Friday, April 2, 2010 Trip to the Airport

John decided to close our office on Good Friday also, so I took advantage of the time off and went early up to the airport. I wanted to do a couple of small things--measure the engine pulley and re-drive pulley to calculate the reduction ratio to find the most efficient propeller to replace the broken wooden one. Also, I wanted to find all the pieces of cable so I could get the cables and flying wires replaced. Mission was accomplished with no problems.

While I was there, I looked over the situation with the fuel tank support sling and the seat. Both of them will have to be repaired because the straps had been cut, either by the EMT’s or by me in the process of disassembling the carriage. I found that both of the straps were attached to the rear axle in such a way that the axle assembly will have to be disassembled to take them off and then back on once they are repaired. I had hoped to not have to do that, but it won’t be difficult, just add to the time to re-assemble the JetWing carriage.

After getting home, I found that the small pulley is 3 ¼” in diameter, and the re-drive pulley is 6 ½”, which means the reduction ratio was exactly 2:1. I also was able to account for all of the cables, except that I found that I am missing one end of each of the upper engine support cables, which means if I can’t find those ends somewhere then whatever machine shop will work with me will have to fabricate two new end connectors (which should not be difficult), and I will have to determine the length of the cables. I may want to use turnbuckles to make sure the engine is suspended top and bottom tightly and securely. Something for future determination.

One strange thing was that I also found two cable ends that I can’t account for. They are definitely not the ends of the engine cables I am missing because the cable is not as heavy as the engine cables. They are each about 8” or so in length with eyelets on one end. If the ends are put together, which looks like they should be, they are 17” long. Don’t know what they’re used for, but it’s obvious that they have a purpose. It’s possible they are ends of two of the flying wires for the wing; I hope that’s not the case. I e-mailed both Dave Engle and Tom Kennedy to ask them if they had any ideas, and to get me the measurements of the engine cables.