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Lowrider LSA

My understanding (mis understanding) is that canvas decks were for the purpose of a nonskid surface that didnt tear up your feet.

Of course wood and canvas canoes were about waterproofing, but decent gloss, and therefore, longevity on those canoes isnt great.

Still, you have an interesting project and concept here. A man of many trades, obviously!
 
Thanks Dave...I somehow missed your reply...sorry!

I'm making steady progress and it looks like a trailer now. Big decisions ahead...do I put the hot water heater inside or outside. Outdoor shower will be on the street side and needs to be inside a box of sorts to protect the water lines from freezing. The Water heater does 90 gals/hour and burns 38,000 BTU to get a 50F water temp rise...so...I'm really concerned about pumping that much heat into the trailer in the summer and since there is no flue there also needs to be venting and fresh air inside. I think common sense dictates outside the insulation but that also means going outside to adjust water heater temp and water flow rates and the need for freeze protection as well. This is an Excell heater commonly used in South America for decades and was recommended to me by a missionary who used one high in the mountains of Peru for a year...but it was on the heated side of his house with lots of leaks in the house...not requiring an fresh air vents.

Anyone out there use a similar water heater in a small trailer...inside or outside??

By the way...I look at my unfinished wing daily and feel guilty that I'm not working on it. I turned off the Hydronics in the shop today...Spring is here...maybe.
 
Yip still working on the trailer. My DRZ400 and Tw 200 are licensed, insured and ready to go off road this Summer. Also got my little Honda Recon ready too. Back to Moab is a fairly high priority or the area around St George, UT.

My better judgement forced me into a 900 mile Harley trip to the East and into Sask, CA. That's my last Canadian Province to visit and with all the US states under my belt awhile back I don't have anywhere else to go. Well...there are a couple Mexican States left but banditos and drug lords may deprive me of that one. My wife reminded me that I still have the Western end of about 500 miles of US Route 66 to complete. Might be something to do this Fall on the Goldwing.

In the mean time I've been drafted into a "let's have lights on the runway at ID 5" since we have lots of runway but no light. No telling what that will entail but I'm moving my tractor and backhoe down there tomorrow.

Also bought some rod ends for the LSA wing laying on the bench...for the flap and aileron...see I haven't forgotten it!

Good thing I'm retired...don't have a clue how I tended to a family, worked at least 8 hrs a day and still did stuff like build a V-8 49 Willis and an RV-4...but then I didn't get naps back in those days. Oh yeah...still need to get the Challenger annual done and a BFR this month.
 
In the mean time I've been drafted into a "let's have lights on the runway at ID 5" since we have lots of runway but no light. No telling what that will entail but I'm moving my tractor and backhoe down there tomorrow.
I just had reflectors on a stick at my airport along one side of the runway. The landing lights would pick them up easily.
Something like this.

s-l300.jpg
The only trouble with them was the local juvenile dinklinks kept stealing them.
 
Yes Sir!

There were a couple of native villages in AK that I flew into at night on Lifeguard flights that used cones and boards with 4" red reflective tape. You could see them a half mile out with the landing light from a 207 or 185. Once the folks tried to be helpful and put two trucks at the end of the runway with their high beams turned on and I got blinded about 50' above touch down and had to go around. Reflectors are cheap and work but the lighting committee has a bug up their butt about solar powered and pilot controlled lighting...I have faith common sense will prevail...I hope!

Thanks for the idea Sky!!
 
I just had reflectors on a stick at my airport along one side of the runway. The landing lights would pick them up easily.
Something like this.

s-l300.jpg
The only trouble with them was the local juvenile dinklinks kept stealing them.

The airport where I had a shop in NY used reflectors as well. Worked good with airplanes that have landing light that point straight ahead. Not so much with the Howard where they are aimed about 10 degrees to the side.


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DGA,

I see your point...maybe a little slip would help.

I used to do some instruction at Tipton Army Air Field on Ft Meade, MD and I made students land without a landing light so they could get the experience in case their landing light burned out or didn't work. If it wasn't too dark they didn't even need the runway lights and could land with just the street and parking lot lights for references. If you're familiar with the field it's surprising how well a person can set up downwind to final and use a flat approach and maybe 300 fpm decent and almost grease it on. I wouldn't suggest it into a 1200' strip with trees on each end.
 
DGA,

I see your point...maybe a little slip would help.

I used to do some instruction at Tipton Army Air Field on Ft Meade, MD and I made students land without a landing light so they could get the experience in case their landing light burned out or didn't work. If it wasn't too dark they didn't even need the runway lights and could land with just the street and parking lot lights for references. If you're familiar with the field it's surprising how well a person can set up downwind to final and use a flat approach and maybe 300 fpm decent and almost grease it on. I wouldn't suggest it into a 1200' strip with trees on each end.

A moon out also helps. The airport I was at was surrounded by trees and narrow. Since you can’t see much ahead with a 985 powered taildragger, they angled the landing lights. Worked great, just didn’t work with reflectors.


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If you don't look at any light for about 20 minutes while flying you will be amazed at how well you can see once your eyes adjust. I don't have any interior or landing light and have made quite a few 2 hr after sunset landings at my strip. You be quiet Douten.

Glenn
 
If you don't look at any light for about 20 minutes while flying you will be amazed at how well you can see once your eyes adjust. I don't have any interior or landing light and have made quite a few 2 hr after sunset landings at my strip. You be quiet Douten.

Glenn

That’s cheating, someone on the runway with a flash light


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Anyone out there use a similar water heater in a small trailer...inside or outside??

I have one for my small vintage airstream trailer. It hangs on the outside after I arrive at a campsite. I have quick disconnect hoses for cold and hot water as well as for the propane. It takes 5 minutes to hang and connect. Unlimited hot water if connected to a water source or if not, until the water tank runs out. I have seen a model for use inside but do not recall the brand. Built a small custom click on cover out of aluminum to keep the rain off it.
 
I may have mentioned this before...My wife wears prescription glasses. She took off VFR for ANC in the morning from HOM and was returning home in the late afternoon in December with her sunglasses on while flying into the setting sun... you can probably guess the rest. She found the airport and made a fairly good landing on the 3rd attempt but she did learn from it...take BOTH pairs of glasses when you fly.

Sburg,

Thanks for the ideas. I decided to mount it inside but made little hood with a hinged deflector to send the heat out the window which is right above the heater. I thought about QD fittings but figured they only complicated things. I think my solution will work unless it get hot enough to melt the plastic screen on the window which will let in the skeeters and the like but I can always switch to alum screen if that happens. We'll see how it works out. I mounted my outside shower plenty high so I don't need to bend over to wash the top parts...bottom parts can be washed with the hose thingy.

Never had a shower in the woods since SEA outdoor showers with the guys which were usually luke warm or cold or too damn hot. The showers used to put out my cigarette while trying to burn off leaches...don't miss those days.
 
Well, some may say it's about time but I dug the first 2 foundation holes today for the Hanger that sits between my shop at ID 5 and the taxiway. Still haven't sold my house in Sandpoint but I want to make some progress on the hanger anyway. Pushed about 40 dead trees over last weekend and pushed them out of the woods ready to burn in the Fall. Don't need the box scraper at the moment so I put the backhoe on the tractor and started digging. We're doing a pole barn which will just be a shell to get planes and parts out of the way in the shop. Left ID 5 at 1800, got home in Sandpoint and found my mower sitting in the yard in a puddle of hydraulic oil. Asked my lovely wife what happened and the whole explanation was..."I was mowing and hit a stick and hot stuff shot out of the hood so I quit" Can't wait to take that apart tomorrow and find out why it's shooting hot stuff out of the hood.

See why I can't get around to building an airplane!
 
Now I've done it....sold my house, no place to live and no place to build an airplane 'cause my Southern shop will be full of house junk. Wife is somehow following misguided thoughts that I need to build the new house BEFORE the hanger...hopefully she'll come to her senses by morning. Nice folks from the liberal held state of California (which is still only one state) bought it and he's moving his machine shop into my old shop. Had a serious discussion about building a solid 0-320 for the LSA and he seems to be game...we'll see how that works out.

I built a 12' x 16' upstairs room in the new shop with heat and air so I have a place to sleep...but no bathroom (except the outhouse next door) yet so I'm limited by how long I can stay there. Downstairs kitchen has a propane stove, microwave and refrig but I suppose I need to rent a house until I get the new one built. Life gets more complicated by the day.
 
You're so right Sky! It's not only busy, I didn't have naps every day when I was working...20 minute power nap does wonders!!
 
My wife ( girlfriend at the time ) and I bought our 1860s farmhouse that had been empty for a bunch of years back in 1981. Her 75 YO grandfather came up right after we bought it to guide me with getting the old knob and tube electric out and some juice flowing so we could move in. We also tore out the old furnace that was the size of a pickup. At the end of the second day I was overwhelmed with the task ahead. An old house that nothing worked and no heat in the snowbelt of upstate NY in Septenber, what could go wrong? He looked at me and said " you only need 3 things to live, a place to take a dump, a place to eat and a place to sleep. The rest is optional equipment "

Lowrider, you'll figure it out

Glenn
 
Good insight from Grandpa!! My Dad lived thru the depression and had the same view on nice things to have...don't need em to get by. It's clearly by fault for letting my wife have a fancy bathroom but then she will join the bears and poop in the woods as well.
 
That's pretty cool!

One of my neighbors has a construction trailer he bought years ago for his kids to use when they visit...has a shower and toilet and a bedroom...what else could a person want!

My shop is a fine place for me to stay but shower and toilet would be nice. It has a priority in my mind...needs to be done eventually anyway.
 
At some point after I dropped the potty fixation a couple neighbor pilot types stopped and wondered what all the holes in the ground were all about...pole barn foundation explained their confusion quickly.

Topic drifted to whether or not a VW engine built by a reputable person was safe in an airplane. I have had several thoughts over the past couple years about removing the Rotax 503 off my Challenger and replacing it with a 1915cc 65 hp VW...probably a Hummel build. The 503 has been reliable so far with about 270 hours on it TT. It's supposed to be 50 hp at 6K something but I usually pull it back to 5500 after take off so I cruise at 40 something hp most of the time while listening to that giant bumble bee behind my head...don't like that sound a bit. Most folks seem to think the properly maintained and not overheated VW is a fine air plane engine...but then there are folks that swear the 503 Rotax is the most reliable engine ever built.

Anyone out there have any experience with a VW in a plane? When barely out of my teens I had a beach buggy built on a Bug pan with an old 36 hp VeeDub which I ran the piss out of and it was a wonderful under powered engine...not exactly the same as being at 8K flying over a totally wooded 7K mountain.

Thoughts?
 
The first 9 months I camped out on my new 40 acres of raw ground (12 years or so ago) I used the Kubota tractor and a 12" auger in the post hole digger. About every 2 weeks (depending on my diet during that time) I'd bore a new hole and fill in the old (no rocks, easy). A cheap plastic lawn chair with a hole jig sawed in the bottom, and I was in hog heaven. A scrap steel rod with a 90 stuck in the ground next to the chair held the TP, what more do you need?

Friends thought I was roughing it, but really roughing it was 35 years earlier when moving onto my first property, with no tractor and digger, and lots of rocks, this last time around was a piece of cake. Not having a washer and dryer is the bigger PITA when roughing it, and why my shop hangar combo has a full bathroom with those.
 
My first house was at 43rd and Camelback in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. My last new pickup cost twice what that house cost me but it had indoor plumbing and running water and new wife to keep me company. Used to hunt white wing dove across the street in a milo field...I thought I was in tall cotton...guess I was!! I got told to volunteer for an undercover drug detail so I did...neither the house or the wife lasted very long after that. Might have been better off digging holes in the rocks.
 
Clever catch...No, but it does have a refrigerator. I slept thru 20 years of grammar and English composition...probably why I never made it out of 3rd grade.
 
So, no one ever use a VW engine in an aeroplane??

I have been the A&P on a Fournier RF-5 motor glider for several years now.. All wood and fabric tandem gear with outriggers and is powered by a Volkswagen... The single most problematic part of the entire Aircraft is the engine... It has had constant cylinder head issues from the valves to bad spark plug coils... We have changed out both left and right heads twice... I also maintain a Aeromot AMT-200 Super Ximango motor glider.. The Aeromot was designed by the same guy who designed the Fournier.. Except it has a super reliable Rotax 912...

I would not fly behind a VW just based on my experience of maintaining the Foirnier’s...

Brian


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