Original Posted By: Michael D Cuy
Jack Phillips and others are correct in stating that, as designed,the Pietenpol fittings are too small in some dimensions. This cancause difficulty when installing bolts because things get too tightin corners (eg. at landing gear/lift strut fittings inside the fuselage).I enlarged quite a few fittings when I built my Pietenpol. Luckily, Ibuilt the wooden components first and it became obvious that I was going to be in trouble if I followed the plans when making the fittings. Had I done so, the bolts attaching the landing gear fittingswould have gone through the lower longeron---something I didn't like. So I lengthened the fittings enough to allow the bolt holes torun through the corner blocking thus missing the longeron and pre-serving its full cross section. I could have lengthened them a bit more than I did because things are still a bit tight inside the fuse-lage. As Jack suggested, the 5/8" brace wire fittings are a bit skimpy. I made mine 3/4" wide for the same reasons he stated. All fittings have been satisfactory for literally thousands of takeoffs and landings from pretty rough airstrips.A recent post mentioned the possibility of publishing a plans sup-plement with patterns for the modified fittings---perhaps by thePietenpol family. This is an excellent idea.In the meantime, I would recommend building the major woodcomponents first and then make the steel fittings to suit, using the original plans as a guide.Graham Hansen (Pietenpol CF-AUN) .________________________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 12:34:45 -0400
Re: Pietenpol-List: Skimpy fittings.
RE: Pietenpol-List: Skimpy fittings.
Original Posted By: Graham Hansen [mailto:grhans@cable-lynx.net]
Graham,You're doing better than I did--I built the wood structures first and stillmade my landing gear fittings twice! Along the same lines, if you build thewood structure for the wing center section first, it's impossible to mountthe combined wing / cabane strut fitting as a single piece. I wound up withthe fitting bolted together instead of welded. When you do the stressanalysis at that point, it's not even clear that the cabane struts are intension, so I'm not terribly worried about strength at that point, but itwas a bit disconcerting to find no way to assemble the piece.Gene HubbardSan Diego-----Original Message-----
Graham,You're doing better than I did--I built the wood structures first and stillmade my landing gear fittings twice! Along the same lines, if you build thewood structure for the wing center section first, it's impossible to mountthe combined wing / cabane strut fitting as a single piece. I wound up withthe fitting bolted together instead of welded. When you do the stressanalysis at that point, it's not even clear that the cabane struts are intension, so I'm not terribly worried about strength at that point, but itwas a bit disconcerting to find no way to assemble the piece.Gene HubbardSan Diego-----Original Message-----