Note: I just now realized I failed to actually link to this entry until nearly 11 pm. Oops.
Posted Tue Jul 5 06:40:02 CDT 2022
I may be, if I'm honest, completely buggered, at least for the purposes of this trip.
I have been noticing a vibration in a couple of the wires attached to the wings, specifically the forward landing wires on both sides. On the right side, the lower half vibrates with a surprising amount of amplitude, while on the left side, the upper half vibrates at about 1/3 that amplitude. Both vibrate only in certain conditions of flight.
I got up this morning and got myself together, and everything was going quite well. Weather looks perfect, and I was feeling on my game after my day off. I knew I wanted to check those vibrating wires more carefully this morning, so I did.
On the left wire, I saw a line across the wire that could have been something on the surface, like sticky stuff from tape, or a line of tar. But it was right where a crack might appear from that vibration, too, so I was looking at it pretty carefully.
The wires have dowels holding them at the crossing point, which are called javelins. The mechanic who inspected the plane before I even saw it for the first time noted that they were sort of non-ideal, but I didn't see a huge problem. They'd obviously been ok so far, so I noted them as a thing to fix once I was back in Seattle.
These javelins are attached to the wires with little steel straps, that have been screwed into the wood. Little strips of rubber ride under the straps, to keep them from digging into the wires.
My first, and biggest, mistake was assuming that because they were on the plane, and the plane had been flying, that they were ok. My next biggest mistake was assuming that the aging rubber was the only thing to worry about. After that, giving them only a cursory glance was pretty silly, particularly with the wires vibrating the way they have been.
To resume the story, I was looking at the left wire, and trying to figure out how I'd unscrew the clamps to get some new gaff tape under them, when I noticed that one of the screw heads actually appeared to have buried itself slightly into the forward landing wire. This is, to put it mildly, VERY BAD.
That landing wire is the tightest wire in the system, and by eyeball estimation, the hole that's been dug in it is about a millimeter deep, and probably 3mm across by 1.5mm tall (along the length of the wire). These wires are only a few millimeters thick, so I have to assume this represents a significant compromise in strength.
In short, I think this is enough to ground the plane for a couple months.
These wires are only made by either 2 or 3 companies in the whole world. One of these, MacWhytes, is in Scotland, and the other (whose name escapes me at the moment) is in the US. I've seen rumblings of a third in New Zealand, but I don't know anything about them.
The correct solution is to order one of these fancy, streamlined wires, wait (several months? a year?) for it to arrive, and install it on the plane. Though, what just occurred to me is that I may be able to bodge something together that would be airworthy, just not as pretty: a length of steel (probably 4130) rod of the appropriate size could be installed in that position, and would do the job at some cost of drag. It wouldn't be efficient, but it would allow me to finish the trip without having to load the plane on a truck to get home.
I discovered, at 4:45 this morning, that one of the Biplane Forum folks is based right here at ORK, so I dropped him a line with my phone number, thinking at the time that we'd be talking about changing the angle of the wires, to possibly help them not vibrate any more. He called shortly after 6, and got the earful about my new problem. He's on his way over now, and I'll discuss things with him. Hopefully we can come up with a solution together that will allow me to continue without excessive delay.
Update at Tue Jul 5 08:07:06 PDT 2022
I've got the plane back together. Don looked at it, said, "Fly it home," and gave me advice on how to keep things from getting any worse. More details later. For now, I'm off!
That evening...
Well that was, if I may, an extremely wild sort of a day. Here's the basic timeline:
* Amelia and I are both huge D&D nerds, and the fact that we got to meet at an airport whose code is ORK tickles me to no end.
So, laying it out like this, no wonder I feel like I should just fall over. But first, a few impressions of the day.
It was a ridiculously hot day. The airports were reporting 35-39° C, and my plane's air temp gauge said 104° F on the ground at Stigler. Hot hot hot. I was flying at 6500 feet and seeing 69° F in the first part of the day, and 72° F in the latter part.
The ground gets suddenly much higher. ORK was at a couple hundred feet, GZL a little higher, S08 at about 1500, and PPA at 3250. 6500 feet felt pretty high when I started the day, but by the time I was past Hinton and getting toward Texas, it went from being around 6000 feet above the ground to a mere 3500 feet above the ground. I knew it was coming, but it was still really interesting to see it happen.
Communication was a theme, once I finally got the plane back into airworthy shape. When I arrived at ORK on the 3rd, I'd taxied the plane over to Jack's hangar without using my little earplug system. The radio was horrendously loud without them, so I turned down my headset's volume control, which I almost never use. When I finally got into the air this morning, I completely forgot I'd done this, and spent almost all of the first leg trying to figure out how much of the radio/headset system I'd have to replace. The controllers and other planes were like the whispers of ghosts, and I had to duck completely down inside the cockpit to hear anything that was said. I assumed my earplugs were failing, but couldn't rule out the radio dying (its volume control does nothing, weirdly), or some kind of connection problem bured deep in the cockpit. I really like to jump to worst-case scenarios. Finally, near the end of the flight, I gave myself a dummy slap and turned the headset's volume back up. Problem solved. sigh
I'm getting much more comfortable in the plane. The tailbone problem is still there, but it's become less important, or I've gotten used to it, or something. I ordered a tailbone cutout pillow and shipped it to my brother's house in LA, so the trip up the coast should be more comfortable. I'm still aware of how very loud it is in the air with all that air rushing past, but it doesn't trouble me as much. I've discovered that there is a certain amount of movement I can do, though it's not as much as in the Champ.
My landings are way better now. I've fixed whatever little freakout I was having that caused me to flare far too high, and most landings are decent now, though I need to work on my braking technique. The differential braking makes it easy to send the plane careening back and forth. This plane's brakes are nearly perfect: strong enough to do everything they need to, without being so sensitive that any attempt at braking is likely to send the plane over onto its nose (a serious problem with many taildraggers).
I've been very aware of drinking water quality. Seattle friends, we have it so good with our tap water. Florida's water tastes most unpleasantly like sulphur. Most other places have a weird flat taste that's mildly unpleasant. Little Rock's water was about as good as Seattle's.
I was thinking, as I was taxiing to the runway in Hinton, that one of the inspirations for this design was the Stampe (pronounced "stomp") SV.4, which I think is a Belgian or French design. That got me thinking about French names, and that got me thinking about Lisette, which is a name I've always liked. So I have another option for the plane's name. Lisette may be a little to dainty, though. This isn't a dainty plane.
Ok, that has to be enough for now. I guess this entry is a series of vignettes and disconnected thoughts. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the whole landing wire situation, I just don't have the energy for it right now. It was very interesting, once I stopped freaking out.
G'night, friends!
Copyright © 2022 by Ian Johnston.