akflyer

I have sen all sides of the argument over on the kitfox list. The standard reply is... if you fly over gross weight you become a test pilot.... WTF do they think the first flights and phase one flight testing is? When I get the new engine in my plane, I will be a test pilot. No one has ever done it before that I know of, and the manufacture did not test out this engine so is it "stupid" for me to do so. NO. I know the risks, and am willing to take them. Will I be cautious and take steps to prevent being in a situation where I cant make a somewhat safe landing while I am doing the initial testing of this engine, you bet your sweet ass I will!

Back to the gross weight issue.... You fly up here, how many cubs or beavers, or otters are flown every day that are over gross.

At the end of the day, there is no place on anyones paperwork who is flying an experimental that that lists or shows a gross weight. Take my Avid for example. The gross weights on it from factory brochures range from 950-1200 pounds. Which one is actually correct? I ran with 1085 as that was what was on the sales brochure I got with the paperwork on the plane, but no where else is it mentioned. Not the build manual, not the paperwork that FAA has from original AW application to the paperwork I filed when I rebuilt it. During my rebuild, I beefed up the gear box, the strut carry through and the wing struts themselves. I have no doubt in my mind that I am safe to fly at over 1200#.

Oh boy.. I better send outt he bat signal and see if I can get Steve to weigh in on this again As best as I can determine, from all the references that Steve put up, and searching my own, as well as talking to the FAA inspector when he came down to issue my AW cert, there is no real place for a "gross" weight anywhere on the paperwork other than WB, and that can be whatever you want to put down. There is no standard for testing for Experimental AC at this time, hence no place on the applications etc, for a "gross" weight. Same as for LSA. There is not a gross weight requirement, but a "Maximum Take Off Weight" Two entirely different animals.

EGT's are a bit high.. Didnt you say you were running the amsoil at 80 or 100 to 1? I cant remember if it was you or someone else that was running it. If so, fatten it up a bit. What do your EGT's look like when you pull the power? they go up a good bit in mid range? I run mine about 1100 tops using mixture and pitch.

Will be nice for you to get it back in the air and not have to worry about that leaky tank anymore! Did you destroy the old tank or hang on to it? May be easy to fix with it out of the wing. If you still have the old tank and have no plans for it, I know a few who may be interested in it for a science project.

Looks like I got goat roped into building a couple sets of these when I get home next week. I will do a full write up on how to make them, how I end up modifying them etc. The ones I build will be straight ski's so I will modify the pedestal for normal mounting.

Is that the hyperbipe? I remember years ago reading a magazine actilce about some lady setting a looping record at that time in the hiperbipe for most consecutive loops. I wanted one of those planes in a bad way back then. Still think they would be a blast to fly!

Damn good idea. I will get the Tech section set up ASAP!

There is a little bleed screw above the water pump that you pull out to get most of the air out of the RV chamber. There is actually a little casting line in there that will prevent it from totally bleeding the air out. I use clear lines for the oil tubing so I can see if there is any air in the system. On the 3 inverted engines I have done, I have to damn nearly stand the plane on the nose to get all the air out of the engine. Make sure there is no fuel in the wing tank, I chocked the wheels, then lifted the tail over head and tied it off to the truck bumper and let her sit there for about 5 minutes as I watched the air go up the lines into the reservoir. It took several times of putting the tail as high as I could get it without hitting the cowling, then back down, refill the reservoir repeat tail lift etc.

The last Mk IV I did it took me a couple hours of dicking with that damn thing to get the air out.. I would bleed the shit out of it, think I had it, run it up and then see air in the line again.. refill, tail up, watch air, get solid oil, run up, see air, tail up etc.. if I had not used clear lines I would have never seen the air in the lines, and would have thought it was properly bled by using the bleeder screw on the engine block per the manual.

I learned this lesson the hard way on my plane. I rebuilt the engine, new crank etc, put it together, bled the air per the manual fired it right up and thought I was cutting a fat hog in the ass... then about 15 minutes into the break in, she went quiet on me. Turned out there was air in the RV cavity and the brass gear stripped.... Set me back a bit but after that is when I went to clear hose and learned what a bitch it is to get all the air out of the engine on some of the inverted installations.

Congrats! now that you can feel your left hand, your sex life just improved by 50%

I remember that year... holy hell we had some bad wind storms. Good thing that wind was not coming out of the east or you would have really got the shit kicked out of you flying over the arm!

1050, hell yeah! give you lots of room!

on the set up.... I used to use a suction cup mic that I got at radio shack for recording phone conversations. I would put that on the earmuff on the head set and plug it into the recorder. No engine noise, but I could talk and you would hear that clear as can be. All radio conversations were recorded as well.

I have a pre-order in for the HD hero cam. Very small package, and is affordable as well as water proof. It was developed for motor sports so they worked hard to cut out all the wind noise etc. You can do an ebay search for HD helmet cam and they will show up.

As far as learning the bush stuff... The best thing you can do it get in your plane and go to altitude, then get VERY comfortable flying it around at minimum controllable speed with the nose high and lots of power. Once you are comfortable at altitude, and you know how your bird will handle at low speeds in steep turns etc, you can start working on the landings. Pick a spot on the runway that gives you room to set up a good approach and start working on hitting that spot. You are not going to be able to pull the power at altitude and land on the numbers everytime. You will have to use power to keep the elevation and sink rate under control, and elevator to regulate speed. If you keep at it, and make every landing a purposeful event, you will get it in no time. You need to be able to make decisions in an instant. When going into a one way strip, you have one shot at getting it right. If you can see that you approach is not right (even if you still have 3000' of runway in front of you) and that you will not be able to hit at your predetermined spot, power up and go around. You cant push a bad approach into a spot landing! Going full power and going around has to be the first thing that your hands will automatically do when you brain sees that you wont be able to hit the intended spot! Dont do anything you are not comfortable with! Work into it slowly at a pace that is OK with you.

I was very fortunate that my first instructor is an old grizzled AK bush pilot from way back. He has known me and flew our family around for a lot of years prior to me starting to fly. His approach was "the FAA says I have to teach you XY and Z... BULLSHIT, that may work for pavement pounders, but I know what you like to do and how you will be flying" From day one, he was pushing me to pick the lift off spot on the runway that was my decision length.. if I was not off by then, get on the binders, and shut her down before you hit the "pretend" trees on a 7000' long runway (ATC loved us) Same with landing. Those tires better leave marks on or before the numbers or he would firewall it (was allways fun when I was concentrating on getting this biatch on the ground in one spot and all of a sudden the dick weed in the back seat shoves the throttle to the wall)

Take off I like to give it full down. Get the tail wheel off the ground and out of the weeds as fast as possible as it will slow you down with drag. As the tail starts coming up, I ease in the up elevator to keep the wheel off the ground, but low enough to get maximum angle of attack. As soon as the wings are making enough lift she will fly.

Damn my fingers are sore now

Do you not have sound on the camera, or are you editing it out? I would not say they are boring, but hearing that engine scream does add a bit of entertainment to it

I would have a strip in front of that house in a newyork second! How long is that run? Looks to be close to 900 or 1000' twice what ya really need as soon as you start nailing the approach speeds and dragging it in on power.

I figured out what you were tlaking about when I was home last time... there was a "flywheel" on my C box, but I never installed it as I put the clutch on before I put the gear box on. I have the flywheel and hardy disc at the house still in the box.

I do remember pulling the flywheel on Bobs engine when I put the clutch on it. You can use a steering wheel puller to pop it off. No real vodo magic to pull it.

I have the Arctic Sparrow mixture on mine (which you cant get anymore that I know of as the number and email I had for Bud Gish no longer works). I find myself playing with those Fn knobs way too much. I set them on the ground when on wheels as the instructions say to do, but on floats of skis it is kinda hard to sometimes so I do a rolling run up / mixture adjust. Even when adjusted per the instructions on the ground, when in the air and I pull the power back to say 3500 for a decent she will run a bit rough so I tweak them a little till it smooths out. If I go back to cruise, I have to richen them up a turn or two to keep EGTs under control.

Using the flow meter, I can loose or gain almost 1 GPH in cruise by tweaking the needles. On a 4 stroke this is cool, or on 2 stroke with fixed pitch it is OK as you know you have the load set right. With the IFA prop, I can change EGTS drastically with pitch alone, and with the needles... the hard part is getting them both set right so the compliment each other, and not lean it way out, then load the hell out of the engine to bring the EGTs back down. I have many times thought about trading my inflight adjustable tops and barrels off to someone who could really use them down south, and I will just go with normal carbs here. I take off at sea level (or within a couple hundred feet) and rarely go over 5000'. Some of you gus that need to go to 10,000 + to clear mountain ranges would get alot more use out of the adjustable carb than I will. 99% of the time I am under 1000' enroute to someplace, and am on the deck if terrain allows.

it's off the yentna. One creek above lake creek. There are a series of connected lakes on fish creek and he is on the furthest lake north on the system.

Looks like a fun time.. right up till he screwed the pooch on that one I wish we had more fly ins around here.. there are a few every year but I have only made it to one in the last 2 years due to the work schedule..

well you dirty bugger, I was spose to win that damn plane I should be up in your neck of the woods some time next hitch home. A buddy has a cabin on fish lake and he wants a few of us to fly in for the weekend. Hoping for more snow so I can swap over to skis soon.

Hi Nate,
Welcome aboard!

What kinda plane you flying? Trying to get more Alaska guys on here so we can do flyin's etc. The once a year poker run for the Kenai EAA is just not enough for me. I would like to see several more a year!

OUCH.. I know the feeling. When my lower back goes out, it pinches nerves off and my core temp goes down to 91-92 and I sleep until they put my back in... kinda like a bear in hibernation. I used to sleep for days at a time on a heat pad till they figured it out. Some of the tests they did trying to figure it out were worse than the back pain!

<speedy recovery brew. get back on your feet and back in the air. We need more pics, vids and GOOD stories.

Hey gramps, when you gonna move that powered wheel chair outa the shop so you can stop getting it in the picture You are gonna make people think you are old enough to be wearing depends.... oh crap, I forgot, you are...

The work is looking good! Amazing how quick she will come together if you stay on it. Keeps Bobby's truck outa the shop, he don't need a hot rod till next summer anyway.

hmmmm... shiiiitttttt... I will see if I can find a different setting that may be hosed....