DaV8or

Yesterday I really screwed up and backed my plane into a hangar door. The result was a pranged right aileron on the trailing edge. My hope is that this thread doesn't turn into a "15 helpful tips for backing your plane up." or "What the hell was wrong with you Dave???" type thread. I'm just looking for advise on how to get it fixed. I bent the trailing edge back into shape as best I could with mostly my hands, but the metal is stretched and so refuses to go back into a straight edge. I can either pop it up, or down, but just not straight again. Does anybody know a technique for shrinking the metal back up again? Is this aileron toast? How hard is it to replace an aileron? This aileron is no prize. It already has hail damage and a bit of body filler in it, but on the other hand I'm a cheap bastard and gave up on cosmetics a long time ago. Here's my phone pics-

Here's one that claims to have been built in 30 days for $3000. I believe the time, but where do you get a working Continental O-470 for under $3000???

Here's a couple videos I found of it driving-

That is an amazing work of art and ingenuity. My only complaint with the Motor Trend article is they didn't have a video of it actually driving on the street.

I've never heard this one before, but it sounds official, so run with it! I don't think Mooneys are known for awesome rudder authority. I know mine runs out pretty quick in a crosswind.

I like it. I'd buy one if the price isn't too bad. Good job on the print job! It's still fascinating to me that things can go from digital directly to solid part these days.

Why not just add fixed gear to the new Ultra? The RV-10 is not as aerodynamically slick as the M20. If you want a roomier cabin, how about a Mooney wing on a Bonanza? Might get the Bonanza to pick up a few knots, then once it sped up, put the fixed gear on. Maybe you would end up with a fixed gear Bonanza with the same speed as old retractable Bonanza, or as I might call it, a Cirrus.

My favorite is the Boomerang. I think there are maybe more buyers for a pane like this than people think. It just needs to be widely demonstrated and made easier to get in and out of..

Frank Zappa defined free for me decades ago in his song "Teenage Wind". "Free is when you don't have to do nuthin', or pay for nuthin'. We want to be free. Free as the wind." http://genius.com/Frank-zappa-teen-age-wind-lyrics

No surprise there. The kit is crazy expensive and most people don't like working with fiberglass. The plane also has limitations. Those with money, get the Evolution these days. I've heard the kit business is in slump over all as well.

The N number has morphed because the original N100WL (pictured above) is one of two White Lightnings that have crashed and killed their pilot. This one in 1986, was due to fuel starvation while flying over an undercast that was at 800AGL. Unknown to the 25,000 hour commercial pilot, his partner had made a modification to the fuel system and the pilot forced landed the plane on a highway thinking he was out of gas and hit something. In fact there was fuel remaining in an auxiliary fuel tank that he was unaware of. I looked it up. Sad story.

Actually, the Lancair Legacy is just an updated version of this airplane's contemporary, the Lancair 320/360. Besides being only two seats, nobody builds a Legacy with just 210 hp although in theory it can be built that way.

And that is how it does work. People that build and finish airplane kits actually want to and like building airplanes. There are those that want to fly the latest shiny mostest and muchness plane on the cheap, but they buy the tail kit and then sell it at a loss. Some of us actually are really clever and buy finished airplanes from the true builders at a fraction of what they really cost to build. The thing about true builders is that some of them are addicted serial builders and once they finish a plane, they need another project to get that high again.

A common problem I think with designs where the sole mission statement is to go as fast as possible. Safety and slow speed handling become low priorities. There are many of these kits still not finished. It seems like a great opportunity to enlarge the tail and experiment with the wing tips, or add cuffs to the wing at some expense of cruise speed to see if slow speed control could be improved. It seems to me that this design was 85% there to being a truly great kit plane.

We all know there are kit planes out there that are faster and more efficient then the M20J on the same engine, but we can always say, "Oh yeah, well where do the other two passengers sit?" Advantage Mooney- they can carry three passengers. Well here's a kit plane that can carry three passengers, uses essentially the same HP and is faster than a Mooney M20J- White Lightning WLAC-1 It uses the Continental IO-360 engine with 210hp. Four place, cruise at 215 kts, 1500 fpm climb, stall with flaps 60 kts, 1000 lb useful load, 1600 mile range with VFR reserve. Unusual seating arrangement though. Rear passengers face backward. This was done to keep the C/G more consistent no matter how many people on board. Reports say the rear seats actually have more shoulder room and of course, unlimited leg room. Similar landing gear as the Questair Venture. This one was raced at Reno and did well. Of course the gotcha is low speed handling. In clean configuration it stalls at 78 kts, so the big fowler flaps are very effective. There is a report that it has poor directional control in the stall and wants to spin. Spins are reported to be very difficult to recover. More work is needed on the design IMO to improve stall characteristics, but it is what it is. About 30 kits were sold and 2 people have died in them. The one pictured above recently sold, I think for around $100,000.

Hmmm... how hard can it be to strip off the aluminum skin, cut and re-weld a few tubes... a little fiberglass... There just has to be an STC in here somewhere!!

No, I get that active onboard TAS is the best one can get, but I thought that having ADS-B augment it might be useful for catching at least some NORDO airplanes.

It seems to me that the only thing that makes sense is a hybrid of ADS-B broadcast and active traffic systems. I say this only because I assume and it is only an assumption, that ATC can see at least some of the NORDO traffic with their radar sweeps. You guys that know ATC feel free to correct me. Can you see a 1946 Luscomb with no electrical system and if you can, is this info relayed to the ADS-B network?

And that's my dream low and slow aircraft! That's what I would love to have for 400' AGL flight. One on floats please!

I might try a Donaldson this year at annual. I don't like the higher cost, but I have to say I am sick of the gooey, sticky mess the Brackets make. They completely soak the lower cowl and nose gear. I sometimes even get drips on the nose tire.

Is the $85 an hour an owner's operating cost? I thought you couldn't rent experimentals as they couldn't be used for commercial purposes?

...and to bring this full circle, because there were so many crashes in the '60s, '70s and '80s, there became so many lawyers involved and GA got a bad rep. Forward to today and the result is, less planes, less pilots and very expensive insurance required by anybody involved with GA. Lower volume + higher overhead = higher GA prices.

I had it in my head that Bill had test flown my plane too. Sadly I can not post a tribute to Bill. On inspection of my logs, somebody else did the factory test flight. That guy flew it for 2 hours, 45 minutes! Maybe he went to get lunch somewhere?

People that complain about how bad it is now with regards to GA accidents really can't see how far we've come. People crashed a lot back in the '60s. In fact, airliners with over a hundred passengers used to crash back then in this country with a regularity that would shock people today. Now that seems unthinkable. GA today is very much safer than it was in '60s, not only in overall fatalities, but also rate per mile flown. A lot of that has been due to beating the "personal all weather airliner" concept out of new pilot's minds. Back in the '60s, that's how they sold airplanes. Back then a "private plane" was a go anywhere, any time family sedan in the sky. Today, many of us are much wiser.

I guess they let you do that there. I hope everybody uses decals to put the letters on. Repainting would be a headache.