Tech Talk
An Information Repository
Technical information to assist Fly Baby builders
and maintainers.
Further assistance can be found on the Advice
page.
Questions? Email Ron Wanttaja
.
Return
to the Fly Baby Home Page
Wood Information
-
Non-Certified Wood Testing
and Selection. (PDF File). Drew Fidoe wrote
this treatise on how to test wood to determine if it's sufficiently strong.
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Wood
as an Engineering Material - Forest Products Laboratory handbook
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This Old Plane.
Drew Fidoe documents the repairs and restoration of his older Fly Baby.
There's a lot of good information here....
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Drew's Wood Links. Drew recommends these
links for those building wooden aircraft. Many of these are not aircraft
sites, but give good insight into wood construction.
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Tail Post Repair
Construction Layouts
PDF Part Drawings
Several of the Fly Baby crew have taken the time to draw up layout drawings
for the parts of the Fly Baby. To ensure everyone could read and
use them, they generated Adobe Acrobat files (PDFs).
A couple of cautions before you use these: First, these aren't
"official"...they weren't approved by Pete. Use at your own risk.
Second, and more importantly, these illustrations may not print out
accurately on your system. The combination of your computer and printer
may alter the dimensions slightly. Each drawing includes a ruler
or similar reference marks. You must verify the indicated
dimension is accurate on your printout! If it isn't, you can usually
make a slight adjustment in your Page Setup menu to compensate. There's
usually a "Page Size" percentage...scale it up and down a percent or two
until the printout comes out right.
Notice that this is vital if you want to use these drawings as actual
templates for cutting out parts. If you do not check the actual dimensions
and compensate as needed, the parts will come out wrong. Again, each
printout includes a ruler or similar reference marks.
Steel Parts
Ted Cannaday took the time to draw up layout
diagrams for the steel parts. These show how you could arrange
all the 4130 steel parts of a Fly Baby on 4130 sheet to maximize efficiency
when you cut them out.
Wood Parts
Marco Pinto found that the nose rib template in his plans page had been
printed out at the wrong size. He drew up templates for both the
full ribs and the false ribs on Figure 3-11:
Marco also drew up a layout showing where to drill
the ribs to clear the internal bracing wires.
Airfoil Shape in Excel
I've taken the airfoil ordinates that Pete included in the Sport Aviation
articles and plotted them in an Excel spreadsheet,
along with the stock 4412 airfoil.
List of Materials
Materials List. An Excel spreadsheet
with a stab at the total materials list for building a Fly Baby
Miscellaneous
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A Weight and Balance
spreadsheet, in Microsoft Excel.
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Two primary FAA manuals on aircraft construction and repair. These
are primarily aimed at certified aircraft, but the workmanship and techniques
shown are what should be used on experimental aircraft, as well.
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AC43-13B,
Acceptable Methods, Techniques, and Practices - Aircraft Alterations
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CAM-18.
The predecessor of AC43-13.
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Panel-Mounted Handheld Radio
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Wind-Driven Generators
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Tailwheel Springs
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Propeller Selection
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Fly Baby Bulletin Downloads
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The Hillbilly Swing - a less-than-standard
method of swinging the compass
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All Those Wires! A discussion of
wing-bracing alternatives for the Fly Bay.
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Shopsheets
- Single-page reference sheets for the homebuilder
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Rotating Fly Baby Tires to equalize wear
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The Fly Baby and Sport Pilot
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Belly Inspection Panels
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Battery Selection and Locations
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Wolfgang Dertnig's summary of Fly Baby plans revisions.
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Drew Fidoe, on Inspection, Rebuild, and Installationfor
the Maule SFSA and SFS-P8A tailwheels. PDF file, about 600K
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Pre-Buy Inspections for Used Fly Babies
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Remote-Release Tail Hooks for hand-propping
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The Maintenance Log . Reports of maintenance
problems that arise over the years
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Service Note on the Tailwheel Support
Bracket
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Spar carry-through modification .
A recommended addition for both aircraft under construction and flying
aircraft.
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Starter misbehavior on your C-85? See the Starter
Clutch page.
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Load Testing. (PDF) Translation
of a Finnish FAR-23 level load test on a Fly Baby
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Materials List. An Excel spreadsheet
with a stab at the total materials list for building a Fly Baby.
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Proshold Gap Seals. Cheap and easy gap
seals for the tail feathers.
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Goodyear brake pad fabrication.
With pads costing $250 a pop, here's a lower-cost option.
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Internal antenna options. How
to make radio antennas on the cheap that don't show outside the airplane.
Questions? Email Ron Wanttaja
.
Return
to the Fly Baby Home Page