Advisory Circular 43.13-1B CHG 1

Advisory Circular 43.13-1B CHG 1 is a Publication maintained by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

AC43.13-1B CHG 1 is the latest version of this valuable document covering the recommended repair and inspection practises for non-pressurised civil aircraft. If you are about to embark on the construction of an aircraft or the restoration of an old classic, the information in AC43.13-1B CHG 1 should be seen as a basis from which you work. Understand what is contained within the publication and you can be assured of a start with a competent appreciation of aviation technology.

The publication is made available in pdf format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the documents.

AC43.13-1B CHG 1's Contents

Chapter 1 - Wooden Structures
Chapter 2 - Fabric Covering ( mainly natural fibre and dope techniques. If you are using the Polyfibre/Stits process use their very complete manual)
Chapter 3 - Composite Structures
Chapter 4 - Metal Structures, Welding, Brazing
Chapter 5 - Non Destructive Testing
Chapter 6 - Corrosion Inspection & Protection
Chapter 7 - Aircraft Hardware, Nuts, Bolts, Screws, Cables, turnbuckles etc.
Chapter 8 - Engines, Fuel, Exhaust and Propellors
Chapter 9 - Aircraft Systems and Components
Chapter 10 - Weight & Balance
Chapter 11 - Aircraft Electrical Systems
Chapter 12 - Aircraft Avionics Systems
Chapter 13 - Human Factors
Appendix 1 - glossary
Appendix 2 - acronyms and abbreviations
Appendix 3 - metric prefixes.

Files can be download from here: -

One file containing all chapters and appendicies can be download from here. This is a 17 mb zip file.

Wayne Gill's WX DECODER v2.0.1 .

WX DECODER is a small utility for decoding Australian Aviation Weather Briefings , free for personal or non commercial use . It takes the standard briefing and decodes it into a much more readable plain english.
WX DECODER doesn't download a briefing for you , you still need to get the briefing via Naips or your web browser , then copy and paste the briefing into WX DECODER.
After the "raw" briefing is loaded , it is automatically scanned and any Locations it finds are added to a list , double click on any Location in the list and the forecast is translated into plain english and displayed in the bottom window.
In this release only TAF's , METAR's and SPECI's are able to be decoded , depending on how many people find it useful , I may add Area Forecasts at a later date .
Download WX Decoder.zip (1857kb).

REQUIRES : Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/2000.

Weather Forecast text before Decoding

SYDNEY (YSSY)
METAR TTF METAR YSSY 1030Z 03009KT CAVOK 20/13 Q1015 RMK RF00.0/000.0 NOSIG
TAF TAF YSSY 221033Z 1212 03010KT CAVOK FM15 33010KT 9999 FEW030 FM03
17015KT 9999 FEW025 SCT035 FM06 13015KT 9999 LIGHT SHOWERS OF RAIN
SCT025 SCT035 T 19 17 17 17 Q 1015 1014 1013 1013

Click here for the weather forecast after Decoding.

Note From Webmaster: As noted by a number of users, WX DECODER v2.0.1 has an error downloading the data using the latest NAIPS. I have tried to contact Wayne with no success. If anybody has contact with him perhaps they could request he contact me. The workaround for this error is to download the data directly from NAIPS then "cut and paste" the info into WX Decoder. (As mentioned above). All is OK with the exception of RMK data. I just delete this from the cut and paste before pasting into the program.

Bracket Size Calculations.

Ever wondered how much you should add to a piece of steel you are going to be bending. Check out this neat little program (852k) from Tony Nixon.