Pietenpol-List: Air Compressor
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:23 pm
Original Posted By: "dwilson"
Busted a 1/16" tail brace wire and survived it. Didn't even know it was bustedtill back on the ground. Now flying with stainless 1/16" wires back there becauseI'm convinced it was corrosion and the resultant fretting that caused itto let go. Those wires, and all the tail surfaces, really do vibrate a lot inflight. There were NO frayed wires in any of the cables, as demonstrated bythe bare-finger inspection time and again, with no loss of blood.Before the naysayers jump in, I'll acknowledge that stainless is not as good asplain steel in strength, but it is better in corrosion resistance and I stillhave the old tail brace wires if anyone doubts that corrosion doesn't take itstoll on things on the back end of the airplane and wants to see them. It'smy fault... I never bother to wash the airplane so it does build up debris backthere from time to time, but then again it gets some oil mist too. Okay, sothe oil mist attracts fine dust, which is an abrasive and tends to aggravatethe fretting. My bad, but I'd rather fly the airplane than wash and polish it.If you don't want to worry about the tail brace wires, use 3/32" cable or the old-timeysmooth wire with ferrules. I'll bet if you used 3/32" with no turnbuckles(twist the wire to add tension) you'd be as light as if you used 1/16" withturnbuckles, or lighter. And you'd save money on turnbuckles. There doesn'tneed to be a lot of tension on the wires, it just needs to form a fairly wellbraced and evenly balanced assembly.Let's see: at last count I had used up 4-1/2 of my allotted 9 lives (I only countthe broken tail brace wire as loss of 1/2 life). The object of the game isto end up with at least one life in reserve at the end, or 45 minutes of fuel.Or, wait... isn't the object to use up that last remaining life on a beautifulspringtime flight, low and slow, with the airplane trimmed up for hands-offflight, perfect temperature, pull the "SMOKE" knob, and then yell "YEEEEEAAAAHHHOOOOO!!!"as your ticker decides to head for the barn??? There are worseways to go.--------Oscar ZunigaMedford/Ashland, ORAir Camper NX41CC "Scout"A75 powerRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ___Subject: Pietenpol-List: Air Compressor
Busted a 1/16" tail brace wire and survived it. Didn't even know it was bustedtill back on the ground. Now flying with stainless 1/16" wires back there becauseI'm convinced it was corrosion and the resultant fretting that caused itto let go. Those wires, and all the tail surfaces, really do vibrate a lot inflight. There were NO frayed wires in any of the cables, as demonstrated bythe bare-finger inspection time and again, with no loss of blood.Before the naysayers jump in, I'll acknowledge that stainless is not as good asplain steel in strength, but it is better in corrosion resistance and I stillhave the old tail brace wires if anyone doubts that corrosion doesn't take itstoll on things on the back end of the airplane and wants to see them. It'smy fault... I never bother to wash the airplane so it does build up debris backthere from time to time, but then again it gets some oil mist too. Okay, sothe oil mist attracts fine dust, which is an abrasive and tends to aggravatethe fretting. My bad, but I'd rather fly the airplane than wash and polish it.If you don't want to worry about the tail brace wires, use 3/32" cable or the old-timeysmooth wire with ferrules. I'll bet if you used 3/32" with no turnbuckles(twist the wire to add tension) you'd be as light as if you used 1/16" withturnbuckles, or lighter. And you'd save money on turnbuckles. There doesn'tneed to be a lot of tension on the wires, it just needs to form a fairly wellbraced and evenly balanced assembly.Let's see: at last count I had used up 4-1/2 of my allotted 9 lives (I only countthe broken tail brace wire as loss of 1/2 life). The object of the game isto end up with at least one life in reserve at the end, or 45 minutes of fuel.Or, wait... isn't the object to use up that last remaining life on a beautifulspringtime flight, low and slow, with the airplane trimmed up for hands-offflight, perfect temperature, pull the "SMOKE" knob, and then yell "YEEEEEAAAAHHHOOOOO!!!"as your ticker decides to head for the barn??? There are worseways to go.--------Oscar ZunigaMedford/Ashland, ORAir Camper NX41CC "Scout"A75 powerRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ___Subject: Pietenpol-List: Air Compressor