Canard Aviation

Just before lunchtime, the crisp bark of a Lycoming O-320 was blown across the tarmac by the remains of Gustav at Lancaster Texas.
N131JF was fired up after 368 days of inactivity. Help provided by Jesse Huerta, and the J&S Aviation Pressurized Engine Oiling Kit (see above posting for more details). The engine ran like a watch until we shut it down once the CHTs reached 300 degrees.
In addition to running the engine for the first time, the Annual Condition Inspection was completed and signed-off, and the transponder was re-certificated.
Since I completed my Biennial Flight Review on Labor Day with Gerhard, the plane is now fully legal and the pilot is fully legal. I now have no choice but to fly.
The first flight for a while will occur at the weekend, once the modified aero devices (gear leg fairings, wheelpants and spinner) have been fully primed. That way the plane does not look like a patchwork quilt...

I got a letter today from the FAA enclosing my Third Class medical certificate. This, you will recall, is the one I applied for last September, which was denied because I disclosed that I was taking an anti-anxiety medication (Cymbalta) at the time.
Since April of this year I have been working with Dr. Stephan Kramer of Frisco TX to get my medical certificate restored. This has probably cost me around $1000 in doctors fees so far, including $500 for a battery of cognitive tests that gave me a totally clean bill of health.
Still, the FAA does not seem to be that convinced of my mental state...they have only given me a certificate until 20th June 2009. They also want me to provide another set of medical reports to them "on or about April 1st 2009". I will need to discuss with Dr. Kramer exactly what that set of reports needs to contain. I hope that it is not another $1000 worth of reports, but I fear that it may be. Since I am not consulting with a psychiatrist any more, and I am not taking any medications, this report may be rather small, but I will be guided by Dr. Kramer as to what is required.
In addition, the letter contains this statement:

Because of your history of anxiety, depression and ADD, operation of aircraft is prohibited at any time new symptoms or adverse changes occur, or if you experience side-effects or require a change in medication.

This is an odd statement to make, since I have not been on medication since October 27th last year (and I am much the better for it; Cymbalta certainly eliminated my anxiety symptoms, but it also negatively impacted my creative thought processes). Reading this text makes me wonder just how much the FAA examiner actually read of my medical reports.
So, to sum up: I have my medical back, which is good news. However, the FAA certainly seems to be wanting to convert this into some sort of ongoing "prove your sanity" saga, which is not good.
I am now beginning to understand why many pilots have at best a jaundiced view of any involvement with the FAA...

A start-up corporation named SwiftFuel claims to have the formula for a new non-petroleum fuel to (presumably) replace 100LL. This is a critique of their announcements on their MySpace page and their web site.
Unsurprisingly, many of the reactions are a tad skeptical...

If you have any sense of smell, and you fuel both a road car and an airplane which uses 100LL, you soon notice that compared to 100LL, road car fuel stinks to high heaven. Quite simply, it smells "nasty" when compared to 100LL.
The reason for this is that, compared to road car fuel, 100LL is more tightly regulated. There is a single standard (ASTM D910 in the USA) to which Avgas has to conform. This standard has been in place for a long time, and there are no local exceptions to the standard. All 100LL brewed in the USA has to conform to this standard. As a result, refineries do not adjust the composition of 100LL when they brew it the way that they adjust the composition of road car gasolines. For example, ASTM D910 does not allow the addition of ethanol. It has no "summer fuel" rules, and no state-specific rules either.
Avgas is comprised largely of alkylate, which is a high-octane feedstock produced in an alkylation unit in a refinery. Here is some of a Wikipedia entry about alkylate:

The product is called alkylate and is composed of a mixture of high-octane, branched-chain paraffinic hydrocarbons (mostly isopentane and isooctane). Alkylate is a premium gasoline blending stock because it has exceptional antiknock properties and is clean burning. Alkylate is also a key component of avgas. The octane number of the alkylate depends mainly upon the kind of olefins used and upon operating conditions. For example, isooctane results from combining butylene with isobutane and has an octane rating of 100 by definition. There are other products in the alkylate, so the octane rating will vary accordingly.

Raw alkylate can have a RON (Research Octane Number) of up to 100, but more commonly it has a RON of between 90 and 94. Often the refinery will add some reformate stock to adjust or optimize the octane rating. Finally, a minimum amount of tetraethyl lead is added to bring the octane rating up to the level required in the standard. The standard specifies a maximum lead content, but most 100LL contains a lot less lead than the allowed maximum.
The final result is not only a high-octane fuel, and, because it is usually blended from only two feedstocks, a chemically very pure fuel compared to the road car gasoline that flows out of the pump at your local filling station. That fuel is a blended base stock from a refinery (possibly containing dozens of different feedstocks). To that can be added ethanol, and the garage operator's own proprietary additive package. The result is a reasonably high-octane but also complex (and usually foul-smelling) brew.
The bad news is that alkylate and reformate are both premium gasoline feedstock. Nothing else comes close to them for sustained high octane ratings; therefore the cost of alkylate and reformate feedstocks is high, especially in the summer months, when more of it is used in road car gasoline brewing to meet summer gasoline standards. There is never enough alkylate and reformate to go around in the refining system.
100LL is only produced in batches to meet anticipated demand, it is not produced continously unlike road car gasoline. It also requires purging/cleaning of the refinery hardware used for brewing after use, because of the lead contamination. This, plus the cost of its dedicated distribution network comprised entirely of trucks and storage tanks (no pipelines) gives the three reasons why 100LL will always be more expensive than road car gasoline:

1. Use of premium feedstocks (alkylate and reformate)
2. Special refining procedures based on occasional on-demand production
3. Dedicated distribution infrastructure

While surfing the AOPA Forums, I came across a discussion which includes inputs by folks working in and around the petroleum industry.
One of the reasons why petroleum companies are adding 10% of ethanol to gasoline, making a fuel known in the industry as E10, is that they get a tax credit for adding ethanol. This reduces their cost to blend the fuel, providing them with a powerful fiscal incentive to brew E10 even if there is no legal requirement for them to do so.
However, a more pernicious impact of blending ethanol with gasoline is outlined in a post on the AOPA forums:

Ethanol has a Motor Octane Number (MON) of about 112, much higher than auto gasoline. At the 10% level of blending it boosts the AKI of the resultant blend by about 3, so if the terminal is using 87 AKI stock and adding 10% ethanol to make E10 which is the most common ethanol blend, it is about 90 AKI. Same goes for premium unleaded.
The wrinkle comes when a whole state goes E10. Then the terminals order "sub-octane" blending stock for regular which is about 84 MON, they blend the ethanol and it goes out as 87 AKI.

If this shift to sub-octane blending stock occurs at the refinery level,the refineries will stop sending out gasoline base stock at 87 AKI, and instead send it out at 84 AKI. For premium, they will stop sending out 92-93 octane AKI base stock, and instead sent out stock at 88 AKI. There is a powerful fiscal incentive for them to do this; lower-octane base stock for gasoline is significantly easier (read: cheaper) to brew.
BTW, it is important to note that ethanol is not currently blended with gasoline at the refinery because the increased water absorptions of the gasoline caused by the ethanol makes it dangerous to send it down pipelines...sort of a larger-scale version of the same issue that may affect your plane if you fill it with E10 and go fly...
You can see what is going to happen...if an airport wants to buy Mogas i.e. 91 octane unleaded gasoline, it will not be able to find any...the refineries will all be cranking out 88 octane gasoline for ethanol addition. So, aircraft owners potentially face a "double whammy"; not only is 100LL going to become much more expensive (and it may disappear if demand shrinks enough, as it already has disappeared in parts of Europe), but Mogas could also disappear, at least at 91 octane levels, because no gasoline stock will be available from the fuel suppliers except as a custom order (which would probably price it above current 100LLL wholesale pricing).
My plane's powerplant is a 160 bhp Lycoming O-320, which could be operated on 91 octane unleaded gasoline (according to the conditions of the most common autogas STC from Petersen Aviation). However that option may become moot if there is no 91 or higher octane motor gasoline available without ethanol...
UPDATE - Here is a paper written by the EAA concerning the 2007 legislation that initially mandated the addition of Ethanol to gasoline in Oregon. It does a good job of explaining aspects of the gasoline distribution networks in Oregon, and also shows that in 2007 the refineries were already sending sub-octane base stock down pipelines to distribution terminals.

In September 2007 I was denied a renewal of my Third Class medical certificate by the FAA because I was taking Cymbalta at the time. This is on the FAA list of psychotropic medications. I was aware that anti-depressants were incompatible with piloting according to the FAA, but did not know at the time that anti-anxiety drugs also fell into the same category.
I worked with my doctor to taper off and stop taking Cymbalta in the Fall of 2007 (not just for flying reasons - my use of it was negatively affecting my creativity and drive, which was affecting my work performance). I then got my doctor to send documentation to the FAA in April to request them to allow me to be issued a Medical certificate once more. By return mail I recieved a brusque form-letter dismissal of my application.
Reasoning that, since my doctor is not an AME, he may not have communicated information correctly to the FAA, I am now working with Dr. Stephan Kramer in Frisco TX, who in addition to being an AME who is also a pilot, works regularly with commercial pilots to get their medical certificates restored.
Basically, once you have gone on the FAA radar scope by virtue of a medical certificate denial for mental issues, you have to go through a fairly elaborate exercise to convince the FAA that you have (in Dr. Kramer's words) been "treated to remission". This process involves gathering medical records of all related treatment (in my case, since the cause of my anxiety was my divorce, this involves therapy records in addition to medical treatment records) and having a Psychologist execute a collection of cognitive tests on me. I completed the cognitive tests last week, with excellent results, and we are now assembling the paperwork for the FAA.
This process is likely to take another 2 months, after which time, if all goes well, I will be able to take to the air again. Until then, I will continue to work on the plane, conduct the 2008 ACI earlier in the year, and make sure I am ready to fly again. The only question then becomes one of whether I can afford to do any more than buzz around the patch...

This article at The Oil Drum explains the backround and practical processes for the creation of the commodity known as "Summer gasoline".
Here in Texas, the Summer gasoline imperative is the need to keep emissions below EPA limits in 96 counties in North and East Texas. The EPA regulations require the use of what is known as "reformulated gasoline" in the Summer months. This has a double impact on what is available at filling stations:

1. The summer gasoline blend may give rise to starting difficulties if used in the Winter
2. The Summer blend has up to 10% ethanol added as part of the attempt to reduce the levels of emissions

For most pilots, (2) is the real issue, since ethanol in fuel attracts and absorbs water, which is corrosive to many fuel system components.
The overall situation is complicated by the fact that there is no legal requirement in Texas for gasoline outlets to report whether the fuel contains ethanol, or how much ethanol it contains. Some filling stations have stickers on their pumps saying "fuel contains ethanol" but many do not.
In Oregon, pilots gained an exemption from ethanol addition requirements for gasoline. The exemption applies to a limited number of outlets selling gasoline for aviation use only. No such exemption exists in Texas, so those of us who might want to try running our planes on road car fuel are SOL in the Summer because the fuel is almost certain to contain ethanol.

Collected wisdom from the AvWeb king of reciprocating engine operation...

Since I dig into stuff once I start reading about it, I have been reading about the fun (if you can call it that) of operating the Wright R-3350 engine.
Here is an interesting posting about this powerplant, by way of a comparison with the liquid-cooled Rolls Royce Merlin.

From August 2009 until October 2005 I was a hangar tenant at Redbird Airport (or as it is now known, Dallas Executive Airport). I ultimately moved to Lancaster because of escalating hangar rental rates for no improvement in amenities, and a feeling that the airport was being evolved to cater for business aviation, and us "little guys" were no longer welcome.
When I first told fellow pilots that I was considering renting a hangar at Redbird, I was warned off the airport, with lurid tales of theft of avionics and other malfeasance being produced by way of explanation. When I raised these issues with the rental office, they agreed that, yes, all of those things had occurred, since the hangars had been in private ownership, but the city had repossessed them and was going to ensure that things were run properly in the future. I moved into my hangar, and never had any problems with theft or other malfeasance, although the hangar floors were substandard and the taxiways had been built up through resurfacing, which caused water to drain towards (and into) hangars rather than the other way round.
This article in the Dallas Observer, ironically titled "Deadbird", provides a none-too-flattering history of the malfeasance that occcurred at the airport up to the beginning of 2000. Once again, the race issue is writ large in the history, as the airport amenities became part of the minority business boondoggle mindset that seems to be a perennial fixture in city politics in many parts of the modern USA. Reading this article, one could be forgiven for thinking that Redbird Airport at the time was in some Third World country...

For some time a searchable text file version of CP01-82 has been in existence. Marc Zeitlin has now loaded the remaining CP issues up to his website here.
The loaded files are Adobe Acrobat format and therefore are not text-searchable, but simply having all of the CPs in one place is a very significant improvement. Thanks to Marc and those that helped him.

There is a transition under way from the current generation of ELTs based on the 121.5 MHz frequency to the new generation based on 406 MHz. This promises greater transmit range and reliability. The only snag is that the new ELTs cost more than $1k.
Mark Zeitlin has pointed us to a supplemental solution which is based on GPS technology. The only current drawback is that the unit does not have a crash detector, although it might be possible to connect one to it (assuming that the crash does not destroy the connection...).

...is a solution developed by Tom Staggs for his Long-EZ, which is based in Washington state, and therefore is operated in colder air a lot of the time. I will be seeing if I can retrofit this to my Long-EZ.

Bob Sudderth, Doug Bryan and Scott Carter flew their Long-EZs into Lancaster. Kent and Suzanne Robinson flew in from Plano in their ultralight.
The first batch of photos are up here.

....but I had to smile when I read it...

...before somebody made a joke out of the accident that befell a British Airways Boeing 777 at Heathrow...here is the witty response...

This restricted area is one that I have worked strenuously to avoid over the last few years. It is a 3 mile Prohibited area when the President is not at the ranch, but expends to a 30 mile radius Restricted area when he is there.
Sadly, I might not have worked hard enough to avoid it on a flight to Port Aransas last Saturday, for I found myself greeted by an F-16 on Saturday afternoon while flying to Fredericksburg from Lancaster. What happened next will be summarized in future blog postings.
Lesson #1 - join the AOPA Legal Services Plan. It may be the best $39 you will ever spend.
More news as this unfolds. The good news is that I am alive and well, so is my passenger, the plane and me are not grounded, and I will continue to fly until (or if) the FAA applies any sanction to me. However, I do not expect to be flying anywhere near P-49 in the future.
UPDATE - After exchanges of letters with the FAA, they wrote to me in early December that they intended to suspend my license for 60 days. Since I am currently grounded for medical reasons (I was taking a drug of which the FAA disapproved, and I have to wait 90 days before I can renew my medical certificate) I decided to not appeal, and sent them back my license. I will get it back after 19th February, and since I am still working on the plane, this fits neatly with my plans. I need to conduct a biennial flight review before I can take to the air again, so all of this works out pretty well.

..staying at my parents' house in Margate, Kent. This is just across the Isle of Thanet from Kent International Airport (formerly RAF Manston) which is struggling to maintain a viable aviation business, with several recent attempts at passenger operations having failed.
A look at one of the websites for the airport reveals the reality of user fees at UK airports. If I land my Long-EZ at KIA it will cost me £19.00 exclusive of VAT (add another 17.5% if you pay VAT). That works out at over $40 per landing, even for a touch-and-go landing...if that is what eventually happens in the USA, small general aviation operations will shrink to a small fraction of their current levels.

On Thursday I went off to get my FAA Medical Certificate renewed - it had expired on 2nd September. I duly filled in the form for a 3rd Class Certificate, took all of the vision tests, peed in the cup etc. Then I went for the physical exam. However, when the doc read the form, he said "oh dear"...which is where the trouble started. It emerged that I am currently taking a drug which is on the FAA listed of proscribed drugs. So...no medical certificate could be issued.
I am therefore grounded. I have to stop taking the drug, wait 90 days, and then get my doctor to write a letter to the FAA saying that I am capable of flying, after which time the FAA should issue my medical certificate again. I have to take the drug for at least another month, after which time the 90 day period starts. It looks like the earliest I will be back in the air is the end of January 2008.
However, every cloud has a silver lining...I have a long list of items that I wanted to work on to improve the plane. Now I cannot fly until the New Year, I will be working on them. At the moment the list includes (but is not limited to):

- Baggage pods (already have the kit)
- fuselage pontoons (a la Paul Tackabury)
- new GPS
- move battery to firewall
- new cowlings including better cooling
- cockpit heating via nose oil cooler
- Grove brakes
- completion of gear leg fairing work
- new upholstery
- newer radio/VOR/transponder (I have antique boat anchors)

I will also add a photo album to this blog so that I can compete with James Redmon for documentation of improvements...

Several years ago, Bill Swears, intending to retire to Alaska, set out to fly to the US mainland from Hawaii. Unfortunately he did not get very far before he hit engine problems and had to ditch in the Pacific. Thanks to good preparation and excellent air-sea rescue processes, he was rescued, injured but still very much alive.
This is the best available account of his experience.

At the end of last year I fitted an air/oil separator to the engine. This was an effort to address high oil consumption (1 quart every 3 hours). I was always finding a lot of oil on the lower cowling after longer flights, and also finding oil streaks on the prop. Those oil streaks were unburnt oil.
Until last weekend, when I flew to Santa Fe, Farmington, Aztec and Telluride, I had insufficient operational data to determine the impact on oil consumption from fitting the air/oil separator.
Preliminary data from the trip shows that oil consumption has improved, but not greatly. I am using 1 quart every 3.5 hours.
On Saturday I had John Hooker of J&S Aviation remove and inspect the lower plugs after I had flown up to Sherman running with the mixture full rich. None of the plugs showed any evidence of oil fouling; they looked perfectly normal.
I am coming around to the point of view that I have done all that I can to remedy the oil consumption issue, short of re-honing the cylinders and fitting new rings. I am not prepared to do that right now. The only issue with the current oil consumption level is that I cannot fly for more than 6-7 hours without installing a catch-tank...but since I never stay in the air that long, it is not a short-term issue.

Last year, I finally got around to installing a stereo intercom. This allows for music to be played in both headsets during flight, with an audio mute triggered from the radio for ATC etc. I already had a Lightspeed 3G headset which has a direct music source input, and when flying solo I would use that input (which gives slightly better sound quality). However, for trips with a passenger, a stereo intercom was essential for equitable enjoyment (see the saga of the intercom install here).
I was using a CD player to provide music on long trips. However, last November I finally broke down and bought an iPod for use elsewhere. Currently it has close to 5500 tunes loaded, many of which cannot be purchased in any record store. (For more insight into that form of listening, see my music blog...). Now, with that many tunes instantly available, the CD player has been retired.
I tested the iPod connected to my Lightspeed 3G headset on Sunday and it works perfectly. No more CD changing in flight...less to do while sitting upstairs...I will test the iPod connected to the intercom on the weekend trip to New Mexico.
UPDATE - I am now up to 8200 tunes on the iPod, or more correctly on a second iPod...the first 80Gb iPod has been passed to a lady friend of mine for Christmas, and I now have a shiny new 160Gb iPod.

..by aviation engine behaviour. Once upon a time, I experienced a stuck valve which ended up costing me $11000 (ouch!). This was after the engine had not run for 6 months due to work pressures and some niggling squawks which prevented me from doing any flying. After that incident, I have become more circumspect about engine care and check-overs.
So it was that at the weekend, the time came to perform the interval oil change on an engine that had not turned under its own power since December 31st 2006. After hand-propping the engine for 3 complete revolutions, mainly in order to convince myself that a valve was not sticking, I fired up the O-320 in 131JF at 9.00 pm on Sunday evening. The engine started on the second revolution, caught instantly, and immediately ran like a watch.
Of course, if you read the Lycoming Gospels, they probably say that I violated most known rules of engine preservation for 6 months. Yet, the engine seemed perfectly OK. After a period of running at 1000-1100 rpm to warm up the oil, I performed an oil change, put some Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase, and went home to start my paid job.

After a number of stops and starts due to work pressures, I finally finished applying 4 coats of Smooth Prime to the newly-installed gear leg fairings last Sunday. These are the fairings that Klaus
Installing the fairings will be documented here in more detail with photos, once I get this blog properly photo-enabled.
Even though I only had to perform a small amount of sanding, it was tedious enough for me to have acquired a much higher level of admiration for people who have sanded an entire plane (not to mention Jesse who after sanding my plane, went on to sand a Cozy IV...).
More finishing work will be required on the gear legs, particularly where the bottom and top parts of the fairing joined. The fairings are supplied as two moulded carbon components for each gear leg. One longer component is for the top part of the gear leg, and the shorter component is for the bottom half. These moulded parts did not fit together well, which required me to cut away some of the inside gear leg moulding and lay up 2 plies of BID over a carved piece of foam to replace it. That area will require some additional filling and sanding before the gear legs can be painted.
At the moment the tops of the gear legs are faired to flow round the fuselage join, but the bottoms of the gear legs are not faired into a smooth junction to the wheelpants. I intend to build up projections from the wheelpants to meet the new gear leg and create a smooth transition from the legs to the wheelpants. The right side wheelpants will also require some more sanding and preparation before they are re-painted. This was the wheelpant that was left in pieces on the runway at Dallas Executive Airport when I touched down with low right-side tire pressure and the wheelpant hit a piece of loose something-or-other on rollout, which tore it off the plane.
This weekend, however, it is time for some flight-testing of the plane, in the form of a trip to Farmington NM to see Bob Holgate, who just purchased a Subaru engine which he intends to fit to a Long-EZ. More news and views of that trip soon.

I have decided to "go for it" big-time on a bunch of plane improvements, with help from Jesse. I have been trying to work out when to do the work, and decided that there is no time like the present. So, starting this week, 131JF is going to acquire:

gear leg fairings
baggage pods
re-painting of the wheelpants, gear legs, prop spinner and underside of the nose
re-painting of the cowlings

I thought about building new cowlings, and adding pontoons to the forward fuselage aft of the canard a la Paul Tackabury, but there is not enough time to make those modifications.
I need the pods because I am going to be spending time in North Carolina this Summer, and I need the utility of the pods to allow for travel with a GIB (Nova Scotia or the Bahamas are possible destinations for a vacation).
I still have to work out how to add cockpit heating via a nose-mounted oil cooler. That is best done in conjunction with building new cowlings, since putting an oil cooler in the nose will most likely mean that the current cooler on the firewall will become redundant, which will allow for the removal of the air outlet in the top cowling, which will in turn improve cylinder cooling since all of the air entering the lower cowling will go through the cylinders, which may mean that the elbow scoops are not needed any more, which may mean that...isn't aerodynamics a wonderful thing?

James and I both work at EDS...or at least we both used to work at EDS. I spoke to James last week, and he has finally tired of life in corporate America. He left EDS 3 weeks ago, and is going to make canard aviation his full-time life's work.
When I spoke to him, he was engaged in mortal combat with a set of baggage pods, as he tried to complete them in time to use them for Sun'n'Fun. Once he vanquishes the pods, he will be working on completing his hangar-mate's Berkut, which was partly built by the late Steve Drybread, then further built (not very correctly) by some of Drybread's people after Steve's untimely death. After that, he will be working on a project that he cannot tell me about (because if he did, he would have to shoot me).
So...his corporation, Berkut Consulting Services LLC, is now a full-time endeavour. I wish him all of the luck in the world. I may have to consult with him about what words to use when you temporarily tire of assembling and fitting a set of baggage pods...

...where the weather was pretty poor most of the time...it reminded me very much of Manchester, where I went to college in the UK. A lot of dull, overcast days with light rain or drizzle.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I will be re-activating the plane - a preventitive maintenance cycle, oil change and inspection. Hopefully I will then get to take to the air for the first time in 4 months.
After that, I will work on the gear leg fairings. Then...it will be on to the baggage pods. I spoke to James Redmon this morning, and I have never previously heard him use the kind of "industrial language" that he uttered concerning the frustration level he has encountered in fitting pods to his Berkut. He estimated over 100 hours for fitting so far, and a lot of prep work is still not completed. He was hoping to be able to fly to Sun'n'Fun with the pods, but has abandoned that idea. Currently he prefixes every mention of the word "pods" with a word that most likely came out of a "Sopranos" script. Maybe this pod thingy won't be so much fun after all...

As part of the maintenance process that involved the fixing of the oil leak and the addition of an air-oil separator, we fitted the modified carburetor venturi built for me by Ed Spracher from Kenai, AK.
I have not completed any rigorous flight testing. However, initial testing shows that the engine now runs much smoother. The leaning capability is not affected - the uneven fuel distribution still prevents leaning past peak EGT on any cylinder.
More updates as I proceed through flight testing.

...where a city ordinance, passed to prevent a homebuilt aircraft from being assembled in a garage, has been declared to be constitutional.
We (the experimental aviation community) may need to fight this one through higher courts. Clearly, if other local cities emulate that approach, the creation of homebuilt aircraft in garages could become a lot more problematical.

Last weekend the good folks at J&S Aviation installed an M20 air-oil separator for me. I hope to have some photos up here in a couple of days.
The separator is installed on the left side of the engine (looking from the front of the plane). It is clamped to the baffling next to #4 cylinder, and the oil return line drains into the magneto cover plate on the accessory case. We also rerouted the crankcase breather tube to connect to a stainless steel tube which is clamped to the exhausts on that side of the engine. This will result in any remaining emissions being vaporized on their way down the tube. Oil streaking on the lower cowling will be a thing of the past.
Since I have only 45 minutes of flight testing the separator, it is too early to determine what impact it will have on oil comsumption. Given that most of my oil usage seems to consist of unburnt oil leaving the sump by way of the crankcase breather, the impact ought to be significant. More reports as I accumulate data.

(NOTE - Photos will be added to this report once I get the photo album up and running and attach it to the blog).
I flew to Escalante in Utah on 3rd November, returning to Lancaster on 5th November. The objective was to spend a weekend with a lady friend, go hiking in the sandstone hills and de-stress from city life.
Escalante is about 40 miles North of Lake Powell in southern Utah. The plan was to fly from Lancaster to Santa Fe, refuel and then fly from Santa Fe to Escalante.
I lifted off from Lancaster at 10.40 CST on the Friday. It soon became apparent that the new magneto (see previous posting) was making a major difference to the engine smoothness; the difference was very apparent above 2500 rpm, where the engine had previously been suffering from unpleasant vibration.
En route I was forced to divert to Breckenridge to re-seal a loose fuel cap (see separate True Confessions posting). I was fighting a headwind most of the way; after struggling to break 145 knots groundspeed at 8,500 feet over Texas, I descended to 6,500 and promptly picked up 15 knots in ground speed. After the delay due to the stop in Breckenridge, I landed at Santa Fe at 13.45 MST.
I refueled to 42 gallons onboard, bought new charts for the route of flight, and set off for Escalante. I soon found myself battling a headwind, with my ground speed never rising much above 152 knots even running at 2620 rpm. This part of the journey is, however, fairly spectacular, as you fly West of Farmington past Shiprock and to the East of Monument Valley, then over the Eastern end of Lake Powell, East of Navajo Mountain. This is wild country, with sandstone escarpments and ridges, little or no vegetation, little in the way of population centers, and few airports. I was always watching for potential landing sites in case I found myself listening to The Sound of Silence…
The last 50 miles into Escalante are mostly over some of the most forbidding terrain I have ever seen – mile after mile of Navajo Sandstone sculpted into crags, gullies and mini-canyons. There would be zero chance of landing a plane and staying in one piece, so I immediately climbed another 2000 feet to give myself more gliding distance.
When I arrived over Escalante I was 4000 feet above the airport altitude, so I circled in the valley over the airport to lose altitude. I was making radio calls to announce my position, although I realized afterwards that I was using body effort that could be saved for old age – there was no sign of any traffic, the airport has no permanent buildings, and the Airnav entry on Escalante showed a total of 2 aircraft based at the field.
I set up for a left-hand approach to runway 31 and soon realized that runway 31 sloped down to the North. With the windsock showing little wind, I circled and entered base for 13. As I turned from base to final, I saw three vehicles racing down the airport approach road. For a second, I wondered if I was seeing a welcoming committee, who, having ascertained that I am an agnostic, would promptly point me in the direction of away (remember this is Mormon country). However, when I noticed the occupants of two of the vehicles standing on the roof waving at me, I concluded that this was probably a welcoming committee.
After touching down, I found out that Escalante’s runway had grass growing in patches over the surface, and I weaved around the clumps of grass as best I could on rollout. I taxied onto the ramp and parked the plane. The ramp area had recently been re-surfaced, with fresh tie-down markings. However, there are only 6 marked tie-down places. Part of the ramp was being used for girders and other building materials (see below for more details).
The “welcoming committee” turned out to be the local Escalante aviation enthusiasts group, led by Paul Bowmar, a native of California who owns EPM.AV Corporation, a local business making parts for experimental aircraft.
We started talking about the state of the airport and future plans. There is a lot of resistance in Escalante to airport improvements or expansion. The population of 900+ is majority LDS, and a lot of the LDS families are suspicious of and antipathetic towards outsiders. Paul, who moved here over 30 years ago when his father relocated to Escalante from southern California, recounted a council meeting where a councillor (a leading member of the LDS church) looked him straight in the eye and said “you are an outsider. You should not expect to have the same rights as us”.
The following improvements are under way or planned for the airport:
1. Construction of 4 new hangars. This is due to start in about 2-3 weeks. The framing materials for the hangars were already on the ramp awaiting the commencement of work.
2. Demolition of the existing single hangar, which is very old and regarded as an eyesore.
3. Widening of the runway from 60 to 75 feet and extension from 5000 feet to 7500 feet, using FAA money. This is planned to occur in the next 2-3 years.

In the meantime, the runway is perfectly usable for most small planes.
I visited Paul’s machine shop in Escalante . I was greeted by a sleek-looking and friendly shop cat, who I suspect actually does all of the work while Paul and his employees sit in the office, surf the Web, shoot the breeze etc.
After returning to the airport, I was picked up by my lady friend. I found my way to the Boulder Mountain Ranch, where I had rented a 1 bedroom cabin (see picture).
We ate dinner at the Hell’s Backbone Grill, which is an innovative restaurant on the grounds of the Boulder Mountain Lodge. Boulder is about 30 minutes’ drive from Escalante along a road which at times affords spectacular views of the surrounding country, the highlight being the Hog’s Back, a narrow ridge with thousand-foot canyons either side. Boulder occupies several flat areas nestling in the sandstone hills, with the Boulder Mountain Lodge lying towards the North edge of the town. The New York Strip steak was excellent, washed down with a Valpolicella (it’s a horrible job but somebody had to do it).

Saturday
After a leisurely reveille, including breakfast at Hell’s Backbone Grill, we went hiking Lower Calf Creek Falls, among the Navajo Sandstone and the junction with the Red Sandstone.
In the afternoon we drove over to Escalante airport. Caroline climbed into the rear seat of the plane, and we took off, circled in the valley to gain altitude, and flew over the Navajo sandstone crags to Boulder, where we proceeded to buzz the restaurant several times from a progressively lower altitude. I discovered afterwards that this caused a lot of interest.

Sadly, circumstances forced us to yet again eat dinner at the Hells Backbone Grill…another terrible evening…

Sunday
After another excellent breakfast at the Hells Backbone Grill, I went over to Escalante and tried to get Dave (owner of the Boulder Mountain Lodge) into the Long-EZE, but he is 6’ 3” and wider than me, with a longer torso, and did not fit in the rear seat, no matter how much he scrunched himself down in the plane.
Eventually we gave up and put him in the front seat, so that I could take some photos of him in the pilot position.
I added 2 more quarts of oil to the plane, since running at high cruise on the way up to Escalante had reduced the oil level from 5.5 quarts to 4 quarts. (see squawks).
I took off from Escalante at 11.00 MST, buzzed the Hells Backbone Grill a couple of times, and then headed South-East to Santa Fe. This route of flight takes you over a wide and varied collection of geological features, some of which are explained on this web page collection made by a geologist. On the way to Santa Fe I took a number of photos of local geology from the plane, including a photo of
Shiprock .
A direct route to Santa Fe would have required me to climb above 14000 feet to gain enough mountain clearance, so I flew a curved route to avoid the mountains and approached Santa Fe from the South-West. Even this conservative route resulted in a period of flying in light turbulence from the mountains.
I arrived at Santa Fe, and taxied to the fuel self-serve pump. One of the more interesting aspects of Santa Fe is that despite its size, location, and level of activity, this airport does not have radar. The airport draws attention to this in the ATIS message, which includes a section where the airport essentially apologizes for not having radar…
I took on fuel, cleaned the canopy of bugs, and quickly flew out to the South-East. After first trying a cruise altitude of 11,500 feet, I found a larger tailwind component at 9,500 feet. At that altitude, running at 2580-2620 rpm, I saw groundspeeds varying between 175-182 knots. The weather was good all across New Mexico and West Texas, with the afternoon sun keeping the cockpit temperature above the OAT of 42-44 degrees.
On checking in with Flight Watch East of Tucumcari, I was informed that a Sigmet had been issued for an area of storms North of Dallas, centered on Wichita Falls. The Flight Watch frequency was busy with pilots checking in and adjusting routes to avoid the storm area, which included several large cells with tops above 50,000 feet. However, the system appeared to be moving North-East so at the time it did not seem like much of a threat.
As normal, I transitioned through Lubbock airspace and picked up VFR flight following at Lubbock for the rest of the journey back to Lancaster. Once East of Lubbock, the storm system over Wichita Falls came into view to the North-East. Broken clouds began to appear below me at 6000 feet, but I was reluctant to descend at this point because I was rattling along at 180-182 knots thanks to the tailwind.
It looked like the storm system was still to the North of Dallas. A call to Fort Worth Centre showed that the MOAs ahead of my flight path were not active, so I headed through them towards Dallas.
There was an increasing thickness of cloud below me, but there were gaps in this cloud cover. My plan was to stay above the clounds as long as possible and drop through a gap in the cover once I got closer to Dallas.
By now the sun had set on the ground, but the last of the sun was still shining up at 10,000 feet:
I have a rule that I will not fly at night on any route that I have not previously flown during the day. I adopted this rule after a stressful night scud-running attempt over Mississippi that ended with my overnighting in that state when ceilings kept dropping. Since I have flown this route a number of times in the day, I felt reasonably confident about continuing to Lancaster even though it would be dark by the time I arrived there.
About 30 miles West of Mineral Wells, I found that shower clouds were starting to build up above my current altitude of 9,500 feet. I began to climb to 11,500 feet to get over the top of the clouds, but then I noticed that the gaps in the clouds below were rapidly closing up. It looked like the shower systems were starting to build further South along my route. I decided that I needed to get below the clouds before I was trapped VFR on-top, so I told Center that I was descending below the cloud cover to 5,500 feet, and turned to the West to head for a gap in the clouds. This was the last significant gap that was visible, and it seemed to be closing.
I cut the throttle, spiralled down through the gap in the clouds to 6000 feet, and turned back East. However, below the clouds, there was almost no light left, and as I descended further to the East I suddenly found myself swallowed up by a lower bank of cloud.
Since I was under VFR flight following at the time, I made a pragmatic decision to engage the wing leveler and ride out the descent, rather than trying to back-track. One thing I learned in this brief period in the cloud is how spatial disorientation is insidious; I felt like I was turning to the right in the cloud, yet when I exited the cloud about 30 seconds later, the plane was flying the same heading as when I entered. I broke out at 5,500 feet. By now my eyes had adapted to the poor light, and I could see more lower clouds ahead of me, so I kept descending, turning as necessary to stay well clear of the clouds.
By the time I passed Mineral Wells, I was below 3000 feet, and I eventually ended up at 2500 feet as I approached the DFW Class B airspace. My ground speed had dramatically reduced, from 180+ knots above the clouds to 150 knots. It was clearly a damp and miserable night in the Metroplex. Visibility was actually quite good for night VFR at 8 to 10 miles, but there were broken clouds at various levels above me. I descended further to 2000 feet as I encountered broken cloud at around 2200 feet East of Mineral Wells.
As I flew East, I was under the floor of the Class B airspace, so clearances became a non-issue. However, Approach Control told me to fly over Arlington, in order to stay North of the TV towers at Cedar Hill. I turned towards what I thought was Arlington airport, only to be informed by the controller that I was turning towards Fort Worth Spinks. D’oh! There was this lump of technology in the cockpit called a GPS… I dialed Arlington into the GPS, and turned to the North-East to intercept the runway. Approach asked me to switch to Arlington tower. I switched to the tower frequency and informed them when I crossed midfield, at which point they told me to resume own navigation. I switched to VFR own navigation, and at 18.50 CST I touched down at Lancaster in total darkness. The runway and whole airport area were wet from earlier rain and drizzle.
I put the plane away, cleaned the prop of accumulated bugs, oil and soot, and left for home. As I drove home I could see lightning to the North and North West; the storm system was moving South into the fringes of the Metroplex.

When I purchased N131JF from Jesse back in 2000, the fuel caps were not equipped with either grounding braid or tethers. Although the fuel caps on a Long-EZ are outside of the prop arc (and even more so since I now use a Catto prop, which has a smaller diameter but a deeper pitch than the original Performance prop), I was sufficiently concerned by reading accident reports where fuel caps had become loose and gone through the prop in flight to ask Jesse to fit tethers to the fuel caps. The tethers are triangular pieces of metal linked to the underside of the cap by a strong chain.
On Friday 3rd November, I lifted off from Lancaster Texas bound for Santa Fe en route to Escalante Utah (see Trip Report – Escalante). I fuelled the plane to 44 gallons before departure, which is the maximum amount of fuel that I can put in the fuel tanks with the plane “kneeling”.
After 40 minutes, I was at 8,500 feet about 5 miles North East of Breckenridge, when I decided to do a periodic scan of the wings. The left wing looked OK, but my peripheral vision of the right wing seemed odd…A more detailed look showed that the right fuel cap was loose. The tether was doing its job and preventing the fuel cap from flying off, but airflow had wedged the cap against the top of the strake. That was good. What was not good was a steady stream of fuel being blown out of the tank over the wing and into the atmosphere. As the fuel sloshed around in the tank, a spray of liquid and vaporizing fuel would be blown back past the prop.
I immediately cut power, and pointed the nose down towards Breckenridge Airport. Less than 10 minutes later I touched down, pulled off the runway and parked next to the self-serve fuel pump.
An examination of the fuel tanks showed that the right tank (the one with the open fuel cap) was still almost full, but the left tank only contained about 13 gallons of fuel. Because of the difference in the fuel tank fuel levels, fuel was siphoning between the tanks via the common sump tank to equalize the fuel levels (on my plane this can be heard as an intermittent ‘clicking’ sound).
The explanation for the difference in fuel levels was not difficult to work out. With the right fuel cap off the top of the fuel tank, there would be no positive pressure above the fuel via the fuel vent line (which is open to the airflow above the dorsum). The airflow past the open fuel tank was also generating suction. The result was that fuel was flowing from the left tank to the right tank as the fuel was sucked out from the right tank in flight.
I decided to re-fill the plane tanks to 44 gallons, the same level as at Lancaster. This required 17.8 gallons of fuel. Since I had been flying for the equivalent of about 45 minutes burning 8.5 gallons per hour (averaged as I climbed to cruising altitude and descended rapidly to land in Breckenridge), this would have burned 6.4 gallons of fuel. This meant that in 50 minutes of flying I lost 11.4 gallons of fuel from the open fuel tank.
Without my noticing the fuel cap being loose, fuel would have continued to escape from the right hand tank, with fuel moving from the left tank to equalize. This is one downside of a common sump arrangement. Since both tanks are linked via the common sump, I could have lost all of my wing tank fuel load, and I might also have lost the fuel in the common sump area due to the suction effect of air flowing over the strake at normal cruising speed.
It would be difficult to prove or disprove this hypothesis due to the inherent dangers in flight-testing with fuel escaping from the plane in the vicinity of the engine. However, a quick calculation shows that if I had not noticed the issue and diverted, I would have (partly) consumed and (mostly) lost all of my onboard fuel well before reaching the border with New Mexico. That might have ruined my day…
Three conclusions:
1. I failed to check that both fuel caps were secured before I boarded the plane. This item must be on the checklist and you must complete the check.
2. Anybody who owns a Long-EZ with a common sump fuel tank system needs to understand that the linkage between the tanks will result in most (if not all) of the onboard fuel gradually being lost overboard if a fuel cap comes loose or is lost in flight.
3. It is a really good idea to have fuel cap tethers. If you lose a fuel cap completely in flight, even if it does not damage the prop, you cannot really fly the plane anywhere until you fit a replacement. With my current fuel cap tethers, I was able to land, solve the problem and continue.

Those of you who have struggled with oil leaks will know that it only takes a small amount of oil leakage from around an engine to make a mess of an engine compartment; the air pressure and airflow does a great job of spreading the oil everywhere. In my case, I have been dealing with an oil leak from somewhere on the accessory case for over a year.
The oil leak was high up on the accessory case, from somewhere in the Vernatherm area of the ancillaries. However, I was not able to easily pinpoint the source of the leak. All I knew was that oil would appear at the bottom of the front of the engine, and would coat the ancillaries and pipes and also run into the P-51 scoop when the plane was at rest with a hot engine.
In the last 2-3 months the oil leak had worsened, to the point that I found 2-3 tablespoons of oil in the bottom of the P-51 scoop when I removed the lower cowling today as part of the prep for magneto replacement. That much oil in flight will slowly mess up an engine compartment.
With the Right magneto not in the plane due to a replacement process (see previous posting), I was able to determine that the source of the leak was not the Vernatherm switch (which was my initial suspicion), but it was the Vernatherm casing itself, which is bolted to the accessory case. I was able to gain access to the four bolts that hold the Vernatherm casing to the accessory case.
I found that the two bottom bolts on the Vernatherm casing were slightly loose, so I tightened then as far as I could. Only time will tell if this will stop the oil leak. If it does not, I may have to remove the casing and re-seal it. That will be a hassle since it will require the removal of the oil cooler, and possibly other engine ancillaries.

My plane has one magneto (Slick 4370 non-impulse, on Right side) and one Jeff Rose Electroair electronic ignition system.
The Jeff Rose system has performed without any attention apart from the replacement of the flywheel sensor due to vibration damage from a flight test of an unbalanced prop.
I wish I could say the same about the magneto...
I first became aware of magneto issues early last year when I found that there was excessive and slowly worsening engine vibration above 2500 rpm. The condition worsened to the point that on the return from a fly-in at Hondo, attempts to throttle up to more than 2520 rpm resulted in blurred vision when I pressed my head into the headrest. If my head was being vibrated that much, imagine how the rest of the aircraft must have felt...
After that flight, I pulled the magneto and had it overhauled by Select Aircraft Services in Lancaster. One thing I learnt at the time is that Slick keeps spare parts prices for their magnetos artificially high to discourage field overhauls. They want you to buy an exchange magneto instead. There may be a sound reason for this...remember we are dealing with a supplier whose magneto range once included magnetos designed to only last 500 hours (literally no overhaul; just throw the part in the scrap bin and buy another). As a result of Slick's parts pricing and distribution policies, Select were only able to reset internal components and replace a couple of minor parts at a cost of $175.
When I re-fitted the magneto to the plane, there was a noticeable improvement in engine smoothness. I was able to run back up to top rpm without feeling that I would need to visit the dentist to have fillings replaced. However, starting this Spring, I again noticed worsening top-end vibration. I also began to notice a periodic "miss" from the engine after I had been in the air more than 2 hours. This seemed like an issue which emerged once engine ancillaries became heat-soaked. When I flew to Rough River, the vibration, while not as bad as the 2005 vibration, was becoming more noticeable, and the canard tips were vibrating slightly at around 2450 rpm. While there is a natural vibration resonance at around this rpm in Lycoming 4-cylinder engines, this was the first time that I had seen vibration of this type from the canard in normal operations.
I also was noticing a drop of 100-120 rpm when testing magneto-only operation in run-ups. And not only but also...on the takeoff roll I would hear irregular "popping" sounds in my headset at full throttle.
Action was required.
I consulted Jesse and James Redmon. Jesse pointed out that the magneto had been supplied as part of the original engine package in 1993, with no paperwork to show how old it was, whether it had been rebuilt in compliance with FAA-PMA requirements etc. James expressed his opinion that, with 520 Hobbs hours on the plane, it was time either for a new magneto or an upgrade to electronic ignition.
While I do want to eventually upgrade to electronic ignition, this was not the time to do it either from a budgetary or time perspective, since I would also need to install a second backup battery and associated electrical wiring to support emergency operation of the ignition system on a backup battery if the primary battery and charging systems failed.
I decided to replace the magneto, and ordered a replacement Slick 4370 from Spruce on overnight delivery.
The magneto arrived in a nice fresh factory box with a date of 10/16/2006 on the side; at least some evidence that it was freshly built or rebuilt. They also threw in 2 Autolite aviation sparkplugs (although the cynic in me said that, with the cost of these types of ancillaries for aircraft, that was the least they could do...).
I pulled the top plugs, aligned the engine to top dead center and then tested the points open position with a timing light, to ensure that the engine was in the correct position before removing the old magneto. That way, there would be no chance of me aligning the engine with #1 cylinder on the exhaust cycle instead of the firing cycle. I also marked the position of the wiring harness when fitted to the magneto with white tape strips, to eliminate any possibility of reversing the harness position when mated with the new magneto.
I removed the old magneto from the engine, and then ran into the first problem. The timing gear is not included with a rebuilt magneto, presumably because different engine makes/models have different gear assemblies to mate with the drive shaft in the accessory case. You therefore are expected to swap the gear from the old to the new magneto shafts. In my case, I could not pull the gear off the magneto shaft after removing the cotter pin and securing nut. The gear shaft mates to the magneto shaft using a taper with a mating slot. Presumably years of operation had baked the join to interference fit standards.
A trip to O'Reilly's Auto Parts, $28 and one quarter turn of a socket wrench later, a "pop" accompanied the removal of the gear and gear shaft from the old magneto, courtesy of a newly-purchased gear puller. It's amazing how easy most maintenance jobs are if you have the correct tools...
After fitting the gear to the new magneto, I went through the process of pinning the magneto with the supplied timing pin (we'll return to that later...), installed the magneto and the harness to the engine and timed the magneto with the timing light. After replacing the bottom plugs and cleaning the top plugs, I tried to start the engine on the magneto.
Zip. Squat. Nada.
Hmm. Time for a think and a re-read of available literature.
Then I read a little sticker from the magneto box really carefully...the sticker states that the magneto must be locked with a timing pin before being installed. The position of the timing pin is L or R. I interpreted this to mean the position of the magneto on the engine, so I locked the magneto to R before install.
Wrong.
The sticker small print says to lock the magneto depending on the direction of rotation on the data plate on the magneto. In this case, the magneto is a Left rotation magneto. So I should have locked it using the L hole for the timing pin.
So...I went through the install process again. The good news is that the second time around it takes a lot less time.
After completing the installation and timing of the magneto, I tried to start the engine again.
This time, it fired first time.
Because it was almost dark, I scrapped plans for a full flight test. Instead I performed a run-up test followed by a fast taxi down the runway.
On the run-up, I noticed a drop of only 60-80 rpm with the magneto only in operation. On the fast taxi, the engine felt smoother, and I could not hear any "popping" sounds in the headphones.
I shut the plane down and changed the oil and oil filter. A long flight will be required to determine if the magneto replacement has cured the in