH-MLS
VH-MLS towing VH-GAS


The other photos are of VH-MLS our Pawnee Tow plane towing VH-GAS. See how the glider is airbourne first.

UMS at Merimbula
Author

The storm front

R30 is 1.679km long

The first photo is me getting ready to check the plane and the second shot is me flying. It is pretty dark, due to those storm fronts comming in, so I do not have my snap-on shades attached. Yeah I have those big aviation glasses, but mine are nearly plane glass with a small reading channel.

I managed to land at Canberra before it started to rain, some 30 minutes before last light. The tower controllers did turn the runway lights on to improve our chances of locating the runway.

The storm front held off long enough and the rain was only quite light, and no thunder, lightning or hail eventuated.