Hadyn Bell

September 11th turned out to be a very special day for me and in tribute to the victims of 9/11 I dedicate the successful test flight of the first ever hand built aircraft on Norfolk Island that I had the privilege of test flying on my birthday. It was an extreme success and memorable moment.

Do you want me to quote freight to Norfolk Island too?

A p

I have three ICP standard tyres and tubes down there unused, I will weigh one this afternoon and let you know what the standard one are to compare. Those New unused tyres/tubes are available if anybody needs them.[/QA price please.

Just spent a few days down at Rangiora near Christchurch and met a great bunch of flying enthusiasts who fly in a group around the area doing strip and river bed landings. A great group of guys. Certainly was exciting doing a river bed landing.

Hadyn,Posted reply on my thread before looking at yours. How's that for being self-centred?

Beautiful looking aeroplane. I can understand the pride you would be feeling right now.

 

Are you going to test fly it yourself?

 

Bob

Hadyn

Any progress on your paper work yet Bob?

String line and wing incidence worked out fine. Thanks again to Neil, Bill and Mark for pointing these checks out that weren't in the manual.

An exciting day here for us on Norfolk Island with our first taxi runs on the Norfolk Island airport while we are waiting for the paper work to be processed.

Thanks Bill for fitting me in for my BFR on my very short trip to Australia and thanks also to Neil for being there as a back up.

Looks good hadyn good to see she has made it to the hangar. It will be interesting to see how those solid rods goMark

Sorry for the lack of communication and updates on our Norfolk Island Sav S build. Getting there slowly....... Still a hand full of jobs to do and a bit of painting to finish off but most important thing of all......still enjoying every moment of the build .

Well done Bob, its been enjoyable watching your progress and trying to keep up with you!

My understandinding from my time in the auto industry is that 95 RON is actually a higher level distilled product in the refinery process and it has not had active performance agents added in the same way as some of the 98 RON brands. We use 98 Caltex and have no problems but the 95 is a not a blended fuel as such. Some off the volumatics and additives in the 98 blended fuels can " go off" in some conditions and lose their effective octance performance as a result. I personally would look very carefully and get further technical advice before running a 100UL/S on any modified 91 RON fuels for prolonged periods.

Even in Norfolk Island, the days are getting shorter and the nights longer and the air is cooler (and, possibly, aircraft building motivation may be lacking). It's been nine weeks since we last heard an update.But I am sure that, in your case, there's still progress.

GDay Haydn. Great to hear from you and the schemes a standout. Keep in touch with us....

Hang something heavy on the front before you fit the tail feather or it might tip up and bend something.

Hi All,

Just to keep everyone up to speed, yes we have been working on our Sav even though our time working on her is a little less than we would like. Anyway we are happy with the progress and now that the fuselage is painted we can move on with a large list of things to do...

I finally found something to take care of the horrible rislan tubes that are used for the tank sight gauges. The discolour very quickly and are a real pain to change. I have used festo and Legris pneumatic fittings for many years on my jet models with Avtur and they work fine. My fuel feedback and sump tank breather come back to a fitting I made up using these types of fittings you can see the teflon block I made and the Legris fittings into it. They just push onto the 1/4 inch alu pipes I fitted and also what ICP uses this makes it very easy to fit new tube for the sight levels also the tube I am using will eventually discolour but it is a 5 second job to replace it.The pictures attached will show the fitting which I trim the solid bar section smaller and the tubing in 8mm outside and 6 mm inside so 1/4 inch being 6.25mm it makes a nice hard push on sealed fit to the Legris fitting. I need to put my fuel indicator plates back and cover the holes up again but you should be able to get the idea. On the standard Sav stuff the Rislan connects onto the fittings in the tanks all you need to do is fit some 1/4 inch alu tubing to rubber hose onto the fitting and extend it out to the root rib on the outside then just use the Legris fitting and tube and presto easy to see ...no leaks and very functional. I can supply the part numbers if anyone is interested

As im ready to plump up the tanks, this is something i should look at. I should get you to supply the fittings and pipe along with the prop pitch gauge when you have finished. Sing out when you have it all together...

HadynAll appears to be going nicely.

Would like some advice if you could please. Where the two forward members of the cabin frame enter the front fuselage and then bolt to the firewall/engine mount there appears to be two pieces used to cover in the opening. I have the rear piece, what covers the front of the hole? A part # would be great. I cannot find any reference to this in the manual.

 

Thanks,

 

Bob

There is only one piece supplied to cover the hole and as Mark said it didn't fit too well. I needed to modify it a little and then i made up a piece to fit over the front opening, probably shouldn't have as that is where the base of the screen sits but im sure i can deal with that, . As Mark also pointed out the carpet covers the hole.

Just an update with some pics of where we are at....Still need to fit up the fuel tanks in the wings before they get painted. Other items are now painted and we are in the middle of priming up the other parts.

Yes Mark you are correct that the visual progress starts slowing down at this stage but its nice to get some of those smaller jobs completed. The cabin frame fitted up really well, very happy with the measurements.

Elevator push rod to "adjust" away from the tunnel, one just needs to hunt through the forum to find such consistent problems with other builds, also chat with Mark....

I trust your project is still moving forward, Hadyn? Have fun.

To arrest the thread drift, have a look at this, JG had the same problemhttp://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/broken-sf281-sf282.10736/

 

I think it happens when the bungees return the leg to it's uncompressed position when the tubes welded onto the leg slam into the bracket, talk to the guru, but I think a thicker plate on the top of the leg needs to be machined with a recess for the top of the leg to give more clearence at the bracket, if this is occuring.

Hey mate, I've discovered what I think is a week spot in the design, well I never discovered it, there's been a few break before me- but when the poly stop bush on the nose leg compresses to the stop point( can happen on rough strips taxiing or lowering the nose too early in landing) then the repeated force really taxes the L shape reinforcing bracket and they crack, sometimes through only one or two gussets or all three- the design takes the stop force and protects the firewall from more substantial damage but in a STOL aircraft this is IMHO a bit light on , but not uncommon to light sport aircraft in every attempt to keep weight down. I have replacement to fit but in cracking it loads the main plate and can cause it to bend and then bind through its travel. I ve asked Tom to discuss with factory an improved triangulated gusset that distributes the load better while still protecting the firewall.Glad to hear the builds progressing well.

Hop

"S" is for smooth, the same as the pilots!

A rewarding weekend of work with the undercarriage plates presented and bolted into place with surprisingly little difficulty, didn't have to "prodge" the holes too much. As these items do fit under a little tension it is understandable that they are fitted before setting the cabin frame position.