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1
Hangar Flying / Inflight photos
« on: November 14, 2011, 05:58:04 PM »
Just thought I'd drop a few photos of my flight to SC and back.  Hope it encourages those of you still building to get out to the hangar or garage and get something done!!

2
Hangar Flying / Off to Corvair College
« on: November 10, 2011, 08:28:31 PM »
Well after a grueling 4 day work week I am "Wheel up" in the morning for Barnwell South Carolina.  Going to hang out until Sunday afternoon at Corvair College #21.  You can get details about it at www.flycorvair.com.  I worked late everynight this week to complete jobs so I could leave on Friday morning.

Weather is looking good, Vari is ready and I get three days of no wife, kids, or customers!!!  Nothing but hardcore experimental aviation people who love to build engines.  I'll come home with grease under my nails for sure!

Note to Stan Zinger, I will call you Friday afternoon.

I hope the rest of you get some flying or building time this weekend.

3
Hangar Flying / Cleaning Battery Terminals
« on: October 30, 2011, 10:37:02 AM »
Friends,

I had been noticing that the battery terminal on the negative side of the battery was starting to corrode.  I have the battery on a constant trickle charger because I don't run an alternator.  My battery will last about 6.0 hours while running all avionics.  It will go about 8 if I don't use the transponder.  Anyhoo, I decided that I needed to clean the terminals up and this is what I did.  See pictures below.

1.  Used soft brush to knock off loose corrosion
2.  Disassemble connections
3.  Spray with CRC brand battery terminal cleaner on battery stud and all connectors

              a.  the areas that turn pink are the areas with that contain corrosive acid.
              b.  Watch out, this stuff will stain paint and hands with a yellow color

4.  Flush with water to nuetralize
5.  Inspect for any corrosion not removed, brush with wire brush if needed to remove
6.  Dry with compressed air
7.  Reassemble connections
8.  Spray with CRC brand battery terminal protection

4
Hangar Flying / Great flying today
« on: October 27, 2011, 04:25:06 PM »
Friends,

Had a business trip down to Ft. Lauderdale Exec today and took the Vari.  What a great pleasure it is to get there in an hour and fifteen vs. 4 hours of driving.

5
Hangar Flying / Drag reduction as a function of vibration
« on: October 23, 2011, 02:15:45 PM »
Friends,

One of the things I offer in my business is Dynamic Prop Balancing.  I have been doing this for about 10 years.  This works very well on tractor type aircraft but has always been a bit of a disappointment on pushers.  I have been talking this over with people much smarter than I.  We are aware of course that the prop ends up getting really dirty air and this plays a very large part in making the engine run smooth.

It recently occured to me that we should be able to qualify drag reduction/airflow improvemnet around the fuselage and cowling by comparing inflight vibration signatures.  I have flown my Vari with vibration equipment installed on the engine, which is what led to me trying to figure out why it was smooth on the ground but had more vibration in the air. I believe that cleaning up the airflow should produce a reduction in vibration signature. 

Anybody have a thought on this??

6
Hangar Flying / Brake Disk resurface
« on: October 23, 2011, 02:08:37 PM »
Friends,
Since I started flying my Vari early this year, the one thing that really bothered me was that the gear legs had a shimmy in them.  This would only occur when my speed was something less than 10 mph but it was really pronounced.  This only occured when brakes were applied.

I had come to the conclusion that the brake disks were slightly warped.  I talked with tech support at Matco (I have older Rosehan which became Matco) and they assured me that it was very unlikely.  My disk thickness was .248" when I took them off the airframe.  Tech support said that they are .250" out of the factory.  So I suppose loosing .002" over the span of 30 years and 1000 hours is not too bad!

I gave them to a friend who is a proffesional machinist and he used both a lathe and a surface grinder to true up the disks.  They really came out looking great.  My new thickness is .225", my friend told me that in fact the disks were warped, though just a little bit.

Fast forward to today, I finally got it all back together and went flying.  Brakes are as powerful as you could ask them to be and the shimmy is completly gone!  Fantastic, one more thing checked off the list.


7
Hangar Flying / Trailing Edge Fences.......WOW
« on: September 24, 2011, 02:21:11 PM »
I had not found time to install the TE fences until this week.  I have flown my VEZ 57 hours since early July and was getting used to how it handled (and did not handle).  After a little scare going into Orlando Exec last week and running out of left aileron during a direct crosswind I decided to get it done. 

I flew them this morning on a group flight to X60 for some lunch.  WOW is all I can say.  Those fences changed my approach and landing speeds by 10 kts, no kidding.  I went from coming over the fence at 75 kts to something closer to 65 and the solid feeling the ailerons had all the way to touchdown was something I had not had previously.  Big difference, no wonder people who have them love them.  I had no decrease in top speed (currently about 170 mph) and I did not really sense that the ailerons were any different at top speed but I did notice that I had to run a little more nose down trim.  This may be a fluke but it also seemed like the prop noise went down a bit.  I can't really put my finger on that one but it was quiter in the cockpit than before the fences.

8
Hangar Flying / in flight ez pictures
« on: September 12, 2011, 06:48:19 PM »
a few in flight photos my son took.  He rode home in the Mooney..............I have not been able to look him in the eye ever since!

9
Hangar Flying / Formation with Mooney
« on: September 12, 2011, 07:18:31 AM »
Friends,

Had a fun flying day yesterday.  Went on a short X-country with a buddy who owns a Mooney, we decided to go to lunch over at Williston (X60).  I took off first from Leesburg and he followed right behind (for a few moments).  I had not left the traffic pattern before he called and said 'can you slow down I can't keep up!"  I was outclimbing him by a wide margin and I was 3/4" tanks and had my son in the back so I was right at MGW.  He was light on fuel and also had one passenger but I smoked him none the less.  When we took off from X60 he went first.  I waited for him to break ground and start a positive rate of climb before I put the spurs to her,  I passed him in the climb at the end of the runway!

Good gravy I love flying this thing!!

I don't yet have any gear leg fairings or wheel pants but I was beating him in cruise by about 10-12 knots.  Since I am not getting more than 2400 rpm in climb due to my heavily pitched prop, I only making 65% power, so 65hp vs. 180 hp not bad.  I relize that it's not an apples to apples comparison but it was still fun.

10
Hangar Flying / Interesting Long with V-8 video
« on: September 05, 2011, 07:07:26 PM »
Thought this was interesting.




http://www.pursuitofflight.com/longezv8.html

11
Hangar Flying / Bill and his fins
« on: August 13, 2011, 08:38:38 PM »
Bill,

Do you have any pictures of the trailing MLG wheel fins that I have read about?  I came across one of the many excellent articles you have written where you mentioned these as being not much worse than a set of pants.

12
Hangar Flying / Oshkosh trip
« on: August 02, 2011, 01:41:44 PM »
Well my son and I have returned from Oshkosh.  The Varieze performed flawlessly.  My  average cruise was about 170 MPH with a very consistant 5.5 gph.  With that kind of performance we can make Oshkosh from Leesburg FL in one day, the weather prevented that this year however.  We left early last tuesday trying to beat the build-ups in north GA but we were to late.........spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon in the FBO at Albany GA.  Left late afternoon and made Mc Minville TN for our overnight.  Left early Wednesday and made a brief stop in Terre Haute IN and then on to Peroia IL, sat all afternoon due to storms in OSH.  Left late and just made OSH about 7:30.  Spent a few days at the show and a few days over at the Dells doing the waterpark with my wife and kids. 

Came back yesterday, left the dells and flew 2.4 hrs to Sellersburg IN (clark county).  Fueled and then 3.2 to Albany where I met by buddy Bobby Kirby with his Lancair Super ES.  Strong weather in north Florida made us overnight again.  Had to wait for fog this morning but ended up leaving around 10:30.   1.2 hrs to Klee and we were home.  It was my son's first long cross country and we had a great time together.

13
Hangar Flying / Oil breather mod
« on: July 20, 2011, 01:57:51 PM »
So in my continuing effort to reduce oil coming out of the breather tube I have manufactured the following part.  It is TIG welded from a AN824-10D elbow and some 6061-T6 tubing.  It screws into the breather port on the nose of the engine.

14
Hangar Flying / Varieze Exhaust
« on: July 19, 2011, 09:53:19 AM »
When I rebuilt my varieze I did not have a stock Varieze O-200 exhaust.  I built my own exhaust and it seems to work well enough (although completly different from the stock exhaust).  I have recently been given a set of varieze stock pipes, the one's that go out to the edge of the cowling.

I would like to try putting them on just to get some comparitive data, maybe I'll keep them maybe I won't but I'd like to try them.  Can anyone provide some details on the exhuast stack stub and how the springs are hooked up on the cylinder side??

thanks a million

15
Hangar Flying / slime fighter
« on: July 15, 2011, 04:12:17 PM »
Thought you might like to see the installation of my "slime fighter" on my oil breather hose.

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