March 5, 2010 Finding a Good Machine Shop

Googlemaps is a great computer tool. You can put in the business type you are interested in finding, like ‘Machine Shop’ in this case, and the general area of the country you are interested, for example, Minneapolis, then all of a sudden a map of the area pops up with a bunch of little yellow dots showing locations of the businesses about which you are inquiring. A local machine shop popped up almost within walking distance. I took the control bar tubes to the shop, met the owner, and explained what I wanted to do. He seemed agreeable to help (at $60/hour), so I left the tubing with him and he said he would call back when the holes were drilled “in a couple of days”.

February 24, 2010 Replacing the Control Bar

Wednesday. I figured out the dimensions for the control bar pieces. It is a triangle, two downtubes and a crosspiece. The downtubes attached to the wing keel by an “A”-shaped bracket. There are two connectors on the bottom of the downtubes that connect to the crosspiece. All pieces are 1 1/8” outer sleeve and 1” inner sleeve. I decided to make the replacement of the control bar my first foray into the actual rebuilding project. I ordered the tubing from Online Metals in North Minneapolis and a few days later went down there and picked up the tubing. This part of the project worked very well.

After taking the material home, I found that the inner tubes fit nicely inside the outer tubes. The only thing left to do was to have the holes drilled in the ends of the downtubes where they attach to the “A” bracket and the crosspiece.

February 20, 2010 – Find the Control Bar

I went back up to the airport to reconnoiter. One thing that I had seen when up there the last time was a piece of cut-up tubing whose function I could not identify. I thought at first that it might be a cut piece of the wing keel, but as I looked more closely, I saw it was a piece of the control bar. But only a piece. As I examined it, I saw that it included a piece of the crossbar and part of one of the uprights. I was disappointed that this was all that was left of the control bar that I could find. This would be a problem because there were connectors at each corner that were missing. Then I thought that maybe the rest of the control bar was zipped up in the wing bag, which under normal circumstances would be the place for the control bar to be kept. So it would make sense that the rest of it would be in the wing bag, and sure enough, as I opened the wing bag, there was the rest of the control bar. I detached it and put all the pieces into the trunk of the car to bring back home. One thing that will be a challenge to fix was that virtually all the flying wires have been cut. Hopefully I can find or have made replacements. It would probably not be a bad idea to replace them all anyway for the same reason I would want to replace all the bolts while I have everything disassembled. A good move and significant upgrade to the trike.

As I had the wing bag unzipped, without unfolding the wing, I checked it out as best as I could. I saw that the front part of the keel tube is slightly bent; not enough, I don’t think, to compromise the integrity of the keel. I think it could be straightened and restored to use. The wing itself looks good, although Steve had warned me that he thought there were some small punctures I will have to find and repair later when I can assemble the wing fully. Those will be easy to repair.

Since I now had the control bar pieces accounted for, along with connectors and wires that had been cut. It was enough to determine replacement aluminum tubing.

February 15, 2010 – Flying Again Soon B-R-R-R-R

Through the EAA web site, I found that there is a guy here in the MPLS area who gives dual instruction in a WSC Trike. His name is Don Lindemann and, after he responded to my e-mail, we talked by telephone and e-mail several more times. We decided to meet for lunch at an Applebee’s in Chanhassen. We met as planned and he accepted me formally as a student and promised we will get some dual as soon as the weather warms up above freezing or so (or a little warmer, I hope!). He lives in New Richmond, WI, which is across the river from St. Paul, MN, not too far, and flies out of the airport there. It’s about 1½ hour drive from here, but I’m looking forward to it.

February 5, 2010 – Disassemble the Carriage

As I had planned, I went up to the airport again. Sandra was visiting Judy and Larry Nelson in Llitchfield but made me promise that I would keep John informed when I went up to the airport, and when I returned. There was just a little nagging fear in her mind harkening back to the last time I went to the airport.
I started to dismantle the carriage. I took off the side rails, the uprights, and the wheel plate on the right side that would need to be straightened. I took off the remains of the wheel also on the right side to determine the diameter of the bearing to order a replacement.
Without taking too much time, and without any negative incidents relative to my physical situation, I collected the parts and put them into the trunk of the car and brought them home. Thus began my research to decide if or how to rebuild the carriage.
I found that most of the main carriage tubing is “sleeved”, i.e., there are outside tubes and inner tubes. The side rails and uprights are 1.750 x .058 outer sleeve and 1.625 inner sleeve. The best supplier seems to be Online Metals Store, which is in the Minneapolis area, so I wouldn’t have to worry about shipping. At least it seems like the rebuilding is possible.

January 16, 2010 – Just a Small Heart Attack

Saturday was cold and clear, a typical Minnesota winter day. I decided to go back up to the airport for a second time and try to get the Kawasaki engine off the carriage. My foot was still far from 100% and my back had been bothering me, but I thought I could still go up and accomplish something.
I was there about three hours, and did accomplish what I wanted—removed the engine. It was hard, especially in my state of physical condition. About noon, I closed everything up and headed for home. I had some pain in my chest that I attributed to indigestion or something and even pulled off the freeway to look for a little store to get some Tums or something. Failing to find anything, I continued home. But as I got closer and closer, the chest pains, nausea and loss of equilibrium, and general sense of malaise intensified. But I made it home, about a 20-minute drive. However, as soon as I saw the bed, I collapsed on it. But I knew there was something terribly wrong. I got up and stumbled into the other bedroom where Sandra was, dizzy and literally sliding along the walls, using them to steady myself to keep from falling. Grease stains on the walls that are there even as I write this attests to my inability to maintain my equilibrium. Sandra sensed that here was a serious problem and immediately called 911 for an ambulance. To make the story short, I ended up at Methodist Hospiital in the Cardiac “cath” lab and after the insertion of a second stent (I had received one on 2006 at Gundersen Lutheran in La Crosse), I felt much better. My change of feeling was a night-and-day experience. They found that one of the arteries feeding the heart had a virtual total blockage, and the stent was now providing a passage for normal blood flow to the heart. The physical exertion at the airport probably did not help the condition, but this situation had been most likely developing for some time.
More Research
I have been asking for help from anyone who is willing to give it from Yahoo UL groups, of which there were several. One guy, Dave Engle, in New York, also owns a JetWing and has been willing to get dimensions of the parts that will need to be replaced. He’s great! He also has an owners manual and I have asked him to go have a copy made at my expense and send to me to help with the rebuild.
There are several other guys who popup on the internet when I ask questions. Jerry Pridemore, Ted Bailey, and Mark Overton have both answered questions and provided help and opinions about the project.
The Next Step
I think I need to go back up to the airport and do some further analysis and begin to disassemble the carriage. One important thing that needs to be done is to put the wing together and check out its integrity and see if there’s any damage to it. I know the keel is damaged because I found part of it in with the chopped-up pieces that the EMT’s destroyed. But I don’t know what else might be damaged. I haven’t put it together since the accident. The rebuild decision will be dependent on how many good pieces remain. If there’s substantial damage to the wing or the engine, I might be resigned to deciding it’s not possible to rebuild. We’ll see.

January 2, 2010 – A Visit to Crystal

It’s been a month and a half, Christmas is past, as is New Years Day, and it’s time to get out and around albeit in zero-degree temperatures. Dr. Eberling, my Minneapolis-area orthopedic doctor, has cleared me to be able to walk on the ankle without the boot. I decided to go up and see exactly what the JetWing looked like, since I had not even looked it over once since the accident. Steve had done a fantastic job of cleaning up the pieces and getting it back on the trailer and to our house, where he had put it alongside the garage for storage with a tarp over it. There it had stayed untouched while we were engaged in other things, primarily our preparation to move.
So when I decided to go up to Crystal, I went without any expectation but with some hope that there might be a chance to rebuild the poor, battered, and broken JetWing. Steve had said that he didn’t think there was much if any damage to the wing, and I knew the engine should be OK, so it was worth a shot to see if rebuilding was a possibility.
I drove up by myself, taking the camera to document what the JetWing looked like from all sides so I could study and ponder what to do later. Everything worked out well, and my first challenge, which was to get into the hanger on my own happened without any problem and I was able to get in to see it and check the JetWIng out. As I looked it over, I began to formulate a plan in my mind of what to do. It was pretty substantially damaged, but the nature of an ultralight like that is that it’s not made up of much, just tubing, brackets, nuts and bolts. The critical parts are the wing and engine. Both things could not be checked out easily; the engine needed to be run and tested, and the wing was in the wing bag and I could not even look it over at this point.
However, in spite of this, I began to make plans to rebuild the JetWing.