FYI old aircraft

It is called a yaw damper. Works great.

I think it only cost around $20,000, but this was a while ago. Probably much more now.

Diesel, interesting. I always thought it was a pity that Zoche failed to get his engines certified. I met his son Joerg once at a party in Munich and was impressed.

The fuel capacity is 2 * 25 USG in main tanks and 2 * 13 USG in auxiliary tanks.

On normal cruise I have flown with fuel flow at 2 * 5 USG / h, which gives around 150 kt at FL100. On a 666 NM trip (EFHF - EPKK) I used totally 168 liters of Jet-A1 (about 44 USG). Actually, this is less than what the Turbo Arrow needed for the same performance, and Jet-A1 is less expensive (though it is not much compared to the total cost).

I do not know which power setting was used on the factory flights over the Atlantic.

I have not noticed anything like that. It may be connected to the engine synchronization. The diesels are electronically controlled and they do not need any prop control twisting to be in sync. Actually, there is no separate prop control, only a single power lever per engine, like with the turbines engines.

It is the rudder channel of an autopilot, called yaw damper.

Pretty quiet, despite them being diesels. Actually quieter than e.g. Piper Seneca with classic Continentals.

Of course, good noise-canceling headsets help much.

Old story: someone asked a Roll-Royce salesman how many horsepower the engine had. The answer was, of course "sufficient, sir".

Now that you've dropped the invalid points you were making, of course I agree.

But I've never seen the point in flying to an aerodrome, having a cup of tea, and then flying back again. Boring; no better than being in a car - and far less flexible.

Glider pilots that transition to powered flying traditionally have two psychological hurdles: remembering that you can fly straight and level, and then staying awake while they do so.

OTOH flying literally by the seat of your pants, concentrating on where it is best to go/avoid, playing with raptors and watching sheep whizz past at 70kts while avoiding the aircraft coming in the other direction - that's /fun/ and there's nothing quite like it.

The fan is there to keep the pilot cool. When it stops the pilot starts sweating.

At my gliding club there was a tug that sometimes needed to be jump-started. In a powered club that would never have left the hanger. In a gliding club the attitude was "that's only the engine; what's the problem".

I've noticed it in the rear end of a Dakota.

I had to quit gliding due to the fact that the time unit in gliding is a week.

You need simultaneously: - weather - the glider - tow - pals to run at the wingtips - time.

In forced flying the weather lilmitation is less demanding, and you do not need the tow and wingmen.

In the beginning, the engines were Thielert 1.7 liter turbodiesels. When upgrading to DA42NG, the diesels were changed to Austro Engine AE300's, which are 2.0 liter converted Mercedes turbodiesels. Both types are intended to run on Jet-A1 turbine fuel.

It created s funny situation in Krakow. I landed and was led to the private plane apron after they made space for the long wings. A beautiful FBO lady came to ask if we need fuel and I responded 'Yes, Jet-A1'. 'What?' 'Jet-A1, kerosene, turbine fuel, big boys' soup'. 'Oh ... we have a problem. The fuel truck does not fit in here'.

So I was led by the marshaller to a stand betwen two 737's and a 2 * 40000 liter truck came in. I just bought 68 liters and the fuel guy was happy, but asked 'WHAT is this aircraft?'

Agreed, with the caveat that under some circumstances it is possible to reduce the "week" to "day".

To do that you need a "nearby" club, i.e. one that you can visit for a day at a time.

If it is a busy club, then you will usually find a ground crew (which includes yourself, of course!). In the club I flew at from Easter to the end of September there were people there every day, and in winter it was at weekends and one weekday.

It helps if you can go at short notice, i.e. "it looks good tomorrow, anybody up for flying?".

But overall yes, gliding is more time intensive and social because of it. The club-not-commercial atmosphere was valuable to me, and was surprisingly useful to my daughter for all sorts of non-aviation reasons.

E.g. on CVs she could write "/demonstrated/ being team player" and "/demonstrated/ acting on my own". That's /much/ better than the standard required crap of "can work well on my own and in a team"! Dog I hate HR :)

OK, Thanks very much.

I just found the diamonds are used by the best flight school in the US

New York Flight School Named Best in the Country

AOPA recognizes Diamond Aircraft operator Take Flight Aviation as 2018? ??s Best Flight School in the Nation.

Nice plane!!

Agreed.

Running a start-up electronics and embedded software consultancy and a pretty fresh family simply did not fit into 24h/day if it included gliding, but it was possible to steal some hours to forced flying.

When the airplane was just out of the NG upgrade, I had an instrument checkride. The inspector said: 'You have here better equipment we are used to have on airliners'.

Thanks!

Hah, sounds like it cost them more than you paid :)

The Zoche engine is interesting because it's a two-stroke. That means the connecting rods are always under compression, so you can use partial journals for the bearings, and make a 4-cylinder radial that's totally balanced, unlike any other master/slave bearing that's usually used in radial engines. Each journal spans maybe 75 degrees of arc on the crank. The con-rods slot in under an overhang so they don't fall away from the crank when the engine is stopped.

Being diesel means it is physically much smaller (no valve gear); the frontal area is only half what an equivalent engine would be. It runs normal diesel fuel too, nothing special. The engine start works by dumping a reservoir of compressed air through the supercharger turbine, so no separate starter is required. If the reservoir is empty, there's a small compressor to recharge it.

He was trying to get them onto the Westinghouse airship as a bridge to general aviation, but something soured that deal.

Clifford Heath.