Experimenting with a simple video cam

February 2010 Work and life in general, kept me from updating this blog since my last post in April last year. Fortunately, things didn't keep me from flying the beast (and getting my relaxation therapy).

Even before I received DZY, I had thought of getting some sort of video camera to film my flights. There were a number of options including helmet-mounted bullet cameras feeding into very neat and compact mini digital video recorders. However, I haven't quite got around to buying such a system yet.

Recently, I began to experiment with using my little iPod Nano's built-in video camera as a cheap interim solution. The main challenge was working out how to mount such a small flat device on the top of the glare shield and isolating it from most of the engine vibration.

Eventually, I simply used a bit of velcro tape to strap the iPod to an old dishwashing sponge. Then I attached the jury rigged contraption to the top of the glare shield with a small velcro pad.

The contraption stayed mounted throughout the flight, but the following video shows the camera was still affected by vibration. So I'll have to work out better mounting arrangement.

Weekend at the office

August 2008 During the week, I spend much time in an office to earn money to feed a hungry big bird. Nonetheless, one of the best things about owning an aircraft is that one can roll out of bed in the morning and just decide to go flying. No need to book an aircraft days beforehand and no flow on delays from earlier bookings running behind schedule.


And this morning, despite having flown DZY quite a few hours now, I still savoured looking into the cockpit before climbing into it, ready to strap in for a hard day at the office.


Once seated in the flying office, the instrument panel is also another sight that continues to bring great pleasure and excitement to me. Now if only my other office was as fun and exciting as this one all day every day...

Christmas turkey nails its forced landing

June 2008 The weekend of 21-22 June ended up being no-fly days despite the clear cloudless skies. Cross-winds gusting 15-16 knots were too strong for my liking and so I decided discretion was the better part of valour and scrubbed plans to go flying.

All in all, three weeks of unfavourable flying weather kept me from exercising the beast since its last flight on 31 May. But by Monday 23 June, the wind had abated to 8-10 knots of cross-wind. I was comfortable with this cross-wind strength and decided to launch a sortie.


After hauling the metal bird out of its roost, I took a picture of its massive paddle blades to remind me of their excellent speedbrake qualities when executing a forced landing.


Over three weeks, the main air tank maintained about the same pressure since the last flight. But the emergency air tank had lost about 30% of its normal pressure. Used for extending the landing gear in event of a main tank failure, the emergency tank would be re-pressurised as soon as the engine was started.

I was certain that the main tank would have no problem starting the engine since it had plenty of air. This was indeed the case when the engine started up on the first attempt (with the usual cloud of smoke).

Taking off from runway 29R, the bird reached 1000 ft just past the end of the runway. The bird's rate of climb still impresses me even after having flown it for about 5.5 hours.

As usual, I started the workout with some aerobatics. After a few manoeuvres, I noticed the beast having a slight tendency to roll right in straight and level flight. I made a mental note to adjust the aileron trim tabs later.

The next task was to descend to 2500 ft to practice some forced landings. I half rolled DZY onto its back and let the nose fall through the horizon to 45 degrees down and held it for the descent. Completing the roll to wings level and upright again, I prepared the aircraft for the practice forced landing.

It just so happened that today, there was a decent headwind along the St Mary's airstrip. Using the inboard edge of the aileron as my reference marker, and an extra 20 kph over the best glide speed of 150 kph, I flew the descent cone towards the target touchdown point.

Turning onto short final, it was time to extend the gear. With the gear down and locked, it became clear the Christmas turkey was going to nail the touchdown point. That was good enough and pleasing for me. So I opened the throttle and retracted the landing gear to head off home.

Mission accomplished.

How the big bird got its colours

June 2008 Quite a few people have asked me if I designed the bird's paint scheme and why it has the colours it has. The answer will be a little lengthy but interesting to people unfamiliar with WW2 Soviet-era fighters and their designers.

During WW2, the most prolific and famous Soviet fighters were creations of the Yakovlev and Lavochkin Design Bureaus. In the USSR, aircraft design bureaus were named after their chief designer in part to acknowledge their leadership, and in part to differentiate one bureau from another with a name rather than a customary nondescript number.

So for example, Opytnoe Konstructorskoe Byuro 115 (Development & Design Bureau 115), was also semi-officially known as OKB Yakovlev; bearing the surname of the founding chief designer or engineer, Alexander Sergeevich Yakovlev.

Similarly, OKB MiG was named after its co-founders, Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich, OKB Lavochkin was founded by Semyon Lavochkin, OKB Tupolev by Andrei Tupolev, OKB Sukhoi by Pavel Sukhoi and many more.

Since the dark days of WW2, just as the West has seen great consolidation of its aircraft industry with many famous companies closing their doors and switching off the lights, the same has occurred in the former Soviet Bloc.

Only OKB Sukhoi has an active production line for its extremely good Su-27, -30, -33, -35 and -37 combat aircraft. OKB MiG and OKB Yakovlev struggle to remain involved in serial production of frontline combat aircraft.

But I digress.

In the later years of WW2, Yak (common abbreviation) and Lavochkin fighters (principally the Yak-3, Yak-9 and La-7) were mostly painted in two-tone grey (dark grey on light grey) camouflage topside and light blue underside.

Depending on an aviation regiment's practice, additional trim colours adorned the nose and vertical tail of the aircraft. By far the most common trim colour was the obligatory "Communist" red so favoured by the USSR.


So the basic topside and underside camouflage colours of VH-DZY follow standard Soviet patterns in the latter years of WW2. The green nose and tail trim would have been "Communist" red back then.

Aside from red not being a favourite colour of mine, it also fades to black at a distance. I chose a bright green to increase visibility of the Yak-50 at medium range for safety reasons.

Another non-period addition to the paint scheme are the two blue bands around the aft fuselage. These too, were included to improve visibility especially when looking down onto the bird from above.

Against a green or brown background, the blue bands stand out better than the green trim. Without the higher visibility colours, the grey camouflage does indeed make the aircraft difficult to see.

The Soviet red stars on the tail, fuselage and under wing surfaces are authentic for the late WW2 period. A common practice with some WW2-style paint schemes used for other Yaks around the world today, is to paint the stars on the top wing surfaces instead of under wing surfaces, or to paint the stars on both top and under wing surfaces.

While not strictly correct, the stars on the top wing surfaces do add some colour at close range (they are difficult to see further away due to the fade to black effect of red objects). One minor but interesting detail about the red stars is worth highlighting.

Before victory was all but imminent in May 1945, the red star only had a thin white border along all the edges. Presumably, the white was to set off the red star clearly against a camouflage background.

But when victory was imminent, the white border was itself enclosed by a thinner red border along all the edges. So the red-edged red star used for VH-DZY is from the very late war period.

Getting comfortable with the beast

May 2008 Today, 24th May, turned out to be perfect flying weather. It was a contrast to last weekend with winds gusting to 25 knots - pretty much all of it cross-wind! Needless to say, few people ventured into the sky then.

While M-14P radials are in fact very reliable and rugged engines, I still wondered if there would be difficulties starting following a two week hiatus. So I was pleased the engine started immediately on the first attempt with the obligatory cloud of smoke.

Upon reaching 4500 ft over Warragamba Dam, it was time to run the bird through its workout session. On the previous sortie two weeks ago, DZY pulled a maximum of 4Gs during the workout. For this workout, the beast and I pulled first 5Gs, then later 6Gs, through a series of manoeuvres.

Following the workout, I rolled the big bird onto its back and let the nose fall past the horizon on descent from 4500 ft to 2500 ft. To avoid shock cooling the engine, I closed the engine shutters before throttling back while the bird descended. Approaching 2800 ft, it was time to roll back upright again in time to level off at 2500 ft.

The next task was to identify reference points on each wing for use while conducting a forced landing due to an engine failure. Taught to me by a former RAAF fighter pilot, Noel Kruse, this forced landing technique uses suitable reference points on the wing to fly a descent along the surface of an inverted cone whose tip is attached to the desired touchdown point.

I set up for the practice forced landing using an initial start point suitable for a Alpha (Robin) 2160. It didn't take me long to realise the beast wasn't an Alpha 2160 while gliding. I had to abandon my first attempt when the bird descending like an overfed Christmas turkey, couldn't even reach mid-base leg. Although I expected a fair amount of drag from the large paddle bladed propeller, I was surprised it had such an effect on glide performance.

On my second attempt, I used a row of rivets even closer inboard from the wing tip as my reference point. This had the effect of bringing the initial start point closer in to the desired touchdown point. Although I was able to make mid-base leg this time, the Christmas turkey still couldn't stay up long enough to make the touchdown point. So around I went to climb back up for another attempt.

My third attempt saw me choose a row of rivets even closer inboard from the wing tip - between a third and halfway in. This time, I was able to line up for a short final and so I extended the landing gear. That ruined things. The big bird seemed to have gained a ton when the descent rate picked up. So I abandoned the attempt and headed off for home and a later discussion with Noel.

Following an uneventful landing and exit from the runway, I called the tower to wish them good day. After a pause, the controller replied saying that he had been distracted while admiring my lime green helmet. He also warned me to keep the keys to DZY safe because it seemed that quite a few people wanted to take the bird for a spin!