Pietenpol-List: Joe's Piet
Posted: Sun May 04, 2003 6:50 am
Original Posted By: "TWINBOOM"
The red Piet in FL that was asked about is definitely NOT a plane to buy. I havespoken to two friends in FL over the course of a couple of years and the subjectof "Preacher Joe's" Piet has come up. Both agree that the best thing to happenis for it to burn in a hangar fire. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a hangar.The airplane is EXTREMELY heavy. (It's built maybe one step up the sophisticationladder from Fishman) In Joe's mind, the fix for it's weight was to add a couplemore bays to the wing to lift the hulk off the ground. This necessitatedthe lift struts mounts moving outward to keep the lengthened wings from droopingunder their own weight so, a couple more jury struts were added, etc..............are you getting the idea? Upholstery? Carpeting? One of the test pilots said that it was the scariest flight he had ever had andhe wouldn't fly it again. The owners' best decision was to take the engine off(mechanical problems) so as to make the airframe unflyable!!This one would better be left alone and a collective prayer go up from the groupfor a sink-hole to open up exactly where it is sitting or some other naturaldisaster to keep any unwary soul from buying this thing and getting hurt.But.............that is just my own humble and fairly reserved opinion.Larry________________________________________________________________________________
The red Piet in FL that was asked about is definitely NOT a plane to buy. I havespoken to two friends in FL over the course of a couple of years and the subjectof "Preacher Joe's" Piet has come up. Both agree that the best thing to happenis for it to burn in a hangar fire. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a hangar.The airplane is EXTREMELY heavy. (It's built maybe one step up the sophisticationladder from Fishman) In Joe's mind, the fix for it's weight was to add a couplemore bays to the wing to lift the hulk off the ground. This necessitatedthe lift struts mounts moving outward to keep the lengthened wings from droopingunder their own weight so, a couple more jury struts were added, etc..............are you getting the idea? Upholstery? Carpeting? One of the test pilots said that it was the scariest flight he had ever had andhe wouldn't fly it again. The owners' best decision was to take the engine off(mechanical problems) so as to make the airframe unflyable!!This one would better be left alone and a collective prayer go up from the groupfor a sink-hole to open up exactly where it is sitting or some other naturaldisaster to keep any unwary soul from buying this thing and getting hurt.But.............that is just my own humble and fairly reserved opinion.Larry________________________________________________________________________________