A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

Near record cold this morning.. I love ground fog from above.

Let's go, Bullet! 

Uh oh. We're "on the gauges" and there aren't any. Let's warm 'er up a bit.

Off we go.. life is good. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Just threw the little video camera in my pocket at the last minute this morning. Sorry, no sound, didn't have the mic hooked up. Unedited hand held footage:

[Chuck in Indiana]

Hoo Wee. 69 degrees in February..


  

[Chuck in Indiana]

Eclipse flight..

Rolled Bullet out, kicked the tires and lit the fires.   

taxiing in.

Another successful dusk patrol in the log book..
 

[Dan_]

Ossum.  Just Ossum as hell...

[Chuck in Indiana]

Thankya, Dan.. Thankya.  It *was* ossum. The temp had dropped 12 degrees, and the breeze stopped. Crickets cricketed. Colors were "different," and shadows looked like they had been cut out of black poster board. Blasted off, and there wasn't a ripple in the air. Looking west, it looked like it was raining cats and dogs about 2 miles west, but when we got there, it still looked like it was 2 miles west. The picture of going over the hanger is facing west. You can see the shadows in the taxiing pic, along with the obligatory steely eyed aviator pic, although the effect was muted by the time we decided we had to land. (had a little less than a gallon of fuel.)
It was truly a once in a lifetime experience, and being in a very open cockpit made it even better.

[Chuck in Indiana]

 
 

[Kamcoman77]

Happy Birthday, Chuck! Your build is an inspiration to us all.

[Wayne Munich]

Happy birthday  Chuck, You have kept me going. The engine is done , runs great, carved prop makes wind, static wind is not the whole story, have another blank glued up for another. Ordering wood for ribs this week. I hope I live long enough to fly this thing. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Chuck in Indiana]

Attaboy Wayne! I'm glad to see you are still at it.  I'm currently hoping I can finish a Pietenpol that my old friend Bill started 20 years ago. Having a project to think about and a goal is important to me. Besides that, the world *needs* another low and slow airplane. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

The Kelch museum at Brodhead had a bunch of basically junk for sale at the Pietenpol reunion. I found a rate of climb..probably mil surplus complete with wasp nest.. and asked Ray Hegy's son (!) how much. "How about 5 bucks.. guaranteed to work here in the hanger."    It had an AN fitting on it so I figured I didn't have much to lose.  Put it in my jacket pocket a few days ago, and darned if it didn't work on climb out..so..
Red necked it on to the panel this muggy but beautiful morning and blasted off. Found best rate of climb with the Mighty Verner to be 800 fpm at 40 to 45 mph. Best glide speed was also right at 45. That's pretty much what I had determined by seat of the pants, but now I have data, and so do you.

[IflyHG]

For pilots looking for flight instruments that are lighter and more compact than the certified steam gauge route you might consider Hang Glider/Paraglider instruments.  They are battery powered and last for hours (GPS) to months (non-GPS), are a few hundred grams, and can be as simple as a variometer (climb/sink rate) and altimeter to full blown moving map GPS units with all kinds of features.  If you don't want to buy new consider finding a pilot wanting to upgrade and sell their older unit.  www.flytec.com is one brand that you can investigate to understand what they provide but there are others as well.  Even if you don't want to purchase and use one on every flight you might be able to borrow one for flight testing to gather this type of data.  Also, most will record flight data so you don't have to take notes in the air, you can just download the flight and review the performance.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Hah! Orville and Wilbur didn't need none of that sissy stuff for their flying machine..  

[Jeff XL79]

I've looked at the radiant instruments from the guy that used to run Belite. They look like they would work well in an eagle. Their combo unit costs $400 and only requires the pitot, connecting tubing and a static source.  May be over the top fancy but they do look like they would do the job. 

I've read some of EAA's info on the static air source but would like to know if anyone is doing this type of instrument that requires a static line.

Jeff

[CHARLES DEBOER]

I have been using the Radiant multifunction instrument for six months and it works very well.  The response from support was less than 24 hours. The display information is bright in full daylight but with my aging eyeballs is a little small but sill very readable.  That  said, I like it. Very compact.