Parachute trip, revised rudder and covering.


So its been a very busy 3 weeks. I have been traveling on my job and last week end my friend Ed and I drove to Phoenix Arizona to buy a Mini-Max project, I was looking for a Second Chanz 550 or 600 ballistic parachute, This particular model weighs 13 and 17 lbs respectively. Because of the 30 lb weight allowance the FAA allows, this particular model will give me the 10 lb margin that the prototype appears to be overweight. I found a project for sale and one of the items was a model 600 ballistic chute. I called my Buddy Ed Gardner and asked him if he wanted to split the whole deal, he gets the complete project, I get the parachute. The final price was a really good deal, circumstances combined to force Mike Gurtler to part with his project.

Mike and his old Project

I got to hand it to my Friend Ed, he had a really good idea about how to pack the project, he bought 2 foot wide packing wrap, similar to Saran Wrap. We covered each section three times. That turned out to be the perfect number. We hit nasty weather coming back thru the mountains near El Paso. On the following day (Sunday) we were in ice, rain and snow all the way to the Dallas Fort Worth area

We spent about 2 hours packing the project in Phoenix.

Mike and me just before shove off

Ed and I drove my old 96 Chevy Z71 Pick Up. (219,000 miles)  I have had this truck since it was new and I have religiously maintained her,but 2 years ago I had to put in a new transmission. Other than that I have not touched her. I attribute her long life to the use of Mobil 1 oil . Anyway, she made the trip

ready to shove off

We both got one hell of a deal, I got a $3200 parachute and Ed got an airplane complete with all covering materials , engine and a brand new composite ground adjustable prop. I wont mention the price, but our gas was just about equal!!!
I accused Ed of being really anal when it came to packing up the project, well that turned out for the better, he decided to do one last walk around through Mikes garage and guess what!! There was my parachute sitting on top of a trash can!! That was the whole reason I bought half of this project. It would have been near impossible to ship the chute to me once I had left. The pyrotechnic would have to have been removed.

 I finished my Wing Walk and started covering the L/H wing. I then went back to the rudder. Turns out I designed the trailing edge too light. After I covered the rudder I noticed the trailing edge was scalloping and the fabric was losing its tension.

wing walk skin installed

This picture shows the wing walk after installation. The outer glass surface has been scuff sanded.

using the Multi-tool to cut off the training edge

So I used my muiti-tool to cut off the trailing edge. as you can see in this photo, its only .125" thick and .75" wide. This was actually unstable in torsion. After the fabric was shrunk, the trailing edge rolled over. I am modifying the trailing edge to be similar ti the rest of the airplane. I will detail the Trailing edge attachment in the next blog.

I prepped the L/H wing for cover, but will not actually be able to cover it until Tomorrow.
I tried to mount my new Ballistic parachute and discovered that due to the wing being overweight, I cannot mount the chute behind the pilot (at least not now) The weight and balance right now was the rear limit at 30% with no fuel and 22% fwd CG with full fuel. Still working on the chute installation. I am thinking that I will mount the wings after cover and then check the final balance. This will determine where the parachute goes