Yooper Rocketman

Sheeting, snow and ice shield, synthetic fabric...... OMG, we started stopping the rain from coming in!! And then metal roofing. This thing may get closed up for the winter. Tom

So I decided the log truck was too slow and I called in a crane service to install the last 23 trusses. I also built a bunch of "stand-offs", a guide type of fixture installed on the truss to be lifted and guiding it on to the already secured last truss. We had worked with just my scissors lift for the first two trusses (a 22' lift unit), rented a 26' unit for two lifts available on the next 11 trusses, and I got a 32' AND the 26' from the rental store so we had 3 lifts on the final day. It went awesome. I had too many pucker moments walking out on those trusses to secure diagonal bracing after every 4-5 had been installed. That made walking around on sheeting on the roof feel like ground work. Tom

The last wall photo is included here as that photo has significance to this post when were we 33% done installing trusses. The last truss photo is significant too. I elected to set the trusses with a log truck I had in my used truck inventory (no cost to the chapter) and we installed 2 trusses with 4 men, in 4 hours. Clearly not efficient! We determined a lifting fixture would be required for 79' long trusses. Even with a 15' spreader bar they would flop around enough we thought they were going to break. The next 11 trusses were set with the same log truck, much safer and more efficient with our custom 40' long steel lifting fixture, but still too slow with the limited height and reach of a log truck. Those were installed on Wednesday, October 28th, and by Friday I was seeing weather forecasts calling for 35 MPH winds on Sunday. I called an emergency...... need everyone that's available...... work session to get as much sheeting on the roof as possible on Saturday, and diagonally support the 13 trusses for the expected Sunday wind. While one chapter member and I were installing sheeting on the west roof line, we had a decent wind blow in from the south and heard a noise and creaking. We looked up and all 13 trusses were leaning to the north by over a foot! I thought we were going to flop them all over into the hangar, and turn the wood into toothpicks! I immediately moved the log truck to the south side of the building, swung the bucket up and stabilized the trusses, and installed a couple 2" ratchet straps from the loader to the end truss to bring it back to vertical. Upon close inspection, we determined the wind had pulled ALL the screws out of the south wall truss supports. We re-stabilized all the vertical supports, added more. and then added 4 diagonal supports on the inside. We then spent the rest of that Saturday, until 1 1/2 hours after dark (thank god for the airport ramp light right next to our hangar) installing many more diagonal supports across the top of the trusses too. Saturday night I could hear the wind wailing outside my bedroom window. I could hardly sleep. I even got up and called the AWOS at our airport and found wind gust were already up to the high 20's. My wife agreed to go out to the hangar Sunday morning to check on the trusses and we found them solid as a rock .... whew. But then she looked at the 4 diagonal braces holding the east 18' tall wall, with 200 pounds of cement blocks on the braces, and they were lifting up off the floor 4". I looked closer and the two middle ones were actually broke. The wind out of the NW was pushing our 18' hangar wall out over 4". We made a mad scramble and I moved my scissors lift over so I could install two more ratchet straps to the wall. Climbing up a 24' ladder, 18' off the floor, on a wall already bowing out 4" from the wind to install the straps was a real challenging moment. Once secured with the straps, we proceeded to repair the two broken wall supports, installed a ton more screws in ALL the supports, and then rounded up everything that was heavy to lay on those supports. She found our roof sheeting, 5/8" OSB, sitting on an 18' flat bed trailer, had the rain protection covering on it flapping so hard it was obvious it wasn't going to stay. She took a scrap 2' x 3' piece of OSB off that was holding down the plastic, and I thought I was going to lose her with the wind taking her away. And then once we got the plastic off, we could see the OSB was about to start sailing off. We needed to strap it down too. By the time we were ready to leave, we had more sand in our eyes then I can ever remember. As we drove away my wife noted the light pole next to the hangar was swaying back and forth well over a foot. On a whim I called our AWOS again for the winds. 35 MPH gusting to 54 !!!!!! I checked everything Monday morning and we were golden. I talked with one of my managers at my dealershsip that had a lot of construction experience. He stated he didn't know a contractor out there that would not have been crapping bullets trying to keep a partially installed truss system up during winds like that. Tom

We're spanning late September to early October with this next batch of photos. Tom

Our local EAA Chapter 439 has had a vision for 10 years to build a chapter hangar. Our local airport management is one of the best in the state of Michigan, always supporting us both in spirit and financially (huge sponsor to our annual airport day event/annual fund raiser). Our vision is to organize a youth aviation club where we can take on a restoration or kit built project and the young adults that put enough serious time into it can use the plane for flight lessons (after the plane is put in a LLC obviously). A couple years ago the Chapter board agreed to move forward with the hangar and the airport board and the county board gave us their full blessing and offered us a $1 a year land lease. We commissioned a local engineer to draft us up blueprints and last summer I got the blueprints approved by our local code commission (not without some fanfare, sucking up, and a back and forth between the engineer and the building inspector before the final prints were approved and the code commission took there considerable fee. I ordered a Higher Power hangar door but delivery was late enough last fall that closing the hangar up for weather in 2019 was obviously not going to happen. In late September of 2019, after concern our airport manager was going to be on the hot seat for supporting us and no action, I pushed our group that we could at least get the concrete poured so in the spring of 2020 we could launch forward immediately with the actual wood construction. Then, in March/April of this year our world changed; COVID-19. We delayed based on Michigan rules until late June/early July, then contemplated whether going forward this late would work. Our membership decided to hold off until 2021. Then, my 3 guys in my welding/fabrication shop ran out of trailers to build in later August/early September (thank you COVID). I approached our membership and said I would provide a considerable amount of skilled labor "AT COST" (to keep my guys off unemployment and to give them some rewarding outside work). The up side, in my view, was my total time on the project, with our membership labor pool being rather small, would likely be considerably less with this type of help. So here's the concrete work in 2019, with Steve Phillips, my best friend, flying buddy, co-worker on the last 3 years of my Lancair project and flying buddy, bull floating on the third pour. The concrete work was done October through the first week of November. Steve died on November 11th, 2019 (Veterans Day for this Nam Air Force vet). The hangar will be the the Stephen Phillips Memorial Hangar, a dedication both the airport manager and the county board thought appropriate as well. The beginning wall work was September of this year. Tom To be continued.

Oh boy ...... you had to go down that worm hole 17 years to first flight, 10,000 man hours, most of which were mine (I DID have some help a lot of the time). Cost? Well with man hours at zero cost...... about 12% of the current new cost of a TBM, burning half the fuel, and if they want range (in other words not full power for speed) we are about the same speed. I've had one TBM 930 chase me all the way to Florida and could never catch me (Flight Aware average speed over distance was one MPH difference). Tom

Well that's not entirely true. Albeit a bit above 10 more gallons per hour (but cheaper fuel than Avgas), I'm clearly getting more than 100 more HP, and TAS's that challenge the most expensive TP's. Four seats, non-stop to Spruce Creek, Florida from the U.P. of Michigan (1200 NM's, 3.5 hours, and even did that with all 4 seats full). And I can do my own maintenance. Not sure I see the Rocket, any other Mooney, or a Comanche 400 meeting the utility of my latest stead. Just saying......... Tom

Hmm. I would like to hear what Mike Busch has to say about this. He seems to find a lot of "supposed required maintenance" that is not truly required. Wonder if Paul,@kortopates could share Mike's thoughts on this? These ICA's can be very expensive and not very well thought through. TKS requires the fluid filter to be changed on a calendar clock, not usage. I ran one for 16 years on my Rocket and never changed it until close to selling time. Cut the old filter apart and it was spotless. I've had two IA's state ICA's were not mandatory for Part 91. Seems to be some inconsistency here. Tom

Can you post the actual FAA regulation that says ICA's are mandatory for Part 91? I had that question before as Maintenance Committee Chair for our mercy flight org and we were supplied with a quote dug up from Mike Busch by a Beech Talk poster showing otherwise. When I further discussed the issue with the IA that was doing our maintenance he admitted Part 91 wasn't required to comply with ICA's (after he had already "implied" we were) "but we really should". Tom

I built one in on my Lancair. It has an annunciator that gets checked during my preflight upon power up. I also installed one for my tow bar where it stores in a holder on the fuselage baggage area ceiling. The beauty of experimental. Tom

I do. Wasn't he the one that always professed he would cruise faster when he climbed above his final altitude and then descended to his cruise altitude, carrying that extra speed on to eternity?

I installed the newest GTN Software Download and now have the very capable VNAV (tied to A/P) feature. Works great for vertical guidance on crossing restrictions going into Class B Airspace and I look forward to using it on STARs. I recently blocked my plane for Flight Aware tracking, after numerous requests (and complaints) why they were arbitrarily (and randomly) reducing my "FILED AIRSPEED" significantly in their reports. It appeared they were using "block to block" time and averaging and, with STAR's and flying IFR approaches frequently, this reduced the average speed. Filed speed is supposed to be CRUISE SPEED, not some averaged number based on other factors at your destination. I'm only mentioning this because a lot of friends have been watching me on Flight Aware for years. As you can see, my filed TAS of 300 knots is conservative. Tom

Not sure how difficult it is to inspect the intake or exhaust side of the turbine wheel and shaft on this specific engine but most times when a turbo is starting to fail there will be some evidence that can be detected on inspection (scraping of the wheel on the housing, drag when spinning the turbine wheel, slop in the shaft and bearings, oil leakage evidence, overheating evidence, etc.). If you are contemplating removing it for overhaul/replacement anyway, inspect the unit once getting the intake and exhaust removed. Tom

Definitely check the turbo. If it's bearings are gone you won't get much above idle RPM's. My first failure had the bearings go without porting oil. The second one (both over 1,000 hours) dumped almost all my oil out the exhaust. How many hours on his turbo? Experience taught me you're on borrowed time after 1,000 hours. Tom

I can relate. My best friend's E model will be ready to move to a new owner soon, hopefully by the end of the year. Both his widow and I will feel the same as Lynne when it flies away for the last time. Tom

Welcome to the turboprop club. Tom

You are on my list!!!!! We will get it done on one of your trips up north!! You are the ONLY ONE I’ve got as far as putting their phone number in my phone directory. Tom

It burns 19 gallons an hour at idle. Keep in mind jet engines don’t “idle” like piston engines. @Jerry 5TJ put it in perspective. All my longer flights use about the same fuel as my Rocket, at a considerable faster speed, less fuel stops and using fuel that usually costs less per gallon. That’s NOT COUNTING THE COOL FACTOR. Tom

Like Jerry said. My long distance flights are about the same fuel burn as my Rocket. Just 40% faster when you consider the speed and lack of fuel stop. Tom

At altitude (FL270-FL280) 30-32 gallons an hour, depending on temperature. Down low, not pretty. I see 55 gallons on hour on takeoff and initial climb. Bur at 3,500' a minute rate of climb, you start seeing the fuel burn go down pretty fast. Tom

My opinion, write a check list that makes sense, covers the critical items, and is in a flow that makes it efficient. It’s far more valuable that the checklist helps you avoid “gotcha’s” than anything else!!! I’ve had to deal with checklists written by airline pilots, leaving every stone from being unturned, (my Airlifeline Organization), and watched the very same pilots skim over the 3 page checklist missing items listed 3 times. Keep it brief, to the point, and realistic!! Tom

I will work on that. Pretty sure she will be willing to allow me to photograph her. She thrives on attention! In all fairness, she’s a very awesome young lady! Tom

Jim. I wish I could give 2-3 likes. We need more positive members on this forum!! Tom

Boy ....... you’ve moved up my list of guys that I have to meet and give a ride to!!! Tom