REFLECTOR: Leveling the plane

Thu Jun 16 22:38:24 CDT 2005

Jim,

I'm right there with you in "I find myself in a marginal - if not plumb 
dicey - takeoff situation much of the time."     I'd say "some of the 
time" though. 

Living in the SW with a field elevation of 6500 ft compounds the problem.

The fixed pitch prop is a big factor.  Our planes are so fast that its 
"difficult" to build a prop that will do well on the relatively slow 
take off and also push us along at 175+ knots. 
Density altitude comes into play for some of us.
The speed required for me to unstick the canard at takeoff can be 75 
knots if I'm at forward CG, and thats with full up elevator!    I will 
say that when I'm taking off at a near sea level airport my Velocity 
gets up and goes..  Which is what the factory guys see almost all the time.

I know, I'm just whining about having my cake and eating it too.  When I 
take off in the morning from GNT and land in near SFO to have a late 
breakfast,  I realize what a damn fine airplane the Velocity is....

Scott

Jim Sower wrote:

> I really didn't intend to stir up all this fuss and bother.  I'd 
> thought that perhaps I was missing some simple reference.  Evidently I 
> wasn't.  All I wanted was a reliable, convenient access to the FRP.  
> There doesn't seem to be one (perhaps it's just me being anal about 
> this, but I don't regard wing templates that don't seem to fit all 
> that well, using levels that seem to have come out of a box of Cracker 
> Jacks, as reliable OR convenient).  My needs are modest:  Being 
> overpropped by about 200 rpm on my IO360 (that's on me and I'm in the 
> process of addressing it) and routinely 70 - 80# over the 400# front 
> seat limit (I'm addressing that too, but it takes more time :o) I find 
> myself in a marginal - if not plumb dicey - takeoff situation much of 
> the time.  I'm beginning to realize that fuselage attitude is trivial 
> and that wing and canard incidence is what I'm actually interested 
> in.  I've been spoiled by my EZ with its clearcut, simple canopy rail 
> references.
>
> I'm looking for a reliable indication of my ground attitude (most 
> particularly canard AoA) so that I can quantify whether and by how 
> much I have to overcome a negative AoA in order to rotate.  It would 
> be nice to know if, and by how much I might benefit by extracting my 
> nose strut from all that structure (not a trivial task) and 
> straightening it out a little to get cocked up enough to make rotation 
> a little easier.
>
> Of course I could replace my sorry-assed Lyc with a 230 hp rotary, but 
> that would involve rewiring pretty much the whole Switch/CB panel and 
> be a MAJOR task by any standard.
>
> Guess I need to revisit my actual needs in terms of available 
> resources ... Jim S.
>
> Scott Derrick wrote:
>
>> I built my gauge, at the time didn't know the factory had pre-built 
>> ones..
>>
>> NMFlyer1 at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> I had an odd thing happen with my wing incidence guage. After I 
>>> built my wings, when I was getting ready to attach them to the plane 
>>> I noticed that the incidence guage was warped.
>>>  
>>> I called the factory and asked if I could buy a new one. They said 
>>> yes, but told me that many of them do that and it would still be 
>>> accurate. I asked them to pacify me and send another anyway, which 
>>> they did.
>>>  
>>> Once the new incidence guage showed up, I was a bit confused. They 
>>> were not the same size. One of them was about 2" longer than the 
>>> other. I called the factory and talked to Mark M. to find out what 
>>> was up. ( I thought one of them may be for the small wing, another 
>>> for the large wing). He had me measure them and then things got 
>>> really strange.
>>> My origonal wing jig was not the right size for anything! Mark said 
>>> he really didnt know how that could happen, as they have a jig they 
>>> build them in. It was determined that the new one was correct. I am 
>>> glad I was anal enough to want to replace the warped jig because the 
>>> origonal one would have been wrong.
>>>  
>>> I appreciate the factory humoring me on my first call and sending 
>>> the jig anyway. They also did not charge me for the new jig.
>>>  
>>> So, if you have a bad feeling that a jig or piece is incorrect... 
>>> follow through. It just might be something is not right.
>>>  
>>> Kurt
>>>
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