Tony and Sarah Green arrived in country from the UK sometime in 2004 with a big box of goodies. Above and below is their De Havilland DH82A Tiger Moth ZK-TGR2 which as you can imagine has an extensive foreign history. With a c/n of 86546 it was built by Morris Motors at Cowley for the RAF and carried the PG637 serial before going civilian on 04-01-1954 as G-ANLH with the London Aero Club. It moved over to Belgium in 1955 to become OO-EVO before a shift to the US in 1978 to become N3744F. By September 1985 it was back in the UK and took up its old registration of G-ANLH. After another bunch of private owners it was listed to Tony Green and Sarah Clapham (later Green) on 02-01-04. It was cancelled from the UK register and became ZK-TGR on 19-01-05. Timaru based ; I do believe it has flown; but not a great deal. It NZ registration was revoked on 23-04-2009.

Pic below byAlan Brown and nicked from the UK CAA website shows it in its UK markings.Also in the container was this Elliotts of Newbury (EoN) Olympia Mk 11. This was built in 1947 to be stored as unsold for nearly ten years. It came on the British Gliding Association (BGA) register about mid November 1955 as BGA797/AZT. It appears under Tony Green's name about mid 2004. It was listed as ZK-GLY to Tony & Sarah on 18-01-2005 but has remained unassembled at Timaru. It carries the name Ranunculus, and has done since at least 1964 beneath the cockpit, on its all yellow fuselage and has the large letters "AZT" on the vertical tailplane. Its registration has also been revoked.

Third item in the container was this De Havilland of Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk 22A , c/n C1-0099 . Built for the RAF in 1950 it wore the serial WB660 before being released to the civil marke on 18-01-1961 where it became G-ARMB.
Photo above via UK CAA.

Tony and Sarah appear on the paper work from 02-01-2004. Its UK registration was cancelled on 19-08-04 for its move to NZ where it became ZK-CHP2 on 18-01-2005. To the best of my knowledge it has not flown in NZ. It was canc from the NZ register on 23-04-2009 as exported.

These two pics show it hiding away in the Aviation museum at Timaru.

All three of these flying machines were noted still in the hangar at Timaru on 03-05-2009.

Jat’s domination in Belgrade could end

Three years after Serbia signed the European Union Open Skies agreement, it will finally ratify the arrangement next week in parliament. The Open Skies will allow foreign carriers to begin services to Serbia without having to go through the current bureaucracy and would make Serbia’s Civil Aviation Agency powerless to stop carriers from flying to Serbia’s airports. Serbia’s Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković said that the ratification of the agreement would lead to greater competition and would therefore lower ticket prices for passengers but would also transform Serbia into an aviation hub. It is believed that Open Skies would lead to a greater number of low cost carriers to fly to Serbia although this is questionable as none have expressed interest. However, Open Skies would allow airlines such as Malev, Aegean Airlines and Adria Airways, which have been attempting to fly to Belgrade for many years, to start services. Open Skies would also end bilateral agreements between Serbia and European Union member countries. This means that if an agreement had been made between Serbia and another country (for example Slovenia) that only the national carriers can fly to each, these agreements will end.

The agreement could be disastrous to the national carrier Jat Airways which will have to battle with more competition. The Serbian airline is unable to improve services until early next year when it should receive funds to purchase new aircraft. Jat has not commented on the Prime Minister’s comments regarding Open Skies. Open Skies will take effect some 3 months after it is ratified by parliament next week.

First B&H Airlines Boeing B737-400

B&H Airlines will be receiving its first Boeing B737-400 aircraft tomorrow, May 10. The airline’s first jet engine aircraft will enter the fleet on Monday with its first scheduled service for the Bosnian carrier from its hub Sarajevo to Copenhagen, a new service launched thanks to the arrival of the aircraft. The Boeing B737-400 is from Turkish Airlines which has provided the aircraft as part of its deal with the Bosnian government, agreed upon late last year when it took over shares of the company. The aircraft has been painted and fitted with the interior of B&H Airlines in Istanbul.

This upcoming working week will mark a beginning of a major expansion for B&H Airlines. The airline will begin flights to Copenhagen, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Gothenburg and Stockholm within the next 7 days while flights to Prague will begin in 2 weeks. Services to Vienna have been postponed. Originally planned to begin this week, the flights were moved to begin on Monday, May 11 but have now been further postponed until May 18, despite the fact that the airline has received necessary licenses to begin the Vienna service. One of the reasons the flight might have been moved could be because of a lack of sales. The service should operate 5 times per week.

The new B737-400 for the B&H Airlines fleet has been registered TC-JDG (Turkish Airlines registration). It is unknown if the aircraft will receive a Bosnian registration because the deal of the lease of the aircraft is unknown. The new fleet member will bring the number of aircraft operating for B&H Airlines to 3 with 2 ATR72s.

I have been thinking for many days to update this blog and do a new post I have been planning to about learning to fly rc helicopter. Now is the time I think that I have actually started writing. In this post I will cover the strategy for a newbie to adopt and do better with their rc helicopter flying. Let’s start:

For a beginner in rc helicopter hobby it is always advisable to go for a small rc helicopter like Rotofly EX fixed pitch, single rotor and Axe EZ dual rotor with no tail rotor. Both are very affordable and have been designed to take care for a beginner, rather dual rotor also called the coaxial rotor or contra rotating helicopters, are the most easy to fly radio controlled helicopters. You need to go for a small radio controlled heli because teaching yourself makes you susceptible to crash it and then losing your heart in the hobby. These radio controlled helicopters come with instructional DVDs and are very user friendly and fun to fly.

If you want a big leap in the hobby, you can have some experienced radio controlled helicopter pilot help you with this. The instructor will help you setting up your heli correctly because if not set properly radio controlled helicopters go unpredictable. An instructor will guide you in teaching you tips and tricks of the hobby, the mistakes you make as a beginner. Your learning time will reduce this way and you will soon be flying like a pro. With an instructor you can start with a medium size radio controlled helicopter. I will recommend going for a simulator like RealFlight G4.5, this will cost a little more but is worth the investment and will help you learn faster.

You need to set targets for yourself in order to learn the right way like in any other skill. The more the practical goal will be the more focus you will have on the radio controlled helicopter hobby. Practical achievable targets will help you get motivation and confidence to fly rc heli. Practical goal setting is to take small steps at a time, this way you will not crash your rc helicopter and crash your heart with it. Losing your heli is like losing heart, money, motivation and confidence. Top of all without some practice with your basic rc heli flying can be very dangerous for your and for others too. Step by step learning in all directions will make your basics strong and learn faster so you will be flying instead of crashing.

In the next post I will be listing the guiding steps in learning the rc helicopter flying. There can be many different ways to approach it but these are the steps which I believe are proven to be better in a systematic flying process. this is the way I learnt the hobby so I suggest you give it a try too. Rc helicopter learning steps are formed such that the you will always learn the steps required for the advanced one, and such that you recover from a mishap which is likely in the new maneuvers.



You want to put some thought at the new step or maneuver so you can think of an escape when the maneuver start turning to a disaster, even a small problem can become a disaster if not dealt properly. Be sure that you have tested and tried your escape strategy so that you can actually use that when something actually goes wrong.

You can go for a simulator if you really don’t want to have it learned the beginner’s way. You would want to go for an rc heli simulator which comes with a transmitter control. You can crash as many times you want to and get the skill learned on tips of your fingers. This hobby is really learned on the tips as its all about your reflexes which count for a better flyer. Although the fact of the matter is that you can never have the taste of flying a real heli remotely controlled till the time you fly one, no matter how many times you fly one on the simulator the real stress comes when you fly a real one as crashing an actual rc heli will be heavy on your pockets and this is you do not want to do.

There are many simulators available in the market like I said earlier Realflight is one good out there but in my personal opinion it is not that realistic as the Reflex. Reflex is one which has both the look of it and the realism involved. CSM is one good but that has no better looks that the Reflex.

In the coming posts I will be describing all the learning steps one by one not forgetting the get away with the disaster strategies. You will love them all I hope and learn the rc helicopter flying in a way it is supposed to be.

Visualisation of Zagreb Airport’s new terminal

The much talked about, completely new, Zagreb Airport terminal stretching on 70.000 hectors of land with a capacity of handling 5 million passengers annually with 12 air bridges has been cancelled. The project has been abandoned due to the global financial crisis despite Croatian analysts believing that the country is better placed than others in the current world recession. The project, which would have cost a total of 285.9 million Euros, was supposed to make Zagreb Airport a regional leader. The ideal look of the new terminal was chosen last year. The airport is just one of some big scale infrastructure projects in the field of transportation which have been cancelled.

Zagreb Airport’s current terminal has a capacity of handling 1.5 million passengers annually although Zagreb Airport has handled over 2 million passengers during last year, therefore exceeding capacity. Critics of the new terminal project claimed that money would be more wisely spent if it were invested in expanding the current main terminal, allowing it to handle 3.5 million passengers. The current terminal is in need of an upgrade. It is unsure if any funds will be allocated to Zagreb Airport at all in order for it to improve facilities. Zagreb Airport also lacks air bridges, a rare sight in Europe these days, especially for airports handling over 2 million passengers annually. Meanwhile, Ljubljana Airport’s development is going to plan with major work expected to start during the peak of the summer.

New iteration of laminar body fuselage shape:

One interesting aircraft in the historical data:

Lancair Evolution

P/W Power to weight ratio 7.54 kg/kW, 12.28 lbs/hp.
W/S Wing loading 142 kg/m^2, 29.05 lbs/sqft
Stall speed 61 kts
Empty weight to gross weight ratio: 0.55
Fuel to gross weight ratio: 0.2
Aspect ratio: 10.3

Aircraft with 12.28 lbs/hp power loading and 29.05 lbs/sqft wing loading in other words can
be made to climb, and it can also meet FAR 23 in stall speed requirement (61 kts). According to an article, the LC Evolution demonstrated glide ratio of 1:22 which is amazing compared to the competition, especially achieving this with only AR=10.3.

With these parameters, a smaller Rotax powered twin aircraft would be sized as follows:
Engines: 2 x Rotax 912UL, each turbocharged at 100 hp
Gross weight: 1116 kg
Empty weight: 0.55 * 1116 kg = 613 kg
Fuel weight: 0.2 * 1116 kg = 223 kg
Fuel volume: 314 l
Wing area: 1116 kg / 142 kg/m2 = 7.75 m2
Useful load (including fuel): 503 kg
Useful load full fuel: 280 kg
Endurance: 10.4 hours

Challenges:
- achieving the stall speed of 61 kts, requires very high Clmax for the flapped airfoil
- achieving > 20 glide ratio with lower Re, requires higher AR most likely
- achieving positive climb rate with single engine
- achieve the Clmax with wings that carry two engine pods on them (blanketing potentially flap and part of the wing).
- The fuel potentially does not fit inside the wing of this low wing area.

What it shows:
- Still with this high wing loading, it would be possible to fit three adults on the plane with full fuel. The result is not at all bad compared to any production aircraft.
- Empty weight looks realistic taking in account there are two Rotax engines on the craft. It is higher than it would be if it was relatively as lightweight as a Dynaero.

Bottom line: The parameters of the Lancair Evolution are very impressive and inspiring.

Realism hits:

Reduce the wing loading to 120 kg/m2
Wing area becomes: 1116 kg / 120 kg/m2 = 9.3 m2

-> It ends up in the magic 9.3 m2 wing area I have ended up from many directions already several times before.