Lets say you have 100 Lbs back there and get into some 2-3 G turbulence , that baggage just went to 200-300 lbs and theres lots of important stuff under that floor to protect. Bruce N199CL
That's exactly right. The Kitfox was designed to meet Part 23 certification standards, even though they never pursued production. That means that the baggage floor would have to hold up to 3.8 Gs. For 150# of baggage the floor has to withstand a 570# load without failure. If it needs the 50% safety factor like airframes then it would be 5.1 Gs (855# loading).
Phil Nelson
A&P-IA, Maintenance Instructor
KF 5 Outback, Cont. IO-240
Flying since 2016
Fair enough. I had forgotten the Kitfox baggage compartment is rated to 150 lbs. I'm used to my Citabria with a thin plywood floor and 50 lb limit, which would of course be a completely different set of numbers.
With the baggage floor being so stout I'm now considering mounting my ELT to the bottom side (if possible).
Anyone hate that idea? Seems like it will be easy to pull out for condition inspections.
Here's my latest video of the slow build wings:
Kitfox 5 (under construction)
Commercial SE/ME, CFII
My slow build wings continue. I had to take a few days to visit with one of my sons which was fine because I was waiting for some package deliveries. The shipment I had waited the longest for was my .375" aluminum wing stringer tubes. I had attempted to source those locally at Metal Supermarkets, where I got my fuselage stringers for around $100.
When I put in a parts order with Kitfox, Heather suggested I pick these up locally too in order to avoid the huge shipping costs, but my quote from Metal Supermarkets was $709! Seems I would have been paying quite a chunk for shipping no matter what choice I made, so I went back to Kitfox. Heather's first quote was around $400 delivered but after I approved the quote she found another shipper that would get them here for closer to $300. As they say, "shut up and take my money". $400 would have justified me marathon driving to Idaho to pick them up. Had I known I was driving to Spokane anyway I would have had them hold them for me for sure, but that's all behind me now.
Well the truck delivery took two weeks. I wasn't concerned because I wasn't dead in the water waiting for the wing stringers. I made my trip to Spokane during a winter storm which closed the mountain pass several times. On Monday I got a call from a different trucking company than the one that picked up the package in Idaho to arrange delivery for Wednesday. My only appointment Wednesday was to get tires put on my car, so of course while that was the one hour window when the delivery truck came to my house.
I got a call from the driver who asked if someone was home. My better half was home but was "zoomed" into a court hearing as part of her job. I didn't have much choice but to tell the driver it was okay to leave it on my porch, but knowing about the risks of shipping I asked the driver if the package was damaged. He hesitated slightly and said "no".
PXL_20210217_230316339.jpg
So I get home to this banana on my porch, and had that sinking feeling that I would be going a couple of rounds with the trucking company. Thankfully the 3/8" tubes are pretty floppy in their full length state and were not damaged at all.
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And last night my Hysol mixing gun showed up, with tips and several tubes of Hysol. I'm still not as cool as Eric but at least I can spread glue like he can now. Tonight I'll heat up my garage and get to fixating the rest of the ribs on my left wing.
Kitfox 5 (under construction)
Commercial SE/ME, CFII
I feel your shipping pain. Flapperons shipped from Idaho to central Texas was very pricey. Heather also found me the "best" rate but it still hurt. I have found that shipping is a huge variable and a significant added cost when taking on a project like this.
When I was at the stage of waving money around for a build project the Rans S-20 was on my short list along side the Kitfox. Shipping costs were the reason I crossed the Rans off, and that's just the difference between Idaho and Colorado.
Kitfox 5 (under construction)
Commercial SE/ME, CFII
Eric Page
Building: Kitfox 5 Safari | Rotax 912iS | Dynon HDX
Member: EAA Lifetime, AOPA, ALPA
ATP: AMEL | Comm: ASEL, Glider | ATCS: CTO
Map of Landings