Cotton Waiex 191 - N191YX

[Bryan Cotton]

Thanks guys! I have an old habit of leaning on the ground. One good thing about my center controls setup is I can easily push the fuel on, mixture rich, and full throttle with one hand and one motion. You may need to open the image below to see the whole thing, especially on a mobile device.

[Bryan Cotton]

Did my first pattern work today. One hour, 7 landings. I flew off one of the grass runways, as I'm getting used to the crosswind capability of the Waiex. I need to check rudder travel and make sure the pedals are not hitting the firewall. The rudder seems weak compared to other tailwheel aircraft I've flown. From discussions on the forum, I sort of expected that, but I want to make sure I'm getting everything I can.

[Bryan Cotton]

I discovered two things:
1) I had 2 or 3 missing degrees of travel as measured at the mini-rudder. I've since clearanced the horns and stops to get all the travel as per the plans.
2) The pedals are supposed to be 3/8" off the firewall when you are on the rudder stop. Mine were on the firewall, for the old rudder stop configuration with the missing travel.

Once I complete item 2) I'll be flying again. Worst part of it will be working under the panel to remove, mark, and reinstall the aluminum links between the cables and the pedals. I am hopeful my crosswind rudder power will be sufficient after completing this.

[MichaelFarley56]

I wish you the best of luck Bryan on rudder travel. As much as I hate to say it, after 400+ hours in my Waiex, I still feel that my crosswind limit is only around 10 mph of crosswind component. I’ve checked my rigging multiple times and done some other small modifications to the mixer assembly in an effort to get more yaw authority. Last summer I added the larger tailwheel in hopes of landing at a faster airspeed, thinking that may help a little but I don’t think it did much. I’d quite literally pay money if a mod became available that gives us YX guys more crosswind capability.

Regardless, be cautious and work up to your crossswind limit slowly. I have found partial or no flap landings do help as you are landing faster, if that helps.

Good luck!

[Bryan Cotton]

The rudder is a little better, but no super cub.

I got out at lunchtime and did some pattern work. I had a little crosswind. Not fully good on the sight picture yet.

[Bryan Cotton]

Airplane is back together and I taxied to the pump to top off. Brakes failed at the pump. Managed not to hit anything. For the taxi back, part of it is downhill so I shut off the engine to minimize thrust. Wheels don't sound right. Seems likely I have the common issue of the bearings seating more after initial installation and I'll need to address that.

[Bryan Cotton]

I flew a set of airspeed calibration points today, using Jeff's excel sheets from Sonex604.com. Thanks Jeff! For OAT I used a meat thermometer stuck out the gap at the lower forward corner of the canopy.

Horrible landing - got a big shudder on the right hand gear. It popped the landing gear fairing out of the little hole in the fuselage. I need to figure that out. I suspect it is bad pilot technique.

[Bryan Cotton]

I flew 1.3 today. Still lots of oil out the breather but I've not seen anything on the floor yet. Today was Vx/Vy testing day. I worked that Aerovee hard.

1.3 was the total run time. Per the MFD, 1.0 of that was flight time. My fuel burn was 5 gallons, approximately.

The fuel was too full after stopping at the pump. I can't put the tail on a sawhorse. When I dragged the airplane in the hangar there was 100LL dumping out the vent. I used it to clean the oil off of the belly.

[pfhoeycfi]

I also had unreadable transmissions until I installed a large capacitor in the alternator/regulator system. Clear as a bell, after the install, I was told.

What cap did you use and how it was terminated?

peter

[Area 51%]

I also had unreadable transmissions until I installed a large capacitor in the alternator/regulator system. Clear as a bell, after the install, I was told.

What cap did you use and how it was terminated?

peter

Sorry for the late reply. Been on vacation. It was a Sprague 10,000UF 40V computer grade screw terminal bus capacitor. I installed it per the Crowbar diagram.

Sorry for the interruption Bryan.