Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By: "Mike Whaley"
Subject: Pietenpol-List: Gary's panel [was: Re: Ryan's Piet]Gary,Where in Montana? Bozeman is where I took my first instruction as a pilot, Kalispell is where I gotmy license and helped restore my first airplane, and Billings and eastern Montanais where I got most of my hours (1700).100 HP will be good, but I used to fly a 75 HP Aeronca L-3 Defender across themountains from Kalispell to My parents ranch in central Montana. Full fuel (12gal.) and a passenger we would fly to Lincoln MT of unibomber fame, land andempty a 5 gal. can from the baggage compartment. Then fly over the rest of themountains to Townsend MT. where we would refuel everything. That was enoughfuel to fly over the Little Belt mountains to the ranch and return to Townsendwhere the process was reversed. Kalispell is about 3500' and the trip to Lincolnwas about at about 6500' and the hop over the mountains to Townsend neededto be at 8000' to get through the mountain pass. Again a clime to 8000' andland at the ranch at 6000'. I did this several times when I was younger andbolder. I would circle until I could get across the mountains and then glideto the next landing spot.All this aside. the Montana mountains deserve care and respect but flying in themcan be a terrific exhilarating experience and can make for a good seat of thepants pilot. The Piet will be well suited for Montana flying.Jon CoxwellNow in upstate NY.--------Jon Coxwell GN-1 BuilderRecycle and preserve the planetRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... __________

Original Posted By: "coxwelljon"
Hi all,I have just gone through having to redo almost all of my fitting mountings as aprevious builder did not do a good job of alignment on the fittings. On almostall fittings I have had to plug the holes in the wood members with hardwooddowels epoxied in place and re-drill them. In some cases I had to weld holesshut in fittings and re-drill them. I know that the FAA frowns on welding holesshut and re-drilling but I checked with my DAR ahead of time and he gave mehis blessing. Cliff Dawson's copper tube jig was featured in the January issue of the BPA newsletter.I built a similar jig (photos attached). I have a metal lathe so Iturned inserts on the lathe and bored them out for 3 different sized drills. 3/16, 1/4, 5/16. The picture shows just one. The one thing I would do differentwould be to make a deeper "D" section to allow for getting into hard to getat locations. Mine worked OK but was a little tight at times. Remember I amworking on an existing structure and not building from scratch so I have towork around other stuff that is already in place. My process was to drill thefirst hole in 2 sides of attachment fittings and then bolt them together anddrill the remainder of the holes through both pieces at the same time on a drillpress. I then clamped the fittings in place on the wood member and used thejig. I did not drill a pilot hole but with the jig was able to drill the rightsize hole the first time. In areas where the fitting was attaching anothermetal piece to the wood, like the cabanes, I bolted them to the fitting beforeI drilled the wood with the jig. I then clamped the whole assembly in placeand drilled the wood. My project is a GN-1 which has a little more complexfittings than the original Piet in some areas.Jon Coxwell--------Jon Coxwell GN-1 BuilderRecycle and preserve the planetRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ttachments: http://forums.matronics.com//files/img0 ... ___Subject: Pietenpol-List: Gary's panel [was: Re: Ryan's Piet]

Original Posted By: gboothe5(at)comcast.net
Gary,Where in Montana? Bozeman is where I took my first instruction as a pilot, Kalispell is where I gotmy license and helped restore my first airplane, and Billings and eastern Montanais where I got most of my hours (1700).100 HP will be good, but I used to fly a 75 HP Aeronca L-3 Defender across themountains from Kalispell to My parents ranch in central Montana. Full fuel (12gal.) and a passenger we would fly to Lincoln MT of unibomber fame, land andempty a 5 gal. can from the baggage compartment. Then fly over the rest of themountains to Townsend MT. where we would refuel everything. That was enoughfuel to fly over the Little Belt mountains to the ranch and return to Townsendwhere the process was reversed. Kalispell is about 3500' and the trip to Lincolnwas about at about 6500' and the hop over the mountains to Townsend neededto be at 8000' to get through the mountain pass. Again a clime to 8000' andland at the ranch at 6000'. I did this several times when I was younger andbolder. I would circle until I could get across the mountains and then glideto the next landing spot.All this aside. the Montana mountains deserve care and respect but flying in themcan be a terrific exhilarating experience and can make for a good seat of thepants pilot. The Piet will be well suited for Montana flying.Jon CoxwellNow in upstate NY.--------Jon Coxwell GN-1 BuilderRecycle and preserve the planetRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ___Subject: Re: Pietenpol-List: Gary's panel [was: Re: Ryan's Piet]

Original Posted By: "coxwelljon"
Jon, That's encouraging! I'll be living in the Bitteroot Valley (Hamilton), flying outof Hamilton or Stevensville.GarySent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry-----Original Message-----