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To John Cooper, re. prices on sensors from Cole-Parmer. Yeah! everything in their catalog is over-priced. They must sell a lot of stuff to government labs (or airplane homebuilders) to keep their prices up there. Haven't done any comparisons, but I believe the IMO folks are less expensive (notice, I didn't say "cheaper") for their optical sensors and float switches than Cole-Parmer.

To Steve Colwell, if by "Maxi-sump" you mean one with the carburetor (or throttle body) mounted on the front instead of the bottom, talk to Ray Modert, who keeps his 235/320 at the Camarillo, CA airport. From what I've seen of Ray's Lancair, the front mounted carb really helps to slick up the front of the plane. I believe Ray had the sump modified to this configuration, but I also think there were some Lycs that came that way (that's what my memory says, but I understand that the memory is the second thing to go -- and I can't remember what the first thing is). I know Ray has a LyCon (Visalia) tweaked 320 on his airplane and to the best of my knowledge, he's really pleased with the way it performs. (If that's NOT what you were referring to, the "DEL" key is just to the right of your little finger!).

Scott Dahlgren wrote: "...I plan to keep the header tank mostly dry...." Interesting plan, but what in the world for?? If, like most of us, you feed the engine from it, that thing is your safety net. It'll get you to an airport if your electrical system drops dead on you - assuming you keep it full. Given that one has a header tank installed, I can't think of ANY good reason not to use it to best advantage. Am I missing something here?

By the way, the FAA designated the two seaters as LC20 a couple of years ago. When I use flight following, and ATC asks, they now recognize the identification without comment.

To the student pilot who sent in a number of queries, I'm sure you'll get a lot of answers about how good an airplane the Lancair is - and it's true, I've been flying mine for over 450 hours and I wouldn't trade it! - but there's something else to consider that doesn't affect some folks so it never comes up, namely building noise! If you're planning to build in a garage, gluing things together for a few years is a lot easier to take (for others around you) than whanging away at rivets for that length of time. The Lancair does have an emergency gear extension system that works quite well. The "gear not extended" warning is just like most general aviation aircraft and consists of your prop getting very short, very quickly, followed by an unmistakable aircraft sliding sound. Everybody I know has lights to indicate "down and locked" and that's usually it - unless you design and install something that works better on your plane. It's what makes homebuilding so much fun!

Agree with the guys expounding on the problems you can have with a "both" position in a low-wing's fuel system. Your fuel system is definitely a place for an unremitting KISS philosophy. I, like Brent, would like everybody to help keep our insurance rates down and not getting an unwanted surprise from your flying equipment is a good way to do this. I believe it was Scott Dahlgren who uses the keyboard drawings so I'll try one of my own to draw my idea of a good fuel system (I fly with it all the time). This is KISS with enough redundancy to help eliminate the effects of a single point failure.

WING TANK------------------>SELECTOR<-------------------WING TANK
                            VALVE                                                         I
I------------------------------I   I
I                           SHUT-OFF                  I------PUMP1---PUMP2---------VALVE----------HEADER TANK---->                                                                                (This looked different when I did it in WordPad so I'll bet it won't look right once you display it on you screen - so in case it makes no sense at all, a text explanation is:
1. Wing tanks connect to central mounted selector valve.
2. Output of valve goes to Pump1 and Pump2, in series.
3. Then to the Shut-off valve.
4. And then to the header tank, gascolator, etc.)

Pumps 1 & 2 are pump-thru (Facet). If one fails, the other will continue to supply fuel. I ought to have two independent switches for complete protection......but that is probably getting to the point of diminishing returns.

Now a question: Has anyone figured out an easy (or at least, sound) way to reflex the ailerons along with the flaps? It figures that the high pitching moment of this airfoil, that we relieve by reflexing of the flaps, has got to affect the entire wing. Noticing how the aircraft accelerates once going to reflex, I am curious as to whether reflexing the rest of the wing, in cruise, would relieve enough more of the induced drag (or whatever kind of drag is associated with this airfoil's high pitching moment) to let us go faster at the same power setting. If anyone has done it or thought about it I'd sure like to look into, and discuss the possibilities.

Cheers,

Dan Schaefer


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