FredStork

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Posts posted by FredStork


  1. I’m looking for the strength/force of the standard bungee setup. 90” loop to loop, 7 wraps of type I 3/8” shock cord (aircraft spruce ref. 06-12400). I.e. what is the force required to stretch it to the maximum expected extension...

    Does anyone know, or know how to calculate it? (Asking before building a rig to measure it...)


  2. Fred i have to tell you something :) my 2.5 year old son really loves your videos. his absolut favourite is "Barbecue Tignes 2019" which he calls in swiss german somewhat like "airplane snow" .. watching "airplane snow" is probably my ultimate trump i get to play when i want to get him to agree to do stuff he does not want to do, like go to bed in the evening or take a bath before doing so.. usually the deal goes like "okay, we will watch airplane snow once and then you go to bed" .. of course in such situations the bargaining does not end there and he usually manages to squeeze in Wellness Firday as well as the taildragger brotherhood ;) .. not that his father would mind watching those together with him on the couch in the evning ;)

    i'm happy to have another one to add to the list, especially since this one features HB-YMX which was the very Avid i got a chance to fly before i decided to buy and hopefully eventually finish building the one i have now :) keep posting. I hope that one day we will meet at such a fly in or somewhere on a moutain strip :)

    Pascal,

    thank you! This is the best kind of feedback and encouragement I can get for my videos. 
    I have a little gift for your son (and his father) that I hope can make him make some sweet dreams. It is the unlisted film about a cross France flight I made with my 10 year old son a few years ago
    ... https://youtu.be/rLZyHN7_aTI

    3 people like this

  3. Matt,

    Simonini Victor 2 update

    I'm closing in on 200 hours on my 92hp Simonini Victor 2 - without any issues. I have burnt one ignition coli but they are the same on Rotax so I cannot really blame Simonini for that.

    Plenty of power with an unbeatable power/weight ratio. Consumption like a 80/100 hp 912 and 20kg less...

    The only negative thing about this engine is low rev vibrations. I good carburetor synchronization helps but it is never super smooth in low rev.

    the 92hp version is no longer sold, they now start at 100hp and with a more Rotax like single exhaust. You miss a few hp not having the twin tuned pipes but starting with 100 you still have more than you ever need. And it is much easier to install compared to the twin pipes that goes between the landing gear...

    You can see it fly here: https://www.youtube.com/user/fredstork 

    And read about it here: http://avidsimonini.blogspot.com/

    2 people like this

  4. Beautiful Fred!

    Just returned from my first ever cruise trip of any kind. (not really my thing but it was a lot of fun) We spent 15 days on a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam on the Danube, Main and Rhine rivers. We covered quite a distance over a lot of different country. Never really saw the mountains you are flying in (Alps I assume), but it was beautiful country. I saw virtually no airplanes in the sky at all. No small planes at all and very little commercial jet con trails except for a few places. The whole trip was almost completely devoid of aviation that I could see. You must be one of a very few very luck men there, or I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did see a couple of hot air balloons.

    Chris

    Chris,

    I have got the same comments from over seas friends coming here, the sky is empty! And I can confirm, I can fly cross France in the middle of the summers and, when not in the direct vicinity of an airport, not see another plane all day. I'm actually worried about thinking I'm all alone and be less vigilant...
    A lot of pilots do 30 minutes local flights around the home airfield and many don't fly at all... I have visited heaps of empty airfields on my trips... sometimes I call in advance and then I normally get a welcoming committee... 
    You are right, I'm a lucky man!

    Fred

     

     

    3 people like this

  5. Here you'll find most of what you need, length, dimensions,Aircraft spruce references, how to make them etc. And I should add there are also other posts on this topic (and yes, mine is a model C, HH as well)

    1 person likes this

  6. I like the horizontal shock cord idea.  I just got a Kitfox IV with the stock gear and the shock cords are good, but there is no safety cable or anything.  Can I ask the size of the cord you used and if you tested to see if it will hold a tip off of the ground?

    The  »horizontal » chock cord will not, and is not intended to, replace a broken normal bungee. IT WILL NOT ALONE HOLD YOU OFF THE GROUND. But it will very efficiently add deflection resistance, almost noting at normal « soft » landing but exponentially the more deflection there is. I have never heard about broken bungees - but, according to a friend, hard landing do occur.... and I, I mean my friend, has not had a pro strike even at hard  landing that with the “safety wire “ would have broken the seat truss of my, I mean his, plane.

    The stiffer chock cord the better.

    1 person likes this

  7. No cowboy, only 850 tires, no requests to smash any like buttons or subscribe... just Fred flying in the in his French mountains  (during paid business hours)...

     

    13 people like this

  8. The flaps is like the doors, not over 100 km/h (60 mph). But in any case, the faster you fly the less flaps you want - you can even gain some speed with negative flaps, but be careful as this can be a dangerous area.


  9. Had the same hesitation some years ago, the more I striped it down the more rust I found. Had all metal sand basted and powder coated. Covered with Oratex UL600.

    Take a look at my blog, this link is pre-selecting the rebuild posts

    http://avidsimonini.blogspot.com/search/label/Rebuilding the Avid Flyer 

    This is from the covered parts of the tail plane while free tubes didn't look any worse than yours. A critical area, difficult to inspect, is the tail. Whatever you do, uncover it to find out...

    IMG_2947.thumb.JPG.bfc074d8d8f43b17ad1d5


  10. Another "must read" is obviously Chuck Yeager's "An Autobiography"

    No description needed... The language is colorful and the story amazing.

    5d83ae7df0f85_51yf095YpPL._SX307_BO12042

    Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/Yeager-Autobiography-Chuck/dp/0553256742/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1568910855&sr=8-1

    and when you have read Yeager's book and seen The Right Stuff one more time you will appreciate The Happy Bottoms Riding Club - The life and times of Pancho Barnes

    5d83afe5bb7fe_51DRHT4ThXL._SX334_BO12042

     Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Bottom-Riding-Club-Pancho/dp/0812992520/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= 

     

     


  11. Great idea!

    I have a rather large collection aviation books and I'm always looking for good additions. 

    One book I read recently and really, really liked was Flight of passage by Rinker Buck. Very much in the spirit of this group and an amazing true adventure by to young boys at a time when everything was possible...

    5d83abeaaf147_51bFUMo4RJL._SX296_BO12042
    Description from Amazon:

    Writer Rinker Buck looks back more than 30 years to a summer when he and his brother, at ages 15 and 17 respectively, became the youngest duo to fly across America, from New Jersey to California. Having grown up in an aviation family, the two boys bought an old Piper Cub, restored it themselves, and set out on the grand journey. Buck is a great storyteller, and once you get airborne with the boys you find yourself absorbed in a story of adventure and family drama. And Flight of Passage is also an affecting look back to the summer of 1966, when the times seemed much less cynical and adventures much more enjoyable. 

    Amazon US link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786883154/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

    I hope this string will be long!

     

    2 people like this

  12. I shamelessly admit to watching most of those videos. But apparently unlike you guys i don't have a flying airplane(in a year hopefully). So I use them for motivation. Ive always loved airplanes and flying and didn't need those guys to light that fire, but they are fanning the flames. 

    Feel no shame... Regardless of what "they", maybe incorrectly, call themselves I think they are doing more to raise interest and awareness for a niche of aviation than anyone else. Our niche with relatively low cost, easy access, slow taildragger aircraft that looks like the planes in our childhood dreams.
    I am personally amazed by how many pilots, and wannabee pilots, have contacted me for information and advice on the Avid Flyer after having seen my not very spectacular films - and I only have 430 subscribers so my films don't easily pop up in the suggested film list... 

    3 people like this

  13. Fake branding?

    I'm not sure if I'm reading this right... is the problem that those YouTube pilots are calling them selves "bush pilots" and that is offending those who are real bush pilots? 

     


  14. Just eyeball Engineering here since i don't know how to run the numbers anyway, but the tendency of a cabane spring gear to pull the lower longerons together is well known. My drawing of the seat truss might not be dimensionally accurate but the general placement of the tubes is. The tube that angles inward and down from the proposed upper shock mount location seems to my untrained mind to be better for that application that a cabane style landing gear. If that tube started at the bottom of the truss and angled upward instead methinks it would be better for the standard Bush gear as it would offer a little more resistance to pulling the longerons together. 

     

    Still not suggesting it's adequate for what i proposed just suggesting the geometry might be a little better. 

    I think the basic approach is correct but to get the geometry right we should look at Just Aircraft and their Highlander. 

    Juat_AirCraft_Highlander.thumb.jpg.34577

    You could even go all the way up to the wing (and add a cross bar...). 

     


  15. Very similar to the fuel selector valve in my 1959 Cessna 172 - a simple cam-driven ball valve. I would think it would work well for this application.

     

    Image result for early cessna 172 fuel selector valve

    Yes, any valve that can do open "only left", "only right" and "both" will do. If it also have all "off" it will do parking brake as well.


  16. So what happens when you come in to land in a stiff cross wind and need differential braking to straighten you out?  That single hand brake will not offer you any more protection from a ground loop in fact it will compound the problem because applying the brakes will override any rudder inputs you may have had. If you are going to use a hand brake I would recommend installing a differential system. 

    I had a differential cable hand brake system on my first Avid and it worked well. It was mounted to the face of the center seat cross member to the left of your left leg. Bad thing was it took your hand off the throttle.

    I'm not sure I have the skill to pull that off.  For this old man, things seem to happen faster.   I always land without braking, then try to apply them equally to slow the airplane down.  A single master cylinder would cure the issue of uneven braking and its negative effects under normal circumstances.  If the runway is sufficiently wide, one might consider landing diagonally on it to lessen the crossflow component.

    The Avid is good at crosswinds landings. If you would need both rudder and brakes to keep straight you could probably do a really short cross the runway landing instead. Being precise with rudder and differential brakes is very difficult. 

    The ideal theoretical solution is differential brakes on the pedals and master on the stick - I, however, never got it to work correctly due to the difficulty is getting a good geometry on the pedal/cylinder. 


  17. Congratulations on making a more effective braking system, but in my humble opinion ground loops are caused by bad rudder action, and brakes are a way to try and fix a problem that was created by the slow feet.

    But on the other hand your stick lever looks great, take a look at some of Fred Stork's posts, he installed a dual brake handle system on his airplane so he has differential hand breaks.

    I have tried all versions by now: pure toe brakes, mono hand brake on the stick, double hand brakes on the stick, toe brakes coupled with mono hand brake (this was the theoretically most pleasing solution) and finally mono hand brake on the stick and a switch for braking on only one side. 

    I agree that ground loops should be due to bad rudder action and that differential brakes are there to save the situation. But I find the reality being the opposite. It is very hard to be brake in a “creative “ fashion with the toe brakes while still working the rudder. Some can do it, but most will fail when they are half way into a ground loop. And while it can happen to anyone it is less frequent for the experts...

    This is why I, not an expert, prefer having easy access to powerful, while still easy to dose, equal braking. My solution is a main (motorcycle) brake handle on the stick. Moderate brake an rudder still allows for fairly precise maneuvers and I can brake hard when needed without the risk of being to hard (ground loop...) on one side. And, for tight situations I have a switch that direct all the brake power (fluid) to only one side making it easy to turn around one wheel (a flashing light tells me the switch is engaged to avoid leaving it there for landing...)

     

    Hello Fred,

    could you let me know more about the valve that you used to select left/right braking please, is it a solenoid valve or just manual. 

    Ken

    2 manual valves, in the middle position they are both half open, when one is closed the other is fully open as they are mounted mirrored to each other

    image.thumb.jpeg.d506bbb6bf605bbf9d9880d

    they are operated with a knob close to the throttle (that I have on my left hand side exactly where my left hand falls)

    image.thumb.jpeg.0592ebd80316c51c252fa56

    and I have one single valve, placed before the double valve, for parking brake. Works great...

    image.thumb.jpeg.92bb09778c091d925878e8d it is the same kind of valve as the others.

    I hope this helps!

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