Wow nice. Are you going to paint the wings and/or remaining bare parts of the fuse or leave it bare?


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That's very light. Good job Whee.

I figured that it would be around what other bearhawks weigh -100lbs for your engine, -25 keeping things light, hence my number. That should perform very well.

One comment I have, I would get a spinner. I think it will do a lot to keep your engine cool. A spinner can funnel the air into the cowl, it's not just for decoration.

How did the fuel pump stuff worked out?

A1Skinner, nice move, good thing we were both way off... well good thing for Whee. Instead of split the pot, the first beer is on you should our paths cross, then I'll grab the next round....

akschu wrote:That's very light. Good job Whee.

I figured that it would be around what other bearhawks weigh -100lbs for your engine, -25 keeping things light, hence my number. That should perform very well.

One comment I have, I would get a spinner. I think it will do a lot to keep your engine cool. A spinner can funnel the air into the cowl, it's not just for decoration.

How did the fuel pump stuff worked out?

A1Skinner, nice move, good thing we were both way off... well good thing for Whee. Instead of split the pot, the first beer is on you should our paths cross, then I'll grab the next round....

Sounds like a plan, I'll gladly buy you a beer.

Great work Whee. Very nice and light. I'm sure it's going to perform great. And x2 on the spinner suggestion.

Thanks guys! I'm pretty happy with how it weighed out. Wish the CG was a bit forward but it's acceptable.

scottf wrote:Wow nice. Are you going to paint the wings and/or remaining bare parts of the fuse or leave it bare?

We plan to put some vinyl stripes on the fuselage and probably will wrap the leading edges of the wing for to make the plane easier to see.

akschu wrote:That's very light. Good job Whee.

I figured that it would be around what other bearhawks weigh -100lbs for your engine, -25 keeping things light, hence my number. That should perform very well.

One comment I have, I would get a spinner. I think it will do a lot to keep your engine cool. A spinner can funnel the air into the cowl, it's not just for decoration.

How did the fuel pump stuff worked out?

A1Skinner, nice move, good thing we were both way off... well good thing for Whee. Instead of split the pot, the first beer is on you should our paths cross, then I'll grab the next round....

I agree on the spinner, one will go on soonish. We tried to put one on but couldn't find a bulkhead that fits our nose bowl and ignition trigger arrangement. We will have to have a custom one made and I don't want to deal with anymore one-off stuff for a while. The Cessna T-41 is what we loosely used as an example when installing our engine and since it doesn't use a spinner we might be alright...maybe.

Fuel pumps are good. Mechanical pump overhauled buy a good shop this time and electric pump is now putting out the right pressure.

Congratulations Whee! Can't wait to hear taxi test & flight test reports!

Cool, excess weight sucks, and is always easy to add later if you want!

Cool, excess weight sucks, and is always easy to add later if you want!

Great job you did, congratulations.

I like your Idea vinyl stripes and wrapping the wing leading edges. I did vinyl stripes on the sides of my 182 17 years ago and its amazing how well they hold up. I never thought of that for the leading edges. Bet it will look great and hold up fine. If your going to be polishing or waxing up against the edges of the stripes, I wouldn't design the stripes to taper to much of a point on the ends. Try to leave them at least 3/4" if at all possible.

Looks great! For what it’s worth, plenty of Cessna Ag Wagons have run around for years with no spinner, running bigger engines harder with far worse cowl sealing than yours will ever be.

Thanks everyone. We are really looking forward to taxi tests and the first flights.

On The Fly, Good idea on not tapering the strips too much. We plan to do a Luscombe style stripe which tapers to nothing under the tail. I'm sure we can figure out something that looks good.

CenterHillAg, Thanks for the vote of confidence. I too think we'll be ok without a spinner.

Man, that has got to be exciting. It’s a long road you’ve traveled. I’d be going nuts wanting to fly it.

Good work. You going to have it at the Idaho Conference in May?

MTV

MTV, I usually have something going on the weekend of the IAA conference so I don’t usually attend but it’s at my home airport. I can’t get with the DAR for almost a month so I’ll likely still be flying the phase 1 at the time of the conference. If you, or anyone else, make it to town let me know.

In all honesty, I’m pretty nervous about the first flight. More nervous than excited. Would be painful to wreck it myself and probably more painful to have someone else wreck it for me.

whee wrote:….In all honesty, I’m pretty nervous about the first flight. More nervous than excited. Would be painful to wreck it myself and probably more painful to have someone else wreck it for me.

I don't blame you, I would be nervous too.
I seem to recall that you sold your Luscombe a while back, so don't know how current you are.
Might not be a good idea to go get tuned up with someone in a taildragger,
preferably something with performance close to your BH--
maybe a SuperCub, Maule, or C180.

Quick video of the the very first taxi from a couple weeks ago. Pretty exciting to see it move for the first time. Taxi tests went good, radio checked out good, now to see if it will fly. It was actually pretty thrilling to feel how it wanted to fly with a quick jab of throttle. If all goes well it will have an airworthiness certificate next week.

hotrod180 wrote:

whee wrote:….In all honesty, I’m pretty nervous about the first flight. More nervous than excited. Would be painful to wreck it myself and probably more painful to have someone else wreck it for me.

I don't blame you, I would be nervous too.
I seem to recall that you sold your Luscombe a while back, so don't know how current you are.
Might not be a good idea to go get tuned up with someone in a taildragger,
preferably something with performance close to your BH--
maybe a SuperCub, Maule, or C180.

You recall correctly and I'm not in any way current. It has been my full intention to get tuned up in a TW airplane but it is been a daunting task to find a TW instructor with a TW airplane. Thought I had one lined up but his primary employment has him unavailable for a few months. The thing that really sucks is having to gain 100% proficiency in an airplane I'll never fly again in order to get a flight review signed off. I completely understand and expected this but I didn't think it would cost $1000.

Whee;

Why would the instructor be believable in the future if he is not now? Just poking you!

soaringhiggy wrote:Whee;

Why would the instructor be believable in the future if he is not now? Just poking you!

Haha. Thanks for that. I may end up in your neighborhood to get my flight review. If I do I’ll bring the boat and chase some sturgeon.

could do. There is a tw instructor over here that can help you as well.

You'd be nuts if you weren't nervous on the first flight. Out of the 5 builds I first flew, I probably had a minimum of 4 or 5 hours of ground work first, with gradually increasing taxiing speeds, up to the first lift off and setting back down on the runway. So much so that the first circuit was almost anticlimactic. I would expect you will have zero issues, major ones anyway. My worst was 5 minutes after the first liftoff of my current bird, the knob on my parking brake vibrated off and fell on the floor (unsecured jam nut), meaning nothing relative to flight ops, but I remember thinking "if that's the worst thing to go wrong, I did pretty good." There will always be something..... but I bet it will fly just fine.

We now have an airworthiness certificate and the plane is ready to fly!

We also added the cowl flaps.





Now if this weather ever clears we'll get our refresher training done then see if this thing will fly.

Wow! Congrats Whee! Looking forward to seeing it flying this summer!