A day of War at the fort! I provided air support.

Another afternoon at the fort. Weather forecast was for a front moving through with tunderstorms, but we counted on it doing its usual thing for this area, and passing fast and moving on out. So we planned to meet up between 2 and 3:00 and fly till about 8. I had some work to do on the Nobler since my shakedown flight on Saturday. It clearly needed some tail weight, and I had taped 7g to the tail. I took that off and found some solid wood on the bottom of the rudder for a 4-40 bolt and put some more weight on it, up to 14g now. And I bought another tongue muffler from Eric Rule of RSM, which should lighten the nose. It was so slow on the controls that I widened the cables on the handle to about HotRock width.

The engine was also overheating because, without realizing my mistake, I stuffed its cooling duct with padding for the fuel tank. Still getting used to cowled engines. In fact on the Oriental, I also need to cut another vent over the engine's side bypass to keep the ABN 40fp from running away, but only on mid 90F and hotter days. I bet a steel version of that engine would need even more air flow to keep it cool. I've bored extra holes in both mufflers for the same reason. I think the Nobler's will get an additional extra row. All that being said, the 35fp is such a wonderfully friendly engine... I keep saying that. But even with my gimpy cranking arm, it has yet to take more than 3 flips to crank.
Here's a picture of what I changed to restore the air flow through the bottom of the cowl and exit in front of the LG.
Before, I had just crammed it full of rectangles of thin type beer koozies, my usual tank padding. For places that require a firmer pad I use thin mouse pads. Both materials can withstand fuel soak, but that mostly only happens on profiles. If you have fuel soaked pads in a full fuse plane, you've got bigger problems than wet koozies.


It's aluminum, thicker than I would've liked. I punched the screw holes with a scratch awl so they would have protruding keepers to hold it in existing screw holes for the cowl, and make it easier for quick work if I ever have to go in there during a contest. Then I got bit by another full fuse no-brainer. The exit vent is significantly smaller than the intake. The cowl stops and opens about an inch in front of the LG, as you can see in the picture above. I realized it as soon as I put the final screw in last night... at 11:45pm. Screw it, good night, maybe it'll still be better.

I rolled into the fort to find soldiers all over the place, and a whole lot more automatic weapons fire and grenades than usual. They were playing serious War! The berm at one end of the runway had a long table with a bunch of red flags and a few guys milling around it. I asked a Drill Sgt. if I was going to be in their way, and he said they were moving out in a few minutes, so I rolled out the lines on the Nobler and fooled around waiting for Wayne and Jim and Bob Z to show up. The ribbons on the flagpole were standing straight out and snapping in the wind. My two weather watching glider pilot friends later confirmed what NOAA was saying, about 12mph with gusts, but steady and mostly straight down the runway with no obstructions. This is what I want contest winds to be like. I've flown in wind almost every time I fly at the fort and I feel like it gives me an advantage.

So they finally rolled in, minus Bob because it was too far for him to drive with questionable weather. I was all set up and started fueling as soon as I saw them parking. Wayne and I walked the Nobler out. I expected to have to fiddle with the needle, because when I ordered the muffler I neglected to order a pressure nipple. So I cranked it with the forward facing vent tube open. It cranked right up and was easy enough to needle. I heard it speeding up as I walked to the lines and turned around to see Wayne turn it a little richer. It's a good thing because after I was airborne it leaned out again. So no question, I need to open that rear air vent more. It's supposed to be twice as large as the intake, and it's nowhere near that. But luckily it wasn't making pre-ignition noise and it stayed about the same for the whole flight. As it turns out, I could not have handled the wind with any slower engine run.

As I was making the first 5 obligatory laps, I saw a row of soldiers standing on the berm watching. I love an audience! Wayne wants me to bias the wind, and I know how, but I prefer not to, so I did everything straightaway. My wingover was tight on the lines, so I was off to the races. I was careful with it since it was the first test of my weight and control adjustments, but it turned much better. My inside loops were good big and round and so were my outsides. All of my shapes were clean even with the wind challenging my pullouts. I got scary low on a triangle, but the Nobler is such a truck, it didn't bobble. I'm finally getting over that. My least pretty shape was the second half of my square 8. Making the two outside turns I got blown out of shape, but I recovered for a nice final intersection and a square exit. I got too close to the ground a couple of times, but it went off without having to do any extra laps to regain my composure. One of the biggest tests is the climb into loop3 of the clover, and again the climb into the exit wingover into the wind, but the FP35 has the guts... at least when it's running lean. Way too many laps later I landed. And heard something unusual from Wayne. "Boy, if you'da flown that pattern in a contest... in this wind, you would have blown everybody away." Well Hot Damn! I remembered the rough parts, and I'm my own worst critic. But it felt good to finally hear that from someone who's been hanging with me from the beginning. Strangely, that's back to back, Saturday he told me one of my flights would have impressed the Judges. It was a slow slightly too rich pattern on the oriental in dead calm air when I had to walk back to keep air lifting it. Either Wayne is getting cheesy in his old age, or I am improving.

Then the weather moved in and Wayne hadn't even rigged his IDS or P-40. We waited it out, but the front was pushing another line of storms. So we yakked for a while and decided to call it at about 6:00. But I'm glad I got at least that one flight. I'll open up the cooling duct and try again. It might be a while, we both have a lot going on this month, but stay tuned in case I get out again. I'll probably fly the Baby Streak. Been toting it around for several trips and never seem to get to it. But I can fly it at the Church. I'm kinda itching to do that. Make a movie, just like the old days.

Later,
Rusty