It's always somethin'.
-Rosanne Rosanna Dana
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It's always somethin'.
-Rosanne Rosanna Dana
Ain't that the truth.
But it gives me time to refine my vane style airspeed indicator and finish up on the gun.
I thought you were all GPSed up for airspeed and stuff dude?
GPS doesn't give airspeed...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fokker Builder
Ah, Dana, with the CloudAhoy app, it does! It even looks at METAR data and calculates airspeed versus ground speed, as well as climb and descent rates. However, it does so after the fact.
Any ole aviation nav app will give at least ground speed, in addition to climb rates, altitude, etc. I think iFly does an estimate of airspeed, though.
Replaced the battery, marked out the cut down vane airspeed indicator, and mounted the gun today. I'll figure out mounting the airspeed indicator later.
So Saturday morning if the weather cooperates and my little Babette is willing, we'll go around the patch.
Well, the "one more thing" monster raised it's ugly head, but at least I solved why the last battery damned near melted.
The Diehl alternator is pumping pure juice to it. I was on taxi to the end of the runway and the voltmeter jumped with RPM's, going up to 16 volts before I backed off the throttle. If I'd of gunned it, the needle would have pegged for sure.
Back to the hangar. No flight. This is why I never invite spectators to initial test flights, or for the first few of them. It's a 50/50 chance they won't get to see anything but a lot of fussing.
A little troubleshooting later, and everything is grounded okay, with no change from what it was before. Disconnect the voltage regulator and it's a flat 12 volts on the battery. Run the engine and it's a flat 12v (as to be expected).*
Well, sh*t. So there's one of three things going on:
1) Voltage regulator is crap and needs to be replaced. Eighty bucks.
2) I need to run a ground directly from the Diehl case to the ground on the regulator. The instructions say "The regulator/rectifier unit must be properly grounded to the alternator. Simply placing the unit on standoffs located on the firewall may not be sufficient. A ground wire may be necessary." Apparently in putting things back together I wasn't holding my mouth right - mine is on a standoff to the firewall - and there's insufficient ground now. But it was okay before. Huh. Maybe two dollars.
3) There's a problem with the coils in the Diehl case. Highly unlikely, as if there was it wouldn't be producing juice, and it's not something that moves around and I was very careful with it when it was off the engine. The darned thing is dead simple:
http://www.greatplainsas.com/scdiehl.html
I called it a day, though, as I needed a decent Internet connection to do the research....plus I've found that when I attempt to repair a problem immediately after finding it, sometimes it turns into a fix that will require a larger repair later.
* My ground crew joked that I should just fly the plane the ten minutes around the pattern on just the battery. I guess I got bug eyed at the notion, as it brought big laughs. Flying an aircraft with the ignition on a total loss electrical system? I'm pretty cavalier, but damn.
Frank, that really isn't such a far-fetched notion. The total-loss system has been the default setup on Legal Eagles since they appeared on the scene over twenty years ago. The 1/2 VW will run about four hours on a small battery (several flights in the Eagle!), a couple of hours would probably be very possible with your plane. Just watch the voltmeter and start thinking about winding up the flight when the battery gets around 10v. A few laps around the pattern should be low-stress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
But I don't blame you for wanting something in the system exciting the electrons. My Legal Eagle had a magneto. :)
Sam, both you and my crew were right - no way the battery would go flat in the ten minute run around the pattern and I could have put her to flight.
I can't cut corners like that for a simple reason - I'm a corner cutting kind of guy. "Gooder enough," and "we'll just make it work" have been my guiding light in my life, and somehow, incredibly, I've always come out on top.
So for the aircraft I have to be on guard for the "don't worry about it, it's nothing" mindset. That means being very strict about flight worthiness, and making a few rules about working on the plane and flying it. If it's not completely flight worthy, it's grounded.
I really, really, really like flying, and doubly so when it comes to this aircraft.
One rule I made early on is that I will make no flights on the same day as I make a meaningful* repair. This keeps me from rushing into a task, and gives me a second look at my work before taking it up in the air. It's a good rule for me to have, as more than once I've reviewed my work that I thought was done and spotted something amiss.
You know those guys that remake the same part three times because of some imperfection that really doesn't matter? I'm the opposite of that guy! The only parts I ever remade were totally wrong; if it was in tolerance and worked, no matter how ugly, on it went and I moved on. Eventually I'll fly up to your neck of the woods and after the third walk around you'll start spotting that here and there on the aircraft. There is loads of good workmanship on the plane, but very little excellence. :)
* Meaningful means anything that can effect a stage of flight. Replacing the axle would halt flying that day, but not re-lacing the combing around the cockpit.
Frank, I totally get what you're saying and I think it's a good rule. I have a couple of friends who have the ability (occasionally to an annoying degree) of glancing at the airplane from ten feet away and spotting any imperfection. If there's a wire not secured for more than a few inches, or a screw not tight, they can spot it immediately. I have to work hard to get that kind of detail, so I have to make a concious effort to slow down, walk away and come back for a second look.
I won't argue with that protocol, you made a good decision.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
Very nice discipline
"One rule I made early on is that I will make no flights on the same day as I make a meaningful* repair"
Boy oh boy...are those ever 'words to live by' in more things than aviation..
Kudos
Running an additional ground from the Diehl case to the ground of the regulator worked a treat! Steady voltage.
Now back to waiting on weather and crew...
She went up and around this morning!
No pics or video - I didn't have the mind to set up the GoPro, as I was going over the plane closely and when she was ready for flight, went!
Weather was still with some patches of fog. In fact, about 500 feet from the end of the runway was a wall about 1,000 feet high, and when I saw it taxied back to talk to my spotter.
"Hmmm, fog on that end. Whatcha reckon?"
Rusty looked that way, squinted, and said "That's a long way down there..."
And we both laughed.
The runway is 6,000 feet long. I need about 500 feet to take off, and about the same to land.
So I took off pretty cleanly, if a bit longer than normal - she didn't quite leap in the air as before - did a slow climb to build up airspeed to about 1,300 AGL, did a gentle turn until I was going the other way on the downwind, and looked at the runway. By design I was just about over it, and there was more runway behind me than in front.
One of the things I've been doing not so well is my approaches to land. Way too shallow and way too fast. This time I pulled throttle just past the runway end and did a nice curve to the threshold, letting the plane sink in a good glide down to it. Tiny goose at the end for a not bad wheel landing.
Rigging seems okay, though she's got a little pitch up hands free at full throttle - still very much a two finger aircraft on the stick, though, so I'm not too concerned. It might resolve itself at cruise.
Brakes are pathetically weak, which is okay by me.
Engine timing is <this> close, but off a bit. She ran fine, turning 3K RPM's on the climb and downwind before I throttled back, but it's not quite there. I killed the engine at the end* and she kept running for six or seven turns of the prop. So something to work on.
* I have just one switch, the master, and she's electronic ignition. I have to chase down solutions to this, but my money says it's a timing issue. Also, I should be turning 3200 RPM's on take-off. Part of this just may be breaking in the new engine.
Congrats, Frank. What was the total number of days, from turn-over to first flight?
Ron Wanttaja
Frank,
Congratulations! I want to wish you the best.
Rick
My "no probem, gimme three months" repairs took one year, three weeks to flight. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by rwanttaja
Apparently time does not fly when you're trying to fly. Congrats Frank, you persevered and you're back in the air. Please keep it right side up from now on. 😀Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:
A little walk around video I made:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiZTN8N9jDs&t
Terrific looking bird - sincere kudos.
Exercise in discipline today.
Went to the airport to not only check on the general state of things after the storm, but do some minor maintenance.
The forecast was no wind, but low clouds. No flying, just work, was my decision before heading out.
The epoxy on the fuel tank worked a treat - I no longer have a sheen of gasoline on the lower neck of it next to the battery. While that removes some minor sense of adventure in flying, I'll just have to live with it.
I had used the fuel pump to empty the gas tank, and so the battery had to be recharged.
One of my tires was flat, so I replaced the inner tube.
The gun's front bottom bolts looked kinda ugly sticking out there, so I made covers for them. Completely cosmetic, the bolts are firm and robust. The rear support tube joint was a bit rough, so I bent the tabs to a better angle and placed nuts on the insides of the center section to reduce vibration. Not that I saw it wiggle in flight, it's just a simple means of beefing it up.
Double checked my fuel bobber, as it seems a bit low with five gallons in it. It's bobbing fine; maybe I've needed to extend the rod the whole time, and adding another three gallons really brought it up. Going to have to think about that. It needs to bottom out at the three gallon mark (one hour flight time) or maybe two, not the five.
Meanwhile, the clouds were slowly lifting and breaking up. Two thousand feet. No, don't look, the're sucker holes and there's a lower wall over there. Two five hundred, with it looking pretty good to the west. Winds are almost nil on the ground. But something is moving the low clouds, and it ain't magic.
I have a little personal rule that if I call a no-go for flight from the start, that's it. No flight. Nobody is running up to me with a kidney in a cooler for a child's transplant, after all, and it's a hobby. I'm naturally kind of risky, so I have to really watch myself; without a system of personal rules for risk to follow I have been known to be foolhardy - it is through the grace of God that I survived long enough to see the wisdom of risk management.
Talledega race week, so my airport has already been invaded. On the upside, they cut the grass. Hell, they bailed it, it was tall enough. The front of the FBO looks like a car dealership with rental vehicles. RV's are starting to fill the areas across from the race track, so traffic will be crazy soon. Well, slow and stupid. The NASCAR guys that make up the airport board and folks sporting lanyards with ID's on them were seen today clearly checking things out, and judging by the looks I got from them, us local yokels aren't favored sons. The place where they put the boarding pass machine was being cleared in the FBO.
Things get pretty fancy for a few days twice a year.
I need to have a few weeks of good weather to complete my test flight requirements and move one airport over. St. Claire County (Pell City) is much better, with friendly folks and management that isn't a huge corporation taking care of a field only because they are under under legal obligation to do so.
Awesome looking bird. Rim tape can be your friend with those style rims. Get the right width.
Tony
Frank, give the induction system a careful look, a small leak that allows the engine to run lean at idle can make it "diesel" when you kill the ignition. Make sure the carb to manifold connection and all the connections in the intake manifold are tight. An airleak at the carb bowl gasket can also cause this problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
Yes, PLR should be a much more conducive aerodrome for our type of flying. I really miss the great restaurant (Sammy's, I still have the t-shirt....) that was on the field before the owner lost his life in a Breezy accident.
Okay, the good news - it's the timing that was causing the run-on.
The bad news - I've got so buggered up that she wouldn't turn more than 2K RPM under load and so that was an aborted takeoff attempt.
The good news - it's just a function of pulling the prop off and starting from square one on the whole timing thing. Eventually I'll be a pro at it. I had a long conversation with Valley Engineering about the ignition system (it uses a Harley Davidson set of coils), so I'm better informed on the whole of the system, which is a step forward.
In all of it I noticed Culver had cut me a 60x27 prop to replace my 62x27 one, and when I brought it up they instantly said they'd cut me one of the proper size and replace it. Gotta love a company that backs up its product.
Hey Frank,
Nice you have some Harley parts, gives that VDub some class :rollseyes:
Man, Culver sounds like some good old small American company customer service giants.
Happy Fokkering to you
Jim
I can't sing the praises of Valley Engineering/Culver Props enough. They do need some reminders and follow up from time to time, but they make their deadlines and the quality of their product (and the prices) just can't be beat.
Or, for that matter, Great Plains. When I was rebuilding my VW, I called them with a question and the guru for that wasn't around, so they took down my name and number. AND HE CALLED ME WHEN HE GOT IN. Now, then, I didn't buy a whole VW kit from them, just some parts, and they acted like I was a huge corporate customer.
Both companies speak doo-hickey, which is invaluable to me. Not a single snicker when I said "So I got the light gun and did the thing with the thing with the marks."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHVmwuQfa5E
Now with 300% more bounces on landing!
Last time, without a camera, I rounded it out nicely for a greaser wheel landing.
Putting the GoPro on top of the gun was a good idea, except it shook too much - and the anti-shake filter made it look like it was made of rubber!
Some minor oil leaks to chase down, but other than that I'm very pleased.
Frank,
An old timer once told me that he never bounces a landing, he does high speed, high impact non-destructive (hopefully) testing of the bungees. As usual thank you for the awesome video. Fly safe
Rick
p.s. The same gentleman would also refer to them as landing 'First And Recurring Test Sequences, he was an engineer after all
I refer to it as a ground stability check.
My field has the bonus of being grooved pavement, which is like the double bonus round in landing a plane like mine. It's not forgiving in the least, with no sliding at all...it is definitely ground loop friendly, but not in the good way. Smooth pavement is much easier, and I'm looking forward to landing at a decent grass strip.
Post flight checks show that I had a couple oil leaks - oil cooler line inlet hose needed tightening, and there's some oil leaking around the prop hub (very little), and some around one of the valve push rods. Hopefully rotating the tube around it will seat the seal...otherwise it will involve some surgery.
I'm also going to replace the hinges on the rudder pedals. The were bent a little in the flip, and my fixes weren't where I want them.
Can you land in the grass alongside the paved runway? That's what I do whenever possible at my home field and others where I know the grass is in good condition. Some airports frown on it, though.
The grass at my airfield is horrible. Absolutely horrible. I'd drive my F-150 across it, so long as everything inside was well secured.
In my 30+ years on the Internet, this has got to be the greatest straight line of all time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
Ron "Up in Smoke" Wanttaja
:)
Weather was perfect today - zero gusting to one, CAVU, 65 degrees temperature - so I flew around for about an hour.
I'd of flown more but I noticed my alternator wasn't charging the battery, so I beat a hasty retreat to the airfield. I dunno, maybe when I replaced the rudder pedal hinges I knocked the positive wire to the battery or something. Either that or I let the magic smoke out of the voltage regulator when it wasn't grounded well enough and was over-charging. Since it's Halloween and we have legions of trick-or-treaters, I put her back in the hangar and drove home.
But other than that, what a little sweetie to fly in the air. She just does everything well without fuss. And with the arrival of Fall and the cold, less thermals so I wasn't getting tossed around.
Something really unusual happened, too. On my first flight's landing, I did the short Champ pattern I'd been working on, rounded it out well, hit my intended landing spot and did a pretty darned good wheel landing, slowing well short of the first turn off. Making a good landing isn't that surprising, but when I taxied up to my hangar I saw four guys standing at the maintenance hangar. They had witnessed a good landing. Normally it's like in the Bible - "whenever two or more of you shall gather, Frank will splatter the landing."
I've really chopped down my pattern to where I'm about 3 or 400 yards to the side of the runway on downwind.
On my first flight after the rebuild, there was fog just past the other end of our 5,000 foot runway, so I used about a third of it before turning left and getting into the downwind. :)
I had to shrink it, as I was flying these huge fast patterns with a too shallow final; not every field is 100 feet wide and 5,000 feet long and I didn't want to get overly used to that. Plus it's way more efficient and effective to fly a shorter one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
That is the best approach to use with a hi drag airplane also the easiest and most predictable. Actually it works great with about any airplane. When I learned to fly that was the normal pattern not the B-52 go on a cross country that seems to be the norm these days. If you ever fly an airplane with no visibility out the front it's the only way to go. Plus they are fun. Don
I haven't mentioned it, but a lot of my confidence in the aircraft is that she is benign in the stall; power off and it's straight ahead with no break, and on power just a little to the right, and easy to adjust for.
When Robert Baslee says he designed them to be docile with a huge fat airfoil, he wasn't kidding. True, it's a short coupled tail dragger and can bite one easily on the ground during landing, but that's the nature of the beast of the original Nieuport design.
I commented early on that the aircraft and I are learning how to talk to each other in the same language with each flight, and that's been validated in my mind. While it's still just a simple, basic aircraft with only one or two minor quirks (stick slightly rearward on takeoff, wheel landings only), to fly it really well is a conversation.
Frank,
I think you stated that a lot of your tail wheel time was in a Champ ( sorry if I got that incorrect) how does the 11 compare?
thanks
Rick
Apart from the takeoff, pretty darned close.
The conventional wisdom is that the Champ is about as close to the handling of the Airdrome Aeroplanes as one can get, with a few caveats. In the air, I couldn't agree more (less aerobatics), as it has the same feel. On leads with the rudder in turns, and she rolls about the same. The controls feel about the same, too.
Just don't push the stick forward to bring the tail up on takeoff, and stay with wheel landings only.
This is actually kind of funny, as I almost always three pointed the Champ, only wheel landing in higher winds. In the Nieuport, though, wheel landings seem natural and almost intuitive.
For winter flying in Alabama
https://www.facebook.com/sothatsbuzz...CojHK-Um_2yPTW