Billabong Pro 2009

With the Billabong Surfing competition drawing to a close, I’ve decided to take a closer look at the finalists (semi finalists). Once again, my old and trusted N95 cell-phone, took some nice pictures. The first one is a panoramic composite (3 vertical pics aligned next to each other). The light was very much unfavorable (sun in the clouds at the top right) and so I decided to do justice to the nice camera my cell got and took a picture of myself with the light coming from where it should :-)

My last flight on G2?

I hope not -

My 'old' Prop is fixed.

It was hard work indeed ! No kidding. Although the local workshop has all the tools one could think of, still lots and lots of 'hand work' goes into a prop not to mention the know-how. I was fortunate to be able to use a proper aircraft workshop (they are building the 'whisper' motorised glider on the same premisses). I want to thank to Stuart and Dr. Russels (aeronautical engineering) for allowing me to use the premisses and advice. The prop you see is probably one of the most efficient Snap-100 props around ! At 122cm tip to tip and 1013mb air pressure (sea level)) 22deg C and 75% ambient humidity, it has a static thrust level of 56kg ! At 2400rpm it converts almost 78% of the mechanical energy put into it in static trust ! And its best efficiency should go up if it moves at 36km/h ! (is tuned for that speed) The prop is made of a fairly thin layer of wood covered in thin layers of fiberglas. It has a disadvantage though. Is slightly heavier than a composite prop, which means is not suitable for competition flying. One nice side effect of the 'perfect' aerodinamics is the fairly low noise level at full thrust. And that counts for me a lot :-)

Snap-100 Prop.

Snap-100 Prop.
Originally uploaded by gomario.

Tue 2009/06/23 14:48 2009-06-23. My new Prop from Thailand has finaly arrived. The craftmanship looks 110%. This weekend I will test it on my paramotor. I expect at least 100lb static trust. My scale is not very accurate though.

My new Prop arrived x 2

Today I went to the local Post Office and fetched my brand new paramotor prop which just arrived from Thailand. The whole transaction went very smooth. The import tax was just over 12% which I had to pay at the said Post Office before I took ownership. It took exactly 10 days to get here.
Furthermore, today the fixing of my old prop was completed. Is all yellow now . . . I still have to paint the tips though :-)

Hubble Space Telescope

What a beautifull pic. We all are used to see/enjoy pictures from HST. How about a pic of and not from HST?