foxworker

Has anyone owned or built a wing in ground effect craft? If I ever have the time and funds to build one, I certainly will. Started designing one back when I was at Skyfox Aviation Caloundra. Flying on a boat licence, no where near the regulations restricting what you can do, awesome fun I suspect.

Yep, the Gazelle is insanely easy to land and take off in. The 'dragger is dead simple to actually fly, it's just that some people found it pretty twitchy to land, I used to love it because if you three pointed well you could pull up in such a short roll.

Hi Sky High, As much as I would love to, I don't have currency so I'm unable to. Are you a certificate holder yourself? I can be contacted on 0402871771 if you want to discuss anything about flying the 'dragger. cheers mate.

Hi David, Fortunately we have hindsight considering both Rob and myself were witness to the silly mistakes made by the previous owners of the Skyfox business. I certainly appreciate your suggestion and any other persons reasonable suggestions. We both know, that is Rob and myself, that overpricing the 'craft will destroy sales so we have to be very careful in considering all costs etc. It is a competitive market and I for one fully appreciate that, so it is paramount to us that we produce an excellent machine without wasting pretty much anything at all be it resources or capital. As for floats, it would be fantastic I agree however regulations have to be adhered to and at first the addition of floats may be a bit difficult to manage, Rob would be better off filling you in on that aspect. I absolutely loved flying the 'fox 'dragger, it was just such a nimble 'craft., this time 'round both the n'wheel and the 'dragger will be even better. Patience grasshopper, patience. cheers Paul:smile:

Rob is busy with some engineering details with respect to the wing structures, we want to get it right this time. I've been waiting for years to build this 'plane again, and one thing I learnt after having seen the rise and fall of this aircraft before, is that if one fails to plan, with attention to all the details, then one plans to fail. In short, when every issue has been addressed in full it will be time to start building number 1, hopefully pretty darn soon! thanks and cheers.

David, It is going to happen, there's still quite a lot to do. The new fox will have some great improvements, but all the boxes have to be ticked before starting to manufacture. Personally I can't wait to start, it always was a great little aircraft, this time it will be even better. cheers Paul.

I have been told by a certain person that he can get them from the states, I expect he would have to buy in bulk, then once over here he would mill the ends out to the specs., I'm yet to see any. I'm not absolutely sure what the rulings are on extending life on the current spars, but the way I look at it is this, spars in the wing structures at present can be extracted, inspected, chemically treated again and put back in, by a suitably qualified/experienced person. It is quite a job and really does require good knowledge of the structure, even removing the old 2216 has to be done the correct way in order to eliminate damage to the spar. I've always maintained that the spar is not really much of an issue when the 4000 hr approaches (from memory it's 4000), it's the glue joints that could possibly be in need of attention, and by re-forming all the joints again, and there's over 125 2216 glue/flox joints per set alone ,( 1.4 kilograms of 2216 go into a set of fox wings from memory), and to remove and then reattach the false ribs, stringers,trailing edges and removing and re fitting the tanks, re sealing all the timber and joints, you'd pretty much have a fully reconditioned structure. I believe there would be a number of early foxes out there that would greatly benefit from such a process. cheers, Paul

Thanks for the offer Mike, yes I have spoken to Rob, as for the new wing etc. not sure when it will go ahead.

Hi Fox owners, Just a reminder, if you need your wing structures repaired or rebuilt to the original factory specs, (I have the build specifications), contact me on this forum or call me on 0402 871 771. Any work would have to be done here in Brisbane north side. cheers Paul T. ex. Fox 'dragger instructor/factory wing structure builder/trainer.

Apologies for such a late response, sorry I cannot help you with your question. I would try Carl, carlsnilsson on this forum. Thanks Paul.

Neil, Apologies for the response time. I do know what you are referring to so I don't require photos. The glue that was used in the factory was polytac. Iwould be using the same. Google the product and you should be able to get a good idea on how to go about your repairs. The other person who would be of help to you is carlsnilsson via this forum. Thanks Paul

AT502, Airtractor ?.... now there's a machine, definately not uninteresting.

:thumb_up: Good stuff Mike. Just so happens that I have email pictures of a 'dragger that appears to have almost identical damage including the bent diagonal tube, bent towards the pilot roughly 20 mil or so. A friend of mine "may" be able to answer your question on why the bend happened; he built all the fuses. When you're ready, give me a call as I know someone who can probably supply strut material etc. for your repairs,(he is also approved to build new struts as well if need be), and "possibly" a spar if you require one. Also new hanger material. I would suggest you get an idea of all the costs and time involved in the repairs neccessary and take that off the average price for such a Fox in cosideration of the time left on the engine etc. etc.cheers paul

Apologies, from memory I think it was "Dulon" and not Dulux. cheers paul

What type of tailwheel you thinking Pete?

After further investigation it appears as though it is not possible to replace the bushes. Removal and replacment of these bushes was not considered when producing the ailerons. If someone has come up with a solution that is practical and of an acceptable standard, I would surely like to know.cheers paul

Dear Mike, thanks for the question. I recall when I was talking to Carl about repairing his wing before he made the decision to bring it up to me, that after many conversations on the phone his repair seamed pretty straight forward. It wasn't until the fabric was removed that the whole picture began to un-fold. My point being that what at first appears to be straight forward can very well turn out to be quite substantial when you actually see the structure. Okay, now to try and answer your question. I have stated before that it is not rocket science to re-build or repair 'fox wings, but in saying that I have built almost 70 sets. You do need pretty specific skills and knowledge to properly repair these wings, I'm pretty sure Carl will back me up on that point. If you don't have a very good eye/attention for detail, and if you are not great with your hand skills, you're probably going to get quite frustrated and possibly make mistakes. If on the other hand you are used to using all sorts of hand tools, including air, if you can make cuts in materials to very fine tolerances, if you can remove materials very carefully without damaging substrates, if you can form epoxy/cotton flox glue joints very cleanly and neatly and you are able to build jigs and templates, you've got a good chance of repairing your wings to the same standards that they were built to ie. SA-10. One of the best "students " I ever had the pleasure of teaching the art of 'fox wing building was a retired vetinary micro-surgeon. In saying that, 1000's of people have built Kitfox wings successfully. I've also stated before that I've read of people attempting to repair their 'fox wings when clearly they didn't have the skills or expertise needed, which I think is a bit of a worry especially if they intended to sell their 'fox down the road. I think you need to ask yourself this question; would you be happy to sell your aircraft with wing work that you had carried out yourself to, say, a casa inspector who told you he would be re-fabricing the wings if he were to buy it? You'd want to be real sure you did a spot on job. I remember at one stage Skyfox decided it would be a great idea to have Sir Joe Bjelki-Peterson as their ambassador to help boost sales, (unfortunately had no effect what so ever), and on meeting ol' Joe, he said to me "wing building-that's an art within itself". He was correct and you need to look at it that way to some extent. I do hope I've shed a bit of light on the practise of Skyfox wing building/repairing as it really is not for everybody. Mike, is the fox your talking about white with blue stripe rego. 24- 40**. If not disregard this question. I f you want to talk more you can contact me on 0402871771. Leave a message if I don't answer. cheers paul

Hi Blueadventures, thanks for your question. Now, I do know that all of the CA25N Gazelles were painted in Dulux 2 pak polyurethne and a couple were painted with Dulux clear over basecoat. The fibreglass cowls, spats, tips had a 2 pak epoxy hi fill primer and were finished with the Dulux 2-pak. If I had the job of re painting a cowl etc. I would be removing all the top coat down to the undercoat, and if it were metallic or mica, I would be going 2-pak clear over base. The 2-pak polyurethane used on the Gazelles where it was metallic blue was called "Magnatite Blue". I'm not sure what is on your cowl, I'd be rather surprised if it were 2-pak epoxy. I find it always a hec of alot easier to respray the whole item. I hope this has been helpfull.

Hi Barandbrew, As Carl has stated there have been no proceedures set down for measuring excess play in the bushes in question, certainly none that I am aware of; it hasn't been an issue before. I am currently disscussing this with an ex. Skyfox employee who made the actual 4130 brackets and we are trying to come up with a solution for replacing the bushes if it is indeed possible. I believe tomorrow evening I will be able to give you some usefull info. Thanks again,paul.

Hmm, this is an interesting question. I'm assuming your referring to the "plastic" bushes between the aileron spars and the 4130 steel tube sections which are welded to the two flat sections which in turn are bolted to the ply hangers. There are no bushes in the ply hangers themselves, just two AN bolts running through the 4130 flat metal sections and the ply. There will be slight movement side to side with the steel tube sections , but I don't believe there should be play in the bushes up and down or forward and backwards. What sort of play are you experiencing? The ailerons were built seperately to the wing structures by another fellow so I'm not positively sure about proceedures for replacing these bushes; from memory the bushes were inserted whilst the ailerons were being built and then the whole lot was glued and rivetted. I will endeavour to find out more about this and get back to you as soon as I have the correct info. Thanks for the question, cheers paul.

You are correct and I understand the provision. The organisation would still have to make up the die and extrusion equipment and that is quite expensive itself; I vaguely recall a conversation with the owner of Skyfox/Hedaro ( pre the Abu Dhabi owners), who was telling me how expensive it was at the time. The cost of having replacement spars made up would be prohibitive to most owners, just the 6061 T6 aluminium stock would cost a small fortune; we're talking thousands not hundreds. However, if it were ever to happen, it would solve a potential dilema down the track, as even if the spars were lifed to 10000 hrs, after that the aircraft would basically be throw away. APMA :Australian Parts Manufacturing Approval. cheers paul

I can guarantee you if it is a Skyfox Gazelle Ca25N, they will be 11 ply mahogany quality ply of 6mm thickness. As a minimum, the min ply spec is for GL2 birch. This information is on the C.A.R approved drawings. No designer in his right mind would use anything less than ply in such an application, where wood is the prefered material. I certainly did not put any other type of timber rib into any of the gazelle wings that I built or oversaw the construction of, and I was in charge of building every set of Gazelle wings.cheers paul

Dear djpacro, Wish it were that simple. The original spars as far as I can remember, were extruded in the USA, (I remember there were often hold ups with delivery). I think there may of been a couple of suppliers because I remember at one stage, I think when we started producing the Gazelles, the extruders kept having problems when the die sets kept breaking. Here's the problem/s, 1) even if I were able to locate the extruders, equipment and dies, from the manufacturer in the USA, if they still exist, I expect there would be zilch chance of getting the equipment off them. 2) Manufacturing the equipment to produce the extruded section would be prohibitively expensive and therefore the spars would cost a fortune to produce/purchase. 3) It is not just a simple case of going and producing a part for a fully certified aircraft without having an APMA. I have a friend who is the holder of such an approval, and I tend to believe what he says. I believe the best thing to do is to have the spar life extended to 10000 hours. Note I say spars not the rest of the wings. All the parts for the wings can be reproduced easily, legally, and reasonably inexpensively. cheers paul

Hi Blueadventures, good to hear from you. You can contact me on mobile 0402871771. Often I don't hear my phone during work hours due to the noise where I work, so please leave me an sms message with a contact number and I will call you back as soon as I am able. Look forward to talking 'fox wings. chers paul

I'm a big fan of the 'fox taildragger; I learnt to fly in VH-LRF. I find the Gazelles pretty un-interesting to fly. However the great thing that both aircraft do really well is side slipping. You can slip them all the way down, correct them easily and pretty much just gently plonk them on the ground. I'm definately a three pointer in the 'dragger; the gazelle almost lands itself. Great plane to do the initial training in (Gazelle).