Nice comments Mike especially the anecdotes.
Not sure I agree about the world not needing another medium performance two
seater. There are plenty of ageing Blaniks out there. I guess it depends on
the price.
David Olsen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Borgelt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, 26 February 2001 17:51
Subject: Re: [aus-soaring] Platypus
> At 09:02 PM 25/02/01 EST, you wrote:
> >We all have short memories! Peter raised this once before in one of his
> >diatribes and was corrected along exactly the same lines by another
member
> of
> >the committee who participated in the deliberations.
>
> Wasn't only GFA at the time. I was an SAGA vice president for a couple of
> years or so back then (and Airspace Officer for a few more)and we spent
> lots of time discussing the Platypus project.
>
> As for the viability of the project nowadays, I don't think the world
> really needs another medium performance two seater. The cockpit was great
> and I loved the side by side seating. I took Harry on a cross country of
> about 150km in it once and flew it to an airshow at Essendon(on tow from
> Gawler)and even did some spin testing in it. Harry didn't tell me that we
> were going spinning until off tow at 5000 feet. I violated the rule about
> "don't fly in the same cockpit as someone braver than you " that day.
>
> Carol went for a flight with Harry one day and she was waiting for him to
> take some interest in the proceedings as the rope tightened and he said
> "you do the takeoff". She said "Harry, I can't fly".(that has been
> corrected now). Just as well it was a side by side cockpit.
>
> As I said, the cockpit was great but nowadays you would want a new wing
and
> I think a retractable motor(at least a turbo). The wing was basically a
> stretched Boomerang which is similar aerodynamically to an ASW15/19 wing.
>
> I also did some of the data reduction for the little performance testing
> that was done. It seemed to go about like a ballasted Standard Cirrus.
>
> Given the ghastly Janus cockpit still on the front of the Nimbus 3D/4D(M)
I
> don't think a side by side cockpit would do much, if any, harm to the
> performance.
>
> Mike Borgelt
> Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments
> ABN 75532924542
> Box 7474 Toowoomba M.C.
> Queensland 4352
> Australia
>
> Tel 0746 355 784
> mob 0428 355 784
> 0429 355 784
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>
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>
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