Cloud Dancer

For those reading this thread; here's a link for the official requirements to manufacture your own certified lights or any other part of an airplane. Link here. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/media/CPI_guide.pdf

I thought I'd put this subject to an end. It's a 105 page read but it's clear to me that anyone wanting to get a new product to market has a path. It only makes sense since every airplane and part on those airplanes started out at some point as a non certified part or airplane. Many of those small shops I built certified government parts at had the owner of the company doing it all. No diploma hanging on their walls saying they were certified designers or inspectors etc. They were hands on build it guys like most of us in the experimental world. In other words, it's not magic.

The Google book project is alive and well. Link here to the book your probably talking about: https://books.google.com/books/about/Metal_Spinning.html?id=wUuDAAAAMAAJ

There was a guy that sold a series of videos years ago on spinning, not sure where mine are at the moment but as they say a picture is worth a thousand words, the videos are an excellent way to get an idea of what the books are talking about. I have not hunted but You Tube has to have something on the subject these days.

I seem to remember a company that made dual spark plug heads for those engines at some point and while it had two spark plugs; it was not a true dual ignition system.

Not a fan of engines designed to develop their horsepower at 11,000 rpm. I want an engine designed to develop it's power at low rpm to avoid reduction drives. Also most of the after market heads and jugs for a Harley are not made by Harley Davidson. Less likely to be put out of business by Harley Davidson since they are not Harley parts. I doubt that Harley carburetor is even a Harley part; Harley has been using other company carburetors since they began.

A couple of main reasons the VW engine has been so widely accepted in the aviation world is it's fairly low rpm and parts availability.

If your making a two cylinder engine that's about the same weight and horsepower only it's 4 stroke, your TBO should just about double since it's turning at half the speed making them cheaper in the long run. Plus less spark plugs to change because of fowling.

It has a lot of possibilities. Harley engines have been put on airplanes since the beginning but this addresses several issues I've always had with them. First off the standard Harley crankcase is too heavy and most of the rest of the parts. This is using the aluminum jugs and heads. The crankcase must be their own, I've been waiting for someone to market a Mosler style crankcase that would use Harley parts. Harley engines run at a fraction of the speed compared to the typical crotch rocket. There are more after market parts made for Harley Davidson engines than all others so we can look for other jug  and head makers to pick and choose what kind of engine we want to build. I'm curious as to how the cam works in this configuration and who's making them and heat treating them as that might be a weak link. Also the crankshaft must be their own build too.e

Harley has had air cooled engines in aluminum for decades but they used to be only available for racing.

They might have a winner, it should be able to run at low rpm if they kept the basics from the Harley setup. I've always had to work on my Harley but it's never quit on me. It's always been more trouble starting it than keeping it running once started. There were no electric starter buttons when they made mine. The biggest reason I've owned so many rice burners over the years was they had the electric starter. I've sold all but three bikes, I keep a pair of crotch rockets for there electric starters and the Harley because it's so simple to work on.

I used to fly with a guy that had his Cessna 150 registered as an experimental so your wrong about not being able to move from certified to experimental. A more recent example would be Draco.

Your right, standards do change over time but after reading that document link you provided, I have to say, not much! It's dated 1971 and there are no significant changes from it's previous form which dates back in the early 30's. Typical government document taking ten times more pages than necessary to describe something. The standard is far more open than those used for car headlights which is good to see. They are mainly worried about color, brightness and dispersal but fail to use such simple terms to say so. No where did it list a government agency to submit a specimen for testing and approval. Also typical government fashion.

Being a machinist in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area I've produced my share of government work, from fixtures and prototypes for Collins Radio to parts for tank tracks. I never had to deal with the paper trail end of it, I get a blueprint with dimensions and go from there. I also worked for Vision 4 Less for a couple of years making eye glasses. I can tint a lens any color you can think of in about 20 minutes. Another of my toys here at home is a CNC laser. The Outdoor Specialties company used to engrave the lids of turkey box calls with it. They upgraded to a bigger unit and I purchased their old Kern laser system. I just happen to have a photo power meter that I use to calibrate my laser. It's over kill compared to their measuring tools in that 1971 document. I'm wondering how long it will be before someone wants a custom lens shape to streamline a wing tip or tail tip? Machine a mold out of nylon or some other slippery plastic and cast a lens out of clear resin and then tint it to the desired shade and back light it with a white light source in a custom machined, molded or stamped base. Without all the red tape and hoops to jump through we would see more growth in the aircraft world.

Wait a minute, you mean you can't take a wing off a Cessna and put it on a Bonanza? Many aircraft are flying that are Frankenstein's of their former selves. I thought they called them Experimental? The Breezy comes to mind as one example of an airplane that's designed to use the wing off another airplane. Or were you just referring to keeping an airplane original?

When those led tail light lens first hit the market the truckers were switching fast, long before they changed the law to make them legal. Government is always a little slow catching up with the times.

There must be a standard listed somewhere as to what qualifies and what won't. Is there a list of approved lights somewhere? There have been commercial aircraft produced since the beginning of the last century, do all forms of commercial lighting get an automatic green light just because it was approved at some point in the last 100 years?

Boat lights need to be approved too. How does a manufacturer get an endorsement? Is there supposed to be a mark on a light somewhere? Your car lights here in the United States need to be D.O.T. approved also. Did you know that automobile lights were required to be sealed beam? Many of us building custom motorcycles in the 70's were adding the then new halogen lights to our creations. These lights are not sealed beam and therefore were illegal. It was don't ask, don't tell back then. Those lights are still on my Harley today. Times have changed and I have not checked into the regulations but you would be hard pressed to find a car with sealed beam lights today. Who got the law changed?

I've got an antique set of lights that are out of an old T craft or something. There's not a mark on them any where. I bought them surplus over thirty years ago for an ultralight just to make it less likely to be run over by some hot rod pilot.

The color choice and visibility range make sense and are easily met with today's modern lights. There must be more to the story.

If it passes it's inspection with the lights installed does that qualify as approved?

I watched an interesting dissection of one of these style heaters. I would have loved to have one of these in my 1967 VW bug I had decades ago.

Link here to watch the video:  https://youtu.be/9YthaCqkMOs

Have you changed your spark plugs lately? Is there an "R" within the numbers on the spark plug? Almost everything these days use resistor plugs but I still have many motors around that don't use them. It was common years ago to swap out plugs and spark plug wires to get rid of noise in car radios.

Info here on spark plugs and the "R" you may or may not have:  https://www.ngksparkplugs.ca/tech-info-spark-plug-faq.cfm

I'd suggest watching all the videos from The Arnold Company. Start with "Why It Goes So Fast" and pick your flavor from there. After his death, his family released all the videos to You Tube. They were originally only available by purchase.

Link here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVDILmX2ylWP1YLQmYi9nPw

Thanks for the link, that took me down a rabbit hole with some great information.

Was it under built for the load or maybe the cloth needed to be run in a different direction? Did it totally fail or de laminate? Have you thought about building another?

Are those made out of aluminum? Looks too shiny to be chrome moly or electrical conduit.

Over kill for an Avid Flyer or Kitfox but worthy of mention is the solution used to fix the tail on Draco. Link here: https://youtu.be/j2WKyra8HBc

A small air cylinder with adjustable flow ports on the intake and exhaust could be used to dampen the Avid or Kitfox wheel similar to how the Draco was tamed. We had many hydraulic cylinder designs that used this idea to control flow under various load conditions. Those smaller air cylinders are made of aluminum and are very light and the flow restriction idea works for air just as well as hydraulic fluid. The gas block on an AR-15 is another example of a port being used to control gas flow rate. Many applications use needle valves to make the flow rate adjustable.

The gearbox can be mounted in four different positions. Too bad nobody makes an intake manifold to fit  a down draft carburetor on the Rotax engines. Then it could be mounted on it's side with the intake on the top and the exhaust on the bottom. Any fuel mix dripping through when it's not running would drop out the exhaust ports if it happened to make it past the rotary valve.

I'm still waiting for someone to chop apart an old compound bow and make it into a tail spring. Lighter and it won't rust. Rocks might be hard on it though.

And I still don't understand why we hang these things upside down. I'd rather have the oil accumulate on the top of the piston.

Once you add up the parts, your right, the weights are very similar. I do like the idea of getting away from two stroke oil. The people running them in the past seem to have almost as many problems as people running 2 smoke engines.  http://www.teamkitfox.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=7745  I'm sure if I had one laying around I'd have to try it. Price wise they seem like more money without any savings in weight, fuel consumption, or usable horsepower in Avid Flyer type aircraft. A reduction unit would take advantage of the extra horsepower but then your taking an additional hit in the weight department. Their website lists propellers for their engines and there are none longer than 60" and that will restrict performance in our style aircraft. The lower R.P.M.'s is something that should mean an engine that lasts longer but it has not been working out that way.

At 8000w your going to notice the things working even in Alaska. What do they weigh?

You must be thinking of the Rotax 912 weight, the 582 is listed at 64 pounds and the Jabiru 2200 is listed at 138 pounds.

I had downloaded that a while back but find it very over simplified. For instance they recommend the 6500 rpm and give no reason why you would static load it to max. horsepower. They also recommend just clipping off the ends as good enough for balance. I don't plan on cutting mine off but if I did I'd be at least performing a static balance. Maybe they do this because most people don't have the tools I do to make a precise centered hub balancing jig. They also say nothing about checking blade tracking. That's something a little harder to correct if it's off because of the way the propeller is designed.

Back when Ivoprop first hit the market some of us that were flying Mitchell Wings wanted to try them. I'm glad I didn't. On a Mitchell Wing the prop clearance between the propeller and the trailing edge is only a couple of inches. The guys that tried them found out the hard way that the Ivoprop flexes under load and it chewed up the trailing edge of the wing as well as the propeller. Being a metal wing shell laminated over a foam core made it a touchy repair. Mitchell Wing notified people not to put the Ivoprop on the Mitchell Wings but people buying them second hand don't always know these things.

Anyone here remember seeing the  propeller cross section displayed at Oshkosh back in the beginning besides me? The core was made out of blue foam back then. (Maybe they still are?) It explains why they flexed so much.

I'm guessing it works like a guitar tuning peg; if you go too far you back it off farther than you want and then tune to prevent it from drifting? Boring heads on milling machines work the same way and you can't back them off of tension while setting them.