RivetBangers.com

Today I flew the Cherokee Six right over Boston and up to Biddeford, ME to meet with Antony and Ken.



Antony drove us around in his wife's Dodge monster truck and we picked up Ken.

Here is Ken pulling his -7 out of the hangar at Sanford, ME.



Ken allowed me to manipulate the controls and perform 3 approaches to land with the last one ending with a complete landing in a crosswind from the right seat of his plane! He said that I was the second person to ever land his plane! I did a wheel landing and let it roll out to a nice taxi speed and logged it to boot!

I gotta get riveting!

Thanks Antony and Ken!

CJ

CJ, that ride and flying the 7 just whetted your resolve. Pound away!! The reward is just around the corner!!
Dan

Ok CJ, You're going to have to clarify on "All transitioned now". Does this mean you have completed your RV transition training?

Dan, you are right. After blabbing it all around the internet, I went out to the skunkworks to dimple some wing skins!

...and Bill, well ummmm that was sarchasm at it's Yankee best!



There is much more training in my future between now and the time the plane is done!

It sure is interesting to think about all the minutia of learning a new plane. Especially one you built in your garage!

CJ

I was thinking boy that CJ sure is a fast learner, wish I could of had him as one of my student pilots. Although, I bet you could handle a RV already with all your TW time.

I don't know about the 8 but I've flown the 6 and the 4 and I was surprized how easy they are to land. Most of my tailwheel time is still in my old Aeronca Champ. It always seemed like a handfull in a crosswind but I've been told Champs are among the more docile taildraggers. Well my Champ has nothing on my RV-4. The 4 is the easiest landing plane I've ever flown. I just need to learn to slow her down.

Sorry to let you down guys, but these planes are really easy to fly.

The only thing you have to watch out for is developing bad habits.

Well, one thing I did notice is that the RV does like wheelie landings! Everyone says this and I do agree!

I wonder if this flying characteristic tends to land the nosedragger flatter rather than on the back of the main wheels like good technique suggests?

CJ

Congrats John!! I assume you got the standard rv grin? Sorry I couldn't make it out to play. I didn't get back home until Tuesday afternoon and am working this week. I plan on doing some cross country this Saturday though.

Excellent adventure John!

I did!



Cool, the WX isn't forecasted to be too good this weekend. I have the Six all week, so if you are coming north...

CJ

I've noticed that the RV-8 guys seem to like wheel landings better than the 3, 4, or 6 guys. Though my 4 will wheel land just fine I prefer 3-point landings. Geez, that's a debate just waiting to happen.

I do know that the "A" models actually can land shorter than the tailwheel models. They can flare more and thus slow down more.

But I'd take any RV over just about any other airplane.

Yo John -- Glad you could make it up. Ken is a super nice person, and I am happy you got to meet him.

My paintbooth is almost finished, so the holdup will be gone and I can get back to some serious building.

Talk to you soon.

Antony

Speaking of paint, I have been painting the underside of my top wing skins this morning!



Here they are all stacked up and ready to cleco into position!



Should I be wearing some kind of mask when I paint these things?



Now all I need to do is debur the skeleton on the right side and dimple all the main rib to skin holes!

I am right where I expected to be after this week!

Coming right along!

CJ

lookin' great CJ! my tech counselor is coming over in the morning to look over my emp. i'm itchin' to get into the wings!!

You gotta be!

I can't wait to start the fuse so I can sit my @ss into something!

...like eating an elephant, one bite at a time!

CJ

CJ, did you do your scarf joint where the top skins overlap? If so, how did you do it? Wonder why they don't just cut a notch in the inboard skin where the overlap occurs like they do on the trailing edge?

Bill, not yet.

I am just going to scuff away a bit off the top of the inboard (lower) skin to make it thinner and deburr the holes a tad more.

I am not concerned with making it a perfect transition. Just a good one. I prefer strength over aesthetics anyways. I also don't think it will make a hill of beans for the aerodynamics either.

CJ

captain_john wrote:

Well, one thing I did notice is that the RV does like wheelie landings! Everyone says this and I do agree!

I wonder if this flying characteristic tends to land the nosedragger flatter rather than on the back of the main wheels like good technique suggests?

CJ

I have an RV-4 ....with the short landing gear.
I've found this leaves oneself with very little difference in pitch angle between wheel landing and 3 pointing it. Perhaps the 7's, 8's and tall gear 4's are easier to wheel land.

I find that with an adult passenger in the back, I almost always prefer 3 pointing it. Solo is a different story. When solo I can easily do both, although I think a wheel landing takes up much more runway.

I think there's a lot more room with taildraggers to say that each person's preference/technique also plays a bigger role than tricycle gear on what works best for them.

I'm a big fan of 3 pointers. I can count the number of times I've wheel landed on one hand. That's just my thing. I want to be going as slow as possible if something bad is going to happen on the ground. Everybody has their own way and their own reasons.

Sounds like my tailwheel CFI ... he recommends only 3 pointers in any situation. He's gonna teach wheel landings, but only because he has to. His argument is the same - he wants to be as slow as possible when touching down. He has 1000's of hours in TW airplanes and comfortably flies his C-140 and RV-6 in some pretty good x-wind conditions.
Hopefully someday I'll be as good a stick as he is ... I'm sure the 170 will teach me a thing or two (as will the -8 )

Thomas
-8 wings

Thomas,

That 170 is a BEAUT! Here's wishin' I had that to build time in the meanwhile!

Touching down at stall speed has it's merits, no doubt! Less time in the flare, not as large of pitch changes and shorter real estate. Good all around, really!

The wheelies do get the blood pumpin'!

CJ