Avid Aviator part
2
In the previous
installment I’d discussed with you, my impressively tolerant or possibly
masochistic readers, the events, decisions reasons and luck that resulted in my
new Avid having arrived at Foxpine Airpark.
Now the time had come
to begin learning about these tail dragger beasties, and how to keep ahead of
them for long enough to claim a landing (as distinct from and “arrival”) had
occurred.
This really involved
several concurrent processes … taking
intellectual ownership of the plane, getting a type rating, beginning to learn
its’ systems and maintenance, and, finally, sharing it with others - in many respects, the best part of all.
Its’ my plane now…
JHW really didn’t
begin to feel like my own until I started to make some minor decisions about
maintenance, carry them out, and begin to “personalize” the cockpit, trim and
maintenance of the plane.
We soon discovered
that one of the two wing tanks had not been used because of recurrent leaks
from the curtiss drain valve after the daily water
check. This rapidly grew to be a real frustration. Every time a check was made,
I didn’t know if the darn thing was going to seal, or
leak continually. I soon got on the practice of taking a plastic squeeze bottle
(from my R/C model field box) and pushing the nozzle up the curtiss valve to
blast some fuel back into the tank blowing any crud off the valve seat. It
worked 60% of the time.
One of the doors had
moderate damage to the Lexan from a previous fuel leak, and had the aluminium
tape to prove it!
Upon draining the
tank, we found the crud to be small bits of fiberglass left over from the
construction of the tank, or perhaps flaked from the joins. I was soon informed
by a number of people that this is not unusual with such tanks.
I flushed the tank and
got about ½ a teaspoon of fiberous muck out, purchased a new valve installed it
and found the same problem. Once I arrived to find that John Lester (owner of
Foxpine) had had to drain it again as he had found a large puddle of fuel on the
hangar floor one morning.
The answer was obvious - a finger
strainer, BUT a new larger curtiss valve would be needed as would a redrill and
tap of the tank sump. More $$$ and time, but obviously
worthwhile.
This lead to a more
detailed exploration of the fuel system, and a third drain valve behind and
below the starboard seat, at the base of the sump. When I checked this, the
“fluid” that drained out was tea coloured, with a variety of sediments and
muck. The best part of ½ a litre was removed before clean fuel could be
consistently drained.
Fortunately most of
the “engine bits“ were OK (apart from the exhaust
mentioned last issue), but the oil pressure had a disconcerting habit of
staying at the top of the gauge all the time. Upon asking ,
I was told that it had always done that, and so with the happy logic that the
engine seemed to run fine, with all other temps and pressures OK, it was
probably the instrument. We kept flying and I hit the Net, only to discover
that Westach had discontinued that sender years ago. Please send the instrument
and $120 and we’ll set it up for a new sender. That’s US$ by the way. Two weeks
later the new sender was in and working well.
The next item on the
agenda was comms. With a small panel, I elected to go with an ICOM A5, the only
mounting in the plane being an assemblage of 6mm square spruce. I hooked it on , and it worked, but looked crude. A Pilot 2 place
intercom was added to the ICOM adaptor and my special purchase, a set of Pilot
PA 17 ANR headsets 
Yours truly and Peter Dunning enjoying ANRs
rounded off the package. These are magic and suck the
sound right out of your head. I got them because my hearing is not what it once
was (too many model aircraft engines) and since my
kids were going to fly with me, I didn’t want to damage their younger and more
delicate hearing.
ANR results in superb
quality of sound, and after several hours’ flying, much reduced fatigue. This
last factor was a real bonus I’d not expected. For the
meantime, I laid the various cables around the cockpit tubes and fastened them
all on with innumerable tie-wraps. It looked (and was )
crude, but allowed for some experimenting with position and convenience of
control.
$$ and the Net
I’ve now spent a
considerable amount of money over the internet, and had no real problems (touch
wood).For those of you contemplating the process, it’s easy and the standard
“caveat emptor” applies.
First
use Google to find a likely list of suppliers, then cross check them with
publications like Sport Aviation, Pacific Wings, Kitplanes etc. As usual, buy
from established suppliers with real addresses and physical locations.
ALWAYS look for the
“closed padlock” icon
Netscape/IE/Opera
(whatever the browser) before committing to credit card details.
ABSOLUTELY NEVER email
account numbers or credit card numbers. An email is like a postcard – readable
to any who take a second to glance and it stops at many servers between source
and recipient, each of which makes a temporary copy of the original.
Care…
Absolutely always
check for the costs involved with getting your purchase to you. One company I
tried would only ship via DHL Courier at US$175 – that’s about NZ $300 for any
item they sent. The claim was that it was a traceable method.
In the end I purchased
through Marv Golden ( www.marvgolden.com
) and paid US$32 for freight, and had the headsets and radio in my hot little
hands 8 days later. Total cost for 2 ANR headsets, and an ICOM A5 was NZ$2100
from my VISA. A single ANR headset in NZ is about $1400. The trade-off is that
I cannot reasonably expect a local agent to solve any problems – and so far,
there haven’t been any J
Tweaks and Improvements
The next area to look
at was fuel management. A series of lines drawn against the wing root sight
gauges were of little use, so both tanks were drained, then filled up 10 lit at
a time, tail low and then tail high, as well as dipsticks being calibrated –
two thicknesses, thin to port and thick to starboard. (follows the old nautical
small words together, long words together
- port/left/red/,
starboard/right/green)
This showed that the
tanks are 50 lit each (not the 60 in the documentation), and that the sight
gauge shows full when 30 lit have been reached. While some information is
better than none, I wanted to have a more user friendly system. I remembered
the flow gauge in XAR, the X-Air I reviewed for this august publication a few
years ago. After some enquiries, I found it was a NavMan marine unit, and
Lionel Reeve had one for sale at a good price. I must have been too keen when I
phoned him, as he decided not to sell it, but to fit it to his own plane. Bugger.
I had to go and buy a monitor from the local chandlery.
The NavMan is an
excellent unit, easy to install and calibrate. It can be set to metric or
imperial units, and will display fuel used, fuel remaining, flow rate, and has
an alarm when your “minimum fuel level” is reached.
The important thing to
realize is that you must set the total fuel load at the start of your flight.
It does not have a fuel level sensor in the tank(s), and relies purely on the
flow rate and the initial quantity entered to derive all it’s other data. That
said, it seems quite accurate, agreeing to within 2 lit after 40 lit used.
One thing I did find,
is that mine registered a flow increase when the boost pump was turned on, of 2
lit per hour. I believe this occurred because I’d mounted the sender too close
to the pump. Its’ now changed , but with the equinox winds I still have not been able to run the
engine, let alone fly!
The next quick job was
to put the spats back on – I just like the look, but bang goes a quick and easy
foot stand when refueling.
All of this occurred
as I thrashed my way around Foxton, learning to fly my new beast, under the
careful eye of John Lester. John and Jennifer are the owners of FoxPine and
John has a lot of time towing gliders with Cubs and the like, so was ideal as
an instructor for this neophyte tail dragger pilot.
First Lessons
j
The Avid
is heavy to manoever on the ground. Therefore it rapidly found its’ way to the
back of the hangar, meaning 4 planes to move to get it out.
j
What a
thrill to sit in the cockpit , go carefully through an unfamiliar startup
routine and be rewarded with the happy
sound of a 912. I sat there for about 10 min, idiot grin on my face, toes on
the brakes and stick hard back, valiantly running the engine up to 3000 rpm,
and checking temps, pressures and anything else I could think of. Finally I
cautiously taxied from no. 8 hanger to the crew room, and shut down , ready to
start my first lesson.
j
Getting
two into the small cockpit is an exercise in co-operation, sorting belts,
headset leads etc .
John did the first
takeoff so I had enough brain left over to think about what was happening and
why. For the first few flights I wanted him in the left seat, as that is the
side the brake pedals are on, and I believe
all the stories about “those that have groundlooped, and those that will”.
We spent a delightful
20 min in the air, just getting a feel for the controls, attitude and field of
view. We were both pleased at how well it flew, and went back for a few
circuits. It took a bit of adjusting to the faster numbers, and the need to
slow sooner on approach, compared to MYC, our syndicate Challenger.
The major change was,
of course, that JHW is a TAILDRAGGER.
Yahoo – I’m doing it at last – stuff it – why
the heck did I spend so much money on a divergent undercart – what a challenge
– I want MYC back…CONCENTRATE…..
All these raced
through my mind as we started down finals onto 27. The last pines went past, I glanced
at the ASI, remembered to raise my line of sight to the far end, checked,
flared and we only bounced a couple of times.
Power on - rudder – no, other way, and round again…
My log shows 3.6 hrs of circuits and
handling, with the first in the RHS and latter 2.6 on the left, where the
brakes are. I soon found that a passable three pointer was achievable, and that
JHW will take off in three point attitude quite happily, but wheeler landings
and t/o are an entirely separate skill that would need considerable work. The
bungee suspension in JHW had been beefed up, so initial attempts at such
manoevers were prone to skips and bounces. I have since removed the extra
bungee, and am looking forward to trying it again. In the meantime, I needed
some more time, especially with wheelers, and so arranged to visit Masterton
where a work collegue, Martin Burdan, is an instructor with SVAS.
ZK AHD – a lovely aeroplane.
The trip to Masterton
had come about as a result of one of Martin and my Monday staffroom discussions
– “did you fly this weekend?... “ etc.
After discussing the extra sprong in JHW’s main gear, Martin suggested
an hour or so in AHD.
2 nanoseconds later I’d accepted and rearranged
the family (they discovered this next
day ) and so on April 14 2002, JHW and I pointed our noses over the Tararuas
for the first time, and in glorious sunshine and scattered cloud we set out on
our first (small) adventure. 
First time over the Tararuas
After about 30 min we
arrived to find Martin in the air with another student, and so sat in the sun
and relaxed.
It would have been obvious to any admiring
passer-by that here was a real airplane, not pristine (because of the many
fearless adventures in its’ life), but strong, determined, good looking, rather
like the bearded and obviously highly
skilled pilot resting under the wing.
Here was a pair of true aviators, stories to tell, experience to share –
the kind that glamorous young student pilots of the female persuasion long to
discover and admire….
The sound of the Tiger
taxying nearer quickly jumped my mind back to something that I claim as
normality (damn!) and soon Martin had me strapped into the front seat of a 1938
50 HP J3 Cub.
WHAT A TOTAL HONOUR…..
WHAT A BLAST…..here I was about to inflict myself on a plane nearly 20 years
older than me, about which legendary stories are written, told and embellished
in many corners of the planet. 
Call me
arrogant (not with quite so much enthusiasm please), but to me the early Cubs
are the real Cubs, from a time when aviation was climbing out of it’s infancy,
and had not undergone to forced metamorphosis of complexity and power begun in
1939. With 50 HP, AHD must be flown “on the wing and not the prop” with care
taken when climbing, and with turns, lest the blades of grass get uncomfortably
close. The engine chuffs away at idle, makes a rather more determined noise
during t/o and then we’re off, the ground dropping gently away, and feeling
that the flight is rather more of a “shared experience with the plane” than in
a more powerful plane where “we take it for a fly”. 
Refueling prior to an hour of circuits at Hood
Martin and I spent an
hour bashing the circuit, and the best bit was to be able to sort out wheeler
t/o and landings.
The landing technique
taught that day was mainly to fly the plane down to touchdown, cut the power on
arrival, and NOT check forward on the stick. The drag of the tyres does a nice
job of providing a nose down moment on touchdown, then as we roll out, forward
stick was gradually applied to hold the
wing at a low angle of attack, then when it stops flying, lower the tail and hold
up elevator to ensure good steering.
Sure enough, the soft
long travel suspension of AHD smoothed out my various arrivals , and towards
the end of the hour, Martin pronounced himself satisfied with my progress. We did go for a circuit in JHW and Martins’
comments as we spronged back onto the ground made me feel a little less bad
about my own efforts.
Note: the sprong from
a poor touchdown in a taildragger is really a zoom from the excess of lift as
the tail drops to the ground at the same time as the (small) wheel bounce lifts
the nose, raising the angle of attack suddenly and by 10 degrees or more…..
After a good debrief,
I bid farewell and climbed into JHW for another lovely trip home. Two whole
trips over the dreaded Tararuas – hell, next week we’ll try for Mt Cook, then,
perhaps the
Anyway, a fantastic
day, much learned, confidence gained in my new steed, and lacking only a ready
supply of swooning maidens….
A REALLY good book
Martin had mentioned
an excellent book, and as soon as I got home, I dived onto the net, and from
Amazon.com, ordered “The Compleat Taildragger Pilot” by Harvey S Plourde.
ISBN 0-9639137-0-0
This book is essential reading for all
taildragger pilots. Period. No discussion needed. – Trust me.
A simple, no nonsense
text with easy to understand diagrams, and coverage of all aspects of flying
taildraggers, the primary emphasis being those moments of arrival and departure
that interest us most.
There is good coverage
of wing down (slipping) vs crabbed approach, mixed approach styles, cross wind
operations, especially near upper limits, and even a section dealing with some
aircraft (from Cubs to C195’s and even DC3’s) that have crosswind main gear. That’s right –
crosswind. Some taildraggers were fitted with mains that had a limited caster
and would unlock into the caster if landed crabwise. I gather that there have
been some cushion puckering moments with poorly serviced gear, or gear that
unlocked on a cambered runway.
Buy the book. Mine
cost $25 plus $8 freight and arrived in 10 days, no problems.
Back to JHW
Peter
Dunning smiling after a ride in a taildragger
By now I was really
enjoying myself, and, apart from a few interesting arrivals and departures,
which kept me humble, the flying skills continued to develop nicely. One
memorable day gave me a 5kt crosswind (north easterly) on 09 at FoxPine. I
spent a happy hour on crosswind approaches and landings in very consistent
conditions. I decided my text was correct – the best approach technique is wing
down, slipping all the way, rather than crabbing. No sudden twitch and
correction needed at roundout – just flare and land.
Crosswind three point
takeoffs were OK, but twice wheeler takeoffs left the adjacent pig farm in
danger of a sudden visitation. I’ll have another session with Martin I think.
Christina
Dixon on her first flight.
One of the real pleasures
for me is taking others for a fly, and I’d take family, friends, visitors
flying whenever I could. JHW had 75 hours in 7 years when I purchased her, and
gained another 47 in the 9 months of flying we had prior to starting the
rebuild. I took a colleague and her family to see and photograph their new
holiday home from the air (5 trips in an afternoon), took some intro flights,
kids from school, and one morning, just for the shear hell of it, I left home
at 5 am, drove to Foxton, packed my gear in JHW, took off at the crack of dawn
and proceeded to enjoy a leisurely, nonspillable and carefully prepared breakfast at 1500’, cruising over the
Horowhenua. Best brekkie I’ve ever had.
Some days were busy, because in a southerly or
southeasterly, the sky shakes really well.
Rob and I just about to not
puke
One memorable
afternoon, my 8 year old son Robert and I took off for
The next purchase was
a wristwatch like device that electrically stimulates the inside of your wrist,
and removes nausea in a couple of minutes. Magic. We use them now on long car
trips as well. No drugs, no swallowing , fast working. And even better – no
cleaning up.
The End of the Beginning
When I’d purchased JHW, I said that because it was a
bit scruffy, I’d spend the settled winter weather flying it, and then take it
out of the air in November when the equinox winds tended to limit flying
anyway, and rebuild it nicely. The aim was to make the 2003 Richard Pearce at
Easter. The builders among you know the folly
of predicting a completion date, (and so do I ) , but a target helps me with
motivation.
The time had now come and so having borrowed
Martins’ car I trailered JHW to home to Tawa for some serious workshop time.
( the borrowed car was
needed because the wings overhang the trailer hitch when folded, and I own a
van…)
Even the trip home was
memorable because every truckie in the lower
Next issue – the Rebuild.
