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Finally, a good day to fly skis!

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Posted

All things aligned yesterday; a beautiful day, a little fresh snow, daylight getting longer and I could taxi out from the hangar without having to load and unload the plane on the trailer and take it to the lake.  We are having a good inter this year but the winter winds always blow the snow off the taxiway and RW/Grass so within a week of fresh snow, it means you have to trailer to the lake to fly. But, I'm not complaining; hopefully we will have a few good months ahead as we are gaining daylight hours in leaps and bounds.  Things are looking good!

I had a great few hours of playing out by Skwentna. the snow is plenty deep out there.  I ran across this group of snow cats freighting materials out across the swap.  One of the snow cats had broken through the ice on a creek and it tipped it completely on it's side.  It didn't look like they were having as much fun as I was, it was not going to be an easy task to get it out but they were working on it.  About 0 degrees out there for a high yesterday.

Moose population is doing great; I probably saw 200.  In years past I was lucky to see a dozen.

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Posted

Glad to hear the moose are making a comeback!  I am planning on getting the skis on the pacer when I get home this trip, it's past time that we get to go do some flying again.

I sure don't envy the guys on the ground but a couple winches and he should be good to go.

:BC:

 

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Posted

Sounds good Leni, we need to get out and play in the snow.  Let me know when you ready and we can figure out a time to go.

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Posted

Another one of those beautiful nights to get out on skis; fresh snow this week and it finally cleared off.  I was amazed at how well the 100 hp 150 did with new 18" wide bottoms on the federal skis.  The snow wasn't super deep but it would have never even got airborn with the standard skis..  Big skis are a must.

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Posted

Well took the blueplane to Bradley yesturday,  got up to 28 above and sunny as heck, did about 1.5+hrs of taxin and short flights back and forth on the 4000’ runway, all went good except i found out the airspeed gauge not work at all. Have to check my lines, then recheck the used gauge again. First time out to taxi she surprised the hell out of me and was 20’ off the ground right away, had to set it back down and go park for a breather :bugeyes: 

my blackfox dont get off nowhere near that soon. 

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Posted


This forum is great I love all the pictures you guys post.

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Posted

I'm not on skis, yet, but it was a great day to fly, either way. 

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Posted

There is a set of federal 1500 on fairbanks craigslist for $700 today

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Posted

Woohoo! Glad you guys got out!  This weekend was absolutely perfect ski flying!  I got about 7 hours in between Sat and Sun. I got to check out one of my favorite places out to the Kahiltna glacier but I only seem to get out there in the winter on skis,  There are plenty of places to land on skis but I need to look around there in the summer.  One strip I found in the last picture, but hard to tell how overgrown it is in the winter with snow pressing everything down.  I landed one place this weekend and when I stepped off the ski I went in over my waist!  Gotta love those 18" wide X 78" long skis!

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Posted

Met a buddy out at Shell Lake last weekend and he too some air to air pictures. It is always interesting to see your plane from a position you don't get to see when flying it. 

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Posted


Randy,  Nice shots of your plane. She flies nice and level now. Is it normal for the tail ski to be tilted up that steep?

Jack

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Posted

Hi Jack,

The zero thrust line definitely changes the attitude of the plane in flight.  The tail ski angle is a result of hitting some solid pieces of ice.

We got the slats on Danny's plane this weekend.  Mine are suppose to be done next week!

Randy

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Posted

Hey Randy,
Holy cow! Test pilot time again. Before it's over you guys are going to be able to "hoover" into your hunting strips. Did you decide on which adhesive to use on the mounting brackets at the fuel tank?

Jack

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Posted

Randy says he has a type of contact adhesive that should bond great and gives you about 30 seconds to position it before it sets.  I am really getting to like the flaperon extensions as I get to fly them more. It is amazing that that 2" extension deployed to about 30 to 40 degrees lowers the slow flying speed by 6 to 7 mph.  (Probably the cheapest 6 to 7 mph reduction one could ever get.)  I can fly it and feel solid in ground effect at 31 mph and Danny was at 33 mph with the new slats on his cub.  Danny gets the fowler flaps for his cub tomorrow and I should have the slats for mine this weekend.  It will be interesting how much difference they make.

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Posted


That's really amazing! I'm really glad they worked out so well. Just need to keep an eye on the attach points and linkage during the first few hours. I can't imagine what the slats are going to do for your stall speed and take off performance.

I probably won't be coming up for at least the next two weeks, can't afford to bring anything home to Carole. Keep me posted on your mods and the benefits.

Good luck,

Jack

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Posted


I got to play on ski's for one day and now its melting fast.  The lakes around here are full over overflow now. 

While Danny is throwing money at the cub..... Yesterday I did some testing on the sensinich 82" ground adjust prop (first flight was with my borer prop for baseline).  I was able to dial it in and went from a 17.5 second take off run to 9 second take off and have the same indicated cruise speed.  Time to climb from 1k to 2k holding 75 mph indicated dropped 12 seconds.  instant acceleration and you loose 13 pounds off the nose.... buddy was testing in his 180 HP cub and got similar if not even better numbers than I did.  Helped sell 4 props yesterday for him! 

I look at most of the reports and call BS on them... outrageous claims that can't be true.  Till we tested and recorded the numbers.  I was blown away!

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Posted

Wow, that is impressive.  I'll tell him about it.  He is running a Cato on it now. We had another beautiful day out there today,  It was a little bumpy but snow and sun were great.  It is getting warm and melting fast around Wolf Lake though but were still able to get off on the snow in the grass areas. My buddy with the 150 has his tied down on Big Lake and he says there is now a foot of water under the snow layer to the ice below.

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