Electronic Engine Controls Challenges

Looks like Plastic Explosive is going to be down for a while longer. Here is the background, basically I have a cobbled-together fuel injection and ignition system. Check my other blog entries for the details. A few years back I eliminated my second magneto put a second  set of coils ignition in place. I am now was all electric. So far, so good.

About that time, if the batteries were a little low I noticed I sometimes started getting a kickback during starting. Unfortunately, the company that makes the EC3 engine computer (Real World Solutions) has been out of business for some time and there's no support for it. This occasional kickback thing kept on happening but I found if I hit the starter for a few revolutions before turning the electronics on, I had much better success.

My Odyssey batteries were getting a little long in the tooth and the kickback kept happening, so I got a new battery which made it better, but I haven’t been flying much. But now, a new problem surfaced, the starter seemed to be “slipping”. I would hit the starter, it wouldn’t turn and I heard a kind of grinding noise. Then on the next try it fired right up. But, after a couple of flights was I was afraid that it may have damaged the crankshaft starter gear so I pulled the engine to take a look. I couldn’t see anything obvious  that would cause the starter to be slipping, just a couple of slightly chipped teeth on the starter gear and a bit of wear on the starter pinion gear. 

After calling B&C I decided to send the starter back for inspection and started looking for the other parts. I found a couple of vendors for the new crankshaft starter gear, one listed at $2,200 and the other at $3,200! I did find one on Ebay for $450 and it’s on it’s way. 

Now, back to the ignition coils.  With the EC3 controller, each plug has it’s own coil.  They suggested using LS1 coils, commonly used in GM products such as the Corvette.  When I decided to replace the mags and go all electric, I read somewhere that the LS2 coils had more oomph, so that’s what I used. 

After all these troubles came up I somehow managed to locate a techy guy that was very familiar with the EC3 controller and with the coil requirements. Yay! It turns out that the coils have an internal, non-published, dwell time and the LS1 and LS2 coils have different dwell times and that is most likely leading to the kickback issues. I ordered another set of Delco LS1 coils and they are sitting on my workbench. Keep your fingers crossed.

Once everything has arrived, I will pull the oil sump and accessory case so I can get to the crankshaft starter gear. Then I have to establish new mounts for the replacement LS1 coils. I hope I don’t have to order new spark plug wires.

So, I won’t be making the Spring Fling this year. I’m not going to rush things.

Running the Bluegrass 150

This past weekend I ran in the Sport Air Racing League sanctioned 175 statute mile Bluegrass 150 race, held in Cynthiana, KY, 0I8. It was my first race in three years, unfortunately, there weren't any other competitors in my class as the Midget Mustang, whom I intended to beat, couldn't make it out of Georgia due to weather. The event was well run, with plenty of support  for the racers.

The trip to Kentucky was an hour and a half each way 

My official speed was 203.13 mph, a little disappointing, I hoped for something around 208.  The first two-thirds of the race was very hazy with visibility around 5 miles and clouds around 1,500 feet, but it opened up towards the end. All six of the turn points were over airports, so we flew the race at 200 feet above pattern altitude. 

My cockpit can be a bit hectic, managing fuel, paying attention to the engine, attempting to stay strictly on course and altitude through minor turbulence, watching for the turn points, switching frequencies at each turn, and monitoring the position of the other guys. Of course you fly at full throttle, which for me was 3,000+ RPM.  Each turn point slows you down a little, as does each little variation in heading and altitude, so I'm sure I lost a few MPHs there.

Photo credit goes to Kenn Smith.

It was all a lot of fun and I'm glad I went.  My next race this year will be the AirVenture Cup race, the day before Oshkosh officially opens. 

Race #     Name                           Aircraft          Class                     Speed (MPH)

Race 91     Bruce Hammer           Glasair I TD     Sport FX          273.67
Race 35     Steve Hammer           Lancair IV     Sport                   271.78
Race 77     Matt Cheely               Glasair III     Sport                     262.16

Race 83     Dave Adams              Long EZ     FX Red                   227.66
Race 27     Jim Wilson                 RV-8      RV Gold                      223.62
Race 22     Sam Hoskins             Quickie Q-200     Sprint            203.20
Race 103   Bruce Zimmerman    RV-8     RV Blue                       190.70
Race 701   Van Wadsworth         Mooney M20E     FAC3RG      184.39

Race 19     Mark Baty                 RV-9A     RV Red                      182.63
Race 41     Mike Warner             Bonanza G35     FAC3RG        148.41
Race 78     Roy Roller                Rans S-7     E-LSA                     95.40

Q-Tours - Interviews with Quickie Builders

In order to inform and inspire, several successful Quickie builders have given tours of their aircraft and answer a bunch of  about what they did, why they did, and how they did it.  Nothing fancy here, just the real guys showing their spectacular aircraft and some great tales as well.

Here is the full Q-Tour Archives YouTube channel

The contributors are:

Bruce Crain  Tri-Q-200

Chris Walterson Subaru Q-2

Corbin Geiser  Q-200

David Smith Q-2

Jay Scheeval  Jabiru Tri-Q

Jerry Marstall  Tri-Q-200

Jim Patillo  Q-200

Keith Welsh  Quickie 1 Part 1 & Part 2

Kevin Bodiker  Tri-Q200

Matthew Curcio Q-200

Mike Dwyer  Q-200

Nathan Peck Quickie 1 Rotax

Peter Mazsaros  Q-2

Sam Hoskins  Q-200

Sanjay Dhall  Q-200

Terry Crouch  Quickie 1

Windy Pilot's Report

Please forgive me for mixing up knots & mph here, it’s just the way I roll. I generally use mph for airspeeds and knots for navigation and all that “official” stuff. It works for me.

 

Yesterday, I took a little 150 mile hop to see my daughter, Jen and granddaughter Mackenzie.  The winds at my departure, KMDH, were pretty much straight out of the south and I had a nice tailwind at 3,500 feet.  True airspeed of about 180 mph. My GPS was showing a ground speed of 185 kts so I was really clipping along. When I got to Champaign, KCMI, things were getting interesting.  The ATIS said the winds were 190 degrees, 18 kts, gusting to 22. They were using runway 14L, so that gave me a hefty 80 degree crossswind. Yikes! I wasn’t sure if I was able to manage this and was fully prepared to just head back home if warranted. My final approach was fast, about 105 mph. I experimented with a slip to keep the nose pointed straight but the right wing was so low I didn't think that was going to work so I just crabbed all the way down until I straightened out for touchdown. I was probably still doing between 95 & 100 mph crossing the numbers, but somehow I was able to pull it off and keep it on the runway.  Whew!

 

A couple of hours later, now the departure seemed intimidating.  The wind had really picked up and was now 170 degrees at 18 kts, gusting to 27 and they were using runway 22 for departures, giving 50 degrees of xwind.

 

My Q-200 has a nice strong engine and I was able to accelerate quickly.  It’s funny what goes through your mind, but half way through the takeoff roll  I was thinking “New Quickie pilots shouldn’t do this”. Understatement. I held it down as long as I could, then quickly brought back the stick back so I could leave the ground without any skidding.  All went well. Of course, now I paid the headwind penalty on the way home and my ground-speed dropped to 133 kts.

 

So, my trip north took 55 minutes and coming back was an hour and 15. Back at Carbondale, the winds were a balmy 190 kts at 18-22, landing on 18L and everything was relatively smooth.

 

It was a good day.

Sam Hoskins

Q-200 ~2,070 hours

Adding a Better Roll Trim

Roll trim is very good to have in the Q-200. Not only do you need to compensate for the weight of a passenger, but roll trim needs change with your speed.  For instance, I notice a big difference when I slow down to landing pattern speeds.

For the longest time, I had the turnbuckle mod on the elevator push rods.  This worked okay, but it was a little hard to adjust, and I found mine seemed to change with the airframe vibration and I'd had to keep on adjusting it.  I was corresponding with Mathew Curcio and he shared his method, and like a true innovator, I copied it.  I really like it.  It's easy to adjust and it and it doesn't change on it's own.  If someone wanted to take it a step further, a guy could install some kind of motor and control it with a switch. 

It's a single rod with the knob fixed to one end and a washer to the other. I installed a couple of phenolic bearing blocks in each bulkhead and also a friction brake, similar to the plan's elevator trim brake.

I've been using setup this for about a year now and I really like it. I'm not going to describe how to make it, the photos should speak for themselves. Click on the photos for an enlarged view. Please post any questions in the Comments.

A photo description of an old repair - Canard wrinkle

Better than 10 years ago I experienced a hard landing with a passenger aboard.  We landed pretty hard and bounced back into the air. I did a go-around and landed much better the second time. When I got to the gas pump, I discovered a nasty wrinkle in the upper skin. 

In this post I will provide a photographic description of the repair. Click on the photos for a better look. Thanks to Charlie Johnson for the repair advice and C-Rod for the layup and vacuum bagging help.

Initial wrinkle

Drew outline of apparent damage.

Coin tap test reveals extent of the delamination.

Take the weight off of the canard prior to repairs.

Damage to foam revealed.

Dug out the foam.

Decided the best way was to go all the way to the lower skin and back to the spar. The spar was  not damaged.

Fit a foam block.

In order to properly fit block all the way down to the skin, it was necessary to split the block front-to-rear, then I could eyeball each side individually.

Lots of wet micro was added to bond the foam in place.  We found the block didn't want to seat, so the use of a vacuum pump was necessary to pull the block all the way down and to eliminate voids.  It worked well.

Get out the Sawzsall for initial carving

.

Getting close to final shape.

Masked off the area to be repaired. 

The existing fiberglass was beveled according to standard composite repair practices, as called out in the education section of the original plans. We trenched the split micro line, since it was a too hard sanding point.

Each line represents how far each repair ply will go. The smallest piece goes on first, then progressively working out to the largest. I forgot exactly how many plies I used. Maybe 5 or 6.

All the fiberglass plies have been added.  Here, the epoxy is still wet.

At the last minute I decided to peel-ply the whole thing.

After the layup has cured for a couple of days, the peel-ply was removed and dry micro applied.

Sanding begins.

After coarse sanding, scratches and pinholes remain.  This will be taken care of by using the epoxy wipe method.

Final sanding completed, ready for epoxy wipe.

After epoxy wipe is complete, all scratches and pinholes are gone!

Prepare for prime, paint and buffing.

Ready for racing!

Goodbye Old Friend

I decided to clean up some stuff in the hangar, which suffers from clutter creep.  Keven Mitchell at SIU's Aviation Technology department agreed to take a few items off my hands for his classes to use - most likely to learn how to do spot composite repairs. He brought his entire Advanced Composites class over to tour the aircraft and take a few parts.

So, my original canard, along with a few control surfaces, has a new home. I hope they can put it to good use.