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Well a bit of a sad update. A buddy of mine had an engine failure and off field landing today. Gear caught in the soft soil and flipped over. Buddy walked away but the plane is probably a write off.  He figures his time in gliders saved his rear end. He knew he would not make the airport so he put it in the field. Got to tell all his pilot jokes to the ambulance attendant. I flew down and picked him up. A group are heading down to recover the plane tomorrow.
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Oct 11, 2016 02:53
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:25 |
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I suppose unfortunate would have been more appropriate. The farmer is going to harvest the beans so that they don't knock any more down during the recovery.
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Oct 12, 2016 00:47
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The T-18 predates BRS by a lot of years. The insurer would have covered this damage as well if he had purchased in motion hull insurance.
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Oct 15, 2016 01:58
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Update time. Finished the garage so there is room now for the plane.   You really do strap this plane on. It has a five point harness and you lay pretty flat.  Panel is pretty simple. The white instrument on the right is a vertical speed indicator.  Wings are on the floor to let the saddles dry out.  Garage lighting is pretty good. 
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Oct 30, 2016 00:31
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On the Lazair it was directly behind the seat.
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Nov 8, 2016 02:56
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It is a relatively low performace glider. The Onex is probably the closest non-glider option but it is about half the L/D but is much more powerful. There are a few newer higher performance gliders that are similar but I don't think any match the aerobatic performance.
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Dec 30, 2016 02:04
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Oh it is a motorglider. 25hp KFM 107 20:1 isn't going to do all that well off of a tow. Once I get back home I'll probably start working on the engine. I just need to move all the accessories from the old broken engine to the new Long-block.
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Dec 30, 2016 02:14
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Got my rear end in gear this weekend. Started swapping the reduction drive for the direct drive setup from the old motor.  Getting that pulley off was a pain but I got it off by leaving the engine out in the cold for a few hours and then used a bit of heat.  The old engine came apart much easier.  This is the direct drive front end and the stator for the magneto/alternator.  I also made some new sunvisors for the Cherokee. Laser cut acrylic and 3d printed ABS mounts. The old ones were very green tinted.   
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Feb 6, 2017 01:35
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More work on the engine this weekend. Mainly torqued the front housing up and swapped the cylinder heads.  Removed the cowl and Canopy/Instrument panel to repair the crack.     
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Mar 12, 2017 23:00
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They really do. The sidestick should be interesting to learn.
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Mar 13, 2017 01:03
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Got some more work done today. Mostly just replacing the fuel lines. I am getting rid of all the crappy hose clamps and will use lock wire instead. I also removed the in-line paper filter since there is an in tank strainer. Might move the pump to improve the routing. Before   After    Oh and Spoiler alert.  The engine and exhaust are back on. 
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Apr 17, 2017 15:54
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PPG is more than welcome here. I thought about buying one but it is a bit windy here so much like my old Lazair it limits when I can fly. Get some flight training even if you have to travel a bit to get it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playlist
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Jun 23, 2017 14:37
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Tiny update. So one of my previous posts said that the engine and exhaust were on. The engine and muffler were installed but the header pipes would not fit. Turns out the port angles on the 30 and 25 hp engines are different so the headers hit the intake manifold. I bought a set of 25 hp headers and got them before Oshkosh but they are a simple straight 90 and hit the intake even worse. So I contacted a local aviation fabricator and he was able to come by yesterday to take a look. Rather than taking a bunch of measurements he took a look at how things needed to fit up and simply took the entire engine and exhaust system to make the required changes.
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Oct 15, 2017 15:30
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Even in the latest video it looks pretty marginal power wise. I bet he could have saved a lot of weight in the fuselage design.
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Nov 3, 2017 02:56
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Doing the online ground school will at least get a big part of learning out of the way. Colllege courses tend to be aimed at commercial flying and the small local flight school will probably be better for just learning to fly for fun. As far as buying a plane goes I would rent while you are learning so that you can beat the poo poo out of someone elses plane. Buy once you have figured out what you want to do with flying. I spend around 6-10k a year on flying, splitting the fixed costs like maintenance and tie downs with someone else really make ownership a lot easier.
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Nov 3, 2017 20:01
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:25 |
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Small update. Fixed the crack in the canopy. It appears that the canopy was refit on the frame or drilled incorrectly and that was repaired by filling the holes and redrilling. The crack was along a previous crack and went right to a screw hole that was pressing hard against the screw. So I relaxed the holes slightly to stop the screws from pushing on the sides. The glue was a methyl methacrylate adhesive with a very fine acrylic powder to use as a filler. The crack is actually slightly to the left of the previous repair.  
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Dec 10, 2017 23:24
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