New to Pprune
 

Hi there, just joined here, saying hi
I am from South Africa , a Cpl and just love to fly for pleasure! recently sold my 172:( but looking forward to next machine, maybe RV:)
So lurking here

Hi Savas. Welcome!

172 to RV? Sounds like a great move! I haven't flown an RV but I hear good things about them. Flown far too many 172s!

Welcome. Check your thin skin at the door. This group can be a tough one. :rolleyes:

Hi Savas,

Welcome. I think Desert 185 is exaggerating. ;) A very friendly bunch, certainly on Private Flying.

I'm retiring this year and looking forward to my next machine as well. Shares in one of the following: Stearman, Yak, Chipmunk or Tiger Moth. Decisions, decisions!

Hi Savas, how are things in S. Africa these days?

Do they fix the robots when they burn out or get knocked over these days? :E

I spent a few seasons flying in S.A. quite enjoyed your country.

Chuck E.

Chuck - you'll have to explain about Robots now!

Lets wait for Savas to get back to us. :O

Traffic lights.

Welcome to these diverse forums. If you have a wider interest than just one,
the go is to first up have a look through NEW POSTS before homing in your
particular interest.


The C172? Before anyone gives the downside, remember that it was the aircraft of choice for Len Morgan when he hung up his Braniff spurs.

He continued to write his VECTORS column and write monographs about the planes he knew well from having flown them in war and peace (Mustang and DC-3 for instance.) The 172 suited him perfectly. He could take some family , throw in some baggage and set off to visit mates all over the country, including Alaska.

It is wrong to compare what a 172 can do as opposed to an RV.

In the last week I flew my C172A from south of Sydney to SE Queensland. 500 feet up the beaches. Window open all the way. Gawking at shark pods. Fantasising about the hippies on the remote nude beaches. (Swore I saw a beach fisherman with a scope on his rod) This is harder if you are closed in in a low wing RV.

It just the cost of fuel that is a real bugger for a pensioner.

Y'day had a fly of a Sling 2 demo machine. Some bit of kit I can tell you.

Handles like a dream. Cruise 110 kts on a 100hp Rotax and nine hours endurance. One reservation is that for those longer in the tooth it can be hard to get in and harder to get out.

Having said that, an 82 year old former Qantas flight engineer has just bought one and because of good prosthetic knees is not disadvantaged.

If you pay 35G - 40 G oz dollars) for a good clean older model 172 you must be way ahead in available cash reserves for many a year cf 100G for an RV.

DeeCee- Chuck may be referring to the classic B-movie 'District 9',
or have I missed something? Traffic lights? Maybe I have missed something.

It's from a long time ago when human policemen directing traffic were replaced by traffic lights .........or robotic policemen.

c. Chiefly S. Afr. An automatic traffic-signal.
1931 Even. Standard 5 Aug. 2/1 (heading) Traffic ‘Robots’ in the City. 1939 Forum (Johannesburg) 4 Feb. 35/1 The Daily Dispatch, East London, is critical of a proposal to fix robots in the town's streets. 1948 H. V. MORTON In Search of S. Afr. 17 Another word used in South Africa, but long discontinued in England, is robot for traffic lights. 1958 Johannesburg Star 16 Dec. 6/7 Johannesburg drivers..want to turn right or left while pedestrians, with the robot in their favour, are crossing. 1969 A. FUGARD Boesman & Lena II. 38 When the robot said ‘Go’ there at Berry's Corner I was nearly bang in my broek. 1974 Eastern Province Herald 2 Oct. 9 Vandals removed the lamps from seven traffic robots and the flashing head from a warning pole.


http://umhambi.********.com/2010/03/...robots-in.html

The story told to me by relatives in Cape Town was that the local newspaper (Cape Times?) ran a story about an exhibition of robots in Cape Town with the headline 'Robots come to Cape Town.' It was placed next to a picture of the first traffic light. After that everyone called traffic lights 'Robots.' I'm sure someone in SA will correct or confirm. It's a good story anyway!

District 9 is a great film by the way.

In Sydney and probably Melbourne too, up until the late fifties you had at many intersections "silent cops". These were a slightly raised circular affair embedded in the tarmac, placed dead centre in the middle of the intersection.
They were about two feet in diameter, had reflector glass below the rim and were
painted yellow all over the slightly domed top section. They also rejoiced in the name "fried eggs".

How many careless fast drivers hit them at speed and flipped over GOK.
The FJ Holden was far too light in the back end. It would have been a prime candidate for the unwanted roll. (Graziers who bought them off the showroom floor would put a bag of cement to live in the boot. A boot is a trunk BTW)

Yea guys, aviation forums have everything from A to Z, check out our very own forum: Avcom.co.za
172, yep I agree on all that was said about this awesome aircraft, I have really enjoyed flying it, around 500hrs, been all over SA, gone into the Okavango Delta where you guys pays big bucks to get there. But alas, it's time to move on , something faster and cheaper to maintain, and one cannot argue about the RV and all that goes with them, apart from wing at wrong place.
Robots, yea that's what we call traffic lights, all said, I think chap was referring to out of service robots, not too bad nowadays.
SA is an awesome country, wide free unspoilt open spaces to fly in, wildlife in abundance, great coastline, red meat is affordable and whiskey is cheap, only problem we have is..........................????????????
Sling, is a South African product as you know! with tremendous qualities! well done to them! flown around the world twice .

All the best

There is something good about the 172 apart from its flaps (the 40 degree ones, that is, not the later emasculated 30 degree ones).... It's marginally more fun to fly than the PA28! But it's a close-run thing. :)

The 172 is indeed a practical aeroplane. But as Brian Lecomber said of all spamcans in his great book, 'Talkdown'....

".....with the airman's art designed out of them". :E

I don't think you could say that of the RV. :ok:

The Cessna 172 is probably the best example of how to ruin a good airplane when they decided to dumb down flying by putting a nose wheel on a good airplane.

When we got our first Cessna 170B in 1954 I was really impressed with the way it flew...I can still remember the first time I used full flap during the landing approach.....

.......the 172 is an excellent example of how to ruin a good airplane.:ok:

1. "Ruin" is too harsh. Render unappealing to the tail-dragger fraternity, maybe?

2. The distance on take-off to break ground. Would there be any difference between a standard, say 172A, and the same model converted to tailwheel?
Incrementally, you'd think the straight 172 would have the edge.

3. Years ago at Cootamundra, Arthur Schutt (Cessna dealer from Melbourne) came in with his brand new C182B.
He said to Jack Masling, who had the Cessna agency at Coota, he said his job would get off 50 yards or better before Jack's 172. You're on said Jack, pulling 20 quid out of his wallet.

Side by side they commenced their run, Jack with his horny old right hand on the big lever. At probably round 30 knots he hauled on enough to win the bet comfortably.

Thank you Fantome for pointing out my typing mistake. !! :ok: I have corrected it.

Naw , I'll stick with my use of the word ruin as that best describes what putting a nose wheel on a tail wheel airplane does.

And Yeh, I guess I am of the tail-dragger fraternity because those things first learned are those things best remembered.

Been thinking about all the different airplanes I flew over the years and there is only one nose wheel that I can recall that I genuinely liked to fly and that is the Turbo Commander 690B.

Douglas did the same thing with the DC3....put a nose wheel on their next airplane and ruined it.

The DC3 was awesome as an off airport airplane I flew them off everything from eskers, snow, ice to sand beaches way way up in the high Arctic.....

......wouldn't even dream of flying a DC4 or DC6 off the same unprepared surfaces the 3 could operate. ( I have flown the DC6 off ice strips though. )

Depending on the condition of the field it would be rather presumptuous to expect you are guaranteed to break ground at all with a trike and not end up with the nose gear buckled up under you, a lot of my TO/landings are into unprepared/wet/soft/muddy strips, I would not have the balls to do that in a trike no matter the STOL performance .

It depends if you want to be controversial or not?!

:hmm: