Son of a........!!!!!!!

[HighWing]

Denny,
Sorry to hear about your airplane. I think this might be a learning experience for all of us.

Pride wounded. As the chief of a 141 and 135 operation, it's a rough go. His pride is healing faster than the bird I fear.

I think the above quote says it all. Your experience brings up a thousand thoughts.

First. A neighbor with a Model III has a bit worse fuselage situation, but untouoched wings. He also had a CFI on board for a BFR. This was the same guy I used to use until I realized I could never teach him anything. I couldn't convince him that he was not lining up properly on the runway due to the side of the cowl not being parallel to the center line of the airplane. Twice I allowed him to do the wheel dance down the runway as that was his fun thing and after both BFRs I replaced tires because he would scrub the rubber off to the cord. In my opinion a "Prideful" pilot as in, don't bother trying to teach me anything, I already know it all.

Second. My buddy Mark, who recently said that if you can land a Kitfox, you can land anything. I guess the reverse doesn't hold true except in the mind of someone looking at a simple slow homemade rag and tube airplane who has lots of letters behind his name on his certificate.

Third. How difficult it is to say "No" to a friend - see above. A pilot (Forum Member) I talked to at Desert Fox said he did not plan on giving rides in his Kitfox except to family members. That is my plan as well, but can I really do the NO thing.

Fourth. How much enjoyment there is in building your airplane, but how little there is in fixing it. Is there such a thing as negative enjoyment?

Fifth. Out of room, but could go on. Sorry again for the expereince. Keep us posted. I expect to see the neighbor with the bent III later today. I will pass on any tricks he discovers.

[Dave S]

Denny,

Really sorry about your experience.

I genuinely have to second Lowell's comments.....The issues of who gets in our plane or who's plane we get into or who we ride with or who we give a ride to is replete with got'chas.

Certainly each of us has to have the humility to know our limits....it's a lot harder to determine someone else's limits. Sometimes the best we can do is to be sure we only get bit in the butt once by a situation.

I have had the blessing of knowing a lot of pilots and CFIs who are really great at what they do; but, you know, if you line up all the pilots and CFIs in the world you can hardly find two the same with regard to experience, judgment, ethics and respect.

I have a list of people who will only be allowed in an airplane I am flying if they are bound, gagged and secured beneath the cargo net....two of them are CFIs, and, I remind all that these two are not indicative of the conduct and standards of most CFIs.

Can't do much about the past, but you can put the pieces together and pick it of from there.

Good luck and keep in contact with the list.

Sincerely,

Dave S
KF7 Trigear
912ULS, Warp Drive

[dholly]

Man that's a pretty big prang, it looks like he darn near cart wheeled the plane! A very sad situation to be sure and you have my condolences. I certainly hope the financial issues are resolved asap and your beautiful KF can find itself back in the air soon.

[avidflyer]

Major bummer! Sad to see a nice airplane messed up like that. On the pluss side, if you have a C or E gearbox, probably everything is okey inside. The large rubber donut can take up the shock and help keep it from messing up the engine. Should still be checked out though. I ran an IVO into my wood deck one time and that was with a B box on a 447. Gearbox wasn't hurt near as much as my pride. (No dammage on one, lots on the other). Best will be if you could find another wing, was the flaperon messed up? Seems they are quite spendy also. Was the seat truss bent up as well? Any other problems with the fuse? Sorry for you! Jim Chuk

[napierm]

That rear attach point for the gear is weak. Hit the gear hard enough and the rear gear leg can come up through the seat pan. I put the Grove gear on mine for that very reason. Would rather have it bend and tear away.

FWIW, I repaired that very bend on my III after ground looping it into a ditch. Had a GSC prop on so no damage to engine and fortunately nothing else either. I did learn to fly it after the fact. Big lesson for me: don't fast taxi test a Kitfox. Its not that kind of plane. Either take off or land and stop ASAP. Don't drive around fast in a 3-point stance or it will bite me. Did eventually teach my feet to stay ahead of it.

For the repair I got a small hydraulic frame stretcher (bender?) from harbor freight. Made a tool for bending the tube. Basically put the stretcher between the rear gear attach points and slowly spread it out. This took a while. I had to work on all the tubes in the middle and around the door edges to get everything to line up just right again. I keep promising to post some pictures of that tool; will take a couple of pics this weekend.

Also, You can same some time and $$ if you don't cut the fabric around this repair. It's in the right place for it. Peel the tape off of the bottom but *don't* peel it off of the side. Peel the side fabric off of the bottom. Then peel the bottom fabric off from around the lower tube. You can use some MEK and an acid brush to help soften if the polytak is too much but better to do it dry if you can. Only peel off in the areas that you have to get into to work. As for the tapes around the rear attachment, peel them off of the bottom and there is one that goes through the bracket; try not to loosen them on the sides at all. You can peel off from around the door edges the same way leaving the outside edges of the tapes in place.

When the tube repairs are done, the bottom glues back on, the sides glue on, and then the tapes glues back on. The only visible seam is the zigzag edge on the bottom. That can be touched up. The remaining slack in the fabric (you pulled everything tight as it was glued back) can be taken out with a model airplane covering heat gun and a fabric iron. This sounds like work, it is, but but quicker and cheaper than replacing and blending a fabric repair.

Hope you are flying soon,

Mark

After about 40 hours on my newly re engined baby, was just about ready to put the floats on!!! The Chief Pilot who flew with me the first 10 for the insurance, asked to use it for some personal proficiency. "Carry your own insurance, fill the fuel, don't bend it". 1st landing attempt.

He's fine. Pride wounded. As the chief of a 141 and 135 operation, it's a rough go. His pride is healing faster than the bird I fear. Trying to get a parts list together for the wing from lift tubes outboard. Build manual is pretty vague I fear. Obviously motor needs a tear down. And new IVO prop. But most concerned about the bent left fuse attach point for gear.

Having trouble attaching more than one pic. Watch for subsequent posts for balance of the horror story.

[FitchUpNorth]

Unfortunately, John and Debra no longer can supply a Model 2 wingtip, as they did not get the molds, etc for them. This one is an explosion of fiberglass. Theoretically possible, yes. Anyone know of a source for a wingtip?

Also, one of the other members, Tom in NY, has a darn near complete wing, right side. With Aux tank. My crumpled mess had one aux tank on the damaged wing. The question..... Can I install the old right side tank in left wing? Have no idea without taking it all apart and not ready to do that yet. Thought being having enough gas for a weekend of up north float flying and fishing. If not, eh.

Thanks in advance. Plus all of your guys support is consoling. I look forward to the willing advice (and maybe an extra hand) in the NEAR future, cause I AM making it to OSH in her.

[HighWing]

I Think the tank will fit, but you will have the filler neck on the inboard side of the tank and the outlet on the outboard side and because of the dihedral you will never be able to fill completely, or drain completely. If there are no other tanks available out there, this might be fixable, though.

[Geowitz]

Washout may be a problem as the spars will be at the wrong angles, but with patience also fixable.

[avidflyer]

I think there was a Kitfox tank on ebay a while back that didn't sell. Maybe if you post some want adds on Barnstormers and all the Kitfox related sites, you will find what you need. Might even be able to trade the tank you have for what you want. It's worth a shot anyway. Jim Chuk

[dholly]

I thought on the model 2 kit was supplied with the 6gal. aluminum wing tanks? I also thought the filler was in the center as opposed to offset to one side. At least, that is what I seem to recall from my model 3 which had the main panel tank and a small right aux wing tank. Wing twist might not be a big deal with the narrower 6gal. tanks, makes some sense to think they may have been manufactured with no provision for washout so they could be used interchangeably on either wing??