LSaupe

Fabulous!!

Great article, thanks Doug.  Ya gotta hope our relatively slow touch down speeds help in either of these situations.

Much of the area I fly in is either covered in trees (forested) or water (in land lakes).

So... if the power plant ever goes silent, any advice as to what might have the most success with regard to survive ability?  Drop it on the trees or go for a water landing (ditching)?  We have had a few guys land in the trees in our EAA Chapter and faired quite well. Not concerned about the condition of the plane afterwards, just the occupants.

Larry

Drained and reflushed this past weekend (at the 70 hr mark).  Looked great though.  Only reason I did that was to install the heater.  With the heater installed in parallel the flow to the main radiator is now reduced, which would make things worse come next summer.  I have added a valve just in case, but the Y pipes will still add circuit resistance.

I have been finding my OEM belly radiator to be a bit marginal above 80F ambient.  This is the original Model III (90's vintage) radiator.  Anyone know of a bolt in upgrade for this?

As a reference, It looks like this one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/400370095772?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true

Larry

Raining weekend so finally got some mods done on the bird.  Added a heater (the Y pipes recommended work great).  Nice to feel heat coming out now in the cabin.  Not the best looking unit, but very functional. Also added a Belite angle of attack indicator.  Now just need to get her up and calibrated.

Nice work.

Looks great, what is the thickness of your Lexan?

Any chance to get the heading "Two Stokes"  corrected to "Two Strokes" or maybe "2 Strokes" to match "4 Strokes"?

I like my TC-1 from MGL.  Shows both EGT and CHT (4 signals) at one time with configurable alarm presets.

http://www.mglavionics.com/html/infinity_singles.html

Just about anything that would normally use a welded tab and a nutplate.  Literally the Fleet uses it to hold panels, pulley's and a multitude of other items,

I increased it back where it was (a bit over pitched).  Performs well and very smooth there so gonna run like that for now.

Nice flight this morning up by the Adirondack Balloon festival (Lake George, NY).  Fog over the Hudson river added a nice contrast to the morning sun.

Anyone know where I can find a clamp on nutplate for tubing similar to this?  This is on a Fleet bi-plane.  They are used extensively throughout.  Cant seem to source any though.  A screw from the back side holds the nutplate (tube) in place.  Effectively a threaded T tube within a clamp with screws in each end.  The top image shows the nutpate ready to go and the bottom shows the system retaining screw that holds clamp force on the tube.

Now those are some fabulous shots!

Thanks for the feedback Leni.  Yep keeping the speed up around 45, as that is about my current comfort level.  Just feels quiet odd to be any slower.  Will keep playing a bit though hopefully I can creep it down a bit.  Same with slips.  I tend to bail out a bit early to avoid the dreaded gear-off light.  We had a J-3 come in once who miss judged pulling out of the slip; and took his gear off.  Hell of a short ground roll though, but did require a crap load of power to taxi.

Hey Leni:

Great post.  I am running into a problem. On approach, even at 45 MPH, this dang bird just wont sink well (just hangs up there at barley 500 fpm).  Don't want to fly much slower, but maybe I need to. (It did much better (sink wise) before I added the lift strut fairings actually).  Often I just end up pointing the nose down a bit then it picks up speed real quick.  Flaps don't seem to help much (just a better sight picture with a lower nose), though I could probably go slower with them (just need to investigate further when I get my AOA indicator (arrives today and will install this weekend). Stall speed with just me is 30 MPH.  Need to do more full flap stall work, last I checked it was like 27 MPH, but  didn't trust the gauge too much at that speed.  Goal here is short field work over a tree line.

It will be interesting to see if there is a critical angle of attack change with flaps vs non, and in what direction.  Anyone test this yet on one of these birds?  Often the critical AOA decreases with (more conventional) flaps, but I have not found anything with the Junkers type.

All, thanks for the posts and pics and setting me straight on this.  Great to have this resource here; as I was more than a big foggy on this SB.

Lou, thats the Highwing gear. Absolutely love it, really performs well.

It was primarily for expediency (getting the bird ready for inspection), not quite sure which type of fairing I was going to use, and a time slot in the paint booth.  Figured I would add them soon after I got it flying.  However, didn't think it would take me a year before I got around to it. :o)

In this case I fitted the Kitfox brand of fairings then removed and painted them, and re-installed (only needed to remove the jury struts).  Still need to add the lower strut "Y" aluminum covers, but those are ready to go.  Also added sections to the landing gear.

Looking through one of my build pics it looks like I already have support on both sides of this bolt.  Was the original design just using a tab on one side?  Or am I looking at things incorrectly. Definitely will inspect and replace this bolt (as I just started my annual - hard to believe it has been a year already).  It does look a bit different from what I see in the bulletin.

Actually "I thought" the bulletin was about the the connection at the elevator.  My model III also has a rod end bearing (ball joint).  Should not be any wear or motion of the bolt, just the ball joint.  Thanks for posting this!!  That bolt is easy to get to (behind the seat).  Will also look at the mods shown here.  

All fabulous stuff!  Thanks for the feedback.  Every flight is a learning experience for sure!

Service bulletin #45 has the owner replacing the elevator bell-crank to push rode bolt every 50 hours.  Not that easy to get to; (kinda tight back there, and tough on the fabric to get the old one out and new one in).  

Have you Model I, II and III owners been doing this?  Still seems odd to have had two failures, though initially it was spec'd as a screw (AN23-15A) vice the now AN3-15 so maybe alleviates the concern (not sure if the chemistry is any different)?  I assume the Model IV has a different arrangement?

Yep, got that stuff.  Actually more interested in what you guys do when you do encounter a bounce.