akflyer

Dear Steve,

If I try to put a new bolt in my tail wheel and it is too short to hit the lock nut, or to short to get a cotter key in, is the bolt really to short for safe operations?  Just wondering before I take a chance on ground looping and wrecking my nice plane over a 2.00 bolt..  I mean, how does one tell if the bolt really is too short.

I have been looking around for an alternative engine to get a bit more power for my Avid. 65 HP is fine for wheels and pounding pavement but that is just not what I am into.

I have been looking at the Arctic Cat 660 turbo for awhile now and think this may warrant really looking into what it will take to put the "C" gear box on it.

Raven RE-drive has been using the 3 Cylinder Suzuki engine for awhile now with good success, but that was the car motor. This is the cut down version for the snowmachines. I am working on getting an AUW for the various components but It will for sure be better than the subie by a long shot.

Stock it is a 72% increase in HP (110 HP (at) 6700) and at cruise a 82% increase in torque... this means more pitch go faster at cruise..

If you want to monkey with boost and fuel curve etc the HP is nothing short of holy shit..just once I would like to take off on floats with 145 to 160 HP..Gotta be like flying a turbine otter empty with very little fuel.

I know I know, there are gonna be those who say... yeah but the rotax 912 is tried and true and aircraft specific blah blah blah...I can promise that I beat the snowmachine engines WAY harder than I would ever fly the plane under way worse conditions.  Cold starts at -50 with no pre-heat etc..I would not think twice about flying behind this engine IF the weight and gear box work out.  Worst case I would have to put the raven re-drive belt drive system, but I really want to keep the clutch for float operations.

I definately warrants a good look..

I was also considering the 1100 2 cylinder 4 stroke, but I think the 3 cyl 660 will be smoother and more fuel efficient.  Time will tell.

DTRcat660JDPOWER2.doc.pdf

I got an order in for the new Arctic Cat 800 EFI engine.  It is dual plug etc.  The worst part will be adapting the gear box to it, but I dont think that will be too bad.  The dyno results show what should be nothing less than greattake off and climb performance....Cant wait to play with this engine on floats!  And if this does not do the trick, the 1000 EFI will turn 140 HP on take off...

seems you are not the only one who is interested in whay happened.. I got an email from another person who was deemed to be a babbling idiot at one time and he shares the same feelings... Too bad I can get him to come over here and post...

damn... not that close lol...

aw hell you aren't still banned over there are ya? I can post it up for ya...

LMAO... damn.... now ya got me worried about my girlish figure...its a wonder that bird can get my fat ass in the air!!

hey.. you were just doing part of the phase 1 testing right?? you gotta know what she can handle.. thats my story and I'm sticking to it!

dont tell me you think it is gas soaked moose poop!  I have no idea on that...maybe kreem?  I no be knowin..

I posted the same info on the kitfox list....It has been fun playing with you plane thanks!

I made a quick vid of a little hunt we were on last week. The camera man cant quit talking but once you get past that it is ok lol..

A little history, I put my floats on my brothers kitfox, as I have been having too much fun flying his plane since he got it up here to even think about working on mine. I was not happy with the performance as I knew it could do better. I have moved the step location 3 times and changed the angle of incidence 3 times also. In this video I had a bit too much angle of incidence on it. You could get it off the water quick, but it had so much drag it slowed me down 8 knots. I added a 3/4" shim to the rear float mount and now have it nailed. The cruise is still good 70 knots at 5800, and takeoff is great with no tendency to porpoise.

At about 6:00 minutes into the vid you can see the slew I was taking off of in the first part of the vid, and at 6:10 you can see the little pond. The rest of the vid is just a small part of the flats we hunt. The ducks and geese are really starting to move through and KF makes it a breeze to hunt the area.

Edit... I had to change the video and get rid of some of the commentary...then I thought... oh damn... free bird may not be the right song for a flying vid lol...

Well my Avid took a back burner to fishing and flying this summer.. I have had my brothers KF II to play with so I have not been going after my Avid as agressively as I was.  I have put his plane on my floats for now to give me a float flying fix.. I hope to get back to work on my Avid next week if the weather is crappy.. if it is nice, I am sure I will be burning more gas in his plane... I think I may be onto something... run the hours up on his plane so I can fly mine longer between TBO!  great plan from the way I see it lol..

Here are a couple shots on a semi local river.. the second one is a reminder to keep an eye on the daylight left when you are having lits of fun cathing fish... night float operations are not the smartest thing a person can do.. infact it ranks right up there on the list of top 10 stupid things you can do in a plane...

Just a short clip of a recent flight.. I dont know why youtube cut the quality down so much... I will try to figure out how to get it loaded directly to this site so you can download the full resolution version if you want to.

Edit.. I re-edited the video to make it a little better.  I think it is a bit less pixelated..

just a quick update... after we tried full fuel and two up, it was determined that these floats are too small for the KF.  I have since installed, my full lotus 1260's and love'em... they are a match made in heaven for this bird!

last ones...till the video is done..

This is parked at John Stoners dock having a KF stare down..

and a few more..

and more

here are a series of random shots from flying last week..The first two are of Mount McKinnely the highest peak in north america...but were taken from the 737 on the way home from work... not with the KF.  I dont think I can get it to 22,000 on floats lol..The rest are pick from a day of cruising Cook inlet and Tuxidney Bay doing what a KF was designed to do.. low and slow.

For anyone interested, I am posting the word document that shows the calcs for the square footage of the floats hence giving me the displacement.  They are not modeled perfectly, but really really close.  I will put up the 3D cad file also for anyone interested.

Northaire float 3D model.dwg

Northaire float model.doc

I took a buddy from maine that was up here fishing with me for the week out flying and chasing "spotting" bears.  I only got one shot of a bear as I was too busy flying.. low level flying and filming just does not cut it in the mountains lol..

and a few more

MVI_0049.AVI

MVI_0050.AVI

Well I spent most of the day yesterday rigging my brothers kitfox to a set of floats he had picked up that are a fiberglass copy of the Northaire floats.  I am not sure what they were rigged on before, but I had to cut and lengthen the rear struts, as well as make some sleeves for the front axles (they were set up for 1.25" axles and he has .75" axles.

  I set the wing root incidence at 3.5 deg and it turned out to be a great number!  After the launch I did a few high speed taxi runs and some step turns then it was seat belt on and firewall it.  She popped right up on step and at about 40 mph indicated I popped the flaps and was in the air.  I felt it out for a few seconds, dialed in some more pitch to the prop and pointed her to the sky.  A few laps around the patch revealed I need to add some slight up trim to the tab (not inflight adjustable).  I lined up at 65 mph, dropped over the trees and set her down for a picture perfect landing (my best landing in his fox).  I taxied in and set the trim tab and went around again, and this time it flew hands off.  I loaded up my brother and took him for a ride.  He was so damn excited to finaly see it on floats he could not hardly fly lol.. the ole jitters got him so I took it back and brought it in for another greaser.  A few more TO and Landings and it was time to bring it over to another lake closer to the house (that and it was 11:00 at night and I did not think the neighbors wanted me buzzing them anymore).  All in all it flys great, but the northaire floats are a tad undersized for my liking.  With two fat asses in the plane (me and a buddy) I had to step turn it to get off the lake I was on... not a big deal but I think with a bit more float it would handle better with full fuel and two guys onboard.

right on!  Nice to get it back in the air.

It was dead around here... guess the novelty wore off..ohwell., I plan on getting back to my avid project this time home and hope to have some new pics  to show..but then again, a fishing trip may trump the avid work...going out and catching halibut, salmon, shrimp and shark in the same day has a certain appeal to it right now..

dat one big gaggle of 2 strokes 

the first pic is a pair of canadair 215's that just loaded up at a lake about 20 miles away.  The second pic you have to zoom in right over the tire and you can see one of them dropping the water.  This was about 300 yards away from my cousins cabin as they were trying to hold the line to keep it from jumping the road.. They did the job and got it shut down just before it hit his cabin!