Things are going very well!
Things are going very well!
The trip was a much bigger adventure than I expected and it will take me a while to write about it and the mistakes I made. I learned a lot and I will write about it in a separate thread in flying photos even though I didn’t take a lot of pictures. I don’t take pictures when I am trying to manage a challenge.
As it is I am rushing around to keep all the balls of the project in the air so it will be a bit. I also need to think about what went wrong and the lessons. This is the build thread so I will try to focus on building Mariah Gale.
Jim did not go flying because he was afraid he would get hooked. He liked the Predator a lot and found himself thinking “I could build this”. He has enough expensive hobbies and doesn’t need another. I will get him up in Maria Gale.
We spent Wednesday night reminiscing about our racing adventures together and sort of planning for Thursday. I was exhausted from 8 hours and close to 300 miles of flying. I didn’t understand why but my friend Jim recognized that I am on high alert the whole time I am flying and the tension is exhausting. The flight back wasn’t as exhausting and I did a better job.
5:15 we were up and feeding the horses and dogs and cats. We got to the Georgetown Airport about 7:00 and started taking pictures and measurements. We don’t want to lose any of the Predator’s good flying qualities. People there were very friendly and helpful.
I realized what we were doing is each designing a gyroplane and then reaching consensus.
Jim has no back ground in aircraft but he worked for twenty years on a very fast racing sloop. He even competed in the Transpac with this little craft. He knows a great deal about water dynamics and how it affects the way things work so he didn’t have any trouble applying that knowledge to understanding how a gyroplane works. He realized that the Mooney tail will affect the way it responds because it is lower. I hadn’t thought about that.
The plan is to build the two side trusses that are defined by the engine mount and the passenger and her relationship to the propeller thrust line, sort of firewall forward. We want to have the variable load as close to center of gravity as possible so it handles the same solo or two up and with the fuel tanks at different levels. We may put 10 gallons under Ed’s seat to tie the two side tanks together. Hopefully it will always be full so it doesn’t matter that it is below the center of gravity.
We are essentially building the two frame sides, tacking them together and let the seats, me and Ed define the cross pieces. In about a month I will go back up with the seats and Ed and figure out how to hook the two sides together and how much and where the sides converge.
The big parts like the front suspension will come next and then the mount for the tail and the main gear. We redesigned the main gear and it will be an A arm on either side that attach to the center lower tube on the keel, we are back to a three sided truss.
There will be to angled push rods that are attached to the axel and go to a link that operates a hydraulic damper. The A arm will be made from aero tubing and the push rod will be faired. We are trying to minimize camber change and hope to have a foot of travel. We are willing to give up a drag to achieve these goals.
Once the tail is mounted we will install the engine and seats, guess at the body weight put the people in and that will define where the suspension goes. The rotor tower is the last structural thing to be built because we want to get the rotor head in the correct position.
Details like the control system come next and the panel mount. We try to think ahead so we don’t back ourselves into a corner and at the same time focus on the task at hand. The fuel tanks will define themselves and we will use that foam to reduce the fire hazard. We are planning on moving the controls below the floor so we end up with a clean floor and use space that is wasted on the Predator
We are going to build a frame table so the two sides are identical. It will have blocks to hold the tubes in place and Jim uses his mill to cove the tubes for a good fit.
We are both 4130 and tig welding enthusiasts.
Jim and I are having a great time and we love working together again. It has been nearly 30 years since our last big project together and 8 years since we built the phantom Indian for Bonneville that set a record but never realized it’s potential.
While he is working on the sides and frame table I am going to get started on the tail.
I have some repairing to do and we want to cut about 8 inches off each side of the horizontal stabilizer. This will require drilling out most of the rivits.
I have a big day tomorrow so I am off to bed.
Thank you, Vance