Airplane Ready To Fly

 On March 16th I finally had everything back together and taxied the plane for about 10 minutes.  Everything was fine, except for a slight miss on the left magneto.  Back in the hangar.

On March 18th we had a fly-in to celebrate the reopening of the runway.  The winds at 3000 feet were 26 knots but we had a good turnout anyway

Today I had time and 72 degree weather to work on the small misfire.  I stared by pulling the lower plugs and cleaning them to assure there was not any oil fouling one of them.  I also rechecked the gaps, all good.

When I removed the lead to the lower plug on cylinder 4 the insulator fell off the wire, problem found.  I had cable tied the wire to keep it clear of the exhaust pipe and accidentally pulled it so tight I pulled the lead almost out of the insulator.  I reinstalled the insulator and was more careful how I tied it up.  It's running here before taxiing it for about 10 minutes.  I did 2 mag checks with no misfire.

With it nice and warm I did the compression check.  All cylinders were 75/80psi - 76/80psi., very good.

The annual Condition Inspection is now signed off.  We're ready to go flying to see if I've improved the motor cooling with the grills removed.  Yea!

Runway Closed Again

 

I've been going slow working on the valves because our runway is closed again.  The wizards of smart, who designed the new runway, forgot to put an overun at the north end of the runway.  As it was, as soon as you over ran the end of the runway you started down a 40 foot hill to the creek.

They've hauled and piled soil to create a 100 foot over run.  After that you're heading down to the creek,

It's a huge pile of dirt.  They've carved away every cubic foot of soil from around the runway.  Originally they destroyed our grass taxiway along the west side of the south end of the runway to level the runway.

Now they've removed soil along the west side of the north end.  At one time I could land in the grass south of the VASI panels, not now, it's gone.

When I get my WACO NINE project done I may need to find another airport.  It has no brakes and a tail skid.  It needs grass to fly safely.

Sailplane Ride At Harris Hill, New York

 I'm a couple weeks behind reporting what I've been doing with the Fly Baby.  But before I get caught up, yesterday my Grandson, Duncan and I went for Sailplane rides at Harris Hill Soaring.  While we waited for our turn, our tickets got us into the National Soaring Museum. Both were great fun.

Duncan and his pilot ready to go in a 1984 Schleicher ASK-21, N363KS.

Takeoff

Adjusting the rudder pedals so I could fly once we released.  A good plan but once the canopy was closed I couldn't get my knees under the panel.  I flew the stick and he flew the rudder, it worked.

My ride is a 2008 Schleicher ASK-21, N621HH. Very nice feel and easy to control.

Takeoff!

Heading down the runway and liftoff.

Towing out over the drop-off.  The field is on top of the hill about 750 feet above the valley.

Steep Sides of the valley and river below.

Just before release at 4200 feet MSL, Good countdown communications with the tow pilot.

A couple more pic's before taking the stick.

Returning to land.  We had a cross wind so landed from the grassy end and taxied back to the paved launch area.

Landing

The end of a nice 17 minute flight as one of the helpers gently lets the wingtip down.  It seemed much longer and was great fun.

Computer Hard Drive Died - We're Back

 I got behind posting things and then the hard drive on my computer died.  Dell sent me a new drive, which sat in New Jersey for a day because of airplane problems.  Then it took over a week to reload 250K files form Carbonite.  After 3 days I hardwired the computer to the router, which tripled the download speed.  The rest of that week was spent re-installing software.

Last week we visited the grand kids, always fun.  I'm finally back writing and will use this post to get caught up to date.

First thing, I have another flight review story.  Four years ago I was at the American WACO Club fly-in at Creve Coeur, Mo. and John Ricciotti offered a ride in his 400 HP, 1934 WACO S3HD.  Of course the answer was yes.  Saturday morning I almost missed my ride because I wanted to drive by the local Catholic church so I would know where I was going, and how long it would take to get there for the 5 pm Mass, at the end of the day.  I made it in the nick of time and got my much cherished ride.

As we were taxing out I told him how much I appreciated it since I had been grounded while I waited for my FAA Medical to be approved, due to a kidney stone New Years Eve.  As it turned out my medical was in the mail the afternoon before I left for the fly-in, yea. He commented that my BFR must have expired.  Yup.  Would you like to do it? YES!  What a wonderful plane to fly, power on & off stalls, lazy 8s and more.  All the way to the first landing I'm thinking any second he's going to change his mind about letting me land this, from this nearly blind rear cockpit.  Actually the view wasn't that much worse than my Cabin WACO, in which I had over 500 landings, and I did fine.

What a treat.  We then did an hour of excellent ground review work for the best BFR ever.  Thanks John!

But that wasn't the end of an amazing day.  At 4:30 I closed my sales tent and jumped in my van heading to 5 pm Mass. As I pulled out of the airport the radio was playing something boring, so I hit the seek button and then got busy driving.  The radio stopped on the Catholic channel.  I knew it existed on cable but had no idea it was on the radio.  I was too busy with traffic to change it when on came the announcer talking with a young fellow who had converted to be a Catholic, and was asking about how to get his family interested in converting.  The announcer went into a story of how he and his whole family were Catholic haters and had all become Catholics, his brother had even become a priest.  

Well, now I'm listening!  I've heard this story dozens of times from his brother who is our parish priest, Father Staples.  At the same moment I'm listening to him help this young convert, my wife was receiving communion from his brother at our parish back in Virginia.  As I pulled into the church parking lot the show ended and yes it was Tim Staples, our priest's brother who lives in California.

The extra couple minutes to locate the church in the morning turned this into one of the most amazing and blessed days ever.  

My Flight Review and the annual Condition Inspection of the airplane both expired at the end of July.  While inspecting the plane I found a cooling air leak from the high pressure area above the cylinders to the low pressure area below.  I'm not sure how I missed it but the hole was about 2 1/2" x 1 1/4" (3 square inches).  When I made the new metal pieces I clearly missed this.  Once the nose bowl was on you couldn't see it.

I made a piece of felt to close the hole.  I split the one edge of it so it would seal better against the crankcase.

I removed the 2 staples holding the seal beside it and fastened both seals with new staples.

I also added some length to some of the seals against the nose bowl to get better sealing there.  

When I made the new baffle pieces I had added a cross baffle below the crankshaft.  From an article in Vintage magazine about Taylorcraft baffles, I learned this piece was blocking flow that was supposed to go over the top of the case into the high pressure plenum. I removed the added baffle.

I finished the inspection Oct 1 and got it back in the air the next day with high hopes of having solved the cooling problem.  It was a gorgeous morning to go flying.  I had fun and the motor did run cooler, but not enough to say I've solved the cooling problem.

I did make a really good landing, so my lessons from my flight review were working.

Mike got a nice picture of me parking back at the hangar, next to his plane

Yesterday I got to fly for almost an hour just at sunset, very nice evening.  The fall colors are just starting to turn.

I did find another corn maze near the other one, west of the airport.  This one was way better.  It's at a pick your own farm.  The maze is titled America The Beautiful.  What a cool maze.

Spark Plugs, Rain, Tie Down for Starting Motor, Throttle Cable and Brake Problems

 

I couldn't find a reason for the miss with the RH Magneto so I replaced the spark plugs with new Champion REM40E plugs.  I also replaced the plug leads with new wires from Fresno Air Parts.  I had one wire which, in the past, had rubbed through the insulation against the cowl bump so I wanted to change them anyway.  Th new ones have elbows to help protect against chafing.

As I got ready to run the motor the rain started so I quickly covered the cockpit.

You can see the wheels are chocked with ropes that allow pulling both chocks as one.

The tail is tied to a piece of rebar which goes into a tube in the ground and through an eye bolt in the hangar door.  The guy before me install them for his plane.

I made a 1/2" rope, about 5 feet long, with eyes spliced at each end.  I used 3/8" eyes because they fit the rope better.  The wrap at the end of the tucks is heat shrink tubing.  The forward end hooks to the cockpit operated tow hook.  Start the motor, pull the chocks, climb in, buckle up, and release the hook and you're ready to taxi.

Fortunately I did some more taxiing and found my foot was catching the throttle cable and reducing power, not good.  I've added some more cable ties so it's tight to the fuel line and my foot can't snag it.

When I came back the next day I found brake fluid leaked on the floor from the Left Brake.  The old bladder had sprung a leak.  I need to find a good cheap bladder or replace the brakes, big $$.

O yeah! I still have the magneto miss.

Motor Runs - Taxied Around

 

I put some yellow and red heat shrink tubing on the gas gauge wire so I can tell if I'm too low on fuel to be taking off.  I left a gap equal to the width of the stripes so the gauge could go lower while flying if needed to land somewhere.  It turns out it still goes into the cap fine even with the stripes added.

The motor started on the first pull with 2 shots of primer.  Oil pressure came up before I could get around the wing to check it.  Priming the pump probably helped after so many years setting.

Fred Rollins took a short video as I started to taxi.

The brakes work fine and it felt so good to taxi it around.

There was one problem the right magneto has a bad miss.  It sounds like I switched two lead wires on the distributor cap.  I'll work on it this evening when the engine has cooled.  Right now I'm delighted to have it running.