[Roger Larson]

How do you know your scale is accurate when testing your carb floats to be under 7 grams? Buy some small test weights, they are very cheap. I have several different types of scales and i use the test weights to verify calibration. My latest floats weigh in at 6.5 grams. I spoke with some of you and you highly recommend the blue floats. Let me know if anyone has heard anything bad about them. I plan on putting in the blue floats if I need to replace the floats.

[Roger Larson]

The latest operator manual does say that 100LL is harder on the valve seats. It also states that 100LL may be used exclusively. I change my oil every 25 hours which to me is a very easy task. I clean the oil tank every 100 hours and there really isn’t much lead build up in the bottom of the oil tank. The lead that is there comes out with 1 swipe of a paper towel. The way the oil tank is designed it just stays down there. I change spark plug every 100 hours and I do a leak down test every time at the same time. My leak down tests have been 78/80 on all 4 cylinders every time. Things i really hate about auto fuel is it so corrosive and in my motorcycles it always plays havoc with my carbs. Av gas never gives me a problem in that area. Octane rating Required for the 100uls is pretty high and 100LL never has an issue there. I wish I could get 100LL without the lead and it would be the perfect fuel 🙂 I only have 610 hours experience using it so maybe i am like an addict that says he will quit soon. 🙂

[Roger Larson]

Rotax instructions for use of Loctite. The instructions are often given with the EU number for their Loctite number. So finding the equivalent for our number is often necessary. For example Maintenance Manuel calls for Loctite 5910 for the re-installation of the gearbox cover. While you can order 5910, if you call Lockwood they will tell you they use 598. Loctite 598 is the American version.

[Roger Larson]

You definitely have me looking closer at my cap and any seals. Great comments thanks Jim.

[Roger Larson]

Gear Box inspection at 600 hours. So I just pulled my gearbox for the 600 hour inspection. Prior to pulling it i called the Tech at Lockwood and spoke to him. He told me NOT to take off the large nut that holds the gear on. He said that if there is something wrong with my gear box, they will then instruct me to take that large nut off because the mating gear has to be replaced as. a set. I inspected that gear and did not see any wear. He said most of the times there are no problems. I have used 100 percent of the time 100LL So we will see. For the Revolt the two crossbar frame supports need to be loosed. The Bottom one has to come down so there is enough room to slide the gear box back and release it. The top one all i needed to do was take the bolt out on one side and that allowed the bottom one to drop down. Very easy job. I think I’ll need to use a crows foot to torque the new fuel pump upon re-installation.

[Roger Larson]

Date all of your zip tie packages and you will be amazed how fast your life is going by. In Arizona zip ties age pretty fast and I have found the brand at Home depot does pretty good. I only install very newish ones. I don’t throw away my older ones though, I use them to temporarily hold things for me when working on my trike. They can be that extra pair of hands at times. Of course there is nothing like a second person helping you but that is not always available.

[Roger Larson]

If i was only flying over farm land I might consider it. Many of the areas I fly require a BRS if you want to survive an\engine out. That being said, sometimes I am flying lower than my BRS would be deployable. I know that a perfect world it is safety first but sometimes for just about all of us, Fly first and safety 3rd. I am always watching for my engine out landing spots and sometimes I say this for sure is a BRS moment. On the other hand having a BRS makes me take the extra chance of flying over the mountains instead of following the roads around the mountains. Stacking as many of safety options as you can get is a good plan.

[Roger Larson]

Hey jim what was your symptoms of a bad radiator cap? Lately I have been getting excess radiator fluid on top of my bottle and now you got me thinking i might have a bad radiator cap. 🙂

[Roger Larson]

specialty tools. Every now and then it helps to make some kind of special tool to work on things. I altered some wrenches to make adjusting my bowden cables easier. I didn’t like the way the wrenches that i had fit on the adjustment nuts, my exhaust pipe was in a place that didn’t allow the perfect wrench connection, so i bent some wrenches using mapp gas and a vice. then i made them thinner by grinding them. Now I can easily get to those areas with a perfect grip. I used some extra combination wrenches that i had and also bought one just for that purpose. I also made a special screw driver to fit the idle adjustment screw. i cut the end of the combination wrench partly off and made it into more of a flare nut tyupe wrench. Using them is so nice and easy now.

[Roger Larson]

Train first, then practice. I can say for certain that this is not always done. If an instructor allows the student to make a mistake and then trains from that mistake prior to any instruction (you may not do that but some do) the instructor may be very surprised at the outcome. This is going to be a run on sentence on purpose. For example, say you tell a student to put it into an spiral dive, and as the instructor your expecting a certain result and all of a sudden the student puts the trike into a very unexpected attitude, and your assuming since your a top notch instructor with amazing skills you can get it out of anything and when you go to correct the maneuver you feel resistance because the student is freaking out and you say back and you assume the person’s brain is still working, and there is no response and you say back again and as the instructor your still expecting a response out of the student and you say my controls and there is no response and now the trike is in a very serious condition and your in the back seat and the student seems to be locking or something and now your realizing you should have had more altitude with this particular student that you had no idea and now you wish you were not training in a canyon with the canyon walls off to the side and your thinking now as the instructor i am in deep xxxx here and that ground is coming up fast and your giving all your might to pull the bar in and it seems like the student is on the throttle and fighting you and …………………………

From experience most people don’t learn very well in high stress situations. They learn really good though from making mistakes as long as they can admit to themselves they need improvement. Most people do not learn from instruction the first time they hear it. Most people assume someone else will react the same as they would react given the same situation , but this is not true. When i was training (not flying) I found that i could tell certain people over and over again certain things and in the end they would say i never trained them that. So i found that i would sit them down and tell them in a non high stress situation and then have them sign their name that i trained them that and amazingly, NOBODY ever said that again. So the simple fact of getting them to sign their name is what sunk it in their head.

So my point is to the instructor? Yes your an amazing instructor, yes you can pull a trike out of just about anything, yes the student is going to learn a lot from making a mistake but……you can’t anticipate what that student will do in a very surprised, scared, adrenaline environment. So if you have the belief you can correct every mistake that your student may do, in a very timely manner, that may be the one mistake that is final. Training first can help prevent a scenario . Truly understanding what an instructor might be up against is something only the instructor can ponder. Hats off to all our instructors. They can’t take all the stupid out of all of us, but they can take some of the stupid out of some of us. 🙂

[Roger Larson]

I don’t know if they had a chute or not. What i do know for sure is that everyone responds differently when in high stress situations. This means that while you may be able to keep your head together and feel like it is not a problem, the other guy (student in front seat) may and most likely will do something very contrary to what you as the instructor knows needs to be done. I have never trained trike flying but i have had many years of teaching in extremely high stress situations and have seen many people freeze, and go kind of brain dead from the adrenaline dump. So if someone locks onto the controls and freezes, know that for some that is normal. Training in high stress situations, helps to learn to deal with high stress situations. Just know if your plans as an instructor don’t include what your going to do when someone locks up, you could very well be the next fatality.

So someone please tell me why a piece of yarn on the front windshield of my trike would show i i had a constant yaw? I think it was because i didn’t get it exactly centered on my windshield but it sure looked like it was. Anyone ever done this? I went into that because of uncoordinated turns while stalling and the dangers thereof.

[Roger Larson]

Larry’s tip of removing rubber hoses by lifting a small section of the hose with a screw driver (or pick) and then shooting some WD40 in there really helps. Use your leather that you have near your vice to grip the hose and hopefully it is effortless to remove it.

[Roger Larson]

Great Topic, I love the thought process of thinking through things and hearing from those that are very educated. 60 degrees should be talked about, Accelerated stalls, Inside wing stalls first, Uncoordinated turns, Gusts of winds or changes in wind direction as descending,

I hate to say this though, Instructors have died along with their student doing advanced training with spirals. That should be talked about.

Do you guys feel G’s when in your spiral dives?

[Roger Larson]

Tell us your tips! I fly in the mountains all the time but looking for anything i don’t know. You never know what you don’t know. Actually i should say I fly near the mountains, i have never flown into one. 🙂

[Roger Larson]

Another Tip. Keep a large piece of leather near your vice. It is great for gripping and protecting things you don’t want to get ruined and also is great if your heating things to bend. I cut up an old welding glove that had holes in the finger.