brs
Member
OK, I wasn't going to put this build on the forum as I suspect there will be some things here that others may not agree with. But the truth is "there is wisdom in many counselors" (Prov 15:22). No doubt the comunity will able to teach me a lot, and who knows, I might come up some useful stuff here.
So I have this Sparrowhawk-1 which I just purchased. It was built in 2004/2005, never quite finished and never inspected. But its all here (some of it in boxes), mostly done, and priced to where I can afford to back-up and "redo" some of the work and designs. Then finish what the previous builder didn't. Thus the name SparrowHawk Redo, or SHredo.
Now that I have it, I have several mods in store:
So here is what I plan on doing with this machine.
So here is my first question I'm hoping someone knows the answer to. In my mod to make the nose wheel caster, I first plan on welding up the four holes on the top of each fork, where you see the attach bolts in the photo, and redrilling to cause the wheel to trail more. However, this will lower the nose a bit and I'm afraid of making it hard to "unstick" the nose upon takeoff. So perhaps I should lengthen the forks at the same time. Has anyone done this already?
So I have this Sparrowhawk-1 which I just purchased. It was built in 2004/2005, never quite finished and never inspected. But its all here (some of it in boxes), mostly done, and priced to where I can afford to back-up and "redo" some of the work and designs. Then finish what the previous builder didn't. Thus the name SparrowHawk Redo, or SHredo.
Now that I have it, I have several mods in store:
So here is what I plan on doing with this machine.
- Change the tall-tail to a low-tail with three vertical stabilizers.
- Increase the angle of rotation before the rear wheel hits the ground. (More tail wheel ground clearance.)
- Change the steerable nose wheel to a castering nose wheel.
- Change the hand brakes to toe brakes.
- Improve the cooling system.
- Shed a few pounds and hopefully be light enough to put it in LSA category.
- More ....
So here is my first question I'm hoping someone knows the answer to. In my mod to make the nose wheel caster, I first plan on welding up the four holes on the top of each fork, where you see the attach bolts in the photo, and redrilling to cause the wheel to trail more. However, this will lower the nose a bit and I'm afraid of making it hard to "unstick" the nose upon takeoff. So perhaps I should lengthen the forks at the same time. Has anyone done this already?
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