Q-talk 81 - May/Jun 2000 - index

MAY/JUN 2000
ISSUE NUMBER 81

QUICKIE BUILDERS ASSOCIATION

MATTOON FLY-IN

by Dave Richardson

I wasn't able to make it up to Mattoon, Illinois for the first annual fly-in. So I'm going to let Dave Richardson tell how the weekend went.

 

 

Susie and I just got back from the Mattoon Fly-In and we wanted to fill you and the QBA in on how the weekend went. To put it simply, it was great! Unfortunately, the storms prevented several people from attending. There were openings in the weather that gave us a chance to fly and we managed to hangar fly when it was bad.

The Mattoon airport is nestled in the flat and fertile farmlands of east-central Illinois. The two ample runway surfaces are in fabulous shape. The airport has a small terminal and restaurant on site. To say the least, the restaurant is unique. Unique primarily because the general public really supports the place. The prices were very reasonable and the food was good. Friday evening the main restaurant was packed so they let us use the extra dining/meeting room. That worked out very well. We probably filled only a third of the tables and chairs there but we did fill the entire room with laughter. We ate all the meals at the airport restaurant including their hearty breakfast specials because it was handy to have a place on the grounds where you could sit down and relax in air-conditioned comfort while you ate.

The FBO manager, Shannon Youakim, went out of her way to make sure we all felt at home at their facility. They even provided flush toilets! There was no fee for hangar space, and it was appreciated given the storms that raced through each evening. The hangar assigned to us was huge and could easily house the flying fleet of Quickies.

The storm system created crosswinds to all the surfaced runways most of the weekend. Jerry Marstall was heard complementing Sam Hoskins on his left-main/tail-wheel crosswind landing. Sam had a different opinion about the landing. :-)

There were two major flying sessions on Saturday. The morning winds were not too stiff. The Q1's took off and made several photo op passes in formation. Earnest Martin took several folks for a ride in his 135 hp Tri-Q200. One of the passengers was new to aviation and was considering building a Quickie. The guy had stretch marks on his cheeks after the flight from grinning so much.

Not to be outdone by the recent proliferation of engine variants for the two place Quickies, Q1 drivers Terry Crouch and Keith Welsh coined a new moniker for their mighty Onan engines; O2. Maybe someday they will grow up to be O-200's.

Jerry Marstall removed his cowl to check his valves and carburetor on Saturday morning. That gave everyone a chance to see his exhaust pipes that have recently been ceramic coated. He also wrapped his intake manifold with the same ceramic tape that you see used on exhaust pipes. He reported excellent results with this technique. He got the idea from a forum on cooling drag at Sun 'n Fun last spring. They said any ambient heat under the cowl that gets absorbed by the intake manifolds would be passed right through to the CHT and EGT's. By reducing the radiant heat from the exhaust pipes and reducing the ability of the intakes to absorb heat, Jerry was able to see 75 degree lower CHT's and 130-150 lower EGT's.

Keith Welsh, under the watchful eye of Terry Crouch, removed his cowl to try to eliminate a nagging problem with sputtering. They tried a couple of ideas with no success. The work continued on Sunday with the hope of a solution. Keith took the fuel pump off of his John Deere tractor and installed it on the plane to see if it would fix the problem. Now that's priorities.

On Saturday afternoon a break in the weather made it possible to fly again. Earnest Martin asked me if I would like to fly with him. I'm not sure if he even had a chance to finish asking his question before I jumped in and clicked the seatbelt. Jerry Marstall cranked up his mighty Tri-Q2 and we taxied together out to the active runway. Since I'm building a Tri-Q2 similar to Jerry's, it was really inspiring to see a Tri-Q2 on the move. Jerry departed and Earnest and I soon followed him into the air. We quickly positioned just off Jerry's right wing. Jerry flies from the right seat so that made it easy for Jerry and Earnest to keep each other in sight. Earnest said they flew like that most of the way from North Carolina. I have never flown that close to another Quickie before. It was a sight to behold!

With Jerry in the lead, we made several formation turns. Earnest was busy on the throttle maintaining a constant distance from Jerry. Jerry broke off and Earnest let me take over the controls for a while. His plane was stable and very responsive to control inputs. It felt like an expensive sports car. Nailing a heading out of a roll was nothing for this crisp bird. We cranked it up to 180 mph in level flight for a short time. The highlight of the flight was when Earnest suggested I make a low pass over the runway. This was the first time in my one or two hours of Quickie flight time to fly that low. I got down to about 200 feet AGL for the length of the runway and zoomed it back up to the TPA. Talk about fun! WOW!

All in all we had an excellent time at the Mattoon Fly-In. Steve Larribee and Keith Welsh deserve a lot of credit for planning the event and a huge "Thank You" for agreeing to host the fly-in again next year. It is nice to have another opportunity to see friends and FLY!

Dave Richardson, Stow, OH

 

HERE ARE THE GUYS WHO FLEW IN:

Q-1 ......... Terry Crouch ..... Bettendorf, IA

Q-1 ......... Keith Welsh ...... Marshall, IL

Tri-Q-2 ..... Jerry Marstall ... Asheville, NC

Tri-Q-C-85 .. Jim Doyle ........ Springfield, IL

Q-200 ....... Larry Koutz ...... Valdosta, GA

Q-200 ....... Sam Hoskins ...... Murphysboro, IL

Q-200 ....... Paul Fisher ...... Taylor Ridge, IL

Tri-Q-200 ... Earnest Martin ... Arden, NC

 

EDITOR UPDATES

 

 

QBA OSHKOSH 2000

HOT DOG ROAST

Friday, July 27th, 5:00 p.m. till closing

Mike Brown has volunteered to host a QBA Hot Dog Roast at this years Oshkosh event. The roast will be held in the camping area wherever Mike pitches his tent (pop-up camper). This will be your basic QBA $2.00 ALL YOU CAN EAT/DRINK event. Mike will post directions at the Homebuilders Headquarters building on the field, the Red Barn, and the Volunteer Shack in the campgrounds. You can also catch Mike (and directions) at the Ford Tri-Motor ride area. He will be there every day (this gets him some stick time in the old TRI-motor for his generous effort).

 

QBA BACK PORCH MEETING

Sunday, July 30th at 10:00 a.m. to Noon

There will be a QBA meeting on the back porch of the Homebuilders Headquarters on Sunday morning.

 

TRI-GEAR WEB SITE

Mark Greenwood has set-up a web site for his TRI-GEAR business. You can find him at:

www.Q-GEAR.COM

Other Articles In This Issue

MATTOON PIX - by Tom Moore
LETTERS, ETC. - by Tom Moore
CLASSIFIEDS - by Tom Moore

 


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