Pietenpol-List: America Tour part 1
Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2004 7:38 pm
Original Posted By: "Catdesign"
Subject: Pietenpol-List: America Tour part 1 All right, I'm gong to start posting some stories about my Big Adventure. It seemed like everyone I talked with, was a bit envious of this little cross country flight. Life should be Fun and Adventurous...right ?? This tripcertainly fit the bill. One of my primary objectives, was that I will NEVER be in a hurry, and always try to be well rested. This will be a series of posts, starting with thefirst leg, but I should start out with the Preparation: I did a LOT of work on my plane, in the months prior to departure. I built spring struts to replace the bunji struts. That was lots of fit & trim work (the Brits call it 'Fit and Fiddle'), as I had to build them to work withthe existing fittings. I also built four new EL brackets on the inside, wherethe gear lug / lift strut attach points are. I made the two front ones a little long, bent them inboard, and drilled 1/4" holes to use as hard points, forsecuring baggage. I also installed fittings on the lower engine mounts, to secure cargo. This type rework gave me the chance to re-rig the wing, to takecare of a little bit of 'Left Wing Heavy'. I built a battery box out of fiberglass / polyester resin, and added a small sealed lead acid battery to thefirewall. It was about $20 @ Interstate Battery. The main reason for the batterywas to provide reliable voltage to the GPS. I'm sold on the GPS. now that it is a much more reliable...it was flawless. Last years trip to Brodhead, with the 3 little AA batteries, that thing crapped out on me 3 times in flight !! The other items that the battery was installed for, is the handheld com radio,and the Smoke System. I wasn't able to get the plug from Radio Shack to work with the handheld, so it operated with it's self contained battery pack. Now that I have a battery, I have to keep it charged, so I came up with the idea of a Solar Charger. I found a solar trickle charger at Harbor Freight for about $20, but it had a red plastic frame around it. I removed the plastic housing, to reveal a piece of glass that the photovolactic cells were in. I useda double layer of electric tape around the periphery of the glass, and fabric cloth and poly tac, and patched it to the top aft edge of the wing, to the leftside of the cockpit. With the solar cell secure, I ran the wire down across the bottom of the wing, secured with color coded 90 mph duct tape. I tapped itinto the wire harness, behind the instrument panel. To monitor voltage, I bought a little 12v voltage tester at Harbor Freight, for $3. It has a row offive LED's, that show line voltage. The more of them that are lit, the more available voltage. I wired the monitor into the harness. The battery voltagegoes directly to a 4 amp breaker, mounted to the lower right side of the panel,before it is tapped into the harness. With the breaker pulled, I can see how much the sun provides, and when I push in the breaker, the battery voltage is added. The Solar Cell was not enough to keep up with the demand of the smoke pump motor, but it could easily keep up with the GPS. However, during the entire 26 day trip, I only had to charge the 12v battery one time. With the airframe, engine, B.F.R. and class 3 medical complete, it comes time to pack the plane. I packed, unpacked, repacked the plane 4 or 5 times, rearranging stuff, trying make it fit better, and off loading some more stuff each time. The 'Chair in a Bag' had to stay. Big heavy leather motorcycle jacket had to stay. Extra blue jeans, and some shirts had to stay. The question is - What should be packed for a month long journey, and What could beleft behind? Weight is the crucial factor. The final weight of my cargo was 65 lbs. I couldn't have carried that much cargo, if I had the controls in the front pit. Packed and ready to go, I started the engine, climbed in, and realized I'm finally on the way !! After a little prayer for a safe journey, and a big"YEEE HAAAWWW, I took off and pointed the nose to the South. There were 3 guysthat watched me depart, so I puffed 'em some big dashed lines in the sky !! It was late afternoon, and I could only make one leg, but I'm on the way. OK,here it is, the middle of July, and the winds are out of the North. The winds are almost Never out of the North this time of year. I have a tailwind !!And the tailwind continued for the two days it took to get to Tick Hill Field. I was seeing groundspeeds well over 80 mph !! Zero Charlie Gulf has never seen sustained speeds over the terrain like this. I patted her on the longeron, and said "Now don't you get too spoiled on speed !!" The evening hoursare the very best time of day to fly. Clear skies, thermals settle down, thumb and finger stick control, the noise muffled down to a tolerable rate, all God'screation slipping beneath the wings, I found the 'Zone'. All things are rightin the world. 7/17/04 Cook (K50) - Cushing Ok. (CUH) 115 mi. 80 mph 1.4 hrs. 5:35 to 7:00 126.69 tach hrs.On approach to Cushing, I heard the radio call that jumpers were in the air. OK, heads up...we don't want to splat any jumpers on the windshield !! We landed about an hour before dusk, fueled up, paid cash, and pitched the tent. I was invited to the jumpers hanger for some beer & pizza, and to watch the video's from the camera's that they wear on their head. They get some awesomeshots of what they do in free fall. Three of them made a night jump, with therequired strobe light attached to their ankle. They pointed some car headlights in the landing area, and two of them landed in the lighted area. Anotherone landed outside the lighted area, and came down with a loud 'UMPH" !! He wasall right. In one sense it boggles my mind, why someone would jump out of a perfectly good airplane, at 9,000 feet, into complete blackness. On the otherhand, it's all about the Adventure !! OK, I can understand that. Friendly bunch, these skydivers are. The few women are fit and trim, and wear tight spandex clothes !! Their attire held few secrets !! They were all interested inmy story, too. If one of them would have chose to go with me, I would have gladly left all 65 lbs of baggage behind !!Oklahoma Skydiving Center www.skydiveok.comChuck GantzerNX770CGThe Adventure Begins !!________________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Pietenpol-List: America Tour part 1 All right, I'm gong to start posting some stories about my Big Adventure. It seemed like everyone I talked with, was a bit envious of this little cross country flight. Life should be Fun and Adventurous...right ?? This tripcertainly fit the bill. One of my primary objectives, was that I will NEVER be in a hurry, and always try to be well rested. This will be a series of posts, starting with thefirst leg, but I should start out with the Preparation: I did a LOT of work on my plane, in the months prior to departure. I built spring struts to replace the bunji struts. That was lots of fit & trim work (the Brits call it 'Fit and Fiddle'), as I had to build them to work withthe existing fittings. I also built four new EL brackets on the inside, wherethe gear lug / lift strut attach points are. I made the two front ones a little long, bent them inboard, and drilled 1/4" holes to use as hard points, forsecuring baggage. I also installed fittings on the lower engine mounts, to secure cargo. This type rework gave me the chance to re-rig the wing, to takecare of a little bit of 'Left Wing Heavy'. I built a battery box out of fiberglass / polyester resin, and added a small sealed lead acid battery to thefirewall. It was about $20 @ Interstate Battery. The main reason for the batterywas to provide reliable voltage to the GPS. I'm sold on the GPS. now that it is a much more reliable...it was flawless. Last years trip to Brodhead, with the 3 little AA batteries, that thing crapped out on me 3 times in flight !! The other items that the battery was installed for, is the handheld com radio,and the Smoke System. I wasn't able to get the plug from Radio Shack to work with the handheld, so it operated with it's self contained battery pack. Now that I have a battery, I have to keep it charged, so I came up with the idea of a Solar Charger. I found a solar trickle charger at Harbor Freight for about $20, but it had a red plastic frame around it. I removed the plastic housing, to reveal a piece of glass that the photovolactic cells were in. I useda double layer of electric tape around the periphery of the glass, and fabric cloth and poly tac, and patched it to the top aft edge of the wing, to the leftside of the cockpit. With the solar cell secure, I ran the wire down across the bottom of the wing, secured with color coded 90 mph duct tape. I tapped itinto the wire harness, behind the instrument panel. To monitor voltage, I bought a little 12v voltage tester at Harbor Freight, for $3. It has a row offive LED's, that show line voltage. The more of them that are lit, the more available voltage. I wired the monitor into the harness. The battery voltagegoes directly to a 4 amp breaker, mounted to the lower right side of the panel,before it is tapped into the harness. With the breaker pulled, I can see how much the sun provides, and when I push in the breaker, the battery voltage is added. The Solar Cell was not enough to keep up with the demand of the smoke pump motor, but it could easily keep up with the GPS. However, during the entire 26 day trip, I only had to charge the 12v battery one time. With the airframe, engine, B.F.R. and class 3 medical complete, it comes time to pack the plane. I packed, unpacked, repacked the plane 4 or 5 times, rearranging stuff, trying make it fit better, and off loading some more stuff each time. The 'Chair in a Bag' had to stay. Big heavy leather motorcycle jacket had to stay. Extra blue jeans, and some shirts had to stay. The question is - What should be packed for a month long journey, and What could beleft behind? Weight is the crucial factor. The final weight of my cargo was 65 lbs. I couldn't have carried that much cargo, if I had the controls in the front pit. Packed and ready to go, I started the engine, climbed in, and realized I'm finally on the way !! After a little prayer for a safe journey, and a big"YEEE HAAAWWW, I took off and pointed the nose to the South. There were 3 guysthat watched me depart, so I puffed 'em some big dashed lines in the sky !! It was late afternoon, and I could only make one leg, but I'm on the way. OK,here it is, the middle of July, and the winds are out of the North. The winds are almost Never out of the North this time of year. I have a tailwind !!And the tailwind continued for the two days it took to get to Tick Hill Field. I was seeing groundspeeds well over 80 mph !! Zero Charlie Gulf has never seen sustained speeds over the terrain like this. I patted her on the longeron, and said "Now don't you get too spoiled on speed !!" The evening hoursare the very best time of day to fly. Clear skies, thermals settle down, thumb and finger stick control, the noise muffled down to a tolerable rate, all God'screation slipping beneath the wings, I found the 'Zone'. All things are rightin the world. 7/17/04 Cook (K50) - Cushing Ok. (CUH) 115 mi. 80 mph 1.4 hrs. 5:35 to 7:00 126.69 tach hrs.On approach to Cushing, I heard the radio call that jumpers were in the air. OK, heads up...we don't want to splat any jumpers on the windshield !! We landed about an hour before dusk, fueled up, paid cash, and pitched the tent. I was invited to the jumpers hanger for some beer & pizza, and to watch the video's from the camera's that they wear on their head. They get some awesomeshots of what they do in free fall. Three of them made a night jump, with therequired strobe light attached to their ankle. They pointed some car headlights in the landing area, and two of them landed in the lighted area. Anotherone landed outside the lighted area, and came down with a loud 'UMPH" !! He wasall right. In one sense it boggles my mind, why someone would jump out of a perfectly good airplane, at 9,000 feet, into complete blackness. On the otherhand, it's all about the Adventure !! OK, I can understand that. Friendly bunch, these skydivers are. The few women are fit and trim, and wear tight spandex clothes !! Their attire held few secrets !! They were all interested inmy story, too. If one of them would have chose to go with me, I would have gladly left all 65 lbs of baggage behind !!Oklahoma Skydiving Center www.skydiveok.comChuck GantzerNX770CGThe Adventure Begins !!________________________________________________________________________________