akflyer

I buy direct from matco.  They are all about the same price but matco has awesome customer service.

 

I have had a hell of a time trying to find the original HH spar material.  I would not have a problem using the kitfox spars (.063" tubing) and splicing on 18" and squaring the tips.  Most of the forces are applied at the strut fitting and wing root and very little force at the tip.  Adding length to the tips with wings that have too much washout in them anyway will really only add to the problem though in my eyes.  If I was you I would just square off the tips and call it good on your bird or have someone do the glass work to fix what you have.  Its pretty easy to shape foam and make a new tip or repair the one you have

 

Your welcome.  If anyone else is having an issue with being able to get into your profile please let me know and I now have a redneck fix for it.

 

Oh Doug I am so unhappy that I am stuck at work and letting all that good stuff be consumed by others and not be there to be helping with it! Where is the fireball?  time to get the party going! 
  
 

I can get into your profile through the admin control panel but not when I click on it like normal.  I have done just about everything I can think of to make this work.  I am going to try and make a new profile for you, then merge the old profile with the new one and see if that keeps everything you have posted.

Are you talking max RPM or throttled back to that RPM.  Lugging a 2 stroke is not good for them if you like them to last and be reliable.

I had plans to make it this year.  Last month the work schedule flopped and now I will be working.  I plan on rolling the schedule again after the first of the year so I hope to be off next year for it.

 

Did ya do the 55 gallon barrel lawn dart contest??  I will make it one of these days!! 

 

You might like your airplane better and have less trim issues if you run the CG back to around 16" or so.  I highly doubt that language can get ya kicked off this site.  I asked for a friend and he said that bad language was OK for the most part   Just don't need ya posting pictures of the proper use of your device unless you have a pretty lady doing the modeling for ya! 
 
As far as rudder trim goes, this is a pretty easy solution that could be done with minimal time and low material cost if one decided to fab it themselves.

https://www.stevesaircraft.com/ruddertrimstc.php

 

 

go to your profile and look for the edit signature.  You can put all the good stuff in your signature then.

Thanks for the link.  I have not been following the rc forums or trends for years.  Kind of lost interest and got burned out.  you might have just cost me some money, I am a sucker for a beaver.  I have a few of them already but it never hurts to have one more right? 
 

I tried to use one of those on a trip in the 12 years ago.  I don't see any practical way for a man to use one when they are flying a plane with a stick.. even if one had a good autopilot in the plane it would still be one heck of a feat.  I am pretty certain I ended up getting more on my hands and the airplane than in the porta john.  Glad that was a rental plane.  
 
  I think the best option is to limit liquid intake prior to the flight and have big tires for more landing options.

 

I use the same diaper pin clips that are used on the wing pins.  Pretty sure the KF IV and up do as well since they have to be disconnected to fold the wings.

 

I have loaded mine up.  My baggage goes from behind the seat all the way back to the front of the vert fin.  Keep the CG forward of 19" and your fine.  Anything more than 20" and you will not have enough elevator to get the nose back down in a stall without pulling in full flaps.  Mine flys much better around 18".

 

If you cant fly hands off in still air you need to play with the rigging.  What is your typical CG?
 

I have been flying RC since kindergarten.  AMA member since then as well.  Did a few stints as president of the local RC club as well, my dad was one of the founding members of it.  I have not been flying as much as I used to, but still have a house and garage full of planes and helis.  
RC is what got my passion for flying started.  For a hand full of years I was big time into IMAC as well and hosted the state IMAC championships for several years.  
Too many hobbies and not enough time keep me from spending much time at the flying field these days but I still toss the foamies around the yard and head up to the local lake to fly floats fairly often.

 

Pilot relief tubes...
One of my very dear friends was a flying fish cop up here for many many years.  I truly wish Van would let me record his stories.  
So here was a Van a pretty new fish cop pilot visiting the brown vest hangar waiting on some maintenance to get done on the cub.  He is wandering around and sees this funnel and tube looking contraption hanging on the wall.  Curiosity gets the best of him and he has to ask what this gizmo is.  The mechanic tells him its a pilot relief tube and how it works.  Van thinks this is a great idea as he often has long flights over crappy terrain and this could certainly help his situation.  He also has a champ as his personal plane and thought it would be great to put it in his plane as he had little tires and could not get in and out of some of the "emergency cub strips" that he used when flying for work.
The day came when he was flying along in his champ, the sun streaming in the windows and not a breath of air stirring the leaves.  Suddenly he feels the need to find a landing spot.  As he is looking around low level it hits him, hey, I have this nifty pilot relief tube now hanging off the hook where the water rudder handle hangs when on floats.  He sets about doing the deed.  
Lets think about this.  your in a small cockpit (no pun intended) and you already have a stick between your legs.  Now van is a very tall and lanky guy so leg room is at a premium already.  In order to use the relief tube one must completely get his junk out of his drawers.  So here is out intrepid hero trying to get his pants down enough to get his pecker into aiming range of the funnel while fighting with the control stick between his knees hampering this effort.  I am sure you can sit in the Avid and picture this playing out... While he is wrestling with mr winky and the funnel it seems he forgot that he was actually in an airplane and they he should be flying it first and foremost but at this point it is now mission critical that he relieve himself.  Suddenly he looks up and sees that he is about 20' AGL and has 2 very large spruce trees directly in front of him and the range is closing faster than you can say oh shit.  With his pants down around his knees he cant pull back on the stick so his only option was to roll 90 and go knife edge between the trees in a split second.  once level again he starts thinking about this.. as a flying cop he has investigated way too many fatal plane crashes in his career and here he was, almost a statistic.  What the hell would they tell his wife when they find him in a smoking hole in the ground with his dick in his hand in his airplane.  Yes he dearly loved flying but not that much!  At this point, all thoughts of relieving himself were now gone and he managed to pull his pants up enough to climb to a safer altitude and he found a suitable landing spot and did the deed.  It was at this point that he could have written himself a ticket for littering as the super cool pilot relief tube was removed from the plane and tossed into the nearby willows so no one could ever ask questions about it again while visiting the hangar.

 

great video as always mr!

 

The belly pod that akflyer bob has for his KF has a section molded in that the gear legs go in.  I keep threatening to pop a mold off his pod but its way down on the priority list.
 

you are sending a lot of amperage through that solenoid.  Not sure what new battery technology has to do with a way to send the juice to the starter without using a massive switch to run that much current through.  

I would look for a C gear box.  The E box puts more weight right out on the nose and that is not where you want it in an Avid / Kitfox.
The Avid Wide gear works great on a KF.  Some will tell you grove gear but that adds weight and $$$.  I am not sure if you would have any luck getting a set of gear out of the new avid "factory" or not.  

Best mod you can do is put wide gear on it and put gas through the tanks!  
Does it have an engine now?  The 582 is hard to beat unless you want to put a V2 on it like fred has on his Avid.  The KF 1 is an awesome flying bird that has great STOL performance.  Keep it as light as you can and learn to really fly it.

 

The reason I ask is because I have the CD from the FAA on my plane and there is nothing in my paperwork that indicates a GW.  The original build logs and any phase I paperwork were lost in a house fire years ago.  So, if there is nothing on file with the FAA and no records exist of any recorded gross weight other than what I choose to put on the WB sheet, what legally sets the so called "gross weight" on an EAB?

Can you show me where the gross weight is listed on the AW for a EAB or where it is required to be listed anywhere?  If you built your kit, your are the manufacture and can assign it what ever you choose.  Not that it is prudent to do so, however, unless something has changed I nthe last 6 mo or so, there is NO SUCH THING as a "gross weight" for EAB.

I went home for a day in the middle of my hitch at work for an EAA fly in BBQ.  While I was there I hit the local rubber supply place and all they had was 3/4" 60 shore neoprene.  
Back up.. Since I got the bird back in the air a few weeks ago It had a vibration I was not liking.  I rebalanced the carbs and prop and still had a nasty vibration going.  Now back to the above story.
By the time I got home I had 2 hrs before the BBQ so I went to the drill press with 2 hole saws in hand that would give me an almost perfect fit to the original dimensions.  It took about 15 minutes to cut out all the needed donuts then a few minutes more to drill out the center holes with a 5/8" bit.  If I had to do it over again I would have heated up a piece of 1/2" tubing and melted the hole into the center but I was pressed for time.  The 4 smaller rubbers were still a tad large in diameter so I ran a bolt through them and tightened a nut on them, chucked them up in the hand held drill and ran them against the sanding wheel.  In seconds they were the perfect size!
I got out to the plane and loosened up the 4 mount bolts till the engine was sagging down a little then pulled one bolt at a time and swapped the rubber mounts out.  Tighten it all back down, safety wired the bolts and hit the starter.  SOOOOOOO much better.  The spinner was staying in one place and not bouncing up and down like it had been.  Shut down and put the cowl back on and went for a quick flight.  I am happy to say that I have my bird back and I am happy!  
Until I really got to thinking about this thread it never occurred to me to swap that rubber out.  For anyone who might be chasing a vibration issue think about doing this.  It cost me 65 bucks for enough rubber to make multiple sets of mount pucks and a couple hours of my time.