Q-talk 150 - Great Christmas Decorations

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Category: Q-talk Articles

Published on Friday, 30 December 2011 15:23

Written by Richard Kaczmarek

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For the guy who has everything!

submitted by Richard Kaczmarek

[Editor's Note: I normally don't like getting e-mail forwards, but I loved this one from Richard Kaczmarek. Darrell Daniels also submitted this to the Q-list, but the pictures didn't come through, so I am posting it here for posterity! Happy Holidays Everyone!]

The site is near the Oak Creek Bridge on the St. Michael’s Road [MD 33] in Newcomb, MD. The folks who own the property always have eye-catching displays celebrating various ‘holidays’ through the year… this year for Jületide they have certainly outdone themselves!

Q-talk 150 - Missing Template

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Category: Q-talk Articles

Published on Wednesday, 28 December 2011 20:54

Written by Richard Hole

Hits: 70

Missing a Template

by Rick Hole

[Editor's Note: I didn't put Rick up to writing this, but I appreciate the endorsement! Glad you got it working. Just remember that if you choose to print only a portion of the template pages that you must turn off all scaling options when you hit the PRINT button. Simply print everything at 100% scale and you should be fine!]

It started with a good economy, a terrific deal on a Q2 5% done kit, and a project partner. When the partner moved away to marry his high school sweetheart and the economy slowed I came to the decision to sell the project. But that hardly got me out of the Q-community. With work to do on N1711Q, Scott Swing’s Q200 now back in his hands I am still building.

Then I was offered a project to build a Q2-Waddlow layup schedule main wing. Great. I can do that. I still have a digital copy of the manual. I borrowed a set of hot-wire and jigging fixture templates and got started. Well, almost started. Two templates were missing. What to do? I knew I could buy the templates at www.quickheads.com but honestly I did not look forward to finding someplace nearby where a 36” x 60” print could be made.

Dan at Quickheads made it simple by sending me a PDF of those prints. Perhaps, I thought, I could extract the parts I needed and print them on my own letter-legal size printer.

These are the same templates as in the original plans but reformatted to 36” paper. Each of the six pages is supplied as a separate PDF file. I opened one page and found one of the templates I needed. To get that to print on standard sized paper I zoomed in so the part needed filled most of the screen. Then I selected the print option with print range set to “Current View”. Depending on the part needed, the Auto-Rotate or Auto-Center check-boxes can be sent. And for larger parts page orientation can be set at Portrait or Landscape as needed, or select a larger paper size. I checked to be sure the document would print at 100%.

The printout was perfectly sized and ready for use. And without the bother of finding a print shop and expense of the large format prints. The PDF pages have a ruler frame so checking the accuracy of the printout is easy. Just lay a ruler on the print and see it match the printed ruler. (I used Foxit Reader. Other PDF readers may work differently).

The ease of use and not having to store a roll of large prints made these files a very nice option. Dan’s price is reasonable and you can have access to them in minutes.

Preview: coming soon, Building a wing table suitable for dancing elephants.

Q-talk 150 - Real Men Don't Use Recipes

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Category: Q-talk Articles

Published on Friday, 30 December 2011 14:55

Written by Mike Evans

Hits: 84

Real Men Don't Use Recipes

By Mike Evans
Tri-Q200, still building in LA

[Editor’s Note: Mike Evans came up with a great idea to share not only his building triumphs, but also some of his building boo-boos. If you’ve gained valuable building experience by learning what NOT to do, please send the story to me for inclusion in a future newsletter. Oh and. . . Thanks again Mike. . . Great Story!]

We all try to learn from other's flying mistakes, but what about the building mistakes. I have one that I could share - a little embarrassing, but instructive to others, I'm sure. Let's see if anyone else has the guts to bare it all to such a critical crowd.

HINT: My embarrassing event was trying to mount a new canopy to my old canopy frame. For some reason, after sitting around for more than a year, it warped out of shape - it was actually about 1 inch too wide in front. I decided to try re-setting the glass by heating it up so that it would take the new, proper shape.

Well, I realized that I didn't want to heat up the Plexiglas, so I built an oven in the driveway that only encompassed the frame - OK so far. Then I clamped the offending "width" so that it was clamped about 1 inch too short, figuring that after heating, it would spring back about right.

The fatal step was trying to heat it up. I thought the cheap insulation I got and Home depot would be fine for confining the heat and I would use my wife's electric heater from the bathroom. I also hooked up a digital temperature gauge to monitor the glass.

Well, the heater wouldn't heat above about 140 degrees F - safety feature! Now what to do.

I did the only “smart” thing I could think of at the moment (after I ran out of ideas), I asked my wife!

She said why don't you start some charcoal and put that inside. It sounded a little scary, but I couldn't think of a better idea, so I did it. Seemed to be working fine, especially after I added a little wind with a small fan inside. The temp. ran up to about 175 in less than 20 minutes. I figured if I could let it soak for an hour, I should be good.

However, after another 15 minutes, I noticed that the insulation that I used was starting to melt! Then a little later, through a melted hole, I actually saw some flames!

Out came the hose and I doused the whole thing. I had put the charcoal in a metal pan and that on top of a metal grill, which in turn sat on some plywood. Well, the heat radiated to the plywood and set it ablaze.

The good news is that I managed to save the frame (although it did smell sort of funny for awhile) and when I took the clamp off and did a trial fit, it was much closer.

By the way, I tried a "melt" test on a piece of my old canopy in the oven (with my digital temp gauge). It softened to the point that it was very malleable at 210 F, but was still quite firm at 200 F. I had tried looking it up on the internet, and got all kinds of different temperatures!

Well, I hadn't planned to go into all of this here, but what the hell.

Q-talk 149 - Odds and Ends

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Category: Q-talk Articles

Published on Tuesday, 01 November 2011 02:31

Written by Dan Yager

Hits: 144

by Dan Yager

Sam Hoskins won the SPRINT CLASS of the Tennessee Valley Air Race you can read about it on his blog here:

http://samhoskins.blogspot.com/

LJ French made the local paper:

http://www.kearneyhub.com/news/article_62722bba-f6f3-11e0-9bd1-001cc4c03286.html

Reg Clarke is the Upholstery business and will have a new fuselage cover for Q2's.  If you're interested please contact him.

Reg Clarke 
XPRESSO.
N624JC. 

Richard Kaczmarek contacted me to say that he is having the FAA come out to his hanger to discuss a flight training waiver for
the Tri-Q, Q2, and Q-200. If the waiver is approved, this would allow a flight instructor to charge for both aircraft and instructor time in a Tri-Q, Q2 or
Q-200.

In addition, Richard spoke with several insurance companies and they would be willing to provide insurance for such an endevour IF the waiver
application is successful.

The FAA guys that Richard talked to seemed upbeat about the prospects, as they would be setting a precedent. They offered to help him write
the waiver, and help shepherd it along.

To help the application process they would like to gather information regarding the rate of first flight trouble for these aircraft. Their
definition is anything "pilot error" within the first 40 hours in type.

If anyone could help me gather and organize the data, it would be very much appreciated. I will include this in the Safety Information I
intend to post to the website shortly, and pass the info along to Richard et al.

More to follow. So please stay tuned. Again, I appreciate everyone's input so far.

Warm regards,
Dan Yager
QBA Editor
www.quickheads.com