Brodhead Pietenpol Association

taildrags

Just looked at the pic again... I see that your compass is mounted just ahead of the rear spar. Got it.

Also noticed that you used my U-bolt trick on the cabane braces for mounting the passenger's shoulder harness to. How's that working out? Mine works great.

-Oscar

taildrags

Ken; thanks for the tips on compass mounting up there. I'll most likely Gorilla Tape the compass in place and fly it a bit before settling on anything. And I know what you mean about bifocals. When I wear my contacts to fly, I can wear any sunglasses I want, any goggles I want, or nothing on my eyes...

taildrags

Ken; thanks for confirming the path I've decided to take... under the wing. I had that same, or very similar, Ritchie compass in my Amazon shopping cart till I found one by Silva that looked like it might provide a slimmer profile and perhaps simpler mounting and more adjustable viewing angle. Undec...

taildrags

I remember seeing someone's setup for mounting their compass on the underside of the wing, which looked like a pretty slick setup. I'm thinking of moving mine out of the panel and I don't have my fuel tank up in the centersection and could consider mounting the compass up under there. Any ideas woul...

taildrags

I built much of the wooden framing of my Flying Squirrel, and did a lot of the Aeropoxy layups on it, in my half of our garage here in southern Oregon. A lot of cold and clammy days and nights and our garage was unheated, uninsulated, and so was the garage door. What I did was get a propane-fired to...

taildrags

John; it sounds like you've found a source for those pumps. By any chance have you seen any specifications for them? In particular, flowrate that could be compared to the Ford A pump, probably gallons/minute at a certain RPM or graphed by flowrate across a range of speeds? I don't fly a water-cooled...

taildrags

Richard; I'm sure it'll work out OK... I just thought it might inspire confidence if you had some measurements off another airplane. Sounds like you and I are mighty close on ours so get busy fabricating those brake master mounts and actuators. You'll like having brakes. Tom: looking at the geometry...

taildrags

Richard; not saying "do it this way", just putting additional food for thought out there. I'm a bit curious about your leg length. Looking at my brake pedal location fore-and-aft relative to yours, either our cockpits are differently configured by a couple of inches, or my legs are shorter...

taildrags

Aha. I knew I had a thread going somewhere on this subject. Here are the measurements of my setup, as well as a photo of the starboard side brake showing the welded-on tab on the pedal to make it easier to reach with the toe.

-Oscar

taildrags

Richard: I think you're getting it! If it would help, I'd be happy to take measurements of the triangulated fuselage framing space where my brakes are mounted, as well as where the mounting points are located on the diagonal, to give you a point of reference to see if we're close to what you've come...

taildrags

Jeffrey; note that if your GN-1 is built per plans, the cabane struts will be vertical because the wing cannot physically be moved aft on a GN-1. The attachments for the struts do not create "pivoting four-bar linkages" as they do on the Pietenpol. And don't start worrying about W&B be...

taildrags

Jeffrey; if I may offer one bit of advice, here's something that you can do that will cost you nothing, requires changing or removing *nothing* from what you have there, and will provide you with a very valuable amount of information about your airplane before you spend any time or money modifying a...

taildrags

Ken; got it. So you used the TSO'd braided nylon electrical flex conduit from Aircraft Spruce for that electrical wiring? ;o)

-Oscar

taildrags

Ken: what's the nylon braided hose running down and out the bottom of the plane?

-Oscar Z.
Medford, OR

taildrags

Richard; see photo of the toe brake setup on Bill Rewey's Piet. Mine were fabricated after the same fashion. They sit pretty much on each side of the passenger's thighs, on the sides of the fuselage. Simple and effective. Bill's actually have parking brakes, which are the metal tabs on top of the cy...

taildrags

Richard; do you have any preference as to whether you go with heel or toe brakes?

Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR
Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power
"Bill Rewey style" toe brakes

taildrags

Will; I'm very surprised that no one has stepped up to address your questions yet. I'm no expert when it comes to woodworking, but your questions don't require deep knowledge of woodworking to address, especially when it comes to building an Air Camper. I may take a swing at it if no one else does i...

taildrags

Hello, Clyde; Having done this several times with my Air Camper (removed and reinstalled the wings), I can tell you that if it's been constructed as per the plans and with reasonable care, the cables will not come off the pulleys inside the wings and you needn't worry about that, but even if they do...

taildrags

Barrett; I only carry liability on 41CC (it's required for rental of hangars on my home field), $1M, and I have mine with Global Aerospace through their agent Falcon Insurance in Kerrville, TX. It costs me one dollar a day... $365/yr... and I'm the only operator on the policy right now.

-Oscar

taildrags

Barrett; I am located in Medford, Oregon. On the I-5 corridor, about 30 miles north of the Oregon-California state line. About San Marcos TX, that's not too far from where I made my first solo... grass strip at Tims Airpark north of Austin, long gone. My Stromberg carb actually has the mixture contr...

taildrags

I just realized that Pietenvair pilot Ed "KTOWN" Knouse might be reading posts to this list and if he read what I posted, I would instantly be branded as a 'fraidy cat sissy for worrying about flying my Piet way up there at 7,500 feet. KTOWN flew in the "Dragon Lady" U-2... servi...

taildrags

Barrett; great writeup, great first adventure in your airplane! Many of the same sensations and thoughts most of us have had while flying our planes, and I'm sure you got a lot of people smiling knowingly and nodding their heads in agreement while they read. One thing I'll mention when I see that yo...

taildrags

Why remake them? They're through-bolted to the stabilizer, so you could install the fork ends onto them with the parts loose, then cinch everything down. At that point it won't matter how close they are to the fabric, because the cable end fitting will already be attached to the bent tab. Oscar Zuni...

taildrags

John; see pic (Mike Cuy's beautiful Piet)- are these the fittings and wires you're referring to? Not sure what the question is.

-Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR

taildrags

Cap't Trunk: there have been various tests and comparisons of latex house paint on aircraft fabric and there is a possibility of saving some weight by going that route. Rick Holland and Kirk Huizenga ran some documented tests and I began some tests of my own but didn't get to the actual endurance pa...

taildrags

Robbie: also, look at this picture of Chris Rusch's Piet, which has wooden vee legs and large spoked wheels. The plane isn't quite in the level attitude, but notice where the axle centers are relative to wing leading edge, but also notice that the cabanes are swept back a bit. In fact, the cabanes o...

taildrags

Robbie; there's quite a bit of difference in reworking a split-style, welded-steel landing gear with spring struts (or bungees) and reworking a straight-axle, "Jenny style" landing gear with wooden gear legs. Which style of gear does the project have on it? In the steel tube landing gear c...

taildrags

Richard; I might just write this up for the BPA Newsletter as a little tip or idea for other builders. Would you mind if I used one of your photos, zoomed in to show the release?

-Oscar

taildrags

Hey, Cap'n Trunk- in the Air Camper, the passenger is positioned just about on the CG, which is between 25 and 33% of wing chord. Sits directly under the wing. The pilot sits slightly under the trailing edge of the wing... some more under it, some less, depending on whether they've shifted the wing ...

taildrags

Richard: success! I did some smoothing and re-shaping of the tail tiedown release "hook" to encourage the tiedown rope to slide out of it, and I cheated just a bit by using some inexpensive nylon rope for a tiedown since it is slicker than other types of rope or cord. First tug on the rele...

taildrags

Sorry... I misspoke. The enclosed box truck that I hauled my Piet from Texas to Oregon in was not a Ryder, it was a Penske. I think it was the 26 footer because it wasn't that much more than the 22 footer and I had to pick up a motorcycle in California as well. I picked the Penske over any of the UH...

taildrags

Been there, done that. Easiest way was in the big Ryder truck.

Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR
Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power

taildrags

OK, I'll take a look at that. I have an older Flightcom intercom and will see if that provides a solution, but I'm not hopeful.

-Oscar

taildrags

Howdy, radio-frequency Pieters; Trying to deal with an old Icom handheld with loose connections got too frustrating for me so I decided to buy one of Sporty's new handheld COMs, the PJ2. Just COM, nothing else, and it has headset jacks that accept standard aviation headset dual plugs, done. Well, no...

taildrags

Richard; good point... it's easy enough for me to push the tail over before climbing in, so that the rope has the best angle to pull on the hook. That might help too. The geometry of my setup is different from yours, but in either case the effect of not having the tiedown pulling correctly results i...

taildrags

Installed my tail tiedown release yesterday and it *almost* works as intended but the hook needs a little smoothing and shaping so it will release the tiedown. A tug on the lanyard releases the hook alright, but the geometry doesn't quite allow the tiedown rope to slide off. It'll soon be in service...

taildrags

Oh yeah, and sorry for the string of posts here, but check the mounting brackets on your cooling air scoops during preflight inspections. Mine cracked several different brackets several different times due to fatigue from being pummeled in the propeller slipstream, until I finally replaced them with...

taildrags

Aha. I just looked at your pix again and see that you're also flying a fuel tank up front, and that you have a metal prop. Good deal... the additional weight of a metal prop couldn't be in a better place than way out there on the nose. That will also account for some of the empty weight difference b...

taildrags

Barrett; you'll find that there are a number of commercial pilots building and flying Air Campers, mostly for the same reason you are... the simple joy of flying an honest airplane without a lot of cost and trouble. Neither the landing nor the takeoff checklists on these airplanes has more than a ha...

taildrags

You're in the right place, Spark6. We speak Air Camperese here, but with many different accents (as you'll find out). You'll find that the configuration of Five-Tango-Mike is a common one, with a small Continental up front, no electrics, no starter. That describes my airplane, NX41CC, with an A75 on...

taildrags

George; My Air Camper with Cont A75 has 307 lbs on one tire and 304 on the other, in the level configuration for weighing, but mine is pretty light (636 lbs empty). Sounds like you are on the right track. Not sure about the spring rate/compliance on my shock springs, but just as another data point f...

taildrags

Robbie; also, about the engine, it will make a difference depending on how light the basic airplane was constructed. A heavier airplane will benefit from more horsepower, while one that was build lighter can do OK with a 65 or something similar. In either case, climb will be better with more horsepo...

taildrags

"tanks"- as in more than one? So does it have a wing centersection tank feeding down to a header tank, or does it have a pair of tanks in the wings? Fiberglass tanks can be a bit of a pain depending on the epoxy that was used to make them, and of course (as you noted) the types of fuel tha...

taildrags

Did you get a set of plans with the project?

Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR
Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power

taildrags

PS, if you'd like for me to try, I'd be happy to try the sawhorse trick with my airplane to see how much the angle of the axle changes when the airplane weight is removed from the gear. Let me know...

-Oscar

taildrags

Wow. I'm not sure there is any formula or estimating method to help with that. It would be difficult to calculate the estimated compression of the springs and the resulting change of geometry of the gear legs, although it could be attempted by geeks like me if we knew the k factor of the springs and...

taildrags

Mike; about all I can offer are a couple of data points. (1) in the 1932 Flying & Glider Manual, outside to outside of the axles on the early model is shown as 61-1/2" and it's shown with a solid axle and 26x4" tires, so the track on it (centerline of tire to centerline of tire) might ...

taildrags

Update on my tiedown release. I got it all drawn up and will cut metal over 4th of July weekend, with any luck. Once it's mounted I'll probably just test it by running a cord from the release up to the cockpit so I can jerk on it to see if it's going to work as designed. Later, once it gets smoothed...

taildrags

My Piet came with a Scott 2000, which is a 6" solid tailwheel, now obsolete, steerable. Some rebuild parts are still available, but very expensive. I now have a Matco 6" solid, MHLT-6, weighs 4.75 lbs (which is 0.4 lbs less than the Scott that I had on there originally), lists for $199.63....

taildrags

Probably the first thing you should determine is what style of landing gear you plan to use. The more "antique" style features wood landing gear legs with a straight axle and spoked-rim tires... and the most "antique-y" of those would not have any brakes and would only have a tai...

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