Original Posted By: Tim Willis
I've sent a picture of Ron & Patricia's Piet to Chris Tracy for uploading to his excellent photo archive site and I'm sure he'll let us know when he has a chance to upload it. It's a beauty. Very classic lines... Ford Model A engine that appears to run the conversion just as Messrs. Pietenpol and Hoopman's drawings show. It has jury struts (vertical) but no horizontal stiffener between them. It has X-brace wires in the passenger side cabane bay, no cabane struts. V-type tailwheel with the spring per plans but with a tailwheel added rather than a skid. Center section fuel tank per plans. A very nice laminated semi-scimitar or paddle type prop, obviously hand-carved or at least made to order.The photo seems to show that there is either no cover on the section of the top boot cowl where the instruments go, or else it is hinged down in the picture because the rear of the instruments can be seen. The tail surfaces have bendable (fixed) aluminum trim tabs on both rudder and elevator and both are deflected, indicating that there were some trim issues.Classic wooden main gear legs, solid axle with bungee suspension, and looks like no brakes of any kind.He reports that he was surprised at how well it performs with the Ford A engine (but admittedly he's located at sea level and there are no forests there than I know of!), has about 15 hours in it and everybody he gives rides to loves it, but it flies a bit heavy on the right wing and apparently does not have threaded fork clevises on the wing strut ends to allow adjusting the wing incidence to wash it out a bit to take out the heaviness. He's looking into that.I've got to go visit these folks...Oscar ZunigaSan Antonio, TXmailto: taildrags(at)hotmail.comwebsite at http://www.flysquirrel.net_________________________________________________________________Get a FREE small business Web site and more from Microsoft Office Live! ________________________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 23:50:40 -0500 (GMT-05:00)