KRnetHeads, Last night I put some Tempurfoam on my carbon fiber seat. One inch of the blue "medium" density on the bottom, and one inch of "soft" pink stuff on the seat back. I needed to try it out, AND beat the tropical storm that is threatening to screw up our weekend.
Although it was supposed to be stormy for 40% of the day, it looked decent enough at lunch time for me to sneak in 3 hours of pretty decent flying, mostly just a big series of circles, back and forth, whatever, and then 5 touch and goes. I even got it up to 7000 feet and 180 mph. I've determined though that top speed is only about 165 mph straight and level at 3000 ft, until I clean it up aerodynamically and get the right prop. On the way back to work the bottom fell out and we got our thunderstorm. But at quittin' time it looked pretty good so I went back and flew another three hours! I had tweaked my static ports some more so I did some stalls at 6000 ft. This time I really stalled it (50 mph indicated with flaps, 55 without) the left wing dropped, and I got to look straight down at the ground! I also have the aileron trim just right, so I can now steer by leaning left or right in calm air. Afterwards I flew down to Moontown (M38, the grass strip where I got my taildragger endorsement) and did my first landing (in N56ML) at a different airport than MDQ! Spent a half hour showing the plane to Gordy (Lionheart pilot) and Emily (the local instructor), and then flew back to MDQ (in about 5 minutes!). Did five more touch and goes at dusk and really squeaked a couple of them on in the calm air. It still drew what passes for a crowd on landing, and the comment of "lookin' good" from the Medflight chopper pilot. I never even thought about the foam on the seat, or any pain in my butt, so I guess the Tempurfoam works. I topped it off before I left the airport, so now I'm ready for a "cross country" to Guntersville Lake next time I get a chance, with another landing at a "strange" place. I called my father on the way home and gave him the dimensions for the tiedown locations that he's going to be installing next to my brother's C-172 parking spot at the grass strip on his farm. OK, I'm ready to say it now.....YeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Mark Langford, 23.5 KR hours down, 16.5 to go! Huntsville, Alabama see homebuilt airplane at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net
