I was lucky enough as a young child to see one of these working a high country farm - it was operating off a sloped runway and I was convinced it was going to crash as it landed uphill, then convinced it was going to crash after it took off after reloading due to how slowly it climbed - I can't find a definitive number, but I vaguely recall it had a take off speed that lurked around 50kt...
On the subject of top-dressers... ...I was privileged to see a turboprop equipped Fletcher FU-24 in action a couple of weeks ago, those pilots are very darn good at flying very low in hill country. Very loud and notable engine sound.
You got to love that even its name is utilitarian.
This is such a cool story. Airplanes seem such a complex, standardized, full of red tape and elitist thing that such stories of hackers starting to pull random beams together and you get a thing that flies are pretty inspiring... And yet it also sound quite well thought. As usual, there is more than meets the eye
> Airplanes seem such a complex, standardized, full of red tape and elitist thing that such stories of hackers starting to pull random beams together and you get a thing that flies are pretty inspiring...
As a kid, I was introduced to the concept of ultralight[0] aircraft when me and a couple of friends stumbled upon a wreck of one in a field. Our parents realized it had to have come from the local place a few miles away. If your aircraft qualifies as ultralight, you do not need a license to fly it. A family friend of my parents had one that he'd roll out to the street, attach the wings, and take off, and then land back on the street, remove the wings, and roll it back into his garage.
These things were essentially go-karts with wings.
The fairy gannet looks like two smaller airplanes clipping into each other. It looks like an AI from ten years ago generated an image of an airplane. It looks like they hired engineers who got their degrees in Kerbal Space Program and then paid them by the hour. "Even if it's broke, it doesn't have enough features yet."
It was designed to carry to operate from very rough "airstrips" which is a very optimistic term for "a paddock that the farmer hopefully mowed recently and if you're lucky, they also removed most of the bigger stones".
I also imagine in the postwar WW2 antipodes, steel was a lot easier and cheaper to access, as well as work.
Steel alloys have better fatigue properties than aluminum. Many of us in aerospace would happily use a corrosion-resistant steel if not for the weight.
On the subject of top-dressers... ...I was privileged to see a turboprop equipped Fletcher FU-24 in action a couple of weeks ago, those pilots are very darn good at flying very low in hill country. Very loud and notable engine sound.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_FU-24
You got to love that even its name is utilitarian.
This is such a cool story. Airplanes seem such a complex, standardized, full of red tape and elitist thing that such stories of hackers starting to pull random beams together and you get a thing that flies are pretty inspiring... And yet it also sound quite well thought. As usual, there is more than meets the eye
As a kid, I was introduced to the concept of ultralight[0] aircraft when me and a couple of friends stumbled upon a wreck of one in a field. Our parents realized it had to have come from the local place a few miles away. If your aircraft qualifies as ultralight, you do not need a license to fly it. A family friend of my parents had one that he'd roll out to the street, attach the wings, and take off, and then land back on the street, remove the wings, and roll it back into his garage.
These things were essentially go-karts with wings.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_aviation
The M-15 is still uglier. Also intended as a cropduster, though unlike the AirTruk it was really bad at that job in every way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlyO9cJ8hiQ (Alexander the ok: PZL Mielec M-15: One of the Aircraft of All Time)
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_B-54
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Gannet
The Belphegor is still uglier though.
This photo though, I see what you mean.
https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/z3envi/the_pzl_m1...
The AEW version looks ok
aussie plane makes me think of the aussie flyer in the road warrior. (not even the same, but spiritually)
> But the airplane never became popular—although it became briefly famous when a heavily made-up example starred in 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
beyond thunderdome was the next in the series.
I thought everybody used aluminum?
I also imagine in the postwar WW2 antipodes, steel was a lot easier and cheaper to access, as well as work.
Update: I guess the final design also used steel.
> The pilot is above both the engine and the load, and is surrounded by a steel tube truss for maximum safety.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgley_Optica