Sounds like a good enough day Jeff, sorry to hear the Thing suffered ground damage, that always sucks. Looking forward to the pics.

I've just been up on the roof fixing my weather station instruments and its a suberb day for thermalling. I can only fly the E-ezg at home though at present and it should be riding thermals all afternoon once i get it to 100 metres, just a few more chores to do first. The 2m bird will be good when built to launch off the mangrove flats down the front.

Great pics GD, yeah I usually run out of clamps too! Its a curious thing because I could have sworn I bought more than i have...

Steve
Been reading about the fires and deaths over there. Hope you are not near them!
Gerald

I appears that your well north of the fire, what a tragedy so much loss of life, & property, if I could help I'd be on the first bird outta here. Thinking of that is there a national fund that is being setup to help those folks if so I'd like an addee so that at least I can contribute.


Best Regards


Wylie Shaw AKA Wylie E. Coyote

Looking back over the years it seems to me that there's one more thing that Oz and California have in common. Every once in a while they both try to burn the place down to the ground. Then again a couple of years ago Georgia tried doing the same thing. WE tried burning down the swamp.

Jeff

To me at least.

I was just a little worried about the slightly burned edges on the laser cut ribs sticking with wood glue since we have to sand off burned saw cuts before gluing wood bits together when making furniture, to make sure the glue can penetrate. I was cutting the rear ribs for my flap installation and I have to sand, file etc. the tiny bits of glue at the bottom of the rib to get the spars to sit flat. I was scraping away with a flat chisel Exacto blade when I noticed a dark line starting to appear. After a few moments wondering what it was, I realized it was the burned edge of the laser cut. It is stuck so well that I am not going to bother trying to scrap it all off.

GD
Ho, ho. So I am not the only one. However, mine occurred in the same build area. In trying to smooth it all out mine turned dark also, but it was not the rib.....it was the CF I had put on the trailing edge.
Gerald

I've heard that if you want to remove the burn marks you can wipe them down with a bleach/water mix. I don't know if this is true or not, but I don't worry about the burn marks unless it's in an open area that I'll be using transparent covering over. (Got to keep them looking good ya know! )

Jeff

In this spot I don't want to remove the char necessarily because it is a very nice indicator of where to STOP!!!!!!!!!

GD, I didn't even think about that! I guess my glue soaked into the laser cuts ok the wing hasn't failed at any glue join yet.

I envy you guys with keeping things looking perfect on your O3 builds before maidening, I was the same of course and its the same with every new glider.
Now for me its like 'aahh stuff it, its been smashed up twice so why bother its not going to make it fly better' LOL! If my O3 is determined to live a risky life then I'm not wasting any more cosmetic effort on it, why bother..

Fires, yeah. Almost every winter here we watch the reports of the fires that sweep California and other parts of the western States and its a sober warning of what we might get over the new year period. This one was a shocker, over 1000 hectares lost in less than one day. The fire storm just moved to fast, surviving witnesses say it rained fire like the winds of a hurricane and there was nowhere to run. 108 people lost so far and almost 1000 homes. Authorities are convinced it was arson and are investigating.
Meanwhile up here in Qld the north of the state is still in a full scale flood! and some poor kid was taken by a large croc in the floodwaters and some folks have drowned when swept away, and we are still losing divers on the great barrier reef!!!

The state and fed government are fast to react to natural disasters here and the emergency services are well manned by volunteers + the defence force is mobilised to co-ordinate relief efforts so we won't leave these poor people sitting around with nothing.

Aha! just got a call from the LHS, my parts have arrived. It could be an Oly weekend.

Hey Steve.... Send some of those government people over here. We need someone to train F.E.M.A. in the worst way.

Jeff, we were totally shocked at how the US administration seemed to handle the devestation that Katrina visited on New Orleans and other areas, it just seemed impossible that co-ordinating relief to the area took so long and the people that become so desperate and suffered over a prolonged period. How could this happen inside one of the wealthiest most developed countries on earth? I hope for you guys things have improved with FEMA and other agencies, after all thats where our taxes are supposed to go regardless of the state we live in.

On the other hand, a lot of our firefighters have learned and been trained over in the States helping to control past fires on your west coast, without that experience things might have been a lot worse over the weekend. Our firefighters speak very highly of the fire services in the US. Oh- my former partner worked with the Victorian fire authorities when I lived in Melbourne so I learned all sorts of things from her.

Unfortunately Steve, there was LOT more to that story that you will never hear about from the main stream media. The actual breakdown was much more on the local level than federal. I won't go into the politics of it but will say the corrupt local and state gov't did some seriously wrong things mainly due to trying to take the credit for the good and pass the buck on the blame.

Sean (someone who lived through the same thing)

Originally Posted by atmosteve

Jeff, we were totally shocked at how the US administration seemed to handle the devestation that Katrina visited on New Orleans and other areas, it just seemed impossible that co-ordinating relief to the area took so long and the people that become so desperate and suffered over a prolonged period. How could this happen inside one of the wealthiest most developed countries on earth? I hope for you guys things have improved with FEMA and other agencies, after all thats where our taxes are supposed to go regardless of the state we live in.

It's really bad when other countries are shocked by our governments lack of effort on that problem. There are still people living in trailers from it and no help for them in sight. I moved form California to Georgia about 2 weeks after Katrina hit and had a chance to see just some of the damage and I was 100 miles from the coast! FEMA has had a couple of other chances to get their act together and have still failed in the worst way. Our tax dollars at work people!!!

Jeff

At any rate, you guys seem to have really copped it over the past ten or twelve years with cylones and fires virtually every year! That must begin to get to you after a while, and Sean I've read that you lost a house and contents to cyclones and I've had personal friends on the panhandle that've lost the lot too, its crazy!

Sorry I didn't recall all the details of the of the Katrina disaster, it must have been hellishly complicated to assist people when almost the whole city and surrounding area is under water for so long.

It might be easier for us to co-ordinate relief here because we only have 8 seperate states and state governments and a smaller population, there could be less to go wrong.

Hey Guys,

Hope you all had a great weekend. Tell me about proportions and consistency of Miracle Balloons and expoxy. I'm using standard 30 min epoxy. Also, when you fill the volume of the tube compartment on the Oly, do you just fill it up level with the spars?

P.S. I wouldn't touch the Katrina/FEMA posts with a ten foot pole, I'm affraid I would say something that would get me thrown off this forum .

Cheers to all,

Don