1 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

WIND IN THE WIRES

TM

The Newsletter of Chapter 26, Experimental Aircraft Association Seattle, WA Volume XXIII No. 11 November 2015

This month:

Front Panel Express

FUTURE EVENTS December Christmas Dinner:

12 December 2015

Saturday

At the Skyway Opportunity

Building

2:00 Meet

3:00 Eat

Potluck, bring food!

The weather has changed, fly

if you still can!

This Meeting: 2nd Thursday of the Month

12 November 2015

7:00 PM

LOCATION

Front Panel Express

5959 Corson Avenue S

Suite I

Seattle, WA 98108

Chapter Web

Page www.eaa26.org

President’s Letter

Today I got to enjoy the good Pacific NW weather – rain, wind, low

cloud, fog, etc., so my flights were interesting and challenging. It was

supposed to rain most of the day, but the rain seemed to be light,

unless you were in it. Because the weather was hit and miss, I stayed

close to the pattern doing touch and goes in the little C150. On each

approach, you change the turn point to adjust for the winds to not have

to carry power to the runway or float too much. The trees are getting

taller on 15 at Crest.

I moved on to the Bonanza which climbs a whole lot better than the

C150. Since it doesn’t float quite like the C150, more adjustments are

made on the approaches. When I came back to Crest, after doing two

landings at Auburn, the weather was going down, only three miles

visibility (?). Two other planes got in the pattern behind me, so when I

landed, the Bonanza got put to bed for the day. Around noon though,

the weather was good enough that a young man did his first solo in a

C172 at Crest! He was doing fine, floated a bit but they were good.

After the initial solo flight, he went back up doing more patterns while

the instructor was on the radio asking what the weather was like each

time he landed. He quit when the weather was getting marginal.

(Continued on Page 3)

2 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

News from National From www.eaa.org TM

Current edition of EAA Experimenter

http://www.eaa.org/experimenter/

Check out the EAA Hotline Archive:

http://www.eaa.org/ehotline/archive_index.asp

FAA Sends New Compliance Philosophy to FSDOs

FAA Flight Standards District Offices (FSDOs) last month

received new guidance on how to handle enforcement,

emphasizing education and..

EAA Submits Comments on Drone Registration Measure

This week, EAA submitted comments to a DOT and FAA

proposal which would require registration of all Unmanned

Aircraft Systems (UAS) or...

EAA Providing IMC Club Flight Proficiency Programming

A newly formed EAA subsidiary and IMC Club International Inc.

have entered into a license agreement that will provide IMC

flight...

DOT to Require Registration of Drones

This week, Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and FAA

Administrator Michael Huerta announced a plan to expand

registration...

First Customer-Built SubSonex Personal Jet Flies

EAA and Sonex Aircraft extend their congratulations to Redge

Greenberg,

Lawsuit Against Van’s Mischaracterizes Homebuilt Community

This week’s $35 million lawsuit filed against Van’s Aircraft and a

Washington transducer manufacturer.

Accident Numbers Round-Off Fiscal Year Under FAA Limit

In September, EAA completed its annual tracking of experimental

category fatal accidents.

Risky Business: Flight Instruction in Non-Owned Aircraft

I’m not one to encourage people to buy insurance out of fear,

but, at the same time, there are some worrisome issues out

there.

EAA’s New Advocacy and Safety Webpage Goes Live

Safety information has been consolidated into one page on the

EAA website to make it easier for members to access.

3 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

2014 OFFICERS President: Dave Nason

Vice Pres: Steve Crider

Secretary: Don Davis

425.822.3439

Treasurer: Tom Susor

206.632.1397

stsusor@msn.com

Newsletter Clayton Chase

Joel Godston

Web Editor: Tom Osmundson

Tech Counselor: Tom Osmundson

Tech Counselor: Dave Nason

253-631-0191

Flight Advisor:Ross Mahon

206.550.9526

Rossair@aol.com

President’s Message (Continued)

(Continued on Page 3)

This month we are doing something different for the meeting. We will start

earlier at 7:00. Our speaker is from Front Panel Express so we will meet at

their shop location since it is nearby in the neighborhood. They will talk about

and show the panels they make. They have a conference room so we can

have a short meeting there.

Front Panel Express

5959 Corson Avenue South, Suite I

Seattle, WA 98108

Our December meeting will be our joint Christmas Party with Chapter 441 on

Saturday, Dec. 12. Gather at 2:00 and plan to eat by 3:00. It is pot luck style

and bring an aviation related White Elephant gift for the gift exchange.

See you on Thursday,

Dave

4 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

On the Wreckord Recent Homebuilt Accidents from the NTSB Web Page, courtesy of Ron Wanttaja

Just Highlander– Pennsylvania: The pilot was flying about 500 feet above the ground, dropping candy to children as part of

a church outing. He encountered a "rotor" wind off the nearby mountain and when he initiated a turn, the wing stalled. He

lost control of the airplane and crashed near a church camp. The airplane came to rest, inverted. The pilot reported no pre-

impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. (ERA14CA234)

5 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

One the Wreckord (Page 2)

RV-6 – Virginia: The owner/builder of the aircraft was flying at about

2,000 ft mean sea level when the RPM of the Eggenfellner Subaru went

to redline, the airplane lost thrust, and a red fluid covered the

windscreen. The pilot attempted a forced landing to a field, but the

airplane impacted trees, which resulted in substantial damage to the

wings and fuselage.

Postaccident examination of the propeller showed that the propeller

needle thrust bearing and mating parts were galled, burned, and

damaged from rotational and thermal wear. The heat damage likely

initiated at the needle thrust bearing and progressed both fore and aft to

the blade pin spool and slave piston collar, respectively. The Delrin

bushing melted after the heat reached the blade pin spool, which allowed

the propeller pins to make bare metal contact with the spool pin slots.

About 28 flight hours before the accident, the pilot/builder used a viscous

lubricant to grease the bearings in the propeller assembly. According to

the lubricant manufacturer, the lubricant has a high viscosity and was

designed for low-speed automotive and trucking applications not for

aviation use. Lubricants with high viscosities can cause the bearing to

skid, which can result in rapid overheating and failure of the bearing.

(ERA14LA272)

6 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

Achilles Keel Or: Why did I not do this a year ago?

I’ve been putting off working on the

keel for quite some time (measured

in months not days) but another

Velocity builder (Reiff Lorentz)

came out on a business trip to

Seattle and offered to stop by and

help me with my project. With that

motivation and help we got all three

keel cover panels set up with their

nut plates.

I’ve also moved further on my own

and attached the upper aileron

torque tube and control stick.

One of the nice things about

working with a glass plane is that

you can usually see through parts

by putting a light on the far side. I

used that trick to make sure that

my nut plates and screw holes

would hit the flange with plenty of

space to spare, as shown on the

picture to the left.

One potential issue I wanted to avert was the

possibility that my 6 screws were not precisely

evenly spaced. It would be difficult to identify

which orientation to use when assmebling the

keel access plate. So I wrote ‘UP’ with an

arrow on the inside of the panel. The outside

will be covered with carpet, so only the marking

on the inside will be visible.

7 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

Achilles Keel (Continued)

I think that one of of the mistakes that I’ve been making is being under-

dressed for aircraft construction. Reiff demonstrated the proper attire

for work on a canard aircraft. Since he got me started on the project again I’ve

been making

headway again.

Below and to the left

are some pictures of

the construction of

the keel hard-point

that the aileron

torque tubes

connect to.

I really like saturating my glass cloth on plastic before applying it to the

structure, and I also like using peel ply for a nice finish surface.

8 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

Epoxy Hardener Recovery

With long and slow airplane projects, one problem is the condition of the chemicals we use to build our aircraft. In my case, I

hadn’t used my epoxy for more than a year. While I normally keep the epoxy in a heated and insulated box, occasionally the

light bulb I use to keep it warm will burn out and let everything cool to basement temperature of about 65° F. This results in

crystallization of the EX-84 hardener I use. It would barely flow through the pump even though I had heated it back to my

normal 85° F. There were many little ‘chunks’ in it as well. I tried using it on a test piece and while it seemed to work I

wasn’t happy with it. I thought I’d try heating it to melt the crystals since other builders have said that worked for them. I

wrapped the glass container of EZ84 in a towel to keep the mess contained and then wrapped that in a heating pad and

surrounded the whole thing in many layers of towels and sheets. I set the heating pad to “8” out of “10” and left it overnight. I

also slipped a remote thermometer in right next to the glass to see how hot it got. Within 30 minutes it was registering 120° F

and when I got up the next morning it said 139° F. When I unwrapped it, almost all of the crystals had melted and the

hardener looked fluid again. While re-buying the hardener wouldn’t have been a huge expense it’s good to not waste it.

Heating

Before

After

9 EAA Chapter 26 - Seattle

Marketplace

(all brand new original packaging, prices are ~2/3 list price

in spruce catalog)

Falcon gauge altimeter 3 1/8" non-TSO #ALT20INF-3N $265

Falcon gauge airspeed 0-140 MPH 3 1/8" #ASI140M-3 $113

Falcon gauge electric turn coordinator 3 1/8" #TC02E-3-1

$360

Vertical card compass PAI-700 14v $208, Universal mount

$18.50

3-1/8 UMA VSI Range: ±2,000 ft/min. #10-20505 $144

Hobbs hour meter 85000 series $18

Flightcom voice activated intercom 2-place $73

Ameri-King AK-450 ELT 121.5/243 MHz $151

Ameri-King AK-350 encoder $114

George Swinford (425) 869-2780

Zodiac 650 tail kit complete $???

James Evans 206-406-3043 jim*at*vheavy.com May 2015

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