Neil’s Blog

Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-119 on March 15 2009, taken from my driveway in Melbourne, FL.

Photography, random

First successful 360 degree panorama, made with Hugin Panorama Photo Stitcher (totally free program for Mac OSX, Windows, or Linux).   Taken halfway through an 11-mile bike ride to Melbourne Beach and back.  Picture(s) were taken on the Melbourne Causeway, 28.084149° N, 80.590953° W.

Click for more detail ... Original picture is 16MB, 5242x800 pixels.

Detail shot, extreme-right...

Photography causeway, melbourne, panorama, Photography, road bike

Some pictures from Lake Eola this weekend…

More pictures here: [Flickr feed]

Why can't my tax dollars go to more parks like this?

Anser geese

Trumpeter Swans

Ducks?

Taken from the swan boat

hdr #2

My favorite HDR shot of the day

Photography hdr, Lake Eola, orlando, park, Photography

Looking back on 2008… And forward to 2009.  I’m looking forward to this year, despite the economic outlook ahead.  January should be an interesting month: my birthday is coming up, George W. is getting kicked out of the Whitehouse, LOST season 5 will premiere on the 21st..  Also the Sebring Wheels down Winter test is coming up, which I’m told the last year that Audi and several others will be racing in the American Le Mans series :(

After months of neglecting my blog, I’ve made some backdated entries and updated my Wordpress theme.  One of my new year’s resolutions is to post more of the cool stuff I’ve been doing… Unfortunately I’ve been too busy to document anything.

Oh yea, and if you voted for Bush back in 2000 or 2004… I told you so!  G.W. really screwed things up.  You guys should have known better, especially since you had a second chance to get rid of him.

“Fool me once, shame on…. Shame on you..  If fooled, you can’t get fooled again”

politics, random

I usually hate looking at christmas lights.. But I figured it would give me a good opportunity to practice long-exposure shots on my new Canon SLR camera.

More night photography to come in the next few months…

HDR shot taken at f5.0, ISO 100, exposure bracketd at 1, 2, and 4 seconds

f5.0, ISO 100, 4 sec. exposure

f5.0, ISO 100, 2 sec exposure

HDR shot taken at f5.0 ISO 100, exposure bracketed at 1, 2, and 4 seconds

Photography 2008, christmas, hdr, lights, night photography, slr

Backdated pics from my trip to Jamaica back in late October / Early November.  My friend Phil was getting married in Montego Bay, and who can pass up a chance to get loaded up on Appleton Rum and Red Stripe Lager ?

Some interesting notes from the trip:

• We only saw two American cars on the entire time… And we spent a lot of time looking.  Toyota has the largest market share by far.
• Speed limits are taken as recommendations.  Most people go much faster.
• The stereotype of most Jamaicans being Rastafarian isn’t very accurate.  The majority of Jamaicans are Christian and don’t smoke [marijuana].
• Jamaican food is the shit.  Jerk pork, plaintains, ackee and saltfish, rice and beans, escoveitched fish, etc.  The best place for Jerk port in Montego bay is Scotchies on A1, just west of the Holiday Inn.

Protip: Air Jamaica flies directly over Cuba. Other airlines have to go around.

Taken from the hotel room

First successful long exposure taken with my new Canon SLR

Taken from the mini-island in front of the Holiday Inn Sunspree

Montego Bay

Jerk Chicken at the Port Pit, on Gloucester Avenue

Red Stripe, Hooray beer!

More pictures on my Flickr page: [link]

Photography, Places jamaica, montego bay

ISS - Tropical Storm Fay 8/20/2008

Some shots from sunny Melbourne Florida:

Driveway shot - knee deep water

The house on the right is ours...

Down the street

This is the only time of year I don't hate big trucks and SUV's... They were the only ones making it up and down the streets.

A beeched Chrysler 300 on University Blvd...

Dozens of kids floated by throughout the day

I saw an airboat drive by earlier but didn’t have my camera…

random fay, faye, fl, flood, flooding, florida, hurricane, melbourne, tropical storm

Ok, so no real progress from March thru July of 2008.  However this month we’ve resumed progress and managed to get the wing pieces cut, drilled, and attached to the fuselage.  Also for the first time we get to see what it looks like with the dacron sails installed.  If you ask me, they’re pretty ugly :)  For $300 who can complain though.  We’ve been tossing around the idea of painting the center section black which may improve the aesthetics and also hide any dirt, oil, or carbon buildup from the engine.

Click on the thumbnails below for some nice hi-res shots:

The next step is to install the engine mount, and then bolt on the Kawasaki 440.  Stay tuned.

Weedhopper ultralight dacron, fabric, Weedhopper ultralight, wings

Here are the new elevators and horizontal stabilizer:

[zoomer]50|400|0|Elevator and horizontal stabilizer|0|0[/zoomer]

I decided pretty early on to try something new instead of using the stock Weedhopper tail section. My design has a few interesting features that should prove useful. More on those later.

Hal did all the sewing by hand on a 25-year old Kenmore sewing machine… The 3.9 ounce Dacron fabric and UV thread were bought from Hang ‘Em High Fabrics (part #’s 3.9 and T46-1-W) — we ended up spending $157 on these. There were no premade patterns to use so the dimensions were transferred directly to the fabric. Trying to get both surfaces drum-tight wasn’t easy — which is one of the reasons the tail section has taken so long. There were many other problems along the way, but the pieces turned out great in the end.

[zoomer]52|400|0|Elevator and horizontal stabilizer|0|0[/zoomer]

We will be using Drifter hinges on the elevator. Placing them at 45° lowers the gap from 1″ down to 0.4″, plus it allows us to ‘fold’ the elevators up for storage or transport.

[zoomer]53|400|0|Elevator hinges|0|0[/zoomer]

The rudder is done but the fabric hasn’t been permanently installed yet. I’ll be making another small update Sunday or so to show the complete tail section installed on the airframe.

Weedhopper ultralight dacron, elevators, fabric, horizontal stabilizer, tail section, Weedhopper ultralight

This weekend we installed the wheels and brakes. I didn’t like the stock Weedhopper setup, so I came up with the following:

Main wheels/brakes – 8″ Azusa aluminum spinner wheel & brake kit – Includes wheels, brakes, drums, tires, tubes, and hardware (Aircraft Spruce P/N 06-03410, $218.20)

[zoomer]34|400|0|Azusa 8″ spinner wheels|0|0[/zoomer]

The original Weedhoppers used a piece of rubber that contacts the nose wheel when you press your foot on it. I dunno, I like these brakes better :)

[zoomer]32|400|0|Azusa drum brakes|0|0[/zoomer]

1″ 4130 chromoly main axle – ends step down to 5/8″ to fit wheel bearing ID. The original Weedhopper used a solid 1″ rod of aluminum. This one should be much stronger and only a pound or so heavier.

[zoomer]35|400|0|4130 main axle|0|0[/zoomer]

Custom nose fork – I designed it in CAD and then machined it from aluminum. It’s roughly the same shape and size as the original Weedhopper fork.

[zoomer]31|400|0|Nose wheel fork – CAD drawing|0|0[/zoomer]

Machining the nose fork on my new G0463:

[zoomer]37|400|0|Machining the nose fork base|0|0[/zoomer]

Nose wheel – 4″ Azusalite nylon wheel and 4.10 x 3.50 x 4 tire/tube (Aircraft spruce P/N 06-02600 and 06-02800, $34.00)

(the blue stuff is dykem. I need to clean this stuff off when I get a chance)

[zoomer]36|400|0|Front nosewheel assembly – mockup|0|0[/zoomer]

Up next is the seat, control stick, foot pedals, and teleflex control cabling. We’re hoping to have a somewhat complete cabin by March 10 or so.

Weedhopper ultralight