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Ron,  I am pretty sure those are the 30" in the pictures.  They left a much smaller footprint in the sand at that same spot than my 26" good years did.  I am hoping to see how the 30" look on my Avid later this week.  I just have to get the skis pulled off and get them bolted on.

If your running an 0320 look for an 82X41 or an 81X42 prop.  The pull you will get with it to get you out of tight spots is well worth cruising a little slower.

I have spoken to Lostman and both him and his wife are okay. The investigation is still ongoing so please don't speculate about causes or the end result. The FAA is known to frequent message boards after an incident for information. Thanks for your cooperation. Joey

Has anyone spoken to Brett? At all?

My buddy's Avid-Kitfox hybrid weighs 670.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2014/04/12/plane-lands-on-golf-course--at-stillmeadow-country-club/7637085/ just saw the vid sounds like they walked away.

I like the way you think Randy! I will check the work schedule, but I think I may be off on the 28th, it will be close.

Randy,

I just re-read your post...those are 26" tires in your pic. Sorry I got confused there for a minute.

Your 26s look great, well proportioned.

So, I'm going to use 26s as a minimum, but I think I'll probably go with the 30s, sounds like they will do what I want them to.

Ed, that sounds good, let me do a little research to get smart on those. I understand what you are saying with the thicker disc. I'm sure that the good braking trade off is a little more weight added, but sounds like it could be worth it.

Randy and Joey, thanks again for your input! I'm going with 30s since I haven't bought the 26s yet and since my gear is the same length and height as Randy's.

Randy your plane looks great! I love those tires! I hope you don't mind me stealing all of your ideas? I have copied your gear, want the same tires and I even looked at the boat seats in cabelas that you have in your plane! I feel like an internet stalker! Ha!

Thanks again guys!

26's will be good but your Magnum could easily handle bigger tires.  The trade off between the 26's on my Avid+ and the 30's is about 4 to 5 mph in cruise.  It depends of what you want to do.  If you already have the 26's then just use them.  If you haven't bought them yet then you may want to go bigger if your main mission is to never touch pavement and to spend as much time as possible exploring new landing spots.  I am on the 5th set of tires for my plane; they keep getting bigger.  26's are very good but 30's are more for fun for me than real need, (they will just about land in water without leaving a print though).  If you plan to land in 6" to 8" rocks with occasional larger ones I would recomend the bigger tires.

Like Joey said, air pressure plays a big part.  At 5 psi they can roll over a lot of stuff without damaging your plane and also barely leave a footprint in real loose sand so you don't have to worry about getting back out of it.

Hey Randy,

When I started this thread, I was actually thinking, I hope this doesn't come off like I was saying the lightest planes are better than other planes. I just wanted to get a feel for what kind of weight I should realistically shoot for with my engine choice. Mine won't be the lightest either

For the record, your plane is one of my favorite Avids. It just looks like a bush plane, and it's demonstrated that it's plenty capable.

Luke D.

Well, that's that. Removing the nose gear structure was very easy. Now it remains to be seen how hard it will be to add some tubes back in. Start to finish was about 20 minutes,and I was taking my time. I used a sawzall, and it worked great. Very little work with the grinder will be needed,and I think the structure is in very usable condition.

The only tubes that are significantly shortened are the cross tube at the base of the socket, and the one from the top of the socket to the top of the seat truss. It's yours to use Mark if you want it. Here are pics. You should be able to remove the stubs left from my cross tubes, and remove a small chunk from the middle of yours. Should fit right in. The one to the seat truss would probably just be easiest to replace.

First cut.














The "after" picture. One other reason I wanted to do this is to add an additional motor mount point at the bottom of the firewall in the center. I noticed that Kitfox does this as well.


Here's the socket structure (3.7 lb. as pictured).

This is a contest I don't want to be the winner of but afraid mine is...maybe at least until Ed gets his flying

Leni,

We should do an honorary Oshkosh Alaska AFF BBQ up here during that time; July 28 - Aug 3.  Are you back home by then?  We just need to pick a spot we all can meet.  We could do it at my hangar or closer to Soldotna if that works better for most folks?

Produced by a friend of mine from my raw video...

Here is a diagram of the tricycle structure that was in my MK-IV, and some pictures before I removed it. Sorry for the poor picture quality. I had to use an ipad to take them.

The dimensions are as accurate as I could measure them. If you want to use this to make a tricycle gear, you can double check the dimensions the dimensions that already exist on your plane to see how they compare to those on the diagram.

Avid Flyer MK-IV tricycle gear dimensions revised.pdf

(note: I had some dimensions that were wrong on the first version of this. Please use the file ending in "revised")

Those floats look like a set I have up here in Mn.  I don't plan to use them myself......  Jim Chuk

That paint job really caught my attention - looks good Mark.

Thanks, EDMO

Nice plane Mark. Could you tell us more about it?

Thanks Luke,

     A drawing with dimensions would be nice to have in either "Technical" or "Files and Forms".

EDMo

Can you post or PM the inside diameter and wall thickness of the big tube?

Thanks,  Ed

OD is 1 5/8". Wall thickness looks like .0625". I don't have my digital calipers. Also, the powder coating makes it difficult to know exactly what the original dimensions were. Of course that would make it 1 1/2" ID. Hope that helps. I'm actually measuring all of the other dimensions. I'll try to make up a diagram showing dimensions.

Nothing simpler than a guy on each wing tip pushing up to lift the plane - Nothing better than two gals in bikinis doing push-up, pull-down exercises on each wing, while I hang on to the big stick!

EDMO

Yes, I wish I could see what tubes the Tailwind uses!

Ron,

      The set I have (calipers and disks) came off of a Piper Seneca Twin - The disks are probably a little thicker than you need, but dispel heat without warping like the thin disks.  If they need refinishing at some time, you have material there to turn off and don't have to buy new ones like you would with thinner disks.  Am I making sense of this?  They are a matched set.

EDMO

Like having one guy push up and pull down on wing while the other works the controls?  I don't have a wind tunnel!

EDMO

What, no wind tunnel??

I was just thinking of something simple to attach the torque tube to that could simulate a flexing wing.

Can you post or PM the inside diameter and wall thickness of the big tube?

Thanks,  Ed

Please save if possible, document if not. I'd be interested in the trigear parts also. Would like to convert my taildragger to trigear. I dont have a grass runway and the taildragger is a real handful.

The only trigear parts I have are in the fuselage structure. I don't have any of the parts to the actual gear. I'll try to save it.