first member of the Hanoi Chapter of EAA

from Fox News - too bad Le Van Danh chose a Mini 500 for his first project



HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - With directions from the Internet and an old Russian
truck motor, a Vietnamese farmer fulfilled his dream of making his own
helicopter. The job took two friends, seven years and $30,000.

Now, military officials say he can't fly it, because he didn't get approval
to build it, and they confiscated the makeshift copter.

"It's my hobby," farmer Le Van Danh complained by telephone Monday from his
hometown of Tay Ninh, in Vietnam's southwest. "I will do whatever I can,
including going to the prime minister, to get the permission."

True, he admits, the helicopter is still a work in progress: It only rises
about 18 inches off the ground. "We are in the process of a fifth test of
moving forward and backward, left and right," Danh said.

Getting approval to keep working on the chopper won't be easy. No Vietnamese
individual has ever been granted a government license to build an aircraft,
said Le Cong Tinh, director of the Air Transport Safety division of the
country's Civil Aviation Administration.

The farmer said he won't give up, vowing to sell his house or 25 acres of
land if that's what it takes to get the license. "If I cannot do it, my
children or my grandchildren will do it," he said.

In article ,
"Dave" wrote:

from Fox News - too bad Le Van Danh chose a Mini 500 for his first project


Ouch... Zing! Still, Muslim-terrorist-wannabee Dennis Fetters was doing
some deal in Asia, wasn't he?

The job took two friends, seven years and $30,000.

Soesn't say how many wives.


"It's my hobby," farmer Le Van Danh complained by telephone Monday from his
hometown of Tay Ninh, in Vietnam's southwest.

He'd probably be in the Saigon chapter (no one calls it Ho Chi Minh city
but the sort of asshat bureaucrats Mr Danh is dealing with). Tay Ninh
was a provincial capital in the old Republic.


Getting approval to keep working on the chopper won't be easy. No Vietnamese
individual has ever been granted a government license to build an aircraft,

Well, yeah, he might do something bad, like fly to a free country.

cheers

-=K=-

No clever tagline yet

My initial impression when I read the story: the guy was triple-screwed, but
he will stay alive as long as they kept him from flying the thing. He
doesn't know how lucky he is.

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:55:22 -0600, "El Roto"
wrote:

My initial impression when I read the story: the guy was triple-screwed, but
he will stay alive as long as they kept him from flying the thing. He
doesn't know how lucky he is.

My initial reaction was, "Why didn't McNamara think of this
40 years ago?" :-)

Ron Wanttaja

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:55:22 -0600, "El Roto"
wrote:

My initial impression when I read the story: the guy was triple-screwed, but
he will stay alive as long as they kept him from flying the thing. He
doesn't know how lucky he is.

My initial reaction was, "Why didn't McNamara think of this
40 years ago?" :-)

Ron Wanttaja

too busy with Nicaragua?

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 04:51:35 GMT, "Dave" wrote:

from Fox News - too bad Le Van Danh chose a Mini 500 for his first project



HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - With directions from the Internet and an old Russian
truck motor, a Vietnamese farmer fulfilled his dream of making his own
helicopter. The job took two friends, seven years and $30,000.

Now, military officials say he can't fly it, because he didn't get approval
to build it, and they confiscated the makeshift copter.

"It's my hobby," farmer Le Van Danh complained by telephone Monday from his
hometown of Tay Ninh, in Vietnam's southwest. "I will do whatever I can,
including going to the prime minister, to get the permission."

True, he admits, the helicopter is still a work in progress: It only rises
about 18 inches off the ground. "We are in the process of a fifth test of
moving forward and backward, left and right," Danh said.

Getting approval to keep working on the chopper won't be easy. No Vietnamese
individual has ever been granted a government license to build an aircraft,
said Le Cong Tinh, director of the Air Transport Safety division of the
country's Civil Aviation Administration.

The farmer said he won't give up, vowing to sell his house or 25 acres of
land if that's what it takes to get the license. "If I cannot do it, my
children or my grandchildren will do it," he said.



That's really too bad in reality. This guy probably thinks he bought
a viable commodity; something that might take him aloft to self
actualize his most spiritual dreams of flight. From the little we see
written here it appears that he's hovered it (maybe) at 18 inches for
a bit. Depending upon how long he did that, he's probably worn it out
already.

Mine wore out in about 20 hours.

Let's see...$30,000 for 20 hours is about what?.....$1500/hr. Worst
cost to benefit ratio I ever saw for a homebuilder. I'm glad that
Fred Stewart gave it to me. Sorry for Fred's loss of money on that
deal.

This is the problem with what fetters did (in my HUMBLE opinion).
These kits were sold to anyone. All you had to do was be able to sign
your name on the check. I doubt that most of the buyers really knew
anything much about homebuilding. Most of the first time homebuilders
I met when they elected me the president of the builder's association
who built the Mini-500 helicopter had no other experience. They
didn't know if a castle nut, a pal nut or a nylock nut was required on
a component.

So they just blindly followed the plans and assembly instructions.

I mean, how many knew what type of bearings should have been used on
the main rotor transmission or if they were wrong? How about the
bearing in the tailrotor transmission? How many might know that needs
to be a special thrust bearing? How many might know how to use a
Chadwick tracking and balancing instrument to fine tune the moment if
inertia of the main and tail rotor blades so they don't tear the
machine apart when they spool it up?

So, this guy in Viet Nam with his life savings and a dream for flight
gets to buy this piece of ****, death trap, build it and attempt to
waste himself. Then to top it all off, he has to deal with the
Vietnamese government to fly it. Poor rice farmer! Duped from the
get-go and no where to turn.

Well, I have something to tell him if he could hear me. You are lucky
Mr. Vietnam Man. There are many who did fly it and they died. At
least you get to hold your children in your arms for another day and
tuck them into bed at night. Many others like my buddies Gil
Armbruster and Allen Barklage have been in the grave for many years
now from their faith in the Mini-500 while others proclaim their
destiny was from a lack of experience, or pilot error.

Yeah, right.

Allen with 32,000 (Thirty two thousand) hours of chopper time, punches
in and buys the farm in his Mini-500. Yep, must have been lack of
experience eh?

Have a nice day.

BWB

But dang that thing looked neat. Too bad the power to weight was so
lousy. And the hardware quality control was so lacking. And the
design was so questionable (my opinions only.) If I was surfing the
net in my rice paddy, I'd order up one too on the internet just from
the color shots alone. Not sure I'd go with the Russian truck engine
though! But *hay*, who wants to live forever right? ;^D

Besides, after you send the check, Allah or Buddha will watch over
your ball bearings.

pac "true believer" plyer

(thank god for free speech at RAH, who knows, I might have bought one
of those things!)


(Badwater Bill) wrote in message .. .
On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 04:51:35 GMT, "Dave" wrote:

from Fox News - too bad Le Van Danh chose a Mini 500 for his first project



HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - With directions from the Internet and an old Russian
truck motor, a Vietnamese farmer fulfilled his dream of making his own
helicopter. The job took two friends, seven years and $30,000.

Now, military officials say he can't fly it, because he didn't get approval
to build it, and they confiscated the makeshift copter.

"It's my hobby," farmer Le Van Danh complained by telephone Monday from his
hometown of Tay Ninh, in Vietnam's southwest. "I will do whatever I can,
including going to the prime minister, to get the permission."

True, he admits, the helicopter is still a work in progress: It only rises
about 18 inches off the ground. "We are in the process of a fifth test of
moving forward and backward, left and right," Danh said.

Getting approval to keep working on the chopper won't be easy. No Vietnamese
individual has ever been granted a government license to build an aircraft,
said Le Cong Tinh, director of the Air Transport Safety division of the
country's Civil Aviation Administration.

The farmer said he won't give up, vowing to sell his house or 25 acres of
land if that's what it takes to get the license. "If I cannot do it, my
children or my grandchildren will do it," he said.



That's really too bad in reality. This guy probably thinks he bought
a viable commodity; something that might take him aloft to self
actualize his most spiritual dreams of flight. From the little we see
written here it appears that he's hovered it (maybe) at 18 inches for
a bit. Depending upon how long he did that, he's probably worn it out
already.

Mine wore out in about 20 hours.

Let's see...$30,000 for 20 hours is about what?.....$1500/hr. Worst
cost to benefit ratio I ever saw for a homebuilder. I'm glad that
Fred Stewart gave it to me. Sorry for Fred's loss of money on that
deal.

This is the problem with what fetters did (in my HUMBLE opinion).
These kits were sold to anyone. All you had to do was be able to sign
your name on the check. I doubt that most of the buyers really knew
anything much about homebuilding. Most of the first time homebuilders
I met when they elected me the president of the builder's association
who built the Mini-500 helicopter had no other experience. They
didn't know if a castle nut, a pal nut or a nylock nut was required on
a component.

So they just blindly followed the plans and assembly instructions.

I mean, how many knew what type of bearings should have been used on
the main rotor transmission or if they were wrong? How about the
bearing in the tailrotor transmission? How many might know that needs
to be a special thrust bearing? How many might know how to use a
Chadwick tracking and balancing instrument to fine tune the moment if
inertia of the main and tail rotor blades so they don't tear the
machine apart when they spool it up?

So, this guy in Viet Nam with his life savings and a dream for flight
gets to buy this piece of ****, death trap, build it and attempt to
waste himself. Then to top it all off, he has to deal with the
Vietnamese government to fly it. Poor rice farmer! Duped from the
get-go and no where to turn.

Well, I have something to tell him if he could hear me. You are lucky
Mr. Vietnam Man. There are many who did fly it and they died. At
least you get to hold your children in your arms for another day and
tuck them into bed at night. Many others like my buddies Gil
Armbruster and Allen Barklage have been in the grave for many years
now from their faith in the Mini-500 while others proclaim their
destiny was from a lack of experience, or pilot error.

Yeah, right.

Allen with 32,000 (Thirty two thousand) hours of chopper time, punches
in and buys the farm in his Mini-500. Yep, must have been lack of
experience eh?

Have a nice day.

BWB

On 19 Feb 2004 00:54:40 -0800, (pacplyer) wrote:

But dang that thing looked neat. Too bad the power to weight was so
lousy. And the hardware quality control was so lacking. And the
design was so questionable (my opinions only.) If I was surfing the
net in my rice paddy, I'd order up one too on the internet just from
the color shots alone. Not sure I'd go with the Russian truck engine
though! But *hay*, who wants to live forever right? ;^D

Besides, after you send the check, Allah or Buddha will watch over
your ball bearings.

pac "true believer" plyer

(thank god for free speech at RAH, who knows, I might have bought one
of those things!)


Yeah Pac. "Hay" man still lives on while the people who sent in
deposits on the 2-seater wonder what happened to them. I guess Buddha
and Allah and Ferris Wheel will watch over them too. In fact they
have. Just the fact that they never got their machines delivered
means they got to live....maybe not forever *hay*, but longer anyway.


After re-reading this, I wonder how many people understand what I just
said? Ha Ha. I can see that you were here in them thar days Pac or
you wouldn't remember the illiterate conversations.

I got your phone number. I've just been flying all this week. If you
get to Vegas next weekend, call me. Just got back from Provo
yesterday. Damn IFR wx is getting me down. Our boss is buying us a
C-414 now. I get to spend today in it reading manuals on how to
operate that new Garmin 530 with the TCAS and the METAR links. That
think is so cool you can request the radar images from from
ground-based radar facilities through the satellites and get it in
real time from the ground stations. So, now we don't need expensive
on-board radar to see our way around imbedded thunderstorms, or TCAS.
They call the new traffic avoidance system, TIS (Traffic Information
System). It shows the targets that ATC is seeing and transmitting you
us on our moving map display. We get an audio alert when a new target
poses a problem to us. The computer calculates their position at the
next pass of the ground based radar antenna and projects that on my
screen. It also gives a vector showing which way the Target is
moving, his altitude and whether he is climbing of descending. Pretty
cool. Just takes hours and hours to read about and learn which
buttons to push. Hopefully I can do it about 20 times and get it down
to a reflex. This thing is also a VOR-LOC receiver with a glideslope
and a COM radio transmitter/receiver. There's a little button in the
bottom left corner that you push and it becomes a VOR, an ILS receiver
or a GPS that slaves an external HSI or even CDI's (for NAV or
Glideslope and Localizer). We have a flight director in it so the
fly-bars give me commands for fly-up/fly-down plus right and left
along with the HSI. It makes flying the thing so easy, a child could
do it.

I don't know how many of you have ever flown with a flight director
but it's years ahead of just watching a CDI on an approach. For
instance, the CDI on a localizer only shows your relative position to
the localizer. You could be drifting off with a wind change and never
know it until you get an actual change in posisiton of the CDI that
shows you are now off the beam. So, when you get that, you correct
and get back on. With a flight director, it looks at the rates that
things are changing. If you are dead on the beam but drifting, it
knows that and commands you to make a turn into the wind so you can
stay dead on. The damn localizer CDI never moves all the way down the
approach, but the fly-bars are twitching all over the place to make
you correct for what is going to happen to you if you don't. For
those of you guys who have had calculus, what it is doing is taking
the time derivative of your right/left and up/down position. If these
are changing in time (even though you are dead on the beam) the
fly-bars command you to do something about it before you ever get an
indication of being off course...because you never get off course.

In the olden days we didn't have that as I said above. You had to get
off the beam to get an indication in your CDI that you needed to
correct for. So, you drifted back and forth and back and forth across
the localizer all the way down. Made you nausious even.

Anyway, I gotta go sit in the airplane cockpit for a few hours and
read this stuff. I can't think of a better way to spend my day.

BWB

(Badwater Bill) wrote in message . ..
snip
I got your phone number. I've just been flying all this week. If you
get to Vegas next weekend, call me. Just got back from Provo
yesterday. Damn IFR wx is getting me down. Our boss is buying us a
C-414 now. I get to spend today in it reading manuals on how to
operate that new Garmin 530 with the TCAS and the METAR links.

****, I'll leave you alone for a while then. Nothing worse in the
world than having to learn a new airplane and it's systems when the
relatives want to come to town to distract you. (we must be related
since Dr. "a" says were the same person.) ;-) Funny how he/she
disappeared.


That
think is so cool you can request the radar images from from
ground-based radar facilities through the satellites and get it in
real time from the ground stations. So, now we don't need expensive
on-board radar to see our way around imbedded thunderstorms, or TCAS.
They call the new traffic avoidance system, TIS (Traffic Information
System). It shows the targets that ATC is seeing and transmitting you
us on our moving map display. We get an audio alert when a new target
poses a problem to us. The computer calculates their position at the
next pass of the ground based radar antenna and projects that on my
screen. It also gives a vector showing which way the Target is
moving, his altitude and whether he is climbing of descending. Pretty
cool

snip good description of FD op

Wow. How far out can you expand to see the targets? I've always
wanted this capability. You could see how many guys are lining up for
the approach, which appr they're using. Neat stuff like that, so you
could mentally expect holding instruction from ATC, start slowing down
without being told etc. The TCAS we use is great, but you can only
see conflicts out to 12 miles away. You're going to be surprised
Bill, when you operate into Vegas during peak hours with this traffic
display, at how many times controllers are going to call traffic to
you in error. They'll say "BWB414Titan, opposite direction F-16
traffic, ten o'clock five miles same altitude turn right 30 degrees,
break other disasters bla bla bla, break, break break….etc) You'll
look out the windscreen at ten o'clock and see nothing. Then you'll
look down at your display and see a yellow going to red target at two
o'clock, look back up to two o'clock, and bingo, there he is. No time
with inefficient voice to get permission from mother earth to nix the
30 degree right order (which would have turned you right into him.)
But that controller's only human, and the gov isn't going to relieve
his peak workload until somebody get's killed *and* there's no way to
blame it on wx or pilot error etc, *and* it makes prime time. Don't
even point out the controller's **** up to him, because he'll just
have a Mallox moment for a second, and in that second somebody else on
the scope loses a traffic call-out by him. But that TCAS/TIS is neat,
neat stuff to have on board. Every time this happens a ****-eating
grin will slowly creep across your face and you'll know you're a great
pilot. But in the Cargo dog world, we won't get this neat stuff
until another near-miss with Air Force One (that's what mandated TCAS
last time for freighters.) I'm jealous of your new toys you mo fo.
;-)

Just takes hours and hours to read about and learn which
buttons to push. Hopefully I can do it about 20 times and get it
down
to a reflex.

snips

Anyway, I gotta go sit in the airplane cockpit for a few hours and
read this stuff. I can't think of a better way to spend my day.

BWB

That is how I learned every machine I ever flew. Spending hours in
the cockpit with the manual, a thermos of Java, and the black boxes
all ginned-up, to the great annoyance of mechanics (run down
batteries,) chief pilots, (big jet-A bill from running the APU,) and
management, "you weren't qualified/authorized on the equipment…neiter
neiter neiter …..
But the guys who weren't willing to do this always had "the nursing
home stare" during the oral exam because they only understood the book
theory and had no real practical experience and couldn't answer tough
questions about how to run the systems. :-o Or they suddenly got the
"deer in the headlights stare" on the first FAA oral questions. 8-o

Or worse, they got Santa Claused on the checkride and later f$#*ed up
the programming over the Atlantic somewhere and got a GNE. (which
leads to all kinds of unpleasantness including extra check rides and
unpaid vacations.

This is what really happened to KAL flight 007. Korean flights had
been off course and lost a bunch of times before the ruskies finally
got tired of it and a hero of the state shot them down. I used to
hear Tokyo repeatedly asking KAL flights to explain why they were five
minutes off their estimate (clue #1 that you have either mistyped your
coordinates or the airplane is pointed in the wrong direction in Hdg
Sel, cuz you were going around wx and forgot to return to nav mode, or
the command feature of the A/P just clicked down into manual mode
(wing leveler) without any noise. Just being in the same airspace
with Korean was a hazard. Their English was so poor they often
misunderstood what everybody else was doing. If those guys would
have at least studied on the ground, in the airplane with the manual a
little bit, it would have prevented them from smearing aluminum all
over the pacific (and killing a lot of innocent pax.)

I have the utmost respect for single-pilot-IFR operators. That is by
far, some of the most demanding flying I have ever done. I know BWB
knows this, but for any doctors or lawyers out there, just don't get
over-reliant on the flight directors. They can and will sometime
steer you into a mountain (esp. glass stuff.) Good Capts on
multi-crew intentionally ;-) screw up the FGS (flight guidance system)
that steers the FD's to see if their rookie co-pilots are "looking
through" the command bars or wands or"birds" at the raw data.
Nugget's who fly dot's through the localizer and try to blame the
other guy for not programming the FD correctly: Would get killed if
they flew by themselves. Non-reliance on guidance or ATC is the mark
of a "real stick." Real drivers always distrust the FD's and
continuously cross-check the steering commands with raw data. (G/S,
Loc,etc) (kind of like the government: you still use them, but at the
same time you really don't trust em'.) Good jocks calc a 3 to 1
descent mentally every five thousand feet and 3 degree on approach
(which is hard to do when you're busy.). Many airlines don't stress
the need for dumping the automation fast enough when it becomes
suspect. Most of the violations and fubars at my joint were caused by
guys trying to analyze why the thing did what it did. "what's it
doing now?" instead of just disconnecting and going to the lowest
level of automation: da pilot.

Lastly when you're doing a lot of IMC, take cat-naps in the closets of
FBO's (some have rooms for free if you gas and know to ask,) e.g.
while waiting for wx to lift, or nap in the airplane if you've got a
co-pilot. NASA studies show, those who do have 90% fewer errors in
the appr and landing phase.

Thus endeth the sermon today
(and you guys thought I wasn't religious!)

pacplyer - out

Lastly when you're doing a lot of IMC, take cat-naps in the closets of
FBO's (some have rooms for free if you gas and know to ask,) e.g.
while waiting for wx to lift, or nap in the airplane if you've got a
co-pilot. NASA studies show, those who do have 90% fewer errors in
the appr and landing phase.

Thus endeth the sermon today
(and you guys thought I wasn't religious!)

pacplyer - out

Nice job Pac. I'd love to comment, but guess what? I gotta go out
and fly to Sandy Eggo in this **** tonight. Can you believe this
horse ****? Raining like hell in Vegas. Wall to wall clouds all the
way to Hawaii and they want to go to San Diego tonight...and it's
important. Jesus, there's ice in them thar clouds.

Oh well, when the **** hits the fan, somehow I always make it through.
I hope I do once again tonight.

I'm going to muck around in the low enroute system once again and defy
the ****ing ice gods.

BWB