Rough River

The best canard fly in is coming up next week, Rough River. www.roughriver.org I am taking all of next week off since I need to use up my vacation time.

I'll be flying up to Buffalo to pick up Dan, who flew with me to OSH this year and then down to Rough River. It would be nice if I actually finished the heat in the plane, but I do not think I want to do anything risky that may prevent me from going on this trip.

I thought I had a leaky right mag gasket. I pulled the mag and replaced the gasket. I parked the plane nose down in the hangar and there was no puddle of oil under it. I think I have that leak beat. It would probably leak a tablespoon of oil an hour. It makes an incredible mess!

Rough River was great!

From HWV to IAG was 1:50 min. I picked up Dan and we flew over the falls, cool view! If I remember correctly it was 2:11 to Rough River. My pictures will be posted at my FlyingGallery

I gave some demo rides. One was more exciting than the other. Here is the video of the brake failure...

Then later that evening after a field repair on the brakes, I got caught in some soup that had a nasty churn to it! I was full throttle, nose down at stall speed falling at 2k ft / min. SCARED ME BAD! I turned around, throttled back, and flew back to Akron and spent the night! I did have to file IFR to get Dan to IAG and myself back to HWV, but it was not that big of a deal! On the way back to Brookhaven, I was at 7k over the top, it was really nice!

I got back, ordered some Grove brakes for the plane. They are much better than the Clevelands! The dual piston brakes are really grabby! If you are building new definately go with the Matcos!!!

The problem was not the brakes but the maintenance. I change my pads every annual. This year I did not. I flew half the hours I did in past years. Hours does not tell the whole story. Pad wear and inspection does. The pads wore enough to let the piston come out far enough to let the seal loose, whammo! No brakes! Properly maintained Clevelands would have never been a problem. The Groves give better stopping power, and have bigger pads, the wear should be less, I will still change them every year, no matter what!

ALong with that is inspecting the pads before every flight. I am adding a disk shaped door in the top og my wheel pants, with an offset hinge and a magnetic catch.