Sept 13, 2003 - Cedar Valley.
My last flight 3 weeks ago was the final flight of my wrongly installed tail wheel. It was destroyed on landing but luckily my glider itself wasn't damaged.
For the last 3 weeks I have been trying to get the stupid thing off. Aaron used shoe gue to glue it on and that stuff is unbelievably strong and difficult to cut with even a razor blade. I took a saw and cut the wheel off leaving about a quarter inch of rubber and then the glue. In 5 hours of work with razor blades I was only able to scrape about 5-6 3-4 inches of the blasted stuff off.
I talked with Aaron and he suggested I heat up wire and use it to melt through the shoe gue. I decided to try my soldering iron because I could control the heat. In about 2 hours today I was able to melt/scrape through the remaining foot of the old tail wheel mount and clean off all the remaining glue.
I like the new tail wheel I bought from Eastern Sailplane much better than the first one. It is much more narrow, fits better, and looks like it is an overall better design. I used contact cement and was very pleased with how it set up. I need to wait at least a good half week to let it fully dry and then, weather permitting, I can finally start flying again.
One last hassle to mention. My radio is still dead and I took it out and am trying to get it fixed without spending $100 per hour labor charges. I don't expect to have it for my flights the rest of the season.
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Sept 19, 2003 - Cedar Valley, UT in Phoebus, 3200 ft tow for .5 hour.
My tailwheel came off on takeoff and I had a first hand look at what flying with way too forward cg is like. My stall speed was a full 10 knots faster than normal. Landing was good and I was able to keep the tail off the dirt until the last few feet. Looks like the contact cement didn't hold up to the challenge. Next stop, the hardware store for some shoe gue.
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Oct 14, 2003 - Cedar Valley, UT in SGS 2-33, 1200 ft tow for 1.3 hours.
I came to the airport to finally epoxy on my tail wheel assembly now that I have made 2 wheels that fit it. It has taken me a month to find the right wheels and then take them to a friend and have them sanded down to size on a lathe. These tailwheel problems have cost me 2 good months of flying.
I decided that I had to go up. The soaring forcast for the day showed max lift of 418 fpm with moderate winds from the south west. I took up the 2-33 and reminded myself that I should be grateful I have something else to fly in while my ship is on the mend. We took off at 4:45 which is pretty late in the day this time of year. I felt some pretty strong bumps north of the airport at 900 ft on tow and Brent circled around back into it. The lift was scratchy but I managed to stay up until I figured out that the strong winds from the west were creating huge lift off of the foothills just south of Camp Williams. I found steady lift of 600-900 fpm lift and rode the elevator up to 8,300 ft msl.
I thought I had enough altitude to make it over to follow the ridge line up to the fairfield VOR southeast of the airport. I was wrong. When I got to the ridgeline I couldn't find lift stronger than a few hundred feet per minute. The wind from the west was a strong 20 knots plus and I didn't want to get too far southeast of the airport since the 2-33 has very poor penetration into wind.
I didn't want to risk a landout and turned back to the airport (5,000 ft elev) when I got down to 6,700 about 7 miles out from the runway. I made it back to the small hills north of the runway and found that the lift was starting to die. I headed south on the west side of the airport to see if there were any thermals working in the fresh plowed fields and got only 100 fpm lift.
I was down to pattern altitude and forced myself to call it a great flight for fall conditions and come in to land. I flew a right hand pattern landing on 17 and was pleased with the approach and landing. It was fun to get up and fly again even if I didn't get too high or go far. I reminded myself several times this flight how beautiful it is flying over cedar valley.
After putting away the 2-33 I epoxied on my new wheel and hope it will stay on this time. I may not find out until next spring since I will be out of town on vacation for the next two weeks and might not fly again this year. When you don't fly for a month or two you become real grateful for any decent flight! ;)
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