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Q-talk 15 - Q-TIPS - LETTERS

Lately I've been getting mail with questions previously answered and tips previously printed. Imagine my disappointment to find that not EVERYbody reads this thing cover to cover and commits significant portions to memory. Some of you skip completely over say the Quickie 'cause you can't possibly learn anything of value there. Shame, shame. Here's your chance to practice a new habit pattern (it's good for you). I'm mixing it all up!


Dear Jim,

I have wanted a Quickie since I first saw one in Popular Mechanics several years ago. In February of this year I finally got one. Kit #145 was first purchased by a gentleman who did not build any of it. A second gentleman built the wing, canard and fuselage. Excellent workmanship too.

Since February, one of my sons (I have 6 children, thus the long wait for my Quickie) and I have installed the wing, canard and cut out the canopy. The engine is installed and I just cut out the baffles today.

I am a rural mail carrier and have a commercial, instrument and A&P. I spent 7 years as a South American jungle pilot in the 70's. I have over 2,000 hours of which about 1,000 is tailwheel time with 2 takeoffs and landings for every hour of time.

I appreciate the newsletter but feel discouraged by all the bad mouth and pity party stuff. I'm going to be finished some time in May so I don't have time to talk or play. I'll send a picture when I get finished.

Gunnar Rambo, Winnsboro, SC

ED. NOTE: I've received several similar to this one since the big spread in KITPLANES magazine last month. The problem with you new guys who "...have wanted a Quickie since I first saw one in Popular Mechanics" in the early 80's is that, happily for you, you don't have to pay either the emotional or financial price of your predecessors...you buy a kit already half built and you only pay half the price. It's no wonder that you can't understand the "bad mouth and pity party stuff."

I have a survey here of 300 aircraft that clearly shows that the bad news you sometimes read is not the result of somebody's active imagination. I hope you are NOT one of the experienced flyers who comes dragging his Quickie out of the underbrush with a shocked expression of wonder that it doesn't fly like the taildraggers you are accustomed to.

If all of us QBAers made a more patient effort to understand both the good comments and bad, perhaps reality wouldn't come as such a big surprise!


Dear Jim:

I have been meaning to write you this note of appreciation for a very long time. You really did wonderfully with the QBA.

The problem in my case - and likely with others - was a fairly rapid loss of faith in the integrity of both design and designer. With the escalating reports of structural flaws, powerplant failures, poor and unreliable performance, I just could not see myself making the effort and commitment.

Bob Murkland, Weston, MA

ED. NOTE: Thank you for the sincere compliment, Bob. However, Alas and Alak I feel I must make a comment yet again. First, don't anybody confuse structural flaws for design flaws (though I guess all the tails broken on landing IS a structural flaw). These planes are NOT coming apart in mid-air. In fact, personal experience in a terminal crash (plane, not me) suggests they are quite strong. True, these airplanes never seem to make more than one off-airport, off highway landing. True, problems with the Onan and Revmaster have been annoying and vexing, but not to EVERYbody. And finally, I'll grant you "poor and unreliable performance" if you'll grant me"..sometimes attributed to poor and unreliable builders and overconfident/under trained pilots.

And...FINALLY, finally...a dose of reality for you optimists: If these planes are SO wonderful for the average guy, howcum in our BEST day we've had scarcely over a dozen Q's at Oshkosh while at almost any other airshow you care to name, EZ's show up like grapes...in bunches. Ponder THAT one on your doughnut shaped library seat sometime! Facts is facts. Jack!



Dear Jim,

Do you know the name and characteristics of the airfoil of the Quickie wing and canard? I think they are Eppler 1212 of the wing and GU 25-5-(11)-8 for the canard but I don't know if this is right.

Carlos Escobar, Venezuela 5995, (1765) I. Casanova, Buenos Aires, Argentina

ED. NOTE: Nope, don't know. Anyone know and want a pen pal in Argentina, step right up and help out here.


Dear Jim:

Enclosed is for the newsletter renewal. Well, let me tell you - I sawed off my beautiful wheel pants with their built-in light housings and cut my gorgeous canard in half to remove the anhedral and, you guessed it, I am converting to a Tri-Q200. The reasons for this mid-build crisis? Ted Fox's questionnaire listing the Q2/Q200 data he collected includes 11 fatalities, with about 40 irreparably totalized and another 40 or so damaged but repairable Q2s and Q200s, out of the first roughly 100 such aircraft built. I'm no Yeager - Jeana or Chuck - but in my several hundred hours I've logged over 500 PiC landings with absolutely no 'incidents'. What is the probability that I could achieve that many safe landings in a Q200? What, in fact, would one predict to be the ratio of the number of individuals who happily survive 500 Q200/Q2 landings to the total number of all the builders who complete their kits to first flight? (Mr. Sheehan is 1, but how many more, in perhaps 1000 customers?) Obviously, there is a 2-component distribution to the accident vs. time curve, with a group having a 'half-life' of roughly 5 flights before damage, suffering from impatience and other shortcomings in the testing phase, and another with maybe 50 flights 'half-life' before encountering the bad landing or other circumstance in a statistically inevitable fluctuation beyond some envelope boundary that catches up to them. Thus, assuming success throughout the testing, even if the average number of landings before serious damage and/or injury is 100 (and that's surely optimistic), then a person would have to smash up '5 times over' just to get the hours that I've accumulated in my brief flying history. Admittedly, the data outlined are biased in both directions: some of the stock-Q fatalities were due to pilot error, rather than to the unique design features, and there has been at least one known Tri-Q fatality - also, pilot error. (This is a really murky issue, of course, since emergency landings might be more likely to be survivable given a more traditional design.) That's it: I don't wish to bet on beating the statistics, like a cat with 9 lives. And think of the other tricycle-gear advantages! No need for tail dragger competency, no messing around with so-called improvements by re-angling the tail wheel or enlarging the rudder - not to mention better taxiing visibility, and differential braking, and the decoupling of the main gear from the canard in the event of an unexpected hard landing, and all the other improvements in handling we should expect that have been discussed in your earlier letters. Not quite getting to 200 mph will be a small price. I'll keep you informed.

Best wishes,

Thomas L. Cline (#2733: N49X), 13708 Sherwood Forest Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20904


4-1-89: Solan reported on his Global. He had the Quickie up for about an hour. Climb rate was a puny 250 fpm. He tried getting it on the "step" as I explained to him and picked up 10 mph IAS and saw rpm go to 3,000. Tom said the plane really started getting quiet and smooth as he approached 3,000 rpm. Apparently this is where Mosler balances the engine (Bob Giles and I also noted at least 2 rpm bands where the engine vibrated more than others, though I can't recall exactly where they were). Tom's still disappointed with performance so since that flight he got a new set of SCAT heads from Mosler with larger valves and intake. He sent them to CA where he found an expert VW engine hotrodder who did some black magic polishing and porting. Tom has just gotten these back and expects to be resuming flight during the week of Sun 'N Fun.

In a phone conversation with Paul Wright (England) who has a Global engine mounted in his Quickie, I learned that his top speed was 120 mph and that his rate of climb, heavily loaded, was about 300 fpm, and 500 fpm when light. This is all pretty close to what Giles Quickie did. Where those 35-40 horses are, I just don't know. Interestingly, Don Johnson is hot on the trail of a Rotax 503 to put into Wright's Q-1.


From Norm Howell, Spangdahlem, Germany

Enclosed is a picture of the only flight ready Q-1 in West Germany that I know. It has the new LS canard and a Rotax 462 engine. This liquid cooled engine is similar in displacement to a 447...but it is not yet available in the US. It has a single carb since 2 carb versions are too noisy for the regulations here. That's strange...wonder if its intake or exhaust noise? Mine is pretty quiet, not like an ultralight at all...sounds more like a small turbine engine or a 1/4 scale Helio Courier. The above Quickie belongs to a Mr. Wiegard of Ascheiffenburg. I don't know him yet, but I will. Us cub reporters always get the facts!

On another subject: I installed vortex generators (VGs) to my Quickie and was most pleased with the results. I cut the triangles out of some .016 white plastic I bought at a local plastics store. John Hicks advised that I set the generators at 8 and 13 degrees from the line drawn on the canard a mid-chord. The triangle (VG) with the rear pointing AWAY from the fuselage goes at 13 degrees.



I applied the VG's as follows: Set the fuselage level and hold straightedges vertically against the canard leading edge and trailing edge as per the QAC VG instruction sheet. Measure the halfway point and mark it on the canard. Do this at both an inboard and an outboard point (BL10 and 88) on each side. A line drawn connecting the points is the mid-chord line.

For alignment of the individual VG's, make a template out of poster board or card stock as follows:



-- Hold the front edge along the mid-chord line and slide it along marking locations and angles as you go.

-- Flip the template over for use on the opposite canard. The VG's are applied in pairs. Distance between each of the two in a pair is approximately 13mm; the distance between the points of two adjacent pairs is approximately 36mm. Each VG is a plastic right triangle; point forward, that is 24mm along the base and 7 mm high. The base of each VG can be slightly curved to match the curve of the canard.

I applied the VG's using very small beads of RTV silicone rather than superglue. This has several advantages. RTV is thick and your VG's won't fall over when you start to stick them on. RTV is flexible and therefore somewhat resistant to "looky-loos" who cannot resist picking at your VG's during airshows. If you decide to remove them for repainting, etc. they slice easily off with a razor blade leaving no trace.

Before installing VG's, I flew my Quickie once in the rain. I didn't want to do it twice. Now my plane acts as if rain is nothing at all. Rainwater flows up to the generators, then turns into little rivers which flow straight back off the trailing edge instead of puddling up back there. There is no trim change at all...Say Hallelujah, brother!

Sailplane techniques can be used to great advantage in a Quickie. I have a 2.25" compensated variometer in my Q, which reads from -1,000 fpm to +1,000 fpm rate of climb. A thermal usually kicks the airplane away from itself and shows a jump on the vario. I immediately turn 270 degrees to re-contact the thermal and slow to 80 mph. After re-contacting the thermal, I usually start a turn using a steep bank if lift is weak and shallower if it is strong. When I find the thermal's center, I enjoy a free ride, circling, at 8-900 fpm up to 4,000' or so!! It works both ways, though - most thermals are surrounded by sink.

And by the way, if you've never gone soaring before in a good fiberglass sailplane, you've really missed out on some giggles. Try it!

I discovered that Wicks has replaced Zolatone with "Plextone", which I suspect is an improved product from the same manufacturer. I particularly like the white #16-258. I saw it in a Long-EZE cockpit and wished I had known about it earlier.

ED. NOTE: To further the discussion on vortex generators, at Sun 'N Fun Don Johnson showed me the VG's he makes. I don't know how he gets 'em but his has a widened base for more sticking area like so:



Dear Jim:

N31DJ now has 26 hours. I have flown her up to 12,500' and at 7,500' have had a TAS of 180 mph. We have the 75 hp Revmaster engine. Weight is 579 lbs. At the five-hour mark, the tail spring broke. Devine intervention averted disaster. In order to get the desired 7.5-degree AOA, it was necessary to change the tail wheel. Q-TALK had lots of ideas and I adopted them. The only problem is that the rudder cable was still connected to the tail wheel and when I "crashed" this rigging resulted in loss of rudder.

This decision was made to install a "real" tail wheel. We chose a J-3 Leaf Spring ($30) and used the short and bottom springs, a 4" Santa Paula non-swiveling tail wheel ($90) and two compression springs plus additional 3/16" cable.



The rudder cables now go directly to the rudder. Separate cables with the compression springs now join the rudder cables at FS 120 via small cable connectors (ALA C-170). Turning radius has suffered a bit but take off and landing control are vastly improved.

Begin by removing the tail section. Turn it upside down and brace it well. Cutoff the old spring about 2" aft of the line that comes down from the leading edge of the rudder.

Next, cut a piece of 1/4" flat steel 1.25x10". Drill a 7/16th" hole centered 1" back from the designated front of the flat stock and another about 4". About 2" from the end, drill another. Now before the end, you'll want to weld on two "side boards" to keep the springs from sliding sideways. These pieces should be .25 x 1.25 x .8". Weld on a 7/16" nut over last hole.

Then, route out the bottom of the fuselage to receive the flat mounting stock. The "side boards" should extend past the fuselage. Lay the mounting stock in so that it is flush and centered. Do it well so that your tail wheel will be perpendicular to the ground when done!! With a marker, mark through the forward holes in the stock onto the foam. Drill out the foam with a 1" bit to depth of 2.5" and 1.25".

You are now ready to mount the flat stock. Mix up some flox and fill the bed and the holes you've made. Lay the flat stock in and screw in appropriate length lag screws. Cover the whole area up with four BID glass. Go up the side of the vertical stabilizer at least 1.5".

After the layup has cured, mount the tail wheel assembly. You'll have to drill two new holes for the Nyla-Flow tubing for the rudder cables in front of the rear bulkhead. The old holes will work well for the tail wheel cables. Be sure to do a new weight and balance. You will have a net gain of at least two pounds.

All of this will get you better control, positive rudder actuation and look like a real airplane. The tail wheel can be ordered from Aviation Products Inc., 114 Bryant Street, Ojai, CA 93023 - (406) 873-2249/5219.



From Howard Hardy, San Jose, CA

I fly Quickie N7NH and find it a real joy. The plane took 5 years to build and weighs 308 lbs. I weigh 205 lbs, so in my 66 hrs. of operating with the 20 hp Onan I only fly when the OAT is less than 85 degrees and I have no more than 4 gal. fuel on board. On a cool day, max rate of climb is 280 fpm at sea level and drops to 125 fpm at 5,000'.

Not long ago I changed over to a Rotax 503 using the great installation instructions I got from Jinx Hawks/Brock McCaman. The FAA required a 10-hour restriction for the engine/prop change. I have 24 hrs. on it now and I'll take the Rotax! It is a real relief to climb to altitude so quickly instead of searching for thermals! I love flying it!

I have added 1 5/8" to the vertical stabilizer and rudder which seemed to tame the beast on rollout and high speed ground handling.

Here are the numbers for my airplane:

Quickie N7NH - SN 138

Engine: Rotax 503, single carb

Gear Reduction: 2.238:1

Propeller: Craig Catto 3 Blade, 46D x 52P


Empty Wt.: 331 lbs

Gross Wt.: 596 lbs

Takeoff : less than 300 ft.


Climb at 230': 1250 fpm

3,000': 1000 fpm

7,000': 750 fpm


Airspeed straight and level at 2,500'

4500 rpm: 92 mph

5000 : 110

5500 : 115

6000 : 125


From Tony Wahlberg, ENGLAND

In past issues you have stressed the importance of ground angle of attack (as well as the angle of incidence of wings), but what should the ground angle of attack be for the Quickie? I can find no definitive reference to it for the Quickie but only for the Q-2 (7.5 degrees). And what precisely happens to takeoff/landing if it is wrong one way or the other?

Is there a pneumatic tailwheel that will fit the Quickie?

ED. NOTE: Tony, I have never heard a definitive reference for the Quickie ground angle of attack either, and I built and flew one. Now I have 3,000 hrs. flight time in a wide variety of aircraft so when I say I had noticed very little difficulty in my Quickie's ground handling it can't be taken as a good sign for a novice to taildraggers. Correspondence shows that Quickies can be difficult at certain groundspeeds just like the Q-2's. However, the Quickie sits at a flatter angle to the ground, and horizon visibility is better, it seems to me that control is somewhat easier than in the Q-2 types. The fix for the Q-2 always seems to involve raising the tail. Now in the Giles Global Quickie that I tested we found early on that it had a serious tendency to ground loop. I personally did over 30 of them, deliberately, on an old Air Force Base with miles of concrete. I did this to train myself in the visual cues and control forces that I would see/feel just before one was about to occur. I never did one unintentionally in any of my 40 hours of flight-testing. Is that experience? Blind luck? Or what? Without any engineering input, but purely by guess, Bob did what the Q-2 guys were doing - he put on a larger diameter tailwheel to raise the tail. This happened at about 10 hours. I immediately noticed that the plane became harder to put into a loop. My conclusion is: lacking any "official" numbers, jacking the tail up a bit on a Quickie improves ground handling. So does jacking up the number of hours a pilot has in the type.


Terry Crouch (Bettendorf, IA) sent some pictures of his Quickie project (which independent snoops have reported as really fine workmanship). Terry's gonna have one of the few LS-1 canards on his.



Filament tape is great for holding things in place (don't know what I would do without it!!).



Short lengths of steel wire that you find in displays at hobby and hardware stores are very handy for lining up plastic rudder conduit etc.



Here's my floppy vertical fin core glassed on one side. Now how am I to stick it down securely and still be able to get it back up without any delamination?? Here's what I did:

1. Strips of duct tape along the fin.

2. Add 3M adhesive squares.

3. Stick first side to a flat surface, glass other side.

4. Saw squares in half with wire or hacksaw blade.

5. Peel off duct tape carefully.


From Robert Godbe, Palo Alto, CA

I had a touch of trouble with my trusty Konig engine last week. I took off at 8 am and got about 700' over the mud flats of San Francisco Bay. I started a gentle left turn, when all of a sudden this loud, buzzing, raspy noise filled the cockpit, I mean; we're talking decibels here! I promptly turned back, landed, and yanked the cowling. The exhaust pipe had snapped just before it enters the muffler. It was an easy fix... I was back flaying in a couple days, but Jim, a 2 stroke engine at full bore with no muffler gets your attention FAST! (384 hrs TT now: 75 Onan, 309 Konig)


From Paul Paulikas, Downers Grove, IL

Ron Cothern's Quickie N701RC flies nicely with a Hirth F23 two cycle, 2 cylinder opposed engine. It is not flying right now though because the engine mount kept cracking.

Performance in 10 hours of flying:

-- 4,000 rpm static with a 41D x 30P Sterba prop, direct drive.

-- 4,100 rpm in the air, full throttle at all times except to land because it sometimes dies when throttle is added. This carburetor (?) problem gets Ron's sometimes undivided attention.

-- Liftoff in about 900'.

-- IAS 125 in level flight with a Long Eze alongside indicating 130 mph.

-- Cooling is fine: max observed CHT 400 degrees (650 redline).

Ron is flying with an unmodified GU canard and hasn't gotten it wet yet. The 2 carbs are proving to be somewhat difficult to balance - it idles mighty roughly sometimes.



Ron had quite a go-around with the distributors of the Hirth. It wouldn't run as received, and it took months of time and several hundred dollars of expense before it did run. When everything is in order, the Hirth may prove to be an excellent engine for the Quickie - no gears, and a tight installation with plenty of smooth power at cruise.

ED. NOTE: Thanks for the cub reporter report, Paul. We need more of these when we come up against a builder/pilot who won't write about his problems/discoveries. Sharing such info keeps other experimenters from wasting time on the same mistakes and gets us to solutions at a much faster rate. A valuable reporting point: this is NOT Sport Aviation. If you find a supplier being uncooperative or giving you a hard time, name NAMES. We don't want to waste time with these guys. Let's also hear about the ones we oughta be dealing with.


From Jim Prell

The engine mount on my Suzuki Quickie has worked out well. I felt it was important to use multiple bolt patterns on the .090 4130 steel plates that attached the 4 mount points to the firewall. Sixteen 3/16" AN bolts gave 2.5 years of flying with only minor corrosion forming on them (the steel plates use the same bolt pattern as the original Onan mounts). I didn't beef up the firewall at all. According to the aircraft engineers, a multiple bolt pattern will distribute the stresses induced in flight much more equally to the firewall than the standard 4 bolt pattern used in steel tube structures (of course it helps that I finally got a smooth running engine!).

Don't let the vent on your Rotax gearbox plug up! I did and ended up with a small seepage leak past the O-ring. Had to replace it.

While on a cross country, my CHT slowly climbed up to 410 degrees. I could enrich the mixture by advancing throttle and bring it down to 380 but I was concerned. One hour and 20 minutes and 196 miles downrange, I landed (burnt 3.2 gal. 100 octane...20 know tailwind). I took off the cowling and found the recoil starter rope had broken and taken the cooling fan belt off along with it. Pieces of 1/4" rope and chunks of belt fell out of the cooling fan inlet when I took off the cover plate. The fan was locked up. The only reason the Suzuki was cooling at all was due to the negative-suction bump I had molded into the bottom of the cowling.

Three tips on running 2-strokes:

1. Change fan belts every 100 hrs.

2. The original NAPA see-through fuel filter is still doing its job after 155 hrs. Absolutely no sign of fuel contamination

3. N10KK is usually fueled with 88 oct., leaded automotive regular. I mix in Pennzoil Premium Outboard 2-stroke oil 50 to 1 and then shake the tail up and down a few times.


Dear Jim:

A quick note in response to Mr. Kotelko about anyone who had dealings with HAPI. I have had rather unpleasant dealings with the HAPI organization which has gone unresolved for almost one year.

In June 1988 I deposited $2100 toward the purchase of a Magnum 75 engine sold in kit form. When told it would take 6-8 weeks, I requested they ship the accessory case first so I could complete my firewall then do the rest later.

After the Quickie seminar in Oshkosh that year, I thought better of a Volks conversion and decided on a used Continental. I called HAPI to cancel my order since I had not received any parts and got a call from Rex Taylor. I was surprised when he told me that I could not cancel my order since my engine was ready to be shipped! I explained that I had ordered a kit and then he said "Oh right, that's what I meant." After a great deal of hassle he reluctantly agreed to refund my money but said they would have to keep $200 for a cancellation penalty. I said OK and started to wait. That was in Oct. 1988, and after contact with the Arizona State Attorney General's Office I have gotten back $1,100 over a six-month period. I keep getting real nice letters that I am still a valued customer, but I will not get back all of my money (less the $200) until they sell my engine to someone else. I NEVER ORDERED AN ENGINE BUT A KIT!!

Oh well, I guess we learn. I just wanted to pass this along so that it may help another builder.

Dennis Colomb, Suisun City, CA

ED. NOTE: Perhaps one foolishly imagines that a company as old as HAPI keeps enough parts inventory to assemble ONE engine. Anyway, in modern America one expects that he has a right to cancel an order before shipment unless it is an especially custom built product. Certainly a cancellation fee is reasonable. If HAPI is ordering engine parts ONE at a time then it is a much less successful operation than most have been led to believe. And if they haven't been able to sell yours in over 6 months...Hmmmmmm.


TO: Jim

FROM: Chris Young

DATE: 25-Jan-89

SUBJECT: The vibrators

Lou Ross of Ross Aero called me back right after I sent him the letter describing how I'd like to use the BMW motorcycle engine for a Quickie powerplant. Lou is certain that it is OK for the engine to fly "backwards" (as the Onan does) and that the cooling airflow, although reversed, is not a problem.

The BMW is a 2-cylinder opposed 4-stroke pushrod-actuated overhead valve air-cooled motor. It is separate from the transmission. After market firms even have dual ignition assemblies for the BMW motorcycle. Lou and I think the engine's weight will be about 88 pounds in aircraft trim. We'll see.

QBA members should know about the following deal Ross Aero made to me. (I might get run over by a truck or shot by one of my girlfriend's husbands so am sharing this with everyone). In order to publicize his capabilities and get a BMW motor in the air Lou Ross is willing, he informs me, to provide free labor and "minimal" parts cost for the first person to fly one of his motor adaptations in a Quickie. His address is: Ross-Aero, 3824 E. 37th St., Tucson, AZ 85713 (602) 747-7877.

Unfortunately, I don' think Mr. Ross is as familiar with the Quickie airframe or the existing Onan installation as we are. That's why I intend to oversee all the development of this installation in my own Quickie. If someone else wants to beat me to it, though, let's encourage them to keep all of us informed. For those of us who don't already know, the BMW motorcycle engine has been around since about 1927. It is highly developed and literally never fails mechanically. In my motorcycles it vibrates far less than the Onan, produces more power, and at 60 mph on the freeway burns 1.5 gph. Maybe it vibrates less because it has 2 carburetors and therefore better mixture distribution.




COATING

"Ceramacoat" 596, a high-temperature oxidation and abrasion-resistant coating with excellent adherence to steel, is now available. It is a silicon base coating with an abrasion-resistant constituent added. Its temperature resistance is 2500 F. "Ceramacoat" 596 has a thermal coefficient of expansion close to that of steel and will adhere well to the metal over its entire temperature range. Also, it has good acid and alkali resistance, and is used as a protective coating in chemical, ceramic, and plastic processing equipment where moving particulate will wear steel surfaces. Aremco Products, Inc., Box 429, Ossining, NY 10562-0429, 914-762-0685.


From Richard Barbour, 2405 Sequoyan Dr., Rogers, AR 72756

I've been pondering the installed angle of incidence of the LS-1 canard for quite some time. I know builders that have it installed at anywhere between 0 and +1 degree. I know a lot are installed outside this envelope unintentionally. I began some research by studying the NASA Technical Paper 1919, "Wind Tunnel Results for a Modified 17-Percent-Thick Low-Speed Airfoil Section". The LS-1, BL 48.8 Elevator Rigging Template states the "up elevator" limit is -15 degrees and the "down elevator" limit is +23 degrees. In a recent teleconversation with Duane Swing, I learned from his experience that 80% to 90% of the control stick forces on the elevators are positive or elevator down forces. I haven't heard of a single Q-200 or Tri-Q200 flyer that utilized an "up elevator" trim input. (If my above observations are wrong, I guess I need to review my data again). With the help of the BL 19 canard/elevator jigging template and the aforementioned NASA paper, I was able to ascertain that if the canard/elevators are installed in the fuselage with their level lines parallel to a water line, the canard will have an angle of incidence of approximately +1.75 degrees. If a builder installs the canard/elevators with up to an additional +1 degree (this is the largest I've heard of) then the true angle of incidence would be 2.75 degrees. From the NASA report I noticed that for Reynolds numbers in the envelope of 2 to 4 x 10 (into which the Q-2's operate) the coefficient of lift for an actual angle of incidence of 1.75 degrees is .48 (this is with the level line parallel to a water line); for 2.75 degrees (level line at +1 degree) the coefficient is .7; for 3.25 degrees (level line at +1.5 degrees) the coefficient is .75; and for 3.75 degrees (level line at +2 degrees) it is .8 or about .15/degree of true angle of incidence. What unknowns await me if I were to utilize an actual angle of incidence of 1 1/2 or 2 degrees? It seems to me my WINGED DINGER would trim out at a more neutral elevator position.

Any comments, pro or con?


From Fred Wemmering

Another one of those Q-2 parts problems. The complicated cross over and collector exhaust system does not last forever (about 150 hours). Try to find a new set of that exotic exhaust system!! Revmaster said, "We don't have any." And of course we know where QAC is!! For a real experience -- take the original exhaust pipes (with patches) to your local muffler shops, customer shops, even the world-renowned MIDAS shops. They all give you that "you got to be kidding" expression and tell you they can't do it. Fortunately some Q-2 owners have built their own exhaust (4 individual pipes exiting the bottom of the cowl) and have shared with us a picture and comments. I cut and pasted through one of these systems and experienced some odd results. Noted first was my number 2 CHT climbed very quickly to the green arc and ran higher than before. Number 4 CHT never got into the green -- number 1 and 3 CHT was OK. Oil temp would not reach the green, even with the cowl vent closed. Some tweaking of the baffling helped but finally I had to put a plate in front of the oil cooler to restrict the airflow -- oil temps are OK now (winter months). However, number 4 CHT still runs cold; I find no defect in the CHT sender nor do I find any significant indicators to suspect super rich fuel mixture on that cylinder. Does anyone out there have an idea on why the low CHT on number 4 cylinder??? Or -- should I worry?

Next -- Avn gas (100LL) price continues to escalate. Even with the Rev 2100DQ burning 3.5 - 4 GPG it does pinch the flying for fun budget. Are we still living under the spell that regular leaded auto fuel will dissolve the safety pox system we used when building our gas tanks in the standard Q-2? Did any one convert to a Q-200 with a STCed engine to burn auto gas and still retained the original gas tanks and is using leaded auto fuel? I have wondered if a 50% mix of regular leaded auto gas and super premium unleaded auto fuel would (1) effect the safety pox system gas tanks, and (2) supply sufficient lead for the Rev 2100DQ engine to run efficiently? At one time REVMASTER was adamant that only Av gas (100LL) was to be used in their engine. I guess I just don't have the experimenter heart (guts) and I know there are many builders out there possessing greater expertise in these areas than I -- COMMENTS -- PLEASE!


From Jim Ham

A cautionary note: I glassed over some X-40 expanding foam that had only cured a couple hours. When I checked the next day, the fairing had several large bubbles. The X-40 must continue to outgas for awhile even when it appears to be hard.


From Ted Eiben

Chalk off one more Q-2. I have decided, somewhat reluctantly, to dispose of the plane. It has 26 TT, 10 of which were learning to handle it on the ground. Airtime has been interesting and very busy as I learned more about this "creature". Time on the ground since first flight has been at least double the airtime. I have had to force myself to keep after it. This coupled with significant hangar and insurance costs and the lack of enjoyment forces me to give up. I'm willing to donate it or sell it for parts, but I'll destroy its fly-ability so I don't get into any liability problems.


From Robert Bounds

This idea may prevent a twisted wing or canard. After you cut the wing cores, and while the templates are still attached, glue some level boards to the TOP side of the core above the templates on both ends of the core. This will give you a reference to jig the cores when you glue them together and when you jig them to glass the bottom side. There is no reference to this in the plans, but it seems to be the only way to accurately determine what level is after the templates are removed.



After the bottom of the wing is glassed, you can glue a level board to the glass, turn the wing over and knock the level boards off the foam on the top side prior to glassing it.


From Alan Schaffter

Not flight-tested or endorsed: While redoing my header tank, I installed a device to control the header tank fuel pump. It allows me to select "ON" - the pump runs continuously, or "AUTO" - the pump turns on and off. The header tank runs down to about half then the pump turns on to fill it up. I mounted an Aircraft Spruce supplied float switch halfway up in my header to illuminate a "FUEL LOW" light and also trigger the control circuit. The control circuit allows the pump to run for a variable time (selectable 5 to 8 minutes, I don't know how long it will take to fill the tank yet). The circuit is an automatic add-on that's designed to keep your headlights on (1-3 minutes) til you get in the house. I increased the delay by adding another resistor in series with the variable resistor in the unit. It is designed for car headlights so it should easily handle the current of the pump. A friend wired his pump directly through the float switch however its contacts are not rated for that kind of current and they fused. The "FUEL LOW" light should come on with about 2.5 to 3 gal. of fuel left and be a good backup to my fuel gauge if the control circuit fails. The "ON" position bypasses this circuit.


From Mike Conlin

In February I flew to BPT to give some rides in my Tri-Q. When finished, I got some fuel, departed with wife Bonnie and climbed to level at 2,000'. Within 10 minutes I began to "sense" something was amiss. The gauges all seemed to be OK, yet it didn't feel right. Suddenly I noticed the header tank was almost empty so I reached for the boost pump only to find it was already "on". Just about then the engine began to power down. I brought the throttle back and began squeezing like hell on the often joked about squeeze bulb. Bonnie took over squeezing while I attended to the radio (I was still with Departure leaving a TRSA) and looked for a suitable road just in case. We made it back 17 miles OK. Note: The squeeze bulb will provide enough fuel to restore adequate power. However, my particular fuel system feeds both the carb and the header. If feed was only to the header, it might have taken a little more time to restore power (under these conditions, seconds seem like minutes). Bottom line: the boost pump failed!!

On another subject, I have noticed that the outer skin over the header tank area has started to wrinkle. I can't figure out what caused it. Has anyone else ever experienced this??? (See classifieds for Mike's phone #)



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