rdooley79

Hey Guys,
 
I almost have my old wing tank removed. Only problem is that the tank has no gap between the tank and the front spar. The rear spar had a lot of room and I was able to use some safety wire to work through the silicone and it's separated but the front spar is so close to the fiberglass with no gap that I can't fit even some .020 safety wire to cut the silicone. I definitely don't want to pry on the tank because I don't want to damage the spar. It's very tight and I can't use a screwdriver or a paint scraper, only a razor blade is able to slide between the fiberglass tank and the spar but there is no mechanical leverage to persuade the tank in to coming loose. I don't want to go at it with a dremmel because if I nick the spar, it's done, replace the spar and rebuild the wing. As much as I want a nice shiny set of freshly covered wings. My bank account doesn't.....
It seems that the only solvent is Xylene (Strip-Rite @ HomeDepot) that will soften the Silicone. 
 
Has anyone had a tightly fitting wing tank? What did you do to get it out?
 
TLDR; silicone adhesive and a tightly fitting wing tank won't budge. How do you remove a tank without damaging the spar?
 
Thanks Guys,
R
 

I have a KF 4 with a 13 gal fiberglass tank in the right wing and in the left wing is a locker and no tank.
Question is, My left wing with just the wing locker. Can the internal wing structure be changed to accommodate a 6 or 13 gallon tank? The  cross braces are different for each configuration but once the brackets are riveted in place, that's it, they can't be changed. Is that right or not?
My fiberglass tank, right wing,  has been sloshed and held for a year but it's coming apart again and it's time to retire it. So it's getting replaced for sure.  It's the older fiberglass and the previous owner let her sit for months with ethanol fuel. 
Or better yet, does anyone have a set of KF4 speedster wings with 13 gallon tanks? 
 

Yesterday was amazing here in Colorado. The snow was fresh soft. The sky was blue and calm. 
 
Flying off the "grass" snow runway today was a blast. Takinig off was like being shot out of a cannon. Landing was like touching down on feathers. What a BLAST!!!!! My little brother that went along hadn't flown off of snow before and he was loving it, we were laughing like kids doing touch and go's. 
 
Love the 22" Desser's and wide Matco wheel. They really work nice in the snow!
 
Then we went home and had some pork that had been smoking for 18 hours... 
 
Did anyone else get to go up over the Christmas Holiday?

Any tips out there for cleaning the excess silver and pink from my kitfox cockpit exposed frame cross members?
What I want to do is remove the top paint coats, leaving the powder coat intact.  
Whoever recently covered my bird used a lot of silver and pink. seems like they went with the dip method. Dip the entire plane in a giant vat and then let it drip off. Might explain some of the weight I can't account for. 
As a result in the cockpit the white powder coat frame looks really dirty from all of the silver and pink. Then to top it off another previous owner thought it would be a good idea to take a paint brush with another white paint and paint over the silver and pink. It's not even close to the white of the frame and looks awful. I have thought of MEK but I'm concerned it'll go through everything and I'll have bare metal showing which is definitely not good. Rather have the bad paint than disturb the powder coat integrity.
 
Any ideas of how to proceed?
 

Am I the only one?
 
When I was learning to fly my kitfox I was having a lot of trouble getting used to the rudder. I kept nicking the toe brakes and over correcting. I tried with only my socks on and found that I was MUCH better. The tendency to accidentally hit the brakes went away. I also was much better on the pedals with more finesse because I could hook my toes on the bottom of the pedal. It was so noticeable that my CFI commented that he might use that technique with another student that is having similar problems in a Citabria. 
 
The best part, when it's super hot, I'm very comfortable. When it's cold, wool socks seem to work great and are nice and soft.
The only bad thing I've noticed is that I tend to have to hold a bit of right rudder which over time makes my foot tingle from the constant pressure. With a shoe there is enough padding.
Between the two negatives, I'll go bare foot with a slight tingle rather than nicking brakes with a clunky shoe. 
 
 

Hey guys,
 
I was out flying this morning, no wind, very nice morning. Came in to Longmont Colorado (Vance Brand airport) which is the next airport north (10 min flight time) of my home field at Boulder. I've flown in there a lot in my weight shift trike over the past 14 years. It's notoriously busy on weekend mornings especially when the sky diving operation is in full swing. But this morning I'm in my Kitfox and just solo'd 8 hours ago. Noobie green taildragger pilot.
 
As I entered on a 45 to the downwind for 29 at pattern altitude. I heard the jump plane give a warning of skydivers and to please not overfly mid field. I'm in good position, right where I should be and called my midfield left downwind for 29. Get to the beam of the 29 numbers and pull flaps to 3/4 where I like them and settle the plane in to a 60mph decent as make a nice turn on base and shortly thereafter final. As I turn final I hear the jump plane call base circle to final. This is a twin Otter that's now right up my butt. These guys are impatient and want to get another load of divers in. It hasn't been 3 minutes since they dropped a load out at 10k and now they are on base hauling butt right at me. My brain is concerned that they don't see me in my little Kitfox and are going to be on top of me. So I call on the radio "kitfox is 50 feet above the 29 numbers landing". Of course this is where I should be focusing on keeping the plane straight and my feet nimble on the rudder. Well, I admit, I was very distracted and only 8 hours past solo and am not as good with my feet as I want to be. So when I flared out I had the nose pointed to the left about 10 degrees. Tires squawking and screeching but I pulled back on the stick and planted the tail and wasn't as fast jabbing right rudder as I needed to. Fortunately there is a wide grass skirt  between the runway and taxiway. So when I got her under "control" the loop stopped, I didn't want to over control to keep it on the concrete so I just ran off in to the grass. I taxi forward to the taxiway and call that I was clear of the runway just as the Otter touched down right there where I went off the runway not 20 seconds earlier.
 
Now, I know, fly the plane and always fly the plane but I was scared of being crushed by that Otter and also being a green taildragger pilot I wasn't as fast on the controls. Not sure what to do here. I can't be mad at the Otter driver that I almost ground looped but I've had this same thing happen before in my weight shift trike that's much slower. They are always up my butt. They fly aggressively and act like they own the airport and have priority. So after I checked the plane over and taxied over to the FBO for some non ethanol mogas I taxied back out with calmer nerves. The Otter was on the opposite side of the runway on the hold short, three planes on my side of the runway, I was last #4 waiting in line. The Otter jumps out in front of this plane that had just turned a fairly short final and screamed off. The Cessna 182 on my side of the runway said something like "ok you have the runway Otter but it was my turn" The plane on final I could tell was effected by wake turbulence because there wasn't even 30 seconds between the Otter taking off and them landing. They should have gone around considering how much they waffled up and down. I'm sitting there watching this and was getting kindof pissed because they had caused two pilots to be placed in to a situation that wasn't necessary.
 
Telling my wife about this she said I should call the airport manager and tell him what had happened. I don't want to be one of those people that complains but I'm thinking about it because this has happened to me flying my weight shift trike and my trike buddies at Longmont before. Even my CFI that trained me in the Kitfox didn't like to fly to Longmont because of the Otter jump plane reputation as being a pattern "hog".
 
Tomorrow morning I'm going out to a buddies big grass freshly mowed air field and doing about 40 takeoff's and landings to get the sight picture burned even more in to my brain and get better with the pedals. That's what I'm supposed to be doing in this solo - pre checkride period. Get to the point where I put the plane on like a pair of pants. Definitely not quite there yet.
 
I would say that I won't go back to Longmont when the jump planes are running, except Longmont is the only airport with non-ethanol mogas and I want to run that much more than 100LL. The time I need to fill up is typically on my way back from flying in the morning and by then the jump planes are running. 
 
What do you guys think? Should I call the airport manager or the dive operation or just let it go. I'm still kinda shook up from the almost ground looping of my bird.