Our April meeting will be on Wednesday, April 20,
2005, at the ClubHouse
Program: Kevin Hoirup will be speaking about the Young Eagle Program
Jim Cody will be bringing refreshments
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Editor’s Note: (See pictures below) This is an interesting set of pictures of the plane
I flew last October in Alaska. When winter set in after I left, he changed the plane to
skis for what he considers the best flying of the year. He said he was taxiing in front
of his house getting ready to take off when he found a soft spot in the ice. I guess
this happens on occasion due to stress cracks or something, and he went swimming.
He said the first thing he did was get excited and get his big winter boots tangled up,
when he figured out what happened he got the door open and was able to get out from
under the ice where the ski had broken the ice.
He said in many planes with bungee and
tube gear the skis are not as wide apart and the fuselage plugs the hole in the ice then
you are in real trouble. He said the worst part of the experience was calling his wife
and telling her he sunk the plane. As you can see they used chainsaws to cut the ice in
front of the plane about 10 feet at a time and pull it to the shore where they could get
it out.
The last picture is of it flying again this spring, not too much worse for the wear.
After he got it out they drained the oil and pulled the plugs, turned it over, put the plugs
back in and fired it up. The radios even dried out and worked again. The only things ruined
were the vacuum and static gauges like airspeed and the gyros. The plane is a Kitfox 5 with
a CAM 100 engine, Ivo prop and big tires. He can land that thing anywhere. I am going back
up again this year because I can learn so very much from him, and it also is a lot of fun.
The other pictures are of our new Kitfox 57. It is the Series 5 Outback that Randy got with
a CAM 100 engine partially finished. We found that the workmanship was not as we liked so
we pulled all the fabric and started over. One of the people in our Kitfox build group
installed an O-200 in his plane and let us buy his Series 7 firewall forward. We built it
day VFR and as light as we could to meet the light sport requirements.
It is all signed off and I have about 2 hours test time on it. We put 1 degree of forward sweep to the
wings to counter what is a nose heavy plane when flown light. It flew hands off, straight
and true the first flight. I have a few little squawks like the carbs need synchronized
and I have a little occasional twitch in the tach ( but not in the engine). When the
wind stops blowing and my cold gets better I will be working the time off it so we can
enjoy some flying this year.
The blue Kitfox is now home in my shop because I only have
hangar space for one plane and I want to do a few things to our 8 year-old plane. It
has been a very good and mostly trouble free 725 hours of flying. It has been used so
much for training that it is on its 4th set of tires. Next project - the RV-9 wings come
down from the ceiling and I teach Linda to buck rivets.
DUES: We are still collecting dues if you have not paid yet. - $25.00 for the year.
CALENDER OF EVENTS: (Dale is working on Fly-Outs for the this year)
Our March Fly-Out to Jackpot was canceled due to weather - try for April?
July 6-10 - Northwest EAA Regional Fly-In, Arlington, WA
July 25-31 - Oshkosh, Madison, WI
EAA Board Meetings - 3rd Wednesday of each month @ Ontario Airport Clubhouse @ 6:30 p.m.
EAA Meetings - 3rd Wednesday of each month @ Ontario Airport Clubhouse @ 7:30 p.m. Dues $25/yr.
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