Pascal

check out the current MGL lineup.. they seem to provide a lot of bang for the buck and at least around our local EAS chapter (EAS = EAA in switzerland) some of the builders used them and seem to be happy with the stuff..
the 7 inch iEFIS light seems to be a good option for a kitfox or avid.. at least that's what i am planning to put in my avid once i get there. the smaller extreem efis could also be a good option if you don't want charts and radio / transponder controls.. my aim is really to have just one single panel + a tablet for navigation.. the iEFIS seems to be capable of controlling everything including the COM, Transponder and even circuit breakers.. i like empty panels
cheers
Pascal

wow, these couple of hours the airplane was in service must have been tough.. i guess it must have been left outside in weather for some time to get roughed up like that. whoever takes on this project should probably make sure the extended wing ribs (for the flaperon hinges) are in good shape.

It was about time i chime in on this.. thank you leni for the good site, it's already been worth a lot to me and i haven't even started doing anything on my plane yet .. still gathering parts and information, and that's what this site is really awesome for!
happy holidays

i just stumbled over the stuttgart.engineering webpage today. they have some specs and a final price for the 500 first units published on their page. one can even spend some 1000€ to pre-order the engine.
i have to say i totally dig the appeal of such an engine when it comes to noise, appeal of the airplane and overall ramp presence and attention when you start your engine.. and AFAIK you don't need to wait for your engine to warm up, simply start and take off..
BUT .. i fail completely to see the objective advantage this engine would have over a normal 100hp rotax engine.
- Power: well there is one advantage to start with.. it will have more power at altitude as a naturally aspirated rotax.. but the 914 or any turbo kit would solve that issue
- Weight: then enige is only about 30kg .. that's about 30-40kg lighter than a 100hp rotax.. this sounds awesome at first but now comes the issue: Fuelburn. according to the manufacturer, the turbine will use some 27kg of diesel per hour.. compare this to a rotax 912 which will burn about 17l or less of fuel (that's about 12kg) per hour. so each hour of endurance will add 15kg to take-off weight of the turbine aircraft vs. the rotax one. so if you fuel for about 2hours of endurance + reserve, the rotax powered airplane will be the same weight as the turbine powered one. I'd hardly ever start a trip further than some local traffic patterns with less than 2 hours of endurance.
- Weight again: will a turbine work behind a fixed pitch prop? i assume not, so this would then mean, that i need to put a heavy variable pitch prop at the very front of my avid, adding another 5-10 or even more kg to the airplane.. so the weight advantage is even less now. i guess the very light weight IVO IFA prop won't work either..
- Fuel Burn: well besides the weight, there is also the endurance.. assuming diesel is about the same weight as Jet A1, 27kg would be abou 33 liters. with the two tank avids holding about 120liers, that's about 3 hours of flying + reserve. In your rotax powered avid, you could fly for about 6 hours + reserve, so you would get twice as far or you'd need to refuel about half as much.
- Fuel availability: at least here in europe, if you travel to smaller airfields, it is hard to get Jet A1, not to mention diesel at the airfield.. you will have to bring some fuel tanks with you that you can take to a nearby fuelstation and carry back 27kg of fuel for each hour you would want to keep flying for! UL91, Mogas, Avgas and any other kind of regular unleaded gas is available even at most ultralight fields around here. and keep in mind, you need only halve as many refueling possibilities on your trip with the rotax due to the before mentioned range difference between the two
- Reliability.. well this is kind of a difficult one.. in theory, at least from what i've heared (i am by no means an expert, in contrary, i know little to nothing about turbines) the turbine should be a lot more reliable than any piston engine.. BUT.. this is a completely new engine with zero references out in the field. as a matter of fact, i found no information on a maiden flight of the avid that is the prototyping platform for this engine. on the other hand you have rotax, which is by now a well proven desing and is working reliably in hundreds of thousands of aircraft of all kind around the globe.
- parts availability: whatever goes wrong will ground you for as long as it takes that one source of parts to supply the needed replacement to you.
- speaking of one source for parts and all that.. if stuttgart engineering goes bankrupt, this engine will lose all its value immediately as there will be zero spares available and no support from anybody because it is a completely unknown engine.
- since i mentioned value: 39k euro, which currently is about $43k isn'nt a small amount you are willing to throw on the table to "give it a try" .. at least it isn't for me.. if this was pocket money for me, i'd probably be building another aircraft where i'd be searching for engines in the 200+ hp range
 
so looking at all that, it seems that the only place the turbine engine is undeniably better than any rotax will be on the apron in front of a lot of spectators. this would make it about the same as a rotec radial engine, which turns heads, sounds awesome and because it can't kill you while you're on the ground, would just be as suitable for the job .. but the rotec would be cheaper
 
cheers
Pascal

thanks for your suggestions. bending the tube is not an optin as there is a cross pipe connecting the front to the rear tube of the gear leg. this cross pipe is actually right below where the picutre ends, so maybe an inch away from the attachment point.. in order to bend the tube enough, i would have to cut that cross tube apart and weld it back together and then still struggle to align the bolt with the hole as you said.
cutting off the tube on the left side where it overlaps with the attachment points on the fuselage should be possible without touching the weld.
 

Hi Jim. is 1/8" somehow a critical number or did you convert it only to inches because you (and many others here) are used to inches? (i'm from europe, hence my guess in millimeters ;))

Hi Joel
well i have almost no experience in an Avid/Fox since mine isn't completed yet, but i have about 400hrs of total flying time, all done in the same type, another taildragger (Jodel, french low-wing design) and i just recently sat in an Avid MK IV for the very first time and could take the controls while airborne for a wile. So i can tell you what the first our of flying it might feel like
flying the avid felt like when i was about 10hours into my ppl training.. the airplane is extremely light and agile and needs a lot of attention as far as the rudder goes. I'm not talking about landing, just about flying coordinated turns.
i assume you did your ppl on a classic airplane like a 172 or 152 or a PA28. Expect a steep learning curve for your first couple of flights until you are used to the light and direct controls and actively using your feet while flying, and if you go for a taildragger, especially during landing.
After that test fligtht i went ahead and bought the ufinished kit i am now working on, because one thing is for sure, after a couple of hours (with an instructor to save your ass and your airplane if needed), this will be an awesome airplane to have a ton of fun with and to do it all quite safely. It has a very low stall speed which opens up a ton of emergency landing possibilities in case something goes wrong in flight, it tells you very well what it's doing, it stalls quite gentle and is easy to recover and it is extremely primitive. There are no complex controls in any way to handle. Most of them don't even have a mixture, just rudder pedals, a stick, flaperons which on older models double as trim since Avids prior to the Mk IV don't have a trim by default, and the throttle. that's it.
maybe you can find some avid / kitfox pilot who will take you to the skies in one and let you fly a couple of turns so you can feel for yourself what it's like. if not here on the forum, maybe by getting in touch with the local EAA chapter in your area and asking around (that's how i did it) as you will probably join them anyway when you have your own
cheers
Pascal

what about heel brakes?
at my flight school of choice (all taildragger Jodel aircraft) we had retro-fitted scott heel-brakes with cleeveland brakes on all aircraft when i started flying. i found them pretty controllable and quite easy to avoid while working the rudder (just hold your heels together and you're good :)).
the school has converted to toe brakes and has had two ground loops since then (in 2 years) ... they had about the same number of ground loops in the same aircraft since purchase with the heel brakes before, only that was over a period of about 10 years or so.. I personally don't like the toe brake setup in those aircraft as i am pretty tall and the space down there is quite limited and the toe brakes certainly don't help with that.
the SOP from the school is, to keep your tows off the toe brake bar (it is a pipe that sits above the rudder "peddal" pipe, like in the Avid), until the aircraft touches down, then the pilot is supposed to move his heels forward, or his tows upward.. to transition to lateral control via the toe brakes.. once this transition is made, lateral control happens mainly through the brakes and no longer throug rudder imputs. the SOP further demands to slow down the aircraft ASAP after touch down, to shorten the high-speed taxi time which is obviously the most ground-loop prone period of the landing.
in the last incident report by our swss NTSB regarding the last ground loop (which happened during a PPL skill test!, i guess he failed), they found that the ground loop was probably initiated right during this transitioning forward with the feed to reach the toe brakes. due to the mounting angle of the toe brake pedals onto the rudder pedals and the angle at wich a taller person must hold their feed it is not possible for tall people to just slide forward without letting go of the rudder for a second.. if your tail decides to drift away during this second, you might be too late by the time you are on the brakes.
my take on this is: in a tight  tailwheel aircraft, toe-brakes need to be installed at exactly the right angle relative to the rudder pedals, so that the pilot can simply slide forward with his feet without loosing rudder control or accidentally pressing the toe brakes during rudder inputs. when at the right angle. this should be possible for experimental aircraft that are operated only by one person or where all pilots are the same size.. in any other case, some other brake setup might work better. as for the flight school i think they should have kept the heel brakes instead..
On my previous aircraft (also a Jodel, same type as the school was ground-looping) i have the original setup of the french aircraft manufacturer: the rudder is linked to the brake on the respective side. The brakes only start reacting towards the end of the rudder movement. For slowing down the aircraft, there is a brake handle which actuates both master cylinders at the same time with equal force to slow down the aircraft. This setup is amazingly easy to land and take-off with and i quite liked it. the only downside is, that you loose a little bit of rudder movement during landing and take-off roll.. and it needs to be setup very precisely so the brakes don't kick in too early, this usually means more maintenance on the brake setup as it needs to be re-adjusted every now and then, which understandably whas a nightmare for a flight-school where the brakes wear off fast due to all those practice laps.. I almost went into the fence during a take-off due to that.. when I bought the airplane, the brakes where linked too firmly with the rudder. During a takeoff on a realtively long runway a crosswind gust hit  me at about 80% of my take-off-roll.. i reacted with the appropriate rudder input which caused the brakes to kick in and therfore slowed down the airplane significantly increasing my take-off roll tremendously.. that was my most exciting take-off so far! but now that it's all set up nicely, i can land my airplane without thinking about brakes, they are just there when i need them and they do their job
on my avid i am considering to install some heel brakes, as they are mechanically alot easier to install and need less maintenance (adjustment) as one can "feel" the right amount of input pretty easily. To keep the toe brakes i'd need to advance the lower bump in the firewall further forward to make some more room so i can set up my rudder pedals and toe brakes at a flatter angle as i'm too tall to operate them otherwise. (6ft tall, shoe size 12, not really stock avid model 3 dimensions).
cheers
Pascal

this seller has lots of other interesting parts for sale.. lots of rotax 912 parts and a 72" IFA IVO prop. as well besides the floats.
https://www.barnstormers.com/listing.php?userid=168310
 

thank you both for your replies.. looks like i'll have to start fiberglassing myself
 

hi. i am looking for a 100hp rotax as well (but in europe) and have by now seen many ad's that turned out to be scams. you can see the story about one of them in my recent thread regarding a scammer selling a rotax 912
check out the answers, the last post refers to a list of serials of stolen rotax engines.. those engines are so popular at the moment, that they get ripped out of perfectly fine airplanes over night even in hangars! so be careful.
in case you are in europe and looking for a rotax, check out a french company called loravia, they overhaul rotax 912 engines and also sell overhauled engines with warranty.. i've heared good things about them and am considering buying an overhauled engine there when the time comes.
all the best
Pascal

do you happen to know if that seat pan would also fit in an Avid Model C? i am looking for a seatpan for mine to sit lower than with the sling seat.
or let me rephrase that question.. does this look like a kitfox to you? (that's the avid model c where the seat pan should go in )

i've still got time to source some skis for my avid as i need to finish building it first .. in the meantime i'm learning to master the alps in this...
 

darned, i should check this section more often! vance, have fun with them! if anyone else has some skis for sale let me know  

on a second thaught.. maybe some heavy duty zip ties might do the trick, depending on the load of your springs. 

get a set of spring compressors. you might be able to borrow some from your car mechanic or else order them off of ebay or amazon.. or build them yourself if you like to weld
that's what you use on cars when changing springs or shock absorbers on coilover suspensions. 
 

I've got great news! i should change the title of this thread to "new builder" .. i just came to an agreement with the seller, i'm buying that Avid Hauler Project.
If anyone has a 912 engine mount for sale, please PM me!
I'll post some pictures when I pick it up.
cheers
Pascal

Thanks for your fast and comprehensive answer, this forum is such a great resource already before actually owning an avid  

thanks for the warm welcome and your replies.
i was able to contact the onwer of an Avid Flyer Mk IV equipped with a 912 ULS (100hp) here in Switzerland. He agreed to take me up for a test flight so i went to visit him yesterday and we took to the sky in his Avid. WOW, what a machine! i was blown away by the performance of this aircraft.. absolutely amazing! we took of from an airport at 2000 feet right at the foot of the alps. after take-off i was given control and did some shallow turns to get a feel for the aircraft. like probably most avid firsttimers i was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of rudder needed but the feedback of the airplane is really good so i guess i probably can get used to that fairly quick.
then came the amazing part.. i went into a climb at full power with about 70kt IAS. Well, in front of me was an 8000ft mountain and the peak vanised under the cowling as the engine started to pull us up into the blue sky. It really felt as if this airplane was attached to a winch, or actually, it felt like being on a very fast chairlift going up this mountain absoltely amazing, i couldn't stop giggling
even at 10'000 ft altitude on the lee side of a mountain the avid was climbing spectacularly.
the second very impressive thing was the visibility.. this was the first time ever i sat in a high-wing aircraft and i have to say with the big lexan roof i could easily look into a turn. of course the visibility out the completely transparent doors and the big windscreen where just mind blowing. i have attached a picture of what it looked like flying back to the airfield (so the actual mountains where behind us, sorry, i was flying the aircraft on the "way up" )
last but not least i was also amazed by the sound and the feel of that rotax engine. also this was a first for me.. i haven't flown behind a rotax so far (i'm only a ~400hr pilot so far ) so i only konw the feel and sound of Lycoming and mostly continental O-200 engines gurgling along with 2500 rpm. I was always a bit afraid that the rotax running around 5000 rpm would drive me nuts after a certain time but actually this was not the case. With a 3-blad prop and a good muffler all i could hear was the wind and propeller noise. this added up to a feeling similar to flying a turbo prop aircraft. i absolutely loved it. also on the ground during taxi when the engine was audible, it was not annoying at all, it ran so smooth and quiet that i could really feel the about 60 years of development between those old aircooled continentals and the rotax. Admittedly the rotax was equipped with an aftermarked electronic ignition which probably made it somewhat smoother than the carb equipped original.
another very important point was the height of the cabin.. amazingly i could easily sit up right in the hard but comfortable seats (mk iv seat pan with thing cushioning) and even with the headset on i could fit a fist between my hand and the lexan roof. this was mainly due to the bubbles the owner had molded into the lexan for exactly this reason so it seems i'm not the only person with this this idea and it actually works perfectly well
all in all it was one of the most fun flights i've had so far and i immediately fell in love with this avid.
so what's left for me to do is now to convince my wife that i have time to build an aircraft, cut a deal for the unfinished avid, get a new engine and new avionics (mainly ELT, COM and Transponder, they are all outdated and can't be flown anymore due to new regulations), locate a engine mount and cowling for a 912 uls and sell my current airplane.. and of course: actually finish building the avid
cheers
Pascal