> "I'm kinda like Bill Clapps!! . . . . X - the finger's for Trump?"
Bill's had/has a really dramatic ridge across the top length of the wing where the tube interfered with the curvature of the wing. He always said it didn't affect the handling and that may or may not be true, but it didn't look good. His use of tube - although originally an idea of Jim Bede's (using aluminum) - Bill's use of PVC tubes (or whatever type of plastic it is, I forgot) was a very good and innovative idea. Other builders ought to give it some thought using the particular type of pipe material that will not degrade - there surely must be industrial plastic pipe of 4 inch diameter designed to carry corrosive liquids. Aluminum tubes as Bede used would be best I think. "Yeah bo" on Mr. Trump. I voted for him by mail a couple weeks before the election and was as surprised as anyone when he won. I'm not ideological in any way, (much) but I liked that he was "different" than the usual hacks that have sold their souls so many times over just for election money and support. Without knowing a thing about him I came to admire the hell out of a 70 year old man able to go at it for a year and a half, a gruelling day-after-day ordeal, each day loaded with incredible stress. The only thing he's said that we know for sure is true is that Rosie O'Donnel is a pig and that, together with the man's energy and dedication to winning, was enough for me. The many wild things he said were according to his mood, a lot like a lot of us . . . or some of us anyway. He's a damn smart, crude talking (sometimes) fellow who will surround himself, as he always has in business, with the smartest guys he can find. I'm really happy about the direction our politics have taken. I've nothing but contempt for the whinging freeloaders out interfering with traffic in various cities, damaging private property in some cases. It's surely the last time in this nation's history as a white country centered on western cultural values, that something like this will happen . . . since this is the last of that era. Our time of being a majority white country where we can leave our doors unlocked 365 days a year and count on a helping hand from a like-minded and competent soul when we need someone to keep an eye on our animals for a few days while we're gone . . . our time as a majority white country where we understand each other without explanations, is slowly winding down. Enjoy it everyone while we witness the last of the gift we were given when we were born when we were. We were born in a time of airplanes and antibiotics and clean, abundant plastic-free oceans. This election marks the last bright attempt to retain our Western Culture as we've known it all our lives, for just a little longer. When Trump's era is over we'll eventually devolve into the inevitable "Diversity." A Pilots of America forum member said it succinctly in a post I've remembered for at least a year. His comment was "We can have Western Culture or we can have Diversity." That's too black and white to be flatly correct, but it'll become that black and white at some point. A few hundred thousand more Muslims in our cities. Larger and larger mobs of Black Lives Matter welfare-addicts massing in public places until they get whatever they're after . . . damned if I know what it is . . . it's just what they do when they don't know how to fix their intrinsic social structural inadequacies they can't seem to fix, as a culture, no matter how much help they are given. Most of us won't be around to see it completely unravel, but it will. Human population has doubled since 1965 and is well on its way to doubling again. BBC just informed us that 60% of the planet's wildlife has disappeared in the last 40 years. Since the mid 70's. Basically, yesterday. More of our rapidly shrinking supply of California ground and surface water is used to grow alfalfa than is used to sustain all 39 million current California inhabitants. The alfalfa is shipped to the Middle East and China dairies, primarily. So farmers are selling the nation's dwindling precious water supply, which they get mostly for free - especially the aquifer water they pump without restriction or monitoring, to sell in the form of alfalfa to feed foreign cows. This is happening not just in California but in the northern Great Basin aquifers underlying Nebraska and other midwest areas. That water will be gone. Soon. Our rich mid-western farmlands which once were covered with Tall Grass Prarie and Bison will not far down the road be a very sparsely inhabited desert. There's a lot of this craziness going on and that's why I think it will be good to have someone with a business- oriented mind running things, and just in time. That this successful 70 year old has the energy to make the enormous effort it took to win his new job fills me with awe. Not with any political ideology or anything to start an argument about on this fine forum, I just wanted to express my gratitude that someone like Trump has shown themselves willing, without need for personal material gain and against massive collective criticism of his earthy, human, non-politically-correct and often ill-considered speech, to have the resources and chutzpah to give "what's what" to the mealy-mouthed media and apologists that seem to have lost their capacity for independent thought and instead run around taking offense at whatever isn't "acceptable" to their "PC" sheeple minds. They're everywhere. At almost the last minute, this flamboyant fellow with his own Boeing has come along to question the Orwellean Doublespeak that has become so much the norm that someone asking an honest question ("We need to stop and understand what the hell is going on with these Muslims, don't you think?) is immediately branded a misfit or subversive. Apart from the crap flooding across the southern border (I don't mean Mexicans generally - this area of the country I live in was once theirs and I very much like them, their language, their food . . . they can keep their fat breeder women under control if they would kindly do so as well as leave their machismo crap back where they come from . . . maybe they will with time) but a lot more than Mexicans are coming across that border. Migrants, many hostile to our way of life, are also finding their way in large numbers. We don't hear a lot about them for some reason. I think Trump has read the reports and is why is focussed on the "wall" - a thoroughly impractical idea in itself. Here in San Diego we have a good wall that goes for many miles. It's riddled with tunnels, some they find, some they don't. There's always new ones. There's got to be a more effective way to close the southern border than by "building a wall." Trump spoke in simple terms during his long campaign. When talking to mobs, you have to do that I think. ********************************** Gas tanks, especially a nice big header tank (mine is 17.4), should be easily removable and constructed of aluminum IMHO. That's what Ken Cottle used in N335KC and it's worked extremely well for almost 30 years. I've got a 4 gallon vinyl ester wing tank that has never caused a problem but has also never had anything except avgas in it. I like the idea of not gumming up the Ellison with composite residue. If something works really well, I appreciate and recommend it. Please pardon my Trump comments ML. I know these kinds of observations are out of bounds and I won't do it any more, nor follow up on anything I've written here today. Mike Stirewalt KSEE Laser147 at Juno.com ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216